The strategy of email marketing

I was just looking through emailstatcenter's First Annual State of Email Metrics Survey and came across the question of what email marketers will be focusing on in the near future.

Strategy and planning came out on top, with creative services and testing being given the lowest priority.

If this really is the case, perhaps we'll finally see email being used more strategically. I do sometimes think that companies 'do' email marketing simply because they feel it's cheap and because everyone else seems to be doing it. Whack a sign up box on the website, gather email addresses and whenever there's some inventory to get rid of, or when the overworked marketing person has the time or energy to think of something to say, hit 'send'.

Some people are of course using email to great effect - segmenting, targeting, making their mailings ever more relevant and timely. But email can be so much more than simply a direct marketing tool - it can play a key role in brand building and customer relationship marketing, for example.

An email marketing strategy, planned for and thought out at brand level, makes for powerful results. Email marketing shouldn't be seen as a cheap tool, added on further down the line when all the big decisions have already been made, and managed by junior staff.