Re: Direct marketing systems

From: Jim Novo <jimnovo_at_sprintmail.com>
Date: Mon 18 Sep 2000 13:32:25 -0500

CHON-CHON TANG <ztang_at_mit.edu> WROTE:
> I'd like to get a feel for how direct marketing systems
> (namely, email) are being adopted online. I'm working
> on product development for another system in this
> space, and had some initial questions on use amongst
> small- to mid-sized- sites. Any relevant references
> would certainly be appreciated.

This is great product niche, depending on what you are
doing. The small to midsize area is as fragmented as
the large guys, with no simple end-to-end solutions.

> I'm aware of the larger systems (such as comprehensive
> packages offered by Epiphany, or hosted services
> offered by Digital Impact, Responsys)... for those of
> you who have adopted one of these services, I'd like to
> know a little about your profile and experiences. Are
> they mostly targeted toward larger companies with
> frequent mailings and huge user databases?

The on-site software (Epiphany) is, yes. Hosted
solutions are of varying capabilty but can be
affordable for small biz, depending on what they are
trying to accomplish.

However, you are starting to mix apples and oranges a
little here. There are generally 2 parts to these
systems, the behavior capture / analysis component and
the mechanism for creating and delivering the mail
itself. Which are you working on, or is it a
combination?

> Is the pricing reasonable and sustainable for
> smaller/mid-sized businesses?

Not for in-house, but sometimes for hosted. Depends on
the capabilites the business needs, and your definition
of "small-to-midsize".

> Who are some other preferred vendors in this space?

I'm not exactly sure which space you are talking about,
capture / analysis, creation, delivery, more?

> For those of you who have yet to adopt an email system
> (how many of you are there, anyways?), are there plans
> to do so in the near future?

What's an "e-mail system"? What does and doesn't it do?

> Certainly there have been a tremendous amount of
> noise regarding the benefits of permission and
> one-to-one marketing, and has that been sufficient in
> motivating you toward implementing these solutions?

See above. Depends on what the product is and what
functionality it has.

> What combination of price/functionality is important
> to you? Do (or would) you take advantage of advanced
> segmentation and tracking in your email lists?

There's really no point in doing it without these
capabilities, yet there is no product for the small to
midsize market with the capability to do everything you
would need for real database marketing, IMHO. Most of
them are what I would call "direct marketing" systems,
designed to spit out e-mail customized around a few
variables. They lack analysis capability and the
ability to import additional data for enhanced
analysis. If you really mean "direct marketing
systems", you have a lot of competition.

> Finally, what of the metrics frequently associated with
> your direct email campaign do you feel has the most
> potential for improvement, and would interest you
> immediately:
>
> - opt-in rate (users becoming granting you enough trust
> to join the mailing list in the first place.. I've
> seen industry numbers around 66%)
> - open rate
> - click-thru/response rate

Here we get to my real point - you have to precisely
define the system / space you are talking about.
Although these metrics are interesting, it sounds like
a "direct marketing" system, of which there are many.
The questions, as posed, are pretty broad and difficult
to answer without more definition. For example:

Is this system just for mailing and tracking, or can it
also "manage" an e-mail discussion list? Can it create
HTML mail and sniff the user for capability? Is it a
"one-off" mailer, or can you create sequentially linked
campaigns? Can you bind it to other production systems
for customer service, robotic applications or is it
just a "marketing" system? Does it have intelligent
parsing and auto-respond? Can it trigger e-mail
campaigns based on non e-mail direct marketing metrics,
like RFM, latency, and so forth? In real time or only
in batch mode?

Is it more or less capable than Broadcast? See
http://www.mailworkz.com/.

So I think you have 2 choices, if you are going to use
a list like this for research:

1. Very carefully define the product and market you
    are thinking of, or
2. Don't define anything, and simply ask people what
    they would like to see in a good small-to-midsize
    biz e-mail application.

Otherwise, the questions are too difficult to answer
without long winded e-mails (as in this example). If
you'd like to swap some e-mail about the subject,
contact me off list.

Good luck to you!

Jim

Jim Novo, Marketing Mercenary mailto:jim_at_jimnovo.com
Customer Valuation, Retention, Defection, & Loyalty
Author: Drilling Down - Turning Customer Data into
Profits with a Spreadsheet http://www.jimnovo.com





Received on Mon Sep 18 2000 - 13:32:25 CDT