EMAIL STRATEGY:
THE ESSENTIALS FOR DEVELOPING A
REVENUE GENERATING EMAIL PROGRAM
AGENDA
•
Current Email Marketing Landscape
– Lifecycle Marketing
– Mobile Trends
•
Planning, Testing, and Refining
– Content
– A/B Testing
– Measuring Success
•
CAN-SPAM Compliance Guidelines
•
Questions
CURRENT EMAIL
MARKETING LANDSCAPE
LIFECYCLE MARKETING
Goal is to move customers up the “value” chain…
Win-Back
Acquire Convert
Goal: Capture New Email Addresses
LIFECYCLE MARKETING: ACQUIRE
ACQUIRE
Refer a Friend
• Utilize “Word of Mouth”
from your current customers • Triggered email after first
interaction with your brand (makes a purchase, attends an event, opens up an
account, etc)
• Offer an incentive to both the current customer and the friend
Goal: Capture New Email Addresses
LIFECYCLE MARKETING: ACQUIRE
ACQUIRE
Social + Email
•
Add an email sign-up
widget to your
Facebook page
•
Clear, simple message
to sign up for emails
•
Place in the first 4 app
Goal: Move from Prospect to Customer
LIFECYCLE MARKETING: CONVERT
CONVERT
Welcome Series
• Automated email message sent
immediately after email sign up
• Typically generates 8X high
revenue-per-email compared to traditional promotional emails
• Opportunity to introduce your
brand, set expectations, and offer an incentive
Goal: Build Value for Your Brand
LIFECYCLE MARKETING: GROW
GROW
Birthday
• Opportunity to promote
brand loyalty (surprise & delight)
• Requires that you collect birth date in your email preference center
• Typically see 25%+ CTR and
2X higher average conversion rate (VERY relevant)
Goal: Reinforce Loyalty & Engagement
LIFECYCLE MARKETING: RETAIN
RETAIN
Product Reviews
• Increase the reviews and
testimonials for your products
– Can be reused as content in your emails or on your site
• Proactive approach to building
the relationship
• Offer an incentive to help drive response and encourage
Goal: Win-Back Inactive Customers
LIFECYCLE MARKETING: REACTIVATE
REACTIVATE
Re-Engagement
• Sent to subscribers who have not
opened or clicked an email in X time period*
• Series of emails that can be
reused when a subscriber reaches the above determined time period
• Those who do not engage should
be removed
LIFECYCLE MARKETING: WAYS TO SCALE
Use APIs to set up triggered/transactional
messages
Use RSS, SmartGet, and other dynamic content to
repurpose content and send personalized
messages
Utilize social share to encourage subscribers to
share the entire email or individual
MOBILE: PROGRESSION OF MOBILE DESIGN
Major Change to Email:
Multipart MIME, which adds a text version of each email so the email would be legible on the blackberry
Major Change to Email:
Mobile optimized design developed to accommodate the surge of people that adopted the iPhone
Major Change to Email: Responsive design developed as majority of emails are now read on a mobile (smartphone, tablet, etc.) devices. Yet still not adopted by all (Android).
Blackberry: You can read email on your phone?
iPhone: You can read email + easily see email images on your phone!
Small Screens Go Mainstream: You can read email + easily see email images on
multiple mobile devices!
43% of all email is now opened on a mobile device. More email is read on a mobile device than on a desktop email client or via webmail.
Source: Litmus –”Email Analytics” (June 2013)
MOBILE: TRENDS ON READERSHIP
Image: Litmus
Implications
• More email will be accessed “On the Go”
MOBILE: TRENDS ON READERSHIP
Image: https://litmus.com/blog/webinar-mobile-email-strategies-approaches
By the end of 2013, there will be more mobile devices on Earth than people.
Source: Cisco (2013)
Implications
• Email design needs to adapt to render well across multiple mobile devices as well as desktop
MOBILE: TRENDS ON READERSHIP
80% of users delete email that
doesn’t look good on their mobile device!
MOBILE: RESPONSIVE DESIGN
What is it?
Depending on the size of the screen the email is opened on, utilize CSS3 @media queries to render two different layouts. As mobile usage increases, it is more imperative to optimize the user experience for those devices.
