E-mail marketing can work even with a spam-struck audience

MEDIA & MARKETING:When is an e-mail a nuisance and when is it an inducement?, ask Siobhan O'Connell

THE ROLE of opt-in e-mail in the marketing mix was recognised at the recent All-Ireland Marketing Awards when Don Farrell, founder of the e-mail marketing company Circulator, was named marketing and sales newcomer of the year, and Brandmail Solutions, a company which brands e-mails with the corporate logo of the sender, picked up the marketing innovation award.

In theory, e-mail marketing is a cheap way of blasting hundreds or thousands of potential customers. In reality, the increasing volume of unsolicited bulk e-mails, also known as spam, means marketing mails will not always reach their intended recipients, such is the efficiency of junk e-mail filters. Even if the e-mail does get through it also ignored by most people.

Still, e-mail can play an important marketing role, especially when recipients are actually interested in receiving the information. Airlines offer a good example of where e-mail marketing works. When Aer Lingus and Ryanair announce their regular seat sales, most recipients of the marketing mail will probably to take a quick look at whats on offer.

Circulator is a software programme that allows companies to create and manage their own online marketing campaigns. Clients can design their own newsletter from Circulators template gallery, upload their own client lists and subscribers, send out their newsletter and measure the success of their campaigns.

According to Don Farrell: "If an e-mail marketing campaign is done properly it will work and the research is there to back that up. But before you launch into an e-mail marketing campaign, it is important to define your objectives.

For example, a hotel will want to use e-mail marketing to promote special mid-week offers. That is a hard sell. Bigger companies like banks and financial service companies will use e-mail marketing to keep in touch with their client base with company news. Thats a much softer sell."

With all e-mail marketing, Farrell says what works best is if your e-mail looks consistent with the rest of your brand and has the look, tone and feel of your website.

He added: "Be truthful, keep your subject line short and include some sort of personal motivation in the subject line. Use impactful language in the e-mail, keep it simple and brief and address your subscribers personally. Too much content will put people off.

"Tuesday and Thursday are the best days to send e-mails to companies while Friday gives the best response from consumers. Avoid Monday mornings completely and never schedule your e-mail to go out at midnight. The smaller the database, the higher the interaction rate with the e-mail as the company sending out the e-mail is more likely to know the recipients a lot better."

A new innovation in marketing e-mail is branded e-mails. With the feature developed by Brandmail Solutions, the message from the sender shows up in the recipient's inbox with the sender's logo.

Companies using Brandmail include MyHome.ie, Aer Lingus and Quinn Direct.

Euro turn-off

THE FAILURE of Ireland to make it to the final may be one reason the number of Irish people watching Eurovision on Saturday night was down on previous years, or maybe the viewers are just fed up with Eastern European bloc voting.

Whatever the reason, Eurovision is no longer the draw for RTÉ it once was.

The average number of young adult viewers between the ages of 15-34 was 56,000 versus 164,000 in 2007.

Some 52 per cent of this year's young adults watching were young men, which was surprising considering the delayed coverage of Munster match and Ireland v Serbia match showing on RTÉ2 at the same time.

siobhan@businessplus.ie