email marketing and e-crm david hughes co-founder, the email academy dhughes@theemailacademy.com

Email Marketing and E-CRM

David HughesCo-Founder, The Email Academy

dhughes@theemailacademy.com

The 2 minute summary...

• Be relevant and engaging– Segment– Personalise– Triggered messages– Lifecycle marketing

• Keep improving– Test– Optimise

“How nice of them to think of me”

Drayton Bird

• Adaptable to all stages in lifecycle• Cuts costs – direct mail, telemarketing• Offers short time to market• Short test to roll cycles• Infinitely personalisable• Delivers best Return on Investment.

Why all the excitement?

Here is the DMA USA

• For 2009, an investment of $1 in direct marketing advertising expenditures is predicted to return, on average, $11.65 in incremental revenue across all industries

DMA USA “The Power of Direct Forecast”, August 2009.

...and for Email Marketing

$43.62 for every dollar spent

DMA USA “The Power of Direct Forecast”, August 2009.

What about Benchmarks?

Most email tracking may be wrong!

• Email open rate tags can be disabled• Forwarded emails carry the original recipients’

DNA

Not opened, but clicked?

Forget about Averages...

10

Prospects2%

Customers 10%

Average5%

Records

Response

“Average” Conversion Rates?

More Averages – so what?

• Average Open Rate: 22.2%Average Click-Through Rate: 5.9%Epsilon Q2 2009 Email Trends and Benchmark (Oct 2009)

You are where you are

• Last campaign is benchmark• Things you can’t control• Keep testing• Keep measuring

Find the right broadcast partner

• Prices start at £20 a month• Handle most of your delivery problems• Keep email data in one place• Reduce your campaign turnaround times• Access to segmentation and personalisation tools• Web-based reporting• Resources available at the DMA and Econsultancy

http://econsultancy.com/reports/email-marketing-buyers-guide

What are the challenges?

David Hughes, 

after Sean Kelly, Comhra Ltd

Shouting

Segmenting

Triggered Programs

Planning Complexity

Data Complexity

What does good bad look like?

Stop SHOUTING at me.

I’m a CUSTOMER, remember?

One big image – no Personalisation

It’s a poster, not an email…

And then there is message rendering...

Bad Email Marketing can be Good Email Marketing

(A message you can send to everybody?)

Assemble the creative assets

Craft the copy

“We literally made the decision to go to sale

on the Thursday morning, and by Friday

lunchtime, it looked like we were on for the

biggest single day in Howies history!”

www.nonlineblogging.com

Non-Line Marketing

Don’t wave good-bye to direct mail

• Those who received both the print and email communications were twice as likely to visit their personalised web pages.– 6% who received only email– 12% who received both email and direct mail

• From customers who received both– Twice the conversion rate– Twice the revenue

www.nonlineblogging.com

Segmentation and Personalisation

• Registration data• Transactional data• Click-stream data

Registration

A critical part of email marketing

3 Elements to Registration

• Visibility– Can people see it?– On every page?

• Value– Why should they bother?

• Ease– How long will it take?– Does it look painful?

Roadblock Registration!

| 34

Less beer, more value

| 35

Ease

| 36

Progressive Registration

Email driven by registration

£4m revenue in 2006

You’ve got content

Transactional Data

The best you can get!

Recency, Frequency and Value

Frequency

Recency

Value

Shouting, Shouting and Shouting

Frequency

Recency

Value

Monthly Newsletter

Relevant and timely? Lovely.

Amsterdam

Budapest

Points over

Points over

“Dynamic” <Insert>

“Conditional”<If – Then – Else>

It’s about Lifecycle Marketing

More Shouting

Monthly Newsletter

I Choose

I Need

I Become

AwareI Buy

I Use

I Enjoy

I Want

Sony Welcome programme

Survey information said:

• Within the 1st 30 days of ownership Digital Still Camera users want added memory, camera accessories, batteries, shooting kits, advice etc.

• Within the 2nd 30 days users are more likely to be interested in PRINTING their photos

Messages or Programmes?

Welcome programme

• Thank you• How was it for you?• How’s the new camera?• Want some help?• Need some memory?• How about printing?

Welcome Message

• Thank you

Click-stream Data

Watch, don’t ask.

Recency-driven Campaigns

Average Conversion Rates?

| 56

Successful Outcomes

• What do you want people to do?• How clear is the call to action?• Why should somebody do it, now?• What happens after the click...

So its more about the landing page

• Do you need to build one?• How can you personalise it?• How can you remove barriers to the

outcome?

