Eggblogg

Three 'quick wins' for your email marketing

At the recent E-Commerce Expo event, Sean Duffy of Emailcenter presented some timely reminders* about how attention to detail can make all the difference in email marketing. For example:

Using a personal 'from' name rather than the generic company name. When Toptable changed the 'from' name on their campaign from 'Toptable' to Alex - Toptable', opens increased by 5%. And when Corporate Direct inserted the individual client account manager's name into the 'from' field, it brought a massive 70% increase.

That particular statistic does sound quite exceptional, nevertheless this is something I'm taking on board and will be suggesting to some of my clients.

Reporting by domain. If you're experiencing deliverability issues it's worth checking to see whether it's ISP specific. Emailcenter gave the example where, thanks to a client's domain name being mistaken for a spammer, the bounce rate to Yahoo addresses was found to be 98%! But after a dialogue with Yahoo the problem was resolved.

This is one of the reasons it's worth working with a reputable UK email service provider - our own lovely partners at Sign-up.to, for example!

Taking a long term view, not per-email. I know I've said this before, but it's as true as ever. ResponsibleTravel.com identified the 45% of their list who hadn't opened an email in 6 months. See also Mark Brownlow on this topic.) They targeted just that group with a different subject line, and managed to re-engage 8% of them.

Getting permission to email people is a precious gift, so until they say they don't want to hear from you any more, surely it's worth trying to hang on to them?

* 10 quick wins for your email marketing (powerpoint slides) from Emailcenter UK.

Is there such a thing as respectful, respectable marketing?

I think so ...

Apparently, the latest release of TV series Futurama paints a grim picture of direct marketers as aliens interested only in fleecing gullible people out of their personal details (I wonder if the bad guys have English accents?)

The public's perception of your average marketer does seem to lie some where between the estate agent and the politician. Even some of my oldest friends express wonder that I could enjoy such a, well, down and dirty profession. Especially if I say I'm in email marketing (ah! you're one of those people who know how to get past the spam filters) or search engine optimisation (ah! the black art of getting Google to place you at the top)

There are certainly times when I'm ashamed to be a marketer, but I stick to my belief that it doesn't have to be that way. If you can't respect your audience you can't expect their respect.

Why email must get more relevant and targeted

As I read this white paper from Responsys on the new rules of engagement for email, I couldn't help but agree with the basic idea that email needs to get more relevant if it's to cut through the clutter. Not just the spam clutter, but the clutter of untargeted email.

For example, I regularly receive updates from a networking group, telling me about their meetings taking place each month and encouraging me to attend. Trouble is, they're quite long, and half a dozen towns are featured as well as my own, meetings I'm unlikely to travel to.

I used to open these emails in order to see what was happening in my town, who would be at the meeting, guest speakers coming up, etc. This kind of information might persuade me to go along. Instead, I got a bit fed up with reading about what all the other groups were doing, and not a lot about Lewes.

If this list were segmented geographically, it wouldn't be hard to send out emails which just focused on each recipient's local group. Over time, members and prospects would become more engaged, as they found out more about the people involved, the venue, what happened at the last meeting.

In the Responsys report, the authors note that 'untargeted, irrelevant messaging will result in a faster decline in engagement.'

As email marketers, it's something we and our clients must take on board.

The strategy of email marketing

I was just looking through emailstatcenter's First Annual State of Email Metrics Survey and came across the question of what email marketers will be focusing on in the near future.

Strategy and planning came out on top, with creative services and testing being given the lowest priority.

If this really is the case, perhaps we'll finally see email being used more strategically. I do sometimes think that companies 'do' email marketing simply because they feel it's cheap and because everyone else seems to be doing it. Whack a sign up box on the website, gather email addresses and whenever there's some inventory to get rid of, or when the overworked marketing person has the time or energy to think of something to say, hit 'send'.

Some people are of course using email to great effect - segmenting, targeting, making their mailings ever more relevant and timely. But email can be so much more than simply a direct marketing tool - it can play a key role in brand building and customer relationship marketing, for example.

An email marketing strategy, planned for and thought out at brand level, makes for powerful results. Email marketing shouldn't be seen as a cheap tool, added on further down the line when all the big decisions have already been made, and managed by junior staff.

Why it's worth spending marketing budget on talking to your existing customers

The other day I got asked about our email marketing services. 'We need to target architects and interior designers in Sussex', he said. I had to disappoint him, as I explained we deal only with permission email marketing, in other words, communicating with customers/members/suppliers or prospects who have given you their permission to do so.

For many small businesses, getting new business is about getting new customers: perhaps they have a service or product that only gets bought once, or not very often (funeral directors or estate agents for example).

But a much neglected area of marketing is customer retention. If there's even a possibility that people might buy from you more than once, then customer retention is worth putting some budget against. If there's a good chance they'll come back again and again, and bring their friends, it's definitely worth it. Plus, it's all tied up with reputation management. Even if they don't need you again, keep in touch and they'll remember you when friends & family are looking.

So before spending a fortune on Yellow Pages, print advertising, pay per click, telemarketing and so forth .... think how little it could cost to keep some of those hard-won customers and get more of their business.

For many hard-pressed SMEs, if just 30% of the marketing budget went on customer retention, I am confident profitability would increase. Not only that, so would word-of-mouth referrals and long term customer loyalty.

I'm not saying you should inundate your customers with 'offers' emails every week, though lord knows it must work for some, we all know companies who do it.

But the task of selling to an existing customer is far easier than finding, wooing and persuading someone from cold. It's also cheaper, and the good news is ... done well, this kind of customer loyalty marketing just gets more effective over time.

Shame the same can't be said of targeting the cold prospects, who, in the face of mounting junk mail and spam issues, are becoming more immune to direct mail, cold prospecting and broadcast advertising.

Why bother about generating customer loyalty? One big reason is the more loyal the customer, the less likely they are to be sensitive to price increases.

Hang on ...  marketing which allows you to put your prices up, rather than demanding you lower them? Now there's a novelty.

Monster Mash

My thanks to Lara for pointing out a news story from Ireland concerning the spamming of a list of IT professionals by recruitment firm Monster. Tom Raftery blogged about it here on October 1st, but although we've come across it somewhat belatedly it's still a cautionary tale.

And don't miss this wonderful commentary on the incident - it's the funniest thing I've read in ages. Enjoy.