According to the findings of the DMA Email Marketing Council’s fifth annual National Client Email Report, sponsored by Alchemy Worx, 48 per cent of email marketers say conversion rates are now their major concern, followed by click rates (43 per cent) and deliverability (39 per cent).

However, in a trend that reveals the email marketing industry is maturing, issues related to deliverability and click rates fell by a third compared with the results of the 2010 report. For example, concerns about return on investment from email campaigns fell from 61 per cent in the previous report to 31 per cent in the latest research.  

Internal resource is cited by 38 per cent of brands as the biggest barrier for success, with 74 per cent of respondents stating they manage their email marketing programme in-house. In second place was budget at 26 per cent. 

The study also reveals the future is positive for the email marketing industry with more than 90 per cent of respondents rating it as strategically important or very important to their businesses, while 63 per cent expect to increase expenditure on email marketing in the future.

Dela Quist, chairman of the UK DMA Email Marketing Council’s Email Benchmarking Hub and chief executive at Alchemy Worx, said: “There are two areas in this survey which we found particularly interesting. The first was the marked shift in priorities from deliverability and click rates to conversion rates. Since 2010 concerns about click rates and deliverability dropped by over a third, meaning conversion – and the revenue that results from it – is now the most pressing priority, particularly for B2C businesses. 

“That suggests marketers are coming round to what we’ve been saying for some time now – that the end result is where we need to be focusing our attention and our resources if email marketing is to continue maturing.

“The services gap is another area which has been highlighted by this survey. Organisations are increasingly finding that while they would like to expand their email operations, they often don’t have the resources to make it happen. 

"For instance, email volumes increase considerably over the Christmas period – but how do organisations resource for that? The 2011 results show that, increasingly, organisations are beginning to plug the resource gap by outsourcing to specialist email marketing agencies.” 

The fifth annual National Client Email Report can be downloaded here.  

Ikano Bank will implement the Neolane platform to help it boost effectiveness of its marketing communications through building closer, more personalised relationships with its Nordic customers and enabling it to manage cross-channel marketing campaigns. To help define campaign processes, the bank will be supported by Neolane’s user-friendly visual workflow engine. The solution will be implemented in collaboration with Kaplan, experts in relationship marketing and one of Neolane’s key partners in the Nordic countries. 

Henrik Staulund, head of business development at Ikano Bank, said: “It was essential for us to find a cross-channel campaign management solution which would enable personalised communications with our customers and reduce time-consuming manual processes, while being user-friendly for our banking staff.

“We are already finding that the platform is relatively easy to integrate with our existing back-end system.”

As well as using Neolane itself, Ikano Bank will use the platform to offer a new attractive service to its retail partners. This service will allow those partners to gain more insight about their customers, enabling them to further improve and to personalise their communications.

Franck Attia, director of Nordic operations at Neolane, said: “Banks in the Nordic region know that to meet customer expectations they must provide more personalised communications, co-ordinated across channels; but few institutions do it effectively. Neolane and Kaplan are delivering a solution giving Ikano Bank a competitive advantage while benefiting customers and partners.”

The finding comes from a survey of more than 150 of the UK’s top marketing agencies, conducted by the UK Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and DataGuidance, a global data protection and privacy service.  

According to the study’s authors, with just four days to go until the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) enforces the so-called ‘Cookie Law’, the shortcoming should be a serious cause for concern.

Lindsay Grieg, managing editor of DataGuidance, said: “The question is not so much the definition of a cookie, but clarity on consumer consent. To comply with the law, marketers need to provide clear, transparent information to consumers so they can make an informed choice to accept cookies from websites and digital communications.” 

Caroline Roberts, director of legal and public affairs for the UK DMA, added: “The DMA has issued considerable free guidance on how to achieve this, so it’s down to marketers to learn how to work within the new legal framework. Failing to do so will lose customers, lose sales and ultimately leave them on the wrong side of the law.”

The research also highlights the fact that many marketers are under-prepared ahead of the enforcement of the cookie law this week – May 26. Nearly three in five (57 per cent) of marketers have so far failed to develop and execute an action plan to deal with the impact of the Cookie Law; 45 per cent have yet to draft an updated cookie policy; and 79 per cent have not communicated the changes they are planning to make to their website’s visitors. 

