Email Marketing for Beginners Module 2: Subscriber List Building The best marketing emails use the power of words and images to draw a response from the reader.
Contents 1. Building your email address list... 3 2. What constitutes effective permission?... 4 3. Why not buy an email list?... 6 4. Single opt-in Vs. Double opt-in... 7 5. Subscriber acquisition methods - Online... 9 6. Subscriber acquisition methods - Offline... 12 7. Email list quality control... 14 8 How to lower unsubscribe rates... 16 9 A bried history of emailing... 17 10. How to handle unsubscribes... 18 2
Building your email address list The best marketing emails use the power of words and images to draw a response from the reader. Their persuasive qualities lead to sales, registrations, downloads, donations and a host of other positive actions and influences that can make a significant difference to your success. All of which is utterly meaningless if you don t have anyone to send them to. The mailing list is the most important element in the success of your email marketing campaigns. If you can convert visits to your website and social pages into lasting relationships via email, the chances of retaining customers are much greater. The more people you have on your email address list, the more marketing emails you can send out and the more responses you can get. But is it that simple? Is the size of the list all that matters? And just how do you build the biggest and best list you can? A permission-based list built by yourself always yields the best results, since you re providing people with content that s relevant and interesting to them. This module introduces you to the key principles and practices that help you 3
build a permission-based, responsive list of addresses so those emails can get to work for you and your organization. What constitutes as effective commission Professional email list building starts with permission. You don t actually want the biggest possible list of email addresses. You want the biggest possible list of email addresses for people who have asked to get your messages. This is the idea of permission: only people who have explicitly requested your marketing emails should be added to your list. Why? First, in most countries, sending bulk marketing email without some kind of permission is often illegal. Second, those organizations managing incoming email (webmail services, corporate IT departments etc.) aren t limited by legal definitions: they view marketing email sent in bulk without the recipient s permission as spam. Consumer surveys also reveal that a main reason for marking or reporting email as spam is I never asked for this. Spam reports are a major factor used by webmail services and others to tag bad senders, potentially leading to outright blocking of all that sender s emails. Third, a key factor in email marketing success is identifying the kind of emails people find valuable. Messages offering no value get no response (other than the unwanted kind: people leaving your list or marking your emails as spam). 4
Permission provides a foundation for delivering value, because the people on your address list are pre-selected for relevance. They have raised a hand and said I am interested in the emails you send. So what constitutes effective permission? While everyone agrees that permission is important to building a successful email list, there is disagreement about what constitutes effective permission. Consider, for example, a typical website registration form which also allows people to add their address to the site s email list. The quality of permission deteriorates as you move from Option 1 to Option 4: Option 1: Check the box if you would like to get weekly special offers from us via email. (Customer must take a specific action to get on the list) Option 2: Uncheck the box if you would not like to get weekly special offers from us via email (Customer is signed up unless they take action) Option 3: By registering at this site, you agree to receive weekly special offers from us via email. You can unsubscribe from these at any time. (Customer is forced to grant permission if they want to register) Option 4: See full registration Terms and Conditions. (The agreement to receive marketing emails is a footnote in a long list of terms and conditions that nobody reads). 5
The permission ideal is where someone makes an informed and explicit decision to join your list. The more you deviate from this ideal, the more risks you take with permission and the more likely you are to have the problems outlined earlier: possible legal issues, spam reports, delivery blocks and lower response rates. Why not buy an email list One short cut to building a large email list quickly is simply to go out and buy one. Knowing how important permission is to email marketing success, it s clear that you should never do this, however cheap they might seem. The people on that list for sale have not specifically granted YOU permission to send them emails. Sending to some or all of those addresses (depending on their location) may even be illegal. And, even if legal, many recipients will likely perceive these messages as spam. Consider also: These lists are often compiled by cobbling together old lists or copying addresses off websites. The people behind those addresses are very unlikely to be your target audience (whatever the seller may claim), meaning you can expect extremely low response rates. Many addresses are likely outdated, and sending email to dead addresses is also used by webmail services and others as an indicator of a spammer at work. The legal and delivery problems associated with purchased lists are so severe that respectable email marketing service providers expressly forbid their use in service terms and conditions. 6
2Writing at ClickZ, delivery expert Stefanie Miller has described how one company used a purchased list and found up to 85% of the addresses were defunct, and half of the messages that did get through were reported as spam. Ultimately, a purchased list will achieve nothing more than harm your sender reputation, decreasing your deliverability and put your company at risk legally. Single v.s. double opt-in Newcomers to email marketing often don t understand the difference between onceoff opt-ins and double opt-ins. The point of having people give you their addresses is for your email marketing message to be anticipated, delivered properly and maybe even shared. But these emails mean nothing if the recipient doesn t understand why they re receiving it - in which case your newsletter will be disregarded or even worse, marked as spam. So you really do want to communicate to people who have opted in to your campaign. You can only consider an address opted-in if someone gave it to you by submitting a signup form or by otherwise indicating that they wish to be added to your list. There are two main ways to let people subscribe to your emails: 7
