Changing Roles Within Direct Marketing

LM Comment: Clearly a trend worth monitoring.

June 23, 2009: summarized from EmailInsider -- There are currently two big shifts going on in the direct marketing world that affect email marketers: the decline of direct mail and the rise of social media.

The current recession has accelerated the shift to digital media and marketing. Recently, Borrell Associates predicted that advertising revenue from direct mail is expected to plunge 39% by 2013. Email was singled out as the key beneficiary of direct mail's decline.

While there are certainly macro forces at work behind direct mail's decline and is value in retaining workers with long-term experience with your brand, it's vital to recognize that direct mail experts lack many skills necessary to be successful at email marketing.

1. Designing an email involves knowing how inbox providers render CSS and HTML, dealing with situations where images aren't enabled, and designing for preview panes and mobile devices.

2. Running an email program involves much more segmentation. "Batch and blast" is a recipe for subscriber revolt and delivery disaster.

3. Email subscribers can more easily punish marketers that abuse their time with irrelevant messages by hitting the "report spam" button. Annoy enough subscribers and you will be blocked by ISPs and have difficulties delivering your messages to even those subscribers who want them.

4. The success of a direct mail campaign is determined by a very different set of metrics than that used to measure the success of an email campaign.

A direct mail approach to email marketing can ruin your program, so make sure that any transfers are properly educated and play a secondary role until they're fully up to speed. Conferences, webinars, vendor education programs, industry publications and blogs play a critical role in the continuing education of email marketers. Make sure that even your seasoned email experts are given the time and budget to keep up to date with the ever-changing email landscape.

Read more at: http://tinyurl.com/nvh3d3