The financial impact on the marketing industry will be also dramatic, with 67 per cent of respondents saying the new law will cost them up to £10,000, 17 per cent estimating that it will cost them up to £25,000 and 13 per cent putting the figure of compliance at up to £100,000.  

The UK DMA has published how-to guides on managing cookies for websites and mobile and email marketing, which can be downloaded free from the DMA website. 

Organised by global mail and express industry services provider Triangle Management Services, the event was attended by more than 200 senior executives from the postal industry. 

Now in their 13th year, the mail awards have established themselves as a premier scheme within the global postal industry, recognising and rewarding excellence across all sectors of the industry, worldwide. 

This year’s award-winners are:

• Corporate Social Responsibility, sponsored by Post & Parcel: Swiss Post for its Emission Free Mail Delivery
• Customer Service, sponsored by DHL Global Mail: PostDanmark for its Reversed Targeting initiative
• e-Commerce, sponsored by Deloitte: Saudi Post for its E-Mall platform
• Growth, sponsored by Post Euro: Deutsche Post DHL for its Premiumadress service
• Innovation, sponsored by Capgemini: FedEx for its SenseAware information service
• People Management: DPD Polska for its Project Maturity Way programme
• Retail Project: Eesti Post for its Post24 parcel service
• Security, sponsored by MER: FedEx for its SenseAware information service
• Technology, sponsored by Intermec: Kyburz DXP for its electrical three wheeler for last mile delivery
• Industry Leadership Award, sponsored by Honeywell: K B Pedersen, CEO, Post Danmark

Neil Jackson, chief executive of Triangle, said: “The World Mail Awards 2012 was a great success in every way, with all sectors of the industry brilliantly represented both on stage and off. We had some truly worthy winners last night and we are honoured to be able to promote their initiative, talent and dedication in a highly competitive arena.” 

The company, which provides business and consumer direct marketing data through its website, will aim to sell Callcredit’s universe of marketing contacts, tagged with a range of demographic, lifestyle and affluence indicators, to its 40,000 online customers. 

Callcredit Information Group holds data on 43 million consumers and provides a range of direct marketing and segmentation services to help businesses improve their customer understanding and optimise their consumer targeting.

Kieron Karue, managing director of MarketingFile, said: “Since we became the first online supplier of direct marketing data in 1998, we have always been on the look-out for new ways to add value to the service we offer our customers. We were very impressed with the quality and depth of Callcredit’s data, and the breadth of variables they provide. We are looking forward to promoting this new dataset to our online customers.”

Glyn Cowlishaw, strategic account director at Callcredit Information Group, said: “The accurate and in-depth consumer data that we provide should form the backbone of any effective direct marketing campaign, particularly in the current economy when marketing budgets are being squeezed.

“Our partnership with MarketingFile will bring our market-leading data and segmentation to a wider audience so that more businesses can benefit from our insight and knowledge.”

The 2012 Digital Marketing Awards will take place in November in Beijing, China, and will become a two-day festival. 

Terry Savage, chairman of Lions Festivals, said: “With the incredible growth in Asia we are delighted to build on our partnership between Haymarket Media Asia and Lions Festivals, to deliver a world-class event that will provide inspiration, learning, networking and celebration to Asia’s digital media industry.” 

Over the last 18 months, the e-commerce sector has seen phenomenal growth and, despite tough conditions on the high street, sales online remain buoyant. In fact, research from Forrester has predicted that online retail across 17 of the largest EU markets in western Europe will hit €114 billion by 2014 and that 190 million Europeans will shop online by 2014 (up from 141 million today).  

Fuelling this growing marketplace is global broadband penetration, increasingly sophisticated online shopping experiences and the huge popularity of smartphones and other web-connected devices. 

For local and international marketers, the web and smartphone devices have transformed the business of communication, creating a 24/7 channel to consumers around the world and providing them with a wealth of information on shopping patterns. Today’s consumers engage with a wide variety of channels when coming to a decision about what to buy and where to buy it. A recent study by Shop.org, comScore and Social Shopping Labs revealed that 47 per cent of consumers check their mobiles for product reviews while shopping in stores. The boundaries between the online and offline worlds continue to blur and international retail borders have become less defined. In this new shopping environment, we see four trends international marketers should pay particular attention to: 

Borderless shopping communities

A survey by Rakuten in late 2011 revealed an international interest in purchasing from global merchants and marketplaces online. Results showed Brazil was leading the global e-shopping charge, reporting 81 per cent of consumers keen to shop in different markets online, followed by Indonesia (77 per cent), Thailand (74 per cent), China (69 per cent) and Spain (66 per cent). 

