Email Marketing

eMarketing: The Essential Guide to Online Marketing

www.quirk.biz/emarketingtextbook

Start a Dialogue

Increase customer value

Why email marketing?

Cost effectiveTargeted and Customisable

Measurable

2 types of commercial emails

• Promotional– Entice immediate action

• Retention based emails– Newsletters– Build long term relationships

Promotional emails: entice the user to take action through purchase or sign up

Retention based emails: information of value to create a long term relationship

with the reader

9 Steps to executing an email campaign

1. Strategic planning:

Plan around your goals

define success metrics

Promotional emails

Immediate goal for user

Action taken by user Purchase Download Request information

Retention emails

Longer term goalsKPIs important

Open Rate Click-through rate ROI

create and retain a long term relationship.

2. Define List

'It is argued by many that the financial worth of a database should feature on company accounts in the same way as any other asset would'http://technologyweekly.mad.co.uk

grow a targeted database

Genuine opt-in Explicit permission granted Information can be gathered over

time

Your database

Only one entry required: prospect's email address

but

more information can lead to improved customisation

Your database: more fields

• First name, surname, title (in separate fields)

• Date of opt-in• Source of permission• Gender• Country• Date of birth

But remember:

•Don’t scare people off.

•All you really need is an email address.

Growing your list:

Use every available interaction

•Incentives to sign up (white paper, gift voucher, music)

•Subscribe options during retail process

•Viral marketing

•Offline interactions and promos

Web site sign up is key

Above the fold

Tell them what to expect

State privacy policy clearly

Check email address is correct

2 stage subscription process

Maintaining lists:

•Keep it clean – bounce the bounces

•Opt in vs. double opt in

•Let them unsubscribe

•Don’t become spam

3.Creative execution

Two types of email

Plain text emails

HTML emails

Plain text email

Text only No hyperlinks

or images Smaller file size Looks the same

across all platforms

HTML email

Contains images, different fonts and hyperlinks

File size is much larger

Can render differently

Know your audience!

Parts of an email

• Header• Subject line• Personalised greeting• Body• Footer• Unsubscribe link

Use the basics to enticeSubject line:

• Helps identify the newsletter and maintain consistency• Avoid promotional words like ‘free',' win’ etc and build trust

‘To’, ‘from’ and ‘reply’ fields:

• Perception of familiarity and authenticity e.g robert@quirk.biz

Construction and Design

Length

Emphasis

Sectioning

Email content

Content should meet the needs of users Relevance value

Platform testing

Images in emails

Images can reinforce copy Images are not always displayed

by email clients Make sure your email makes sense

without the images

Light weight HTML

Keep your emails below 100kb!

Video in email?

Increase click-through rates up to 25%.

Florist’s conversions jumped from 1.35% to 2.8%.

Remember:• include a link, host outside message• Remember that many viewers watch videos for the “entertainment” value. Keep videos short, light and relevant.

Sources: https://www.marketingsherpa.com/barrier.html?ident=30200http://inspireaction.mindandmedia.com/index.php/2007/11/15/hey-its-got-video-it-must-be-cool/

Not everyone reads mails in the office.

Smart phone adoption is rapidly increasing

‘Stay informed, not necessarily to engage’

• Send in multi-part MIME

• Avoid JavaScript on landing pages (it is not supported by most mobile browsers)

4. Integrate campaign with other channels

• Reinforce brand’s message

• Increase responses

5. Personalisation

Mass customisation

• One to one marketing on a macro scale

• Simple personalisation can improve results

• Segment database

• Give consumers what they want

• Send different content to different

people

• Insert ‘dear first name’ greeting,

where appropriate

• Personalise forms within email/landing

page – only ask a question once

6. Deployment

Email Reputation Score

Definition:The general opinion of the ISPs, the anti-spam community, and your own subscribers towards a sender’s IP address, sending domain, or both.

If the sender’s score falls within the ISP’s thresholds, a sender’s messages will be delivered to the inbox; if not, the sender’s emails may arrive in the bulk folder, be quarantined, or be bounced back to the sender.

These could be affecting your reputation score

Email Reputation score

Control your score

•ISPs offer various sender authentication standards such as SPF (sender policy framework) and DomainKeys.

•Keep the list clean by removing hard bounces after 3 deliveries (ISPs don’t like e-mail broadcasters who have a high bounce rate)

•Respond to complaints and unsubscribe requests

•Educate users about whitelists

When should I send?

Try and be action based.

Common sense and testing.

Regularly…like the milk man

7. Interaction handling

Show you’re on top of everything.

Utilise all touch points for calls to action / up-sell

Generate emails in response to actions

8. Generate reports

Key measurables

Emails deliveredBounces

Hard - address no longer exists Soft - inbox was full

UnsubscribesPass on rateClick-through rate

What the numbers can tell you

• Subscriber Growth vs. Decline

• Pass on rate

• Open rates

• Click through rates

• Conversion rates

• ROI

9. Analyse results

Split test!

This is one of the most basic and important parts of an email marketing campaign!

Test the open and click through rates using :

different subject lines, different days of the week and times of the day, different copy styles and email length

Refine the content and construction to your audiences tastes!

Tools of the trade

DatabaseDesign and contentTest

Display Deliverability

What is spam

• Email spam dates to 1978• Accounts for 80 - 85% of email

today • Unsolicited Bulk Email• Email sent without explicit

permission granted

Avoid being a spammer

• Always obtain permission to email• Make it easy to unsubscribe• Send relevant emails• Don’t annoy your database