E-mail Marketing: Forrester Says It Will Double in 5 Years - Advertising Age - News. In its latest study, Forrester Research projects that consumers will receive more than 9,000 e-mail marketing messages a year by 2014. That translates to about 25 messages a day, double the average of 10 to 12 people deal with today. According to the study, spending on e-mail marketing will hit $2 billion in five years, nearly double the projected 2009 spending of $1.2 billion. E-mail is cheaper, faster and easier to measure than traditional creative advertising. But that doesn't make it perfect. The report, which surveyed 286 e-mail marketers in the U.S. and 3,730 U.S. online consumers, also predicts marketers will waste $144 million on e-messages that never reach their primary targets because of poor list hygiene and mailing practices, as well as overzealous ISPs that group good messages with spam.
Well...yikes! When I think about how often librarians email their students, faculty, general public, I almost shudder when I picture our outreach getting lost in the masses of other marketing messages going to these same people. If ever there was a time to begin thinking strategically about our marketing communications (and yes, outreach is a form of marketing), then now is that time, before our patrons get even more saturated with and tired of email. If nothing else, we need to ask ourselves:
- What is there about this message that is best served by email?
- How can I make my point clearly and quickly?
- How I can make sure that the patron will OPEN this email?
- Why should my patron WANT to open this email?
- Will the patron's opinion about me be favorable after I send this email (in other words, am I about to become spam to this person)?
I think that unless we can answer these questions, the email should remain unsent.
Comments