STEPS TO SENDING SUCCESS

Transcription

1 STEPS TO SENDING SUCCESS

2 SIX STEPS TO SENDING SUCCESS WHITE PAPER The Definitive Guide to Design HOW TO DESIGN, TEST AND MEASURE THE PERFECT CAMPAIGN When online marketers around the globe are faced with the challenge of generating more revenue from their existing customers more and more marketers are turning to as it s cost-effective and highly measurable. The batch and blast mentality of times gone by has been pushed aside and attention is turning towards targeted, personalized, segmented, relevant, well-tested and proven marketing. In short, it s more important than ever that your is well designed so that it is welcomed by the recipient, leading them to become loyal to your company. When was the last time you looked at the design of your newsletter? It s now time for you to bring your newsletter up to date, both visually and content wise while adhering to the latest best practice examples. Whilst we all know the main do s and don ts of design, it s easy to get bogged down with the look and feel of the and forget about the basics. In this day and age it s increasingly difficult to get noticed in a crowded inbox, especially thanks to the advent of web 2.0 and all the associated issues that come with it. You need to be more targeted and more relevant than ever. Think of your as a shop window. Does it draw you in? A boring display = no customers. It s exactly the same for design. To make your as accessible as possible across all clients, simplicity is key. Design is not just about how pretty the looks but also about the usability of the . The design should direct the recipient through the , leading them neatly to a call to action. The style should suit the audience you re appealing to. You have 3-4 seconds to grab the attention of your target recipient before they move on. In our latest whitepaper Six Steps to Sending Success we cover each and every area you need to consider when re-designing your s. From initial designs and HTML tips to testing and measuring, if you follow our simple words of advice you will be well on your way to successful marketing. Enjoy reading and good luck! STATISTIC Research has shown that is the main tactic that has helped companies engage the most with customers with 59% intending to increase their spending on the tool in Source: Econsultancy & Cscape Study November DESIGN BEST PRACTICE Adhering to best practice won t automatically guarantee higher open rates but it will mean you re more likely to see better results if the is opened. Here we aim to highlight the most effective tactics to help you optimize your newsletter with regards to the latest best practice guidelines. USE YOUR COMPANY NAME AS ADDRESSEE Rely on your good name and use your brand as the addressee. That way you are legally on the safe side and of course you catch the recipient s eye with your . SUBJECT LINE AS TEASER Use concise subject lines, emphasising the recipient s benefit and prompt him/her to take action. More information on subject lines can be found in this guide. EDITORIAL FOR YOUR READERS Write an interesting and relevant editorial and capture your readers attention immediately after they have opened the . According to a recent survey, subscribers are engaged more by newsletters with an editorial, than a newsletter without a proper introduction. Another positive effect of the editorial is that you can highlight particular elements of your newsletter to your audience, and if the is viewed in a preview pane, the recipient can immediately see what articles are available. More information on how your can be viewed will be found later. 2

3 DIRECTORY FOR A BETTER ORIENTATION: If your newsletter consists of several articles, then a link directory is essential. This way your recipients can reach the article they are most interested in reading with one simple click. But make sure you don t over burden them with too many articles. TAKE NOTE! Forward to a Friend strategies are great ways to organically grow your database but marketers are responsible for complying with the data protection rules and accepted practice is that the customer passing on a friend s address has permission to do so. STATISTIC COMPANY NAME AS SENDER RELEVANT IMAGES FOR A HIGHER PERFORMANCE Pictures can enhance the performance of your newsletters but only if they are relevant to the newsletter content. Therefore choose the pictures carefully and make sure that the newsletter content will also make sense without images so you don t need to worry about automatic image suppression. ADD TO ADDRESS BOOK Benefit from the positive effects an attractive image can bring you by ensuring that all images and illustrations are directly shown to your subscribers by simply asking your readers to add your address to their address books. You should do this when they sign up and you can include it in your pre-header as well. PLENTY OF WAYS TO GET IN TOUCH You should give readers the chance to get in touch with you via the channel of their choice, so always refer to your postal address, address and telephone number in an obvious place in your newsletter. LINK TO THE WEB VERSION Integrate a link to the web version in as prominent a place as possible. Some recipients prefer to view the newsletter in a browser rather than in the preview window. Link to mobile version will become more important in the future as well. A recent survey found that 50.98% of companies list the sender as the company name rather than sender name. Know your audience: would they rather see an from your company or an individual? Ask them! Source:The Elements of Survey Results Report (eroi) FORWARDING FEATURE A recommendation from your readers is what every marketer wants. That is why you should provide your recipients with the possibility to forward the newsletter directly from the newsletter template, allowing you to track the number of forwards. OPPORTUNITY TO SUBSCRIBE If a person receives a forwarded newsletter he/she should immediately have the opportunity to subscribe to it directly from the forwarded . So make sure you offer the possibility to subscribe as visibly as your unsubscribe option. SHOW THE RECIPIENT S ADDRESS State the recipient s address to raise the credibility of your and facilitate readers who receive your newsletter several times to subscribe with the right address. LINK TO PROFILE DATA Your recipients should have the chance to update their profile. That way you are you able to send them relevant information and avoid unnecessary unsubscriptions. 3

