Sandbox MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA Issue 72 | 31st October 2012 Email RIP: is inbox marketing heading for the trash? INSIDE… Lead Emails used to be like gold PAGEs 1 - 5: dust – a direct link and Email RIP >> marketing channel to fans. Campaigns The rise of Facebook and PAGEs 6 & 7: Twitter has seriously dented The latest projects from the its power of immediacy digital marketing arena >> and the fact users can give Tools secondary email addresses PAGE 8: is negatively affecting its Facebook targeted posts >> credibility. Does it still have Interview a place in digital marketing and are there things it can PAGEs 9 - 11: still do that leave push Tamara Roukaerts – head of notifications and tweets marketing, Aurasma >> choking on its dust? Charts Over the past few years the idea that email is PAGE 12: dead for marketers has been slowly gaining Digital charts >> currency. The thought is part of a wider mode of thinking, espoused by everyone Issue 72 | 31st October 2012 | Page 2 continued… from the Wall Street Journal to Facebook is email’s very success as a communication accessed by mobile devices. Even worse, 14% And it’s not just the cost of sending email that founder Mark Zuckerberg, which holds that tool that could lead to its downfall: we of teens compare email to the postal system, marketers must take into account: there’s email as we know it is looking out-dated as get so many emails nowadays that their which 5% of them already consider dead. also the cost of maintaining the email list, a mode of communication when faced with effectiveness is massively reduced. getting rid of unsubscribers and pruning out the instant charms of social media, instant The cost issue: is email marketing pouring dead email accounts, compared to the self- Most email users, when faced with a bursting messaging, push notifications through apps regulating world of social media, when fans inbox, will skim their entries first, deleting money down the drain? et al. themselves can sign up to follow artists and any mails that don’t look of particular interest Then there is the expense of email to then leave on their own account. As a widely influential Wall Street Journal then only go back and read their messages. consider. This might sound ridiculous for article from 2009 explains, “In August 2009, This is bad news for any promotional email, anyone who grew up in the early-Nineties Will email cut through the noise? 276.9m people used email across the US, which stands a good chance of being when the physical postcard through the several European countries, Australia and ignored, no matter how loved the artist is. mail – with all associated postage costs – So why, then, with all this considered does Brazil, according to Nielsen Co, up 21% from Even worse, your email could get caught was the preferred means of communication the music industry at large still consider 229.2m in August 2008. But the number up in the spam filter or go straight to junk, between record company/artist and fan. And, email as a vital part of the marketing mix? of users on social-networking and other condemning it to a slow, unread death. of course, an email marketing campaign Atlantic Records UK social media manager community sites jumped 31% to 301.5m Nick Long explains, “We’ve always been big Even worse for the youth-obsessed costs nothing like a postal campaign. But people.” Email, in other words, is still growing advocates of email marketing and still see it music industry is the view that teenagers there are still associated costs in using the but new services that are quicker, more as very central to our overall mix.” have of email as an outmoded form of right software (like MailChimp or Contact), as attractive are outpacing it and – dare we say well as for template design, copywriting and communication. A recent survey of 167 It’s simple: emails sell. Or, rather, emails are it? – sexier. reporting. teenagers from email marketing specialist far more likely to spur recipients into action AWeber found that 15% of them think email is Indeed, Aftermarketer Club The risk of the email avalanche dead or dying (compared to 44% who believe estimates that a monthly email Of course, the idea that email is dead may it will live on), with email seen as a “grown up campaign for 5,000 to 10,000 sound ridiculous when you consider the thing” by 14% of correspondents. subscribers will cost anywhere number of people who use it and the volume The findings were not all bad – 21% of between $65 and $100 a month of messages sent every day: there are respondents said they would probably use – no massive amount but still currently an estimated 2.9bn email accounts email more in the future, while 20% said far greater than the cost of a worldwide, a number predicted to reach email and social media complement each promotional tweet. You could do 3.8bn by 2014, while in 2010 the average other; but it is hard to escape the image of email for less, of course, but you corporate user received more than 200 mails email as some fusty old man waiting around risk being disregarded or coming per day, according to services company Atos. for death when 29% of teens say that email across as spam by consumers who expect a certain quality in their These, you might think, are hardly stats that is “formal”, 57% state that email is popular promo emails. speak of an ailing medium. But perversely it with business and 23% think email can’t be Issue 72 | 31st October 2012 | Page 3 continued… than tweets or push notifications and this can party services. There is a big infrastructure content and that allows fans to return to the from Twitter or Facebook. “You can track and go as far as leading them to buy. investment but it is part of the back-end information more easily than, say, a tweet.” get much more information about fans. You systems that are reusable.” can really segment things and give people “People two or three years ago were focusing Lane concurs, explaining that he aims to what they want, you can really deliver what on social media, likes, tweets and so on but He continues, “It is more expensive than get an impressive 35-45% open rate with his they would like to have or see or get,” says Le as soon as you are speaking about direct sending a tweet but with email you can promotions, although this may depend on Comte. sales, album pre-orders it is always email,” quantify what the return is, for example in the quality of the list itself. explains EMI UK CRM manager, Jean- open rates, clickthroughs and getting people He adds, “You can get information from the “The big driver of that is the fact that if Baptiste Le Comte. “We have done a lot of to buy things or watch things.” sign-up, it depends on the results and the people sign up it is because they are really studies and surveys which have found that data you ask for. But usually we try to get interested in the artist or label,” he says. “For the conversion rate is so much higher for a Email separates dedicated fans from basic information, their name, country, email, our lists we like to try and get somewhere database with email.” you can then send surveys further along the casual ones between a 35% to 45% open rate. That project lifetime, asking about their consumer Domino head of digital Kurt Lane agrees. “We But why should email be better at driving depends on the size and quality of the list. habits. You can really understand how fans have a big focus on D2C both on the label customer response than social media? Long If you have a list that is two years old that react with the artist.” side and through various artist stores, like explains that one of the main reasons for hasn’t been touched in a year then the open Arctic Monkeys, The Kills,” he says. “We try this is that it takes more effort to sign up to rate will be lower.” And this process of discovery doesn’t end and sell directly to people. We still get the with the sign up: email tracking tools allow an email list than to simply like a post on This email sign up process is, in fact, a double best conversion rate from email marketing. labels to build profiles of the people on Facebook. Therefore, consumers who sign up bonus for marketers as it also allows them to We get really good open rates too.” their mailing lists – who, for example, is for these lists are, almost by definition, more findout a lot more about fans than they can more interested in audio and who prefers And it is not just the music industry that is dedicated fans. video – which can then be used to tailor saying this: a survey by retail technology “If someone likes a page or follows communications accordingly. specialist CrossView (admittedly from 2010) someone on Twitter, that takes found that 39% of shoppers polled prefer a second of their time,” he says. What is more, Lane says that email has a receiving promotions via email, compared “Email requires more engagement. certain “physical reality” that social media with 9% via social media. We see it as a way of segmenting lacks and this encourages ownership.