Archive for What to Expect
Before You Launch Your Next Marketing Campaign: The 7 Deadliest Marketing Mistakes
Source: Jessica Swanson, Manta via www.sosemarketing.com
Before you launch your next marketing campaign, whether online or offline, make sure to avoid some of the most common marketing mistakes.
1. Failure to write a powerful headline.
Whether you’re writing a newspaper ad, email message or press release, you must create a powerful headline. Research suggests that your headline is the most important part of your ad. It is absolutely essential that you draw your prospective customer or client into your ad and keep them interested in what you have to offer.
2. Absence of an irresistible offer. continue reading »
Tactics for Engaging Email Subscribers: Five Companies Getting It Right
Source: Kara Trivunovic, MarketingProfs.com
In this article, you’ll learn…
- The pros and cons of focusing on engagement as an email metric
- How engagement levels today can affect your email deliverability in the future
- Out-of-the-box ways to drive engagement
“Engagement” is a term that has sprung up in the vocabulary of email marketers worldwide as a metric, a program goal, or even a brand directive. And though we can apply multiple definitions to this important word, in the nearer term we need to be approaching it the same way the Internet service providers (ISPs) are—as a measurement of consistent open and click behavior by your email subscribers.
Though open and click metrics are waning in importance as an overall measurement of program success, those are the metrics available to ISPs, which will therefore use them to determine whether your message makes it to the inbox, bulk folder, or nowhere at all.
The good news is that email marketers recognize the overall importance of email engagement and are focused on it this year. According to a recent survey conducted by StrongMail of nearly 1,000 global business leaders, 52% cited increasing subscriber engagement as one of their top priorities in 2011, making it the No. 1 initiative.
To effect this change, however, you need to do more than recognize the need; you need to understand what is driving it. The short answer is ISPs.
ISPs are inundated with email traffic—so much so that many categorize upwards of 90% of traffic as unsolicited. Depending on the inbox provider, you could be talking about billions of emails each month—and, unfortunately, some of those messages may be yours. Inbox providers trying to make the environment as pleasant as possible for their subscribers are constantly looking for new ways to determine inbox placement, and this year it’s engagement.
The Pros
* More relevant email communications. If you’re focused on driving increased open and click behavior on a consistent basis, content relevant to your subscriber base is going to be crucial to that success.
* Increased focus on life-cycle-based messaging. Communicating with customers at a time that is integral to your relationship (relevant timing) will help drive consistency in engagement.
* Improved program performance. If customers are engaging more consistently and your content and timing is more relevant, you should see spikes in your overall program conversion.
The Cons
* Seasonal business. If you have a seasonal business, getting recipients to engage consistently and frequently during off-peak periods will be difficult.
* Resource strain. Attaining a high level of relevance may strain your already-taxed resources. Achieving relevance to drive engagement may mean more content development, increased production requirements, or even infrastructure strain—all things that need to be considered before diving in headfirst.
The Best in Class
Some marketers are finding inventive and just plain fun ways to drive engagement today. Let’s look at how some organizations are meeting this new challenge head-on, and how you can apply it to your email programs today.
* Crocs drives engagement to other channels via its email communications. You can shop for Crocs footwear online (click), find a brick-and-mortar location (click), or even provide preferences to help mold the long-term communication plan (click). Each email message provides multiple options to drive click behavior regardless of where you prefer to shop.
* Just tell your subscribers what you want them to do—GameStop does. In the fourth quarter of 2010, GameStop sent a message to subscribers, encouraging them to share their opinions in exchange for points in its rewards program. Often, encouraging engagement is as simple as asking.
* Show some gratitude. These two little words can mean a lot: Thank you. Fandango figured that out. As a way to thank recipients for subscribing to its emails, Fandango entered them into a sweepstakes to win movie tickets. But to find out who won, subscribers needed to open the email announcement on a specified date. The message was image heavy, and to render it subscribers needed to enable images—which recorded an open. Engagement, check.
* Bribery can get you everywhere, especially if you are United Airlines and have a subscriber base that loves to collect miles! United Airlines encouraged customers to provide permission to receive terrific email offers—in exchange for bonus miles. Sometimes it takes more than the promise of intriguing content to drive engagement. Don’t sell bribery short!
* Just be creative. Though many say that a mere 20% of the conversion dependency for email is on the creative, sometimes it may just be the creative that is driving engagement… period. Check out this email from UncommonGoods. Thinking outside the 650-pixel box that has become your email creative may just do you some good. Using creative elements that require enabling images, excessive scrolling, or click activity to reveal something fun can drive the behavior you seek. UncommonGoods recognized that through its innovative Knock Knock campaign. Who can resist a good riddle?