For the international marketing community, there is a huge opportunity to drive growth in new markets. Online marketplaces and affiliate marketing models offer marketers an opportunity to reach a global shopping audience. 

In 2012, international marketplace models will provide sellers of all sizes around the world with the opportunity to expand their operations internationally, without the cost intensive outlay traditionally associated with establishing local delivery models, storage facilities and establishing a business into new markets.  

Sellers will be able to dabble in international shopping communities and dedicate resources based on real world demand. This will open up opportunities with burgeoning markets, such as China, India and Brazil.

Making shopping more mobile

In 2011, web-enabled mobile devices transformed e-commerce, opening up a more immediate channel to the consumer than ever before and creating innovative new ways to engage them, from QR codes to location-based offers.  

But currently, while browsing on mobile devices is strong, sales conversion is lagging behind. Over the next 18 months, we expect to see a flurry of innovations in the mobile payment market, which will improve consumer confidence in mobile shopping.  

The next frontier, and one that marketers should pay special attention to, is tablet commerce. The rich functionality of the tablet shifts the traditionally transactional and bargain hunting online experience into a virtual store experience. 

Tablets offer a more tactile web experience and, to capitalise on this opportunity, marketers must optimise their web content for all platforms and make it accessible to all markets, as well as ensuring their mobile web offering is a media rich experience. 

Once again, marketplaces can support this effort, for example, Rakuten’s Buy TV in the US and Rakuten SuperTV in Japan bring video reviews to enrich the online shopping experience, particularly on mobile devices.  

Being more social 

Getting a second opinion before committing to a purchase is nothing new, but now, rather than taking a friend shopping, you can take your entire social network with you. 

Marketers should not underestimate the power of the ‘fan’, which will form an integral part of the evolution of e-commerce throughout 2012. Data released last July by Experian Hitwise indicated that one Facebook fan was equal to 20 additional visits to a retail website in the course of a year. Therefore, brands are increasingly using social not just for brand awareness, but for product development and customer service too. Rakuten’s ShopTogether feature lets all merchants capitalise on social service by enabling our marketplace users to invite friends to view products and live chat while looking at the product page.

Let’s get personal

The old adage, ‘Information is power’ takes on new impetus in 2012, as marketers seek to capture the fickle attention spans of information-savvy Internet shoppers.  

Gone are the days, when retailers tracked consumer behaviour based on loyalty points alone. Today’s online marketers can acquire huge volumes of data on both their potential and existing customers based on user browsing habits alone.  

In 2012, data exchange between brands and social networks will begin to provide solid business models for social platforms, as well as offering new insights into the psyche of the shopper.  

What matters most to retailers, however, is how their marketing teams translate this wealth of data into meaningful and timely communications with customers.  

The web generation is already jaded from a surfeit of push advertising – to truly engage consumers in 2012 and beyond, marketers must learn how to harness user specific data to provide timely, personalised and relevant communications. 

Last year, we barely scraped the surface of what is possible with online retail. We are on the cusp of creating an experience-rich, 24/7 international shopping community.  

In the year ahead, innovative mobile devices, worldwide mobile and broadband penetration and innovative social shopping services will open up global markets, providing huge growth opportunities for merchants large and small and unparalleled consumer choice. 

Adam Stewart is marketing director, Rakuten’s Play.com

To help with the transition, Kimmel will continue as President Emeritus of the DMA and will serve in a senior advisory capacity.  

DMA executive vice-president of Washington Operations, Linda Woolley, will become the organisation’s acting president and CEO.  

Linda Woolley has been the head of the DMA’s Washington DC office and advocacy programmes since joining the organisation in 2008.  

Woolley is a recognised leader in Washington DC and the direct marketing industry with a background that includes more than 30 years of extensive leadership experience in corporate public affairs, government relations and corporate and trade association management. 

More here.

