Email Is Dead! Long Live Email!

How Email Marketing Helps Build Relationships and Increase Sales

Many social media gurus claim that email has had its day and it is now time to move over and let social media have the spotlight.

Let’s get right to it: Email is far from dead. If anything, it has proven more relevant and valuable to those in marketing and sales trying to establish and nurture a customer relationship. If you are in sales, you may have noticed nine out of ten calls go straight to voicemail.

MarketingSherpa -- possibly the best known brand for marketing research and email  -- has just released their 2011 Email Benchmark Report that disputes email marketing is dead. The executive summary alone is worth the visit.

Among the key findings from MarketingSherpa: The most significant challenge marketers face with email is not spam, or subject line length, or time of day to email, but creating highly relevant content in both the B2C (business to consumer) and B2B (business to business) channels. The most effective content strategy is segmenting email campaigns based on behavior. Over 65% stated that highly relevant content is the key to success and it is the greatest challenge to find and create that content.





Click to view and
download the excerpt



According to the report, “Today, 78% rate the use of email to “increase sales revenue” very important.” However, it is important to note that revenue isn’t the only goal: 90% stated that email is effective or somewhat effective for increasing website traffic and building brand awareness.

The report also states, “Email isn’t limited to top line objectives. The objective rated as very important second most often is improving customer relations/retention. Email is the communications channel of choice for customers and prospects who wish to be kept informed.” Despite the growth in social media, marketers are still spending on email marketing. The two marketing approaches work well together and will become further integrated over time.

 
 Mailchimp publishes great comparison and benchmark reports right on its blog and site. You can learn about rank by industry, by business size, how to segment your list, and comparing subject lines. The subject line research shows “best open rates” and “worst open rates.” Resources include:

● Email Marketing Benchmarks by Industry

● Email Marketing Benchmarks by Business Size

● Effects of List Segmentation on Email Marketing Stats

● Email Marketing Subject Line Comparison

Mailchimp gives you good home grown advice and candor in their research section. “So what's our advice for email subject lines? This is going to sound "stupid simple" to a lot of people, but here goes: Your subject line should (drum roll please): Describe the subject of your email. Yep, that's it.”

Social media is changing the landscape, that is certain. However, building a relationship, and a potential for a sale, is still the same. You have to nurture and grow a relationship. Email is still alive and kicking. It is the gardener you bring in to keep the yard landscape looking beautiful.

Sources:

1. TJ McCue (American Express Open | Forum), "How Email Marketing Helps Build Relationships and Increase Sales," March 31, 2011
2. MarketingSherpa, http://www.marketingsherpa.com/
3. MailChimps, http://www.mailchimp.com/resources/, http://www.mailchimp.com/resources/research/

Fonts as Fashion

More Than A Pretty Face

If fonts had feelings, this is how Carousel Medium would look. In its new poster series, Fontface, the Gijón, Spain, design firm Atipo created an interesting series of posters dedicated to four type designers.

For this great work they combined facial expressions and black-and-white make-up interpreting Caslon Italic, Clarendon Bold, Helvetica Bold and Carousel Medium.

Click image to enlarge

It was set up by Raúl García del Pomar and Ismael González in the beginning of 2010. After working in other graphic design, web design, and branding studios, the two partners wanted to start a more personal venture.

This new studio allows them to approach projects from different perspectives, freely combine all the disciplines they love, such as typography and type design, photography, illustration, video, and so on. Their project is a series of posters merging the expressiveness of manual gesture and type design in honor of the four outstanding typefaces.

Click image to enlarge

According to an interview with The FontFeed, “The series of posters features four typefaces designed by four outstanding designers. Through the combination of the expressiveness of manual gesture and type design, we made a brief journey through the history of typography.

"We started with an old style roman – the transitional face Caslon (William Caslon, 1725); passing via a slab serif – Clarendon (William Thorrowgood, 1845); a grotesque sans – Helvetica (Max Miedinger & Eduard Hoffmann, 1957); to a fat face didone – Carousel (Gary Gillot, 1966).

"We selected characters that show the main features of each typeface; and, most importantly, functioned well as a mask on the model’s face.”

“We believe that to create without limitations is only truly possible with a self-initiated project, and Fontface is one of them.

"This series of posters allowed us to bring together different disciplines we feel passionate about: typography, painting, photography, and video. Furthermore, we wanted to create a series of posters to decorate our studio.

"This turned out to be more successful than we expected, because we’ve had many reactions from people asking us where to get the posters. Now we are planning to sell them in a limited edition.”

Sources:
1. Atipo (http://www.atipo.es/)
2. Yves Peters, “Atipo Paints Characters on Face For Fontface,” The FontFeed, March 15, 2011
3. Design, "More than a Pretty Face, Time Magazine, April 11, 2011