Though we as an industry have not yet standardized the definition of engagement, one thing is for sure: Your subscribers’ engagement with your email program will have some effect on your deliverability in the future. You may as well get ahead of the curve and start focusing on it now. Start by doing the following:
- Define what it means to be “engaged” for each of your email programs.
- Determine how you will measure engagement.
- State your goals and objectives surrounding engagement.
- Start!
Don’t let the ISPs relegate you to the bulk folder. Get engaging… today.
Image credit: arztsamui
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posted in: Creative | Deliverability | Metrics & Testing | Resources | Targeting & Planning | What to Expect | Writing Effective Copy Books on Email Marketing
Source: Email Marketing Reports
Overview
This list from Email-Marketing-Reports.com answers the question “what books would you recommend on email marketing?”
2011 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide
by MarketingSherpa | Review of older edition | More info and sales site
This annual report has become a kind of numbers bible for email marketers. As well as featuring reams of data on campaign performance, it has lots of practical insights, too.
Email Marketing Best Practices Guide
by Econsultancy | Review | More info and sales site
This report covers the ten success factors in email marketing, offering practical tips and recommendations on each.
Create Stunning HTML Email
by Mathew Patterson and Sitepoint | Review | More info and sales site
In-depth look at the book by Mathew Patterson, covering its content, strengths, weaknesses and recommended readership.
The Truth about Email Marketing
by Simms Jenkins | Author interview | View at Amazon
This 2008 book tackles many useful areas not typically covered by other books in the genre, notably organisational and strategic issues. Written by one of the industry’s leading voices.
Successful e-mail marketing strategies: from hunting to farming
by Arthur Middleton Hughes and Arthur Sweetser | Full review
This 2009 book goes beyond the basics and covers how customer data is best used to optimize your email marketing and make it future-safe.
Email Marketing by the Numbers
by Chris Baggott | View at Amazon.com
Another 2007 release, this discusses the techniques and tactics you can borrow from success stories to boost the bottom line results of your own email marketing efforts. Includes various guest contributions from leading lights in the field.
Email Marketing Kit
by Jeanne Jennings | Review | More info and sales site
I would consider this the definitive guide to email marketing. A practical guidebook and CD flush with examples, templates, spreadsheets and checklists. Put together by one of the industry’s most experienced practitioners and consultants. Pricey though.
Sign me up!
by Matt Blumberg, Tami Forman, Stephanie A. Miller | View at Amazon.com
The big flurry of email marketing books came at the turn of the century. Since then, few have bothered to keep up with the changing landscape, but “Sign Me Up!” is an exception. Updated and republished in mid-2006, it’s written by a team from one of the major players in the world of deliverability: vendor Return Path.
According to the main author, the intention was to help marketers consider how best to use email for growing their business and sales and to offer them practical tips “…they could implement across a number of critical elements of their email programs.”
The Quiet Revolution in Email Marketing
by Bill Nussey | View at Amazon.com
Nussey is one of the industry’s more thoughtful personalities and CEO of email marketing services company Silverpop. He covers email marketing from a strategic brand and customer communication viewpoint, moving well beyond the idea of email as campaign blasts. Includes numerous case studies from top companies such as Staples, CNN and Lands’ End.
The Secrets of Mouthwatering Marketing Copy
by Marcia Yudkin | Detailed review
Yudkins’s text is an excellent guide to getting core parts of your copywriting sorted…particularly the offer, features and benefits.
Image credit: Danilo Rizzuti
Study: Gmail users younger, better-educated than AOL, Yahoo! users
Customer Profiling has never been more necessary than right now given that marketers are looking for the very best ways to target better prospects who are more likely to respond to their offers and messages. This is directly related to improving return on marketing investment since a targeted strategy increases the likelihood of turning prospects into buyers. This recent post from Digital Trends just goes to show that segmenting can be done on many levels from domain and gender, to behavior and lifestyle.
Source: Andrew Couts, Digital Trends
Do you judge people by what email address they use? If so, a study by Hunch.com may be able to back up your stereotyping with actual statistics.
Users of Google’s Gmail are thinner, younger, better-educated, more well-traveled and more likely to be male than AOL or Yahoo! email users, according to a new report from Hunch.com.
This potentially-offensive blanket statement is based on a newly-published study from Hunch, a site that makes a wide variety of recommendations to its users based on answers to survey questions.
