Big Advertisers Embrace Email Marketing

Lance Broumand, CEO of UrbanDaddy, which delivers emails about lifestyle opportunities for men, said large advertisers are increasingly embracing email marketing, which bodes well for the industry. "When we talk to advertisers now, they are very keyed in on the email advertising space," he said at the MediaPost Email Insider Summit.

Much of that interest has been sparked by Groupon and similar entities -- their very paper value alone grabs attention. Still, Broumand said while backbone technology may be getting sturdier, the "front-end" presentation -- the content and the targeting -- can improve.

"There's been a lot of development, and you see a lot of investment and a lot of companies coming up with new tools," Broumand said in his keynote address. "And that's exciting to us, but we're looking to provide some of the sizzle that the Web medium has had."

UrbanDaddy had 300 subscribers when launched in 2005 and now has 3 million-plus. It's "GQ or Esquire meets the local guy," Broumand says. Advertisers include Heineken and LVMH.

In one example of the primacy of email marketing, Johnny Walker indicated it wanted to heighten email marketing at the expense of other channels. One reason: the tactic's focus on metrics, something email uses as a calling card.

Email also offers potential in granular targeting and can succeed with relevant content.

"At the end of the day ... there is no more personal medium than email," Broumand said.

Still, Broumand said many marketers continue to miss an opportunity. "I've always been confused by those who don't truly value their email lists ... and I think it really comes down to just a lack of knowledge about what's available and what that opportunity truly means."

As for the content of a message, he said UrbanDaddy has focused on a "very short, fun, engaging read, full of information you care about," as if listening to a friend talking about a great night. Experimenting with paragraph length to find a sweet spot has been just one of its trial processes.

Commenting on the industry, Broumand said: "This idea of communication on a one-on-one basis with somebody" has ample growth when melded with other channels.

1 comment about "Big Advertisers Embrace Email Marketing".
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  1. Rolv Heggenhougen from WrapMail, May 5, 2011 at 8:44 a.m.

    In addition to the traditional email marketing (mass email) one should look at another marketing opportunity and that is the emails we all send from our corporate email addresses every day. I represent a company that has developed a solution for just those emails and thus this post.
    The basic idea behind wrapmail is to utilize the facts that all businesses have websites and employees that send emails every day. These emails can become complete marketing tools and help promote, brand, sell and cross-sell in addition to drive traffic to the website and conduct research. Wrapmail is available for free at www.wrapmail.com and wrapped emails arrive with no red x!

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