STEVE DOTTO - Host and executive producer, Dotto Tech
The rumours of its death are greatly exaggerated. In fact, email is a more viable and cost-effective medium for sales, marketing, prospecting and community-building than ever before.
Sure, the new spam laws put a damper on some people’s email lists. Many people reacted with great vigour and immediately nuked their existing list – or, in an ironic twist, spammed people with messages asking them to re-enrol in the list.
The fact is, more than ever now, we are an email-centric society. The inclusion of email on every smartphone ensures that the single best way to reach a community is through email. For marketing types to ignore that potential, because of a few encumbrances placed upon the management of the system, is pure folly.
If you have content that is worth sharing, if you have a community that is interested in receiving this content, there is no better way to communicate with that community than through email.
I believe common sense has to raise its head at some point in this conversation. I simply cannot believe that our government would waste its time laying charges against a legitimate business, reaching out through email, to a potential customer base.
That, after all, is the fear – that because somebody complains that an email is unsolicited, Stephen Harper’s goon squad will descend upon our place of business and cast us all into a deep, dark dungeon.
My best advice is to follow the rules. They are easy enough to follow:
Get permission (double opt-in).
Have a clear unsubscribe link.
Regularly remove subscribers who do not open email or whose accounts bounce or are defunct.
ANDREW SEIPP - Principal consultant, Telclarity
Email marketing is still a very effective strategy. Despite Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) coming into effect, legitimate email marketers have nothing to fear, especially since most email service providers like MailChimp take care of most compliance issues.
But email marketing is only effective if done right, and many companies, both big and small, miss the mark. The biggest mistake I see time and time again is a failure to segment subscribers into distinct groups. For example, I routinely receive promotional emails trying to sell me accounting software that I already purchased three months ago. Not only does this annoy users, but it causes them to unsubscribe from future offers that they might otherwise want. This represents a huge loss of potential revenue.
Luckily, this can be solved with just a little bit of planning. With proper segmentation you can automate your lead-nurturing strategy and send the right message, to the right person, at the right time.
And the results can be stunning.
According to Forrester Research, a properly executed email nurturing strategy can result in a 50% increase in sales-ready leads with a 33% reduction in marketing costs. Best of all, it’s very scalable and works day in, day out without calling in sick. Try doing that with a salesperson.
Considering how inexpensive most email marketing systems are, I can’t imagine a single item in the marketer’s toolkit that provides a better bang for your buck. Email marketing is alive and well, and as long as you’re following best practices, CASL shouldn’t be a concern for your business. If you haven’t made email a priority, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.
FLAVIO MARQUEZ - Chief strategy officer, Snaptech Marketing
Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) has definitely been a speed bump for Canadian businesses; however, email marketing is still a viable strategy for those companies that have adjusted to the new laws.
Before I dive into the viability of email marketing, I should mention that the implementation of anti-spam regulations imposed on businesses in Canada has done very little to prevent spam from reaching our inboxes, because most spam comes from hijacked machines and overseas servers.
However, I like to focus on the positives that CASL brings to the table, because companies that had previously followed proper email etiquette were minimally affected by the new restrictions.
Before CASL, email marketing effectiveness was dropping dramatically year-over-year as Canadians were being forced to sort through more and more irrelevant messages. Because of this, businesses were going as far as buying email lists, which further reduced the effectiveness of email marketing.
Now, with anti-spam laws in place, Canadian businesses need explicit or implicit consent before adding someone to their marketing list. While this unfortunately means that non-consenting contacts must be dropped from databases, there’s a silver lining. By including only opt-in contacts in their databases, companies vastly boost the potential effectiveness of email campaigns, which is something all businesses can get on board with.
Our agency still uses email marketing with a high success rate. Companies that strategically match content and resources with the appropriate segments in their email campaigns can still achieve great return on investment even with the new anti-spam laws in place.