Hunch analyzed 75 million answers from its approximately 700,000 users to determine the demographics, lifestyles and personality traits of people who use email addresses from Gmail, AOL, Yahoo! and Hotmail/MSN, the four most widely-used email domains.
According to the study, 72 percent of Gmail users are under the age of 34, with 68 percent falling in the 18- to 34-year-old range. That compares to 57 percent under 34 for Yahoo! and 42 percent for AOL. Hotmail users were the second youngest demographic, with 64 percent under age 34.
When it comes to gadgets, the largest percentage of users of all four email domains said they “love them.†But as you might expect, the greatest number — 66 percent — came from the Gmail user category. AOL users came in last, with 42 percent admitting affection for newfangled contraptions. Gmail users were also more likely than any other group to be early-adopters of technology.
Other categories explored were family life, relationship status, political affiliation, religiousness and fashion preferences.
Here, a more in-depth overview of Hunch’s “snapshot findingsâ€:
•   AOL users are most likely to be overweight women ages 35-64 who have a high school diploma and are spiritual, but not religious. They tend to be politically middle of the road, in a relationship of 10+ years, and have children. AOL users live in the suburbs and haven’t traveled outside their own country. Family is their first priority. AOL users mostly read magazines, have a desktop computer, listen to the radio, and watch TV on 1-3 DVRs in their home. At home, they lounge around in sweats. AOL users are optimistic extroverts who prefer sweet snacks and like working on a team.
•   Gmail users are most likely to be thin young men ages 18-34 who are college-educated and not religious. Like other young Hunch users, they tend to be politically liberal, single (and ready to mingle), and childless. Gmail users live in cities and have traveled to five or more countries. They’re career-focused and plugged in — they mostly read blogs, have an iPhone and laptop, and listen to music via MP3s and computers (but they don’t have a DVR). At home, they lounge around in a t-shirt and jeans. Gmail users prefer salty snacks and are introverted and entrepreneurial. They are optimistic or pessimistic, depending on the situation.
•   Hotmail users are most likely to be young women of average build ages 18-34 (and younger) who have a high school diploma and are not religious. They tend to be politically middle of the road, single, and childless. Hotmail users live in the suburbs, perhaps still with their parents, and have traveled to up to five countries. They mostly read magazines and contemporary fiction, have a laptop, and listen to music via MP3s and computers (but they don’t have a DVR). At home, Hotmail users lounge around in a t-shirt and jeans. They’re introverts who prefer sweet snacks and like working on a team. They consider themselves more pessimistic, but sometimes it depends on the situation.
•   Yahoo! users are most likely to be overweight women ages 18-49 who have a high school diploma and are spiritual, but not religious. They tend to be politically middle of the road, in a relationship of 1-5 years, and have children. Yahoo! users live in the suburbs or in rural areas and haven’t traveled outside their own country. Family is their first priority. They mostly read magazines, are almost equally likely to have a laptop or desktop computer, listen to the radio and cds, and watch TV on 1-2 DVRs in their home. At home, Yahoo! users lounge around in pajamas. They’re extroverts who prefer sweet snacks and like working on a team. Yahoo! users are optimistic or pessimistic, depending on the situation.
To view the study’s interactive interface, click here.
Image credit: jscreationzs
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posted in: News & Articles | Targeting & Planning | What to Expect | Writing Effective Copy Why Your Email Inbox Is Bringing Home the Bacon
Source: Todd Wasserman, www.mashable.com
Bacon (or “bacnâ€) is known as the more legitimate cousin of spam. The big difference, though, is that bacon is something you ask for. Good examples of bacon include Google News updates, Facebook notifications and Groupon deals. In practice, the fact that you once signed up for bacon, though, doesn’t make it much less annoying than spam.
If your email box seems to be bulging at the seams these days, bacon may be the reason, according to Unsubscribe.com, which finds a huge increase in “spam 2.0″ in the past few years. The appeal for marketers is obvious: It costs almost nothing to send bulk emails and the return for online retailers was $26 billion last year.
How to deal with the deluge? According to the infographic below, created by Unsubscribe.com and Infographicsworld.com, most people just delete. But why not unsubscribe? Read the INFOGRAPHIC below to find out.
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posted in: Industry | Metrics & Testing | News & Articles | Stats | Targeting & Planning | Trends | What to Expect Email Conversion Rates Are Up
Epsilon reports that average email conversion rates were up significantly in the fourth quarter of 2010 over the previous quarter and over the previous year. While this reporting is based on a combination of CRM and Acquisition email campaigns across multiple industries, the overall finding is that email remains the most cost effective channel to communicate with customers and prospects. Email metrics will continue to improve as marketers engage with customers using relevant content. Customer profiling, campaign targeting and timing are key factors to success. Repost from DMA website
The Direct Marketing Association’s Email Experience Council and Epsilon released the Q4 2010 North America Email Trends and Benchmarks Results, which show an increase in conversion rates of 16.1 percent over Q4 2009. The 2.9 percent conversion rate is the strongest over a two-year period.
