Email can be a very effective, inexpensive marketing channel. Its inherent flexibility and timeliness have further increased its popularity. Intelligent solutions, however, are required to ensure the efficacy of email marketing.

Indeed, email marketing now faces the same challenge that direct marketers have faced for decades - how to ensure that the message is opened and read by the intended recipient, rather than merely deleted.

"Sending out email communications in a shotgun manner can be a futile exercise," says Deon Cilliers, (Customer Intelligence Product Strategy Manager) of SAS Institute SA, leaders in intelligence.

"Companies need to use sophisticated analytical models to ensure returns on email marketing spend, and to garner feedback to further refine such communication."

Intelligent analytic audience selection, as well as proper segmentation and profiling can ensure that only those open to the concept of email marketing communications are targeted, and that they are targeted with well crafted, compelling messages that are meaningful to them.

"Customised content is vital, and this should be complimented with tracking information so that user interactions such as direct email replies can be followed through," says Cilliers.

"The data generated by these tracking processes can be used to determine whether the communication is reaching the intended recipients, as well as its overall effectiveness."

The technology required to support such a scenario includes an inhouse bulk email server to execute the mailing; it also demands an intelligence solution to analyse the results of the mailing.

"The marketing department needs to be able to see who actually opened the communication, who forwarded it, who deleted it and which actual link was clicked on in the marketing email message" says Cilliers.

"Those who opened a link to the Web site, for example, should be identified, and their site behaviour observed through click-stream analysis. Taking it a step further is ability to look into the future and start forecasting when the customer is likely to come back and what the propensity is of them spending more with the organisation in the future"

SAS recently launched the SAS Bulk Email Server, which provides high performance custom content delivery, as well as comprehensive response collection. It provides the ability for each individual recipient of a particular email communication to receive customised content.

"By providing customer data mart driven content on a per recipient basis, a marketer has the opportunity to tailor the message exactly to the characteristics of the recipient, to the maximum extent possible afforded by information available on the customer data mart," says Cilliers.

The responses gathered by this technology are designed to be easily queried and analysed.

"By combining this offering with SAS Marketing Automation and SAS Web Analytics, companies can make use of analytics and reporting to obtain a complete solution to their email marketing needs, from the creation of the email campaign in SAS Marketing Automation, through the execution via SAS Bulk Email Server to the tracking and analysis on the website via SAS Web Analytics" says Cilliers.

"Marketing Automation empowers marketers to deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time and through the right - traditional as well as non traditional - channels. Marketing Automation achieves this via the embedment of proven marketing best practices, empowering of marketers to analyse and visualise their campaign universe at any stage and flexible reporting and analysis capabilities.