the landlordzone® guide to solus e mail campaigns · to help you employ these strategies yourself,...

The LandlordZONE® Guide to Solus e‐mail Campaigns of 10

The LandlordZONE® Guide to Solus e‐mail Campaigns

This 10 page Guide is provided to help our clients better understand, implement and execute email

marketing strategies to maximise return on their investment.

The guide will provide you with the information you need to know about successfully setting up,

running and reporting email campaigns. A good campaign must be both effective and efficient:

Effectiveness

Your aims and goal setting

Segmentation and targeting

Your communications strategy

Creatives & good copywriting

Optimising, testing and evaluation

Efficiency

The quality of the List

Legal compliance – copyright , standards

Email deliverability

Templates and rendering ability

Proprietary professional sending systems

The Benefits of Solus e‐mail Broadcasts

E‐mail marketing has become one of the most important tools now available to all businesses, but in

particular, those with websites. It provides a cost‐effective means for brands to reach their

prospects and customers with impressively designed, timely and relevant direct communications.

An Investment in email marketing invariably reflects the quality of the pre‐send planning and

preparation applied and the results delivered ‐ many of our solus e‐mail broadcast clients rate email

as their best channel by far for return on investment. At LandlordZONE® we believe that our e‐mail

campaigns excel as a customer communication tool and this is confirmed by the positive feed‐back

we are getting from our e‐mail broadcast clients.

To get the most from our e‐mail campaigns you need to regularly review the strategic and practical communications benefits to your company by testing the results of your email marketing. This exercise will help you build a business case for future investments in the medium. To help you do this we offer detailed send reports through our professional sending partners Pure360® to give you independent verification and feed‐back. E‐mail campaigns offer a relatively low cost of fulfilment, highly targeted delivery and a far wider reach than conventional mail ‐ the physical costs of email are substantially less than direct mail. Being a direct response medium, these campaigns encourage immediate action, so feed‐back is almost instant and it’s easy to measure effectiveness through our detailed reports. Email marketing encourages click‐throughs to any website, where brands can be strengthened, contact details can be collected, or the offer can be redeemed immediately, thereby increasing the likelihood of an immediate, impulsive response.


Email marketing challenges As with all marketing efforts, it is far too simplistic to describe email marketing as a cheap, quick, and an easy solution to all your problems. As with any successful marketing process there are many practical planning issues which need to be carefully managed for a campaign to be successful. Ten key issues are:

1. A quality design HTML message 2. An “attention getting” and appealing subject line 3. Well written, concise and hard hitting advertising copy which complies with advertising

standards and does not breach international laws – intellectual Property. 4. Attention to “no no” spam word content – see below 5. Optimised for correct rendering in all e‐mail clients 6. Thorough pre‐send testing 7. Quality landing pages with matching style and theme 8. Attention to branding images throughout the process 9. Capacity to deal with responses quickly and efficiently 10. Analysis of the results for future improvements and to justify more investment.

With a professional approach, a large targeted database list and professional senders that can get the messages through all the major Internet Service Providers, with their strict traffic protocols, then a LandlordZONE® campaign in partnership with PURE360® will increase your chances of success many fold. Responses and Conversion‐Rate Measuring email campaign effectiveness and setting sales goals for your direct mail campaigns should become routine. The cost of the mailing must be recouped by the value you get. Very often, since email is cheaper to send, specific response goals aren't always set and measured, but for all your campaigns you should set specific goals. First, you can create a good estimate of campaign response by using a spreadsheet. Set this up to show best and worst case scenarios for each of the following mail stages:

1. The number of e‐mails sent from the list. 2. The number actually delivered. 3. The number of e‐mails opened. 4. The number of recipients CLICKING through to a landing page. 5. The number of required responses – e.g. completing a form 6. The number of desired outcomes – sales conversions

Our example shows a list with 100,000 subscribers (about the size of the LandlordZONE list today). In this example the modelled response of sales varies between 149 and 26. That’s a really massive overall attrition rate, but it shows the value of working hard to maximise quality: opens, clicks and landing page responses. Below is an example of a spreadsheet analysis:


