WHITE PAPER

10 Trends that will Make or Break

Your Email ROI this Year
Introduction
Marketers are facing incredible challenges. The unsteady And take advantage of the bonuses checklist the end of this
economy has resulted in buyers who have delayed purchases, guide, “9 Ways to Win Management Buy-In Now for Email
Marketing Success”, to help you put these trends to work
purchased less or expected lower pricing. This has translated
today.
into longer sales cycles, less frequent purchases, fewer dollars
spent per sale and an inability to meet revenue goals. These
Trend #1: Email Remains the Cornerstone
unmet financial goals, in turn, have led to cutbacks in
Of all the trends to watch, this is the one that many people will
marketing staff, budget and bandwidth – with no decrease in
miss simply because it seems so obvious. Email marketing alone
the expectations around marketing program performance and
isn’t exactly a hot new trend, but you’ll want to start using email
ROI. In fact, many marketers are being asked to do more with
more effectively in your marketing mix.
less as a way of compensating for the deficits.
The primary reason why email has been, and will continue to
On top of macroeconomic trends, email marketers have
be, the cornerstone of the online marketing world is that it’s the
faced their own unique challenges. Spurred by increased
one method of online marketing that everyone uses. As shown
program performance expectations, more email marketing mes-
below, email marketing had the highest penetration of all the
sages have been pumped into inboxes with more offers – and more
online mediums last year – with over 90 percent of companies
competitive noise. It is became increasingly difficult to break
using email marketing.
through that noise and generate meaningful results; this has made
creating relevance in email messages more important (and challeng- Email is the Most-Used Online Marketing Tool - June 2009
ing) than ever. In fact, according to MarketingSherpa1, the num- “Interactive Marketing Channels to Watch”
ber one challenge for email marketers in the past 12 months was
“delivering highly relevant email content to recipients.”

However, email marketers do have unique opportunities to drive

performance and ROI – if they know where to concentrate their
efforts. The key to success is to know the top trends and to have a few
essential tools to make them work.

In this guide, we’ll identify and discuss the top ten marketing
trends this year and we’ll also offer you practical tips and tools to
quickly and easily put the trends to work for you.

The top ten marketing trends that we will discuss in this guide are:

