• by Keith McCracken , March 8, 2007

Is it really too much trouble to apply creative energy and expertise to email marketing? For those who say it is, I say it sounds like a cop-out.

As an agency principal of many years, I know only too well that it has never been easy to come up with really great ideas that can be delivered succinctly yet powerfully via print, radio, TV, outdoor and -- dare I mention, the Internet -- and more specifically, via email.

I know, I know. For email marketing, the delivery issues are huge and the rendering problems are monumental and did I mention the agony of poor click-through rates?

But, the same or similar problems, admittedly expressed in different vernaculars, occur in all of the marketing disciplines I mentioned earlier and have as such, been overcome by professionals dedicated to the task.

I'm certain I don't have to tell you that marketers are fleeing from conventional paid media, where costs are rising as rapidly as effectiveness is plummeting. That's why new media represents such a huge opportunity today. It's the perfect permission marketing environment where consumers can and do lower or raise their personal drawbridges when, how, and if they choose.

If the Internet is the place to be, and if email is the most ubiquitous and probably the most loved communication tool on the planet, why does email only attract around 2% of all marketing dollars spent on the Internet? And why do email-marketing managers spend a good part of their day dealing with the problems of email marketing instead of focusing on the enormous opportunities?

Well, SPAM is, perhaps, the biggest reason and it's a unique problem that no other marketing medium in the history of advertising and promotion has had to deal with.

And because of SPAM, browsers and firewalls have had to create filters that protect their networks. And because of the filters, graphics get stripped and recipients often ignore or don't open such email, resulting in lackluster metrics.

And because of lackluster metrics, talented designers for email are hard to find ... and who can blame the creatives? At a minimum they want their work to be at least seen. Lots of little red x's just doesn't ring any bells for the best and brightest creative minds.

If we are to get the best creative talent working on the most popular communication medium on the planet, the paradigm must change.

Technology can and must be able to help. We've enabled marketers to email unstripped rich graphics with optional embedded video. Armed with the ability to deliver a 30-second spot via email, marketers have a new Internet tool for building brands and moving the sales needle. Other technologies surely will join in the challenge soon.

The Internet giants are promoting video advertising tied to their search engines while social networks encourage marketers to piggyback on consumer interaction with videos online. Both have an important role in the new media marketplace but, and it's a humongous but, if marketers know who their customers and prospects are and have their email address, why use a shotgun approach to reach an audience that can be easily and cost effectively reached with a targeted rifle shot strategy using email.

To make use of a PGO (a penetrating glimpse of the obvious), email is the most exciting, scalable marketing tool that marketers have ever had the good fortune to be able to access.

So if only the best creative minds could be applied to the email medium, given new technology that provides the ability to have unstripped rich media with embedded video, who knows how big a share of the dollars spent on marketing via the Internet that email marketing could attract.

My guess? Easily 50%, if we as an industry act with conviction and vision. So please ... don't cop out on the creative.

Keith McCracken is the CEO of Vismail America, marketer of Vismail, which permits the delivery of unstripped rich graphics and video in email. Keith is also a co-founder of award-winning marketing agency McCracken Brooks. He has served as an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas and is an inductee of the MAA Worldwide Hall of Fame. Email him at kmccracken@vismailamerica.com. You can see him at OMMA Hollywood March 19 and 20.