• by editor , David Baker , May 8, 2006

It's May, the peak of the trade show season, with Ad:Tech, Marketing Sherpa, eMarketer, the Authentication Summit, and OMMA already behind us. Coming soon are the DMA Annual Conference, Shop.org, Inbox and the E-mail Insider Summit, which is already one of this year's more memorable events due to a mishap with... the e-mail invitation.

It's no surprise that there is a significant focus on e-mail at these events. It is still one of the fastest growing digital channels next to search, and the spend rate will continue upwards, which is good news for us in the e-mail space. But will we have the ammunition to get bigger budgets for next year, when all trends seem to indicate a diminishing response rate for BtoC and BtoB marketers? On that note, here are a few of my observations on industry events, from the speaker's point of view:

Observation #1: The focus that has been put on educating the industry on deliverability, reputation and authentication services and the nuances of each. While this is a hot topic, I also find that this is still greatly divided by the "haves" and "have nots." At a recent software user conference, not a single person in the audience of 200+ knew why images were blocked in Hotmail, Yahoo or AOL, and panelists were still teaching the groups about blacklisting and whitelisting. How far have we really come?

Observation #2: There is a relative gap in understanding consumers and e-mail behavior. I sit on several e-mail committees at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and we are still amazed at this. I see so few of the speakers focus on how to put programs together that change or modify e-mail users' behavior or even provide unique insight into our consumers. The lack of depth in case studies at these conferences is useless.

Observation #3: Budget dynamics are the same. I'm not seeing a great deal of new spending on the cool new toys (or tools) in the e-mail space. Perhaps this is due to the relatively low rank of many people running e-mail programs for companies. In an audience poll, I found that only a few had ever seen eye tracking or the new utilities that allow you to test in many e-mail environments. Everyone still seems to be buried in the haze of "getting it out the door," and budgets show this.

Observation #4: There is confusion about the value of a database. I continue to wonder why panels can't speak directly to this point. In one panel, I heard a "database marketing expert" actually admit that they did not know the value of their customers in their database or by source. More discussions are needed about monetization, the effects of attrition, effects of re-activation, effects of the diminishing response of an e-mail address and the relevant cost of managing this data over time. I am planning a fun session at Inbox in San Jose that will address issues like this. If we can prove the inherent value of an e-mail address, we can get the attention we need.

Observation #5: Trigger and Site Messaging is a direct effect of relevance. I delivered a presentation to a group in Orlando and could see the eyes of the audience glazing over. While it is indeed a complex undertaking, it is a necessary next step. I hope more speakers take on these topics to showcase the value of trigger messaging and what it brings to a lifecycle strategy, Web site, call center, and sales team. Or, how it helps you optimize spend in acquisition efforts and, most importantly, how it moved the needle. The thing that we forget in the rush to "get the job done" is that there is a value exchange between the customer and your business. If you don't apply this filter, don't be surprised if response diminishes.

The only way to get these types of sessions in your events is to provide feedback to the show organizers. They really do listen and care about what you want to see, so it's up to you to help set the curriculum.

Last week, I had a great response from people who wanted to learn more about Business Intelligence. Going forward, I want to open up my column to requests for topics. If there are subjects that need more explanation, something you would like to explore further or are just unfamiliar with, please contact me (dbaker@agency.com) and I'll try to address them in future columns. To get you started, here is a link to a recent educational whitepaper that was produced and submitted at Authentication.