4 TAKE NOTE! Even though you have 28 days to remove someone from the list, try and do it within 24 hours as it could damage you further should the recipient receive additional s after they ve unsubscribed. HINT INCLUDE AN ADD TO ADDRESS BOOK INSTRUCTION CLEAR AND EASY UNSUBSCRIBE Make this easy to find otherwise you run the risk of people simply clicking the report as spam link which is dangerous. Make the process as easy as possible with just one or two clicks. HINTS AND TIPS FOR PROGRAMMING AND LAYOUT Your lands in an inbox, so whatever is displayed in the preview pane or written in the subject line is what is going to prompt the recipient to open your and start dialogue with your organization. It must be eyecatching, relevant and desirable. Don t over clutter your or cut corners because it s cheaper and ensure you re proud of everything you re sending. HTML S HTML design for s is very different to websites and designers must take limitations into account. One of the main reasons for designing s using HTML is the ability to increase brand awareness by having consistent corporate design across your newsletters and your website. Here are a few basic hints and tips for HTML design for Do not use Javascript or Flash as most clients don t accept it Using forms in HTML s should be avoided include a link to a website form instead Keep your creative width to 600 pixels anything wider will force the user to scroll horizontally which never feels comfortable in an unless you have a newsletter which is designed for horizontal scrolling only Design around spam filters by following a few simple guidelines: Avoid using bright red font, capital letters or numerous exclamation marks Keep an eye on your image vs. text ratio Avoid spammy words such as mortgage or viagra Use real content when testing spam filters can get suspicious of lorem ipsum stuff Send plain text with the HTML one Test test test! Use background colors which will render automatically Avoid all unnecessary embedded tables, rows or columns Use inline styling not CSS - simple layouts work the best RENDERING Users tend to have their preview pane on the right hand side or the bottom as shown here in Outlook Here are a few hints when thinking about how s will be viewed in a preview pane: Ensure your logo is prominent Keep important content above the fold Never include important information in an image only Use Alt tags for images to explain content if image is blocked The average measurement for this area is 300 pixels from the top of the this is especially important for web-based clients such as hotmail or Gmail. 4

5 PREVIEW PANE AT THE BOTTOM PREVIEW PANE ON THE RIGHT GRAPHICS VS TEXT Images are important for branding purposes, not to mention studies prove that we read more text when images are present. But increasingly clients don t display the images within an automatically, asking users to click on a button or a link to display the images so it s a mistake to rely on images to convey your message. This means we ve had to dramatically re-think the way HTML s are designed and s now need to make sense without images. Here are a few simple ways of combating images on vs. off: Try and avoid using an image at the top of your as otherwise your may make no sense in certain clients 5

