Email Relevance: Three effective tactics to engage subscribers W. Jeffrey Rice Adam T. Sutton
Introductions W. Jeffrey Rice Senior Research Analyst, MarketingSherpa Email: jeffrey.rice@meclabs.com Twitter: @WJeffreyR Adam T. Sutton Senior Reporter, MarketingSherpa Email: adam.sutton@meclabs.com Twitter: @AdamTSutton 2
Annual research-based process leads to improving email marketing performance Benchmark Report - Find what works for thousands of email marketers Handbook - Identify best practices and formulate a methodology Knowledge transfer - Teach email marketers how to apply best practices 3
Top 5 priorities for 2012 Growing and retaining subscribers Delivering highly relevant content Achieving or increasing measurable ROI Increasing email engagement metrics Integrating email with other marketing tactics 35% 41% 38% 71% 69% Building relevant, interesting, insightful content. People are inundated with marketing messages nowadays; we are looking to cut through the noise and provide something of value to people. Source: 2011 MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Survey Methodology: Fielded July 2011, N=2,735 Survey participant 4
There is work to do 5
Three key principles stand out 1 2 3 6
Three tactics to increase relevance 1. IDENTIFY the right audience through segmentation
1. IDENTIFY Case study background The company: King Arthur Flour Company The product: Baking ingredients, recipes, and tools The channel: Email The campaign objective: Segment email database and deliver relevant content to increase engagement 8
1. IDENTIFY Case study execution Stage A: Build the case for segmentation Stage B: Start with a single segment 9
1. IDENTIFY Case study execution Stage C: Outline other audience segments Stage D: Leverage internal resources for content Stage E: Carefully manage the schedule 10
1. IDENTIFY Case study results Emails to segmented lists: Avg. open rate: 35% to 50% Avg. CTR: 25% to 35% Emails to overall list: Avg. open rate: 30% Avg. CTR: 27% 11
1. IDENTIFY Case study results "Compared to our full-list broadcast emails, the open rate is extremely high, the click rate is extremely high and there are hardly any unsubscribes, and this is across all of our segmented lists. - Halley Silver Director, Online Services King Arthur Flour 12
1. IDENTIFY Key principles 1. A database is not one audience I need tips that help me do my job better I want deals and discounts I like reading what your CEO thinks I want to see new products I recently changed jobs 13
1. IDENTIFY Very significant challenge Integrating with our CRM. We've customized it to the hilt and now it's very hard to do any syncing between our selected Marketing Automation vendor. Integrating email data with other data systems Improving email deliverability Growing and retaining subscribers Achieving or increasing measurable ROI 49% 53% 55% 54% - Survey participant Using email for funnel optimization 49% Source: 2011 MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Survey Methodology: Fielded July 2011, N=2,735 14
1. IDENTIFY Key principles 2. Segmentation is primarily driven by four types of data Let s take a quick look at each type of data and how it might help with segmentation. 15
1. IDENTIFY Four types of data Endemic: - Data unique to a particular record - e.g. Job title, company name, vertical industry Transaction: - Data captured during any transaction an opt-in has with your brand - e.g. financial, opt-in landing page, subscriber s IP address Behavioral: - Data captured during any interaction with subscriber - e.g. website clicks, email clickthroughs, calls into technical service Computed: - Data is the outcome when one or more variables are used to create a third variable - e.g. The distance to subscriber s address from your event 16
Three tactics to increase relevance 1. IDENTIFY the right audience through segmentation 2. HELP the audience with targeted content
2: HELP How do marketers obtain relevance? Very effective Somewhat effective 90% Automatically send email based on triggers 43% 47% of marketers report targeting content to each funnel stage to be effective Segment email campaigns based on behavior Use loyalty/reward programs Produce content for each funnel stage 41% 40% 39% 52% 42% 51% Segment email campaigns based on sales cycle 33% 54% Source: 2011 MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Survey Methodology: Fielded July 2011, N=2,735 18
