This week I spoke with Bruce Swann, Customer Intelligence Solutions Manager for SAS, about the role that email will play in the future when it comes to hospitality marketing. Bruce is a veteran of marketing, having more than 15 years of experience working with marketing and CRM technologies, including marketing automation, predictive analytics and marketing resource management, as well as interactive marketing disciplines like web analytics, social media, mobile marketing and email marketing. At SAS, Bruce works closely with prospects and customers in the hospitality sports and gaming industries to help design the optimal customer intelligence platform based on current and future business requirements. As you can imagine Bruce is a big proponent of data and analytically driven marketing approaches. This week we chatted about how to get more impact for your investment when it comes to email marketing. And of course that raised the following question…

With so many marketing channels available to a consumer today, is email even still relevant?

Bruce explained that without a doubt – he believes that email is still relevant and a very powerful channel for a marketer to leverage for customer engagement and driving revenue. “In fact, while many think email is fading, quite the contrary; it is growing exponentially.” Bruce referred to a recent eMarketer report that projects there will be nearly 240 million Americans with email accounts by 2017.

“One of the contributing factors to the growth of email is mobile accessibility and the prevalence of smartphones,” he said. “Also, with the advent of new devices, such as Google Glass and wearable devices like smart watches, access to email will be that much more convenient for the consumer,” Bruce explained, “and this presents new options for the marketer to target and engage customers.”

Bruce feels that the challenge for the hospitality marketer is not whether email will still be relevant, but how to be relevant with email and stay ahead of the competition.

Read the full article at SAS Institute Inc.

Angela Lipscomb
919-531-2525
SAS Institute Inc.