Report highlights wastage in email marketing

Emphasising the strategic importance to marketers of the findings, Brian Mdluli from the DMA said, "At a time when marketing budgets have been slashed to the bone, it is unforgivable that any amount of marketing spend is unaccounted for."

According to Cordell Brewer, director of TouchBasePro, "It is open to question whether each email marketing Rand is working as hard for South African companies as it could. This is regrettable because the problem is relatively easy to fix through responsible email and Internet practices."

He explained that the biggest cause of the non-delivery of email marketing messages is a poor domain name reputation that causes the emails of companies flouting best practice to be filtered before they reach recipients. Digital sender reputation is based on the mailing practices of the sender and feedback from the mail recipients. Sender reputation has superseded content filtering as the biggest factor that determines whether a message gets through ISPs' filters to the recipient.

Statistics for the US, Europe and Asia regions from Return Path's 'Global Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, 2H 2009' show that between 14% and 20% of email marketing messages never make it to the intended inbox.

"There is every reason to believe that these international trends hold true in South Africa as well, meaning that millions of Rand are wasted on non-delivered messages each year," said Brewer.

Email deliverability is one of the key questions marketers should be looking at in a world where return on marketing investment (ROI) matters more than ever before.

Email marketing grows

Brewer pointed out that email marketing is steadily growing in importance as an engagement driver for South Africa's direct marketing industry. According to the DMA's most recent survey, email marketing accounts for 3.34% of direct marketing budgets.

"This relatively low contribution to direct marketing spend is partially due to the low cost of email marketing. When marketing budgets are tight, low costs are good," he added. "But are still too many companies whose email strategy is characterised by high frequency, low value and lack of segmentation. This approach often leads to poor ROI and deliverability."

Many email marketers in South Africa have been lax about adopting best practices for email marketing because of the country's relatively relaxed direct and electronic marketing laws. But this picture is changing rapidly and marketers need to prepare for a swarm of new laws and regulations.

But even so, many top brands are not following the best practices that will safeguard their sender reputations. A company can achieve a good reputation by selecting a credible technology partner that can help it to navigate the email marketing environment.

Best practice

By following best practices like welcome messages, and efficient opt-out procedures, appropriate permission levels as well as avoiding spam-like behaviour (unwanted or unsolicited commercial mailing), companies can safeguard their reputations and enhance deliverability of their mails.

"Quality email marketing is about owning a direct communication channel that subscribers trust so much that it can influence their buying decisions. To get and keep subscribers on a mailing list, email marketing must provide value to its recipients on a regular basis and ensure that it remains aligned with sound marketing practices," he concluded.

Read the Bulk Email Deliverability Report South Africa 2011