There are only four ways to communicate directly with your customer: personally, in writing, telephone, or digitally. With email marketing now clearly displaying the greatest return on investment in comparison to all other direct marketing channels, it is often debated as to whether email marketing is an art or a science. Certainly getting good deliverability is a technical challenge but then as with all traditional marketing, if the campaign does not stimulate, it doesn’t matter how good the delivery is. So is email marketing an art or a science?

When a strategic marketing campaign comes together, all elements of the campaign sing in chorus to inspire the target audience and enthuse them into action. The different marketing strands used in the campaign must fuse in harmony. The message in the print advertising matches that of the web site, the email marketing broadcast and direct surface mail campaign. Combined they act like an orchestra used to lift the sprit and imagination of the consumer to have an emotional response to a brand. This is something no formula, spreadsheet or bearded tech in a lab jacket could ever achieve. Email marketing is an element of direct marketing and as such conclusively an art!

According to Quris, 40 percent of email subscribers will go "out of their way" to utilize a company whose email programs they like.

E-mail's ROI index is 70 percent higher than any other direct-response marketing vehicle, according to the Direct Marketing Association.

Ninety percent of users will use email to engage in and determine the value of a relationship with a company, reports Jupiter Research.

This science not only gives us better vision of how to compile our marketing
campaigns, it also ensures that our message is delivered in a format desired by our customers. What use is an email marketing campaign that never reaches the customers inbox? With the ever increasing sophistication of the consumer, it is imperative that we deliver in a format that matches their desires to ensure that they are stimulated by our brand. Email marketing is that prime channel for digital marketing and accurate inbox deliverability is beyond doubt a science.

In the past, the creative behind an email marketing project rarely questions the deliverability of an email and rarely do those in charge of getting the email broadcast get that concerned over the design, marketing message and language used in an email campaign. To have a truly successful email marketing campaign both need to work hand-in-hand in order to achieve a successful outcome.

Email marketing is a marriage of art and science and as digital marketing rapidly displays better ROI than traditional direct marketing, it is up to the brand stakeholders to ensure the balance of art and science are combined in equal measure. Concentrating on the creative element or the science part only of a digital marketing strategy is simply not enough; both parties have to work in unity from concept, through to execution and analysis. Finding the right partner for your marriage is the key to digital marketing success.