email marketing 101 stephen guerra email communications strategist silverpop

Email Marketing 101

Stephen GuerraEmail Communications StrategistSilverpop

CPE Credit

To receive CPE credit for this session you must attend the entire session• Session code: BB20

• Recommended CPE credit = 1 (this changes to 1.5 for 90min sessions)

• Delivery Method = Group-Live

• Field of Study = Specialized Knowledge and Applications

• Enter your credits at the CPE kiosks available in the Tennessee and Presidential Lobbies

Objectives

Email as a Marketing Channel: Sophisticated Capabilities with Multiple Challenges

How Email Works Practice Hierarchy

• Legislation• Industry Best Practices• Organizational Best Practices

Deliverability List Growth Message Design Discussion and Questions

I Know How To Send An Email…

Favorite misconception of the new emailer:

I know how to send email. In fact I just I know how to send email. In fact I just sent one to my Mom five minutes ago. sent one to my Mom five minutes ago.

Let’s rent a list and get started!Let’s rent a list and get started!

Why Commercial Email is Different

Just because you know how to cook dinner doesn’t mean you can run a restaurant

• Different environment

• More sophisticated tools

• Customers are less forgiving of errors

• Regulatory authorities have a say in how you conduct your business

About Email

Email is a tremendously powerful tool:

Costs much less than direct mail

Reveals reader behavior through measurable events

Enables advanced communication possibilities

45% of consumers say that “email is a great way for companies to stay in touch with customers.”

– Quris and Executive Summary Consulting, November 2004

Email: Advanced Techniques

Personalization – Go beyond the name• From Address

• Subject Line

• Relevant historical data Dynamic Content Timed Delivery Segmentation Testing

What can go wrong?

Poor practices contend with:• Legislative & regulatory issues• Recipient impact

• Offend recipients• List burn • Deliverability problems• Brand damage

Email Marketing 101

How Email WorksHow Email Works

How Email Works

[email protected] Jessica

[email protected] Kevin

[email protected] Julia

[email protected] Mildred

[email protected] John

….

From: [email protected]

From name: Silverpop

Subject: Participate in our list growth survey

Reply-to: [email protected]

Env-from: [email protected]

List

Header data

Text message

HTML message

One message per recipient

<xxx>

<xxx>

How Email Works

Outbound MTA(mail transfer agent)

DNS

Internet

Send message to [email protected]

Where do I send mail bound for yahoo.com?

Send to 125.46.350.219

Inbound MTA(“inbound gateway”)

Here’s a message for 125.46.350.219

Give message to [email protected]

Email Marketing 101

Email Practice HierarchyEmail Practice Hierarchy

The Flaming Hoops of Email Compliance

LegislationIndustry Best

Practices

Internal Policy

Legislation

CAN-SPAM Major Provisions

Pre-empts states’ private right of action Provides for enforcement by the FTC, State Attorneys

General, ISPs Prohibits fraudulent email practices Establishes fines up to $2MM and prison sentences up to 5

years Segments transactional & relationship email from

commercial email Prohibits sending additional commercial email more than 10

business days after opt-out is received.

Provided for discussion purposes only; please refer to your legal counsel for guidance

Legislation

CAN-SPAM Major Provisions

Requires for all commercial email:• Clear and conspicuous identification that the email

is an advertisement or solicitation (exception for prior confirmative assent)

• Working opt-out for a minimum of 30 days after the date of the message (keep the opt-out site live for 30 days post-mailing)

• Postal address of sender – recommended for both transactional and commercial messages.

Requires special labeling and message content restrictions for sexually-oriented material


Legislation

CAN-SPAM Key Definitions

Affirmative Consent:• The recipient expressly consented to receive

the message• If the message is from a third party, the

recipient was given clear and conspicuous notice at the time consent was given.

Commercial email:• Any electronic mail message the primary

purpose of which is the commercial advertisement of promotion of a commercial product or service


Legislation

CAN-SPAM Key Definitions

Transactional and relationship messages: Facilitate, complete, or confirm a

commercial transaction Provide warranty information, product

recall information, or safety or security information with respect to a commercial product or service

Notifications Provide information directly related to an

employment relationship Deliver goods or services


Legislation

Other Legislation

The U.S., EU, Australia, Japan and Korea have email-specific regulations• All but Korea and the U.S. are “opt-in” regimes requiring affirmative consent

• All also require easy opt-out, plus identification of the sender• Korea and the U.S. have opt-out regimes

• Korea has unusual and strict labeling requirements—see your local counsel

Some South American states use data privacy to address spam issues – opt-out approach

Sending email to a cell phone in the U.S. is highly regulated by the FCC• Consider blocking cell phone domains

Incented forwarding in the U.S. is covered under U.S. commercial regulations

• This has important considerations for viral campaign design


Industry Best Practices

Permission Level

Not Recommended Brand Damage & Deliverability Problems

Opt-Out Recipients added without clear permission (pre-checked box)

Opt-In Recipient actively requests subscription

Confirmed Opt-In

Recipient actively requests subscription and receives a confirmation message

Double Opt-In

Recipient actively requests subscription then receives an email which they must respond to before subscription is complete

Minimum LevelSome deliverability issues

Best Practice Good balance between deliverability and marketing goals

Good PracticeExcellent deliverability, limits list growth rate

email Trivia

How did the term ‘spam email’ originate?a) Comparing unwanted messages to undesirable food

b) Reference to a Monty Python skit

c) First ‘spam’ sent by a meat packing company

d) Acronym for Superfluous Product Advertisement Mail

Industry Best Practices

Who Decides A Message Is Spam?