6 Ensure your brand name is easily identifiable even if the images are automatically blocked Make sure your headers or titles are not images Give your images specific sizes and ensure they have Alt text Always host the images rather embed them, then link to the images within the HTML code TEXT ONLY S Not everyone can view HTML s (or they might be viewing an on a mobile device, see below) so ensure your s are always supported with a textonly version. Teradata Digital Messaging Center s broadcast software makes it easy for you by allowing you to send multi-part s from one platform. Here are a few things to remember when writing text-versions of your s: HINT With Teradata s new deliverability solution there is no longer a need to set up a variety of test accounts; you can simply view what your will look like in any client at the touch of a button. Limit the line length to characters and a hard return which will minimize your message being broken up and make your message unreadable If you re linking to a website ensure the URL s are on their own, separate lines Add a link to an online hosted HTML version of the so people can view the this way too You can smarten up your text only s using a few simple elements including space, lines, special characters and capital letters: the more important the message, the higher up in the text it should be Write your text s in a plain text editor such as NotePad (PC) or TextWrangler (Mac) as you need an application which has no formatting. WITH IMAGES TURNED ON PERSONALIZATION From the greeting and subject lines to whole content blocks, with the aid of a professional broadcast solution you can implement even the most complex personalization. Test the extent of how the performance of your newsletter can be increased with an individual customer approach. Think about the different ways you could personalize your The obvious starting place is the greeting line You can also personalize your in the subject line by including the recipient name or their postal code as an alternative personal item. WITH IMAGES TURNED OFF 6

7 Think about being clever with images within your and incorporate their name or company name in an image (not forgetting any rendering issues mentioned above!) Personalization doesn t just mean calling someone by their name. Send them a message on their birthday wishing them a good day with a money off birthday discount for example VIEWED IN MOBILE DEVICES More and more people are accessing their s via Smart phones such as BlackBerrys or iphones therefore it s becoming more and more important that businesses adapt s accordingly, and although there are no strict rules about how s are rendered on mobile devices there are a few things you can take into consideration to convey your message in a positive way: Ensure you send a multi-part message so a text and HTML version can be viewed. Make your from name and subject lines short and easily recognizable as mobile inboxes don t have much display space The average screen size of a smart phone is 320 pixels so messages should be no longer than 50 characters per line Always include a link to a hosted version of the HEATMAP AND LAYOUT To a great extent a well designed should be able to trump image blocking. The heatmaps shown on the following page show the difference in readership between an with images on and off. The version with images received more attention and time spent on the page but not by much as the good use of tables, text, alt text allowed for strong attention to the blocked version, whereas in the with the image blocked, recipients are spending longer reading the entire headline rather than scanning and skipping down. (Source: Marketing Benchmark Guide, MarketingSherpa.) COPY Your will be scanned rather than read, however don t make the mistake of thinking copy isn t important it is! Ensure all the important information is written above the fold ; take the following into consideration and you should stay safe: FIRST THINGS FIRST Think about what actions you want the recipient of your to take and ensure that the option to make these choices is the first thing they see in the . i.e. request a brochure; place an order; subscribe to your newsletter; IMAGES AND HEATMAPS (SOURCE: MARKETING BENCHMARK GUIDE, MARKETING SHERPA) forward the message to a friend etc. These should all be placed in a menu bar at the top of the . As this is the equivalent of a letterhead the important information should be the most prominent. CALL TO ACTION Don t wait until the end of the to put a call to action as this isn t traditional direct mail. Don t assume that your recipients will click simply where there s a link. Prompt them to click! Include call to actions throughout in various formats (buttons, click throughs on images etc). Ensure that there is a clear call to action in a preview pane, and make sure you indicate different channels for the client to get in touch, not just . RIGHT TONE FOR THE AUDIENCE Make sure you are writing your s to suit the recipient using language they will be comfortable with. An to students will need to be written very differently than an to pensioners. MANAGE THE LENGTH OF COPY WITH LINKS You don t want your recipient to be scrolling down through reams of text. Give them a snapshot of the most important information and include a link to a hosted version of the complete article. This will maintain their interest and direct them on to your website where they may venture further into other areas of your site. Keep the text to one or two lines per section to maintain their attention and keep the message as short and actionable as possible. 7