1. Email Remains the Cornerstone

2. Email Automation as an Essential
3. Web Analytics Enhances Email
4. Social Media Maximizes Email
While email is the cornerstone of online marketing, its
5. Mobile Marketing Goes Mainstream effectiveness can be improved through integration with other
6. Search Marketing Extends Email Marketing Intelligence online marketing channels. For instance, social media
7. Global Reach Equals Opportunity marketing (SMM) is an efficient way to extend your email
campaigns between send dates, search engine marketing
8. Relevance Builds Engagement (SEM) can be used to build your email opt-in list and mo-
9. Integration Reinforces Online Marketing bile marketing is a great way to improve the response rates
of email offers.
10. Marketing Technologies Provide Competitive Advantage
2 WHITE PAPER 10 Trends that will Make or Break Your Email ROI this Year
Let’s dig a bit deeper. SEM alone can be pricey. It can be tough to
make a single Google ad pay for itself with new site visitors alone.
But if that same ad results in the acquisition of an opt-in name to
which your company can send email messages, you have increased
the odds that this investment will pay off sooner – and it’s email
marketing that provides the assist.
Email also has the ability to improve mobile results. The mobile
world (SMS texting) has limited room for graphics and copy so
it’s hard to get a rich, deep message to your subscribers. But it’s
a great medium for piquing interest and getting people to opt in
to an email list. This allows you to follow up with email messages
that are more visually appealing, richer in terms of content and
even more relevant to the person who indicated that they want to
receive email from you.
The bottom line is that email marketing is still a cornerstone and
a powerhouse. Therefore, marketers should plan on shoring up
and using this medium optimally in the coming year and beyond.
A few tips for doing this are:
• Optimize the opt-in. Don’t just ask for a name and email
address; get to know your customers better when they opt
in for your email. Ask for what products or services interest
them, how often they want to be contacted and what
offers appeal to them. This builds the foundation for more
meaningful contact down the road.
• Make relevance the priority. By getting more than just the
basics at the opt-in, you’re well positioned to send relevant,
meaningful email messages each and every time. After
the opt-in, continue to build a history on all customers
in your file based on what they bought, what information
they requested and anything else that tells you who they
are as individuals. Use this information to make your
communication focus on the “what’s in it for me” from the
customer standpoint and not the “what do we want to sell”
that other companies may use.
• Leverage social media for email marketing, and vice
versa. Email used in conjunction with SMM is a powerful
combination because it makes email more interactive.
Once connected with you via SMM, your followers can
communicate in an interactive way and become more
engaged. This engagement can result in quicker response,
faster conversion and higher ROI. And properly engaged,
your followers will share your message with others. So ask
your recipients to “tag” your email to spread your messages
virally. With little or no investment on your part, your email
has new life. And review the discussion threads on social
media sites to get ideas for offers, what content is interesting
and to find out what your customers want. Promote your
opt ins on those sites as well to grow your list.
• Make search earn its keep. Optimize your pay-per-click
(PPC) and organic search programs by making sure that your
opt in is promoted on each destination page. And as they are
opting in, record by customer what interested them and what
the source was of their initial interest. Use this to segment
your messaging to increase relevance from the beginning.
Trend #2: Email Automation as an Essential
It’s been established that the number one challenge for email
marketers last year was delivering highly-relevant content to
recipients. Email automation is one of the ways that smart
marketers are meeting that challenge, and that’s why it’s an
important trend in the next year.
Fully 88 percent of email marketers are either already
sending automated email messages based on triggers or they are
planning on doing so in the coming year. That’s a huge chunk
of the marketing community. And there’s good reason for
this trend: It works.
Email automation is a great use of resources. Once automa-
tion is set up, it’s very easy to maintain. Marketers create
something once and then deploy highly relevant content to thou-
sands and thousands of people over and over again, with very
little additional investment on their part. And because these types
of messages are more compelling to the audience, they convert at
higher rates than non-triggered email messages. Recipients love
getting email that matters to them, so it should come as no sur-
prise that automated email programs can generate a 30 to 70 per-
cent open rate – far beyond the industry norm of around 10 to 20
percent. All of which results in increased ROI for your company.
What email should your company automate? At a minimum,
consider kicking off a welcome program. Welcome programs are a
great way to make new subscribers and customers feel good about
interactions with your company right off the bat. Welcome pro-
grams foster loyalty, reinforce the promises you made to recipients
when they subscribed and are a very smart way to start that new
relationship.
Depending on the preferences your subscribers provid-
ed when they opted in (or that you promised), you can
also fold new subscribers into nurture campaigns. You
can use nurture or trigger programs to convert prospects
to customers or to retain and up sell existing customers.
The top three tips for starting a welcome program are:
• Ask the right questions. Gather data at the point of opt
in that you need to take the relationship to the next level
and nothing more. For instance, ask your customers how
often they want to be contacted, what offers interest them
and what products are most meaningful to them. Minimize
sales qualification questions or anything that could be
considered research, and keep the questions focused solely
on things that make your programs more effective.
• Determine the subsequent steps before launching a
program. Before you launch a welcome program, make
sure you know what your next contact will be. Once
the customer is welcomed, what offer or promotion is
appropriate next? Don’t just add them into the “house
file” – categorize your contact specifically to what you
learned in the opt in, and have a clear path for two or
three follow-up email messages after the initial welcome.
3 WHITE PAPER 10 Trends that will Make or Break Your Email ROI this Year
• Create relevant content. A generic welcome message
is not as effective as one that recognizes customers as
individuals by acknowledging their preferences, needs and
other information gathered at the opt-in process. Be sure
and develop as many versions of your welcome email as you
need to make sure that each one feels like a truly unique
welcome to the customer.
Trend#3: Web Analytics Enhances
Another trend to watch is the use of Web analytics as a tool to
enhance email. Many marketers are already feeling underwater
due to a lack of resources and view Web analytics as an un-
attainable luxury. The truth is that many email service provid-
ers are now integrating Web analytics into their systems.
This makes it easier for email marketers to access, understand
and use these analytics to their advantage and specifically, to
assess the effectiveness of email programs and to answer that
all-important question, “What happened after the click?”
Then they can make adjustments and improvements with
greater confidence and agility. As a result, analytics are en-
abling email marketers to move up the value chain. Marketers
are able to make data-driven decisions to better manage their
marketing programs from a strategic, holistic point of view.
The integration of Web analytics with email marketing results in
more profitable campaigns and higher customer retention rates.
This recent study conducted by Forrester Research is just one
example of why Web analytics are being integrated into email
marketing campaigns – to increase revenue and customer reten-
tion. And because the integration is delivering just that, we see
this synergy on the rise.
Which of the following would most influence your
decisions to integrate Web Analytics data into your
email marketing campaign activities?
Forrester Research, Inc., Integrating Web Analytics with
Email Marketing to Improve Campaign Performance,
February, 2009.
How does this work? Email and other online marketing campaigns
drive visitors to a landing page on your Web site. Using Web
analytics, you can follow campaign traffic through your site to
see where they went and what they’re interested in. The analytics
allow you to make informed decisions to alter messaging and the
site path to increase future conversions.
One of the greatest things about using Web analytics as part of
email campaign results analysis is that you are not limited to the
Email same old data. Most email marketers have traditionally looked at
the number of responses in terms of sales or leads, and open and
click rates of the email messages to determine success or failure.
If you’re able to track the actions of your email recipients once
they hit your Web site in addition to the other message-specific
metrics, you now have a much more robust set of data that can
tell you not only what they were interested in, but why and what
they did about it. This information can then be used to do better
targeting in future email campaigns.
Here are two key steps for making Web analytics work for you:
• Optimize your site to make sure visitor traffic patterns can
be easily identified. This is something that’s fairly easy to
do but often goes undone. Establish unique tracking for
each element that you want to identify or measure on every
section of your Web site. This will assure that your data is
cleaner and easier to interpret, and your ability to target
will be that much better. The idea is to configure your Web
site and campaigns to include information that can help
separate each Web page, visitor and campaign for tracking.
• Use current and future Web site data as a baseline for
understanding what’s going on with your target market.
This will give you direction for future email campaigns.
For example, if your Web site analytics tell you that a
disproportionate number of unique visitors are going to
your online demo request page, but only a fraction of them
are completing the form, that’s good information. Clearly
people are interested in getting a demo, but something on
the form page is turning them off. So maybe it’s time to do
an email campaign that tests two different demo messages
to see which gets the better response. This will help you
improve conversions to the demo offer moving forward.
Trend #4: Social Media Maximizes Email
Social media is obviously hot – and ubiquitous – these days.
And despite rumors to the contrary, that’s great news for email
marketing. In fact, email marketers should be happy about the
influence social media has had on email marketing.
According to MarketingSherpa, 81 percent of marketers believe
that social media extends the reach of email content to new
markets and 78 percent think it enhances brand reputation
or awareness. Social media is now an integral part of a well-
orchestrated email marketing campaign.
In a sense, email itself is social. And according to reputable
sources, email as a social tool is here to stay. The chart
below indicates that when people want to share something
from the Internet with others, 78 percent of them email
a link. Only 22 percent share it through social media.
4 WHITE PAPER 10 Trends that will Make or Break Your Email ROI this Year

