The Name of the Game is “Cadence”

Marketing is an activity which serves revenue. There are no two ways about it. Yet, it is the way marketing activities are positioned and even how the “what” of marketing activities are carried out that evidently, matters most.

I was reading an article on mediapost.com by Ryan Deutsch entitled ‘It's the Customer Experience, Stupid!’ and have to note that his entire 'on the ground' experience with ABT Electronics conveniently conveyed the right kind of metrics to truly understand what consumer experiences are all about and how it relates to a marketing activity, especially online.  

It wasn’t the succinct visualization he managed to capture when he spoke of how mild mannered and conforming ABT employees were while he was there, or even how the CFO took the time to assist with his purchase, it was the impression he felt as he walked out of that store and what he said after, which goes something like this “In addition to my loyalty, thanks to the wonder of the social web, I took the time to write this blog talking about my experience at their store.”

Email marketing has a knack for creating repeat business. This is very true, especially if you are trying to compare a variety of advertising channels, but, this must always be supplemented by the reality of the frame you try to convey to others.  

Many, if not most, small sized email marketing campaigns fail because of this. You have an excellent marketing strategy, everything works great and people are clicking. Click-thru rates turn into actual sales and everyone is pretty darned pleased with themselves.

This is precisely where the pin drops.

A good campaign, regardless of what tools you use, needs to have the fundamentals in place.

If email marketing works because of the below:

• It allows targeting
• It is data driven
• It drives direct sales
• It builds relationships, loyalty and trust
• It supports sales through other channels

On the ground sales and support must and I mean MUST have the same agenda in place.If one part fails the other will too, and if one part succeeds and the other does not, the same results will appear.

The alienation of departments, a pretty relevant norm, becomes a singular inaction that has an impact on any other initiative. If you enter a store, you expect to be treated with respect and dignity, and unless you know everything about the product in mind, you expect to be clued in on all aspects before making a purchase. What happens when the sales rep is an absolute horror? You never return.

Same thing goes for emails. Email marketing is bent on giving consumers value. Emails are shaped to be personal. Combining the both is supposed to offer a pristine example of what “we are like” before you actually come to any of our stores or call any of our call centres.

Here’s the difference between email marketing by BIG organizations as opposed to small organizations. Big organizations usually treat every stage of the consumer engagement cycle with care, often, segmenting stages and outsourcing to multiple agencies. Small companies on the other hand, curl up at the idea of reduced marketing expenditures but that can sometimes leave them vulnerable to exhaustive process cycles in the long run. And what happens to the consumer? 

That’s the rhetorical email marketing play that many overlook sometimes.

If you do it right, and employ some cadence along the way, the chances of your email marketing messages changing from a consumer's view as simple bulk marketing or worse off, spam to personalised email messages rises.

On another note, I’ve been trying my hand at InterECM. It’s a handy all rounder type of email marketing software that can be utilized for a variety of campaigns. It has all the necessary scheduling features and even provides graphical in-depth reports of your campaign.

Don’t take my word for it. Try it online for free and blast out messages to your loved ones or mates, even if its just to tell them about next Sunday’s ball game.