Last year I reflected on how the cutting edge of technology (as viewed through the prism of South by South West Interactive) has all but written email marketing off as dead technology. I’m gratified to see that reports of the death of email have been greatly exaggerated, and that in the months since I wrote we’ve seen a whole host of companies increase the resources they devote to retaining customers using email marketing.

A question from Melanie on my blog post last year asked whether email open and clickthrough rates had been affected by the boom in social media (Read Comment: "Things come around full circle"). In the UK we haven’t experienced any noticeable reduction in the effectiveness of email marketing - and particularly not with well-targeted and relevant communications - but this did make me wonder whether we’re looking at things from the wrong way round.

Rather than worrying that the usefulness of email marketing is going to be diminished by the introduction of new ways for consumers to talk to each other (and to be talked to by organisations), I think we actually have a huge opportunity to use those new online marketing channels to make email work better.

As Peter also commented last year, people are learning to adapt the way they communicate to take advantage of the particular attributes of each tool they use (Read Comment: "Based on my behaviour..."). As I discussed in another post, marketers need to be keeping a close eye on the way things like Twitter and Facebook develop, and I reckon that if we’re clever we can design our marketing communications campaigns so that we take advantage of the best of each channel in order to amplify our messages.

Take this as an example. One of our fashion retail customers regularly sends email to their past purchasers and subscribers. They target content to email list segments such that, for instance, men and women receive different tailored email messages with detailed information about products and offers that are relevant to their interests. The fashion retailer could never pack that much detail into any other advertising message, so they’re using email marketing to its full potential - and generating thousands of pounds of orders with every email sent.

But that's not all. When the email campaign goes out, they also send out a tweet to their Twitter followers with a link to a Web page version just as a reminder. The email also has a special link so that recipients can very easily tweet the content to their own followers. There’s also a mention on their Facebook page, and the email has a similar link so people can share it with their friends too.

Using Web analytics the fashion retailer can easily track purchases that come from these various links, so they are able to prove that the social media activity has increased the revenue that was generated from just the email campaign.

Like one of those fantastic magnifying mirrors in the fairground, these extra bits of communication can significantly extend the reach and increase the impact of the email message - with practically no extra effort.

The crucial point is that if you take email marketing out of the mix, then all you get are the reflections around the edges - no other online medium is able to do the job that email marketing can do.

So let’s keep experimenting with these new tools, but I very firmly predict that when I write a follow up again next year, we’ll still be celebrating the unique versatility of email marketing. Long may it live!

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About the Author

Kieran Cooper is a senior account manager for Lyris' UK office. Located in London, he is responsible for account management, implementation and support of Lyris online and email marketing solutions.

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