'Email Marketing is Dead' - Unless it's Intelligent

April 20, 2011 - PRLog -- Businesses that mail out generic e-shots en-masse in the hope of achieving ad-hoc hot leads, need to change their tactics quickly. Email marketing in its old form will soon be consigned to junk-mail according to lead generation and email marketing specialist Profunnel, which has developed a dedicated White Paper on the issue.

Gone are the days of the stream of ‘one-size-fits-all’ email marketing programmes. Bombarding customers and prospects with generic emails in order to keep the business brand ‘front-of-mind’ no longer works to win new business or maintain customer loyalty.

Businesses need to recognise the sales potential of taking a specifically targeted, intelligent approach to marketing programmes. The more information that can be gathered about individuals, the better they can be profiled and the better the sales results. Consequently tailored and more accurate email marketing campaigns can be achieved.

“Standard email marketing, based on a small percentage of people being receptive to your message will never produce high conversion rates,” says Matt Hall, Managing Director of Profunnel.  “However, if you know who wants to listen you can take a targeted approach, your content will be relevant and your subsequent conversions, much higher.

“Email marketing alone cannot do this. What’s needed is the technology that enables you to track, profile and score visitors to your website to then develop a tailored email that cultivates the relationship, easing them into the sales process. Understanding customers in terms of who they are, what motivates them, and where they are in the buying cycle is critical to sales success.”

“The good news is, that the technology is now available and businesses can now build an in-depth profile of customers and prospects that give sales people the edge they need to win the business.”

Most organisations capture information by tracking who clicks on the emails and visits the website, but in reality they cannot track behaviour over time, where they next clicked or how to approach them with meaningful messages.

To date businesses have been able to see where prospects visited before arriving at their site, what keywords they used to find them, which pages they looked at, what resources they download and how long they stay on the site.  Now though, new technology means they can tag their website visitors so they can see exactly who is on their site, when they return and more.

This tagging, tracking and scoring ability opens up a new world of opportunity, providing insight into prospects’ buying motivations and behaviour throughout the sales cycle. In using marketing automation in this way you are able to score certain prospects, assigning them to a hot list, allowing you to focus sales efforts where they are likely to have the most impact.

A prospect’s fingerprint left on a website will soon disappear if not dealt with at the right moment and with the right approach, providing a very small window of opportunity to understand and start nurturing the customer relationship.

“The power of intelligent marketing enables you to build a bigger picture before you directly engage with the customer, their areas of interest and how close they are to a purchase,” adds Matt.  “This allows your sales team to focus on the serious players, rather than waste valuable resource chasing uninterested prospects, and tailor e-mail marketing campaigns that match individual profiles.  As a result, conversion rates improve and the business has a much clearer understanding of its prospects, their motivations and touch points.”

Profunnel’s White Paper on the importance of intelligent email marketing is now available for free download.

Learn more about Profunnel’s marketing automation software here -  http://www.profunnel.co.uk/white-papers/email-marketing-i...

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Profunnel is a leading online marketing solutions company, providing businesses with a systematic approach to lead generation and marketing.