Email: Usage up! Spend down?!

Ouch. According to a study by StrongMail and Jupiter Research, more than half of US email marketing executives get 20% or less of their firm’s email budgets! What’s up with that!? Especially when reports show that email marketing is on the rise!’

Essentially this is saying we’re going to put more time and effort into email marketing but we’re not going to throw any additional money into it. Excuse me but I predict some problems here.

I think the lack of interest in shifting more budget to email goes back to email being deceptively simple. Compare email to other marketing channels like TV and radio and it’s easy to think “I can do this email stuff myself - TV and radio, not so much.” 

But it’s so scary that email be taken less seriously in terms of spend. Especially in today’s world. Let me explain…

Email is not simply about hitting send. If it was, then yes it would be really simple. The truth is that email is very much about strategy. And strategy factors in everything from segmentation, to messaging, to optimizing design, to maximizing deliverability, to tracking results and refining the process so triggered emails can be implemented and so on. This simply can’t be done well without the help and guidance of experienced email service providers (and no, I’m not just saying this because Sitebrand is one). It’s the truth. 

For a great read with lots of cool charts, go to:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005470&src=article1_newsltr

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Posted in Carolyn Gardner, Email marketing