In my work as an account manager for Lyris in the UK I get involved with a wide range of different organisations as they embark on a new relationship with Lyris HQ, but one topic seems to be common to all my discussions with them: change.

Many companies see the transition to a new email service provider (ESP) as an opportunity to change some aspect of their email marketing programme. Many want to change the frequency with which they contact their email subscribers/customers - using the segmentation possibilities that are opened up by combining email response information with Web analytics. Many are looking to revise the way that customer data is shared throughout the organisation so that the organisation can take advantage of greater intelligence about how their customers are interacting with them.

I have to say that I frequently see situations where companies are paralysed by possibility. Perhaps they’ve attended a webinar or been to a conference where the speaker has expounded a great new approach to writing online content. Perhaps their new boss has come from a company where everything was much more advanced - where products flew off the shelves every time an email marketing campaign was sent out, and where detailed analytics reports were available at the touch of a button. Whatever the reason, the organisation now wants to change everything about its email marketing activity - but it doesn’t know where to start.

My advice is always to take a step back and work out what is possible, and balance that against what is actually desirable. I’ve seen companies tie themselves in knots trying to get data about every single product purchase into their email system - yet when pressed, they realise that they’re only ever going to use four broad product lines for segmentation so they would never need such granular detail. Sometimes customers dream up the most complicated of dynamic content strategies - but what they realise is that it will be at least a year before they have the internal resources to prepare more than one or two versions of the email campaign.

So when I talk to organisations in this situation I suggest that they work out the broad direction in which they want to travel, take small steps towards it, and take plenty of time to look at the view after each step. And to take Voltaire’s advice: Don’t let the huge number of possibilities - or the fact that so many other companies will tell you how well they are doing it already - put you off from taking those first steps towards making a change for good!

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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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