Permission-based email marketing

Increasingly, organizations are turning to personalized email as the preferred, cost-effective method for communicating with customers and building lasting relationships. It allows for greater personalization while providing faster feedback than traditional media such as direct mail. However, email marketing is falling victim to its own success, as legitimate marketers are struggling to separate their messages from the deluge of unsolicited communication - spam.

Due to shortcomings in processes and technology, many legitimate marketers do too little to effectively address customer concerns about spam and to maximize the effectiveness of email marketing. Moreover, the heavy reliance on outsourcers means that email marketing remains silo-ed, thereby preventing organizations from providing customers with a unified, satisfying experience across communication channels.

Oracle's Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite, which includes Siebel Email Marketing, allows organizations to address these issues by helping consumer and business marketing organizations tailor communications and content more precisely, to ensure that they build trust through meaningful dialogue with customers. It allows organizations to fully respect customer preferences, apply email best practices, synchronize email with other customer touchpoints, and gain real-time visibility into email marketing performance.

Get Permission

To address the challenges faced by marketers, Siebel Email Marketing supports permission-based email marketing, a best practice that allows organizations to take advantage of email's low cost while simultaneously building consumer trust. The benefits are significant. A survey by Forrester Research reported that consumers open two-thirds of the messages they have opted into. The Marketing Leadership Council reports that permission to send boosts click-through rates by six to eight times. Moreover, permission-based email marketing protects brand equity and ensures compliance with anti spam policies.

Manage Preferences

In addition to consistently enforcing opt-in and opt-out preferences, organizations must also secure permission to use the rich customer information they need to design personalized emails. According to Forrester Research, two-thirds of consumers say that most of the emails they receive don't offer anything that interests them. To make emails more relevant and effective, organizations must leverage information about personal preferences. However, to collect and use this information, organizations should, and in some industries must, secure permission.

Marketers must also give consumers more control over email content and frequency. They should allow customers to directly manage their communication preferences, including message types (promotional messages, new product announcements, informational newsletters); delivery frequency; message format (HTML, text, wireless); and acceptable communication channels. Finally, to maximize participation and maintain trust, organizations must collect and enforce consumer preferences consistently across all communication channels, not just through email.

Make Messages Relevant and Personal

With in-depth information about their customers, the permission to use that information, and the right tools, an organization can deliver personalized, relevant messages to precisely defined target segments. Using the robust customer analytics and segmentation capabilities contained in Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite, organizations can improve relevancy and results by precisely targeting messages based on preferences, demographics, and behaviour - while reliably suppressing those who have opted out or who have been contacted too frequently.

Message personalization with Siebel Email Marketing also allows marketers to tailor message headers - including the "from" address - and body content based on business rules and virtually any level of customer detail from multiple sources across the enterprise.

Provide Easy Opt-Out

Emails must also offer a clear and easy way for subscribers to opt out of future communications or to change preferences. Siebel Email Marketing supports one-click subscribe and unsubscribe processing and real-time updates, so that marketers can honour consumer requests immediately across all channels.

Maximize Impact and Results

By delivering fully integrated, advanced email and best practice processes, Oracle's Siebel Email Marketing helps organizations keep email relevant and effective. The results are higher marketing return on investment (ROI) and lasting, profitable customer relationships.

About Oracle Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite

Siebel Email Marketing is part of the Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite, a complete, insight-driven, closed-loop solution that enables marketing organizations to become more effective, accountable, and customer-centric.

It offers integrated but modular solutions that cover planning and resource management, customer analytics and segmentation, campaign management, email and Web marketing, real-time marketing, events management, partner marketing, trade promotions management, loyalty program management, lead management, and marketing analytics.

Using the Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite, organizations can acquire more-profitable customers, cross-sell and up-sell more effectively, retain valued customers longer, and drive superior marketing ROI.