Ten Commandments for Email Marketing

new thinking for direct marketing

Ten Commandments for Email Marketing
(Circa 2010)

Presented by: Ken Lane
Senior Marketing Consultant
J. Schmid & Assoc.

March 18, 2010
1 new thinking for direct marketing


strategy branding design analytics


Email marketing has become the fastest growing
strategy for many direct marketers and will
certainly continue to be an important component
of the marketing mix. As technology changes, so
do the rules or “commandments” marketers must
follow.


Agenda

〈 10 Strategies to maximize email
〈 Tactics to add incremental sales
〈 Scalable to your size needs


Learnings

〈 Integrate meaningful data
〈 Increase click-through rates
〈 Develop trigger emails to add immediate sales


(Circa 2010)


Commandment Number One

Thou shalt collect, clean, update &
verify email addresses at every
point of contact


Commandment Number One

Thou shalt collect, clean, update & verify email addresses at every
point of contact
Use your Call Center
Referrals
Change of address
Use the Social Networking sites as sources…i.e. Facebook
Newsletter Sign ups


Newsletter Sign-ups

Example of Newsletter Sign-Up above the fold…


Commandment Number Two

Thou shalt segment your file or perish



Thou shalt segment your file or perish…
Based on RFM
Average “M” as well as total “M”
Assign and segment by “engagement” metrics
Open History
Click History
Email Appends


Email Segmentation

Small marketer that listens…
Personalized with first/last name
Product offer based on past history
Short term offer based on a
cancelation with customer’s
preferred service provider
Includes offer for Referral



Thou shalt segment your file or perish…
Traditional Direct Mail best practices are applicable…
Time-sensitive promotions motivate readers to take a
specific action in the desired timeframe.
This is a classic DM technique that works well when
applied to email marketing.
This approach applies to offers and purchase
requirements, as well as to creating a sense of urgency
to buy by a certain date.


Commandment Number Three

Thou shalt realize email marketing is
a strategy…
…not a tactic



Thou shalt realize email marketing is a strategy…not a tactic
Triggered programs…
Send email to those that didn’t purchase
Re-send those that didn’t open
First purchase
Newsletter sign-ups
Tag on category / mark as interest in category
“Welcome” responses


“Welcome” Emails

First contact delivers multiple messages
Offer w/purchase requirement
Sale Items
New Product
Cross Brand Support
Credit Offer
Find a Store
Change your preferences



Thou shalt realize email marketing is a strategy…not a tactic
Abandoned shopping cart programs
Daily, automated email sent to shoppers with items in
their cart for more than 24 hours
Recoup up to 25% of abandoned sales
Collect email early in the order process
Consider/test price incentives


Abandoned Cart Emails

Approach is C/S
Performance
reports
“Noticed” cart
Problems?
Click to complete
No offer
No “big brother”


Commandment Number Four

Thou shalt not take your customer
name (or email address) in vain…



Thou shalt not take your customer’s name in vain

Personalize when you can

Offers based on region where you have retail locations

Collect more than just an email address for newsletter sign-
ups



Mailers uses zip code to
drive retail traffic



Thou shalt not take your customer’s name in vain

Manage contact frequency – helpful if it is done right.

Frequency testing should be stratified based on the
engagement levels of the list. Certain segments that are
highly engaged might support higher frequency levels.

Consider different frequency of blasts on parts of your
list that aren’t responding to frequent e-mails.

Don’t ignore the inherent seasonality of your business.



Collect more than email
or mailing address



Find the right
“segmentation” variables


Commandment Number Five

Thou shalt realize that if NCOA adds
value and saves money, shouldn’t
“ECOA?”


Email Change of Address (ECOA)
〈 Fact 1:
– 50 million people changed their email addresses last
year…
〈 Fact 2:
– Companies experience ~ 30% email list attrition per
year…
〈 Fact 3:
– Good address hygiene (email & Dmail) is good for you,
good for business & good for your customers
〈 Fact 4:
– Your customer email database is one of your most
valuable assets


Email Change of Address (ECOA)
〈 Quarterly (yes, quarterly) email list hygiene
processing - identifying bad emails and updating
them with good ones – maximizes your results
〈 Benefits:
– Reconnect with lost customers faster
– Improve email deliverability
– Avoid being blacklisted by major ISPs
– Reduce marketing costs associated with bouncing
emails
– Several companies are now capable of doing this
〈 Make this a Program within your marketing/IT
department

Commandment Number Six

Thou shalt be relevant…



Thou shalt be relevant…
Establish area for customer to define “preferences”
Frequency of Contact
Product
Using zip codes wisely


〈 Thou shalt be relevant
– If they ask for Italy…
– If they have already
booked…
– Personalize email contacts
as much as possible…



Thou shalt be relevant with your email contacts
• Personalization improves relevancy.
• Find an internal champion of advanced personalization
techniques and encourage pushing the envelope for
improving results.
• Develop a “behavioral” segmentation approach
• Recognize that it is not a matter of “if”…it is a matter of
“when.” Your competition is already making this a
priority.
• Build loyalty by giving customers what they want, when
they want it, wherever they go (mobile).


