According to a recent study by eMarketer, the majority of college students pay little or no attention to marketing emails. However, email still remains their second- most preferred way to communicate, after text messaging. While this study mainly applies to college students, it got me thinking of the importance of relevance in messaging.

The deluge of marketing emails hitting inboxes ,paired with unrelenting spam, makes it hard for messages to get through to the brand audience—as we can see from the survey above. Taking the reins of your email marketing today can mean increased attention to your brand for generations to come. Not doing so means losing the very generation that email should be able to reach. Action has to be taken by all email marketers out there, to ensure that good marketing gets through.

The solution to effective email marketing , according to many companies and consultants in the field: Relevance. This word is often spoken, but the confusion lies in it being defined in too many ways. For some, relevance is equated to proper segmentation; for others it may involve dynamic content; and still others may focus on data collection and metrics as a key factor in achieving relevance. Before even considering email relevance, the first thing you should do is take inventory on attitudes in your organization about your email marketing itself.

Email marketing is well-known for its ROI, and as a relatively inexpensive channel, is often and easily abused. Looking at email as a channel where you can unload a mass of messages for quick impact to your bottom line would be cheating yourself. Email is not just randomized contact on a mass scale- it directly touches an individual on the other end, and can have a major impact on how your brand is recalled. Think of the brands whose emails you receive everyday: Google, Apple, Amazon… which ones do you read?

Learn more about email relevance…stay tuned next week!

Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous 2009!

Shaneli Ramratan, Director of Marketing, mobileStorm

We’ve all heard the dire predictions of what 2009 will mean to marketers and make no mistake about it, the news isn’t great. I won’t bother with a rehash of what others have reported because, quite frankly, it’s too depressing to do so. What I offer instead is the proverbial silver lining in this dark, gloomy cloud we’re facing: Digital marketing.

While traditional marketing budgets have shrunk over the past few months, digital marketing has proven to be a much more resilient form of communication in this same time period. In fact, most analysts are predicting at least a slight uptick in overall spending in digital marketing, notably email and mobile marketing, but nothing close to what had been initially projected before the economy was finally deemed to be in a recession.

Still, there are many reasons why companies should not only maintain but increase their digital marketing budgets in 2009, especially within the SMB (small-to-midsized business) space, to take advantage of its unique properties. These include:

Price
Digital is still by far the cheapest of the mass forms of communication. TV and radio rates have not fallen nearly as far as expected, despite the weakened economy; print is in a death spiral and increasingly not a safe play for a decent ROI; and outdoor/out of home is still a niche play at best.

ROI
Digital marketing wins this in a landslide as well. Other forms of mass communication simply do not or are not equipped to give the level of insight that digital can when it comes to ROI. Digital by its very nature is trackable, with more and more sophisticated analytics becoming available on almost a daily basis to even the smallest of companies.

Reach
Digital penetration rates are now as high as more mature forms of mass communication, especially mobile phones, which should reach 100% penetration over the next few years according to most studies. Mobile marketers have only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible and although email marketing is much more established, it too still has potential growth opportunities. This is especially true in the SMB market, where there are many affordable digital marketing platforms from which to choose.

Segmentation
Not only can digital provide companies with a way to reach a mass audience, it also works extremely well in terms of market segmentation. Digital marketing is a natural for “narrowcasting” and customization of the message, which isn’t economically viable in the other forms of mass communication. With a solid digital marketing platform, the message can be tailored to a specific audience or even an individual consumer in a matter of moments.

Control
As any seasoned marketer knows, keeping and maintaining control of a marketing campaign is vital to its success. For a small company, this is even more critical because of tight budgets and lack of internal resources. With a digital marketing platform, such programs can be created and managed by even a single individual, while still maintaining the polish and feel of a much larger, more sophisticated marketing firm or company.

The bottom line is that 2009 is going to be rough on pretty much every business, with marketing budgets shrinking in kind. However, savvy companies, big and small, will recognize and embrace digital marketing as a key objective for the coming year. After all, just because the economy stinks doesn’t mean marketing will cease all together. Companies will simply have to be much more selective and expect real results, which is exactly what digital marketing can bring them.

What other unique benefits does digital marketing offer companies? Feel free to list your own and/or discuss the ones noted above. Your feedback is always welcomed.

Steve Chipman, Chief Operating Officer, mobileStorm
Analog thoughts in a digital world

Happy Holidays!

It’s that time of year again, and mobileStorm and the writers at the Digital Marketing Blog would like to take a moment to wish everyone Happy Holidays! We hope you have enjoyed reading this year, and have gained lots of good insight on digital marketing–especially email and SMS/texting.

It’s been quite a year, and our writers want to wish you all a well deserved break! For those of you celebrating today: Merry Christmas and best wishes to you and your families. At least, everyone can look forward to some time off today.

Thank you for visiting the Digital Marketing Blog!

In a faltering economy, most marketing departments are heavily focused on direct response—and online media publishers promote the seemingly perfect marriage between traditional branding and trackable response as the solution. With today’s financial situation, it’s unrealistic for businesses to pull all their dollars out of advertising and marketing. So on the minds of most marketers is this: “How can we  improve success rates with no budget increases, and possibly a decrease in spending?”

Traditional marketers who overspend in print, radio, and other traditional media formats excitedly believe the online arena is the answer to this question. The online space is heralded in the agency world as ”interactive,” and a place to apply old-school media commissions to the likes of display, paid search, video, and more. But those looking for a stringent ROI know the likelihood of getting it with online media is not encouraging. That’s why you should use your own intuition and—despite lack of endorsement by marketing agencies—consider email campaigns.

In today’s business environment, most of us need to know if our programs were successful “the day before they start.” Otherwise there is the constant fear that you are throwing precious business dollars out the window. Marketers who have already dabbled in banners, search, and other online media should really check out email marketing—whose cost is a drop in the bucket compared to the last commission you paid your interactive agency. I’m writing this article to propel “traditional marketers” into a communications channel they should look at before taking the online plunge. Sure, you may find yourself in unfamiliar territory, but the pay-off supersedes waiting for latent conversions generated by an unsourced click. Don’t get me wrong, there are clear values in online media. But if you’re looking for high impact NOW, try an email campaign.

I look at email marketing as putting money in the bank. But before looking at one-off results, think of it this way: Email campaigns help you get to know your prospects and customers. It is a nice way to build a richly engaged contact base from which you can farm future conversions. Not everyone is ready to buy now, but by using email to segment your audiences into buckets, you can quickly separate buyers from browsers—while figuring out who needs that extra incentive.

Email is a direct response tool, yet it’s also a means of building a relationship with your buyers. The messages you can use in email are far more personal, and they hold the power to activate the emotions of your prospect. An email is like an intimate conversation— not shouting over a megaphone across miles of traffic buildup, hoping you’re placed as far forward as possible in the feature article, or deciding if RON buy can give you enough impressions for your bottom line. Email is highly dependent on how you choose to build your database. It allows selectivity and filtering depending on where you implement forms or contact information capture—and in turn gives the marketer the control to determine the success of the campaign before they even hit “send.”

Shaneli  Ramratan, Director of Marketing, mobileStorm