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A MARKETER S GUIDE TO MARKETING BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

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A MARKETER’S GUIDE

TO EMAIL MARKETING

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Email marketing runs the risk of being overlooked in marketing campaigns, with the rise of social media often claiming a lot of attention and budget. Howev-er, a well-done email marketing campaign is still incredibly effective: it is an established method which can be quickly implemented, updated and analysed. The use of simple metrics mean that success – especially in the form of conversion – is easy to measure. If created carefully, your emails can appear personal without being invasive. To help you strike that balance, we’ve put together this guide.

Email marketing is not without its risks: the biggest downfall we see time and time again is when thou-sands of messages are sent in bulk, to any address available, without tailored content. This might gain a few click-throughs, but over time it will undermine the brand and won’t earn the results that are possi-ble with a streamlined approach – or catch the interest of the people you really want on board.

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Behaviour-based segmentation allows for even more focussed targeting: you can create hyper-tailored content by sending messages that strike a chord with your recipients’ recent behaviour by filtering by events attended, on-site activity or personal interests. As well as acting as a key indicator of their interests, your prospects’ behaviour can flag up when they are more likely to buy, so segmenting this way means you can target when it is appropriate and timely. Behavioural segmentation gains not only 6.35% more opens but also a

decrease of 11.16% on bounce-backs than unsegmented campaigns (2).

Remember to include, not exclude. This means tailoring your content to your custom-ers, rather than picking customers who fit the pre-determined content..

The first step to making your emails relevant is segmenting your database, so you can narrow your focus and catch your audience’s attention with personalised content. You should always begin with a clear and sensible target list: ALF can help you develop this.

Two effective ways to split your database are by attributes and by behaviour. Segmenting based on attributes such as job title, industry, demographic or even location allows you to tailor your offering according to what you know about the lead.

Attribute-based segmentation can lead to increases of 16.08% in opens and 52.36% in clicks. (1)

SEGMENTING

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SETTING UP YOUR EMAIL

- SUBJECT LINE

Once you have a clear idea of your audience, you can set to work creating content that will appeal to them and encourage them to find out more. Wher-ever possible, keep it personal so no-one feels like they are receiving blanket campaigns.

It is good practice to include the recipient’s name in the subject line, but if you have more contextual information to hand, try to incorporate this in order to go one step further. Experimenting with multiple different subject line ideas will not only give you a range of options, it will also force you to start think-ing outside the box and might lead to more creative ideas.

Including your company name in the subject line leads to better open rates, of 60%-87%, (3) but can use up valuable space. If you can’t fit your company name in the subject line, make sure it is clear in the “from” address.

One good tip is to write your subject line, includ-ing the main facts, in up to 20 different ways before you select one.

Your subject line should be specific and make it clear what the email is about: although cryptic titles can seem like a good way to pique interest, this vagueness is likely to irritate recipients, who will ignore or delete the message.

Individual words have a big impact on open rate; “announcement” and “invitation” have been seen to increase interaction, whereas “reminder” decreases open rate in standard deviations (4).

Very short and very long subject lines have been shown to have a positive impact on open rates, with lines longer than 100 characters leading to an

increase in click-throughs and click-to-open rates (5). However, you should take into account that many will be viewing messages on a phone or tablet where the subject line might be cut off early. Make sure you preview how your message will appear on all devices and keep the important words at the beginning of your subject line to see consistent results across all platforms.

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Ensure at the beginning of the campaign you are A/B testing both the subject line and the content itself so you can see which methods are most effective to your audience. Your call-to-action, be it an offer, download or link for more information, should be clear and ideally repeated more than once in the email.

There is debate around two points of email optimisa-tion: the use of images and the time the email is sent. The key point to bear in mind if you do include

images (which should be bold and relevant) is to make sure you create a plain-text version as well. Testing will enable you to work out which times, if any, are more effective for your audience. A good starting point is to avoid Mondays and Fridays, when a lot of people are thinking about the weekend rather than their emails!

Launch email campaigns on Tuesdays and Thurs-days: we have found these days lead to the high-est open and click-through rates.

SETTING UP

YOUR EMAIL

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One of the advantages of email marketing cam-paigns is the ability to track success using simple metrics. Make sure you are analysing your emails via opens, click-throughs, bounce backs (which will also enable you to tidy up your database) and con-versions.

