The document discusses email marketing and online surveys. It provides statistics on email marketing and explains that email allows for targeting specific audiences. It also discusses how to effectively implement email marketing by being honest, relevant, consistent and personal. The document then covers how to use online surveys to receive feedback, showcase events, conduct market research, and communicate with employees. It provides examples and best practices for crafting compelling surveys and boosting response rates through reminders, setting expectations, and offering incentives.
1. The Nuts & Bolts Email Marketing & Online Surveys/Forms
2. Some Quick Stats 247 billion 16,000 copies 20 million 13.4 billion
3. What is email marketing? Nothing new to the world of marketing
4. What is email marketing? As marketers we evaluate the following with any medium: 1. Who are we speaking to? 2. What is the goal of this medium? 3. How are we going to measure success?
5. What is email marketing? What does deliver? 1. Allows for targeting 2. It is data driven 3. It drives direct sales 4. Builds relationships, loyalty and trust 5. Supports sales through other channels email marketing
6. How does it work? You’ve got to remember to BE all about it!
28. So I can execute it—can I sell from it? $43.62 $6.85 vs. $19.33 11.9 to 27.8 billion
29. Show me the numbers! Medium Direct Mail Email #1 Email #2 # Sent 10,000 Sent 1,000 sent 10,000 Amount Spent $4200 (.42 per) $100 $100 Response/Open 2% 20% 20% Closing Rate 35% 2% 2% Avg. Ticket $999 $999 $99 Cost per Response $21.00 $.50 $.05 # Buyers 70 4 40 Cost per Buyer $60.00 $25 $2.50 Cost per Person .42 $.10 $.01
247 billion emails are sent everyday Every second the worlds email users produce messages equivalent to 16,000 copies of Shakespear’s Complete Works While reading this sentence 20 million emails have been sent 13.4 billion dollars were expected to be allocated to email marketing in 2009
As long as there is retail, and as long as there is an audience that pays for any medium there will be paid advertising in anything that we consume. Principles of any marketing plan, strategy or execution are exactly as they were before. The platform has simple changed.
Who are we speaking to? As most of you can speak of with your experience with our company or if you have worked with any advertising entitiy before, it is 100% about targeting the right lady that would be most likely to buy from you. What is the goal of this medium? A marketing plan with a goal is never an executable plan. The goal by me for exposure and sales down the road. Or generating high volume for this weekend. Or to get special orders only. Whatever that goal is, the medium has to reflect the goals of that. How are we going to measure success? Of course if the goals are met but also maybe there are ways to evaluate the medium beyond just seeing if sales increased or custom orders or website traffic went up in that specific area. What measurable is that medium going to provide to prove to the marketer that it is worth sticking around in this medium.
There are 8 BE’s that are essential to deliver effective email marketing at the customer level. When all of these eight BE’s are working in sync and cohesion together you will deliver results that drive Ms. Jones to purchase from you.
The subject line of every email should be enticing and should be relevant to the customer. More often than not the subject line of any direct email campaign is a relevant subject line to the person who created the email—not the customer who is receiving the email. Don’t make Ms. Jones dig through your email to find the relevant information. Place the info she wants to hear about your promotion above the fold if you will—just like it was good to be above the fold in the newspaper we want the information to the consumer where she can read it right away. Let’s take a look at an example:
Honesty is the best policy in any form of marketing---whether offline or online. However, honesty is of the upmost importance in the online world. One slip up of dishonesty and all of a sudden you are moving down a path that you can never recover from. Although it hurts to lose a customer and have her turn away from you, you have to give her the option to “opt out”. This has been a prevalent reaction in the world of marketing it was just never brought to your attention. Whenever an ad or marketing piece of any kind is put out into the marketplace potential consumers are choosing to opt in to your brand. You just never had the dialogue with the lady when she decided not to. In the world of email marketing the lady has to talk to you to opt in or to opt out of your brand. Explain to her what she is going to get. If she is going to get design tips—give her design tips. If she is only going to get specials—give her specials. Don’t say what she is going to get and don’t give it.
When she says no—act swiftly, promptly and without complaint. Most email programs like Tell Ms. Jones or through R&A Marketing will handle these opt out messages on your behalf by using programs and unsubscribe buttons. This is just not common courtsey—it is due to the 2003 spam act which requires clear and transparent language in regards to unsubrcibers of email lists. On top of that, being labeled as a spammer has many repercussions both in the short term as well as in the long term.
