Marketing for Beginners

Email Marketing for Beginners

Email marketing, as the name suggests, is the use of email in marketing

1. What is email marketing... 2. Understanding and choosing ESP’s... 3. Email service providers v.s. email software... 4. Email marketing terminology... 5. The pros and cons of email marketing... 6. A brief history of emailing... 7. What is “Permission Based” email?... 8 Types of email marketing campaigns... 9. Defining success - Email marketing metrics...

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing, as the name suggests, is the use of email in marketing communications. In other words, it’s a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered an example of email marketing.

The term “email marketing” is usually used to refer to:

• Sending emails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something.

• Sending emails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a company with its current or previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business.

Email marketing can be used to improve the relationship between a business and its customers or to gain new customers. In order to gain the email addresses of potential customers, businesses must either use a permission-based subscription service to acquire new addresses or rely on referrals from existing customers. Email marketing is especially popular because it can be much cheaper than traditional mail marketing, and it can let marketers reach a wide audience in a short period of time.

are interested in or have requested. This helps promote trust and loyalty to a company while also increasing sales.

With email marketing, you can easily and quickly reach target markets without the need for large quantities of print space, television or radio time, or high production costs.

An email marketing campaign is one of the oldest forms of Internet marketing. While more advanced methods have come along, it can still be very effective provided the right approach and tools are utilized.

Understanding and Choosing ESP’s

Email service providers (ESPs) allow you to execute professional, organized email marketing campaigns. Knowing what to look for when choosing an ESP can make the process of email communication a lot easier:

An ESP is a service that hosts email marketing services on their servers, which are specifically designed for this purpose. While you control your email marketing account and send out emails using a Web browser interface, the ESP’s servers and Internet connections do the heavy lifting. If you tried to send bulk emails through your regular Internet Service Provider (ISP), your campaign could be blocked as regular ISPs are not set up for (and sometimes prohibit) bulk mailings.

Most ESPs also make it very easy for you to comply with the CAN SPAM Act

regulations. For example, an ESP should automatically include an unsubscribe link in every email sent through their service (and automatically remove these addresses from your lists), as well as verify that all emails are sent to a valid, working email address. Most ESPs also require you to send only to lists of subscribers that have opted-in to receive emails from you.

Now, what should you look for in an ESP to make sure you choose the right one? Here are some criteria to consider:

1) Customer support and training: Your ESP should offer both online and phone customer support and training.

2) Ease of use: Whether or not you know the ins and outs of email campaigns,

HTML coding or how to use monitoring reports and statistics, the service you choose should provide the tools and explanations necessary to help you easily create an effective campaign.

3) Reliable infrastructure: There would be nothing worse than sending to your

valuable prospects and customers and having the ESPs servers go down. The people reading your emails won’t be able to click through to you website. Make sure your ESP has multiple, high-speed connections to the Internet through more than one source and hardware redundancies. This ensures reliability of sending if one of the Internet connections fails or there is a hardware failure. Ask prospective ESPs about their infrastructure.

5) CAN SPAM compliance: Your ESP should require customers to comply with the CAN SPAM Act and make it very easy to do so.

6) Free trial: Most ESPs offer a free trial. Do a test drive to see if the service meets your needs.

7) Pricing Plans: ESPs host your email list on their servers. Some charge a monthly fee based on the number of emails on your list, while others charge a monthly fee based on the maximum number of emails you think you will send per month. Your ESP should offer a pricing structure that fits your needs.

Email Service Providers v.s. Email Software

Before making assumptions about once off marketing software, it’s useful to understand what it offers, and doesn’t, to see if going the hosted route really is better:

1) Newsletter Templates

The templates on once off programs often become outdated since it’s the user’s own responsibility to create and source their own in time and tune with email client updates.

2) Features

Once off programs don’t usually have advanced features, just the basics of

newsletter creation and sending are typically available. Hosted email solutions offer extra features such as a microsite (an archive of old newsletters), Real Simple

Syndication (RSS) feeds, list management and subscriber segmentation tools, email auto-responders, in-depth reports and stats, and so on.

Only basic tracking and statistics tools are available with purchased packages, whereas the hosted solution provides an opportunity to really drill down into subscriber behavior, allowing you to send a more fine-tuned campaign.

3) Security and memory use

Once off programs have to be downloaded onto your computer, taking up memory on your hard drive and carrying the risk of allowing a virus onto your PC.

With hosted email solutions, all you need to do is log into the application. They have their own security measures and everything is stored in the ‘cloud’, online.

