How is email marketing perceived at the time of budget? And does maturity phase have anything to do with the perception a company has about email marketing?

These are the questions many online marketers are struggling with, as this knowledge will help them grow their business. To answer this question, MarketingSherpa has conducted a study titled MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Survey by taking a sample size of more than 1,100 marketers.

The study result showed that only 38% have said that the company seemed in favor of increasing the email marketing budget in the strategic phase, as they see value in it. But this enthusiasm was not seen in transition and trail phase.

The percentage of marketers who showed reluctance to increase the budget (yet did so) in maturity phase was 38%, in trial phase this percentage shoots up to 41, and in transition phase this percentage was highest (43%).

Total percentage of marketers who refused to invest in email marketing in maturity phase was 24%, and 38% refused to give any money in transition phase, whereas, 40% reflected negative vibes in trial phase (see image).

As per the study, the decision makers seemed to be divided in their views on email marketing expenditure, but the data suggested that more and more people are willing to embrace it. It’s a piece of good news for the industry.

Q. Does your organization have a separate line item for email marketing in the budget?

The answer to this has unearthed the place of email marketing in a budget document. Finding it was important to see if email marketing is given due weight or not.

47% of total respondents said that e-mail marketing is not listed separately in the budget, whereas, 32% said that it is explicitly mentioned as a line within interactive marketing budget. 13% said that it is mentioned within CRM, or customer services heading, while 9% said it is mentioned under lead generation heading. (See image).

What all these mean?

Finding it was important because the place of email marketing in the budget document suggests how a company perceives it, and how much budget is going to be appropriated to it. For example, a company may invest more in email marketing if it sees it as a lead generation tool, but the company may pump in less cash, if it is seen as just another marketing channel. In this case, the company may decide to cut on some other channel to fuel email marketing, or vice versa.

This knowledge was therefore important. It was not mere of academic interest.

Freelance writing is not easy

It indeed is not tough, but it is not easy. To succeed in this, you will have to put in hours and hours of labor every single day, without failing. Then only you will see any result. This is not a field in which you will enter, rake in moola, and leave. This is not a get-rich-quick industry. You have to struggle here, burn midnight oil, and learn continuously. People who fail in this industry, come here with a make-money-quick scheme, and get frustrated when faced with the reality. Writing is not easy, but it will become easier, eventually.

Lack of perseverance

You have to invest so many hours before you get hang of things around here. When you are new, the well may look dark, and the road may look narrower, but there is a wide clearing on the other side that awaits only those who persist. Persistence is the key. Keep fighting. Say this to yourself:

If any one person can do this then be that ME!

Lack of determination is the thing that pushes people away from this writing.

No devotion to learning

If you thought learning stopped the day you got the job, or the day you got the gig then you are in the wrong field. Rather, there is no such field out there in which you will not require to read. Learning is not an event, it is a process which never stops. People who fail are those who do not want to invest time for learning.

I do not believe it is the lack of talent which creates hindrance in the road to the high hills of success. It is the attitude that stops us from that.

If you want to have faith in one thing, have faith on your selection. This will solve half of the problems.

• Investor
• Employee
• Customers

Investor

Investors are a group of people who invest their hard-earned money to get return from your business. They invest in your business because they trust you, and they see hope in your business. Till the time you are fulfilling their expectations, they will keep their money in your business. Hence, you need to keep them apprised of any development in your business. Keep on giving them good news, and your business will be in good shape.

Employee

Your employee is the second pillar of your business. It is your employees only that can make or break your business. Your business solely depends upon their performance to meet the investors’ expectations, and to deliver on the promises made to your customers. It is thus in your best interest that you keep your employee happy. A happy employee will satisfy the needs of many customers, and will present a favorable picture to investors, whereas, a disgruntled employee is a big deal breaker. They will piss everyone off, including you.

Customers

It is the customers for whom you have erected such a giant structure, raised money, and hired so many highly qualified employees. The end goal of your business is to serve this group of people, and all your energy should be channelized to do so. The moment you step away from your path, your business is doomed. Do not let your vision blurred by the shine and sparkles of advertisements and press coverage, you have not achieved anything if you have not served your customer right.

A parting thought

Which one of the three is more important? Well, this is tricky to answer as none of them is more important than rest of the two. You need to make a balance.

Form an equilateral triangle placing each one of them at each corner of the triangle, and you should sit right in the center, equidistant from each one of them.

Benefits of a checklist

A checklist offers many benefits, and unlike its how-to part, it does not require us to invest lots of time reading it. A checklist offers the following benefits:

• It helps us know what we require to accomplish in order to get the work done before we embark upon.
• It works as a guiding post, when we get stuck in the middle of the project and ask now what.
• A checklist helps us verify if we have missed something in the project.
• A checklist is easily scanable, and it should be kept handy when doing some work, as it will help us remember what needs to be done.
• A checklist can help us properly prepare the budget keeping each item in mind.
• It can prove to be a valuable asset when it comes to making a business decision.

Conclusion

One must keep a checklist handy whenever one embarks upon a new job. As said above, it will prove to be a very valuable tool right from the beginning.

I am sure you’ve heard of de.li.cio.us. It redirects to delicious.com, but as a .us domain and social bookmarking site, I can’t help thinking that their creativity was first sparked from the lack of interesting domain names available. If you can take something short and to the point from your search on word navigator, your next step would be to check it’s availability. The following guidelines can speed up the process:

• Since there are 3,563 words that end in -us at the time of this posting, the easiest thing to do would be to copy and paste each list (by length) into a text document, which took me about 7 minutes. You probably won’t take as long, if you copy and paste only half of all the words.
• In the document, click Edit and Select All. Proceed to toggle the bullets off. Then use Ctrl+F and type us into the search box. Click on Find All. You will notice that the -us ending has been selected for all of the words. Now click on Replace All. Your document should no longer have any of the -us endings.
• If your document is 75 pages long, perhaps it would be best to weed out words before continuing. Or you can copy and paste the words in only chunks (maybe 30 words) at a time into this domain name regristration search (clicking on the us extension, while unselecting the com extension), so that your internet browser doesn’t freeze up during the process.

Of the first thirty words I submitted, 14 were available. Here is my example chunk with unavailable .us domain names crossed out:

fagaceo.us                          furacio.us
felonio.us                          furfuro.us
feracio.us                          garrulo.us
ferocio.us                          gingero.us
fervoro.us                          glaireo.us
filaceo.us                          glamoro.us
flavoro.us                          globulo.us
fractio.us                          gluteno.us
frivolo.us                          glutino.us
froufro.us                          granulo.us
fugacio.us                          gummato.us
fulgoro.us                          gumptio.us
fulguro.us                          hazardo.us
fulmino.us                          hilario.us

Honestly, if I were a business looking for an attractive and modern domain name, gumptio.us would be my first pick! If you don’t know, gumptious is an adjective that means enterprising (synonym to energetic, industrious, up-and-coming). Or how about furacio.us? Hurry up, domain names like these will soon fill up the Web 2.0 (or is it 3.0) scene! If you really don’t care what the domain name is and just want to set something up quickly, your best bet would be to submit one or two words into a domain name suggestion tool.