There is an abundance of resources around best practices to market to your customers and responders, but what about prospects? Prospecting through email requires a different process, strategy, set of tools and expertise. It’s not easy but it can offer the highest ROI of any marketing channel if done effectively.
Review our recent webinar where we discuss the ins and outs of this highly effective acquisition vehicle, giving you all the tools you’ll need to run successful e-mail acquisition campaigns.
Learn
Why Exact Target, Marketo, Constant Contact will not let you run acquisition campaigns… hint: it's not because of CAN-SPAM
The difference between CRM/customer and acquisition e-mail marketing
How to overcome e-mail acquisition delivery challenges – delivery and creative techniques
Myths about Open and Click-Thru rates and how to maximize
Where does data fit?
Advanced metrics to truly calculate an ROI on acquisition e-mail campaigns
2. Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Presented By
STEVEN RAO
CEO – Telematch, Inc. (DBA Relevate)
3. What We Will Cover
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Benefits of email marketing
Why Exact Target, Marketo,
and Constant Contact will not
let you run acquisition
campaigns… hint: it's not
because of CAN-SPAM
The difference between
CRM/customer and
acquisition e-mail marketing
Roadmap to Success
4. Why Email Marketing?
Customer acquisition via email has quadrupled over the last 4 years.
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
More frequent/timely
communication at substantially
lower cost
Speed of execution
Feedback Loop
Faster test cycles lead to quicker
campaign optimization
Your message is delivered to the
right person at the right time
ROI IT WORKS
5. Why Email Marketing?
MarketingSherpa survey found 92% of the marketing leaders surveyed
felt email either produces, or will produce, positive ROI.
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
5
60%
32%
4% 3%
Email is producing a ROI.
Email marketing will eventually
produce a ROI.
Email marketing is unlikely to
produce a ROI.
Other
6. Why Email Marketing?
StrongMail’s 2013 Email Marketing Trend Survey on budget allocation found
CMO’s allocating more budget to email marketing than any other channel.
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 55% 60% 65%
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Email Marketing
Social Media
Mobile
Search/SEO
Advertising
Trade Show/Events
Direct Mail
Public Relations
Others
% of Responders
7. What Is the Difference Between
CRM/Customer and Acquisition
E-mail Marketing?
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
8. Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Answer…
CRM / Customer Email Marketing: Sending emails to current
customers, or to those who have opted-in to receive emails from
you. Think ExactTarget, Marketo, Eloqua, ConstantContact, etc.
Acquisition E-mail Marketing: Sending emails to prospects and
leads who have opted-in through other channels, but not for your
specific offer or company.
SO WHAT???
9. Can’t I Just Run My Own Acquisition
Campaigns Through My Existing Service?
“Our clients certify that they will use our software only to send emails to customers
and prospects that have directly consented (opted-in) to receive email. They are
forbidden to transmit unsolicited commercial email (spam) via our system.”
ExactTarget’s Policy
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
10. Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
CAN-SPAM
Clearly identify the sender in the From Line and
header information.
Use a subject line that accurately represents
the content of the mess
Identify the message as an advertisement,
unless the recipient has previously opted in to
receive emails from you
Include the physical mailing address that
corresponds to the sender in the From Line
Provide a mechanism to opt out. You cannot
require a subscriber to log in or visit more than
a single page to unsubscribe.
Honor opt-out requests promptly. You must
process an unsubscribe request within 10 days,
and your unsubscribe mechanism must be
operational for at least 30 days after the
mailing.
11. Important Points About Open and
Click-Thru Rates and How to
Maximize
Open rates are artificially low – text only doesn’t get recorded
Ratio of positive engagement to negative (positive = open and click
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
negative = spam and opt-out)
Bad engagement will lead to bad, good to good – circular
3 to 1 ratio for clicks to complaints
ISPs – monitor senders and campaigns and will route to junk mail or
bounce/block the email it engagement is not acceptable
Test and learn process (don’t get discouraged)
14. Campaign Strategy
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
What are we doing?
Build the Business Case
Creative
Testing
Targeting - Who is going to
click and why?
What company can help me?
16. How to Measure Success
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Typical email campaign reports
Number of emails delivered and %
Number of emails opened and %
Number of emails clicked and %
Opt-outs and complaint %
With acquisition, you need to be a bit
more precise and analytical
Calculate an ROI / REFINE
Landing page / destination views
Engagement- who, when, what
and why
Purchases!
17. How to Measure Success
Daily Response
Deliverability and
Response Trend
Link Engagement
Evaluate across
campaigns
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
20. Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Know Your Audience To
Ensure Success
Ask your provider to profile how some of your
“best” customers index against some key demos
like age, gender, income, family status, ethnicity
and then use that information to drive initial
audience selection
Match the offer to the audience
We may recommend selecting a few target
audiences including:
Geoselects e.g. Zip radius;
Marketing Triggers e.g. new movers, “in-the
market”
Demo Selects e.g. age, income, wealth etc.