Single opt-in: This means people are only added to an email list if they actually fill out your registration form. While this is a standard practice; one problem here is that people can sign up friends, family members, colleagues or just anyone they know to lists without their permission - which means you could end up sending emails to people who ve never heard of you. If you take that idea one step further: some people only consider an email address to be opted in if it has been confirmed twice Double Opt-in: When someone signs up for your email list, you send a confirmation email with an extra link that they must click before they re finally added to your list. And if they don t click the link, they don t get added. This is likely the best way to handle your new email subscriptions, and has many advantages such as that: Your response rates will be much higher because only the people who are truly interested in hearing from you will double opt-in. Nobody can report you for spamming because you have proof that they ve double opted in. If you sell any advertising space within your email newsletters, you can charge more for it because your audience truly wants to hear from you. Building a great relationship with your audience starts with giving them a choice. 8
Subscriber aquisition methods - online If you can convert a single visit to your website into a lasting relationship, your chances of gaining or retaining a customer are much greater. You can do this by getting that visitor onto your mailing list. If the ideal time to invite someone to join your list is when they have shown interest in your organization and you have their attention, it makes intuitive sense to build a sign-up opportunity into transactional forms and processes. For example, whenever people: Go through the checkout process for a product or service. Register at the website. Register for an event, particularly webinars. Submit their details to get access to content, such as a print catalog, or downloadable ebooks and white papers. Enter an online competition or complete an online survey. (Many senders run competitions specifically to build their email address list.) Email marketers surveyed by MarketingSherpa rated purchase, online event and content registrations as the three most effective tactics for email list growth. Where else can you collect sign-ups? Social media and other online venues People interact with your organization online outside your website, too, such as through your social media presence, iphone apps, online ads, etc. 9
Surveys consistently show that people have a strong preference for receiving commercial messages through email. For example, Crossview found that four times as many shoppers preferred to receive promotions via email rather than via social media. A Merkle consumer survey revealed that: E-mail is the preferred method of commercial communication of 74% of all online adults So a common strategy for many organizations is to encourage their social media contacts to sign up for email, which provides a better and more-effective context for direct promotional efforts. Examples include: A tweet announcing the imminent publication of your next newsletter, inviting followers to sign-up to see it Using Twitter to promote the online version of your email Embedding your sign-up form in your Facebook page This approach needs to give social media contacts a compelling reason to open another channel of communication with you. A successful tactic is to ensure your emails contain information or offers that are only sent to email subscribers. This exclusivity is a powerful incentive to join a list. Your list building efforts can also benefit from your pay-per-click search engine advertising (like Google s AdWords). Ensure the pages visitors are directed to from your search engine ads include a prominent sign-up opportunity. You might even consider advertising the benefits of your list and send people directly to your sign-up page from the ad. The same principles apply to any paid online advertising you do. 10
Ask your existing subscribers for referrals Another good online source of new subscribers is old subscribers! Any professional email marketing software or service lets you put a forward to a friend (FTF) link in your emails, leading to an online form the subscriber uses to recommend your message to their contacts. The principle is a great one: your subscribers know who d enjoy getting your emails and the personal recommendation carries weight. But simply adding a brief forwardto-friend link to an email rarely has much impact. Instead: Ask for the referral directly in your editorial text or copy. For example: Share this email with a friend or colleague Give people a reason for recommending you. For example: Help your friends save money. Share this email with them Make sure your email contains information on how to sign-up for emails from you. For example: Did a friend send you this? Sign-up for your own email updates at Work with partners Find related businesses whose products or services are complementary to yours and ask if they ll add your newsletter to their opt-in form. Do trade offers, adding an extra registration check-box so people can subscribe to your list and your partner s 11