4) Cost

With a packaged solution, there are unnecessary extra costs if you the product needs to be bought for more than one PC. In other words, to use it on different

systems you will need a multi license version. This can end up being fairly costly, not to mention that you cannot access your account from anywhere else except those specific computers. All that is needed with a hosted application is your username, passwords and access to a PC.

5) Support

It’s normal for a hosted solution to offer live product support, as well as help videos and tutorials which are constantly being updated to assist the user.

Though an operation manual and other online resources may be available for once-off purchased solutions, these are often limited, non-interactive and difficult to interpret for the everyday user.

Email Marketing Terminology

Email marketing, like any other industry, has its own unique language and jargon. To become confident in navigating email marketing applications, interpreting reports and understanding the world of email, some knowledge of the following widely used terms is required.

A/B split

Refers to a test situation in which a list is split into two pieces with every other name being sent one specific creative, and vice versa.

Autoresponder

Automated email message-sending capability, such as a welcome message sent to all new subscribers the minute they join a list. An autoresponder may be more than a single message - it can be a series of date or event-triggered emails.

Blacklist (or blocklist, blackhole list)

Block

A refusal by an ISP or mail server to forward your email message to the recipient. Many ISPs block email from IP addresses or domains that have been reported to send spam or viruses or have content that violates email policy or spam filters. Bounce message

When email delivery fails, the sending email transfer application sends a bounce message to the sender by email, and the server also records an error message in the mail logs. The messages indicate whether the failure was temporary or fatal, and describe the type of failure.

Bounce rate

In email marketing, the bounce rate relates to the delivery of your campaign. It tells you what percentage of addresses didn’t receive your message because it was returned by a recipient mail server. High bounce rates damage your reputation and delivery process.

Call to action

In an email message, the text or image link, button, widget or visually highlighted body in copy that tells the recipient what action to take.

Click-through

A click-through occurs when a recipient clicks on a hotlink which has been included in an email. Hotlinks can take email recipients to website landing pages, articles, blog entries etc.

Click-through rate

Total number of clicks on email link(s) divided by the number of emails sent.

programs define CTR differently. Confirmed opt-in

This term may refer to a double-opt-in subscription process or may refer to email addresses which do not hard bounce back a welcome message.

Conversion

When an email recipient performs a desired action based on a mail you have sent. A conversion could be a monetary transaction, such as a purchase made after

clicking a link. It could also include a voluntary act such as registering at a Web site, downloading a white paper, signing up for a Web seminar or opting in to an email newsletter.

CRM

Customer Relationship Management technology and systems. CTR

Click-through Rate. Slightly inexact because some clicks “get lost” between the click and your server. Also be sure to ask if the CTR is unique, meaning that each individual user is only counted once no matter how many times they click on a link. Delivered email

Number of emails sent minus the number of bounces and filtered messages. A highly inexact number because not all receiving ISPs report accurately on which email

didn’t go through and why not.

Double opt-in

want to be on the list. Sometimes interpreted incorrectly by some email broadcast vendors to mean a new subscriber who does not opt-out of or bounce a welcome message.

Email blocking

Email blocking typically refers to blocking by ISPs. Emails that are blocked are not processed through the ISP are essentially prevented from from reaching their addressed destination. Most ISPs actively block email coming from suspected spammers or tag the subject line ‘SUSPECTED SPAM’.

Email filter

A software tool that categorizes, sorts or blocks incoming email, based either on the sender, the email header or message content. Filters may be applied at the recipient’s level, at the email client, the ISP or a combination.

ESP

Email Service Provider. Event triggered email

Pre-programmed messages sent automatically based on an event such as a date or anniversary.

Hard bounce

Message sent to an invalid, closed or nonexistent email account. Internet Service Provider (ISP)

Mailing list

A list of email addresses that receive mailings or discussion-group messages. Microsite

A Microsite is a mini website used to archive your past newsletters. A unique URL link is given to you so that the microsite can be used as a portfolio of your past newsletters and templates, linked from your own website.

Open rate

The number of HTML message recipients who opened your email, usually as a percentage of the total number of emails sent. The open rate is considered a key metric for judging an email campaign’s success, but it has several problems. The rate indicates only the number of emails opened from the total amount sent, not just those that were actually delivered. Opens also can’t be calculated on text emails. Also, some email clients only scan message content without actually opening the message, which is falsely calculated as an open.

Opt-in or Subscribe

A specific, pro-active, request by an individual email recipient to have their own email address placed on a specific mailing list.

