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How to increase email engagement An introduction to personalisation and frequency With billions of emails sent by businesses every day, how do you get yours noticed and encourage recipients to act on them? In this eguide, we address the importance of: Relevance, personalisation and appealing to specific sectors of your target audience Continually experimenting with different variations and environmental factors @ Discovering when your audience is most likely to read emails
Why make your emails more specific? Consumers are constantly bombarded from all sides by communication of all kinds social media notifications, text messages, telephone calls, voicemails, billboards, personal contact, online chat, services, flyers... you name it. In particular, emails are increasing and especially corporate communications. In Q3 of 2014, 140 large US businesses sent a massive 8.7 billion business as usual emails and 340 million triggered emails between them. Source: The Epsilon Email Marketing Research Centre It s hardly surprising, therefore, that email recipients have become selective about what they notice and what they don t and then what they choose to pursue. So to make your marketing communications effective, you have to appeal to the diversities among your recipients and catch them at a good moment. Source: poofytoo.tumblr.com Personalisation and frequency are VITAL considerations To stand out, messages have to be engaging and truly relevant to the person receiving them. For example, a childless single person looking for cocktail offers is unlikely to be thrilled by news of a family fun day with free kids meals. They ll click unsubscribe faster than you can say face painting. Subscriber lost. page 3
Personalisation doesn t just apply to the recipient, but also to the sender. For multi-unit brands or services with bricks-and-mortar outlets to promote, localisation is crucial for two reasons. Firstly, customers often establish a relationship with their local store or restaurant, for instance, and are more likely to engage in emails that ostensibly come from that outlet (or even better, the manager people connect with people). Secondly, as our own email testing has proved, customers are also more likely to act on announcements or offers local to them. So personalising both the sender ID and the message is well worth the investment (which can be a cost-effective one when campaigns are streamlined through a multi-location platform). There s plenty of research out there to support this including a study by the Aberdeen Group, in which personalised emails achieved an average of 14% more click-throughs and 10% more conversions. Emails also have to be sent on the right day and at the right time. There s no point yelling about a happy hour at 6pm on a Friday, when business commuters are already gazing out of the train window on the way home. At 2pm, however, it could have motivated a change in their start-the-weekend plans. The bottom line is cost-effectiveness, as if you re unspecific, you re paying to send emails to thousands of people who aren t reading them let alone acting on them. Segmenting your recipient database allows you to target different demographic categories of consumers, giving your campaigns a qualitative edge. Personalisation fail: An enticing email offer from Vietnamese restaurant brand Pho. It s a shame it s only valid in Pho St John Street (London) and not in the restaurant from which we opted to receive offers. To stand out, emails have to be engaging and truly relevant to the person receiving them page 4
5 ways to segment emails for your recipients Here at CE, we use a variety of segmentation methods to target different types of email recipient and also to test the effectiveness of our techniques. These include: 1. Varied subject lines and split testing We often send an email with two different subject lines to see which one provokes the highest open rate. Each version is sent to a small, random sample of a recipient database say, 10% each. After about 24 hours, we assess the results then apply the best-performing subject line to the remainder of the dispatch. For example: A) Is this the best cocktail offer in town? or B) Only 5 for cocktails this Friday. This would reveal to us whether people subscribed to a brand or an outlet s emails pay more attention to an enigmatic subject line, or one that states the price directly. In the case of promotions, we often find that an intriguing subject line may attract more opens but fewer clicks than a descriptive one, as recipients who open the descriptive version know that the content is relevant to them and are more likely to be interested in acting on it. There are cases where an enigmatic approach could be more beneficial, though for example, in repeat promotions or where recipients are less driven by value-focused aspects such as price. It s also worth noting that the split-test method can be used to measure the effectiveness of special characters, emoticons or specific keywords. Split testing can identify which of two different approaches is most effective page 5
2. Personalised subject lines A masked data field can be used to automatically input content from the email recipient database, such as each user s name. For example: Weekend plans, Kate? Enjoy our fantastic food offer. We can also split by male and female preferences, using popular stereotypes for example, if a pub was promoting drinks discounts, a wine-focused subject line could be sent to females; while a beer-focused subject line was sent to males. 3. Demographic appeal On behalf of many of our clients, we use customer insights, gleaned from email preferences data and periodic surveys, to discern both a demographic and behavioural group for each recipient which is information that we can put to good use. For example, a value-focused parent looking for the best deal to eat out will have different priorities to an elderly couple who regularly eat at a particular venue already so we can adjust the subject lines of emails accordingly. We can also use conditional text within the body of the email, using a dynamic content feature that shows different versions according to the pre-determined data filters. 4. Time of day and time of week If you want to find out which day and time generates the best response from your target audience, an email dispatch can be split into groups, each sent in a different slot. For instance, you could try a five-day dispatch, with the email being delivered to 20% splits of the database at the same time from Monday to Friday. Or you could test both day and time, splitting the dispatch into 10 slots with two time options. After the analysis, we d advise selecting the top two performing slots for a face-off test during the next campaign. Then you can see which one gets the highest open rate and use it to inform your future scheduling. 5. Template testing Is it better to send an email with a single message; or use a multi-message newsletter format, with one main topic plus a few secondary themes? You can find out by sending a different version to 50% of your database. We can examine users click-through activity (or lack thereof) to see which areas of a template are most appealing, whether images, call-to-action buttons or contextual links and how many people take notice of the smaller messages. Of course, template selection should also depend on message strategy and the nature of the content. page 6