Figure 1 – e‐mail campaign analysis – source econsultancy.com Many companies do not prepare for and facilitate offline response capacity through a prominent phone number, e‐mail links, call‐me‐back, live‐chat option or even having enough staff present to deal with an influx at the right times. If you are retailing mass market, low value products, then you need to automate the sales process as much as possible, but for high value complex products you really need personal sales support. For a really good overall success, these offline facilities and a focus on higher response rates must be incorporated into your campaigns. To help you employ these strategies yourself, here are our Top Ten Tips for Creating a Successful E‐mail Marketing Campaign:

1. Choose Your Mailing List Very Carefully

Any email marketing campaign is only as good as the mailing list used. At LandlordZONE® we have built a quality list over a period of 13 plus years. We have never sold or bought‐in e‐mail contacts. These are people we have dealt with over the years, landlords in the main, but also some letting agents and other property professionals, so we know our list is pure, targeted and relevant to the rental property industry.

Every LandlordZONE® mail campaign goes out in the LandlordZONE® e‐mail template. This is a trusted brand name that people in the rental property industry are familiar with. They know we don’t send spam and that we vet our advertisers carefully. It also tells our subscribers that we are sending ads out on your behalf, but that we have not sold our list – we will never sell our list.


2. Decide your goals ‐ what do you want your e‐mail campaign to achieve? Do you want people to buy a product or service right now, or do you just want them to go to your Web site and complete a response form, or are you simply looking to strengthen your brand name for purchases at a later date? It's all about setting you goal up front, and then letting the design and the messages flow through the process.

Bear in mind that every communication with your target audience is an opportunity to make a good impression and strengthen your brand, regardless of whether you make an immediate sale. Compared to other forms of advertising on the LandlordZONE® website, e‐mail campaigns are high impact and immediate but at a higher initial cost ‐ they are not right for every product or client. If your product is a distress purchase for example, likely to be used very infrequently, not at the time of the mail broadcast, then a smaller less expensive website ad, which is always present, can be more effective long term. 3. Use a consistent message with your brand. This means making sure that your brand, your message and your marketing goals extend all the way through from the impact of your e‐mail, to the signup page, and to whatever landing page you've created. We cannot emphasis enough the power of a recognisable brand image. Make sure the design quality and the look and feel of your e‐mail reflects the design and tone of your website, so there is an instant connection and recognition, strengthening your brand awareness at every point. The quality of your HTML e‐mail and images is very important. Not only does this reflect on you and your brand image, it reflects on us as well. See an example by Knight Knox of a top quality e‐mail on page 7. 4. Engage readers right away with an intriguing subject line. Your subject line literally can make your campaign a roaring success, or simply produce a mediocre response: people are so busy and receive so many e‐mails these days; they simply will not open yours unless you make it intriguing and appealing. So, however, good your advertising copy, the subject line is the most important sentence of your whole e‐mail campaign. Just like a newspaper stand headline, the subject line needs to draw people in: “Landlord Insurance” can be spiced‐up by having it read "A New Concept in Landlord’s Insurance: find out how you can save money and prevent losses” At LandlordZONE® we are able to send out mails with alternative subject lines: input 5 different subject lines and over the first few hundred sends they will be tested for opening, after which the rest of the list will be sent with the most successful subject line. Ask us about this facility when ordering.

5. Don't bury your message in a sea of words. Many ads are far too verbose – too many words turn people off – you need hard hitting, concise copy with a clear call to action. Practice Brevity. Remember that your email recipients will quickly scan your emails – if they don’t find interest, or the reading is difficult, they will move on... They will not read your email carefully from start to finish. Writing good advertising copy is a skill you need to develop, or you should pay someone to do it for you. Most readers scan to preview their e‐mails: you need to continue to engage readers beyond the subject line. Include your key message or call to action and your logo or identifying design at or near the top of your e‐mail


