An e-mail marketing manager is the person who oversees the development and growth of e-mail marketing programs. This person is responsible for all aspects of the planning, execution and analysis of e-mail marketing campaigns including contact strategy, calendar development, creative, segmentation, production and analytics. The e-mail marketing manager creates a one-to-one relationship with the customer, making it easier to respond to the customer’s habits, interests and needs in a more immediate way than through other channels. An e-mail marketing manager has the potential to have tremendous, immediate impact on the bottom line. There is also the opportunity to react quickly to market conditions, and tailor messages very specifically to different segments of the audience.
His or her responsibilities include developing targeted email campaigns based on customer segmentation, with the goal of cementing the customer relationship and increasing purchase frequency and/or quantity through cross sell and up sell offers. Usually the e-mail marketing manager is one of several channel managers reporting to a marketing director.
Initially, the e-mail marketing manager conducts research and competitive analysis to determine market size, competitive benchmarks, trends, opportunities, customer needs and expectations. The e-mail marketing manager is responsible for developing campaign strategy, including offer, creative, product selection, and timing.
The e-mail marketing manager manages the company’s relationship with email service provider, and is the resident expert on email best practices, privacy and compliance issues. He or she knows that once a customer opts out, they have lost the opportunity to maintain an ongoing thread of communication with that customer electronically, so it is wise to test conservatively.
There exists a close relationship with the website team, working in concert to develop landing page strategy, including SEO and content flows for maximum conversion.
As with most functions in direct marketing, the e-mail marketing manager must be both creative and analytical. In addition to the front end responsibilities mentioned earlier, the metrics must be closely monitored and analyzed, including click through, deliverability, open rates, response rates and average order.
