A Rough Guide to E-newsletter Marketing

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Madeline Gilmore
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1 A Rough Guide to E-newsletter Marketing Content Why use marketing What marketing can deliver It all starts with data How to design effective Writing great Wait! Before you press send... The measure of your success Put it to the test

2 Why use marketing Often underestimated, B2B marketers are fast realising the benefits of marketing. When done well, it is an unparalleled direct marketing channel, playfully referred to as direct mail on steroids. When done badly, it can be a waste of resource and even damage your brand in the long-run. Know the facts: 40% 40% of industry executives said the advertising channel that performed strongest for them was . This was the top result. (Datran Media s 2010 Annual Marketing & Media Survey) 2nd and e-newsletter marketing are considered the second-most effective tool for generating conversions, just behind SEO. (The Ad Effectiveness Survey, Forbes Media in Feb/March 2009) 72% 70% of respondents to an Econsultancy survey in early 2012 described s ROI as excellent or good. Only organic SEO scored better. ( Marketing Census 2012, Econsultancy) Businesses engage in marketing because it works... and works well. Source: Mark Brownlow, Mar 2011

3 What marketing can deliver marketing can help businesses to achieve a range of key business objectives, including sales growth, traffic building and customer relationship management. Here are a few reasons marketing works so well: Fast - you can get a campaign out quickly Direct - make your messages single-minded Personalised and Targeted - talk to the people who want to hear from you, tailor your messaging to different customer segments. Metrics - is one of the most measurable of all marketing channels Objectives marketing achieves most effectively: Source B2B B2C Both Building brand awareness Increasing website traffic Increasing lead generation Supporting offline marketing programs Increasing sales revenue Improving customer relations/ retention Many send out s without truly understanding the reasons for the in the first place. Source: Maria Pergolino, Marketo Blog Jan 2011

4 It all starts with data Ask any self-respecting marketer what the most important aspect of is and they ll tell you right away the list. There s no point crafting compelling creative or coming up with irresistible offers if your messages are going out to the wrong people. So, how to build a good list? Your own in-house customer and prospect database is a good place to start. However, you may also want to consider enhancing your own campaigns by reaching a new database of potential customers in your marketplace The quality of database is deemed to be the biggest barrier to effective marketing. This is cited as a problem by 61% of marketers. (Adestra Census 2010) Quality data allows you to send targeted, relevant messaging to a warm, receptive audience. Cold databases, by contrast, can be a waste of effort and even damage your brand reputation. Data is so top of the funnel, yet it is so undervalued. Brandon Stamschror, Senior Director of Operations for the Leads Group, MECLABS

5 How to design effective We ve seen how data is the foundation for successful marketing but, once you have your list, how are you going to maximise the impact of your campaign? marketing is a bit like a hurdle race, and the next hurdle to jump is the creative one. The companies on your lists will be viewing s in different services e.g Hotmail, Gmail, Outlook. It s important to design your so it appears right in all of them. Coding is key here... BEST PRACTICE Do use background colours Do define height, width and alt properties for all <img> tags. Do define fixed width for all <table> and <td> tags, not a percentage. Do define inline styling in <td> tags, NOT <table> tags Only define <title> in the <head> section Font family should be defined using a sequence of styles, eg. font-family:arial, Helvetica, sans-serif Font size should be coded using px BAD IDEA Avoid the use of forms; Flash; JavaScript; Video; CSS Don t include animated gifs and background images Don t allow tags to remove: <p>, <div>, <Style> (CSS), <h> Never simply type in special characters, such as, &, $, these need to be coded using HTML code. DO NOT use shorthand coding DO NOT use float or margin properties in any tags The big clients Hotmail Gmail Yahoo Outlook Lotus Notes AOL

6 Writing great Your includes various written elements, or copy points that are important in influencing recipients to open and respond to your message. The from field First impressions count, don t get deleted right away. You could use your brand, your product or your company. Our brands are instantly-recognisable in the industry so we stick with these to keep our open rates nice and high. The subject line This is what decides people whether to open your or not. Don t give the whole story, tease recipients with what they call an active question. The body of the Make your point quickly an succinctly, and highlight any offer you are making. Remember to include plenty of links for readers to click through. Calls-to-action In your links and buttons, use active verbs and the imperative tense to encourage click through and lead generation. Examples being Start your free trial now or Get your free sample today Aa

7 Wait! Before you press send...you don t want all the good work you ve put in to planning, designing and creating your just to end up in a junk mail folder. So what can you do to keep your precious message safe from the spam filters? Well, check out freely available lists of spam trigger words on the internet, and avoid using these, particularly in subject lines and headers. And then steer clear of these 7 sendability sins: According to ReturnPath, one of the global leaders in deliverability, only four fifths of company ever gets through to its intended destination. Including text above the fold and keep a fair ratio between text and images Don t use a person s name in the FROM address Don t write your subject lines in CAPITAL LETTERS Pick your words carefully; limit your subject line to 50 characters as a guide. Don t combine the overuse of punctuation with words like FREE and YOU Try to limit the number of different font sizes and font colours you use Avoid using click here to highlight links Pre-flight checks Once you are happy with the design, copywriting, and coding of your , don t forget to proof your thoroughly before you press send.

8 The measure of your success On to one of marketing s great strengths - measurability. Given the right tools, partners, and understanding of the process, you can measure several key aspects of your campaign s performance. 36% of companies state poor measurement and analytics as a barrier to effective use of ( Marketing Census 2012, Econsultancy) Bounces The number of bounces tells you how many of your messages failed to get through. Hard bounces indicate a permanently undeliverable address, soft bounces are temporarily undeliverable addresses. Use bounce data to clean and maintain your mailing lists Open rate This is the number of s opened, divided by the total number of s you sent. Depending on your list and your segmentation you will soon be able to set targets for the open rates you expect to achieve. Improve open rates by testing your subject lines, sending better targeted s or by using well-established industry newsletters. Click through to open rate (CTOR) Shows how many people acted on your , once they had opened it. Calculated by the ratio of unique clicks to unique opens. Improve this number by making your content and calls to actions compelling. Conversion rate This is the percentage of people who clicked through your to the landing page, and then made a purchase or enquiry. Improve this number by optimising your website and/or landing page. The more we understand about the true benefits of , the better we can judge investment and whether, what and where we need to improve. Mark Brownlow, -marketing-reports.com, 2010

9 Put it to the test Like any digital marketing activity, a combination of measuring and testing will allow you to fine-tune your campaign to achieve the best possible results. Lists Consider exactly who you are sending to, is about quality over quantity. Your needs to be relevant and wanted by the recipient. We ensure this by sending only to professionals who have opted-in to receiving our updates. This is a big part of why we retain market-leading metrics. Timing You can soon discover the optimum time of day for sending your s out. Also test the frequency of your s Creative This is essential. We have a dedicated Campaign Manager to test creatives. Good needs to be engaging and compelling. Test to optimise layouts, images, colours and calls-to-action. Offers Test offers to better understand what incentives your audience responds to most. Is buy one get one free more effective than 50% off, for instance? Only 31% of companies surveyed regularly test their marketing campaigns. But 81% of companies who do regular testing for marketing say their ROI from is excellent or good, compared to 37% for those who don t test. ( Marketing Census 2012, Econsultancy)

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