Split-test 1: Harvester What we did: We created a 10-segment email dispatch for family restaurant brand Harvester, sending two emails each day, Monday to Friday, at 9am and 3pm so the whole database received the same email that week, but at different times. What we learned: The dispatches on Monday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon achieved the highest open rates, both attaining 44%, compared with a low of 36% on Wednesday morning. As a result, we now know that these slots are likely to obtain a good response for future campaigns. page 7
Split-test 2: Nicholson s What we did: We sent a personalised subject line using recipients first names to 10% of the email database of pub brand Nicholson s. This was: [NAME], do you like gin? Meanwhile, another 10% received the same email at the same time with a generic subject line. This was: Have a fling with gin this season. What we learned: The personalised subject line achieved a higher open rate achieving 31% compared with 25% for the generic alternative. In fact, it had 20% more opens, 17% more unique opens, 43% more clicks and 46% more unique clicks so naturally, we used the personalised approach for the remainder of the database. But also: It s vital to keep testing on a regular basis, as recipient tastes can vary for each campaign and the email environment is subject to a vast array of changing factors. page 8
How does mobile use affect your email strategy? 53% A report by research body Litmus in January 2015 revealed that in the previous year, over 53% of emails were opened on mobile devices, with desktop software use dramatically decreasing. Apple s iphone had the best-performing email client with 28% of opens, with Google s Gmail and Apple s ipad next in line with 16% and 12% of opens, respectively. It s therefore vital that emails have a responsive design which allows them to display equally well on mobiles, tablets, laptops and desktop monitors thus optimising and personalising the experience for each user. A responsive design avoids users having to scroll horizontally (as well as vertically) to read an email, which makes it easier to read and more appealing to the eye and therefore more likely to entice them to click through to the intended target; i.e. a company s website or social profile. Most people now read emails on mobile devices, not desktop computers And what about social media? We also have to recognise that people now check their social media accounts as often as their email accounts and in many cases, even more frequently. Whether on a smartphone or a computer, Facebook and Twitter are often hovering in the background of whatever else the user is doing. And they can be very cost-effective marketing tools, with many features available for free. So you re missing a trick if you don t make sure your emails can connect directly to these platforms. In the email templates CE produces for our clients, we make it easy for users to share offers or news on the major social networks with a single, simple click from within the email so they don t even need to write, copy or paste anything. Our sharing tags do the work for them. The topic then exists in their social media world, as well as in their inbox making it easy for future reference and also quickly spreading the word among their friends and acquaintances... which is great news for your business. Maximise engagement by making it easy for users to share your email messages via social media page 9
Collect good email data and use it wisely People don t like being sent information that s irrelevant to them. So, for the best possible results and to avoid unsubscribes it s important to gather information about each recipient when they sign up to receive your emails. They should also be able to edit that information, in case their circumstances change. The standard fields tend to include: Email address So you know where to send the email. Names Forename and surname, separately, so you can address users more personally. Date of birth Allowing you to send birthday offers and age-appropriate promotions. Gender In case you wish to run a gender-specific campaign (or use split subject lines). Mobile number As some people prefer to receive news and offers via text. Postcode So you know whereabouts they live. If you have a multi-unit business with local outlets across the UK or beyond you might want to personalise and segment your emails further, based on local information or culture. Preferences Do your emails vary widely by topic? If so, give users the opportunity to express their interest (or lack of interest) in particular events and themes not everyone wants updates about Valentine s Day or Father s Day and utilise each customer s purchase history to help identify relevant product or service ranges. page 10
More complex fields can also be used, depending on the type of business or frequency of communications. For example: Clubs A business with a series of bars may have a cocktail club or wine evening. Offering users the chance to sign up for specific emails along these lines can open up extra marketing opportunities. Option to select a local venue Someone might live near to one venue in a chain, but prefer to visit another (for example, near their workplace) so it s helpful to allow them to choose their own local ; and change it whenever they choose. Frequency Some businesses send daily emails but their recipients might wish to reduce this to a weekly email, or even a monthly summary. How much do you know about your audience? Find out what they really want page 11
