Email Marketing

by Jordan Ayan

The Practical

Guide to Email

Marketing

Strategies and Tactics for Inbox Success

I

n just a few short years, email marketing has become a main ingredient

in most modern marketing plans. The reason for this is simple: the ROI

for email marketing is $57.25 for every dollar spent, according to a study by

the Direct Marketing Association. That’s double the ROI of other online

marketing tactics.

Marketers are not expected to slow their spending on email marketing anytime

soon. According to Jupiter Research, email marketing spending will grow to

$1.1 billion by 2010 from $885 million in 2005, increasing at a compounded

annual rate of 4.5 percent.

Where will marketers spend their email dollars?

•

Retention email makes up the greatest share of the email market,

reaching $577 million by 2010.

•

Acquisition email, which includes newsletters, appends and co-

registrations, will grow 4 percent annually to $518 million by 2010.

•

B2C email marketing will grow 5 percent annually to $897 million by

2010.

•

B2B email marketing will grow 2.4 percent annually to $206 million

by 2010.

Email marketing has been growing for several reasons. Most important, the

tools have been getting better and best practices have been established

This book is a compilation of best practices applicable to email marketers just

starting out as well as those who need a refresher. The advice takes you from

the initial steps of setting an email marketing strategy, to creative tips and to

getting the most out of your email through effective testing.

These best practices are the same insights we have been sharing with our

customers for years. Now we are sharing them with you.

Of course, if you’d like to know more about becoming a member of the

SubscriberMail family of customers, we’d be happy to talk with you about

that as well. Please visit our website at www.subscribermail.com for more

information about our company.

differently. Younger vs. older audiences take in information in different

ways as well.

Job title and function—

Are you emailing potential users with no—or all

the—buying power? An owner or CFO may want to know about ROI.

A middle manager may just want to make his or her job easier. And an

engineer or programmer wants to find better ways to work. And so on.

Purchasing frequency—

Less frequent purchasers may require a time-

sensitive offer to encourage them to act. Or maybe you want to reward

frequent buyers with exclusive privileges via email.

Monetary spending—

Adjust resources so you’re dedicating your efforts

toward customers who spend the most money with your company.

If you have been segmenting your email audiences, don’t stop. Try to find new

ways to segment and look at segmentation based on historical email activity,

perhaps treating people who are frequent “clickers” or “openers” differently.

2. Rethink and Refine Your Opt-in Campaigns

Perform a check-up on your opt-in processes. Review everything from the data

fields you’re collecting to the confirmation email you are sending afterwards.

Small changes can mean big gains in new audiences, as well as setting the

proper expectations for subscribers.

• Can you increase opt-ins by reducing unneeded data collection?

• Are you prominently directing Web visitors to sign up for email? Can

you place this on more pages, or in locations that are more visible?

• Do you clearly define significant and relevant benefits for subscribers

signing up for your email? Does the email you send confirming the opt-

in restate the benefits?

• Do you set expectations and ask subscribers to “add this address to your

safe list” in the opt-in process?

The language you use, the support graphics, and the staging techniques you

employ can make a huge difference—between being totally ignored and

creating an evolving, dynamic relationship that can enhance database precision,

enrich dialogue, and help you showcase a larger scope of services. Furthermore,

if you’re not using strict opt-in policies, start now. As recipients continue to tire

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7 Email Strategies

of unwanted email, you’ll continue to see declining response rates if you are not

using an opt-in-only process.

3. Clean Your Lists and Try to Maintain Them

Perform a thorough cleaning of your email lists. This does not necessarily mean

blindly deleting a bunch of names, but rather using segmentation strategies

to treat historically inactive recipients differently than people who are actively

opening and clicking on your email messages. Here are some suggestions for

periodically cleaning house:

•

Take a close look at your lists and list segments. Are there some list

segments you are never using? If so, clean them out.

• Review lists of people who have not responded to messages in the past

few months and contact them in a different way than the rest of your list.

If they still do not respond, consider removing them. Remember, today’s

email success is about quality and not quantity.

• Review any new list segments you may want to make. Are there any ways

to segment and strengthen messages to various groups? If so, segment

them now and start communicating more effectively to those groups.

4. Design for Disabled Images and Preview Panes

Audiences are increasingly looking at your messages without images turned on.

(It may not be their choice, but rather the default of their email client.) Make

sure your messages are still readable and compelling without images. This may

mean designing messages using fewer images, or including a short list of articles

at the top of your newsletter. This technique works well for people who are

viewing your message through a preview pane as well. Making sure enough

content is placed in the upper right hand of the message to give recipients

something to act upon will be important to success rates.

