AirwaysExpress

Marketers are moving more budgets to email marketing.

Contributed by Joel Book, ExactTarget

Two recent studies provide compelling evidence that marketers are turning to digital marketing – and specifically email marketing – to improve marketing effectiveness.

According to the “2009 ANA/MMA Marketing Accountability Survey” from the Association of National Advertisers and Marketing Management Analytics, “The No. 1 strategy for marketers who wanted to improve effectiveness without spending more, according to the June 2009 poll, was shifting from traditional to digital media. More than one-half of respondents also reported shifting spending away from brand-building initiatives, and 38% were putting more spending into lower-cost media.”  VIEW ENTIRE ARTICLE

What Is the Future of Email?

Provided by eMarketer
An old digital format still has plenty of life left.
Compared with today's virtual worlds, e-mail is solidly Web 1.0—an almost archaic communication channel.

Yet e-mail works, and marketers and advertisers keep putting it to new uses. Moreover, consumers—whose opinions are the ones that matter—genuinely like e-mail. Nearly three-quarters of adult e-mail users in North America said they used it every day, according to an April survey conducted by Ipsos for Habeas.

Two-thirds of adult respondents said they preferred e-mail for communicating with businesses. Just as many—and this is the important part—said they expected to still prefer e-mail five years from now.

"Far from being eclipsed by Web 2.0 and other emerging communications methods, consumer expectations suggest that e-mail will be the workhorse channel around which future online communications will revolve," said Des Cahill, CEO of Habeas, in a statement.

That is not to say that consumers are ready for random, untargeted e-mail. Opt-in is still key. Consumers are even willing to help marketers custom-tailor their messages. More than 88% of respondents said they would like more choices in e-mail content and frequency, including options on advertisements and special offers.

So if e-mail is set to remain a consumer favorite for the next several years, that must mean e-mail ad spending will grow during that time, right?

Yes and no.

eMarketer predicts that e-mail ad spending in the US will hit $492 million this year, then increase by 55% to $765 million by 2012.

Accelerate revenue by accelerating trust.

AirwaysExpress is a digital marketing agency with offices in Denver and Los Angeles.

Let's face it, your marketing firm is only as good as the people who work on your campaign. Airways has assembled teams of experienced marketing, creative and technical professionals representing the most relevant experience today.

By focusing on accelerating trust, we improve your sales tactics and conversion rates. We integrate brand strategy with emerging Internet, Social Media and PR tactics. Then a funny thing happens: the community we create shortens your sales cycle and increases your revenue.

Our teams design, execute and manage high performance marketing solutions serving many vertical markets. We create maximum customer value from our client's marketing investment. No juniors here.
Email Me: Richard Allen

Growing Your Email Database

By Leslie Gabriel, Design Director, AirwaysExpress

Think about the frame of mind of a person reading e-mail offers. They may not know your company or your products very well, so inviting them to "buy now" is too high a bar for consideration. You'll get poor results. However, an offer to sign up for a relevant e-mail file is a great way to capture them inexpensively and start to market to them via e-mail. It's an easy commitment to make, and e-mail is great for building relationships over time.

Test different benefit statements, too. See if "free stuff" generates more conversions than "monthly tips and ideas from the field." Be sure to match the actual content with the offer.

There are a couple of ways to think about optimizing your "organic" capture on the Web site. Consider that your home page might not be the primary front page, so be sure to optimize your offer on all search landing pages and all product pages. Customize the offer based on the content of the page.

Online Advertising Still Growing Strong.

Good news! A pair of new reports indicate that online advertising continued to grow in the first quarter of 2006. According to new Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance tracking data, marketers bought 185 billion display ad impressions in the month of March. That is nearly twice as many as the 97 billion that were bought in March 2005 and 31% more than February's 141 billion.

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Blogs are Evolving.

Blogs are evolving quickly as a communication medium and influencing the development of communications and marketing strategy. With more than 27 million blogs being written today, it is impossible not to find a niche community that can influence customer perceptions of a brand. As customers increasingly tune out traditional advertising and turn to new communication channels to fill the void, companies must learn how to join in the conversation. Moreover, besides connecting companies and their customers, blogs are also becoming an invaluable collaboration tool within companies to facilitate knowledge management and cross-functional communications