in conversation with your fans and followers. You don’t

want to do your selling here.

• Then add links to your social media sites everywhere in

everything you do… in your email footers, on your Web
site and so on. This will allow people to easily visit your
social media pages.

• Establish a blog on your own domain, contribute to an

existing blog that has a readership comprised of your target
audience and ask some industry gurus to post to yours.

• Be sure to automate and share. Use an email marketing

Social media maximizes your email campaign by working for you
long after the campaign has deployed. Social media is always on
– unlike email which is a one-time blast of content that either
lingers in an inbox or dies in trash or spam folders. Social media
is also a low-cost, high-impact way to grow your email opt-in list.
If you are posting content to your social media site (or, better
yet, if your fans and subscribers are doing it for your company)
and you have made it easy for people to opt in, your email opt-
in lists will grow quickly. More importantly, the opt-out rate of
those subscribers will likely be much lower because they have
a relationship with your company – you’re not just another
unknown advertiser to them, you’re a trusted resource.
By making your email offers and messages available or easily
shared on appropriate social networks, your response rate can
also soar exponentially. Just think about how easily each of us is
influenced by the referral of just one trusted friend or colleague.
The average Facebook and Twitter user has 130 friends or
followers. So imagine if only 10 of your email subscribers shared
your content with their network. You would immediately have
increased your reach exponentially – and for free.
solution that allows you to automatically post content
from your email messages to social networks. You can then
create relevant content one time and deliver it to multiple
locations. It’s a simple, efficient way to generate and share
content. Then add widgets to pages on your Web site or to
your newsletter so that visitors and subscribers can easily
share your value-added content with their trusted network.
Trend #5: Mobile Marketing Goes Mainstream
The adoption of mobile into mainstream use is undeniable. In
fact, according to Nielsen Mobile, U.S. cell phone subscribers
sent and received on average 357 text messages per month in
2008, compared to making 204 voice calls a month. That’s an
increase of 75 percent. And according to ABI Research, mobile
marketing revenues are expected to reach $24 billion by 2013,
jumping from only $1.8 billion in 2007. That’s a 13-fold increase
in just six short years.
As you can see in this chart provided by the Direct Marketing Asso-
ciation and eMarketer, mobile users respond to mobile marketing
– from text ads, to email offers, to coupons and beyond. Mobile
marketing has been accepted as part of the mobile user’s experience.