(above the fold), certainly within the first four inches. And make sure to include clear links to key landing pages. Jacob Nielsen, a web marketing expert says: (1) be succinct, write no more than 50% of the text you would use in a print publication, (2) write for scan‐ability, never ask readers to read long sentences or continuous blocks of text. Reading from a computer screen is around 50% slower than reading from paper, and don’t forget, these days more and more people read from a phone or tablet – here you have even less space to get your message across. 6. Make it targeted, friendly and personal. Reaching the right people, with the right interests, with a friendly personalised message, boosts response rates. Write in the first person (you will benefit) rather than anonymous third person speak. Tailor your subject to the audience and appeal to their wants and needs. At LandlordZONE® we are able to geo‐target messages – we can send out messages to recipients in specific geo‐locations, for example, London and the South‐East, (were approximately 25% of our subscribers reside), or Devon and Cornwall, which might include just a couple of thousand, etc. Ask about this service when you book. 7. Don't go overboard with images — be careful with audio, video and Flash. How many times do you receive e‐mails that take forever to load or won't display, or won't display properly without your permission? Whilst images can definitely make an email look more attractive, you need to keep them manageable, and make sure that they will display properly in all e‐mail clients ‐ Outlook, Yahoo, Hotmail, Windows Live, Gmail and AOL etc. Remember, Flash and most animations do not work in e‐mails. Flash does not work on Apple iPads and iPhones full stop. 8. Follow up in a timely way — without pestering your prospects. If or when someone signs‐up for information or purchase, follow up quickly and effienctly, without seeming too desperate to sell. A friendly follow‐up message acknowledging receipt, or a phone call to take an order is all that’s needed. If you fail to close, don’t relentlessly pursue prospects for ever more – just limit your contacts to one or two – they will come back and buy when the time is right if you treat them right. Remember, if you overdo the follow‐up you might find yourself black‐listed in their in‐boxes and also, we will get un‐subscribes from our list. At LandlordZONE® we are able to do a follow‐up mail to all those recipients that responded to your ad. Ask us about this service when you book. 9. Test to find out what works. One of the great things about e‐mail campaigns is that you can accurately measure the results. Have you got different ideas or approaches? Then go ahead and try them out. We will provide you with all the results‐tracking and feed‐back on which one works best. Use our tracking to learn what your audience likes, and doesn't, and mix it up from time to time to see how small tweaks affect those response numbers. Generally, e‐mail is a challenging medium which means most subscribers will act immediately on their first viewing, if they are to act at all. However, there’s always a proportion of busy visitors that will save it or flag it, and return to an email at a later point.


Always analyse the results of you e‐mal campaigns to verify their effectiveness and value for money. We can help you here by providing our detailed send reports. You can also track the results for yourself by having appropriate tracking links included in your e‐mail links. 10. Make your e‐mails easy to read We will always provide and on‐line copy of every e‐mail we send on your behalf. There is a prominent “Can’t view this e‐mail” link at the top of every e‐mail, which means recipients can easily click to an on‐line version. A version is also automatically archived on the LandlordZONE® website, so unless you request otherwise, your ad will be accessible on the website long‐term. With increasing numbers of recipients reading mails on mobile devices, we are cognisant of the need to display your e‐mail ads correctly on all these mobile media. Some Important Sales Principles to Bear in Mind when Advertising Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – by Robert Cialdini The 6 key principles of persuasion:

1 Reciprocity ‐ People tend to return a favour, thus the effectiveness of offers and helping others in marketing. Cialdini often uses the example of Ethiopia providing thousands of dollars in humanitarian aid to Mexico just after the 1985 earthquake, despite Ethiopia suffering from a crippling famine and civil war at the time. Ethiopia had been reciprocating for the diplomatic support Mexico provided when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. The good cop/bad cop strategy is also based on this principle.

2 Commitment and Consistency ‐ If people commit, orally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honour that commitment because of establishing that idea or goal as being congruent with their self image. Even if the original incentive or motivation is removed after they have already agreed, they will continue to honour the agreement. For example, in car sales, suddenly raising the price at the last moment works because the buyer has already decided to buy.

3 Social Proof ‐ People will do things that they see other people are doing. For example, in one experiment, one or more confederates would look up into the sky; bystanders would then look up into the sky to see what they were seeing. At one point this experiment had to be aborted, as so many people were looking up that they stopped the traffic. See conformity, and the Asch conformity experiments.

4 Authority ‐ People will tend to obey authority figures, even if they are asked to perform objectionable acts. Cialdini cites incidents such as the Milgram experiments in the early 1960s and the My Lai massacre.