Lazy marketing...you know me!!

Pre-population of Landing Page

Lovely!

Landing Pages – Multiple Elements

• Heading• Page layout• Images• Long or short copy• Calls to action – phone numbers or “Call Me”

Optimost was able to prove that the winning page recipe generated a

26.7% increase in conversions from landing page through to the order process, which in

turn led to a

10.7% increase in subscription revenue.

5 Variables...what could we improve?

This one that works 14% better.

Google offer it for free…

Think about the customer journey

• The email needs to be relevant and engaging• The call to action needs to be strong• The successful outcome needs to be easy• You can’t pay your staff with clicks!

Email Creative

It’s NOT a web page.

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Web Page can – email can’t

• Advanced Cascading Style Sheets• Background images• Scripting (Java, shockwave, video etc)• Animated GIFs• Images disabled by default...

Images are not displayed by default...

http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/

Background Images?

Get testing - This is what Pivotal Veracity offers

• Full message, above the fold & preview pane rendering.

• Automatically identifies missing alt-tags and allows you to view your email in all email clients with images on and off.

Beautiful

Beautiful. Not.

Oh dear...

Who needs images anyway?

Marketing Sherpa 2008

First 6 lines

• Remember the Preview Pane• Don’t lob a big image in there• Try and get some text that people will see

Fantastic use of preview pane

And pre-headers...

Use words and HTML Code

Tables of colour Logo as

Text

Text, not images

Text Personalisation

Lost images, but so what?

A few words about persuasion

Use persuasive words

• Gain their attention• Ask questions• Sell benefits• Break down the cost• Use pace• Excitement• Fear, uncertainty and doubt

How Testing will Improve your Email Marketing Performance

John Caples, Tested Advertising Methods 1932

"In planning an advertising campaign, the first step should be to clear the decks of all opinions …

…the next step should be to find a scientific method of testing."

• Price points• Discount in value or %• Bundles• From Field• Subject line• First 6 lines• Day of week• Time of day• Text v HTML

That’s a lot of opinions...• Segmentation• Design and Layout• Tone of Voice• Long/short Copy• Personalisation

• Number of links• Landing Page• Frequency• Follow-up

Statistical Validity

• Could this have happened by chance?

http://www.emarketingdynamics.com/email-test-sample-size-calculator.asp

Test simple or complex variables

Test Simple Variables

What response rate will a 20% discount give me?

Does a different “From” field increase open rate?

Test Complex Variables

Does this new newsletter template work better than the old one?

Will campaigns based on trigger dates work better than monthly campaigns?

Testing should help resolve problems

Not opened. Not clicked. Not bought.

So where can testing help?

Your first problem is probably delivery

Some testing options using format

• What happens to my campaigns when I send a text only version?– Click-through for the first time ever at bigcompany.com– People clicking through for the first time ever

• Why did it happen?– HTML message may have been perceived as SPAM– Text version renders properly in Lotus Notes, on a

Blackberry

Declining Open Rates?

Get their attention

From Field Subject Line

Preview Pane

CONTROLFrom : PriceMinister

Advice

Click-Through rate: Index100

TEST

From : Sophie at PriceMinister

Click-Through rate : Index 156

What’s in a Name? 56% more traffic.

Subject Line?

First 6 lines – Email Labs test

Their re-designed version…

To summarise

• Testing will help you improve• Testing can be quick and very easy• Testing can deliver huge business benefits

If you don’t fall off, you’re not trying hard enough!

Email and Social Media

Driving traffic? That’s the old way

The beating heart pushing content out...

StaffJournalistsCustomers

NewsAlerts

Updates

CompetitionsDiscussion

Connection

NewsletterAlerts

Updates

“This is what we’re all talking about”

If they can do it...

The future of viral?

www.silverpop.com

www.silverpop.com

Here is Silverpop’s view...

http://www.silverpop.com/downloads/white-papers/Silverpop-Engage-S2S-Study.pdf

Spam Spam Spam

Its about your deeds not your words

Argos have a cracking reputation

Why do all these get to my Inbox?

Reputation Look-up

Reputation Management

• Authentication• Accreditation• Blacklisting• Mailing history• Complaints

Spamassassin Tests

To summarise

• Gather the right data to drive campaigns• Segment and personalise using all your data– Registration– Transactional– Click-stream

• Look beyond the email

“How nice of them to think of me!”

Good Luck!

dhughes@theemailacademy.comwww.theemailacademy.com