A Rough Guide to E-newsletter Marketing Content 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Why use email marketing What email marketing can deliver It all starts with data How to design effective email Writing great email Wait! Before you press send... The measure of your success Put it to the test
Why use email marketing Often underestimated, B2B marketers are fast realising the benefits of email 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 email. This was the top result. (Datran Media s 2010 Annual Marketing & Media Survey) 2nd Email 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 email s ROI as excellent or good. Only organic SEO scored better. (Email Marketing Census 2012, Econsultancy) Businesses engage in email marketing because it works... and works well. Source: Mark Brownlow, www.email-marketing-reports.com Mar 2011
What email marketing can deliver Email 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 email 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 - email is one of the most measurable of all marketing channels Objectives email marketing achieves most effectively: Source http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31804# 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 emails without truly understanding the reasons for the email in the first place. Source: Maria Pergolino, Marketo Blog Jan 2011
It all starts with data Ask any self-respecting email marketer what the most important aspect of email 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 email marketing. This is cited as a problem by 61% of marketers. (Adestra Email 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
How to design effective email We ve seen how data is the foundation for successful email marketing but, once you have your list, how are you going to maximise the impact of your campaign? Email 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 emails in different services e.g Hotmail, Gmail, Outlook. It s important to design your email 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
Writing great email Your email 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 email or not. Don t give the whole story, tease recipients with what they call an active question. The body of the email 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
Wait! Before you press send...you don t want all the good work you ve put in to planning, designing and creating your email 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 email 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 email, don t forget to proof your email thoroughly before you press send.
The measure of your success On to one of email marketing s great strengths - measurability. Given the right tools, partners, and understanding of the process, you can measure several key aspects of your email campaign s performance. 36% of companies state poor measurement and analytics as a barrier to effective use of email (Email 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 emails opened, divided by the total number of emails 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 emails or by using well-established industry newsletters. Click through to open rate (CTOR) Shows how many people acted on your email, 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 email 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 email, the better we can judge investment and whether, what and where we need to improve. Mark Brownlow, email-marketing-reports.com, 2010
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, email is about quality over quantity. Your email 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 emails out. Also test the frequency of your emails Creative This is essential. We have a dedicated Campaign Manager to test creatives. Good email 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 email marketing campaigns. But 81% of companies who do regular testing for email marketing say their ROI from email is excellent or good, compared to 37% for those who don t test. (Email Marketing Census 2012, Econsultancy)