bulk email marketing list at the same time. Subscriber aquisition methods - offline Where else can you collect sign-ups, aside from on the world wide web? Of course, the idea of making timely use of a customer or prospect s interest and/ or attention to invite an email sign-up extends way beyond the internet. The opportunities are limited only by your imagination. There are a number of offline list building opportunities commonly leveraged. It s also true that an email list or a physical mailing list of highly targeted prospects or, better still, paying clients, can be worth as much or even more to a primarily offline business. Examples of good sign-up opportunities are: Direct Mail If direct mail is a part of your existing marketing mix, then using it to build your email list is only practical. All the mail you send out should be complimented with copy that encourages recipients to sign up for your mailing list. Sure, this may take some time, especially if your list is of a decent size. However, it is an investment that will pay off time and again. By slowly converting your list from direct mail contacts to email contacts, you will eventually reap the benefits of lower costs and more efficient communications. Industry Events and Tradeshows 12
If you are actively involved in your field, asking for contact information at industry conferences and trade shows would be a great way to acquire new prospects for your list. This could be done with the traditional paper form, or even the same form on your website. Bring a laptop along with you and people can sign up just as they would online. This spares you from having to add the names to a master list later. Print Materials Taking advantage of printed materials is another effective way to spread awareness about your email marketing efforts and build your list. Simply include the URL or a QR barcode to your opt-in page and put it on all your printed materials. This URL or barcode should be included on flyers, catalogs, fax headers, receipts, invoices and other marketing and communication materials uses to operate your business in the real world. When using this method, remember that it is very important to explain the benefits of signing up for your list. Sign-up at Check Out Put out sign-up forms at the point of sale, reception and customer service desks. Ensure staff (including those doing customer service or taking orders by telephone) are trained and incented to highlight the benefits of subscribing and get the opt-in. Two important principles to remember with offline contact acquisition are: 1) Don t forget permission. When someone hands you a business card, for example, this is not an invitation to sign them up to your email list. You need to get permission, either in person at the time or by including a sign-up invite in your 13
one-to-one follow-up communications. 2) Enter the information into the online system as fast as possible, so that confirmation and subsequent emails are sent out in a timely manner. If you wait too long, it makes a po or impression and the would-be subscriber may forget they asked for those emails. Email list quality control In the constant bid to avoid looking like spammers to the internet s delivery services, legitimate email marketers often go to great length to address low response rates, which is often due sending to outdated or dead email addresses. To help with this, email marketing service providers has tools to improve the quality of your list, and so occasionally you ll need to spend some time cleaning it up by following these steps: 1) Sweep your mailing list The main work is in pruning your list regularly to remove known bad email addresses, or addresses that are bouncing. If someone unsubscribes, make sure they re removed immediately. Eliminate duplicate email addresses. If your email marketing service provider does not do this automatically, do it yourself manually. Remove fake accounts, or addresses that were entered as a prank or are plain nonsense. Look for addresses like abcd@, qwerty@, test@, and any other common bogus user names. These are all entries that you absolutely want to get rid of as they are wasting your time/ money and dragging down your email sender reputation. 14
Frequently monitor your list for no opens and no clicks to determine who is no longer engaged and remove them from your primary mailing list. If you are reluctant to let go of these contacts, consider moving them to a separate list for reengagement campaigns. 2) Cut out bad entries The next thing you can do is to search for and correct simple data entry mistakes like misspelled domains (geemail.com, hotmole.com, etc.) for example. Having a few of these is quite normal, but if you are finding many bad domains then you may want to try and determine how those addresses got onto your list. Do you have data capture issues? What can you do to eliminate the possibility of bad domains making it on to your database? Perhaps include reminder text on your signup form for subscribers to double check their entries, or add another email address field that gets recorded on a separate list, to cross-compare the entries when you are doing list hygiene checks. The presence of a large number of dead domains shows that you haven t been performing consistent list cleanups. Remove these and commit to regular address book reviews in the future. 3) Keep emailing Consistent and regular attempts to contact subscribers is in and of itself a list quality control solution. 15
To keep your list current, make sure you send messages to your subscribers at least once every 90 days. If you wait too long, your list will have many bounces due to people changing addresses or forgetting who you are and assuming your email newsletters are spam. Stay in front of your audience and retain their interest by giving them valuable content. Don t keep trying to sell them something every time your send out an email. If you do, you ll become an annoyance and people will no longer want to receive your messages. Business owners also need to make sure that the list they use is a real reflection of their target audience. Don t transfer addresses between various unrelated lists or simply copy addresses off business cards, brochures and other media - get permission from every person that gives you their address before you record it in your database. 4) Plan for future hygiene Once you ve given your email list a good scrub, immediately schedule the next spring-cleaning (before you forget or become too busy). How far out the next list sweep should be depends on the efficacy your opt-in processes. The better you handle new subscriptions, the less frequently and less intensely your list will need attention. A Brief History of Emailing Over time an email marketing list may erode as people lose interest in your offerings or, worse yet, become annoyed by your newsletter sends. 16
