Caro Consulting

Managing the Evolution of Your Email Marketing Program

Okay, enough about blogs. Let's get back to my favorite topic. Email.

This past Wednesday, the AiMA had its monthly educational event. This one on email, which attracted over 170 people. Last year, we barely hit 100, so I consider this further proof that email has proven to be a key tactic in the marketing tool belt.

Elaine O'Gorman from Silverpop moderated a panel of leading email specialists - Gareth Morgan from InterContinental Hotels, Brad Bacon from The Weather Channel, and Karna Crawford from the Coca-Cola Company.

Elaine provided some great retail email marketing study statistics:

To avoid churn, email a minimum of every 90 days. Based on other statistics I have shared in this blog, I feel this is even too long. Of course everyone is different so just test what works best for you.

Another interesting although obvious fact, you have 1.5 to 3 seconds to get someone to recognize your email. Which makes your from and subject line both equally important. Some personal experience with this - test putting your brand in both the from and subject lines. Many companies have seen an definite increase in opens. Certainly worth testing.

Elaine also mentioned SpamAssassin to test your content.

Other tidbits shared by the panelists. Gareth (who has a fondness for hykus) shared InterContinental hotels' recent shift in focus to transactionsl emails such as cart abandonment, pre-stay/welcome, and thank you/opt-in emails. This type of targeting has seen much greater results compared to their broadcast emails.

The Weather Channel is also using transactional emails especially when it comes to renewing subscriptions. Unfortunately, with a one-year subscription credit cards tend to expire and change, so some auto-renewals fail. To contact the "failed rebills" Brad tested several different areas: HTML vs. text, increasingly urgent messages, and graphic buttons vs. text links. In a nutshell, the more transactional feeling email saw the best conversion rate - text not HTML, text link not graphic button. Let this be a lesson to everyone - it does not matter what the "experts" say, you need to test, test, test and determine what works best for your audience and your goals.

Finally, Karna Crawford took the stage and taught the audience about testing emails. She encouraged email'ers to ask themselves: What do I know about my subscriber base? Am I delivering to them what they want? Am I optimizing my email campaigns to produce the highest metrics possible? What are my baseline metrics?

Basic testing everyone should be performing: from line, subject line, creative, day of the week, time of day. More advanced ideas include personalization testing (interest/behavior vs. general content), frequency, and offers.

My favorite part of her presentation was the test between an Olympics newsletter and an Olympics postcard. The postcard was all graphics. You would think with all the graphic issues the media has been talking about, the postcard would fail. Actually it beat the newsletter by 30%.

Once again, repeat after me, "Don't believe what you read. Test, test, test."

Top 10 Email Marketing Tips

Last month Jim Herbold provided a list of Top 10 Email Must-Dos. I can't resist adding them to this blog... and adding some of my two cents.

1. Get Relevant
Jim talks about using more personalization and segmentation. At Shop.org FirstLook, Forrester Research made the same recommendation and showed how the conversion rates increased as the emails became more targeted.

Of course, you need to take time into consideration. Time is money, so spend wisely. The testing I have done targeting gender or purchase habits does show good results, but was not worth the time needed to execute it properly. Many marketers will find an integrated approach will have the best affect - a portion of mass mailings and a portion of segmented emails. It's a matter of testing until the right balance is reached.

2. Deliverability and rendering
It's not just making sure your emails are received (and not sent to the junk folder), it is also making sure the email looks right when it gets there. Many times, fonts and formats change or the layout does not show up at all. Make sure to test the email first with many email clients and platforms first.

3. Preview panes and blocked images
Before someone clicks to open the email, they typically see it their preview pane first. The first quarter to a third of your email will dictate whether or not someone opens and reads the rest of your email.

How do you read email? Me, I receive a lot of newsletters, if the first three headlines shown in the preview pane are not interesting, the email is deleted. I just don't have time to open every single email.

4. First impressions are lasting impressions
Jim states that the most significant decline in email performance comes in the first two months. Make sure you engage your audience immediately. Send a Welcome email upon opt-in registration. Make sure you send relevant, timely emails frequently enough to keep their attention.