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Without designing your messages with this in mind, your campaigns may end

up looking like this to recipients:

Email

Au

thor

Email

Sending

Serv

er

Email

Receiving

Serv

er

Email Recipient

Email

Without

A

uthentica

tion

The receiving server

filte

rs

message

without ever being

ab

le to verify

the sender

Email

Au

thor

Email

Sending

Serv

er

Email

Receiving

Serv

er

A

CCEPT

• Deliv

ery

• P

ositiv

e Flag

• Not Filter

ed

Email

With

Au

thentica

tion

DNS

(usually the

identif

ied

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thority)

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thentica

t

i

on

REJECT

• Bounce

• Nega

tiv

e Flag

• Filter

The sender

’s

organization sets

up DNS Entries to identify itself

Specific examples on how to optimize email creative are covered in the

“Guidelines for Effective Email Creative” chapter of this book.

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7 Email Strategies

Email

Au

thor

Email

Sending

Serv

er

Email

Receiving

Serv

er

Email Recipient

Email

Without

A

uthentica

tion

The receiving server

filte

rs

message

without ever being

ab

le to verify

the sender

Email

Au

thor

Email

Sending

Serv

er

Email

Receiving

Serv

er

A

CCEPT

• Deliv

ery

• P

ositiv

e Flag

• Not Filter

ed

Email

With

Au

thentica

tion

DNS

(usually the

identif

ied

Au

thority)

Au

thentica

t

i

on

REJECT

• Bounce

• Nega

tiv

e Flag

• Filter

The sender

’s

organization sets

up DNS Entries to identify itself

Specific examples on how to optimize email creative are covered in the

“Guidelines for Effective Email Creative” chapter of this book.

5. Institute Authentication Standards

Email authentication has reached critical mass, and will continue to grow in

importance for email delivery. If you haven’t already, make sure you set up

SPF records, Sender ID records, and mail using Domain Keys Identified Mail

(DKIM) authentication whenever possible. Proper use of these authentication

methods will help your deliverability and will contribute to building a positive

reputation for your domain.

Your IT department and/or email service provider should be able to provide

specific steps on how to set up these authentication methods. They can also

verify which authentication methods are set up already if you’re not sure. The

chart below shows a very simplistic and conceptual view of email with and

without authentication.

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6. Expand Your Email Testing Efforts

One of the best ways to refine your email strategy is through testing. If you’re

a beginner at this, the simplest form of testing is splitting your email list into

A and B segments, and sending each segment a message where one element,

and only one element, is varied: subject line, copy, image, layout, offer, call to

action, etc. Then analyze the results to determine which variation was more

successful in increasing response, and optimize future messages accordingly.

Whenever you’re testing, remember the six steps for email testing success:

1. Ask a question

2. Form a theory

3. Create the test

4. Segment the list

5. Measure and analyze results

6. Make changes

If you’re already a testing pro, or have performed some tests in previous years,

keep refining what you have learned to continually improve your campaign

performance. As with many of the other initiatives we’ve outlined, small and

continual gains can provide major dividends. For more information about

email testing, see the chapter “Email Testing: A Checklist for Success.” If you’ve

run out of testing ideas, call SubscriberMail and we’ll be happy to work with

you to develop some new ideas!

7. Rethink Tired Campaigns

Marketers are increasingly seeing the power that email marketing can have

when used properly as part of the marketing mix. We encourage you to go

beyond the status quo with your over-arching email efforts and aggressively

build your campaigns to deliver better results and new opportunities.

Rethink campaigns that have run for awhile, and look at analytics to uncover

new avenues of content or functionality that your audiences may respond to.

Email offers a unique platform to quickly and cost-effectively change campaigns

for the better. Take advantage of these unique abilities to maximize your efforts.

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7 Email Strategies

The Opt-in Process:

10 Steps to Success

1. Understand What Constitutes an “Opt-in”

As email has grown from a communication vehicle to marketing superpower,

the industry has fought to keep up with best practices. While marketers would

like to believe recipients are all overjoyed to receive email from them, that’s not

always the case. To this end, the Email Sender & Provider Coalition (ESPC),

an association of email industry leaders, has composed its Email Marketing Best

Practices Guide. Among other clarifications, the ESPC defines “opt-in” as “the

point of email address collection at which a person has affirmatively requested

to be included on an email list to receive commercial email.” Furthermore, the

ESPC establishes that commercial email should not be sent without:

1)

Prior affirmative consent of the individual, as defined by the

CAN-SPAM Act of 2003; or

2)

Prior consent of the individual as defined by the European

Commission Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive.

As defined by CAN-SPAM, “affirmative consent” means that:

(1)

the recipient expressly consented to receive the message, either in

response to a clear and conspicuous request for such consent or at the

recipient’s own initiative; and

(2)

if the message is from a party other than the party to which the

recipient communicated such consent, the recipient was given clear

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and conspicuous notice [of this] at the time the consent

was communicated.

