Category Archives: Multi-Channel Marketing

2012 Email Evolution Conference: Email Isn’t Dead; It’s Just Evolving

The conference kicked off its Thursday session with a substantive and thought-provoking keynote from Jessica Harley, VP of Customer Marketing at Gilt Groupe. While her presentation touched on many aspects of Gilt’s email marketing efforts, the most notable theme was that we — as marketers generally and email marketers specifically — can’t think about email marketing in a vacuum. In that email marketing vacuum, response rates appear to be declining and social seems to be gaining precedence. But outside that vacuum, email continues to play a vital role in driving engagement and conversions.

Expanding outside the vacuum enables email marketers to recognize that conversions and email’s impact may be felt in ways that aren’t captured by traditional measures. In Harley’s experience at Gilt, customers may look at emails on a mobile device but then convert indirectly on the same day via the web or via an App. In this scenario, the email is the trigger to go to those transactional channels. Therefore, we need to evaluate email performance not always on an immediate basis — how many viewers or clickers did the email drive in the first day or two — but with a longer term view. And if we think of emails as doing more than driving a single transactional response, we need to extend our measurement, for example, whether a series of emails over time produce a more engaged, higher value customer population.

In EMI’s presentation with State Street, I expanded on this theme: consider thinking of email in the context of all the other response channels. Since our objective as marketers is to drive engagement and transactions, it’s important to remember that email is but one means to that end. For certain customers at certain points in the decision-making process, email might not be as effective a means as direct mail or calling.

The Challenge of Improving Wholesaler Performance

Suffice it to say, sales leaders in the asset management, insurance, and retirement industries are under un-relenting pressure to enhance wholesaler performance.  Brands that want to win the trust of their channels and be perceived as a valuable, priority relationship, must deploy effective Intermediary Relationship Marketing (IRM).  Today, many brands deploy a version of IRM, most of which neither generate trust or add value to their relationship with their important intermediary partners.

What is Effective IRM?

In the context of the asset management, retirement, and insurance industry, IRM creates leverage and scale for distribution platforms targeting intermediaries and distributors. An IRM initiative augments the productivity of internal and external wholesalers through a pragmatically developed plan of systematic and integrated marketing activities. These activities:

  • Create a compelling, consistent and coherent narrative with target channels
  • Generate new qualified leads
  • Keep target channels engaged with your brand and products
  • Pave the way for more effective wholesaler interactions.

Instead of focusing on a single campaign, or a series of disconnected interactions, effective IRM initiatives plan and deploy integrated inbound and outbound communication streams — guided by the stage of your brand’s relationship with the channel, individual level data (e.g., behavioral, self-reported, firmographic), and your brand’s narrative. These communication streams increase the probability that your products and brand are selected by your target intermediaries and distributors. IRM builds mindshare, reinforces the value of the relationship with your brand, fosters trust, and provides your wholesalers with richer and timelier intelligence. IRM must also integrate seamlessly with existing sales force automation and CRM tools.

Spray & Pray: There’s A better Way

Most advisors express frustration with the volume and the frequency of promotional communications from investment product and insurance manufacturers. Research conducted by EMI and real client experience confirms this, with emails being especially high on the list. At a recent roundtable I attended, many advisors said: “we’re done with email”. Why? Because most of the communications they receive are difficult to process and deliver questionable value to their practice. So what’s a manufacturer to do?
Despite frustrations with the volume and quality of communications, advisors readily admit that they do read communications deployed by the brands they trust and value. These brands plan and manage communication streams with valuable content, use easy to process copy standards, and create a consistent narrative that demonstrate respect and thoughtfulness. These brands have earned the attention of the advisor and are therefore opened and read before the others (assuming the others are read, which is unlikely given the ease of deleting or navigating away in digital media).

So what’s a manufacturer to do? Build a systematic relationship marketing program that demonstrates respect and delivers real value. Perhaps we can call that SRM.