March 2004

Email: when will UK marketers get a grip?

According to a recent survey by the Chartered Institute of Marketing, 45% of marketers are unaware of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations Act which came into force last December. Of those that are aware of it, only a third of them have implemented any changes in their email marketing in order to comply with the new legislation.

Is it just me, or are these figures slightly worrying? The survey was a small sample, granted, but it was a survey of marketers - supposedly specialists in their field. It's not as if marketing by electronic means is something new-fangled. And the idea of permission has been knocking around for years.

Email response rates on the decline?

The results of this survey brought to mind another - the latest study by US direct marketing firm Harte-Hanks into business email response rates. Harte-Hanks report that as business email has multiplied, response rates have declined. Yet another symptom of spam overload, draconian filters or the novelty of email wearing off? Perhaps, but in the body of the report lie some interesting details.

For example, the report notes that the decline in response rate corresponds to a shift from marketing-based emails to sales messages. Between 2002 and 2003, the proportion of sales versus marketing emails went from half to three-quarters of the total. Not only that, but there was an increase in what Randy Wussler of Harte-Hanks described as 'poor offers'. So recipients were opening fewer emails, mainly because their expectations had been lowered.

The inclination to opt-in is still strong

Interestingly, the study also found that almost three-quarters of respondents were "very inclined to give permission to receive e-mail from marketers". So the declining response rate is not the sign of a blanket revolt against email overload. The majority of respondents in this survey actively opt-in to email lists - they want to receive email, when they've asked for it and for as long as it continues to deliver value, not deteriorate into a sales pitch.

Surely this is a warning for UK email marketers and would-be email marketers. We may not have yet reached the levels of email saturation seen in the US, but we certainly suffer from nuisance email. The ever-increasing numbers of off-shore spam and automaton virus-carrying emails are making recipients both weary and wary. Sometimes it's just a split second before we hit the 'delete' button.

Sloppy email marketing benefits nobody

If marketers want their legitimate email messages to be opened, read, and acted on then they must avoid at all costs the slide into endless sales pitches, lazy targeting and just-legal practices. We don't want to see a repeat of what has happened across the Atlantic, but that might be what happens if marketers don't take control of the medium before it deteriorates into the equivalent of a cheap flyer.

Email marketing at first can seem too good to be true; its very cheapness and ease of deployment makes it vulnerable to abuse.

And in many business situations, abused it has been. Email seems to be at the stage that websites were at about three years ago - technology-led and still a bit of mystery to many traditional marketers. In the wrong hands there’s the inherent danger of email developing badly, out of touch with marketing. By that I mean the 'pure' business of marketing - understanding and influencing people's attitudes and behaviours.

For as long as we focus on the mechanics - of delivery formats, open rates, click-throughs, conversions - we are only scratching the surface of email as a marketing tool. The evidence from surveys such as the Harte-Hanks study suggests that more qualitative research is needed. As marketers, we need to understand the potential role email can play in the complex relationship between people, brands and organisations.

But let's not get carried away. If most British marketers don't even know what 'opt-in' means, clearly we're still at the starting gate. Taking email legislation seriously is good for everyone's business health, but it's marketers who need to lead the way.


Resources:

Harte-Hanks

Marketers Sitting On A Legal Time Bomb According To New Research From CIM