Email Marketing

Initiatives

As email marketing continues to grow, becoming a significant element in the marketing mix, the Email Marketing Council has addressed a wide range of issues which could hinder the development of the medium and prevent it achieving its full potential.

Best Practice Guidelines

Following the UK's implementation of the EU Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive in December 2003, the Email Marketing Best Practice Guidelines were released in June 2007, with the aim of:

• Stimulating the positive development of email as an effective marketing medium;
• Reinforcing the key legislative issues that clients should be aware of when using this medium;
• Providing examples and practical advice in terms of how clients can maximise their results from using this medium;
• Playing a role in terms of raising the standards within this industry and in combating the increasing prevalence of spam; and
• Provide practical advice about complying with working practices and standards of the internet industry.

Spam

Spam is undoubtedly the issue of most concern to the industry. The DMA Secretariat and the Email Marketing Council have contributed to several international forums and are taking an active part in the DTI's Anti-spam initiative, which seeks to track down the companies that are having such a devastating effect on the industry.

The Council has also engaged with the internet service providers (ISPs) to address spam and email delivery issues. LINX (London Internet Exchange), which is a mutual organisation with around 150 members, including all the major UK ISPs, have joined forces with the DMA to set up a working party to consider how to combat spam. The DMA publicly supported the LINX initiative, announced in August 2004, to get tough on spammers by shutting down the websites of companies engaged in spam activity. The DMA also supports the LINX call to all ISPs to close websites used to sell spam tools, such as CD-ROMs, containing millions of illegally collected email addresses.

Deliverability

In July 2007, the council released a White Paper: Email Deliverability: How we Got Here and What Marketer's Should do About It. Unlike marketers in other disciplines, email marketers have to worry about getting their messages to their intended recipients. So regardless of how much time you spend on getting the copy just right and the care you put into your creative, it is all wasted if your message is not delivered. The paper explains the issues around deliverability, and provides practical advice on what email marketers can do to improve and protect the delivery of their campaigns.

Benchmarking

Since 2004, the DMA have released quarterly National Email Benchmarking reports in association with TANK! The reports survey leading UK ESPs to provide companies involved in, or considering, email marketing as a marketing channel with a reliable series of benchmarks that aid their planning and help them make informed marketing decisions. The benchmarking series has been supplemented with annual Client Benchmarking Reports, which complement the National Email Benchmarking Report, by providing attitudinal and response rate data from client marketers.

Partnerships

The email channel is effective at all points along the customer life cycle and therefore touches all of the other marketing channels. At the same time there is a wide variety of interdependent constituencies that drive the channel including consumers, marketers, email professionals, email application providers (like Yahoo! and Hotmail), and ISPs (like BT and Tiscali). We work to establish partnerships with other industry and consumer groups to inform and drive best practice. Our strongest partnership to date is with the IAB who have endorsed the Council's Best Practice Guide and developed further content as a practical guide to implement best practice. We have also collaborated on a practical half day email training course called Ready, Steady, Email.

Events and Communications

One of the aims of the Email Marketing Council is to be the primary email marketing resource in the British Isles. To support this, the Email Marketing Council works to provide marketers with expert education and training on email marketing through running regular conferences and seminars. In addition, we publish a monthly email newsletter Infobox, which provides readers with relevant articles, features and best-practice information on all areas of email marketing.

Additionally, we publish a blog where leading industry experts share the latest thinking in email marketing strategy.