MEDIA RELEASE 8 October, 2012
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Spike, leading a new era of email marketing
Spike, previously Spikemail, are thrilled to reveal their name change and the launch of their new brand. It’s the same enthusiasm and passion for email marketing, but with new packaging. The change comes amidst a shift to their new Auckland premises and is mirrored by a new online presence at spikehq.com.
“The new name and brand is really allowing us to hone our focus on what we do: send emails that get read and acted on,” says Spike’s CEO, Glenn Edley. “Email is far from dead, in fact we’re seeing a bigger uptake now than ever.”
Having been at the forefront of the industry for more than 10 years, Glenn has seen attitudes around email marketing shift. What we send is becoming more relevant, while people are being increasingly mindful of what they sign up to.
Emerging trends in 2012 for email marketing
“The old marketing tenet of contact every 90 days just doesn’t hold water anymore,” says Glenn, who advocates ‘sending less, more often’. With so many messages bombarding consumers daily, there’s a need to be in front of them more often, even if it’s just a simple brand reminder.
“Email, as a channel, is never compared to the likes of television or radio where messages get repeated a lot,” but Glenn believes there is power in repetition. “People would often say I don’t want to send too often and annoy my customers, but this perception is shifting as people understand the power of email and stop seeing it as spam.”
That brings us to another key trend – that is the transformation of information sharing. There is no doubt that Social Media has had a huge role in this sea change, as we share or forward things that we think will be relevant to our friends. “Kiwi’s love being able to say ‘Hey, I know someone or something that could help you with that’ so the likelihood of people using what you send becomes higher as we empower people with information.”
What does 2013 hold for email marketing?
Glenn predicts a return to ‘old-school’ rules for business. He believes we’ll see business become more and more personal as people acknowledge the strength that email has for engagement. “One way communication is archaic. As people realise that they’ll become less afraid to put their names on the bottom of an email and encourage replies,” says Glenn.
Another key trend is towards integration. As retailers or other businesses use a combination of ecommerce, point of sale, and CRM systems, email marketing is providing the glue that brings these activities together. At Spike, the focus has been on growing the uses of their own technology. Through development of their API, they’re now integrating their software with that of other companies. “For the end user, it means clean data and the need for only one system. It also ‘closes the loop’, allowing better visibility of people’s purchasing habits and more effective ROI measurements,” says Glenn.
Lastly, there’s still work to be done around compliance. This is largely education and you can rest assured that Spike will be in the mix helping businesses to understand how they can best initiate contact the right way.
What’s on the cards for Spike in 2013?
At Spike they’ll be focusing not only on compliance education but also sharing wider email marketing pearls of wisdom with a video series – set to launch soon. “So many companies still don’t send email, so we need to show people what good email marketing is and that there’s nothing to be afraid of,” Glenn enthuses.
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For more information, visit www.spikehq.com
Glenn is available for interviews on request and can provide expert commentary on all aspects of email marketing and how it integrates with other channels, ie: social media etc.
For further information or to book an interview, contact:
Christina Wedgwood, Intelligent Ink
[email protected]
09 629 4213 or 027 631 0171