How often is appropriate? It all depends on your email. I have worked with Internet retailers that send an email out twice a week. Some retailers have daily alerts. Others just email during special holidays. It all depends on the audience and the email content.

5. Get on the permission train
Jim is right - someone who opts in to receive your emails tends to be more valauble then someone obtained through an opt out program.

As with email frequency though, not everyone can follow this rule of thumb. At a recent event, I spoke with a interactive marketer whose site targets kids. She found she needed to pre-check the opt-in box, because her audience did not understand how to opt-in to emails. The audience assumed by filling out the form, they were automatically opted in... It's also a yound audience who does not read directions. Yes, she had to comply with COPPA guidelines, but she found pre-checking the box was a lot more effective and generated less customer service inquiries.

6. Metrics that matter
Who has time to use all the metrics available to us? We can drown ourselves in data. Yes, focus on the metrics that matter. And don't forget, those metrics will change depending on where you are in the organization. Create an analytics strategy and determine the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each area of your organization.

7. Long-term subscribers
EmailLabs estimates 30 to 50% of a company's email list may be inactive and 2.5% of emails churn each month. Do not wait several years and then go back and try to reactivate them, create a program now and automate it through your email marketing system. Jim provides some great ideas - surveys, sweepstakes, special offers. You may want to try to go offline as well. Send a postcard to those hard bounce emails and the emails not responding to your campaigns.

8. Maximize your traffic
So many companies I have worked with stay focused on driving traffic to their site. As time goes by, these companies are driving the same traffic over and over again - and paying for that traffic over and over again. Give the traffic a reason to opt-in to future communications from you.

9. Test, test, test and improve
All of us "email experts" can tell you what works and what does not. In fact, I was on a call with a co-worker of mine and was surprised to discover how many times the results of her tests differed with my experience. Every company is different. Every message is different. Every target market is different. It's up to you to take the best practices and then tweak them until they work for you. That is the fun of direct marketing.

10. Create a plan and align your resources
Before you start collecting the very first email off your website, make sure you have the plan, money, and human resources to support it. I cannot begin to count the number of times I have provided my email address and then received nothing in return. By the time the company emails me, my email may be bad. I may not remember opting in and think they are spamming me. Or, the company may be blacklisted because of the extreme number of bad email addresses going to a single domain.

Please add some of your own tips.

Email Marketing - Getting Back to the Basics

The other week, I had the pleasure of moderating the AMA Interactive Marketing SIG (special interest group). There was a good exchange of information during the week - one on how companies can address email churn. Here are some thoughts shared.

Did you know emails churn 2.5% each month?. Here are some ideas on how to bring them back:

• Direct mail - many times people change their email, but not their street address. Create a quick postcard to tell them you miss them and give them an incentive to come back.
• ECOA (Email Change of Address) - some list managers choose to use companies like Experian or Accudata to locate a customer's new email address and opt them back in to receive emails.
• Email Append - In this case, a list manager has the customer's name and address, but does not have their email address. List managers use Accudata or Melissadata to overlay (or append) customer email addresses to the list manager's database. Once again, these customers are only delivered when they opt-in to receive emails.
• Offline Database Matching - Work with a large third party vendor such as CoolSavings. Match your list with their list and determine what they have that you don't have. Once you have your new list of desired email, have the third party email them on your behalf and give them a compelling reason to opt-in to your list.

Regardless of the tactic you choose to use, make sure you indicate in your database where the email came from. It is not cheap to "reacquire" these emails and you will want to make sure they generate positive ROI for your company.

Email Service Provider Launches RSS Product

SilverPOP, an email service provider, launched its RSS product today - RSSDirect. How timely as I was just talking about the pros and cons of enewsletters vs. blog posts!

Did you see Amy Gahran's comment on my last post?

"The issue is not really "Should you publish a blog or an e-mail newsletter," but rather that you should publish your content to the web (preferably using a blogging tool) and then figure out how to promote it. A feed should always be part of that strategy, but an e-mail alert can and probably should be part of that strategy too."

Fabulous advice from a blog pro. It will be interesting to watch how SilverPOP's new product offering helps with this effort. Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?