Sender

Inbox Provider

Recipient

Law

Organizational Polices

Considerations Branding Creative Design

• Font selection• Image selection• Tone

Permission• House lists• Partner mailings• List rental

Frequency Governance

• Decentralized• Centralized• Federated

Email 101

Email DeliverabilityEmail Deliverability

Email Deliverability Significance

In a July 2004 JupiterResearch study, over 20% of online buyers reported at least one instance of opt-in email failing to arrive.

"JupiterResearch executive interviews revealed investing in delivery services/solutions can improve e-mail delivery by 10 percent to 20 percent.“

--Delivery Auditing Tools: Tactics to Improve E-mail Delivery December 29, 2004

Email Deliverability - Definition

Email Deliverability: How successfully a majority of messages in a mailing will be delivered to a recipient inbox in a readable format.

Majority of Messages – any bulk mailing to a variety of domains will have a certain percentage of messages that do not arrive in the Inbox

Inbox Placement – messages can be challenged, rejected, discarded, or routed to Bulk/Spam folders

Readable Format – message should retain all elements as designed

Email Deliverability Challenges

Anti-spam filters Blacklists HTML rendering / Image Suppression Message element blocking – rich media, images,

links Recipient fatigue

What You Can Do

Find the right partner Obtain high-quality, memorable permission Get in the address book Design delivery-effective messages Be relevant Leverage your brand List hygiene

Email 101

List Growth and List Growth and ManagementManagement

List GrowthVery successful options vs. planned to add

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

Call center

Non-branded list rental

Tradeshows

Offline advertising/direct marketing

In-store/point of sale/purchase process

List appends

Co-registration

Co-marketing

Cross promotions

Online marketing/search

Viral marketing

Planned

Deemed successful

Source: Silverpop List Growth Study, 2006

List Management

List Hygiene: practices employed to maintain only active and engaged recipients in an email list • Maintains list performance - eliminates non-productive records• Deliverability best practice - addresses major deliverability issues• Brand best practice – portrays brand in best light

List hygiene practices encompass management of:• Bouncing addresses• Changed addresses• Inactive addresses

List Management

Bounces

Bounces: Notice to sender indicating the message delivery failure

Hard Bounce: Recipient server: “To Address does not exist”

• Addresses that produce hard bounces should be immediately unsubscribed from lists

Soft Bounce: Any non-hard bounce (Examples: “Mailbox Full”, “Recipient Server Offline”, “Message Rejected By Spam Filter”)

• Addresses that produce soft bounces should be unsubscribed from lists only after two conditions are met

• The address bounces for three or more consecutive mailings

• The address continues to bounce for greater than fifteen days

List Management

Changed Addresses

Individual recipients often change their email addresses

• Switching companies

• Corporate mergers

• Discard addresses due to high spam reception Automated email response reply notification of an address change

• These should be collected and the address change should be made in the customer’s record

Usually will not receive notice that the address has been changed

• May or may not receive bounces

• The address may appear abandoned

Address reacquisition procedures

• Call center

• Direct mail

• Stuffers

• Email Change of Address service

Email 101

Message DesignMessage Design

HTML vs. Text

Fancy formatting and images require HTML coding, like a web page• HTML emails have higher response rates and are more measurable than plain text

email

Experiment with the degree of design present in your email• “Text-like” formats can perform better for certain types of messages, and can also

perform well as a variant in a longer campaign

Your HTML will not render the same in all email clients• Perform periodic “reception testing” to see what your email looks like in various

clients, especially webmail clients like Yahoo and Hotmail

You will still need to create a text version of your email for recipients that cannot open HTML-based email.

• Both the HTML and text versions of the email will be sent in the same message (multi-part messaging), and the appropriate one will be displayed

Message Anatomy

Header

Body

From Name

From Address

Subject Line

Header

What a recipient sees in their inbox Must reassure, compel, intrigue, entice, excite

recipient enough for them to OPEN the message Includes

• From Name

• From Address

• Subject Line

Message ConstructionOverall Page Design – ‘Above The Fold’

Portion of the message that is first viewed without scrolling Recipient will scan this first then decide to read Must engage the recipient immediately

Should encompass – in an easily scanned format

• Offer• Call To Action• Urgency Indication• Brandmark • Any other important content

No exact fold demarcation due to differences in email software, viewing window size, and screen resolution

