Understand the 6 key competencies of email marketing, assess your current strengths and weaknesses and get practical tips and insights to improve your results.

1. Transforming
your email marketing

2. Objectives
Why are we here?
Understand how you can apply email
marketing best practice to grow your business

3. 6 Essential Competencies
Agenda
1. Challenges
2. Permission
3. Data
4. Design
5. Delivery
6. Performance

4. Your Assessment
Complete the chart to
assess your current
position.
0 – don’t know/none
1 – I know it’s bad
2 – not sure
3 – doing OK I think
4 – pretty good
5 – 100% sorted
X
X
Challenges
Permission
Data
Design
Delivery
Performance

5. Your Assessment
Challenges
Permission
Data
Design
Delivery
Performance

6. 1. Challenges

7. Email? Really?
Pinterest
Twitter
LinkedIn
Google+
Facebook
Email
Millions of active users
0 875 1,750 2,625 3,500
3,300
1,200
359
277
241
70

8. Are you sure?
email marketing was ranked as the best channel for
return on investment
Source: Econsultancy - Email Marketing Industry Census 2014
68%
“good” or “excellent” ROI

9. There were 3 times more emails sent in
2013 than stars in the Milky Way
(838,000,000,000 emails)

10. Where are we?
48%
of digital marketers consider themselves proficient
40%
think their marketing is effective
Challenges
Source: Adobe - What keeps marketers up at night?

11. Marketing challenges
82%
Effectively reaching customers
79%
Understanding if campaigns are working
75%
Demonstrating Return On Investment
Source: Adobe - What keeps marketers up at night?

12. Business challenges
• Increasing revenue and profits
• Growing customer base and market share
• Managing costs, maximising investment value
• Boosting brand and reputation, increasing competitiveness
• Skills shortages and talent management
• Compliance, risk, continuity and regulatory issues
• Enhancing the customer experience and relationship
• Operational excellence and profitability
!

13. Assessment
To what extent is your
current marketing
activity ‘mission critical’
to the overall objectives
of your business?
0 – not at all
1
2
3
4
5 – absolutely essential
Challenges
Permission
Data
Design
Delivery
Performance

14. 2. Permission
Right Person. Right Place. Right Time.

16. What is Permission Marketing?
!
“the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated,
personal and relevant messages to people who actually
want to receive them”
Permission
Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers

17. Why is it important?
!
• It’s the law!
• You must get explicit permission from recipient, unless…
• Obtained details via a sale, and
• You’re marketing similar products, and
• Opt-out available at point of collection, and
• Opt-out available in all emails sent, and
• Last transaction/contact less than 12 months ago
• Must include company legal name, registration number, address
& contact details in every message
• In the UK you (probably) need to be registered with the ICO as a data
controller
Permission

18. Why is it important?
!
• It’s the law!
• But more importantly…
• Without permission, a message is just spam
• Permission is all about trust
• 90% of consumers subscribe to emails of trusted brands (DMA)
• Loyal customers account for 80% of company profit
• The most successful companies look at the sale as a way of
earning a lifelong customer (Sage)
!
Permission
71% of worldwide email traffic is considered as ‘spam’

19. How do you get it?
!
• Ask! Permission can only be given directly
• Can’t come from a 3rd party
• Must be active: opt-in, not opt-out
• Has to be fresh
• Sell it!
• You’re asking for the most valuable commodity (time)
• Set expectations
• Let people know how often you’ll be in touch
Permission

20. Assessment
How would you class
the permission
credentials of your
current marketing?
0 – oh dear
1
2
3
4
5 – spotless
Challenges
Permission
Data
Design
Delivery
Performance

21. 3. Data
There is no value in data, only in how it is used.

22. Some things to think about…

23. More than a zettabyte of data now circulates around
the internet (KPMG)
1,000,000,000 x

24. The volume of business data is increasing by
40%
every year

25. Winning businesses don’t simply gather
data, they gain insights from what they
already possess. (KPMG)

26. Collecting contact data
!
• Use easy to find, fill and submit forms
• Promote opt-in everywhere
• Link to forms from your emails, websites and social channels
• Keep it short
• Make it clear what you are collecting data for
• Promote trust - tell subscribers how you protect their data
• Offer an incentive and give value
• Have a clear, compelling call to action
Collecting permission data takes effort – but is worth it

27. • Displays after 15
seconds
• Only appears
once
• Clear call-to-
action
• Tells people
what’s happening
to their data

28. Use welcome emails!
!
• The most read emails you will ever send
• 4x more opens, 5x more clicks!
• Use a compelling subject line
• Have a clear goal:
• Incentivise purchase (discount or prompt)
• Whitelisting (add to address book)
• Capture additional data (competition)

29. No really.
Use welcome emails!
!
• 85% open rate
• 52% click through
• £1.08 additional revenue per
email!

30. Building high quality data
!
• Use data to understand your customers
• Start simply: get what you need and add more later
• More effort = less completion
• Collect more than data – collect insights
• Gather behavioural data
• Geo-location
• Clicks
• Website activity
• Purchases
• Use your insight to segment and target your customers
Profiling is the key to creating targeted communications

31. Assessment
To what extent does
your current data
strategy include usable
insights into your
customers’ situation?
0 – not at all
1
2
3
4
5 – we know our customers
better than they do
Challenges
Permission
Data
Design
Delivery
Performance

32. 4. Design
Stand out in the inbox.