There’s one more added benefit to all of this that email marketers
may not even realize: improved email deliverability. Social media
marketing contributes to your company’s online reputation
which, in turn, leads people to either categorize your email
messages as something they want to read or not. If recipients
open your email, your ranking with Internet service providers
(ISPs) improves. If people don’t open your email or they report
it as spam, your ranking dips. So being actively involved in social
media is a positive step towards improving both your company’s
online reputation and email deliverability rates.

Here are a few quick tips for taking advantage of social media to
improve your email marketing ROI:

• First, make sure your company has an account on

a relevant social network. If you are in a business-to-
consumer industry, Facebook might be a good starter site
for you. If you are a business-to-business company, you may
want to consider Twitter, a niche industry site and/or blogs
Because of the constant relationship between people and their
whose readership is comprised of your target audience. Be
mobile devices, there is a sense of intimacy with messages
sure to post content and information that will be valuable to
received in this way. Mobile marketing breaks through the noise
your customers and target audience, and to engage directly
5 WHITE PAPER 10 Trends that will Make or Break Your Email ROI this Year
and reaches prospects and customers at the right point of aper-
ture, wherever that may be.
Mobile messages also drive urgency. People are used to
getting a text message or even an email message on their mobile
device and responding to it immediately. As a matter of fact,
a message received on a phone is typically read within 15
minutes of receipt and responded to within 30 minutes.
All of this adds up to mobile marketing becoming an extremely
relevant form of communication and a great way to extend the
life and the reach of email marketing in the coming year.
With mobile, you can expand your reach beyond your email
opt-in list and develop mobile opt-in lists to reach new
targets and expand your overall subscriber base. A bigger pool
of qualified, engaged prospects and customers equals more
revenue opportunities. While people who opt in for SMS alerts
are subscribing only to specific mobile messages from your
company in the same way that they opt in to receive specific
email messages from you, you have the ability to build an opt-in
acquisition strategy for both your mobile and email lists that can
expand your reach exponentially.
Mobile also allows you to extend your campaigns virally. Much
like social media, mobile is yet another vehicle for information
sharing, forwarding, commenting and so on. By providing valu-
able content via email in tandem with mobile, you enhance the
user experience and build loyalty, which helps you to acquire new
customers at a relatively low cost.
Here are three ideas on how to weave mobile marketing into the
mix in the next year:
• Offer a mobile coupon in exchange for a subscription to
email messages on special offers.
• Ask attendees at conferences to join your opt-in list and
receive a free guide by texting you their email addresses.
• Include a link to subscribe to the mobile version of your
newsletter (or other content) in your email messages and on
your Web site. Some people aren’t willing to subscribe to an
email program but are willing to subscribe to mobile alerts
from your company instead.
Trend #6: Search Engine Marketing Extends
Marketing Intelligence
Search marketing (also known as SEM or PPC), both natural and
paid, will continue to grow in terms of marketing spend in the
next year and beyond – partly because it’s the ultimate indicator
of prospect interest in a specific topic. According to Forrester,
“…paid listings are expected to grow at a compound annual
growth rate of 15% to $32 billion by 2014.”2 Why? One reason
is that search provides a plethora of data, which makes it one of
the most accountable forms of media in a marketer’s toolbox. In
an era of tight corporate purse strings, data provided by search
demonstrates ROI and helps marketers focus email marketing
budget spend.
For instance, you may learn that an offer that was extended
via paid search is performing very well with a distinct segment
of their target audience. This data makes it possible for you to
extend the most successful offer rather than relying purely on past
performance data or instinct. Reciprocally, you may find that a
specific headline pulls better in email messages and can share that
information with the search team so they put it to use in PPC
campaigns. And that’s just scratching the surface!
Additionally, according to a recent report from eMarketer, as the
economy continues to struggle, cost consciousness will remain
high in the coming year. Customers will continue to be driven
to find the best deal on whatever purchases they must make.
That purchase decision process often starts with an Internet
search. With this in mind, marketers must be in the best possible
position to benefit from this trend.
Fortunately, as search volume increases, more inventory will
be available to marketers. As a result, search engine marketing
programs will increase in sophistication, providing richer data to
marketers. As an email marketer, how do you use this trend to
your best advantage?
• Use SEM to capture the interest of prospects at a time
when they’re most inclined to respond to your message…
when they’re proactively researching it online. Use this
knowledge to drive traffic to email opt-in points or to
landing pages that include an email subscription option.
Then you can convert opt-ins into sales through ongoing
email marketing programs.
• Create more targeted, relevant email marketing messages
and offers. Test so that you identify the kinds of messaging
and offers that convert best when prospects are at the critical
point of aperture that led them to initiate a search.
• Leverage the learning from paid search into organic
search. This is another great way to improve the ROI of
all search efforts. That means, for instance, optimizing your
Web site using the keywords that have performed well in
PPC campaigns. And why stop there? Include those same
keywords in your email marketing campaigns, including
newsletters and other content that you post online. All of
