Testing Email Elements to Improve Campaign Effectiveness

August 26th, 2010

In the series of charts about email marketing, this week we are looking at different elements of emails that are tested the most. Over 1,400 industry marketers have provided their input to identify which email elements they are or will be testing, in order to improve the effectiveness of their email marketing campaigns.

testing email elements

As we can see above, the most frequently tested element for long time has been “Subject” Lines. Offers and send time is being tested almost as much. Testing elements can improve significantly your email campaign results and should be done by each and every company that’s using email marketing in their business strategy.

To run full tests you do need to take in account your target market and list size, as both of the criteria has big effect on results. To produce measurable results, you need sufficient amount of data therefore you need bigger list or have to run tests over longer period of time. B2C marketers test more often different elements of email than B2B marketers.

We would like to hear from you! Are you running any tests on on your email marketing campaigns, if so what are the elements you are currently testing?

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E-mail marketing is not merely advertising

August 24th, 2010

Direct – if not blatant – advertising has become a thing people associate with email marketing.

You know, the e-mails that swarm in after you register at a site and forget to uncheck the box that says “send me regular e-mails with promotional offers from our company”.

newsletter signup

Although such marketing is permission-based and successful in some cases and niches, there are often better things than mere promotions to send to your clients.

When someone subscribes to your list, that person allows you to send emails with the content you said you’ll send.

Now, if you were a client. Why would you want to receive countless promotion e-mails?

If you didn’t have a good enough reason (e.g. a freebie) to subscribe to a promotional email newsletter, you probably did not picture that your inbox will be filled with advertisements.

Which means that the subscribers will be confused, and some will leave or complain if you send myriad promotional letters after they’ve subscribed.

Don’t get it wrong, however. Sales emails are successful and many businesses get great results with them.

Sending sales e-mails is a short-term strategy, though. They give an offer; if a client refuses it, he’s refused it for good, and you can just as well

Newsletters, on the other hand, build trust and, often subtly, urge the client to take action over a good period of time. It just takes a little thought to distinguish between newsletters and promotional emails–and choose the one that suits your business.

Content-based newsletters escape the “all or nothing” syndrome that has plagued marketing for decades. That’s why newsletters are becoming increasingly popular.

But how do I advertise to my audience if I don’t send any advertisements?

email trust pyramidLet’s be bold for a second: we know that marketing masterminds aren’t good Samaritans. If something doesn’t bring profit, it is not viable. From this we can conclude – if marketing masterminds invented newsletters, they are profitable. And newsletters are profitable, because they build trust. (You still have to earn it, though.)

You earn trust by providing the user with good content and by not abusing your client-seller relationship. You spend trust by breaking the boundaries of your relationship with the customer by, for example, sending him unrelated advertisements.

You need to set rules of what you will send and what you won’t send to the subscriber. This doesn’t mean that you can’t include advertisements in your e-mails. You just have to give your clients value – usually with the content – that somehow makes up for the advertisements.

A simple example is a usual 300-word blog post. You can add an image advertisement at the bottom of the post. The clients shouldn’t mind this, as long as you offer something valuable to them.

A complex example is a 500-word blog post with no advertisements, but with a subtle call to action. For example, your site might focus on video games, and you could write a honest review of a recent video game… that you happen to sell through your site.

A few other examples of good content (content that builds trust):

  • Advice on the topic(s) your newsletter focuses on
  • Articles about new stuff that’s happening in your niche
  • Courses related to your niche
  • Articles that appeal to the customer’s self-esteem
  • And everything else, that will make the subscribers feel good and also offer value to them

Just be sure that you don’t overdo things if you choose sending newsletters with promotions within them. You should also be more or less consistent with the content of your e-mails.

No promotions in e-mails will build trust, but if you suddenly introduce ads, the trust will evaporate quickly. Too many promotions will make the clients think that you don’t really care about them. Keep things at balance, and everything will be fine.

(By the way, many people think that their content isn’t valuable to the subscribers or that their writing skills aren’t that great. If you’re discouraged about your content, be sure to read this eye-opening article at Copyblogger.)

What are your thoughts and experience with heavily executed and annoying advertising in newsletters? Would you like to share some of your experiences? We always welcome your comments!

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Email Newsletter Response Rates

August 12th, 2010

In the chart below you can see how B2B email newsletters perform against B2C newsletters in open rates, click-through rates and conversion rates.

Almost 1,500 marketers have provided their input in determining the numbers below, and they found that email newsletters usually contain more links to information and offers than non-newsletter emails. Because of this fact, click-through and conversion rates become important as indicators of email newsletter performance.