Email Marketing Statistics

It has been such a busy week, but I am finally succumbing to "blog guilt" and posting at least one interesting tidbit before yet another week passes me by.

I spent my Saturday morning catching up on my email newsletters and blog feeds and found a few interesting email marketing statistics. Please feel free to add your own below.

DMA's Email Marketing Council 2005 Email Benchmarking Survey

• Acquisition Emails - Business-to-consumer acquisition click-through rates dipped from 8% in the second quarter to 6%, and business-to-business click-through rates dipped from 8% to 4%
• Retention Emails - Business-to-consumer retention click-through rates climbed from 9% to 12%, and business-to-business click-through rates climbed from 11% to 13%

SilverPOP 2005 Broken Link Study

• 29% of 360 companies listed in D&B's top rankings don't offer an email opt-in form anywhere on their Web sites
• Fewer than 5% of those who opt in to an email will "white list" it by adding the email address to their inbox.

The Spam Battle Continues

After a year of relative silence, the fight against SPAM has started to ramp up again. In honor of the renewed buzz, I thought a quick review was in order.

ADV is out.
The FTC said it doubted requiring subject-line labels such as "ADV" would help block Spam. Surprise, surprise.

Sender ID is in.
Microsoft has stopped talking and started acting. If companies have not published their Sender Policy Framework (SPF) a "Sender Unknown" question mark symbol and a message, "The sender of this message could not be verified by Sender ID," appear on the respective email in the recipient's inbox.

Unfortunately, without a standard email authentication system, it's going to be a challenge to remain compliant and keep our costs down while we try. Read more about how the FTC is working with other companies to evaluate each program.

Spamming is out.
Scott Richter (a past guest of AiMA's email marketing event) settled with Microsoft for $7 million. Microsoft heralded the deal as a coup in the ongoing fight against unsolicited commercial e-mails - Spam.

PR Spin is still in.
OptInRealBig.com, beaten down by Microsoft, is on its way to recovery and success. Or so they say - see this affiliate marketing program post.

State laws are also still in.
If keeping compliant on a national level wasn't enough, try following the numerous state laws. Such as those laws in Utah and Michigan to protect minors. [Follow up post - Michigan Postpones Children's Email Registry]

So much is going on and it's hard to keep up. Yet, to avoid being caught in the crossfire, it's critical to know how these new advancements affect your email marketing efforts. Ignorance is not a valid defense.

More to come... Make sure to add your own comments and suggestions as well.

AOL Report Spam Button Strikes Again

Just read in a post from Bill Nussey that AOL is running another promotion focused on working with their members to conquer Spam - contest ends August 19, 2005. It's called the AOL Spammers Gold Sweepstakes.

If you remember the last time AOL had this contest, there was some concern that legitimate emails would be marked as Spam in order to enter. This is not the case. Yet, as Bill recommends in his post, it would be a good idea to watch your AOL complaint volume.

Using Email to Market Renewable Energy

Over 85 people dialed into this month's Marketers' Marketers Group (MMG) conference call to learn more about how to use email to market renewable energy. Yours truly kicked off the call with information on where email is today, how to execute an effective campaign, and future trends. Andrew Heath & Barry Friedman from E Source seconded this information, presented several case studies, and discussed how to apply all this information to the renewable energy market.

Here are some key points from both our presentations that all email marketers can use...

• Find the right email marketing solution - consider your goals, list size, tracking needs, services, and budget.
• Build your list - get permission first. Without permission, you look like a spammer which can negatively affect your brand.
• Keep your list clean - dirty lists waste money and flag you as a spammer.
• Use email marketing effectively - as a direct response tool, email is ineffective [several of the conference participants reinforced this through their own poor experiences]. Use email instead to nurture prospects and retain your customers.
• Share the love - viral marketing works if customers have an incentive to let others know about your service or product.
• Segment your audience - nothing complicated. As an example, E Source discussed Gymboree's use of the child's gender and age to target its audience, increasing its order size by 36%.

And, the most important piece of advice you can take away from all of this - ensure your emails are relevant, personalized, and timely.