Keeping up with the virtual bar
E-Marketing: Despite the flood of emails and spam, email remains a promising marketing tool.
potential customers, the e-mail channel opens up good opportunities for
chances of reaching the target in the competition for attention around the globe.
reach. Brand-new, customized and emotional. According to studies
the content is read by almost every second recipient if the
message offers added value and arrives at the right moment.
"Email marketing is and remains the dialog instrument par excellence
and therefore the ideal way to reach the customer," says Gerrit Taaks, partner and
Co-founder of Unic Internet Solutions.
The advantages are obvious, he explains: Cost savings
compared to traditional direct mailings, high flexibility due to short
Preparation and response times and high response rate thanks to
personalized messages and offers.
But which message should be communicated to whom? That is also here
the key to success. Clear goals and priorities are
indispensable, explains Taaks: "Which recipients do we want to offer which
convey a message? Do we want to increase the level of awareness
launch cross-media sales promotions or additional
Achieving online sales? For Markus Gabriel, Managing Director of
Angelink, it is clear that anyone who believes that proven knowledge from the
classic DM to the Internet is making a huge mistake.
For the recipient, the immediate benefit and relevance are
of an e-mail to decide whether to unsubscribe or open the e-mail,
reads and clicks on the links. Not an easy task. But offers
this building block of customer relationship management thanks to
significant response tracking offers a high benefit - and that with
not only for high-involvement products. Unlike here
countries, many manufacturers of fast-moving consumer goods rely on
Anglo-Saxon countries to e-couponing by e-mail.
Competitions are still more common here as an incentive. One reason
Andreas Widmer, CEO of Futurecom, sees the reason for this in a logistical
Gap. The collection agencies for the e-offerings were still missing.
Retailer support. Nevertheless, offers with targeted
support e-mailings well. E-mails without utility value, on the other hand, are
quickly associated with spam.
Shortcomings in implementation
The ever-improving online address quality and shipping technology
However, all too often there is still a gap between concept and reality,
i.e. the type and content of the commercial e-mails. With the
effective implementation of e-mail campaigns, many experts still see
a lot of catching up to do. On the other hand, e-marketing trumps
the classic DM in the performance review, which does not include any
has media discontinuities. "For the most important metrics such as
opening rate or click rate, an anonymized measurement is sufficient
completely, so that the data protection aspects of the
is fully met," says Taaks. And: Some solutions
offer the possibility to react to clicks or other events.
perform routine actions fully automatically. Good examples of this
are automatically generated reply e-mails for standard questions,
Birthday greetings or confirmations of participation in surveys and
competitions.
Despite spam, viruses and fraudulent e-mails, you can assume that this is the case,
that thanks to more sophisticated software solutions and more sophisticated
CRM models, e-marketing will play an increasingly important role in the media mix in the future.
role will play.
Luca Aloisi
