How to keep e-marketing relevant / Sam Cece, CEO StrongMail

Companies run the risk of alienating their customers if they don't keep email marketing relevant, says Sam Cece.

Digital messaging (otherwise known as email to me and you) is at the core of every business’s marketing strategy and despite growth in SMS and social media, it remains central to building and maintaining relationships with customers. And even customers themselves agree, with 73% of consumers naming email as their preferred communication channel.

The group-buying model, which is currently taking the globe by storm (just look at Groupon as an example of a grou-buying company going great guns), goes some way to highlight the importance of email. But while flash sales and group-buying are seen as new and emerging concepts, they are in fact being fuelled by a long-standing and proven tool: email. 

"Let's everybody keep our jobs here": Q&A with Sam Cece, CEO of social CRM pioneer StrongMail Systems

New Media and Search News

Gary Flood

The traditional email marketing game is changing; it's getting more social. Gary Flood speaks to the boss of StrongMail to find out about the latest developments

I understand that, contrary to my initial impression, your company does more than traditional email marketing, Mr Cece?

That's right; too many companies send blanket issue, unpersonalised emails which immediately get deleted. StrongMail works with our customers to cut out this issue. In terms of Reed.co.uk, which has been a customer for a few years now, it gets 300,000 transactional emails every day, and it works with us to ensure a near 100% deliverability rate. Though that aspect is our heritage and what we did mainly for six years, until we started remaking the company about 16 months ago.

So what is it you are evolving into?

We have been purchasing a lot of digital advertising agencies and social media marketing firms, especially in New York, to create what we are calling social CRM.