email marketing
TRANSCRIPT
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 [email protected]
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