these efforts will improve the organic search results related
to your company.
• Increase investments in resources (tools and people) to
make more informed paid search buys. Look for an online
marketing solution that can help with this, as well. Ideally,
your online marketing solution should provide important
metrics such as click and conversion rates by email campaign
or ad group. This tells email marketers which email and
search campaigns, key phrases and offers are most likely to
resonate with specific segments. It also mitigates the risk of
sending the wrong email to the wrong audience.
6 WHITE PAPER 10 Trends that will Make or Break Your Email ROI this Year
Trend #7: Global Reach Equals Opportunity
We all know that the U.S. dollar has fallen in value recently.
But there’s a silver lining for U.S. companies. Because of the
favorable exchange rate, U.S.-made products have gained in
popularity internationally. For marketers with an online presence,
this represents an opportunity. According to MarketingSherpa,
“One in five marketers at small organizations send more than
10% of their email across national borders, yet more than three
in 10 consider trans-national email an important priority. Trans-
national email is an important priority for more than half of
all large organizations.”1 Global reach is gaining top-of-mind
attention from marketers in the next year and marketers should
act quickly to take advantage of this opportunity.
It’s worth noting that this trend presents an opportunity for email
marketers, specifically. That’s because major international markets
are not at the email saturation level that the U.S. has experienced
over the last several years. Email marketers have less clutter to
cut through to get offers and messages heard by considerable
numbers of global prospects. But according to MarketingSherpa,
close to 40 percent of companies surveyed stated that trans-
national email was a priority in the coming year. Therefore, smart
marketers should jump on this opportunity before global inboxes
become too full.
The question then becomes, where is the opportunity? According
to a survey from Anderson Analytics conducted for the Marketing
Executives Networking Group, China ranks as the area of greatest
opportunity, at 53 percent, for marketers with international
responsibility, while India is a distant second with votes from 17
percent of respondents.
To get a jump on this trend and stay a step ahead of your
competition, follow these best practices:
• Target the region or country that represents your target
audience. For instance, if you offer a product that is only
available in English and only uses U.S. currency, China isn’t
the country that makes the most sense for you. But Canada,
the United Kingdom, Germany and/or India may make
sense if you can localize the product a bit.
• Use the basic marketing rule of talking in the “voice” and
language of your audience, both from a cultural as well as
localization standpoint.
• Dig deeply into spam and privacy laws within each and
every country where you plan to send commercial email
as the laws can differ substantially. This is, perhaps, one of
the most important times to consult with a knowledgeable
and qualified expert who can help you navigate this
terrain. Getting this right means the difference between
success and a possible lawsuit. Acting with due diligence
up-front when it comes to the privacy and spam laws of
all countries will always be to your benefit. Armed with all
this knowledge, you can use the flexibility, power, efficiency
and accountability of online marketing to support your
global initiatives.
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Trend #8: Relevance Builds Engagement
The next trend evolves from an idea that’s been gaining significant
traction recently: Creating relevance with your prospects to build
engagement. As “fluffy” as that may sound, it’s completely true that
the more engaged your prospects and customers are, the deeper
the relationship you have with them and the greater the revenue
opportunity they represent. According to iMedia, “Interruptive
marketing will no longer enjoy its privileged position as the
primary influencer of consumer and business preferences and
buying decisions.” And, “(engagement marketing is the) new age
of marketing that respects the power of the informed customer
and catapults marketing to a whole new level of effectiveness and
influence.”3
While relevance and relationships have always been part of the
email marketer’s credo, we are now in a world where customers
fully expect companies to participate in two-way dialogues with
them. Consumers no longer respond as well to overt marketing
and sales copy as they do to information that engages them –
information that is relevant to them, has value and that helps
them make informed decisions. That creates engagement.
But how does your company build engagement? True
engagement occurs when messaging and offers are relevant to
the recipient’s preferences and needs. Relevance along the whole
online continuum (email to landing page to the rest of your
online presence, etc.) has an additional benefit in increased email
deliverability. Without relevance, prospects toss email to the spam
folder, ISPs block future email and your efforts at well-crafted
copy and a well-executed campaign are wasted. Make sure your
programs are narrowly targeted by segmenting customers by
purchase or contact history, developing specific offers that speak
to each segment and promoting products that are most likely to
be of interest to each segment.
A second way to leverage this trend is by empowering your
prospects and customers to indicate what content and offers
are most relevant to them with an email preference center.
An email preference center is designed to give subscribers
the ability to opt in and out of very specific email vehicles,
such as newsletters, product information or sale alerts. It also
allows you to collect specific information about the preferences
of your email subscribers. This information enables you to
identify the right prospects on a very granular level – which
allows for better segmenting.
Next, increase the relevance of the content you provide to
subscribers by maximizing your transactional email. Within
a transactional email, you can not only conduct a monetary