Regardless of the reason, emailers have to accept a certain amount of list depreciation as things go on, but if that list ever begins to lose too much mass too quickly, it might be time to consider a few ways to stem your unsubscribe rate. There s always something you can do to save some of your subscribers. Following are three campaign tips that are sure to minimize your opt-outs: 1) Listen to your readers First of all, in opt-in email marketing, a subscriber ignored is a subscriber lost - which is why you need to take whatever campaign feedback you get seriously, while you still have that person s attention. A little remedial communication is always a lot easier than getting someone back onto your list after they ve left. Most of the time, though, people will unsubscribe quietly and without logging any complaints, despite all of your hard work to keep them satisfied. When this happens, you need to take the opportunity to solicit feedback from them and act on it. Chatting to a disgruntled reader who has opted out probably won t help you save that email recipient, but it may help you prevent future subscribers from leaving your list. 2) Customize email frequency Are you bombarding your subscribers inboxes, or leaving them too scarcely contacted for their preferences? Just as you could let them choose the types of emails they receive, you should also let subscribers adjust the frequency at which you send to them. A major step in preventing unsubscribes is in letting your email newsletter recipients tell you what frequency is right for them, which can vary from daily, to weekly, to monthly and so on. 17
Everyone on your list will have a different frequency that s the best fit for them. So, offer customized email frequency options at the bottom of every email and also on the page to which your unsubscribe link navigates, as a final effort to retain your subscriber. You can send these emails to your inactive subscribers, too, asking them to select their ideal sending frequency to re-engage and prevent an impending unsubscribe. 3) Improve your segmentation The more specific your email subscriber segments are, the better able you are to deliver content that speaks directly to their interests, making you a welcome fixture in their inbox. Not everyone signs up to your newsletter for the same reasons - they live in different places, they have different behavioral patterns and they like different products. This being the reality, marketers need to split up their lists and craft messages accordingly. Email segmentation is important because it allows you to deliver only the most relevant, customized content to your subscribers. Suppose you could create two or three different offers that would appeal to different groups of your subscribers, depending on their needs, wants, interests and objections. The more relevant an offer is, the more likely someone is to take you up on that offer, and the less likely they are to unsubscribe. How to handle unsubscribes Have you ever subscribed to a newsletter, only to decide later that you no longer want to receive those emails? The same happens to your own subscribers too. 18
Let s look at the main reasons why people unsubscribe: The newsletter content is, or becomes irrelevant to them. They feel that information has been repeated over and over via various newsletters. They are dissatisfied with your brand, product and/ or service They have been getting way too many emails from you, too often They are simply no longer interested in your communications - they have moved on to other things in life. If you want your email marketing to be successful in the long term, understanding why people decide to opt out of your newsletter can help you make your readers want to keep hearing from you. One of the most important best practices is to be upfront about how often they can expect to see your email newsletters appearing in their inbox, since anyone would feel strongly motivated to unsubscribe when emails from sender begin popping up too frequently. Of course, the skill is in knowing just how often is too often. Consider offering several options for email frequency via your subscription form. For instance, offer a weekly digest, a monthly summary or a bi-monthly newsletter. marketers, a daily occurrence. And so you have to make sure you are prepared to 19
Regardless, even if you put forward your best efforts, email opt-outs are for most marketers, a daily occurrence. And so you have to make sure you are prepared to give your readers a proper send-off if and when they decide to leave your list. Make it simple to unsubscribe A common peeve among users is when they are made to search for hidden unsubscribe buttons or jump through hoops to get their name off your list. It s better if you make this process as simple and professional as possible, as business integrity and the law demand that you always give people a clear channel to opt out. Make sure your unsubscribe features are obvious and easily accessible, and when someone unsubscribes from one of your mailing lists, also send them a reassuring confirmation email that they have been successfully unsubscribed and that their data is no longer stored on your system. This retains trust in your brand, reduces separation anxieties, and more importantly keeps an email marketing program on the right side of the law. 20
So after all these ifs, buts, whys and wherefores, where can you actually get hold of some metrics? Get it from your ESP Some email marketing service providers such as GraphicMail offer you free industry comparison reports in your account. Get an online list of worldwide email metrics for performance stats, deliverability stats, consumer surveys and email client market share reports. The main independent metrics report is MarketingSherpa s Email Marketing Benchmark Guide. It normally costs just under $400, but they have many free options, too. Getting away from averages, you can also find numbers in many published email marketing case studies. Of course, you can t make like-to-like comparisons here either, but every number helps give you a better understanding of email marketing life and how well you are performing. Keep your eye on the email marketing news, especially when there s a big online marketing event, companies like to publish the results of surveys and bag a bit of free PR. Whenever you see a metric mentioned, take a note, save for later, and compare your campaigns at an appropriate time. 21