Email newsletters to consumers or B2C have an edge over B2B newsletters in terms of response rate performance across the board.

email-response-rates

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Attract More Customers with Relevant Newsletter

August 3rd, 2010

Targeting is key for a relevant email newsletter.

Are you targeting your customers if you send your default, non relevant newsletter to every single subscriber?

No, you aren’t. But targeting is good for business–and, sadly, the opposite is true too.Targeted and relevant newsletter

By sending irrelevant newsletters you risk with opt-outs, waste money and the client’s time; furthermore, you also communicate lack of thought about the client and his needs. And the clients like when you think about them and their needs. That’s why relevant newsletters are so powerful–because, when seeing relevant advertisements, the client senses that you have at least some idea of what he likes or dislikes.

To create a relevant email newsletter where you advertise products, you must first have some knowledge about your customers, or they most likely won’t like your advertisements.

You can acquire useful information from clients when they register;

  • through surveys sent to new users;
  • and through monitoring user activity (which email newsletters were opened the most, after what events the users unsubscribe, etc) and spending habits.

For example, if there are many unsubscribes after a certain campaign, maybe it doesn’t interest the female part of your audience; or maybe you are trying to sell sun cream to residents of Canada? You also wouldn’t want to offer table games to people that buy first person shooters.

After you’ve concluded that you know enough about the specific group of users, segment those users and send them only relevant newsletters from now on – newsletters with relevant information that should interest them. The clients will love it, and you’ll stop worrying about opt-outs that might have been prevented. In fact, most of the clients who see targeted advertisements don’t mind, simply because these advertisements are about something that interests them.

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Email list rental vs buying third party lists

July 27th, 2010

Have you ever thought about how good it would be if you could simply buy a list of client e-mail addresses in a click?

I hope you haven’t, because it is not worth it.
Unless you meant renting the list – email list rental is a pretty common practice.

The difference between the two (list rental and list buying) is huge. When it comes to email marketing and renting an e-mail list, you don’t get a copy of the list. In short, you never get to see the addresses – the owner does the sending for you. By renting a list you could be a featured business or sponsor of the renters next newsletter to their clients.

When buying an e-mail list, you get the addresses, and that is utterly bad. Not to mention the bad PR you will get if you send to people you don’t know. Not to mention the hundred reasons, among which legal trouble could or could not be the most serious. The worst part of bought e-mail lists is that they don’t work, especially if your business doesn’t sell penis pills… or something like that.

Although a buy third party list sounds like a great idea – you often only invest up to $500 for an e-mail list with millions of e-mail addresses -, sending spam spells a death sentence for business. Out of the millions of addresses which the seller acquired somehow, there will surely be spam complaints which can mean legal trouble. Furthermore, your brand will get severely damaged if you send unsolicited e-mail. Just don’t do it.

These lists do not work because they are overused; they don’t have a permission (how on earth would a 1m large list have permission from all the users?); they don’t have quality; and lastly, in case if you still have doubt about it, sending to third party lists is ogre-ish email marketing.

It is different with e-mail list rentals, though.
The price is the first indicator that they are more likely to work; depending on the nature of your emails, an email list rental costs an average of about $130 for 1,000 impressions according to LPI. Business is business, and the price is fair if you know how to make the most out of email list rental. You know how difficult is to acquire those 1,000 subscribers, but do you also want to be part of another brand who you are simply sponsoring.

Should you consider buying lists? – NO, just avoid buying any e-mail lists, doesn’t matter how good the offer sounds.

Build your own reliable and highly profitable lists by adding Web SignUp form to your website, run a promotional campaign in the store or ask for feedback and capture their email addresses this way best.

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Effectively use autoresponders and follow-up emails: autoresponder tips

July 21st, 2010

Autoresponders are underestimated. An email autoresponder can be used to set up follow-up letters which you can employ in a million ways.

Here are a few autoresponder tips — really, a few of them.

  • email autorespondersEducate the users by sending courses about your service/product – or simply courses that are likely to be relevant to the receiver;
  • Gather surveys to gain information from new subscribers;
  • Thank the new user for joining your service;
  • Wish the user a happy birthday;
  • Give the user advice in case of inactivity; etc.

There are, however, even more creative ways in which you can employ follow up letters.

Imagine you are selling e-books about dogs, and are giving away a free e-book for new subscribers, titled “How to take care of your dog”. After the clients have received it, you don’t simply dwell on the huge success, but send relevant, regular follow-up emails that both remind the client to actually read the book, and give additional dog care advice that involves dog training.

At the, for example, third of your five follow up letters, you introduce the client to your new eBook, the best-selling “How to train your dog”. Voila, you have now sold a product using follow up emails.