transaction (money for goods or services), but you can also
create a transactional dialogue in the form of preference updates,
surveys, referral programs and the like.
Lastly, develop and execute customized trigger and drip email
campaigns. These campaigns deliver highly-relevant content
and offers to the people who want them and deliver them in an
efficient and cost effective way.
7 WHITE PAPER 10 Trends that will Make or Break Your Email ROI this Year
Trend #9: Integration Reinforces Online Marketing
“[The Internet] stands as the only medium that consists of multiple
different marketing channels. In order to have a successful online
marketing campaign, you must take an integrated approach
and use all of the channels that the Internet affords you.”
- Clay Schossow, New Media Campaigns
The quote here is just one of countless that appear in the public
domain that express the unique opportunities that integrated
online marketing delivers. The key concept is this: In order to
be successful online, marketers must integrate with all available
online channels.
Trend #9 isn’t necessarily a new thought to most marketers.
Integration of messaging across multiple mediums and across
campaigns has been essential to effective marketing for quite some
time. But the economic challenges of the past year have further
heightened the need to integrate and have thus accelerated (and
necessitated) adoption of this approach. During this time, when
marketers need it most, there is a greater appreciation for the
efficiencies that integrated online marketing provides.
With multiple touch points as well as the merging of technology
(mobile, video, television, computer and so on) the lines between
media types will continue to blur. Content will no longer show
up in a single medium but will be broadcast across many – from
the miniature screens of mobile devices to the large screens of
broadcast media. This makes the need for well-coordinated and
fully-integrated online marketing that much more pressing in the
next year.
To carry this idea a bit further, as these lines blur, new and
sometimes unusual partnerships will form to reinforce and
amplify each other. According to Judy Franks, an integrated
marketing guru, “We will continue to see emerging relationships
among what appear on the surface as competing media channels.”
Just ask Susan Boyle, a contestant on a television show who
became an overnight star thanks to YouTube; or Ashton Kutcher,
who Tweets his way to popularity and a successful acting career.
They can tell you about the power of one medium to reinforce
and amplify another.
Through multiple touch points, campaigns leverage each other
to gain traction, rise above the noise, improve relevance and
increase both response and ROI. Social media can help your
email efforts; mobile can help your email efforts; and search
and Web analytics can help your email efforts. But when you
combine all of these mediums, the results can be exponential.
As any good marketer knows, the more points at which you
can touch your prospect with consistent messaging, the more
your message has the opportunity to cut through the clutter.
And with more and more companies allocating a higher
percentage of their marketing budgets to online, the ability
to create multiple touch points in a cost-effective way
will be critically important to marketers in the next year.
How can marketers take advantage of this trend?
• Fill in any blanks in your online marketing mix. No
mobile marketing capabilities yet? Create your infrastructure
so you can run mobile campaigns. Haven’t fully developed
your social media strategy? Apply resources to complete
it and execute it. You simply can’t afford to not do these
things. Without them, in an increasingly competitive online
marketing world, you’ll be left in the dust.
• Create messaging and offers that can be applied across
various online marketing mediums. This includes
designing the creative so that it displays properly on every
medium. For instance, an email message renders differently
in Outlook 2007 than it will in Gmail or on a smart phone,
and you will want to account for these differences in all
design.
• Use the data collected from an email campaign to inform
your other online marketing efforts. Probably one of the
most powerful things that integrated online marketing can
provide is data. Any data from any online campaign provides
insight and education to optimize any other future online
campaign. So measure, collect and analyze the data across all
mediums to determine the most efficient and effective ways
to improve your integrated online marketing in the future.
Trend #10: Marketing Technologies Provide
a Competitive Advantage
Forrester observes that marketing budgets are moving away from
traditional media and being reallocated to more efficient online
tools. This thought holds true even with big brand companies. In
their words, “Marketers will allocate unused advertising dollars
into investments like innovation, research, customer service,
customer experiences, and marketing-specific technology and IT
staff, in order to further marketing’s strategic influence within
their companies.”1
Marketing technologies are the new strategic business tools. In
the next year, marketers will need to employ and get the most
out of sophisticated technology solutions. In turn, these solutions
will provide the metrics and results that will contribute directly
to business success.
How does this effect email marketing? Using integrated online
tools, you can automate and streamline the email marketing
process by using dynamic content, email triggers, templates
and so on. Additionally, a reliable provider can handle email
deployments of varying volume – from the hundreds to the
multimillions, with minimal human effort.
Integrated online marketing tools can also share important data
and metrics across all disciplines. Email metrics can be leveraged
for SEM programs. Mobile program learning can be leveraged
to message your next email campaign. Web analytics can inform
social, mobile and email programs.
Additionally, a good provider incorporates important tools that
assist and improve in email deliverability efforts. Email messages
that don’t make it to the inbox can negatively impact campaign
ROI, and marketers simply can’t afford that.
8 WHITE PAPER 10 Trends that will Make or Break Your Email ROI this Year