The ESPC maintains that even with a prior business relationship, the opt-in

best practice is to:

1)

notify the person of the sender’s intent to communicate with him or her

at the point of address collection or in the first communication to the

person, and then

2)

upgrade permission to opt-in status, preferably confirmed (defined later

in this chapter) as soon as possible.

2. Establish Your Privacy Policy

Before beginning to collect opt-ins, establish a privacy policy if you don’t

already have one. If you have a policy, review it and be sure it covers collecting

email addresses. Let recipients know if you plan to share their email addresses

with a third party, and how the shared information will be used. If your policy

states that you won’t share email addresses, live with your commitment.

Make sure your privacy policy is easily accessible on your website, and that

you provide links to it at every step of the opt-in process. Be sure to keep your

policy updated and reviewed by legal counsel when necessary. The Direct

Marketing Association provides a tool on their website to help you generate a

privacy policy. Visit www.the-dma.org for more information.

3. Create the Opt-in Page

Your opt-in page is very important because it is the place where consumers

will decide if they will or will not give you their email addresses to receive

email from you. It also sets the tone for future email communication. When

done correctly, it can drive future email activity; and when done poorly, it

will result in lower email activity. To these ends, the most important thing

to do when constructing your opt-in page is to focus on building value and

setting expectations.

Build the value of opting-in by focusing on what’s in it for them, not for you.

• “Be the first to know”

• “Free, timely market updates”

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The Opt-in Process: 10 Steps to Success

• “Special offers” or “special discounts”

• “Save money with weekly coupons”

• “Strategies to improve your...”

Set the proper expectations up front by explaining on the opt-in page:

• the types of messages recipients will receive

• message content

• frequency of messages

• if they’ll receive third-party offers

Other considerations to take when building your opt-in page include:

•

Will you use a short or long sign-up form? A short form will garner

more sign-ups, but a longer form will collect more information.

•

Will subscribers need to create a password to opt in? A password

could give subscribers access to an account, but you are likely to lose

subscribers who do not want to create a password just to receive

email from you.

•

Will you provide options for subscribers to choose what types of

messages they receive? Asking subscribers to select their interests allows

you to send targeted messages, but requires more work to create separate

lists and content.

Don’t make these important decisions blindly. Test your opt-in page for higher

conversion and/or more qualified opt-ins. Aspects to test include:

• Incentive to sign up vs. no incentive

• Long vs. short opt-in form

• Copy (value statements)

• Sign-up options vs. global opt-in

• Create password vs. no password

• Placement of opt-in box on website

4. Know What Information to Collect

When deciding what information to collect initially on the opt-in page, keep

in mind your email marketing strategy. If you haven’t established what your

strategy will be, spend some time thinking about it.

•

What’s your segmentation strategy? Will you send targeted mailings

based on demographic information such as gender, age, and location?

•

What’s your personalization strategy? Will you send personalized

content such as “Dear First Name”? Personalization could also include

sending targeted content based on location or other demographics as

identified above.

•

What’s your marketing strategy? Will you send strictly monthly messages

on your time frame, or will you send customized messages based on a

recipient’s birthday or anniversary?

Knowing the answers to these questions up front will help determine what

information should be collected on the opt-in page. The best practice is to collect

only the information that is necessary. For example, collecting postal information

if you never plan to send direct mail is a useless step that could lose you opt-ins.

Consider collecting additional information that is not imperative to the

opt-in process

after

the opt-in has been collected. This could also be collected

in periodic follow-up surveys.

5. Create the Opt-in Confirmation Page

Drive future email activity by setting expectations on your opt-in confirmation

page. This page should include the following important aspects:

•

Text that asks subscribers to add your “from address” to their safe list or

address book. Consider providing a link to a page with specific directions

on how to do this for each of the major email clients. This is the point

at which you should ask subscribers to do this, as they are at their most

active stage of involvement with you, having just signed up for email

from you. Being added to their safe list ensures your messages will always

be delivered to their inbox.

• An image of your welcome email so recipients will recognize the message

in their inbox when they receive it. Be sure to specifically point out the

confirmation link if using double opt-in, with directions to click on the

link to confirm their subscription.

6. Send the Welcome Message

The welcome message is another step in the opt-in process where you have the

opportunity to reinforce value and expectations to drive email activity. It should

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The Opt-in Process: 10 Steps to Success

be sent immediately after the opt-in and be a branded HTML message that

accurately and positively represents your organization. Your welcome message

should include these key elements:

• Copy that restates the value of their opt-in, the type of messages they can

expect to receive, and how often they should expect to receive messages.

• Copy that again asks subscribers to add your “from address” to their safe

list or address book.

• An image of the newsletter they will receive so they will recognize it in

their inbox.