The quarterly analysis is compiled from 7.4 billion emails sent by Epsilon in October, November, and December 2010, across multiple industries and approximately 150 participating clients. The analysis combines data from both of Epsilon’s proprietary platforms, DREAM and DREAMmail.
Report Highlights:
- Open rates (22.1 percent) saw little change over the two-year period, increasing 5 percent from the same time two years ago. Four of the thirteen reported industries saw an increase in open rates over Q4 2009.
- The average click rate is 5.1 percent, a decrease from the same time last year (5.9 percent).
- The average volume per client increased 34.3 percent from Q3 2010 with a big push during the holiday season. Volume also increased 18.5 percent over the same quarter last year.
- Conversion rates increased 11.3 percent over last quarter and 16.1 percent over last year. The 2.9 percent conversion rate is the strongest over a two-year period.
- Messages categorized as Service messages had the highest open rates (38.2 percent) and click rates (8.0 percent).
“Although volumes hit record highs for the season, response rates remained quite stable, again proving that email marketing is an effective tool to reach people while they are in the market for a particular product or service,†according to Kevin Mabley, senior vice president of strategic & analytic consulting at Epsilon. “Email marketing drives consumer behavior, builds brands and increases revenue. We recommend that email marketers track behaviors and analyze campaigns in order to continue to improve performance and create deeper connections with consumers.â€
“Double digit increases in email volume, conversion rates, median order size and revenue per email confirm what the DMA has heard elsewhere. Companies in the 2010 holiday season invested more in email marketing and saw better results after two difficult years,†said Yoram Wurmser, director of marketing & media insights, Direct Marketing Association.
For more information and industry-specific benchmarks, the Q4 2010 Email Trends and Benchmark report is available at www.epsilon.com/pr/Q410emailbenchmarks.
Image credit: Renjith Krishnan
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posted in: Industry | Metrics & Testing | News & Articles | Stats | Targeting & Planning | Trends | What to Expect Email Marketing Captures the Clicks, Landing Pages Sell the Products
Contributor: Christina Galbornetti, Director, Creative Services, V12 Group
Most email campaign reporting applications provide standard, but important stats on number of emails delivered, opens, clicks and opt-outs. Although helpful, this information alone is not sufficient to determine the real success of your campaign. To truly measure the performance of an email campaign, it is paramount to have the ability to track behaviors once the consumer clicks onto the corresponding landing page. The goal of the email marketer should be to capture the clicks with a compelling email promotion…but it doesn’t end there.
Think of your email as the ‘teaser’ promotion that entices the consumer to click through to a landing page where more detailed ‘sell’ information is presented. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the email advertisement. The landing page is where you advance the reader to the desired action you wish them to take, be it to provide personal contact information or to purchase a product. It’s where all the action happens so those metrics should be carefully studied as well.
MECLABS is a science based lab that uses real-world research to help business leaders get better use out of sales and marketing technology and resources and their Managing Director (CEO) states: “Landing pages sell product, emails capture clicks that bring people to landing pages. Emails get clicks by clearly explaining offers, offering incentives, and reducing friction and anxiety. Think of email this way, you use it to start a conversation and to build trust. You know when you have successfully done so by the number of clickthroughs. The landing page is where you sell the product.† – Dr. Flint McGlaughlin
Don’t let the email response report be the final say in the success of your campaign. The better measure is to use a service like Google Analytics that generates detailed statistics about what visitors are doing on your landing page. This insight can be used to see what consumers do after they clicked; see what content they view, how long they stayed on the site, where they left and actions they took along the way. Most website analytics tools provide a simple tag/code that is tied to each link included in the email creative, so this is a tactic that can be easily implemented into your next campaign. More on Google Analytics
This behavioral information can then be used to better segment, profile and optimize your future marketing programs. Only by tracking conversions within and across response channels can you measure the totality of your campaign’s performance. The key take-away here is to not only focus on just the email, but spend a large majority of time developing a well optimized supporting landing page. According to SilverPop’s Landing Page Report, you only have eight seconds to capture attention once someone clicks on to a landing page. So you’ll want to make sure the landing page validates your offer and supports the conversion process quickly, seamlessly, and without distraction. You can learn more about developing effective landing pages here
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posted in: Creative | Landing Pages | Metrics & Testing | Targeting & Planning | Understanding Reporting | What to Expect Email Marketing: Show me the ROI
Source: Adam Sutton, Marketing Experiments, Blog
After squinting at my screen for weeks trying to read the MarketingSherpa 2011 Email Marketing Benchmark Report PDF, I finally have a hard copy sitting on my desk — and it’s bursting with insight.