There are hundreds of autoresponder tips, these few are just a fraction of them. Most of the best autoresponder uses simply involve a little creative use of the stuff you already have.

For example, do you send a welcome message to your subscribers when they sign up? Good, because most businesses do. What most businesses don’t do is load the actual welcome message with links that should interest the new subscriber. If a subscriber is new, it may be one of his first visits; why not link him to this month’s most popular posts, among them to a post where you sell something the subscriber might like?

Autoresponders are indeed underestimated, but that’s mostly because they aren’t used to doing creative things with them. The same old same old is boring; keep that in mind and do something new.

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The importance of the unsubscribe link

July 15th, 2010

Never underestimate the unsubscribe link.

Although it is what it is – in many cases a lost client – you can reinforce your way of thinking and make the most out of your unsubscribes. There are many different ways to try avoiding opt-outs, but they sometimes are the only feedback you’ll ever get. And remember – no clever way of placing (or omitting for that matter) of the unsubscribe link can save against a client who has lost interest in your services or products.

email unsubscribe
You need an unsubscribe link because:

  • You want to be polite to your customers.
  • You want to comply with the CAN-SPAM act.
  • You want to remain in good terms with your clients even after they’ve left you.
  • You want to gain useful information whenever a client unsubscribes.
  • You want to keep your list clean.
  • You don’t want more bad feedback from clients who would’ve left anyway.

…and the list goes on.

Simply put, you need an unsubscribe link, and to make the most of it, you should also include a simple textbox at the opt-out link where the user can write his reasons for leaving your list. While many users will leave the text box blank, you will gain enough information from those few who fill it.

Furthermore, think about the placement of the opt-out link. The latest studies indicate that a counter-intuitive unsubscribe link at the top of your e-mails reduces the number of spam complaints. As spam complaints usually come from inactive subscribers, you could simply join them in a segment and place the link in the top of the e-mails they receive.

You can gain valuable information from unsubscribing trends. An example of this would be an opt-out rise after you’ve sent too many e-mails during a week (4-5+). If there’s a such rise in unsubscribes, it’s time to decrease the e-mail volume. Maybe you aren’t using segments when sending the information and you need to send more targeted information when you see people unsubscribing after an apparently normal campaign?

And lastly, remember that nothing is really black and white when someone unsubscribes. The client may simply have chosen a different medium (Twitter?) to communicate with you; maybe the client has too many lists he/she has subscribed to. An opt-out doesn’t mean that you list is bad. A hundred opt-outs a day could indicate something, though.

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Increase Email Deliverability

July 1st, 2010

You’d be amazed if you saw the spam numbers of today. About 70 per cent of all e-mail sent is spam; furthermore, there are more than 14 billion unwanted email letters sent each day and spam generates annual losses of about $20b. These numbers are the reason behind the drastic spam filtering of today, and numerous businesses have become weary about the delivery of their newsletters.

Few Tips to Increase Email Deliverability

email deliverabilityThe most secure way of reassuring email delivery is to have clients manually add you to their address book. However, it seldom happens with regular customers. It is, however, important that you mention that they should add you to your address book for the simple reason that it can save emails. Mention something among lines like ‘Add us (company@email.com) to your address book in order to ensure delivery. Thank you!’ in your subscription form.

E-mail providers know about mailing lists and will allow your emails to go through unharmed if it appears that the subscriber has manually subscribed to the list.

  • Mentioning the subscriber’s name in the subject line is crucial, as personalized emails are rarely thought to be spam.
  • Among other possible things to ask, be sure to ask for the recipient’s name when he signs up.

Owners of more sizable lists have to be cautious; if numerous recipients of your emails mark your email as spam, you can start losing customer trust-and your email address can become blacklisted. Blacklisted email addresses can be automatically marked as spam by email providers and ISPs.

To avoid blacklisting…

  • be sure to provide an opt-out link;
  • send only relevant content;
  • don’t send it to people who haven’t subscribed to your list; et cetera.

However, blacklisting for newsletters is very rare and you can get your sender’s IP removed from the blacklist if you provide evidence that you only send email to your subscribers.

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Highly Effective Email Marketing Tactics

June 16th, 2010

Following post about Email List Targeting and Segmentation, we think sharing some statistical data would very well serve as indicator how important segmentation really is.

In the chart below you can see how effective are different email marketing tactics rated by B2B and B2C marketers.

Delivering content relevant to a segment – has been rated as the highest in terms of tactical effectiveness.

Even though relevant content is rated the highest, “email campaigns to house list” is most cost effective tactic because it requires less effort and costs less to achieve high levels of effectiveness. You should definitely harvest your email list and keep it satisfied while delivering the best content to specific segments, in this way you will ensure your email marketing success.

effective email tactics

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