By Ken Magill with Dela Quist
So once the email team shows management that email is driving vastly more sales than for which it gets credit, what should they do with that information?
In parts one and two of this series, we covered how last-click attribution fails to give email proper credit for the sales it drives, why it’s important to make the effort to give it proper credit and a simple way to do it. So what’s next? Well, for one thing the email team starts by lobbying to send more email. And they should lobby for more resources to do it. It’s a fairly straightforward proposition and shouldn’t be controversial in a rational environment.
A simple review of daily sales figures has just shown that on days during which the company sends a lot of email, there is a significant boost in sales across all channels that can’t be accounted for any other way than email’s so-called halo effect. Since everyone in the organization presumably leaves their warm bed in the morning to make as much money as possible, the next move is simple, at least in concept: Make every day a high-volume email day.
Once it has been demonstrated that high-volume email days drive significantly more sales across all channels, there is no rational argument for low-volume email days. Some people may unsubscribe because of the increased email volume, but the resulting increased sales will more than make up for them. And in the highly unlikely case they don’t, email can always be dialed back. Sales missed from hesitating to implement more high-volume email days cannot be made up. Once they’re missed, they’re missed. And while implementing more high-volume email days is a simple concept to justify, it’s not as simple to pull off as just sending out more of the same messaging. The trick is implementing more high-volume email days in a well-thought-out manner using the proper resources.
Think of it this way: When an organization rolls out a massive national television advertising campaign, it doesn’t just deliver the same message repeatedly. Think: Geico, or even that weird Lincoln automobile campaign last year with Matthew McConaughey. The TV spots in those two examples are a series of different messages designed to support one another as part of the larger campaigns’ overall messaging. Although it’s not clear what Lincoln’s message was with the McConaughey campaign. Significantly ramping up email is no different.
A smart marketer would never consider alienating their audience by tripling or quadrupling their organization’s email volume without upgrading and increasing email resources. A significant email ramp up most likely will require investing in better analytics tools, maybe even investing in a new CRM system and possibly switching to a more advanced email service provider. The email team will probably need to be expanded to meet the increased creative-and-production requirements. The email team will also need to be involved in strategy-and-tactics discussions on an ongoing basis and at a high level rather than directed to send campaigns on short notice as an afterthought.
Email should be viewed as a pillar of any ongoing sales-and-marketing drive aimed at customers and treated as such. Most importantly, there must be C-level buy in. But once the email team irrefutably demonstrates their channel’s halo effect, if there is no C-level buy in to a significant email ramp up, then it’s probably time for email team members to look elsewhere for employment.