Making the most of your emails The more information about customers you collect, the better understanding you ll have of what they want. This level of insight, obtained from customer data and by measuring results, is the foundation of a strong customer relationship management (CRM) strategy. Which essentially means your plan to keep customers interested in what you have to say and what you re selling. If you want to keep your engagement and conversion levels high, you need to consider carefully your ongoing conversation with your audience. Do you know where they are in the customer lifecycle? For example, have they just subscribed, are they a regular customer or has their engagement lapsed? And how do they interact with your emails? Once you have the answers to these questions, you can start thinking about how to tweak and develop your tactics to build customer loyalty and with it, even more insight. These may include welcome emails, surveys, reward schemes, birthday offers and other subscriber exclusives, as well as re-engagement campaigns to entice lapsed users. So, what does a good CRM email look like? Here are our thoughts on two loyalty-focused emails from high-street retail brands page 12
Boots 1. Subject line Well-timed dispatch coincides with pay day this was sent on a Thursday lunchtime at the end of the month, as people s minds start to rev up for weekend planning. 2. Headline Compelling reason to visit, designed to drive footfall while nurturing the engagement of Advantage Card customers. 1 2 3 3 3. Salutation & points section Good level of subscriber and outlet personalisation, including advantage card balance and account link with email preferences giving subscribers control. But it s a shame there s no offer segmentation based on individual purchase history. 4 4. Bullets Offers plenty of loyalty-rewarding incentives, making cardholders feel special. page 13
Nando s 1. Subject line & primary message A nicely pitched personal-sounding invitation to get subscribers on to the first rung of the loyalty ladder (though it s a shame that the header simply repeats the subject line). 1 2 2. Salutation Not personalised to recipient s name, though the subject line and headline point to an individualised loyalty scheme. 3. Text & CTA button The benefit is made clear by a single-minded message and decisive call to action. 4. TOV Tone of voice is fun, engaging and consistent the Chicken out unsubscribe prompt makes you want to do anything but. 5 3 1 5. Illustrations Simple, bold, engaging design that s on-brand. 6. Social icons Social integration doesn t extend to sharing, though the strategy may be to hold off until after registration to avoid distraction. 7. Footer No option to change or add to email preferences, which is a missed opportunity to further tailor emails. 6 7 4 page 14
Quality over quantity? You can never have too much of a good thing, right? Wrong. It s no use sending fabulously devised, engagement-focused emails if you irritate your audience by sending too many. People might really like what you re sending, but don t want to feel bombarded so decide to unsubscribe when their inbox starts getting messy. Or they ll simply switch off when messages start to feel repetitive. On the other hand, if you present a series of genuinely appealing offers or an interesting variety of products or services to promote your audience may appreciate being reminded or respond differently to each one. So really, the value of frequency depends on your email topics, messaging and presentation. A joined-up strategy which considers these issues will serve you well, especially if you avoid repetitive content and pay attention to your subscribers preferences and reactions. Build in value with tiered and countdown campaigns One way to keep consumers engaged via frequency is to devise a tiered or build-up campaign. If you have an important promotion to run over a fixed period of time, naturally you want to make the most of the opportunity to tell customers about it. But rather than ramp up the volume of email indiscriminately, you could apply a layered strategy that gives each email a clear purpose and a firm basis for performance measurement. Let s say you re planning a sale. You could set a high discount at the start of the campaign, then decrease it with each communication to compel action. Or you might run a series of individual offers tied into a common theme such as a countdown to a seasonal date. For instance, a popular tactic during December is an advent theme which makes much more sense than simply hammering recipients with disconnected Christmas gift ideas or offers. This logic certainly bore fruit for Harvester s Six weeks of Christmas campaign which, as the title suggests, comprised of a different offer being sent to subscribers each week in the run-up to Christmas. The results? All six emails commanded above industry average open and click-through rates. But more notably, the campaign s cumulative engagement levels exceeded the previous year s efforts and drove more conversion via the offer vouchers, plus extra traffic to the brand s website, during its most critical trading period of the year. page 15
So increased frequency can be effective, as long as it s executed smartly in this case, by adding value and continuity for subscribers at a timely point in the email calendar. Harvester s Six weeks of Christmas campaign Consider other channels Achieving good levels of email engagement also involves NOT sending an email, from time to time. There may be messages you want to communicate that would be better, and more cost-effective, as a social post. Certainly those that demand a more immediate and responsive medium, like a flash promotion or an unexpected change in opening hours. So it s always worth reviewing your conversation plan to make sure you re utilising channels smartly. page 16
points to take away 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 One size does NOT fit all so target different types of people in different ways. Experiment with personalised data, styles and content. Find out the best TIME for your audience to read emails. Try different engagement tactics and always have a strategy to anchor them to. Consider when to use other channels to complement your email programme. Factor in mobile and social are your emails designed to maximise opportunities? Ask your subscribers what they want. Keep testing email dispatch conditions can vary widely; and evolve depending on environmental factors. page 17
For more ideas and insights on engaging your customers online, try the following free eguide: Preparing for a new age of digital relevance For more ideas and insights on engaging your customers online, try the following free eguide: How to make voucher promotions pay How to increase email engagement by Hark Thandi (email campaign manager) and Liane Baddeley (content specialist) Let us know your thoughts by emailing hark.thandi@connectingelement.co.uk or join in the conversation on social: For more eguides and our regular blog posts, visit our website.