5 Liking ‐ People are more easily persuaded by other people that they like. Cialdini cites the marketing of Tupperware in what might now be called viral marketing. People were more likely to buy if they liked the person selling it to them.

6 Scarcity ‐ Perceived scarcity will generate demand. For example, saying offers are available for a "limited time only" or setting deadlines encourages sales.

Recommended Further Reading: 1 ‐ Understanding Digital Marketing: Marketing Strategies for Engaging the Digital Generation by authors Damian Ryan Calvin Jones.

2 ‐ Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – by Robert Cialdini


Figure 2 – An example of a top quality HTML e‐mail broadcast – notice length is not an issue.

The Importance of Subject Lines and Avoiding Spam Words This refers to whether or not subscribers actually open your e‐mails once they’ve arrived in their inboxes. Much depends on your e‐mails’ subject lines. Even though subscribers have opted‐in to our list, on receiving your e‐mails, they might not necessarily open them? It helps a great deal that the e‐mail is coming from a respected source – LandlordZONE® – but people are busy and tend to receive a lot of e‐mails. Direct is Best. What kind of e‐mail subject lines result in the highest open rates? When it comes to subject lines, direct is best. Subject lines that go for the hard sell tend to have the lowest open rates. People dislike pushiness, opted‐in or not. So when crafting subject lines for your e‐mail campaign, simply tell the recipients what they can expect to read when they open them. Definitely avoid come‐ons, avoid ambiguity, avoid fluff, and especially avoid spam trigger words – see below. Be as specific as possible. Then make sure the promise of your subject line is fulfilled by


your e‐mail’s content, which should grab the subscribers’ attention and, ideally, encourage them to click through to one of your business landing pages for further information. Subject Lines are not Ads. It’s helpful to keep in mind that subject lines are not ads. The more your subject lines read like advertisements, the more likely your readers are to perceive your e‐mails as spam, even though they’d initially opted‐in to our list. If your e‐mails hit people’s radar like spam, because of subject lines that come across as annoying or intrusive, your subscribers will opt out as soon as their fingers can click their mouse buttons. You want your subscribers to know, with each e‐mail, that your promotions are relevant to them (Landlords, Property Investors etc) not junk mail. Your subject lines are the key to quickly communicating that your promotions are worth reading. For the sake of your e‐mail marketing campaign, don’t forget the importance of subject lines ‐ they’re nothing less than crucial. A subject line offers an extremely limited amount of space, which you must utilize wisely in order to get people to open and read your business’ e‐mails. Be creative, but not cheesy. If you work hard to craft subject lines that intrigue, but also tell them straightforwardly what they can expect from opening your e‐mails, you’ll enjoy high open rates and a more successful e‐mail marketing campaign. We will do our best to advise you and to help you avoid sending out obviously bad subject lines, but it’s up to you to be creative and to put some serious thought into getting a really effective subject line. Spam trigger words to avoid Spam is a huge issue on the internet these days and unfortunately it has impacted on businesses that send legitimate bulk e‐mails. It means that we have to work a lot harder to get our e‐mails to our reader's inboxes. At LandlordZONE® we use a top professional UK e‐mail sending service (Pure 360®). They have the expertise and a reputation with ISPs which enable us to get most e‐mails through. We also run a “Deliverability Check” on every e‐mail campaign before we send it out – this picks up 99.9% of deliverability problems. Obviously, we will inform you right away if changes are needed to your mail shot. However, all e‐mail programs (from Gmail and Hotmail to Outlook) have in‐built spam filters that scan incoming e‐mails to determine if they are spam. One of the main things checked out is words in the content body of the e‐mail and in the subject line ‐ if 'spammy' words are found, programs will mark your e‐mail as spam and the recipient will probably never see it. Obviously, some of the words below are common business phrases, so it is difficult to avoid some or all of them. Definitely avoid obvious Spam words like Free, Guaranteed, Offer etc. We suggest that if you must use one of the phrases, just use it once per e‐mail or create an image for the words, otherwise you are risking getting your e‐mail blocked. If you can, try to use synonyms like 'complimentary' instead of 'free' or changing the wording slightly so you don't get picked up by the spam filters.


