Email Evolution Conference Day 1 Recap
Posted by Drew Miller on February 11th, 2009
Spirits seemed positive despite the state of the national and global economy on day 1 of the EEC Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. A majority of Email Marketing insiders and experts still feel that Email is the backbone of the digital marketing universe, but marketers are missing the boat by not digging deep into individual customer needs and keeping their content relevant.
Stan Rapp was a terrific keynote speaker for the event and delivered a powerful message: “It’s the e-conomy stupid!”. Stan still feels that Email Marketing is an afterthought rather than a golden opportunity to create a relevant one-to-one customer experience. Rapp said that email is “the most pointed, potent and profitable weapon in the marketer’s arsenal.”, but unfortunately gets little respect. Madison Ave. executives are wasting billions of dollars – failing to drive customers to engage online. Out of $185 billion that companies spent on traditional marketing and advertising in 2008, only $1 billion was spent on Email Marketing. Stan called for Email Marketers to “fight back or get left behind.”
Relevancy was a key point touched on by many session speakers. With many companies slashing budgets on traditional marketing and advertising efforts, email has become more of a focus, but with much misunderstanding. Many companies are looking to increase their campaign message volume, rather than narrow their focus on individual customer preferences. Marketers must do a better job of communicating the benefits of creating highly-targeted relevant content to senior management, otherwise they risk not only deliverability issues, but increased opt-out rates.
Social Media was also a big topic focus and discussion piece. Although this rapidly evolving media has become a primary focus for companies, it remains relatively unclear what the most effective approach for channel leverage is. Most agree that having a Social Media presence is important for companies, but goals and objectives vary greatly, and measuring ROI impact is still challenging to measure.