• A link to your privacy policy, to again reassure subscribers of how

their information will be used.

• A confirmation link, if using a double opt-in process, with a

strong call to action that directs subscribers to click to confirm

their subscription.

7. Drive Traffic to the Opt-in Page

Once you have your opt-in page, confirmation page and welcome message set,

you can now focus on driving visitors to the opt-in page. You should have a

strong call to action on your home page in a prominent location that directs

visitors to the opt-in page. A popular way to construct this email sign-up box

is with a form field where visitors can fill in their email address directly on the

home page, then be directed to a second page (your opt-in page) to collect

additional information. This sign-up box or call to action should include strong

copy on the value to the potential subscriber of receiving your company’s email.

Additionally, your sign-up box and benefits should be prominently displayed on

every page of your website.

You may want to consider using an incentive to drive opt-ins, such as a cash

giveaway, drawing for a coveted prize or valuable coupon to be used toward

their next purchase. You will certainly increase the number of opt-ins collected

with an incentive vs. no incentive: however, you may also see a lower quality

of opt-ins as people sign up for the prize rather than your email. On the down

side, these people may not turn into active recipients and may thereby lower

your response rates. On the up side, you now have the opportunity to turn

people into active recipients who otherwise may not have chosen to receive

email from your organization.

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8. Collect Opt-ins from Other Points

Your opt-in page should be your main focus for collecting opt-ins, but it

shouldn’t be your only opportunity to collect opt-ins. There are many other

contact points with consumers where you could solicit an email address. Here

are some good examples:

•

Contact form:

Add a checkbox asking for an email sign-up on

other web forms on your website. For example, a contact form for

more information, a webinar registration form, a whitepaper download

form, etc.

•

Product opportunity:

The checkout process on your ecommerce

site is a great time to ask purchasers to sign up for email from your

organization. These are your most active web visitors who have already

shown an interest in your company.

•

Co-registration:

Look into co-registration opportunities that

would make sense for your business model. Be sure that your main

focus remains on collecting qualified opt-ins, rather than grow a list

of email addresses for people who may have no need for your product

or service.

•

Transactional messages:

Transactional messages present another

opportunity to include a call to action that prompts users to opt

in to receive promotional email messages from your company.

Again, these are people who have already shown an interest in

your company.

•

Brick and mortar:

If your company or organization has a brick-and-

mortar business front, use this opportunity to collect email addresses

from prospects either with a sign-up box on a counter or by asking

directly for them. Again, be sure that the value of the opt-in is clear

to prospects.

When adding a checkbox to a contact form, the checkout process or a

co-registration process, you have the option to make this checkbox either

pre-selected or unselected. It is a best practice to never have this checkbox

pre-selected. Furthermore, it also makes good business sense. Using a pre-

selected checkbox will add uninterested people to your list, and they’ll end

up skewing your results by opting out or generally never responding to your

message. And it could be worse: they could end up reporting your messages as

spam since they will not have recalled signing up for your email.

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The Opt-in Process: 10 Steps to Success

9. Evaluate Using Double Opt-in

Double opt-in—or confirmed opt-in as it’s also known—is the process whereby

following an opt-in request, a confirmation email is sent. This email requires

the person to confirm the opt-in before he or she will receive any future

email messages. The person must respond, usually by clicking on a double

confirmation link, in order to be considered confirmed.

Using a double opt-in process ensures you are sending to only your most

qualified, most interested, and most active recipients. The potential downside is

that you will almost never have as many confirmed double opt-ins as you have

single opt-ins. However, lists that are confirmed through this double opt-in

process consistently produce much higher open rates and click-through rates,

and offer lower complaint rates.

If you decide the double opt-in process makes the most sense for your business

model, you can increase the number of subscribers who confirm by following

up with non-confirms two to five days from the initial opt-in. These are people

who may have forgotten to act on your initial welcome message, but with a

reminder message may confirm. Depending on your email service provider, this

could potentially be set up as an automatically recurring message. This would

ensure the highest rates of double confirming while removing the work of

sending additional messages.

10. Deliver on Your Promises

After you’ve diligently set expectations about the emails you will be sending

(on the opt-in page, confirmation page and welcome message), be sure that

you then deliver on those promises. If you’ve promised weekly tips, be sure

that the message type you’re sending is a “tips” email and that you are sending

them weekly.

Additionally, be sure that you don’t deliver something that was not promised.

For example,

• A different type of email than what they opted in for

• Weekly emails if you stated emails would be monthly

• Third-party emails if this was not explicit during the opt-in process

If your strategy shifts and you want to deliver something other than what was

promised during the opt-in process, send an email asking subscribers to opt-in

to this different type of email or send an email letting subscribers know of the

change and giving them a chance to opt out.

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