Digital Marketing Seminar at IMTC WEST 2012 May 30, 2012 EMAIL MARKETING

Digital Marketing Seminar at IMTC WEST 2012 May 30, 2012 EMAIL MARKETING

SPEAKER Red Door Interactive RedDoor.biz @reddoor Pilar Bower Sr. Email Marketing Strategist pbower@reddoor.biz @pilarbower ~70 full time employees Offices in San Diego, Carlsbad & Denver 10th Anniversary Brand promise Expert Recommendations Transparent Return on Objective (ROO) Proactive Communications

CORE VALUES INSPIRE EXCEED SHARE 100% JERK FREE EVOLVE MAINTAIN A GREAT PLACE TO WORK Align teams with clear vision, mission, and values Communicate with openness and trust Strong employee retention and development Hire great people to develop key emerging service areas Develop management skills, knowledge, and proficiency Use technology to improve communication Financial stability Proprietary. Confidential information & ideation owned by Red Door Interactive

PARTIAL CLIENT LIST Proprietary. Confidential information & ideation owned by Red Door Interactive

OUR METHODOLOGY Acquire Online Advertising Search Marketing Social Influence Emerging Platforms Convert Data Insights Analysis A/B & Multivariate Testing User Experience Design Content Strategy Extend Crowdsourcing Business Intelligence Change Management Strategic Partnerships Retain Email & CRM Loyalty Programs Content Syndication Community Management Proprietary. Confidential information & ideation owned by Red Door Interactive

OUTLINE Email Marketing Email Service Providers (ESP s) CAN-SPAM Act Transactional Messaging Subscriber Acquisition Online/Offline Social Media Integration Welcome Campaign Newsletters/Content Segmentation Deliverability Success Metrics/Analytics Resource: Email Experience Council (EEC)

EMAIL MARKETING Opportunity: Email is the most widely used of all Internet technologies and tends to perform well as a marketing vehicle across a variety of demographics. To be most effective for branding and direct response programs, emails have to make it to the subscriber s inbox, get opened, and deliver exclusive offers and information that s relevant to each individual. It sounds simple, but many factors influence the success of an email marketing program and its ability to impact other channels. Facts About Email: 89% of online adults send or read email, making it the top online activity (Pew) Of US online consumers, 93% subscribe to at least one permission-based email (ExactTarget) Email is the most preferred method of brand communication by every age group (Merkle) One average, B2C marketers see $43.52 return for every dollar spent on email (Forrester) There will be more than 150MM active email users in US by 2014 (Forrester)

EMAIL MARKETING The Business Case: Email provides a great way to keep in touch with prospective customers and consumers alike. Opt-in subscribers are inherently more engaged and loyal to a brand than the average consumer. Moreover, email provides subscribers with an effortless ways to share content (via email or social media), which turns them into Brand Ambassadors.

EMAIL SERVICE PROVIDERS (ESP S) Why do you need an ESP? CAN-SPAM Act compliant Deliverability Reporting List Management Handle unsubscribes, bounces, activity queries Templates, html editing tools Advanced segmentation/targeting capabilities Dynamic Content A/B Testing Consulting, support, expert services Coding to integrate with existing CRM systems/data How can I find one that is right for me? Research ClickMail Marketing ESP Selection Guide 2011 ESPinator online ESP selection tool

CAN-SPAM ACT CAN-SPAM Act sets the rules for all commercial email. Don t use false or misleading header information. Don t use deceptive subject lines. Identify the message as an ad. Tell recipients where you re located. Your message must include your valid physical postal address. Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Honor opt-out requests promptly. You must honor a recipient s opt-out request within 10 business days. Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. Commercial content which advertises or promotes a commercial product or service, including content on a website operated for a commercial purpose. Permission/opt in required Transactional or relationship content which facilitates an already agreed-upon transaction or updates a customer about an ongoing transaction.

TRANSACTIONAL MESSAGING Definition of Transactional Messaging: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) defines a transactional message as, email that facilitates an agreed-upon transaction or updates a customer in an existing business relationship. Opt in not required for transactional messaging. The CAN-SPAM Act does not prohibit the addition of promotional or marketing content in transactional emails, but it does require that transactional emails be clearly transactional in nature. One very effective way to integrate promotional content into your transactional email is to reserve the main body message of your HTML template for the text transactional message, and use a sidebar for your HTML promotional content, including up-sell and cross-sell messaging.

SUBSCRIBER ACQUISITION Global website call out: Optimize call to action and placement Sign up page Form fields, layout Reinforce Value Propositions Seamless data integration ESP Future phase: Testing your form page to improve your sign up conversions over time and increase the number of subscribers you add to your list Maximize your confirmation page

ONLINE ACQUISITION: CALIFORNIA AVOCADO COMMISSION CASE STUDY Created Standalone email signup page Incorporated form page layout best practices Created analytics funnels 97% increase in e-mail sign ups Quarter over Quarter (QoQ) 129% increase in e-mail sign ups YoY

OFFLINE ACQUISITION: TEXT-TO-JOIN (SMS) Please note that if you're specifying that subscribers are texting in to join an email list, you can't text them in the future unless you specify that they're opting in for text messages as well. USER EXPERIENCE name@ email.com To:74016 Thank you for joining. From: Company EMAIL Welcome to the Email Program! WEBSITE Please tell us a little bit more about yourself. BACKEND DATA FLOW SMS Vendor replies via text with Thank You for registering ESP Database Deploy a custom Welcome Letter Subscriber is sent to Profile landing page

SMS EMAIL ACQUISITION: SOUPLANTATION & SWEET TOMATOES CASE STUDY Implemented SMS campaign for email newsletter opt-in Leveraged Blue Hornet API to seamlessly transfer subscriber info into BH database Developed & deployed welcome letter sent to users after signing up 11,000+ sign-ups via SMS between December 2010 June 2011