Opt-out or Unsubscribe

Permission-based email

Email sent to recipients or subscribers who have opted-in / subscribed or given inferred permission to be sent email communications from a particular company, website or individual. Whichever way you look at it, permission is an absolute prerequisite for legitimate email marketing.

Personalization

A targeting method in which an email message appears to have been created only for a single recipient. Personalization techniques include adding the recipient’s name in the subject line or message body, or the message offer reflects a purchasing, link clicking, or transaction history.

Preview pane

The window in an email client that allows the user to scan message content without actually clicking on the message.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

A format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, blogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS feed, sending it to whoever wants it.

Return on Investment (ROI)

From an email marketing perspective, understanding this number helps you

Segmentation

Dividing or separating your email list based on categories, purchasing behavior, demographics and more for the purpose of targeting email marketing campaigns to the audience most likely to respond.

Single Opt-in

Once the most widely accepted and routinely used method of obtaining email addresses and permission. A single opt-in list is created by inviting visitors and customers to subscribe to your mail list. When you use a sign-up form on your website, a message immediately goes out to the subscriber acknowledging the subscription (a good example of an auto-responder). This message should reiterate what the subscriber has signed up for and provide an immediate way for the

subscriber to edit his/her interests or opt-out. Industry best practice now dictates a double opt-in.

Soft bounce

Email sent to an active (live) email address but which is turned away before being delivered. Often, the problem is temporary -- the server is down or the recipient’s mailbox is over quota. The email might be held at the recipient’s server and

delivered later, or the sender’s email program may attempt to deliver it again. Soft-bounce reports are not always accurate because they don’t report all soft Soft-bounces or the actual reason for the bounce.

Spam

The popular name for unsolicited commercial email. However, some email recipients define spam as any email they no longer want to receive, even if it comes from a mailing list they joined voluntarily.

Subscribe

The process of joining a mailing list, either through an email command, by filling out a Web form, or offline by filling out a form or requesting to be added verbally. (If you accept verbal subscriptions, you should safeguard yourself by recording it and storing recordings along with time and date, in a retrievable format.)

Targeting

Selecting a target audience or group of individuals likely to be interested in certain products or services. To get the best out of a campaign, analyze your list and target accordingly. Targeted campaigns yield a higher response rate and result in fewer unsubscribes.

Triggers

Triggers send automated follow-up emails based on the recipient’s reaction to an email you’ve sent to them. Triggers can be set up to send a time-delayed email when the recipient clicks on the link or opens the email. They’re great for sending thank-you emails or for sending coupons to people who’ve clicked on a product.

Unsubscribe

To remove oneself from an email list, either via an emailed command to the list server or by filling in a Web form.

Whitelist

The Pros and Cons of Email Marketing

Email marketing is popular with companies for several reasons, although it also has its disadvantages:

Advantages of Email:

• Email is personal - As online interaction expands through social networking, blogging, online shopping and banking, your email address starts to form part of your identity online

• You can track your campaigns - Unlike most other marketing tools, email is easily tracked. This means you always know whether or not your campaigns are performing as you’d like them to

• Your campaigns are exclusive - Your email newsletters are a chance to reward your most loyal followers

• Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of email subscribers who have opted in (i.e. consented) to receive email communications on subjects of interest to them. • Emailing is low cost, environmentally friendly and paper free.• It’s easier to collect email addresses than to capture physical addresses for posting

• Social sharing is of newsletters possible, giving email messages much wider reach via social media audiences.

• Email can be personalized to each subscriber automatically.

• Being an electronic channel, emails are delivered almost immediately. Disadvantages of Email:

• Your target audience is required to be opt in (permission from clients to send them email)

• Companies considering the use of an email marketing program must make sure that their program does not violate spam laws such as the United States’ Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM), the European Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, or their Internet service provider’s acceptable use policy

A Brief History of Emailing

Since email came into existence nearly two decades ago, at a time when the internet started gaining popularity, companies took full advantage and realized it as an easy way to reach customers.

Here below is outlined some important milestones in the evolution of the email channel:

1971 - The first electronic mail message is sent by computer engineer, Ray Thompson.

1976 - An electronic mail message is sent by Queen Elizabeth(the first head of state to do so).

1978 - The first electronic mail message advertisement is sent out to schools and universities over a server.

1982 - The term ‘Email’ is used and the first emoticon(smiley face) is created by Scott Falhman.

1995 - Email overtakes regular mail in terms of send volume.

1996 - HotMail is launched by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith and becomes the first web based email service.

1997 - The release of Microsoft Outlook.

