Chad White is the Head of Research for Oracle Marketing Consulting and the author of “Email Marketing Rules”.
It remains the Rodney Dangerfield of marketing channels. Taken for granted as a low-cost tool. Often underfunded. Given minimal resources. And certainly, treated with little respect, especially relative to other, more glamorous channels, like TV advertising, or even social media. Yet, amongst all digital channels, email marketing still rules.
Most marketers today cite email marketing as their preferred channel – ahead of organic search, paid search, content marketing and social media. In a recent study by the Association of National Advertisers, it ranked as the top campaign channel. And more than half of marketers are planning to increase email usage over the next year.
Email marketing has stood the test of time. And no wonder. It is affordable. It is customizable. It is measurable. It is extremely effective, done right. It is the best way to engage customers, whose opt-in permission has been secured. And the ROI is unbeatable: for every $1 spent, it generates a return of $36.
So why so little respect?
It may have something to do with its antecedents. Email’s use as a commercial messaging platform only became common in the mid-1990s when people started to get their own personal email address through their ISP provider. But it really took off in 1996 when free web-based email services like Hotmail led to hyper-growth in the addressable audience. We all know what happened next: inboxes were soon flooded with unsolicited offers. As complaints about “spam” reached a shrill pitch, regulators and mailbox providers were forced into action. Unwanted emails were blocked out by “junk mail” filters – bad actors were blacklisted – the term “permission marketing” came into vogue – and eventually governments responded by ushering in consumer protection legislation like CAN-SPAM in the U.S. and CASL in Canada which made opt-in consent mandatory.
That early “batch and blast” era left email marketing with a tarnished reputation. Recognizing the threat to deliverability and the risk of being exiled to the “spam folder”, mainstream marketers responded by improving email protocols and practices. Today email is used extensively to facilitate transactions; promote special offers and new products; inform customers of news and events; and drive brand engagement. Advancements in technology have made it easier for marketers to create more interactive “in-box” experiences. And with readier access to all kinds of customer data, marketers are able to offer more personalized, relevant and contextual content.
In fact, email marketing may soon emerge from under the shadow of other digital channels to take the lead in steering the customer journey. But first marketers have to stop thinking of email as an independent channel. They need to design more integrated workflows based on subscriber interactions. And they need to overcome new constraints, such as Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection which makes it harder to know whether messages are actually being opened. Still, email marketing has faced many other dire predictions in the past and survived (Remember when Facebook Messenger was going to be the ultimate email killer? Slack?) Which is why Chad White is more bullish about it’s future than ever. A recognized expert on email marketing trends and practices, he’s served as lead researcher for many of the world’s largest email service providers, including ExactTarget, SalesForce, Responsys and now Oracle. His book, “Email Marketing Rules” is now in its 3rd edition. And several years ago he was named the Email Experience Council’s Thought Leader of the Year. So Chad White has a strong historical perspective on the evolution of email marketing and a deep appreciation for its versatility and resilience as a marketing tool.
I started by asking him what makes him so passionate about email marketing.
Chad White: So, I mean, you’re right, I’m a journalist at heart. You know, I have a master’s in journalism. And I think, like a lot of journalists, like, I’m attracted to change. And e-mail marketing is one of these fields that, despite, like, some naysayers that say it hasn’t changed much, it’s changed dramatically. I mean, during just the 15-plus years that I’ve been in this field, there’s just been tremendous change. And that’s the thing that keeps me, like, in love with e-mail marketing, is this constant change and this constant reinvention and the constant need to adapt strategies. And, you know, that’s on top of just the changes in consumers, which is enough to keep anybody busy, really. But there’s been tons of technological change, tons of sort of cross-channel interaction changes, and then changes within, like, e-mail itself, both on the mailbox provider side and on the ESP side.
So, there is no shortage of change. You know, I sometimes hear some of my peers, like, you know, kind of, you know, who also do, like, a lot of writing like I do, like, kind of fretting about, you know, “How am I going to find new ideas for things to write about?” And I occasionally have, like, kind of dry spots where I wring my hands a little bit, but for the most part I feel like there’s, like, a really steady flow of things to talk about. And, you know, last year I had all of these plans for things to look into, and then Apple comes along with Mail Privacy Protection. And that essentially, you know, has taken up…like, it destroyed my content plans for the rest of the year. And, you know, we turned and pivoted and talked about MPP for, like, pretty much the rest of the year, and we’re still talking about it now.
And… you know, and again, for me, like, that’s the exciting part, is the change and the need to, like, critically re-examine what are we doing, why are we doing it, you know, is there a better way, you know, what are the options, what are the pros and cons. I like to think I have a fairly analytical mind for, like, sort of breaking down, all right, what are all the different paths you can choose. And as much as my book sounds like it’s, like, dictating what people should do, it’s hopefully more about laying out what are the choices that you have ahead of you, what are the different directions you can go.
Stephen Shaw: Well, it’s almost become a Bible of the industry, too. It’s a really good go-to reference source for e-mail marketers, whether you’re new to the field or, you know, a veteran, although that… Well, let’s talk about this a little bit, the legacy of e-mail marketing. You know, in some respects, it’s the Rodney Dangerfield of marketing, it doesn’t get a whole lot of respect. But it’s certainly been a workhorse for most marketers, it’s certainly endured over time. Yet today, you know, people largely communicate through text messaging if they really want to talk to their friends and family. What accounts for e-mail’s, you know, continued utility and popularity?