[Industry Perspective]

  The battle for your inbox and eyeballs

Author:
Patrick Heske
Issued:
11 May 2006

Technology-enabled integrated marketing presents new and growing opportunities, but face many hindrances. Spam and onerous legislation are part of it.

E-MAIL MARKETING, much like SMS marketing, is viewed by many as a double-edged sword. While the medium can be incredibly powerful to grow business, the battle for eyeballs is becoming increasingly complicated as inboxes clog up with unread e-mail, and tough laws govern unsolicited mailing in South Africa's cyberspace.

Ashley Ellington

E-mailing in large amounts could very well see you reported and listed on Spam and the Open Relay Blocking System (SORBS), which provides updates to anti-spam software products such as MailMarshal, to protect organisations from spam attacks. Internet Solutions, for example, uses this software, which hosts the majority of South Africa's corporate businesses.

At the same time, phishing scams are on the up and fraudsters are becoming increasingly sophisticated to scam unsuspecting customers out of money. The last thing any business would want is to incur losses, adding to the obstacles in the way of an integrated marketing campaign.

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYEBALL

While e-mail marketing seems like a pretty straightforward affair, it has become far more complicated than just sending e-mails with interesting headlines to current and prospective customers.

ECT Act on unsolicited mail

Section 45 states that: (1) Any person who sends unsolicited commercial communications to consumers must provide the consumer: (a) with the option to cancel his or her subscription to the mailing list of that person; and (b) with the identifying particulars of the source from which that person obtained the consumer's personal information, on request of the consumer. (2) No agreement is concluded where a consumer has failed to respond to an unsolicited communication. (3) Any person who fails to comply with or contravenes subsection (1) is guilty of an offence and liable, on conviction, to the penalties prescribed in section 89(1). (4) Any person who sends unsolicited commercial communications to a person who has advised the sender that such communications are unwelcome, is guilty of an offence and liable, on conviction, to the penalties prescribed in section 89(1). Note: Penalties are described elsewhere in this article.

There are numerous companies offering bulk messaging services, as well as software extensions to existing CRM packages that make e-mail marketing possible. Can South African businesses use these tools as an effective marketing channel?

"Marketing new or existing services to your existing customers is the way to go, with an opt-out option for business campaigns to avoid a bad impression and possible legal implications," says ICT law expert Reinhardt Buys, from Buys Inc.

"If companies do not offer an opt-out solution [for recipients to unsubscribe, for example] companies could face some hefty fines or up to a two-year jail term," says Buys.

Ashley Ellington, director at Softline Enterprise, says businesses must use information about a specific customer already held on their systems to build a message that he or she is likely to respond to.

"The greatest capability of e-mail marketing technology is segmentation and personalisation, which is ironically the most under-utilised tool. It is vital to be aware of the available technology, which will make the difference between a successful marketing campaign and getting left behind in the inbox."

Softline's Saleslogix Communicator is a Web-based application that allows businesses to create, manage and measure permission-based marketing campaigns, newsletters and surveys.

Ellington says the key is to monitor customer activity on a newsletter, for example, and information such as clicks and time spent on a page can be traced and written back to the contact record of application for further analysis or secondary campaigns. "The product also provides real-time reports to measure effectiveness, as well as bounce-backs and delivery failures," he says.

According to a recent international study by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), e-mail marketing's cost-effectiveness and impact are continuing to grow since it took ground in 2002 as a viable marketing tool. The report states that list techniques to improve response, such as subject line testing (41%), personalisation (40%) and prior mail history analysis (34%), are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Another survey conducted by the Chartered Institute of Marketing says 8% of marketing budgets is swallowed up by e-mail marketing.

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