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Email marketing faces a host of internal and external challenges today, but two stand out in particular:
* Externally, marketers are finding it harder than ever to get their messages delivered to the inbox.
* Internally, they face the challenge of keeping email top of mind with the executive suite and understanding which metrics accurately measure their email program's performance.

The panel of email experts we assembled for this series offer good insights to help you meet both of these challenges. That's the good news.

The challenge for you as a marketer is this: Are you ready to change the way you do email now and to do the work that's required to help your email program reach its potential?

On our panel:

* Ken Magill, who writes the weekly Magilla Marketing column for DIRECT magazine
* Stefan Tornquist, who is the Research Director for MarketingSherpa
* Bill McCloskey, who is Chairman of Email Data Source, an email research firm specializing in marketing


First up in the rotation, our experts weigh in on the number one issue marketers cite with email:

1. CAN-SPAM and the ISPs are not the enemy. Know what they require and what your subscribers expect, and respect them, and you will see better deliverability.

Stefan Tornquist: "I'm concerned about the timing of this economic downturn and its impact on email marketing.

"You're going to have more people looking to get more bang for their buck, and email has always been a fairly reliable way for getting a lot of bang for the buck. I worry that we are going to see this need drive more irresponsibility about it.

"The spam button is something a lot of email marketers object to, but it's a positive thing, too. It creates a feedback loop for the first time. And it's a direct judgment on your email, which is something you should be paying attention to.

"If you do what you're supposed to do, if you do not over mail, offend or bore your subscribers, it should all have a positive effect on your delivery."

Ken Magill: "Marketers need to stop thinking in terms of tonnage and start segmenting messages, to start communicating with people the way they want to be communicated with. More marketers need to embrace behavioral targeting....


"I'm one of the few defenders of CAN-SPAM. I'm not saying we need to outlaw this and that, but these are the hardcore spammers. CAN-SPAM is the most enforced law in the world. We've seen over 100 enforcement actions so far.

"However, you can't just pass a law. You have to set baseline legislation and let the technologists and the market do their work. And that is what we are seeing. That's the reality."

The takeaway: The key to getting more email into your subscribers' inboxes is in your hands. It's not someone else's fault if your deliverability is low.

Review what you're sending and how you do it so that you don't violate subscriber expectations or ISP rules.

2. Email is the Rodney Dangerfield of marketing channels, seeking and not always getting the respect it deserves for its low cost and high ROI.

Ken Magill: "Email is still at a fairly low level (within the corporate structure) and does not get a lot of respect in organizations that are not dotcom-driven.

"Email is often managed by fairly junior staffers. As they grow up, they move on to be vice president of e-commerce or something, and someone else comes in to run (email marketing). This constant churn of new folks in the industry has hurt (email marketing)."

Bill McCloskey: "Email doesn't sound as hip and young and exciting as mobile and social networking, but it's clear to me that social networking and email are tightly connected. However, people don't look at email as a social-networking platform.

"To a certain degree, email is just the thing that has always worked, and it's expected that it will bring in X amount of revenue like it always has. However, the batch-and-blast mentality is reaching its limit.

"Dynamic delivery of content, personalization and segmenting your lists, all of those things people have been preaching all these years, they all work, and all you have to do is implement them.

"The problem I see is that large companies are not putting the investment in. You have to stress to your bosses that investment in email marketing pays for itself many times over."

The takeaway: As with deliverability, keeping email top of mind with the executive suite doesn't happen by itself. Find the numbers that show how much email helps your company meet its objectives.

3. The open rate alone is no longer a good measure of subscriber interest.

Ken Magill: "I think marketers are still measuring the wrong things, maybe because they've moved over from other marketing channels and are using the metrics that were important there to measure email results.

"Guys, you need to start measuring the lifetime value of customers."

Stefan Tornquist: "Measurement is good; it's vital, but the curse of measurement is being able to measure only so many things accurately.

"If you're going with your gut, you will make mistakes, but if you have incomplete measurements, you will make mistakes with the numbers.

"People are still looking at open rates, and they shouldn't, because open rates have dropped dramatically. However, the other metrics haven't dropped apace.

"The open rate is a relative metric and can get thrown off by so many factors, such as people not downloading images automatically when they open the email, or viewing only part of the email in the preview pane.

"It all depends on people's viewing patterns. I read all sorts of things and none of it shows up in images."

The takeaway: Look for metrics that measure your business goals, such as a clickthrough rate or conversion rate. The open rate works best as a comparative metric to find out which issues resonate best with your readers.