Have You Ever Met Anyone Who Loves Email?
You hear it on Zoom meetings and in staff meetings; we all hate email. Many (me) do email on vacation just to not have hundreds or thousands of emails to sort through the first day back at work. At one time, we all hated direct mail that arrived once a day. Now it is electronic and floats in all day.
Yet email is here to stay. And a good email is always welcome in the storm of spam, offers and e-newsletters. In spite of the pandemic and all other marketing put on hold, email increased last year. A new report, The State of Email Marketing, from Validity and Demand Metric/Marketing Charts found that most feel email’s effectiveness is holding steady and 38% say it is “improving.”
Email is not without its issues. Email marketers found that competition in the inbox is increasing. Other obstacles in the research were staffing/resource constraints, low understanding of performance and poorly defined metrics.
Email is a strong sales tool, but it is also one of the best ways to maintain communications with current customers. It is the preferred way to connect with customers to improve customer lifetime value. Marketing Charts says: “Marketers have used several tactics in order to improve customer lifetime value, but one that has been found to be effective is having personalized interactions with customers. Email remains one of the most effective channels when it comes to connecting with customers, with more than half of respondents finding it extremely (17%) or very (39%) effective.” Granted, this email is required to be highly personalized and relevant to the customer to be effective.
We may not love email, but it is one of the best ways to communicate. In fact, many of you receive an email about this blog. And I thank you for the clicks.
Mark Mathis III is chief creative & strategy officer, partner and cofounder of AMPERAGE Marketing & Fundraising.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle. After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant. He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.” Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.” One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College. Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board. Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.
