The Four Rights

Two weeks ago, we published a piece called "Letters to the C-Suite: Sage Marketing Advice for Uncertain Times" in which 13 industry experts shared their thoughts on marketing priorities in 2009.

I had a chance to chat with one of the contributors, Hunter Boyle, the Managing Editor of Marketing Experiments Journal, to see if he had any additional advice for marketers now that 2009 is well underway.  His advice for email marketers:

• Pay attention to what customers are telling you. Direct customer feedback is often your best source of inspiration and direction.
  
• Try new things but focus on small steps and constant improvement. Building on success is imperative in this economic environment.
  
• Since customer retention is so critical, be sure to involve your customers in produce evolution and development. Their early buy-in can help you avoid mistakes and energize product launches.
  
• On the email marketing front, focus on permission and what subscribers want. Stronger engagement from a smaller audience will almost always yield better results.
  
• Audit your email acquisition sources in order to uncover new opportunities to increase your subscriber base.
  
• Focus on ways to fuel better personalization and segmentation.
  
• Since budgets are tight, find ways to better leverage existing content to extend its value.
  
• And finally, "Test, test, test" (required advice from everyone on Marketing Experiments team)
  

If you're interested in learning more from Hunter's team, be sure to register for their free webinar this Wednesday:

Email Optimization: How to Improve ROI from Capture to Conversion (Wednesday, January 21st @ 4:00PM EST)

And if you aren't webinar'd out come Thursday, be sure to also attend our joint webinar with MarketingSherpa:

Building the Perfect Subscriber: Email List Growth Tactics and Superior Segmentation Techniques (Thursday, January 22nd @ 2:00PM EST)

Thanks to Hunter for his contribution to "Letters to the C-Suite," and look for more interviews with the author-contributors in the weeks to come!