People will pay attention to your messages if they are relevant, if they can access your messaging whenever they want, & if they can interact with you while on the go. The advent of the smarter phone coupled with the ability to personalize conversations is going to drive the future of email marketing. Organizations need to think about a few things as they prepare themselves to have a relevant dialogue with the consumer.
First, they need to overcome the idea of silos in marketing. Take a look at email & mobile – more than likely each channel sits in a separate department. Even if they are in the same group, the objectives for the two channels do not align.
Second, they need to think about accounting for consumer preferences in one database. They need to ensure that they are communicating and not badgering. Most importantly, they need to make sure that the different channels are communicating with the same consumer with consistency.
Third, these businesses need to think about existing regulations & the law. While there is some clarity in email law, there is still a lot of fuzziness in mobile marketing. To top it off, many organizations simply follow the law to a tee, which means in many ways they are pushing things to a point of being legal but unreasonable with consumers.
Email can become communication central. Mobile gives you the opportunity to personalize things even further. Mobility forces you to think about a consumer who is on the go. You can not only track your messaging, you can also track location – you should leverage this into coming up with more efficient messaging.
Marketers are going to have to bring together two ‘instant’ outbound marketing programs – email & mobile. They need to focus on preferences, by listening to what the consumer wants to hear. Additionally, they need to be present for the consumer. Want to learn more about the future of email, the impact of mobile, and mobility? Join BrightTALK’s email marketing summit – my session on preference, presence, & empathy is at 12:00 noon EST.
BrightTALK is hosting an email marketing summit – some great information to help you with your multi-channel marketing efforts. Even if you can’t attend the live sessions, you can log in to listen to some really good information later.