Don’t waste her time. If you are going to email—email with a purpose and a reason. Say you are sending out design tips and they are emailed without the knowledge of any of your stuff. Mary Jones calls into the store and asks about the tips that she just received. Is your staffer going to be ready to field that potential sale or inquiry? The same can be said for an online only offer that is emailed out. Lisa Jones prints it out and brings it into the store. Does your staff know what is going on? In these cases the emails were well executed and most likely worked. However, Ms. Jones was not able to be delivered exceptional service at the retail level because of lack of information. Relevancy both applies in the email as well as how the store represents the relevancy of that email.
However you first email your consumer she is going to expect the email to come that way—all the time. If you deliver tips and trends for months at a time—you should keep delivering to that customer base the information. If sales and specials are the direction, continue to delivering that every time. Tuesday and Wednesday have been found to be the best days to email in regards to delivering results as the retail level. That is enough time to plan a weekend of shopping and not to early to be placed on the back burner. Whatever day you begin sticking with—keep with that day based on the content that is sent that day. More often than not the success of emails create a sense that it will work this way—everytime—at anytime. There was a reason, a time, and a place why that Tuesday email at 12:30 PM worked. Keep that same time, method of delivery and day in mind the next time a campaign is determined.
A newspaper ad is sent out in a mass media vehicle that is delivered to a residence—not a person. Email is delivered to a person. Show her that you know her. Address the email to her first name. Perhaps you can reference a previous product that she bought and if it is working out OK. Or even if she had been in the store in the last week thank her for taking time out of her day to come and visit your store. You special you are sending out that week might be exactly the same but adding in a little personalization can go along way in determining whether she comes in or stays home.
Keep your list clean. Just like when you have .44 pieces of mail bounce back and your rectify that address, take care of the emails that are bouncing back. With R&A programs that handle email this entire piece of the package is handled efficiently and swiftly. Email servers and companies will “blacklist” you for sending to multiple bounced addresses over and over. Why they do this is that then your email list is acting of that of a spammer sending out to unsolicited email addresses. Whether it was true or not, it is an uphill battle to climb up and can result in domain names being blacklisted from domain names such as “Google, yahoo, or aol”. Those three make up a lot of the emails that you are sending in your list—all of a sudden you are not reaching most of your consumers as well as you would like to.
When you are emailing there are some safeguards that you can put in place that will allow your email to be delivered every time: Use the same from address in every email Let the consumer, on the front side, know where the email is coming from Avoid common spammer words in the live portions in your live html Let’s take a look at some common spam words and then how those can create a problem in your email
Research by the Direct Marketing Association that for every dollar spent on email marketing there was $43.62 ROI March 2008 survey by shop.org found that the Cost Per Order (CPO) for an email was $6.85 verses $19.33 for a paid search using search engines. August 2009 survey by Vernonis Suhler Stevenson’s annual communications industry forecast suggested that the total spend fro emails will grown from 11.9 billion in 2008 to 27.8 billion by 2013
Let’s apply the same principles we use to measure direct mail to evaluating an email marketing campaign that was purely transactional. In regards to the response/open rate we are using that number based on amount of traffic coming into the store verses an email of how many people are opening an email. From there the closing rate is how many people of the 2% who came in for the DM and then how many of the 20% who opened came into the store and bought.
That’s cool. There are some easy and effective ways you can start getting emails today. Create a sign up form on your website. We have one customer who is averaging one new customer per day signing up on their online email sign up form. At R&A we get about one per week and we only have 80 unique visitors a week visit our site. Make it apart of the sales process for your sales people. Give them extra bonuses for collecting emails on a consistent basis. Use the Tell Ms. Jones point of purchase which is intended to leave a safe haven for Ms. Jones to give her email willingly with no strings attached to a sale. Give away gift cards every month to one lucky winner to ensure she is going to sign up. On any direct mail piece that you use have part of your giveaway involve a scan to win where an email has to be inserted to become eligible for the savings. One of our clients ran this event for two weekends and got over 300 emails. The offer does not have to be a huge cash prize—have it be bonus savings in the store or a special financing offer for only those customers. If you know that it is going to be a sale you can afford to give a couple extra bucks to nail the sale.
Remember the BE’s that we talked about. Those customers who have given you their email are entrusting you with something very valuable and worthwhile to them. It would be the respectful thing and honest thing to begin emailing her right away. Even if you only sell one $999 sofa off of every email you send, that is a much better ROI than sending out 5,000 direct mails and only closing 35% of 50 people coming in. It may not be the numbers you are desiring but it sure it speaking louder than the yellow pages ad or newspaper ad being thrown out there every other week.
Email marketing is still a one way conversational stream. However it is an excellent jumping off point to creating conversation with your customer. Branching out to other mediums to hear the feedback directly from your consumer is one way to help ensure the honesty and truthfulness of your email policies.