1997 - Microsoft buys over Hotmail for about $400 million and renames it MSN Hotmail.

1998 - The word ‘Spam’ is recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary.

2004 - Email Spam laws are codified by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). 2004 - Internet acronyms officially recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary. 2005 - SPF (verify email senders’ identities) is established.

2004 - Multimedia Emails are introduced.

2007 - Gmail is publicly available. DKIM (anti phishing security protocol) is introduced.

2011 - The word ‘E-mail’ is changed to ‘email’ by the Associated Press Stylebook.

What is “Permission Based” Marketing?

In most countries (the USA is a notable exception), sending bulk marketing email without some kind of permission is often illegal.

Consumer surveys also reveal that a main reason for marking or reporting email as spam is: “I never asked for this”. Spam reports are a major factor used by webmail services and others to tag “bad” senders, potentially leading to outright blocking of all that sender’s emails.

If you are accused of sending spam, then you may find your email accounts closed down, your website shut off, and your reputation in tatters. In some parts of the world, you may even be breaking the law and have to pay fines.

Essentially, you need an email address owner’s permission (“opt-in”) before you can send them a commercial email. If you don’t have this permission, then the recipients of your mail may well regard your message as spam; unsolicited commercial email. Quite apart from these practical considerations, there is also a strong argument which says that long-term successful email marketing relationships with customers and others can only work anyway if they’re permission based.

Types of Email Marketing Campaigns

The email tools available today make it easy to set up and implement multiple campaigns.

To a lot of people, the term “email marketing” automatically conjures images of an email intent on one thing - selling. In actual fact, there are a number of types of email communications you can pitch to your clients, some of which are not directly sales related but can certainly contribute to their bottom line in other ways.

There are three primary types of email marketing campaigns: 1) Newsletter campaigns

basis (monthly frequency is a good starting point).

The goal of a newsletter campaign is to keep your subscribers updated on company events, specials, etc., and to keep your business top-of-mind. You can also use email newsletters to reduce support costs and to spark conversations in social media.

2) Automated campaigns

Automated email campaigns are pre-written and pre-scheduled emails that are set up for delivery based on pre-defined timeframe.

For example, you may set up a “new subscriber” campaign that includes your

welcome message, followed by a series of additional “evergreen” (meaning they do not include any time-sensitive or event-specific information) messages that introduce the new subscriber to your business.

The goal of an automated email campaign is to send appropriate messages based on a particular “trigger event” (like someone buying something, requesting a

demonstration, subscribing to your newsletter, clicking on a specific link etc.) (it can also be based on a calendar date, or on a date relative to the “join” date).

3) Promotional campaigns

These emails typically revolve around a marketing event, product special or specific promotion, encourage subscribers to take advantage. You might start with an

announcement, then follow-up with reminders at appropriate intervals, then one ‘last chance’ reminder just before the event.

The goal of a promotional campaign is to make your subscribers do something (attend an event or a show, buy a new product, etc.).

You may want to consider segmenting your email list for your promotional campaign, so that you could create a specific campaign just for that interest-group.

• Email Newsletters (e.g. weekly, monthly, quarterly)

• Quick Announcements (e.g. sales, specials, emergencies) • Catalog Emails (e.g. new products, stock clearance)

• Press Releases (e.g. company announcements, breaking news) • Service Emails (e.g. product use tips, technical guides)

• Surveys (e.g. customer service feedback, general questionnaires) • Invitations (e.g. company events, celebrations)

• Thank You emails (e.g. post-purchase thanks, post-survey thanks)

• Notifications (e.g. changes in customer status, membership confirmations)

What an Email Marketing Campaign

Involves

This section discusses the email marketing process in general; introducing each basic step in particular for those who have never sent a campaign before.

There are roughly 5 steps to successful email marketing, and they are: Step 1) Deciding on Campaign Goals

Before you launch your campaign, you need to decide what it is that you want to accomplish.

Why are you sending your emails? Do you want to deepen the quality of

relationships, take your list through the sales cycle, and educate subscribers? Who you want to reach with your newsletter? Do you want to speak to current clients, prospects or the press? What do you want people to do when they read your newsletter?

The key to a successful email marketing campaign is getting your aims and

objectives straight right from the start. Set clear goals before you send your email, and build your messages and campaign around those goals.

Step 2) Building an Email Address List

List building is all about gathering names and addresses, and getting them into an easily accessible, centralized location.

Building your own list of current customers, past customers, and prospects (versus buying names and addresses) is the best option. And even if you only have 10 email addresses, you need to start somewhere.

