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FEATURE ARTICLE:
In These Days of Anti-Spam, Marketers Should Leave E-Mail
to Professionals
By LocalTechWire.com
Posted: 01/05/2004 12:25 PM
By Daryl Toor, Special To LTW
Editor’s note: Daryl Toor, who has worked in marketing and
public relations for more than 20 years, is founder of Atlanta-based
“Attention.” He writes a regular column on Mondays about trends
in marketing and communication. This is the first of two articles.
ATLANTA - All you "legitimate" marketers out there - listen
up. E-mail is a job for professionals.
Sure, e-mail costs dramatically less than practically any other
form of marketing. But it ain't free, folks. When it's spam,
it gets mind-boggingly expensive. Spam costs U.S. businesses
billions, and states as well as the federal government are cracking
down.
Corporations want to cut costs. Cutting investment in e-mail
marketing infrastructure, technology, and services is not the
way to go now, most particularly for companies that rely on
e-mail communications for survival. The bitter pill marketers,
IT departments, and bean counters must swallow is the realization
it's probably time to increase your e-mail budgets.
That can mean many things. If you mail in-house, you may need
to upgrade to a system that can handle bounces and maintain
clean lists. It's time to seriously consider outsourcing to
a full-service vendor with the staff and expertise to do the
above, as well as to maintain ongoing relationships with the
ISPs that determine if your communications will be delivered
- or not.
Go to opt-in strategy
It's time to migrate to a fully opt-in list, which could mean
changes to your Web site.
If your list is opt-out, you're a spammer.
In addition to cash, e-mailers must invest time in education.
On-the-job training is playing with fire (and potential litigation)
in the current anti-spam environment. Even if you outsource,
you need to be on top of how your vendor is messaging your customers.
Your organization needs formal policies covering e-mail practices
and privacy. Already have one? Revisions may be in order. Is
your marketing and IT staff versed in e-mail best practices?
Are they continuing to learn about this ever-changing environment?
E-mail remains an effective, cost-efficient marketing tool for
businesses and customers.
But it's not free. Never has been. As with anything else, you
get what you pay for. Now's the time to up the ante.
The options
Perhaps Forrester Research summed it up best in its recent report
on e-mail marketing: "Sign up with an e-mail services outsourcer
- now. Marketers that outsource the delivery and list management
of their email have higher conversion rates than those that
keep email operations in-house."
As marketers from all industries begin to realize the power
of e-mail marketing in attracting and retaining customers, as
well as in growing their customer base, many are faced with
a big decision. The decision of whether to not only develop,
but also execute an email marketing strategy in-house or rely
on a partner can be a challenging one. Marketers are faced with
three options:
- Implementing a software package and selective hardware
to manage and execute email campaigns internally
- Using an application service provider (ASP)
- Partnering with a full outsourcer.
We’ll take a look at those options in Part Two on Tuesday.
Attention: www.attentiongroup.com
Please take a look at the four
service packages we offer. If you have any questions
please visit the questions and answers
page or contact
us and we'll will be happy to help you.
CLICK HERE
TO READ MORE
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