More Advice for Hard Times

Increase those email marketing budgets.

By Lou Ann Sabatier
04/16/2009 -09:16 AM

eMarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey, in his white paper titled Digital Marketing Now: 7 Strategies for Surviving the Downturn, tells us to stay close to customers in hard times. And a key tactic he suggests we use to communicate with core customers is through email. Further, he recommends that we increase email marketing budgets, with an emphasis on retention.

As mentioned in a prior blog post, email is a workhorse; not exciting, but effective and relatively inexpensive. And according to Digital Outlook 09, an interesting forecast created by Razorfish, the Direct Marketing Association reported in Q4 of 2008 that email marketing returned $57 for every $1 spent! The report goes on to say that four ways consumers and businesses use email include: a) gathering information, b) notification and customer service, c) promotion, and d) social management and networking. Of particular interest is the added dimension that email brings to your social media strategy.

Imagine that you will increase your email marketing budget for the last half of 2009, where might you invest? Many of us might think about creative, but Razorfish suggests email strategy, then technology and then integration of messages into the customer experience.

Related Link

An Audience Development Workhorse

Lou Ann Sabatier is Principal of Sabatier Consulting (SabatierConsulting.com).