integrated email marketing best practice
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
2011
THE DETAIL, ARTWORK AND INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION REMAIN THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF CFLUNAUTHORISED COPYING OR REPRODUCTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, WILL RESULT IN PROSECUTION
CFL MARKETINGIntegrated Email Marketing Best Practice
Contents
•Overview
•Data hygiene
•Avoiding blacklists
•Be relevant
•Timing
•Test!
•Targeting and Segmenting
•Simple is better!
•Whets the subject
•Retention
•What about after?
•Now go and Integrate
•Why Integrate
•Other Devices
•Harmonisation
•New ways to profit
•About us
•Clients
•Contact us
Overview - Email Marketing
We all know email marketing, when done properly, is a low cost, and effective mechanism to reach your target
audience.
However email can no longer stand apart.
To maintain and increase its effectiveness it must be integrated with the rest of your marketing effort.
Your emails must support and contain the same branding and content as other communication channels as well as drawing on other parts of your organisation to become
timely and relevant.
Email is everywhere. Its tried and testedWe use it at work, at home, even while travelling,
through the use of mobiles or smart phones and more recently platforms such as social networks and blogs.
It has become too big and too important for marketers to get wrong!
This presentation will give an insight of best practice of successful integrated email marketing campaigns.
Overview - Email Marketing
Data HygieneData is key to successful email marketing. Make sure
your database is relevant, and current.When capturing data online always use email
validation systems as over 63% of invalid email addresses are captured this way.
Be stringent and delete any bounced addresses, opt-outs or even those who never open your messages.
There are many reasons why it’s a bad idea to contact people who haven’t said that they want to hear from you. Permission marketing will achieve a
much higher click rate. If you don’t have the agreement of your subscribers, don't send them
emails. Simple as that.
Avoid Blacklisting!
Do not cut corners! Do not use and unauthorised email addresses as you
will run the risk of being blacklisted.
Senders that are listed on just one of the top 12 blacklists will see a huge reduction of delivery rates
by on average 35%.
Be Relevant!
Take every opportunity to be relevant.
Timing is essential (for a specific event or expiry of a warranty for example)
Make sure each email is personalised to the recipient and from the sender!
Also take the time to utilise different messages to different groups - one size does not always fit all!
Timing
Consumers face a flood of messages every day, you need to be sensitive to that and be very careful
planning the frequency of your emails
It can often be effective to establish a regular sending routine, this will build anticipation in your subscribers and have them looking forward to hearing from you.
A rule of thumb is sending an email no more than once a week. Any more and it may be regarded as
spam.
Test!!!
Always test your email!!! Then test again!!!
Be sure to test your email thoroughly, in as many email classes as possible, not only to ensure that your email looks pleasing to the eye , but also to
confirm that it will land in people’s inboxes and not their spam filters.
Targeting and Segmenting
Use simple database tools or preference options to segment your email marketing, just as you would do
with any other marketing channel.
Build in other data elements such as campaign responses, purchase history or demographics.
Bombarding your whole database with every campaign is inefficient and risks them unsubscribing.
Simple is often better!
Make your design clear and your point obvious. Don’t rely too heavily on images, as these are often not
displayed by default and can cause issues with spam filtering. Keep text concise and include links to your
website; people will rarely read an essay in their inbox.
Think “worst Case” - Many email clients will disable links or images so make sure even in this scenario a
coherent message is still delivered. When sending an HTML email make sure a text
version is also available.
What’s the Subject?
The email subject should be fairly short, not too sales led but be intriguing enough for the recipient to open
it
You could incentivise or personalise the subject line.
Retention
Don’t always take no as an answer!
Greater customer awareness of Opt-out options can severely erode your email base. You need to fight to
retain every subscriber.
It is important to use the “opt-out” process to engage with subscribers in order to address the issues
causing them to opt-out.
What about After?
Sending your email is really just the beginning. Once it’s out there you can begin to see how people
are engaging with your email and brand.
Using simple analytic tools you will be able to see open rates, click through rates, what links were
clicked, forward rates, bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, how many times the email was opened, who
opened it and when they last opened it.
Now go and Integrate!
Email has largely been successful as a solo exercise for the past decade but changing the consumers behaviour and expectations compel marketers to
integrate email with other channels.
Email is less effective when unsupported by other available media methods.
Blindly scatter-gunning the same email to everyone doesn’t cut it anymore, it just tells your recipients
they are not considered as an individual
Why Integrate?
Email is just one of many ways you communicate with customers and they communicate with you.
If they “opt-out” or make a comment on your website, via a call centre, or over the counter, your email
system needs to know.Even if they don’t want your email they may still be valued customers, ignoring an “opt-out” could turn
them off totally!Integration means, no matter what the
communication method is, you have a single minded approach that helps you achieve greater impact,
attention and response.
Other Devices!
You may need to consider what's happening in related media and how your message will look and
feel on other devices and in different contexts.
Decide if your message is informal or action-orientated and chose the media to suit it.
Harmonisation
Multi-channel marketing brings in the risk of confusing customers - Sending conflicting messages,
doubling up, looking or sounding different. Your email should harmonise with what you are
saying in other media.Use the same graphics and text as on your website
and in your print collateral
Consistency is the key!
New ways to profit!Integration means going beyond classic email analytics and looking further than basic profile
segmentation.
Comparing subscribers’ behaviour as customers to their profile as email recipients throws up new
relationships. Putting email together with analytics, data and
content management creates a powerful combination.
Using the totality of your data will ensure new ways to profit.
CFL Click through RatesPhil Martin, Marketing Manager, at CFL commented "we are seeing great results, for one of our restaurant chain clients that we recently ran an email campaign for, we achieved a large click through rate of over 22%
across their whole estate,
I think this is testament to our database expertise and the use of "warm" data coupled with our knowledge of email best practice, HTML template building, analytics, creative and marketing messages. In fact across all of our clients accounts we average over 20% click through
rate.
Our best result this year was for a racing track which achieved a huge 33% open rate and 51% click through.
When this is used as part of an integrated marketing campaign, using different marketing mechanics, it’s where you see a real benefit".
About Us
Having been around since 1984, there isn't much we don't know about direct marketing and to the leisure industry in particular. We've seen the industry go through some major changes in our
time.
CFL have provided unique, effective and relevant direct marketing solutions to our customers, using a product portfolio covering all
aspects of direct marketing - from Direct Mail to Digital Marketing.
We have developed an extensive client portfolio by adapting our marketing solutions for industries as varied as Recruitment
Consultants, Charities and Retail Chains - consistently providing outstanding response.
Possessing that rare combination of operational experience, marketing flair and industry knowledge, our dedicated client
services team will custom build a solution to fit any given brief or requirement.
Clients - Pub/bar Chains
Clients - Nightclubs
Clients - Independent Venues
Clients - Leisure
Clients - Enterprise Brands
Clients - SME’s/Charities