Integrated online marketing tools should also have the capability
of integrating with your CRM system so leads can automatically
be routed to the appropriate sales representative for immediate
follow-up. Details like this can mean the difference between
making the sale and losing it – and again, in this economy, every
dollar counts.
Integrated online marketing tools give online marketers the
ability to create, launch, measure, manage and analyze your
marketing initiatives from a single platform.
And, don’t forget to assess your current processes. To make
the most of integrated online marketing and technologies,
organizations should also make sure that their teams and
processes are integrated. The first step is to diagnose whether your
teams and processes are working together to leverage knowledge,
data and metrics to improve results. Two (or three, or four) heads
are better than one. Are your Web analytics people talking with
your email marketing people? Are your SEM people sharing
information with your deliverability people?
About Lyris
Lyris, Inc. was the first online marketing solution provider with
the vision to integrate email with diverse online marketing
channels. Our depth of experience and technology enables clients
to benefit from the synergies between these channels, resulting in
more efficient and effective marketing organizations.
Lyris HQ is the all-in-one online marketing solution that integrates
email marketing with search, social, and mobile channels,
enhanced by embedded deliverability and Web analytics. This
unique solution grows with the needs of online marketers and
provides actionable insights to help make intelligent decisions
and improve results.
For a host of valuable white papers, guides and on-demand
Webcasts, visit the Lyris Resources page at www.lyris.com/resources.