Sample Message Strong ‘Above The Fold’ Design

Fold

Above The Fold

(400 pixels)

•‘click to view’ link

•Brandmark

•Offer

•Call To Action

•Urgency Indication

Sample Message Weak ‘Above The Fold’ Design

Fold

Below The Fold

•Significant content (image only partially viewable without scrolling & quick links below fold)

•Significant content(Most of the offer is below the fold)

•Call To Action

Above The Fold

400 Pixels

Color & Layout

Overall appearance of the message depends on good design of layout

Use color and layout to pull reader into the message and guide the eye to important content

Sample Message – Strong Color & Layout

Layout:• Clearly defined regions ease

navigation• Page header• Body• Quick navigation• Page footer

• Easily scannable• Left justified primary body copy• Centered footer• Message width within approximately

600 pixels

Color Usage:• Regions of message defined with blocks of

color • Overall color usage unifies the message

Fold

600 pixel width

Email Metrics

Good News:

Email campaigns produce a lot of data

Bad News:

Email campaigns produce a lot of data

email Metrics

Tracking generally requires HTML messages Image suppression can interfere with tracking Unique message created for each recipient Identification codes embedded in message

• Codes relate the message to an individual recipient• Links• Images• ‘Envelope’• Replies

Many metrics measured either as unique or aggregate (gross)• Unique: number of individuals who perform the action

• Counts only ONCE per recipient• Aggregate: number of times the action is performed

• Counts multiple occurrences per recipient

Benchmarks

The average open rate and click-through rates for email are:

• a) 15% Opens, 0.5% Clicks• b) 30% Opens, 4% Clicks• c) 68% Opens, 25% Clicks• d) 96% Opens, 68% Clicks

Answer: Averages don’t matterWhat you need to know is how you compare to averages for your company and for the

type of mailings you send

Open Rate

The percentage of people who render the message in an HTML environment and don’t have images blocked

Average Open Rates

30%

24%

27%

32%

34%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Overall

B-to-Cmarketers

Promotionalmarketers

Newslettermarketers

B-to-Bmarketers

JupiterResearch, Email Marketing Metrics

Open Rates Dropping

MarketingSherpa reports marketers finding open rates decreasing

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Decreasedsignificantly

Not a bigchange

Increasedsignificantly

2004

2005

MarketingSherapa Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2006

Open Rates External Influencers

Image BlockingOpen Rates


Inbox Fatigue

Open Rates


Spam Concerns

Pew Internet & American Life Project, April 2005

Open Rates


Preview Panes

Open Rates

Open Rates –How to improve

From Address & Name

• Friendly

• Consistent Subject Line

• Branded

• Short (40 characters or less)

• Compelling, but not mis-leading Frequency & Relevancy List maintenance Request address book placement

Improving open rates takes time and a commitment to respecting the lifetime value of your subscribers

Click-through rate

The percentage of people who click on a tracked link in a message• Click-through rates can be measured uniquely or in

aggregate

• Click-through rates can be measured as a percentage of sent messages, or as a percent of opens (also called the “effective rate”)

Average Click-through Rates

12%

11%

12%

14%

14%

0% 5% 10% 15%

Overall

B-to-Cmarketers


Newslettermarketers

B-to-Bmarketers


Conversion Rate

The percentage of people who performed the call-to-action

The most common way to measure this is by passing parameters to a website

EX: If the recipient clicks from the email and makes it to the target page (e.g., the “thanks for your purchase” page, then a conversion has occurred

Average Conversion Rates

4%

3%

4%

4%

4%

0% 5% 10% 15%

Overall

B-to-Cmarketers


Newslettermarketers

B-to-Bmarketers


Bounce Rate

The number of messages that the Inbox provider entity did not acknowledge receiving (they “bounced them back”) divided by the number of messages sent• Bounces can be caused by bad addresses, full mailboxes

or spam blocks

• Bounce rates are notoriously unreliable

Unsubscribe rate

Also known as the opt-out rate:The percentage of recipients that unsubscribe from a mailing,

or over the course of a period

Quiz

Which measure is NOT useful for evaluating the success of your email campaign:

a) Bounce rate

b) Unsubscribe rate

c) Open rate

d) Click-through rate

e) Conversion rate

Quiz

Unsubscribe rate is a terrible measure of email success

Bounce rate is useful for evaluating appends, list rentals or old lists

Open rate is useful for evaluating the combination of your brand value and your subject line

Click-through rate is valuable for evaluating your call-to-action Conversion rate measures success directly

Getting Started With Email Checklist

In-house system versus Email Service Provider Permission policy List growth strategies Determine messaging goals

• Promotional• Sell product• Drive traffic to site• Drive Point of Sale traffic

• Informational• Transactional

Design messages and campaigns to achieve your goal Design test plans to evaluate your design, content, & offer Monitor tracking results and modify accordingly

Questions and Discussion

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form: BB20 Contact Information:

Stephen GuerraEmail Communications [email protected]

Thank you for your participation

email marketing 101 stephen guerra email communications strategist silverpop

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