2: HELP But, who is going to create content? 30% of email marketers find the inability to manufacture relevant content on a consistent and predictable basis to be a top barrier to success 19
2: HELP Case study background The product: Payment card processing and tokenization solution The channel: Email The campaign objective: Continue generating and nurturing leads after staff cuts The sales and marketing background: Staff cut from six to two people, yet nurturing and promotional emails needed to continue 20
2: HELP Case study execution Make use of everything: Repurpose content Use templates Create repeatable marketing plans 21 21
2: HELP Case study execution Automate what you can: Schedule and automate emails: o Promotions o Reminders o Follow-up Automate lead scoring and hand-off 22 22
2: HELP Case study results Launched 98 campaigns in one year with two-person staff Nearly doubled campaigns sent with six-person staff 200% to 500% increase in marketing departmentgenerated leads in the pipeline 23 23
2: HELP 3 ways to create content they will crave Repurpose Whitepapers Blogs Tech data sheets User-generated Testimonials Product reviews Original How can I help? Rather than focus on being interesting, be interested - Brian Carroll 24
2: HELP Effective engagement is inspired by the empathy that develops simply by being human. Brian Solis Author of Engage 25
Exercise: The art of repurposing content 26
Three tactics to increase relevance 1. IDENTIFY the right audience through segmentation 2. HELP the audience with targeted content 3. SCHEDULE emails in triggered or automated series
3. SCHEDULE Case study background The company: Citrix The product: Enterprise software and services The channel: Email The campaign objective: Auto-nurture new leads with triggered nurturing emails The marketing and sales background: Segment incoming leads and send evergreen content 28
3. Schedule Case study execution Stage A: Segment incoming leads by product and persona Stage B: Schedule pre-programmed offers for targeted content 29
3. Schedule Case study execution Stage C: Measure and update the offers each quarter Stage D: Send weekly offers to all other leads Stage E: Only collect detailed info when you need it 30
3: SCHEDULE - Case study results Automated nurturing emails: 1.70% CTR 1.57% response rate Manual house-file emails: 0.65% CTR 0.62% response rate 31
3: SCHEDULE Key principles The best time to send is now 50% Chart: Response time after registration One of the most effective ways to respond now is through automated triggered emails 23% 10% Immediately 1-24 hours 2-7 days 8-30 days More than 31 days 7% Source: 2011 MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Survey Methodology: Fielded July 2011, N=2,735 4% 32
3: SCHEDULE What are triggered emails? Relevant audience - Sent to people in response to a specific action they ve taken Relevant content - Message is based on the person s behavior. Their behavior indicates interest. Relevant timing - Sent in response to behavior, not on a schedule like a newsletter 33
3: SCHEDULE What events trigger them? Welcome 63% Thank you 54% Transactional (e.g., bills, receipts) 48% Post-purchase (e.g., product review) 32% Upsell (e.g., product recommendations) 26% Activation (e.g., how to) 24% Date triggered (e.g., renewals, reorder) Win back/ reengagement Event countdown 17% 16% 22% Don t be a afraid to experiment and test Triggered based on website behavior 13% Shopping cart abandonment 11% Source: 2011 MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Survey Methodology: Fielded July 2011, N=2,735 34
Exercise: Triggered email inventory worksheet Review communication touch points Determine the sending department Where is the data held? Understand the event that triggers communication 35
Summary Our research indicates email marketers achieve the highest relevance with three tactics: 1. They IDENTIFY the right audience through segmentation 2. They HELP the audience with targeted content 3. They SCHEDULE emails as triggered or automated messages 36
Resources MarketingSherpa website 325 Case studies on email marketing and counting 256 How-to articles on email marketing and counting 133 Blog posts on email marketing FREE email marketing newsletter http://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters.html 37
Thank you W. Jeffrey Rice Senior Research Analyst, MarketingSherpa Email: jeffrey.rice@meclabs.com Twitter: @WJeffreyR Adam T. Sutton Senior Reporter, MarketingSherpa Email: adam.sutton@meclabs.com Twitter: @AdamTSutton 38
Questions? 39 39