The announcement earlier this year that the UK has entered a recession has sent shockwaves through the business community. Companies have been forced to rethink strategies they have relied on for a number of months, including those concerning direct marketing.
According to Paul Cross, Product and Marketing Manager for Thomson Local, the current economic climate means achieving a positive return on investment (ROI) on promotions is "more critical than ever" for growing businesses across Britain.
"The need to understand ROI means direct marketing channels that offer transparency and accountability, such as email marketing, are becoming more useful and popular for all types of businesses," he explained.
In the current financial conditions, firms may be wary of changing their business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategies from offline channels to email as it may mean they need to hire someone to keep promotions running smoothly. However, Mr Cross has reassured them that this is not always the case.
"Even if you work for a small company, that doesn't have a marketing professional, you can still benefit from email marketing by outsourcing your requirements to third parties," he explained.
In addition, a creative agency can create emails based on requirements, while a company like Business Strata can also keep tabs on messages and provide lists of opt-in email addresses, he added.
The expert also revealed that growing businesses which wish to be more ambitious and contact consumers with multi-channel campaigns would benefit from using email in conjunction with traditional mailing or telemarketing.
He said: "Email marketing works especially well with direct mail when it is used to follow up the direct mail campaign.
"Equally, calling the customers that opened and clicked on your email marketing campaign but didn't convert to a lead straight away can be a great way to generate some more leads."
Over the past year or so, new digital platforms such as social networking have emerged as potential pretenders to email marketing's throne. However, Mr Cross claims the latter offers a more efficient means of promotion.
"As soon as the email is sent you will start to see the opens, clicks and actual leads," he explained.
"The channel also makes testing the effectiveness of new products, pricing and messaging very easy as you can compare campaign results against each other."
So, as a staunch supporter of email marketing, did Mr Cross have any final advice about using the channel?
"If you want your email marketing campaign to be successful, you must buy access to up to date, opt-in email addresses. There is no point emailing people that have moved on," he concluded.
"With B2B email marketing it is also very important to avoid sending emails too frequently and annoying potential customers."
Growing businesses using the channel to weather the economic storm could do a lot worse than to follow that advice.