Having read the executive summary weeks earlier, I flipped through the chapters today and was struck by this stat:
Does your organization have a method for quantifying ROI from email marketing?
- No: 59%
- Yes: 41%
Email marketing can be amazingly efficient. B2C marketers report an average 256% ROI from the channel — pulling in $256 for every $1 invested — as mentioned later in the report.
What shocks me is that 59% of email marketers have not gauged their program’s efficiency. This means their company executives are likely unaware of the amazing job they’re doing. Even if executives have seen the clickthrough and conversion rates, they’re likely thinking about that line from Jerry Maguire.
Show me the money
At last week’s Email Marketing Summit, Jeanne Jennings, Independent Consultant and MarketingSherpa Trainer, shot holes in many of the excuses she’s heard for why companies can’t calculate email’s ROI.
Here are three she highlighted:
- Our Web analytics software doesn’t provide this information
- We can’t track online sales back to email
- We don’t have an exact figure for costs
Taking these one at a time, Jennings noted that 1) most analytics solutions can provide the information. Google Analytics does and it’s free. 2) Setting up the tracking is simple. 3) You don’t need exact figures.
“As long as you can compare in an apples-to-apples fashion, that’s enough to get started,†Jennings said.
Judging performance by clickthrough and conversion rates is not enough — you should know the revenue generated, both on a campaign-level and a broader program-level.
Two simple calculations Jennings suggested:
- Return on investment: Net revenue / cost
- Revenue per email sent: Net revenue / # of emails sent
On a campaign-level, these metrics will reveal which campaigns pull in more money — not just more clicks. For your overall program, they quickly convey the importance of your work.
Also: The movers and shakers in your company are going to be much more impressed with figures that include dollar signs.
Show email’s potential
Another way to convince executives of email’s power is to point to success at other companies. Also at the Email Summit last week, Jeff Rohrs, VP, Marketing, ExactTarget, mentioned Groupon as a great example that email marketers could rally around.
Forbes recently dubbed the localized deal-of the-day website the fastest growing company ever, and its success is largely due to great email marketing.
The Wall Street Journal mentioned Groupon’s 50 million email subscribers as a competitive advantage and that some analysts estimate its value at $15 billion.
The executives will care
Once you can clearly attribute revenue and ROI to email, you might be surprised at how much attention you attract from company leaders.
At the Email Summit, Philippe Dore, Senior Director, Digital Marketing, ATP World Tour, presented his team’s email strategy to sell tickets to professional tennis events. A single email drove over $1 million in revenue, and several others brought in over $100,000 each.
The overall email campaign generated about $1.5 million in total. Suddenly, ATP’s executives were interested.
“We have our CMO talking about email marketing and subject lines,†Dore said.
Do You Use Snippets For More Opens?
Source:Â Inbox Indeas Blog, August 24th, 2010
Did you know that your “from†and subject lines aren’t the only inbox tools you have to convince subscribers to open your email marketing messages? Some email programs also display an auto-preview of the top of your email (like Gmail), sometimes called a snippet.
How to Determine the Real Success of Your Email Campaigns
Source: Kathleen Maher, Email Product Manager, V12 Group
Most email campaign reporting applications report on number of emails delivered, opens, clicks and opt-outs. Although helpful, this information is not sufficient to determine the real success of the campaign. For instance, what happens if the visitor didn’t convert online but viewed the contact page instead? What if they viewed three product pages and intended to come back later to purchase? How many clicked on a link to visit the site and then left immediately, but came back late through the home page of the website?
To truly measure the performance of an email campaign it is important to be able to track behaviors once the consumer clicks onto the brands website pages. To do so you will need to tag each of the links in your email so that you can track the clicks from the email.
By examining the results in your web analytics application and not just in your email program you can learn a lot more about what people did after they clicked through to your website. You can look at the content that they viewed, how long they stayed on the site, where they left and actions that they took while they were there.
This information is invaluable in estimating the actual value of the email campaign beyond immediate conversions and can assist you to develop future campaigns.
Most website analytics tools provide a simple tag/code that is tied to each link included in the email creative. An example is Google Analytics. The cost to do so is very minimal.