Commandment Number Seven

Thou shalt use templates…



Let the customer recognize you & your brand
Align your email creative with your other creative identity
Catalogue
Website



Develop an email template that is concise yet clear and
impactful.
More is not always better, especially if your catalogue or
website are not jammed with products & messages.
Your emails have only a few seconds to make an
impression on the recipient.
Concise layouts help direct the reader where you want
them to go: to a desired focal point and call to action.
Incorporate visual call to actions (i.e. buttons, photos,
hyperlinks) into your layout, improving “involvement”,
click-through rates and campaign performance.


Incorporate visual call to action areas

Buttons and…



Buttons and…

…photos and…



Buttons and…

…photos and…

…links


Commandment Number Eight

Thou shalt be multi-channeled in your
approach


Commandment Number Eight

Thou shalt be multi-channeled in your approach…
Direct Mail
Don’t abandon
Don’t exclude
Social Media
Facebook
Impact of mobile & smart phones
“There’s an app for that”


Impact of Mobile & Smart Phones

“We expect the mobile-phone email
market will increase at an average
annual rate of 68% over the next four
years, totaling more than 1 billion
mailboxes by the end of 2013.”
Radicati Group – March, 2010


Impact of Mobile & Smart Phones

Does your
message fit
here?


Be Multi-Channeled in your Approach

Put your 800 number in your
emails

Multiple studies have found up
to 20% of sales will be made
via the 800 number



Use email to support
direct mail

All the data suggests
there is a lift in response
rates


How to Better Connect Your Catalogs to Your Website


– E-mail promotes both site
and mentions catalog options



– E-mail drives store traffic



– E-mail drives
store traffic



– Facebook – link to catalogue request


Commandment Number Nine

Thou shalt “measure & manage”



Thou shalt measure & manage…
Determine list of key metrics and expand list accordingly
Include deliverability, bounces
What are the metrics that drive success in your
business…
Open rates
Click thru rates
Forwards to friends


Nearly 20% of emails fail to deliver - Despite improvements,
about 1-in-5 emails still fail to reach consumers' inboxes. In
the second half of 2009, 19.9% such emails never reached
consumer inboxes in the United States and Canada.
• 3.5% went to “junk” or “bulk” email folders
• 16.3% were missing or not delivered at all -- with no
hard bounce message or other notification.

Only emails that reach a subscriber's inbox can be opened,
clicked and converted to sales.

Each ISP has their own criteria for inbox placement.


Source: Feb, 2010 research from email and reputation management firm Return Path


Create your sales “pie”
Direct shoppers typically type in your site’s URL directly
into their browser or have your site bookmarked.
Natural SEO orders
PPC SEM orders
Emails
Catalogue/Direct Mail
Social Media sites
etc


Create your sales “pie”

Direct
SEO
PPC
EM
Dmail
Social



Is your marketing spend by channel shifting fast enough…
120.0%

100.0%

80.0%

60.0%
…you can 40.0%
only spend 20.0%
to 100% 0.0%
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Other 0.0% 0.0% 5.2% 4.4% 8.0% 5.0% 3.0%
Internet 0.7% 3.8% 4.5% 5.5% 11.0% 22.0% 35.0%
Brox/DM 90.1% 94.1% 78.0% 79.9% 72.0% 65.0% 55.0%
Advertising 9.2% 2.1% 12.4% 10.2% 9.0% 8.0% 7.0%


Commandment Number Ten

Thou shalt not spam…



1. Thou shalt collect, clean, update & verify email addresses
2. Thou shalt segment your file, or perish
3. Thou shalt realize that email marketing is a strategy…not a tactic
4. Thou shalt not take your customer name (or email address) in
vain…
5. Thou shalt realize that if NCOA saves money, shouldn’t “ECOA”?
6. Thou shalt be relevant
7. Thou shalt use templates
8. Thou shalt be multi-channeled
9. Thou shalt “measure & manage”
10. Thou shalt not spam


Bonus Commandments


Bonus Commandments

Thou shalt always be testing…


Bonus Commandments

Subject line
Offers
Buying opportunities
Shout out the offer
Navigation bar in email creative


Bonus Commandments

Match your tests with your business objectives
Testing subject lines will affect open rates, not address
opt-out problems…
…but contact & frequency testing will.


Bonus Commandments

Always have Control Groups
Manage what you are testing with a KIS approach
Change too many variables and you will not know
what affects results
Test new elements one at a time
If you are an expert, consider multivariate testing—
simultaneous testing of multiple elements and
variables….better than A/B splits


Bonus Commandments

Continually test “timing”
Day of Week, Time of Day
It is different for your business and differs by time
zone
BTB is different than BTC
Are you ignoring weekends?


Testing Offers

Club ABC Tours
Membership
Renewal Offer
Percentage
savings versus
dollars off
Split cells by
segment


Discussion


Contact Information

For copies of this presentation, please contact Jennifer Wells at
DMInsite - jwells@dminsite.com

For information regarding J. Schmid & Assoc, please contact Ken
Lane at kenl@jschmid.com or call 913-236-8988 and mention
this webinar.



Ten Commandments for Email
Marketing
(Circa 2010)

March 18, 2010

May 2007 - Reactivation Results


Ten Commandments for Email Marketing

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