McKinsey’s session, Find Big Growth in Big Data, will share global perspectives on how to make sense of the phenomenal amount and type of customer data now available, and use it to capture marketing and sales opportunities. The session will also report on findings from newly published book: Sales Growth: Five Proven Strategies from the World’s Sales Leaders.

Debbie Williams, IDM B2B Council chairman and chairman of next week’s conference, said: “We’re delighted to add such a respected authority to our expert speaker line up. As an advisor to many leading businesses, governments and institutions worldwide, McKinsey is not only in the perfect position to give conference delegates invaluable business insights and advice but, given the potential impact of ‘big data’ on businesses today, the session is sure to be one of the most eagerly anticipated of the event “

The topical issue of ‘big data’ sits under the conference’s umbrella theme of ‘New world, new values, new order’, as the event explores, examines and addresses the fundamental shifts that B2B marketing must make in today’s new B2B marketing world. The programme includes speakers from IBM, KLM, Psion, Euro RSCG, Reed Business Information, Pitney Bowes and more and highlights include:

• Good business is better business: why transparency and authenticity are the new rules of modern business
• Think global, grow faster: what smaller companies can learn from the ‘big boys’ (and vice versa)
• Understanding today’s digital exhaust: big data
• Automated lead nurturing: this time it’s personal! Strategies that really do fine-tune the needs and demands of today’s B2B buyer
• How to become a socially-enabled business: taking the virtual world to the next level and putting it at the heart of your strategy
• Trust in the Cloud: compliance and security issues plus a five-point guide to the new cookie legislation

The IDM B2B Marketing Conference takes place on Thursday May 24 at the Commonwealth Club, London WC2. Full programme, speaker and booking details, including a three for two offer for delegates going with colleagues, are available by clicking here. 

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is the world’s largest celebration of creativity in communications. Each year, it presents the Media Person of the Year Award to a prominent personality who is an influential figure in the development of today’s media landscape. 

Originally from St Louis in Missouri, USA, Jack Dorsey’s early fascination for mass-transit and how cities function led him to New York’s Manhattan and programming real-time messaging systems for couriers, taxis and emergency vehicles. Throughout this time, he witnessed thousands of workers in the field constantly updating where they were and what they were doing. This gave him the idea for a site that would combine the broad reach of dispatch software with the ease of instant messaging. Within a short space of time, he had built a simple site, Twitter, where users could instantly post short messages of 140 characters or less, known as Tweets. On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey posted the world’s first Tweet: "just setting up my twttr." 

Since then, Twitter has become a communication platform that instantly connects people everywhere to what’s most meaningful to them. Twitter is accessible to anyone, via the web, on smartphones and on simple feature phones. And, with 340 million Tweets per day and more than 140 million active monthly users, there is something for everyone on Twitter, no matter what you’re interested in or where you are in the world. 

As part of Jack Dorsey’s continued devotion to simplifying the complex and making technology accessible to everyone, everywhere, he co-founded Square in 2009. Square enables anyone to accept credit card payments on their mobile device and has empowered hundreds of thousands of individuals and businesses to start and grow a business. 

Philip Thomas, CEO of Cannes Lions, said: "Since inventing Twitter in 2006, Jack Dorsey has, in an incredibly short space of time, brought to the world an entirely new way for people to communicate, share ideas and learn new things. It has become, in the meantime, a powerful social and political force and is now part of the everyday global media language. The power and simplicity of what he has created has made Twitter a social phenomenon, and we are delighted to honour Jack with this award."

Dorsey said: "Brands have always used Twitter in creative ways to engage directly with customers. This award celebrates those brands and customers alike." He will be honoured during the Press, Design, Radio and Cyber Lions awards ceremony on the evening of Wednesday 20 June in the Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France.

Cannes Lions delegates will have the opportunity to attend the Twitter seminar Harnessing the Power of Real-Time Connections, presented by Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, on Wednesday June 20, 4.30-5.15 pm.

Previous recipients of the Media Person of the Year Award include: Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google; Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook; Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corporation; Sir Anthony O’Reilly, CEO of Independent News & Media; Tsuneo Watanabe, chairman and editor-in-chief of The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings; Sumner Redstone, chairman and CEO of Viacom and Gerald Levin, CEO of AOL Time Warner. 

To register to attend the 59th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, click here.