As 2006 closed, several reliable sources for digital marketers

like the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), MediaPost and

Marketing Sherpa released reports and studies that concluded

that email continues to be a highly effective and efficient

marketing tactic. According to the DMA’s “The Power of Direct

Marketing” study, email returned $57.25 for every dollar spent

on it.

These reports point to how marketers are shifting their email

mind-set and tactics. Instead of email initiatives centered on

“batch and blast”, one-off efforts, marketers are developing

measurable, accountable strategies that leverage the power

of email to serve as the digital backbone for other digital and

marketing efforts. Successful approaches include:

more unique visits to your web site and more revenue per visit.

One marketer reported that this tactic resulted in a significant

increase in clickthroughs to transactional web pages and now

accounts for 60% of clickthroughs into the marketer’s web site.

reports that most companies today have email addresses for

fewer than 20% of their customers. If your company is among

them, you may be interested in how to cost-effectively convert

customers from offline to online communications. You can do

this by inviting customers who read your ads or visit the contact

center or cash register to sign up for your email list. This

approach helps you to leverage the high cost of acquisition for

new customers by expanding the number of channels through

which customers can do business with you. If you are clear that

you treat every customer’s email address with respect, you will

continually build your database of people who do business with

you and want to learn about other offers relevant to them.

the list growth challenge into perspective, Marketing Sherpa

explains that, even as most B2B email lists grow by 3.9%

every month, approximately 2% of those names are lost due

to bounces or opt-outs, resulting in an annual average list

growth of 22%. So, even if only 2% or 3% of the names are

coming off the list every month, those numbers add up. Savvy

marketers know that the majority of names fall away due to

bounces rather than actual opt-outs. If you understand exactly

what a bounce is to your email service provider (ESP) and how

those bounces are handled, you can begin to take remedial

action to salvage those names you spent valuable marketing

dollars to obtain in the first place. Also, many consumers

switch email providers as they upgrade to broadband or take

advantage of new bundled voice and Internet service plans. By

understanding how your organization or your ESP deals with

address changes, you can develop strategies to retain valuable

customers before they fall into the ether and before you feel

compelled to spend money to re-acquire those same customers.

at the recent Marketing Sherpa Email Summit point out, coregistration

is a smart and highly cost-effective tactic to grow

your email list. Jupiter suggests that marketers “Seek out firms

that specialize in email acquisition, such as Response Media.

They tend to have a variety of co-registration alternatives at

their disposal”. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau

(IA, co-registration grew 290% in 2005, to $753 million. No

other online segment even came close to that increase. Some

of the largest, most respected marketers and some of the more

heavily traveled Internet sites have discovered the value of

co-registration when it’s done the right way. You can, too.

Your digital backbone has the potential strength to do the

heavy lifting as a content hub that extends your marketing

conversation and customer interaction channels. But to do so,

you’ll need to develop strategies to combat the challenge of