Interview with Stafford Sumner, Founder and Managing Director at Email Marketing Agency: Jarrang

I set up Jarrang in 2003. We specialise in helping businesses grow, develop and generate results – Jarrang has evolved into a data-driven email marketing agency with international clients in diverse sectors from luxury travel to financial services.
 
 
Jarrang | LinkedIn
 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
Prior to forming Jarrang, I had been working client-side, using email marketing as a way of nurturing leads in the IT sector. I had the idea for the company when I was travelling through Australia, which is also where the name “Jarrang” comes from. It’s an Australian aboriginal word for ‘fast flowing water’, which represents fluidity and flexibility – a perfect narrative for the world of email marketing!

Having always been at the forefront of international digital marketing, being selected by the British Council to be an ambassador for the UK Digital Media Industry in Hong Kong, as well as gaining a UKTI award for ‘Developing International Business’, I always knew that my passion was making businesses grow using specialised methods, such as email marketing – we work hard to continue to be the best and stay on top of new methods of connecting with our clients’ audiences.
 

 

What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs?

Make your mistakes on someone else’s’ payroll first! When you do get going, fail fast, learn the lessons, reset and go again. Too many would-be entrepreneurs let ego get in the way and don’t’ change their direction fast enough when shortfalls are uncovered. Never give up. Build a strong network of supporters, contractors and employees around you, give them a clear vision, and trust them to deliver. And finally, don’t fall into the trap (as many people do, including myself in my younger years!) of chasing false horizons by placing too much importance on ‘turnover’ or ‘number of employees’. It’s all about profitability.
 

What can we hope to see from Jarrang in the future?

 
In 2020 especially, email marketing demonstrated, conclusively, how important it is and how it remains the best tool for putting the right messages in front of the right people at the right time.

Personalisation in email is nothing new but it’s now entering a whole new realm. Looking to the future, and thanks to hyper-personalisation using new technology, email marketing campaigns can now contain real-time content that refreshes at the moment of open. We’ll be working with clients to share email campaigns that deliver an experience that is instantly enhanced thanks to hyper-personalisation. Everyone wins because, regardless of when they open the email, the recipient is always getting the most pertinent, up-to-date information, which keeps communications relevant and results in higher engagement rates with the business.

In 2021 and beyond, we will continue to be “datasmiths”; a skilled, creative team of digital craftspeople who work with raw data to form the best creative ideas to engage the target audience.