8 THINK ABOUT THE COPY STYLE Remember your is simply a means to a sale and it s unlikely that someone will re-visit your so the copy will need to trigger an immediate response. SUBJECT LINES Writing successful subject lines is extremely important and should not be an after thought. This is the first impression a recipient will get so it s imperative to get it right! Your subject line is competing with a lot of other s in an inbox so if it s dull, meaningless or out of context you run the risk of it being deleted immediately. We have therefore summarized some helpful hints which should give you some new suggestions for your next campaign. Be inspired and - test, test, test! SUBJECT LINE LENGTH With characters to play with you have around 6-10 words to get your message across so you need to get to the point quickly. Studies have shown a link between shorter subject lines and higher open rates. FOCUS ON YOUR NAME Having your company or brand name in the title can significantly increase your open rates, but if you re worried about the amount of space you have to work with then one way around this is by adjusting the sender s address to include the company name. Alternatively, you could use the name of your newsletter in the subject line to catch the recipient s eye. Example: 25% off Teradata conference tickets EMPHASIZE THE CALL TO ACTION Make the recipient curious with news snippets and other important announcements. Set deadlines or countdowns and the sense of urgency will increase the likelihood of accepting your offer. Use questions in the subject heading if it suits the topic as they will involve the reader much more than just pure statements. Example: All shirts discounted - only 24 hours to go before the sale ends ACCENTUATE THE ADDED VALUE TO THE RECIPIENT Keep it short and sweet and get straight to the point. Put yourself in your recipient s place and temporarily put aside your own targets. The chance of getting your read will be reduced if you don t manage to emphasize the advantages of your offer in the subject heading. HINT The copy of your needs to be persuasive and engaging so refer to the principles of sales copy, AIDA: A ttention I nterest D esire A ction THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH It s vital to focus on appropriate subject headings. Only raise expectations you are able to fulfill! Nothing causes more harm to your business than a dissatisfied, disappointed customer. By being reliable and truthful you build up long-term trust with your customers and accomplish a loyal readership. Example: Making your subject headings more successful PERSONALIZING THE SUBJECT HEADING AND SENDER S NAME A personalized subject heading is definitely an eyecatcher. Don t personalize each newsletter send otherwise you risk using up this tactic with your readers. Also, don t forget about the recipients who may not have provided you with their name when registering and formulate it so that it works even without personalization. In addition to personalizing the subject heading, it is also useful to personalize the sender name. People are more likely to buy from other people. Example: A special offer for Lucy Hudson WORDS NOT TO USE IN SUBJECT LINES Don t use too many exclamation marks or punctuation. Avoid using words associated with spam such as lose weight, low mortgage rates or anything to do with pharmaceutical items, medication or sex. Avoid swear words and don t use symbols such as or $. Try not to use capitals otherwise it looks like you re SHOUTING! Example: Order now and receive two shirts for the price of one 8

9 TESTING THE Testing, testing, testing is the motto of successful marketing. Even the smallest changes can have a huge effect on the results and without doing so, you could be throwing money away. So before you send out your brand new beautifully designed , we have compiled a list of tips, showing you which variables you need to test and how the campaign will perform across different clients. DAY AND TIME OF SEND AND CONTACT FREQUENCY Monday morning or Wednesday afternoon? The best time to send your s varies according to the sender as well as the products you re advertising. Generally speaking, Tuesdays to Thursdays are the favorite weekdays amongst marketers. Regarding send frequency, it is tricky to find the optimal balance between contacting the customers too often or too little. More than 50% of major senders contact their clients more than once a week. LIST SOURCE With the enhanced reporting features of Teradata Digital Messaging Center, you can analyze the performance of your s according to the address source. Thus you gain an insight on the quality of your addresses, giving you the opportunity to optimize your lead generation accordingly. SEGMENTATION The more you analyze your database and segment it, the more effective your campaigns will be and therefore you ll generate more sales. A/B SPLIT TEST This is a quick and easy way of testing your or campaign, allowing you to learn more about your subscribers and how they react to different messages or designs. CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR Analyze who buys when and which influences the level of usage (heavy openers, heavy clickers etc) has on purchases. Additionally try to make use of any crossselling or upselling potential. Take a look at any last purchases and send offers concerning related products. TYPE OF OFFERS Tune in to the preferences of your customers. Which kind of offers come across as more attractive: price reductions as a percentage or in monetary terms? Do your customers like to cash coupons or do they enjoy taking part in prize drawings? HINT Only 25%* of marketers test their subject lines on a regular basis. Within Teradata Digital Messaging Center you can take a small sample of your database, test two subject lines beside each other and the main send is carried out automatically with the most successful subject line. *Source:The Elements of Survey Results Report (eroi) DESIGN Vary the design options of your newsletter. Test light vs. heavy illustrations and discreet vs. flashy designs. Refer back to our Design section above for more detailed information. CONTENT Find out whether your customers prefer mono- or multithematic campaigns or informative content or pure sales content. Will your clients cope better with many or few links? DEMOGRAPHICS AND GEOGRAPHY Find out if you can describe your best customers by demographic or geographic attributes and contact them in a second step with offers tailored to their profiles. If you test each element and make any necessary changes once your has been tested and weak areas have been identified and dealt with, you will have the makings of an extremely successful campaign. MEASURING PERFORMANCE OK so you ve completely re-designed your s according to best practice advice, rendering capabilities and it s been fully tested so now it s crunch time. There are many ways to analyze the results of an campaign, but which ones actually show how successful it has been? In many cases open rates or click-through rates are looked at for advice. It s imperative that you use the best reporting tools possible to analyze the results of your campaign in the most effective way. We ll shortly explain these popular performance figures and show you some interesting facts. 9