DES
KT
OP
MOBILE
Remove non-relevant pre-header copy
Increase font sizes
Adjust image sizes
Convert to single column layout
PLANNING, TESTING, AND REFINING
Key Elements
• FROM Name
– Signifies who the email is from
– Opportunity for immediate brand recognition
• Subject Lines
– Let’s the subscriber know what is in the email and why they should open
– Put most important information within first 25-35 characters (including spaces and punctuation)
• Pre-header Text
– First text in the HTML of the email
– Visible in most email clients and devices
– Added real estate for encouraging an open
CONTENT: GETTING THE OPEN
From Name Subject Line
Pre-Header INBOX:
EYE CATCHING SUBJECT LINE FORMULAS
• Symbols
– ★Time is Running Out - Your Free Business Listing★
• Lower Case
– pontificate: Dictionary.com Word of the Day
• Upper Case
– Road trip with LOW auto loan rates
• Short Statements
– Holding a Yard Sale. On Your iPhone.
• List Content
– Jeans. Shirts. Whiskey. For Three Days Only…
• Punctuation Change
– 2 days only! 25% off dresses | our gift IT list: cozy & bright picks everyone will love.
• Unique Discounts
– 28% Off March 28th Tax Filing Services
Winning Combinations:
• Name of Service +
Benefit Statement
• Name of Service + Offer • Benefit Statement +
CONTENT: INCLUDING ALL OF THE KEY ELEMENTS
1. Pre-header text
2. Headline
3. Primary Call to Action Button
4. Links in body copy
5. Secondary call-to-action
6. Recovery zone
7. Z-Curve
1 2 3 4 5 6 7A/B TESTING
Test A 10% Test B 10%Winner
80%
What Should You Test?
Subject Lines
Call to Actions
Sending Times
FROM Name
Content
Frequency
Day of Week
Everything
Why Should You Test?
Marketers who test have
‘excellent’ or ‘good’ ROI
compared to those who
do not test
METRICS TO MONITOR
HOW DO YOU BENCHMARK
Your Own Data
You’ll learn more by mining your own trend data and
looking at results by campaign type
Industry Data
Email channel averages and industry-specific statistics
can be directionally helpful. They can tell you if you’re
performing in the general ballpark of your peers.
CAN-SPAM
COMPLIANCE GUIDELINES
• Background
– “Officially” known as the Controlling the Assault
of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act
– Became law Jan. 1, 2004
– Overseen by The US Federal Trade Commission
– Most recent amendments to law took effect Jul. 7, 2008
• Objectives
– Establish requirements for those who send
commercial email
– Give federal civil and criminal enforcement
authorities the ability to combat commercial email that is unwanted by the recipient and/or
deceptive
– Define penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in SPAM if they violate the law
– Allow state attorneys general to enforce its civil provisions, and create a private right of action for providers of Internet access service
Do’s
• A valid U.S. postal address in all emails
• Clear notice in all commercial emails
stating that the email is an advertisement or solicitation
– “If you no longer wish to receive promotional email X please click here to unsubscribe.”
• “Clear and conspicuous” working unsubscribe mechanism in every promotional email
• Keep the unsubscribe mechanism “live” for at least 30 days after the date of the mailing
• Process all unsubscribe requests within
10 days, including requests through non-typical channels
Don’ts
• Use fraudulent transmission data such as open relays, false headers, etc.
• Employ misleading “from lines” or “subject” lines
– Subject line should indicate what the email content is
• Complicate the opt-out mechanism
• Share the address of a person who unsubscribed with any other entity seeking to send that party email
• Harvest email addresses or use
automated means to randomly generate them
CAN-SPAM: DO’S AND DON’TS
• Offer a “global unsubscribe” option so
subscribers may remove themselves from all promotional email
subscriptions or lists
• Remove any emails that have hard bounced or reported your email as spam
– Done automatically on your behalf!
• Perform regular re-engagement campaigns and list cleaning to
maintain healthy list hygiene practices
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Lifecycle Marketing • Categorize your current email programs • Identify where you can add emails to build a robust
email lifecycle
Mobile
• Look on your phone, and co-workers phones to see how your emails are current rendering
• Check to see what percentage of your subscribers are viewing your emails on a mobile device
Planning, Testing, and Refining
• Utilize pre-header text to help encourage opens • Begin testing – start with subject lines then expand • Look at metrics regularly to measure performance –
consider a dashboard
CAN-SPAM
• Make sure your FROM Names and Subject lines are clear
• Look into implementing regular re-engagement
