Lifecycle email marketing 'proves valuable, yet out of reach' 

Friday, June 17 2011 by Kate Billinghurst

Lifecycle email marketing campaigns are widely recognised as more effective than alternatives, yet many businesses cannot afford to implement them.

Around three-quarters of global marketing executives have already or intend to introduce this element into their managed emarketing campaigns over the next two years, according to the latest StrongMail Lifecycle Email Marketing Survey.

Adoption has proved more prevalent across travel, hospitality, retail and technology industries. Perhaps surprisingly though, uptake has been weakest across the financial services sector.

The reasons businesses gave for not having adopted these campaigns were mixed, but ultimately underlined how ill-prepared some firms are for such a shift in strategy.

More than a third of those who are not yet running a lifecycle campaign cite lack of budget and resources, while a quarter (26 per cent) claim that they lack the tools and technology to integrate this advanced email marketing scheme into their existing marketing strategy.

Yet there are lots of good reasons why companies should seek to address these barriers, rather than accepting lifecycle email campaigns are not within their reach.

More than two-thirds of respondents that had switched to lifecycle campaigns reported improvements to customer engagement, while more than half were impressed by the improved campaign performance and customer retention and satisfaction rates.

Despite these obvious benefits, the number of businesses that have managed to implement automated, event-triggered campaigns still stands at less than half.

StrongMail vice president of products Scott Ollivier explained: "To stand out in the inbox, marketers must evolve and speed their adoption of lifecycle marketing programs.

"With the release of StrongMail's new drag-and-drop Lifecycle Marketing solution and corresponding strategic, creative and implementation services, StrongMail is making it easy for companies of all sizes to adopt this powerful technique."

In April, email marketing firms joined forces to address the growing problem of spam, which continues to blight the managed emarketing channel.

Living Streams "Improving clients' profitability through better use of the internet".

Source: http://www.sys-con.com/node/1871857