10 TAKE NOTE! Accurately measuring the performance of your campaign goes beyond just looking at open rates and click rates. You need to look at the bigger picture including the quality of your database, how compliments other media and marketing efforts, and of course the impact on sales. TEST VERSION A: CTR 6.1% TEST VERSION B: CTR 4.5% MAIN BROADCAST: CTR 5.8% OPEN RATE (OR) Open rates work by embedding a tiny invisible graphic into an which displays once the is opened. The OR is the ratio between opened and sent s so you can monitor these as the campaign goes live, monitoring their development each minute, hour or day. If these are compared on a weekly/monthly basis, this is a good indicator for the progress of interest in your s, and in 2008 the average open rate was 23% (Source: National Benchmarking Report 2008, DMA.) Bear in mind though that these days, with a number of clients blocking the rendering of images, your reporting may not be 100% accurate. However the vast majority of s sent will eventually be rendered so it s not all doom and gloom. CLICK THROUGH RATE (CTR) This is calculated from the number of clicked links in an in proportion to the number of sent s. The average CTR rose from 14% in Q to 18.2% in the same quarter in (Source: National Benchmarking Report 2008, DMA.) If you want to increase this you have to keep two things in mind: segment your database in appropriate target groups and send them correspondence with relevant content. BOUNCE RATE This is obtained by dividing the number of s not correctly delivered by the total number of sent messages. In the B2B sector approximately one fifth of all messages are blocked. Professional sender software like Teradata Digital Messaging Center enables you to handle bounces automatically, for example the system directly deactivates addresses which are invalid. This helps you to reduce your bounce rate and keep your lists clean. In 2008 the top reason for s bouncing was that the address did not exist (Source: National Benchmarking Report 2008, DMA) so it s imperative to keep your lists clean. 10

11 CONVERSION RATE This is the number of addressees who reacted in a certain way, e.g. purchase; download; registration, etc in proportion to the number of sent s. Last year the average conversion rate for most campaigns was lower than 2%. CLICK THROUGH RATE TO OPEN RATE RATIO If you divide the click through rate by the open rate, you ll gain insight into the success of your campaign from the addressees who opened the . This indicates whether readers considered the content as interesting or whether you need to optimize it further. Other interesting performance figures include the average turnover per or leads generated in proportion to s sent. So now you ve had a chance to dissect your bit by bit and get it re-designed following our best practice advice, you should be well on your way to sending a hugely successful campaign. We wish you all the best! CONTACT With over 10 years marketing experience, Teradata can help you make the best of your campaigns so if you need any further assistance then don t hesitate to contact us. Visit for more information. ABOUT TERADATA Teradata Corporation (NYSE: TDC), is the world s leading analytic data solutions company, focused on integrated data warehousing, big data analytics, and business applications. Teradata s innovative products and services deliver data integration and business insight to empower organizations to make the best decisions possible and achieve competitive advantage. For more information, visit Innovation Drive Dayton, OH teradata.com 11 The Best Decision Possible is a trademark, and Aprimo, Teradata and the Teradata logo are registered trademarks of Teradata Corporation and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and worldwide. Teradata continually improves products as new technologies and components become available. Teradata, therefore, reserves the right to change specifications without prior notice. All features, functions, and operations described herein may not be marketed in all parts of the world. Consult your Teradata representative or Teradata.com for more information. Lunexa is a trademark or registered trademark of Lunexa, LLC. MicroStrategy is either a trademark or registered trademark of MicroStrategy Incorporated in the United States and certain other countries. Webtrends is a registered trademark of Webtrends Inc. in the United States and other countries. KXEN is a trademark or registered trademark of KXEN. Copyright 2013 by Teradata Corporation All Rights Reserved. Produced in U.S.A.