Email Insight: Knowledge not shared is lost

The email insight title about this article is about knowledge of all the bigger and smaller principles and factors involved in email marketing. It is said to be one of the best performing online marketing channels out there, but that doesn’t mean it’s simple. The vast amount of work to be done even before you can send out something simple as an email newsletter can be daunting at first. Email marketing vendors and service providers can help, but specific knowledge about your email marketing practices and goals should be in-house.
Imagine having the marketing department solely running the email marketing tasks. In most companies, the marketing department isn’t that big, so email marketing will be a task of one single person, sometimes assisted by another. In other cases it is divided depending on types of communications. However, the knowledge and experience while executing email campaigns is built over time. You cannot go from zero to top speed in a short amount of time like a supercar. Besides, the ride in a supercar most of the time doesn’t take long: either it’s a gas guzzler, the ride isn’t comfortable or you can’t hear yourself think.

Email marketing is like a big steam train. Slow to pick up speed, it takes time to have everything run smoothly and also quite some effort. However, once it’s up and running without a hitch, it’s virtually unstoppable. The rewards of hard work will come pouring in. The only question you will ask yourself when you’ve reached that point with your company: Why didn’t we start with this much sooner?
Back to the knowledge part. That person who does (almost) all email marketing for the marketing department mentioned earlier, moves to another company. Some info is handed over to the temp replacement and/or direct colleague, but there is no dedicated knowledge sharing. The intricate details of email marketing can seem technical, boring or too complex for an outsider, but are all the more important to fully understand all the factors involved.
A company therefor has to encourage its employees to share knowledge wherever, whenever. It can lead to new ideas, innovations, ways of working and optimization of processes. For email marketing specifically it can mean that, even when someone’s ill, leaves the company for another job or gets other tasks, there will be others who can pick up without a hitch and keep things going. Deeper understanding of all things involved is important to make the channel succesful, otherwise it will just simmer a bit without really reaching its full potential.
Some people will now jump in and say ‘But what about time? All marketers are strapped for time, let alone being able to take or make time to share their knowledge with other colleagues!’. I say nonsense. Doing business means making your business as succesful as possible within the given time and responsibilities. If that necessitates sharing knowledge, then so be it. It will pay back tenfold further down the road. Not just for the company, but also for the other employees.
And what company doesn’t want succesful and happy employees doing what they love?
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