33. Key considerations
!
• The importance of mobile
• Is design important?
• Content is King
• Testing
Design

34. The importance of mobile
27% of email opens were mobile in 2011
(Knotice, H2 2011)
73%
27%
Mobile Desktop

35. The importance of mobile
52% of email opens are mobile today
(Sign-Up.to, Jan ’14)
48% 52%
Mobile Desktop

36. 18%of emails are optimised for mobile!
only

37. Designing for mobile
!
• Use responsive design
• Short attention span
• Small viewing area
• Single column content
• Clear call-to-action
• Large interaction area
• Check your website too!

38. Desktop Mobile

39. Is design important for your message?
250%
more clicks

40. Is design important for your message?
300%
more revenue

41. Content is King
!
• Copywriting
• Calls to action
• Style, brand, consistency
• Subject line

42. Make things easy for people

43. Test, Test, Test!
!
• Preview
• Inbox testing
• Split (A/B) test
- Test to sample audiences
- Assess results
- Send the best performer

44. Assessment
How well do you feel
your current email
design supports your
objectives and needs?
0 – not at all
1
2
3
4
5 – perfectly
Challenges
Permission
Data
Design
Delivery
Performance

45. 5. Delivery
Maximising your chances of successful delivery

46. What’s normal?
!
Delivery
97%+
Open Rate
22.8%
Source: Sign-Up.to 2014 UK Email Marketing Benchmark Report

47. Why the f**k are my emails going to junk?
• Reputation
• Recipient activity (opens, clicks)
• Complaints (“this is spam”)
• Recipient Whitelisting (add to address book)
Delivery

48. Why the f**k are my emails going to junk?
• Email Content
• If it sounds like spam…
• Link destinations
• Code quality
Delivery

49. Why the f**k are my emails going to junk?
• Infrastructure
• Authentication (SPF, DKIM etc.)
• IP address history
• ESP whitelisting & throttling
Delivery

50. Why won’t they open my emails?
!
• Sender recognition
• Subject line appeal
• Relevance
• Timing
• Content
Delivery

51. Sender recognition
!
• From name / email address consistency
• Use a valid reply-to address
Delivery

52. Subject line appeal
!
• First 30 - 50 characters readable on most devices
• Why? Give a clear benefit to the reader
• Don’t be cryptic (often)
• Can affect actions taken when reading
Delivery

53. Relevance
!
• Use audience segmentation and personalisation
• Write for the reader’s perspective
Delivery

54. Delivery
12am 1am 2am 3am 4am 5am 6am 7am 8am 9am 10am 11am 12pm 1pm 2pm 3pm 4pm 5pm 6pm 7pm 8pm 9pm 10pm 11pm
Opens Clicks
Time of day: 3pm

55. Day: Thursday
Delivery
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Opens Clicks

56. However…
Delivery
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Opens
hour
Opens&by&hour&of&day&
Desktop
Mobile

57. Let the reader decide
Delivery

58. Assessment
How happy are you
with your current
delivery rates?
0 – not at all
1
2
3
4
5 – they’re great
Challenges
Permission
Data
Design
Delivery
Performance

59. 6. Performance
17% of email marketers never review or analyse their results

60. 1st Viscount
Leverhulme
(William Lever)
“I know half my
advertising isn't
working, I just don't
know which half.”

61. What can be measured?
Performance
Delivered
Opens
Clicks
Shares
Goals
Unsubs

62. Choose the right metrics for you
• What’s your goal?
• eCommerce: revenue
• website visits: clicks
• brand awareness: opens

63. Click-to-open rate
unique clickers ÷ unique openers
• Proportion of people who opened the email
and then clicked
• Better way to assess the relative performance
of an email

64. Tracking after the click
• Google Analytics (anonymous)
!
!
!
!
!
!
• Goal tracking (specific)

65. Limitations
• Open tracking requires image load
• Open ≠ read!
• Goal tracking requires cookies

66. Assessment
How well do your
current campaigns
compare with averages
for your sector in our
UK 2014 benchmark
report?
0 – much lower
1
2
3
4
5 – better
Challenges
Permission
Data
Design
Delivery
Performance

67. Where next?
www.signupto.com
Sign-Up.to has software, services and
resources that can help you improve your
email marketing.
!
Find our more at