Affinities, behavioral, and prefer e.g. sports
enthusiasts, online buyer
23. Clean and Current Data
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Email Validation
Checks/fixes syntax
Removed fraudulent addresses
Validates the email with the various ISP to insure it’s
delivery
Brings the emails to ~95-97% deliverable
Screen for SPAM traps and honeypots
Do this as close to deployment as possible (24-48 hours)
Avoid complainers (those that click Spam) as a few (less than
.2%) may derail your campaign
Make sure the e-mail address has a heart beat
25. Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Engaging Creative
Your Email Creative can be
broken down into:
From Line - 1
Subject Line - 2
Body
Above the Fold - 3
Offer/Call-to-Action - 4
Below the Fold - 5
Landing Page
26. From and Subject Lines
From or Friendly From Line is the name that appears to the recipient
Use your brand or the company name whichever is most
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
identifiable to the recipients
Compelling subject lines from Recognized/Trusted Senders get Opens
Avoid: Free, Click here, Save, Cash, Bonus, Credit, Earn, Extra
Compelling, call to action phrases (e.g. Invitation)
Be careful with length (ideally less than 40 and don’t exceed 70)
Personalized and specific
27. Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Body of Creative
Use the real estate wisely (above the fold)
Copy should be compelling (e.g. invitation), not Spammy
(e.g. Free)
Images
Alt Tags - Size / Resolution – Layout
Ratio of text to images (80/20 rule)
Text version vs. image defaults and size
Mobile friendly – recent studies indicate that between 55-
65% of email is first seen on mobile devices
Spam score your creative
30. Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Creative Testing
Analyze and test your creative before
deploying
Spam Scoring
Inbox Testing
… and use split testing to maximize
engagement
Creative testing
Subject line testing
Format testing
32. Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Delivery
4 things can happen to an email that is sent:
Hard Bounce
Recipient email address does not exist
Domain name does not exist
Recipient email server has completely blocked delivery
Soft Bounce
Mailbox is full
Recipient email server is down or offline
Email message is too large
ISP filter has blocked it
Delivered to Junk Mail
Delivered to Inbox
33. Delivery Best Practices
DON’T use your primary company domain to send acquisition emails
When sending large volume campaigns
Use multiple creative for every 1mm records
This modifies creative “footprint” of the message and prevents ISP
filtering which results in improved delivery rate
Throttle the delivery speed of large campaigns over a few hours so that
large volumes don’t hit the ISPs at one time
Be ready, willing and able to modify your sending strategy (message/subject
lines/volume) as results from just deployed campaigns become evident
Protect sending reputation and system infrastructure through full compliance
with legally required email practices
Remedy complaints as quickly as possible
Meet or exceed all aspects of CAN-SPAM compliance
Cleanse lists of opt-outs and hard bounces immediately and provide
information back to clients to do the same
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Only send legitimate offers
34. Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Key Challenges
Acquisition email is egalitarian and is
driven by how the public reacts and
responds or not to your request for
permission to communicate.
Planning and pre deployment
preparation is essential and requires time
and expertise
Analyze and Optimize for Engagement
Throttling and cadence is critical to
insure the right pace and pattern of send
to avoid getting blocked by ISPs or
pushed to Spam/Junk Email folders
DON’T BLAST!
36. Review the Results and Get Better
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Who clicked?
What did they click on?
When did they click?
How often did they click?
Did they complete a
transaction / action?
Did you see an increase in
complaint rates?
What’s your engagement
ratio?
37. Analyze and Improve
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
CASE STUDY – MAJOR MOVIE CO.
In this example we were able to
double the open rates over a series of
campaigns over just 45 days
More frequent but smaller
deployments with longer delivery
periods
Different creative versions
Stronger Call to Action
Better Placement of the Call to
Action
Sent higher % of deployment records
to creative versions that had better
positive engagement
Filtered emails that were “likely to
complain”
OPEN RATES - TREND
40. THANK YOU AND
PLEASE STAY IN TOUCH!
Email us at sales@relevategroup.com or call 800-523-7346
Email Acquisition Marketing | Roadmap to Success
Hinweis der Redaktion
Test 2-3 subject lines against 5-10% of each audience
Sender Reputation
Start slow and ramp up
Sender Reputation
The “spammier” the creative, the slower the delivery should be
ISPs)like Yahoo, Gmail and AOL have their own private algorithms for emails to deliver or block
High quantity/% of unsubscribes or complaints may cause a temporary or permanent block
-
Though permission to email these individuals is secured, they didn’t opt-in or ask for your particular brand to communicate with them so best practices include a welcome/introductory/permission pass to minimize negative engagement