• by editor , David Baker , September 6, 2005

WHAT IS A PERFECT E-MAIL? It depends on who you are and how you look at it. To a consumer, the perfect e-mail is useful, practical, directive, informational, rewarding, exciting, humorous, inspirational, or very personal. To a business, a perfect e-mail is cheap, real-time, a sales driver, a market feedback mechanism, fulfillment tool, response tool, support tool, brand messenger, or research tool. How do you cross what the consumer considers perfect and what is perfect for the business? To find that perfect 10, here are some strategic thoughts that might help you better bridge this gap.

1. The first element of e-mail strategy is value. Ask yourself: "What is the value of this e-mail to my business and to my customers?" And if there's a disconnect in this value exchange, question the purpose and the return on the effort.

2. Understand what churn means to your business. As they say on the farm, there are lots of ways to irrigate the fields. Churn is about losing "eyeballs" and this takes into account response-based churn (they quit responding), transactional churn (they quit buying), and deliverability churn (we can't reach them anymore). This view will be far more therapeutic to your program.

3. Think in terms of introduction and experience. The subject line introduces the context and the main impact area fulfills this introduction in the form of a brand value/benefit statement and the method of generating action.

4. E-mail acquisition is not solely cause-and-effect marketing. It should be looked at more strategically on multiple levels: Who can convert today? What levels of loyalty and involvement with the brand/product/service exists? What is the tangible value and cost of managing this relationship? E-mail is too often looked at in a linear fashion, specific to the one channel. But e-mail is a loaded cost that reaches beyond the rented list or blast and should be factored that way.

5. Every customer relationship has a life cycle. In fact, there is not a product or service in the world that does not prescribe some level of life cycle considerations. Use life cycle insights to justify and better target your communications.

6. Don't condition your list to getting rewards or you'll raise the cost of response over time. Some people require rewards in exchange for their loyalty or response and some don't. Your challenge as a marketer is to refrain from assuming everyone will respond to varying levels of rewards. Conditioning them to receive rewards has its costs later, so save those great giveaways for high-value events.

7. Remember CRM is based on the four value states: right audience, right offer, right timing, and right relationship. Not all your customers will respond to this channel. Why degrade the value of your brand relationship by sending messages by e-mail if it is a non-preferred channel? The right relationship is critical to understand early in the relationship. You might find that certain considerations offer channel migration options. SMS, anyone?

8. E-mail is not just a marketing and sales tool. E-mail marketing is so practical and cost-efficient, it should be used to bridge the customer experience, facilitate it, support it, and measure the impact of response. Touch-point marketing is not a buzz phrase; it's about correlating those customer events with the reality that it won't always generate a "buck."

9. Avoid analysis paralysis (that is, having lots of data and no way to make sense of it). Pick several key points and focus on those as benchmarks. Keep those points in mind for business purposes and all the details for internal consumption and quarterly reviews.

10. E-mail is not a one-trick pony. Effective e-mail isn't just about timing, segmentation, or good practice; it is an integrated communications tool. The more strategically you position it in your marketing mix, product experience, or service offering, the better you'll be at delivering this value exchange and fostering it over time.

To create and maintain this perfect 10, you must look outside your comfort zone and set of experiences and take in alternative views and approach. The outlook on the industry clearly indicates that while e-mail marketing is a ubiquitous low-cost relationship marketing tool that will continue to be viable, it is still poorly integrated into all other marketing channels and often seen as "causal." The next generation of e-mail marketing will be based more on "relationships" and business intelligence and less on marketing intelligence. Your mission: Reach the perfect 11.