So, if you want to make sure recipients read your e‐mails, do try to avoid or at the very least use only once the words or phrases below:

#1 Number 1 $$$ £££ 100% free 100% Satisfied 4U Accept Credit Cards Act Now! Ad Additional Income Affordable All natural All new Amazing Amazing stuff Apply now Apply Online Auto e‐mail removal Bargain Best price Billing address Billion Buy direct Call Call free Can't live without Card Accepted Cash bonus Cents on the dollar Pence on the Pound Cheap Check Cheque Claims Click / Click Here / Click below Click to remove Collect child support Compare rates Compete for your business Congratulations Cost / No cost Credit Credit bureaus Dear friend Dig up dirt on friends Do it today Double your income Earn £ Earn extra cash Eliminate debt E‐mail marketing Explode your business Extra income For free Form F r e e Free and FREE Fast cash Financial freedom Financially independent Free Free gift Free grant money

Free infoFree installation Free investment Free leads Free membership Free offer Free preview Free website Full refund Get it now Giving it away Guarantee Here Hidden 'Hidden' assets Home based Homebased business Income from home Increase sales Increase traffic Increase your sales Incredible deal Info you requested Information you requested Internet market Insurance Investment / No investment Investment decision Leave Legal Lose Limited time offer Make £ or $ Marketing Marketing solutions Message contains Money Month trial offer Mortgage Rates Multi level marketing Name brand Never No gimmicks No hidden Costs No investment No‐obligation Now Obligation Offer One time / one‐time Online marketing Opportunity Order / Order Now / Order Status Orders shipped by Performance Phone Please read Potential earnings Pre‐approved Prices Print out and fax Priority mail Profits

Promise youReal thing Refinance Remove / Removal Reverses aging Risk free Sales Satisfaction guaranteed Save £ or $ Search engine listings / search engines See for yourself Serious cash Solution Special promotion Success Stock disclaimer statement Stop snoring The following form Thousands Unsolicited Unsubscribe Free Gift Give Away Urgent US dollars UK Pounds Web traffic Weight loss Wife Win Winner Work at home


Afterword E‐mail marketing is one of the most powerful elements in our digital marketing toolbox. It allows us to communicate directly to our subscribers through this now universally accepted digital medium. People hate spam, but they will readily accept regular e‐mail communications from a recognised source, from a brand name like LandlordZONE®, with a reputation for sending information of value. The key for advertisers is to make your message professional, relevant and interesting. People don’t mind being sold to providing what’s on offer is relevant, needed and at a competitive price. Ordering LandlordZONE® Solus Mail Broadcasts: Image Design: Please supply to us in good time your designed HTML e‐mail / images (600px wide max – depth is flexible) and any text to go with the images. It’s a good idea to have some balancing text with an image or images as an all‐image HTML mail shot has a slightly higher spam rating. Subject Line: Please supply us with a suitable subject line. NB: your subject line is so very important in attracting readers and achieving high opening rates. Give very careful thought to your subject line – see above. Landing Pages: Please supply the URL address for your landing page/s and any text links. Plain Text Version: Ideally, all mail shots should be accompanied with a Plain Text version, both for those e‐mail recipients that do not accept HTML e‐mails (fewer in number these days) but also for spam rating purposes. Mails without Plain Text get a higher spam rating. We can usually generate plain text content from your main HTML e‐mail code, but if you want specifics, please supply us with this plain text. Pre‐Send Testing ‐ For all solus e‐mails we will send out a test e‐mail for your approval before we send to our full or partial database list. We can supply you with comprehensive delivery reports following all mail shots. For full advertising details on LandlordZONE®, rate card and order forms, see our media pack here: http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/advertising Order Forms are available here: http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/pdf/adform.pdf Please fax, scan and e‐mail or mail your order signed to us. All images, html links and advertising text should be sent via e‐mail to: [email protected]

We hope all that helps. Regards, Joe Alexander and the LandlordZONE® Team Contact 0845 260 4420 [email protected]

the landlordzone® guide to solus e mail campaigns · to help you employ these strategies yourself,...

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