By David Jenkin

Vera Romano, the marketing manager of bulk email and SMS marketing software provider Everlytic, gave a lecture at the recent Markex 2016 expo titled The Anatomy of Awesome Emails, in which she addressed the current state of email marketing and the keys to success.

The open rate is the first measure of success and in South Africa, the average for 2015 was a relatively high 24.86%. The second is the click rate which translates to conversion, and for 2015 that average was at 3.28%. To reach or exceed those targets, marketers need to get three fundamentals right – the proper recipients, an enticing subject line, and a design and layout that is appealing and intuitive.

Taking aim

The first point Romano focused on is the need for what she termed ‘database hygiene’. The ‘spray and pray’ approach is simply no longer viable, she said, and marketers today need to know who they’re sending to. Emails have to be carefully targeted and she explained that a smaller and more focused database is preferable to a large and broad database, as the former will yield much higher open rates.

Spiro Malamoglou, director of Mail Blaze, a service for permission-based email marketing, supports this view. “Email marketing is not a novel concept anymore. We get hundreds of emails in our mailboxes each day. We have developed better filters for when to engage with content. Marketers need to create value to engage their subscribers’ full attention.”

Malamoglou adds that many marketers are still applying the wrong approach. “We all receive a lot of email on a daily basis and it tends to have the same forceful structure and content,” he says; “Marketers tend to still use email marketing to shout or preach to their audience, rather than trying to engage with them on a more targeted level.”

In order to create value for subscribers, he says, marketers need to tell them something they want to hear. “This is done by segmenting your lists, driving targeted content, and ensuring you are always getting feedback from your clients.”

In line with this, Malamoglou cautions against emailing too often and rather only speaking when there is something to be said.

Looking good

Romano described marketing mails as a shop window and stated that layout is central to subscriber follow-through. For this, heat mapping becomes an extremely useful tool for analysing where clients focus their attention and ensuring they don’t get distracted or lost on the page after opening the mail. The call to action needs to be prominent and it’s advisable to use many hyperlinks, including on logos. She warned against too many images, however, since if the recipient’s mail options are not set to download pictures in messages automatically, the mail will be dominated by blank spaces and Xs.

Malamoglou states that too much content in a mail is distracting. It’s better to use the bare minimum to entice subscribers and one solid call to action.

The POPI impact

Romano expressed some concern when many marketers in the audience did not raise their hands after she asked how many were familiar with the POPI Act’s requirements. She said it was important that they educate themselves to ensure their businesses were compliant.

Malamoglou, however, isn’t too concerned about the Act’s impact for email marketing in South Africa. “From what we have seen, any email marketers that are acquiring subscribers’ details unethically are already doing more damage than good for their brands. The only way you can fully benefit from the power of email marketing is if you have received consent (opt-in) from your subscribers,” he says; “I don’t believe it’s really a game changer, as in our experience, email marketing without consent has always failed.”

Dawie Hanekom, marketing director of Email Marketing Solutions, also expresses a lack of concern. “Opt-in email data has been mandatory since the electronic communications bill was passed,” he says, “There will be no major change from an email-marketing perspective. As long as no sensitive information is stored without being encrypted.” He concludes, “The POPI act just reinforces what is already law."

Do you agree that email can still be an effective channel for marketing? Tell us in the comments below.