Over the past several years email marketing has dropped in popularity with marketing directors and business owners. It has gone from being the sales investment of choice to being a second tier business development tool. Business people give several reasons for this. Many talk about how response rates have dropped over the period and how this affects the economics of email marketing. It is clear that as the volume of emails arriving in peoples inboxes grew, the ability generate responses to email marketing campaigns was impaired. Then there is the additional problem of email filtering as networks became more cautious about the traffic that they passed on to users.

Reluctant business owners also talk about the difficulty and expense of compiling good lists. As potential customers became more cautious about giving away their email address, lists were more difficult to build. Data protection rules were tightened and the need for opt-ins and double opt-ins added to the complexity and costs of developing a good email list.

The third major factor often quoted by marketing directors is that there was too much competition in the email marketing channel. In every product segment there were 30-40 businesses sending regular emails and newsletters to customers, all chasing the same sale. Customers grew weary of all that bombardment and companies found it more and more difficult to generate enough content to appear fresh and original to their potential customers.

While some businesses have reduced their email marketing efforts significantly, for others it remains an essential business tool. For those who are willing to innovate and invest in email marketing, it can be a strong source of new business. So what is it that separates those who can make email work for business development?

Firstly, they have a long term commitment to building their email database. These business owners have an annual budget that they invest in generating leads. They often have a dedicated website for lead generation, with good quality content to attract potential customers. They also have online and offline marketing programs to promote the site and to draw in well qualified visitor traffic to the site. Because they recognise the importance and value of their email database, every customer contact is used to gather any data that they can, including asking for referrals to other leads. This focus and consistency over time means that these businesses have access to fresh, good quality email data to use in their campaigns. Getting this data right is more than half the battle in email marketing.

Successful email marketers rarely follow the formulas of others. They are creative in what they send to their customers and in how they send it. This is not really about an emphasis of high quality designs. It is more about relevance and personalisation. Because they have good quality data about their potential customers, they can tailor the messages that they send to them in particular ways. Their focus is on making sure that each prospect understands why they are receiving each message that they get by email. Each email takes the customer on a journey and each step adds some value, either by giving them additional information or by entertaining them. They avoid elements in their messages that would make the potential customer feel that they were part of a mass mailing, and they personalise each email as much as possible.

Businesses that use email marketing successfully almost always integrate it with their other activities. When it first became popular, email marketing was separate activity, usually only related to web marketing when a landing page was needed. This worked well for a short period, but now almost all great email marketing is part of a wider marketing program. In particular, the increasing importance of social media channels has provided marketing directors with an opportunity. Email and social media work very well together and there are some excellent examples of people using them together for lead generation as well as general brand awareness.

Very few people are using email marketing successfully the way they were three years ago. The old way of doing things just doesn’t work any more. Smart business people have modified their approach and they have innovated in the way they use email to generate new business. By taking a fresh approach they keep email marketing as a powerful business development tool.

The author, Mark McCormack is an email marketing expert with UK marketing consultants Markmedia.