Email marketing should protect offline reputations

Tuesday 19th January 2010

Email marketers risk damaging the established, offline reputation of a company through badly managed campaigns, an expert has said.

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Writing for Fresh Business Thinking, Alexandra English, marketing manager at LBM, said that email marketing should have the same level of precision and professionalism as all other direct marketing campaigns.

Ms English said that basic targeting and segmentation is the first step in preventing a negative reaction to email communication. She added that creating tailored messages for clients or prospective customers allows marketers to engage with email recipients while ensuring they do not isolate them.

In addition, Ms English suggested that once targets have been identified, marketers should focus on the tone of voice within the email in order to achieve consistency with the company's offline brand.

"Changing from a formal offline tone to using slang and colloquialisms online will, at best, make you look embarrassingly out of touch and, at worst, create mistrust about your brand," she said.

Matthew Kelleher, a writer for Econsultancy, recently said that when a client first visits a company website, makes a purchase and signs up for email, the business should then carefully nurture that client towards a second purchase and future loyalty.