Q&A: Blaine Mathieu, CMO, Lyris

Q&A: Blaine Mathieu, CMO, Lyris

Lyris, a digital and e-mail marketing company, recently launched a partner program to give marketers an advantage on delivering complex campaigns. Blaine Mathieu, CMO at Lyris, talks to Direct Marketing News about the program and the evolving e-mail marketing space.  

Direct Marketing News: What's new for Lyris?

Blaine Mathieu: We are excited about our new partner program. It targets resellers, referral partners, integration partners and agencies with a comprehensive program including marketing support, competitive margins, training and personal support from the partner team. Most so-called partner programs are more about getting logos on websites. The Lyris partner program provides real benefits to real partners.

Also new at Lyris is our release of real time conversion and revenue metrics. Most [e-mail service providers] do a good job of reporting e-mail open and click-through data in near-real time. Marketers have used this data to test and optimize e-mail campaigns as part of an A/B test, for example. However, these metrics are really only proxies for the ultimate success of a campaign. By reporting actual revenue [for an e-commerce site] and conversion metrics [for a lead generation site], we can allow marketers to make timely decisions based on actual successful [initiatives].

DMN: What's your take on optimizing e-mails?

Mathieu: At the end of the day, it's all about relevancy. Integrated tools have finally reached the point where a real marketer can effectively use them to connect e-mail campaigns with social and mobile.

DMN: You raised an interesting point in a recent phone conversation about marketers going back to doing what they do best – can you expand on that?

Mathieu: Until recently, e-mail marketers have been using tools that make their lives difficult. The tools are highly technical and basically require “marketing technologists” to run them. This gets even more complicated if marketers want to run integrated, multichannel campaigns that include, but aren't limited to, e-mail. The advent of so-called “connected marketing” tools take the pain and complexity out of e-mail marketing. This includes marketing analytics, campaign optimization, and connecting e-mail marketing with other channels. Marketers are able to think like marketers again and not like technologists.

DMN: What's the next big thing in e-mail marketing?

Mathieu: Connected marketing is the future of e-mail marketing. E-mail marketers already see mobile marketing and social media marketing as largely belonging to them. Messaging via devices or social networks is very closely tied to e-mail messaging.

The next connected marketing bridge will be built between e-mail and [pay-per-click] search engine marketing. E-mail and PPC, in that order, are considered the two highest ROI, most measurable forms of marketing in existence today. Connecting the two efforts will ensure that what marketers learn about the person from his search behavior will be used to make their e-mail marketing more relevant and, therefore, more powerful. The next big thing will be the connection between search and e-mail marketing.