Remember to integrate your email service provider with your CRM to make the most of the data you have. It’s important to keep your information up-to-date and using a system such as ALF will ensure that you start with a clean database, available 24/7. An idea of the sort of conversion rates you should be aiming for can be found by analysing competitors’ results.

Across the Marketing and Advertising Industry, average open rates are 18.99% and click–through rates are 2.25% (6).

REPORTING

TOP UK EMAIL PROVIDERS

- WHAT ARE THEY REALLY

OFFERING YOU?

Very Good Segmentation Mail Chimp Pure 360 Marketing

Automation IntegrationSalesforce Reporting Price

Social Integration Rating Good Low Medium Basic Good x x x x

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Back in 2013, SunGard drew a lot of attention – and leads – with their zombie apocalypse themed cam-paign. Tying their emails together with the rest of their campaign, SunGard boasted a 38%

click-to-open rate (7) amongst the IT Professionals they targeted and also exceeded download rates of their ebook by 300% (8). SunGard killed the idea that B2B marketing has to be dull and instead showed creative flair – but their daring campaign worked because they kept it relevant to their busi-ness (disaster recovery) and because they under-stood the humour of the professionals they were targeting, tailoring their messages to appeal to them. App Partners also gained praise for their bold 2014 email campaign (9). Their well-crafted email was clear and simple to understand, with a choice of calls-to-action repeated throughout the message, allowing recipients to follow the story that interested them the most and increasing the likelihood of click-throughs.

SUCCESSFUL B2B

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E-MARKETING CHECKLIST

We’ve boiled these tactics down to the basics so you know what to focus on when building an email marketing campaign:

Plan your database

Have you decided exactly who your campaign is for? Have you used a relevant field to segment your database?

Is your content specific and personal to the people you are targeting?

Setting up your email

Is the content engaging and useful to your prospects? Is the message consistent with the rest of your campaign? Have you A/B tested the content or set it up to be tested? Have you spent time crafting a compelling subject line? Have you A/B tested the subject line or set it up to be tested? Do you have a clear call to action?

Does the call to action link to a clear, relevant landing page? Is your email optimised for mobile and tablet?

Do you have a plain-text version of the email as well?

Reporting

Do you know what open, click and conversion rates you are aiming for? Are you monitoring these?

Are you continually A/B testing new ideas? Are you implementing necessary changes?

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• 1 - MailChimp, http://mailchimp.com/resources/research/effects-of-list-seg-mentation-on-email-marketing-stats/

• 2 - MailChimp, http://mailchimp.com/resources/research/effects-of-list-seg-mentation-on-email-marketing-stats/

• 3 - MailChimp http://mailchimp.com/resources/research/email-marketing-sub-ject-line-comparison/

• 4 - MailChimp http://blog.mailchimp.com/subject-line-data-choose-your-words-wisely/ • 5 - Email Audience

http://www.emailaudience.com/the-ideal-sub-ject-line-length-size-does-matter-especially-in-b2c/

• 6 - MailChimp http://mailchimp.com/resources/research/email-marketing-benchmarks/ • 7 - Marketing Sherpa

http://www.slideshare.net/marketingsherpa/how-to-lever-age-the-zombie-apocalypse-for-an-award-winning-multichannel-campaign

• 8 - Top Rank Blog http://www.toprankblog.com/2013/05/11-examples-killer-b2b-con-tent-marketing/

• 9 - Campaign Monitor https://www.campaignmonitor.com/guides/best-email-market-ing-campaigns/entry/app-partner

• 10 - ALF, “How to Fill Your Sales Pipeline in 30 Days”

RESOURCES

CONTACT ALF

To access over 40,000 Decision-Makers in the UK across the following categories:

Retail Stores, Automotive, Travel, Charities, Publishing & Media, Confectionery, Drink,

Entertainment & Leisure Activities, Food, Government/Social/Political, Household

Furnishings, Household Supplies, Leisure Products, Mail Order Retail, Office & Home

Computing, Property, Services, Sport, Tobacco, Agricultural/Gardening & Petcare,

Business & Industrial, Clothing, Cosmetics & Toiletries, Education & Vocational,

References

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