When compiling a mailing list, it is essential to make sure you stay the right side of the law. If you’re collecting email addresses yourself, you must get consent from the person to whom the email address belongs before mailing them. If you’re collecting email addresses via your website, you need to make sure that people are asked to opt-in to receive your emails.

Don’t ask for too much information at first. All you really need to get started is a first name and an email address.

Most importantly, promise privacy. You should develop a privacy statement that communicates to customers how your company uses their personal information.

Step 3) Creating Newsletter Layout and Content

When you create your newsletter, you want to make it a quick-read for subscribers. Don’t overwhelm readers with too much information.

Decide what types of sections you will include in your newsletter, such as an

introduction, a main article or editorial, case studies, featured products and services, short tips, interviews with industry experts, notifications about upcoming events, or promotional offerings.

Once you’ve decided on your newsletter’s format, it’s time to source or generate the content, and drop it into your newsletter template.

The key here is simplicity - make it easy for your visitors to find what they’re looking for, and make sure the information is easy to read. Space out paragraphs and

separate articles.

Don’t go too over the top. Remember that every image you add increases the time it will take for your message to download in your user’s inbox.

Step 4) Sending your Newsletter

Email service providers make sending email newsletters easy. Not only do they let you set up and schedule your broadcast ahead of time, but they will monitor who opens and clicks on links in your emails so you can measure your results.

won’t remember that they subscribed.

You may find it is best to let subscribers choose how regularly they receive content from you. For instance, if you usually offer just a daily email, you may also want to offer a weekly or a monthly version.

Before you send, run an A/B split test to see which newsletter subject lines will likely have the highest success rate and check your spam score to see if you need to change anything on your mailer to ensure it won’t be snagged by spam filters. Step 5) Measuring Campaign Results

If you don’t have a way of measuring your success, you won’t know whether or not your campaign has achieved its objectives.

As with any marketing campaign, testing is crucial to your success. Statistics reports about your emails as part of an ESP’s offering may give you a lot of information. Specifically look at:

• Delivery rate: The percentage of your list that received your email.

• Open rate: How many people opened your email. The open rate will give you an idea of how active your list is.

Also look at:

• List growth: How fast is your list growing. This will give you an idea of the spread of your newsletter and how popular or appealing your emails are.

• Sales rate: Return on investment (ROI) is where your email brings in the business. How many sales can you attribute to your email newsletter compared to how much it cost you? For some companies this is the ultimate measure of success. An email marketing strategy is a work in progress, so make sure to set benchmarks and monitor the performance of your campaign. As you learn more about what your subscribers want, you can incorporate those changes and improve.

Defining Success - Email Marketing

Metrics

Numbers have a magic of their own. Print them and they assume an importance often unjustified by their origins. Random guesses become formal estimates. Estimates become assumptions. Assumptions become fact. The same is true for email marketing.

But at some point in your work with email, you’ll want to compare your results with those of others. Which is why, despite their flaws, you’ll need to understand what metrics are there for and look at some benchmarking numbers: industry-wide metrics of email marketing performance.

Although email performance metrics depend greatly on the purpose, audience and basic value of each email campaign, send or series, there are many specific actions senders can take to lift results. A review of the metrics suggests potential for

improvement in the following areas: • The quality of address lists. • Subject line optimization. • The call-to-action.

Email metrics give you a basic number to work with, but your email marketing may not be directly comparable to any “average,” because each list and each email has its own unique characteristics.

At the very least, industry metrics let you see if you’re way off with your numbers. If the average open rate in your sector is 40% and you’re getting 10%, you know you have a problem. If you’re getting 70%, you know you’re doing quite well.

Benchmark metrics also help with planning. If you have no other way of coming up with future estimates, then at least you can fall back on industry averages.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of how published metrics are collected and

calculated, they do identify trends (assuming the methods used for collection and calculation remain constant through time).

So after all these ifs, buts, whys and wherefores, where can you actually get hold of some metrics?

• Get it from your ESP Some email marketing service providers such as GraphicMail offer you free industry comparison reports in your account.

• Get an online list of worldwide email metrics for performance stats, deliverability stats, consumer surveys and email client market share reports.

• The main independent metrics report is MarketingSherpa’s Email Marketing Benchmark Guide. It normally costs just under $400, but they have many free options, too.

Getting away from averages, you can also find numbers in many published email marketing case studies. Of course, you can’t make like-to-like comparisons here either, but every number helps give you a better understanding of email marketing life and how well you are performing.