Truth 49. The future of email marketing

From reading this book, you've likely gathered that email remains the workhorse of interactive marketing, and I predict it will be given more attention and credit in the years to come. Here are my parting thoughts on the future of email marketing and what we will see down the road.

Email and search marketing will continue to be the nuts and bolts of any interactive marketing campaign. Without proper usage of these targeted and measurable platforms, online goods and services don't stand a chance of competing against hungrier and savvier players. Expect budgets to increase to reflect this continued reliance on email for sales and marketing.

Email's ROI brings rewards

As marketers dive deeper into analytics and segmenting and attempt to get more out of email, we will see email program managers get increased budgets, respect, and hopefully bigger titles or raises. I also predict that email teams will grow in size and stature. Large companies, Fortune 500 companies especially, won't be able to successfully manage sophisticated email programs with a team of one to three people like I often find.

Asset check

I think most marketing teams don't realize what a company asset they have in their opt-in email subscriber lists. Retailer's catalog and direct marketing teams view their lists as valuable business resources with financial implications tied to it, and they are generally not filled with people who have granted permission to contact them. Treat your email program like its own business, and start with valuing your inventory—your email subscriber basis. Your own email program may be worth more than you thought.

Don't get me wrong. Of course, I am not even remotely suggesting that you rent or sell these assets, but in building value, goals, and benchmarks for your team, start placing a real monetary value on those email opt-ins.

The hand-off

Email creative will finally be handed off to in-house designers experienced in crafting effective emails or email specialty firms rather than design generalists or interactive firms with no desire or strong experience in email. What works on a flash or microsite doesn't work in email. Marketers will make better decisions about outsourcing portions of their email program when internal expertise or resources don't exist.

Bye bye, batch and blast

Finally, the future will see the true end of marketers batching and blasting out emails. As email becomes more pervasive, most permission email marketers (beyond mom and pops) will have no excuses for not using (or at least attempting) A-B list splits and moving away from 12 monthly newsletters to the same list, every time. Whether you are paying $20 a month or $20,000, the opportunities exist equally for moving to more progressive and savvy campaigns that deliver unique value to the inbox.

Integration abounds

Marketers have made progress in integration, but it's about time that email and all forms of marketing become more integrated. In the future, email will be integrated more heavily with other direct marketing channels—for example, you might click on an email and get a phone call from a sales team, or consumers may get a direct mail piece that drives them to a landing page where they'll receive a special offer in exchange for subscribing.

It is also my hope that traditional advertising will finally wake up and notice that it is effective and smart to drive traffic not just to websites, but to email preference centers.

Going mobile?

Mobile email campaigns will grow in popularity and shouldn't be ignored as a strategy, so figure out where you fit in on the mobile front. Mobile comes up more and more in discussions, but I have yet to see many traditional email marketers embrace mobile. I think that is going to change in the coming years, though. I expect that more marketers will start testing the waters to determine the effectiveness of mobile and its place in overall strategy.

What about RSS?

RSS remains strong in delivering news and content to a dedicated and advanced audience. It will continue to be a low-profile sidekick to email and a strong platform for the right audience. I don't see RSS becoming the phenomenon that social networking and blogging are, but existing users will continue to embrace it, while a small percentage of newbies will find their way to RSS feeds for the first time.

Video and audio

Not common today because of filtering, video- and audio-enabled email will slowly but surely find themselves in the inbox on a more frequent basis. There is a great demand for this, but the technology has not caught up yet with the deliverability challenges.

Relationships versus direct response

More attention will be focused on relationship-building email with cross promotions, rather than direct response emails only, to help overcome deliverability challenges and more fully exploit the advantages of email.

Get dirty with details

Interactive teams will be forced to be pay more attention to the details of their email marketing program. The quality bar rises all the time, both in terms of competition from other emails, delivery challenges, and other marketing vehicles. Those who rest on their laurels will get overtaken and left behind.

In the end

Despite the latest, greatest thing in the online space, chief interactive officers will not forget email marketing and the three Rs it drives: retention, relationships, and revenue. As we move forward to the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead, I predict that the truth about email marketing will be known to more people, not just those of us who live and breathe it.