OFFLINE ACQUISITION: TRADE SHOWS, FESTIVALS, ETC. Business cards in a fishbowl do not imply permission! Use a laptop or kiosk if possible and have it set up to track acquisition source Contest forms and general interest sign up form must be compliant with CAN-SPAM regulations: (1) AFFIRMATIVE CONSENT- The term affirmative consent, when used with respect to a commercial electronic mail message, means that-- (A) The recipient expressly consented to receive the message, either in response to a clear and conspicuous request for such consent or at the recipient s own initiative. * - Translation: You must have clear permission from someone to send them commercial e-mail messages. This can be accomplished by simply adding copy to the forms such as: - By completing this form you can expect to receive special offers and news from via email. You can request to be removed at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link in any email. **CAN-SPAM ACT of 2003

OFFLINE ACQUISITION: PAPER FORM OPTIMIZATION Use individual boxes for people to enter each letter and symbol in their email address. - You can expect to lose about 10 20% of addresses due to illegible handwriting and/or data entry errors. Address fears about abuse of information upfront: - By including a summary of your Privacy Policy, this reinforcement will encourage prospects to give you their information. Include subscriber benefits: - Highlight a couple benefits to further persuade people to join the e-mail list (such as receiving recipes and news). Post-acquisition: - After each event, the data entry of the information collected should have a quick turnaround and be entered into an excel spreadsheet. When importing this information into the e-mail service provider tool, the date collected and source (name of event) must be noted. - A Welcome Letter should be sent as soon as the new subscribers are added to the system.

OFFLINE ACQUISITION: PAPER FORM OPTIMIZATION Before After

SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION Cross promotion encouraging fans to subscribe to email in status updates. Include Email sign up tab or widget on Facebook page. Social media introduction emails. Stand-alone email to promote Facebook fan page. Explain why someone would want to Like or Follow what are the benefits? Include social media logos in email communications. The Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes social media community grows by an average of 350 fans every time community is promoted via email.

WELCOME CAMPAIGN The Welcome campaign is exactly what it sounds like! This is your opportunity to make your new subscriber feel comfortable, engaged, and more likely to open and act on future emails The beauty of a Welcome campaign is that they can be easily automated Welcome email series increases engagement levels with subscribers and customers at one of the most crucial points in the relationship -- onboarding messages that will start the customer relationship on the right track and continue to build it

NEWSLETTERS/CONTENT A main stream of email communication can be through monthly newsletters. Create an easily editable design and consistent layout that you can use every month. Position your brand/website/blog as a resource that your subscribers will seek out for content and share with their network. Create and follow a content calendar and process/timeline for each email. Anatomy of an Email Marketing Message a WhatCounts microwebinar (3 minute video)

SEGMENTATION Relevant email content is integral to higher retention and conversion of customers as well as deliverability within many ISPs. In order to increase relevancy, marketers must use available data to segment subscribers and deliver the right message, at the right time, with the right content. Basic segmentation starts at the acquisition stage when customers fill in their contact information and select their communication preferences. Each of these data points can be used to message subscribers uniquely, such as state or zip code to send relevant information about brick-and-mortar locations in their area. Once customers have signed up to receive emails, engagement metrics like opens and clicks can be used to segment subscribers further based on their interest level with the brand.

LIFECYCLE MESSAGING: CRICKET WIRELESS ONBOARDING EMAIL CYCLE FOR NEW SMARTPHONE CUSTOMERS

SEGMENTATION TARGETED GIFT CARD EMAIL: SOUPLANTATION & SWEET TOMATOES CASE STUDY Behaviorally targeted email sent only to subscribers that showed a previous interest by clicking on Gift Cards link in any previously sent email High open rate: 40% 1.27% of all the people who received the email converted 25% of those who clicked through from the email to the site converted Revenue: $15,000

DELIVERABILITY: LIST MANAGEMENT/HYGIENE Regularly remove invalid email addresses. These are true bounces and abandoned accounts that you do not need to continue to try to send emails to. Give your subscribers an easy way to update their email address if they close their account or want to change where they prefer to receive your emails. ISPs are increasingly looking at subscriber engagement (open and click rates are part of this determination) and a high number of nonengaged subscribers can effect sender reputation and deliverability. Sending to inactive or older addresses will cause increases in spam complaints and also a higher probability of hitting spamtraps. ISPs will turn real abandoned invalid e-mail addresses into spamtraps to monitor sending patterns Implement Re-engagement campaigns and on a regular basis Industry Statistics Ø 50 million people change their e-mail addresses each year Ø Consequently, organizations experience 2-3% attrition/ month Ø ~30% email list attrition per year

RE-ENGAGEMENT / WINBACK CAMPAIGNS

DELIVERABILITY MANAGEMENT: CRICKET WIRELESS CASE STUDY Bounce trend analysis & regular inactive segment re-engagement campaigns ISP White listing & AOL Report Card Service Increased inbox Deliverability from 82% - 98%

SUCCESS METRICS/ANALYTICS Sent Delivered/Bounced Delivery Rate Delivered/Sent % Opens Open Rate Opened/Delivered % Clicks Click to Open Rate Clicked/Opened % Note: some report Click Rate as Clicked/ Delivered Website Analytics Visits to website from Email Conversions

SUCCESS METRICS/ANALYTICS Epsilon Q4 2011 Benchmark Report This study is compiled from 8.5 billion emails sent by Epsilon in Q4 (October- December) 2011, across multiple industries and approximately 140 participating clients. This benchmark data should be used only as a guideline, as specifics for each company will drive results.

SAMPLE ESP REPORTING (EXPORTABLE)

QUESTIONS?.