The key point here is that marketing technology can provide a

competitive advantage that results in improved performance and
informs the strategic direction of your company. But you have to
have the right tools – and they need to be proactively harnessed.

Conclusion
These 10 trends will influence how you approach email marketing
in the coming year. With the rapid evolution of online media,
marketing emerges as a driving force behind new innovations that
can significantly contribute to business and growth. Marketing
no longer functions as a separate and self-contained department
with individual sub-departments functioning in silos. Marketing
means innovation – innovation that has a direct impact on
business success. Email is the anchor and core performer of all
online marketing initiatives.

As media morphs and lines between media types continue

to blur, there are more and more opportunities for online
marketers to create engagement and build relationships
if the infrastructure is in place. Take advantage of the
opportunities that are out there and continue to look forward.

1. Marketing Sherpa. 2010 Email Marketing Bench Marketing Survey.” www.marketingsherpa.com

2. Forrester Research, Inc. “U.S. Interactive Marketing Forecast 2009 to 2014.” July, 2009.”
3. iMedia Connection. “The Rules of Engagement Marketing.” Bill Nussey. March, 2009.
9 WHITE PAPER 10 Trends that will Make or Break Your Email ROI this Year
Bonus Checklist – 9 Ways to Win Management Buy-
In Now for Email Marketing Success in the Next Year
The top trends in email marketing in the next year can make a
significant difference in the success of your high ROI email
campaigns. In order to take advantage of these trends, however,
you must get proper management support and buy-in. We’ve
created the following list to help you get the support and buy-in
you need to optimize your online marketing efforts.
1. Email marketing resources are necessary when budgets
are flat. Here’s why:
• Email marketing effectiveness can be improved with
little budget and effort by using testing to refine
programs – which delivers immediate results and long-
term gains in ROI.
• Because email marketing is highly trackable, its
effectiveness can be proved in real time – unlike
branding or public relations, which take time and can
be difficult to measure.
• Dollar for dollar, email marketing (with the right
tools) is less expensive and more effective than almost
any other online program.
• Finely-tuned programs that include the opportunity
to learn from each email deployment are a marketing
gold mine. Cutting resources dedicated to these email
marketing programs can turn effective campaigns
into random email blasts, which invites opt-outs and
negatively impacts results and ROI.
2. List building makes money – even when budgets are
tight. Here’s why:
• Unlike third-party purchased lists, your in-house, opt-
in list costs no money to email to. Building your in-
house, opt-in list allows you to spend budget on other
items that can boost your response, such as creative,
offers and program analysis.
• List churn is inevitable. In order to maintain results
and ROI, your company must replace opt-outs on a
regular basis by consistently building your opt-in list.
• Buyers/subscribers become less responsive over time.
Supplementing older names on in your in-house file
with new opt-ins will keep your response rates high.
3. Email automation is always a good investment.
Here’s why:
• Email message relevance is more important than ever in
cutting through email clutter. Email automation (based
on triggers) enables each campaign message and offer to
meet the needs and requirements of different prospects,
increasing response and ROI.
• Email automation maximizes resources. Campaigns
can be set up once and executed over and over again,
without the need for additional resources.
• Automated welcome campaigns quickly build
relationships with prospects, increasing trust in your
company. An added bonus: Welcome campaigns can
improve your company’s overall email deliverability and
the response rates you get from each campaign.
4. Social media marketing is not a gimmick – it’s here to
stay. Your company can use it to increase the effectiveness
of email campaigns for a very low cost. Here’s how:
• Social media keeps email working long after the email
campaign is deployed and sustains interest in between
sends. By including links to social sites (such as your
“fan” page on a social network) in your emails, you
can encourage more discussion of and response to
your messaging and offers to an audience that extends
beyond the limits o your opt-in email list.
• Your email messages and offers will enjoy an extended
life when shared with others by your subscribers. This
can be achieved through no additional cost to you.
Provide the ability to share your emails by adding social
media widgets to your email campaign creative.
• Social media marketing can be a great (and free) resource
for testing and gauging feedback on offers, creative and
content before investing time and money in extending
those offers via other mediums.
5. Global email marketing is a good investment.
Here’s why:
• With a weak U.S. dollar, U.S.-made products can
be very competitive – and even a bargain – in global
markets. Using email to market to international markets
can greatly increase your prospect and customer base.
• In emerging global markets (such as China and India),
email marketing is still nascent. Unlike the U.S.,
recipient in-boxes have not yet been saturated. This
presents a unique opportunity for email marketers to
reach new targets without having to compete with email
clutter and competition.
6. Mobile marketing can improve the effectiveness of other
marketing programs. Here’s how:
• Mobile marketing is a cost-effective medium that can
improve response rates and increase ROI – especially
when paired with more expensive programs like
advertising, events and trade shows.
• Mobile marketing is urgent and reaches people at their
decision point – research has shown that response can
be high and more immediate when mobile marketing
is added to the mix.
• Mobile marketing programs can be used to build opt-
ins for continued email marketing.
10 WHITE PAPER 10 Trends that will Make or Break Your Email ROI this Year

7. Tracking and analytics can optimize email campaign

effectiveness and results. Here’s how:

• Tracking takes the guesswork out of all of your email

marketing programs by revealing which campaigns are
the most effective. This information can be used to
optimize future email campaigns for increased ROI.

• According to Forrester Research*, integrating Web

analytics with email marketing improves campaign
performance resulting in increased revenue and
increased customer retention rates.

8. Adding an integrated online marketing solution will save

money on marketing programs, which improves ROI.
Here’s how:

• The right integrated solution can help you leverage the

knowledge from one area of marketing and apply it to
other areas of marketing – for instance, cross referencing
results from search marketing with email analytics for
a more complete picture of subscriber behavior so
that you can make data-driven decisions about how to
improve future campaigns.

• With an integrated online marketing solution including

email, search, social and mobile, combined with
Web analytics and deliverability, you can increase
the effectiveness of each program individually and all
programs as a whole.

• By tying your integrated online marketing solution into

your customer relationship management tool, you can
enable improved sales follow up and better tracking
through to the sale. This also informs and helps optimize
future online marketing efforts.

9. Adding or reallocating staff to email marketing can make

sense – even with hiring freezes. Here’s why:

• Well-executed email marketing programs get higher

response. Adding resources for top level creative,
strategy and deliverability will keep your company
ahead of the pack and your ROI on the rise.

• Adding email marketing staff can be directly tracked to

higher email response. Your analytics will prove it.

* Forrester Research, Inc., “Integrating Web Analytics with Email Marketing to Improve Campaign Performance.” February, 2009