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The Email Marketing Guide
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The Email Marketing Guide
guides
Foreword
1. What are the mega-trends reshaping the email marketing landscape?
2. How to build a better email marketing strategy 3. How to choose the most appropriate email marketing solution 4. How to build an expert email marketing team 5. Email marketing managers – who and how to hire
6. Email marketing measurement – the three most powerful metrics 7.
The beginner’s guide to A/B testing
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Foreword.
Michael Fisher, President, Yesmail Customers are becoming more and more elusive - ducking and diving more frequently than ever. It seems as though maintaining relationships with customers, at times, is like trying to maintain a consistent liquid level in a strainer. However, while customer lifecycle and longevity isn’t easy, it is possible. And leveraging email as a primary channel to support intimate, long lasting relationships is a key component of customer relationship development and lifecycle management. Done properly, organisations might find they have more customers then they initially thought obtainable. It’s no secret customers engage through email. It is addressable; it is intimate; and it enables contextual relevant content to be delivered at meaningful times and in meaningful ways. However, not all organisations follow the practices necessary to deliver relevancy. Far too often organisations are encumbered by unrealistic sales goals, thus leveraging email marketing as the ultimate promotional engine, i.e. need more sales equals mail more promotions more often. Unfortunately, this has become more of the norm than not for today’s email marketer. However, not every consumer wants to get the next discount, or totally free shipping offer. In fact reminders for oil changes, tire rotations, dentist appoints, or test dates might deliver more value, and The Email Marketing Guide
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for some customers might be worth more than the plethora of discounts and sales offers. Building long lasting sustainable relationships with customers has never been as possible as it is today. Email marketing continues to be a top consumer choice for opt-in email messaging. However, it is no longer an “option” to deliver contextually relevant messaging through email. It is now a “requirement” if you plan on developing relationships along the customer lifecycle. In this guide, you'll be taken step-by-step through the world of email marketing – from building a strategy to best practices to choosing the most appropriate provider. It also examines how to build an email marketing team. But first up, this guide is going to provide an overview of the email marketing landscape, providing us with some valuable perspective before it's explored in more detail. I hope you’ll find this guide to be an indispensable resource for your email marketing projects. Michael Fisher, President, Yesmail
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Chapter 1.
An introduction to the mega- trends reshaping the email marketing landscape Neil Davey, editor, MyCustomer.com Why is email marketing investment set for robust growth – and how can you ensure you spend wisely?
It would appear that reports of email marketing’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Despite ‘the death of email’ having been a popular topic in recent years, evidence suggests that this 40-yearold communication tool (yes it really is that old) is not ready for the scrap heap quite yet. In fact, quite the contrary – with reports from the likes of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and Forrester indicating that despite the emergence of newer and sexier channels such as social media, spending on email marketing continues to show robust growth. The Forrester Research Email Marketing Forecast, 2012 To 2017 (US), for instance, predicts that investment will continue to increase over the next five years. While in a study of its own, the DMA found that over half of senior business-to-business and businessto-consumer brand marketers said that they are confident expenditure on email marketing will rise. So what’s happening? “There are a few reasons for this growth,” says Kath Pay, co-founder of Plan to Engage, communications The Email Marketing Guide
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hub chair of the DMA Email Marketing Council, industry speaker and all-round expert in the topic. “One is the ongoing impact of the economy, so the online budget continues to be moved from offline to online because of the cost-effectiveness of it. And then more specifically, I think people are realising the value of email. For the past eight years the Econsultancy Email Census surveyed companies and found that email marketing has either been in the first or second position in delivering the best ROI of all the digital channels. And that is bearing fruit in gaining further budget for it.”
11STST
21SNTD
Email delivers the first or second best ROI of all the digital channels.
The DMA Email Marketing Council’s 2013 National Client Email report underlines this, linking marketers’ optimistic outlook for email’s prospects to the channel’s improving commercial performance. According to the respondents polled, email provided an average ROI of £21.48 for every £1 spend in 2012. The strong performance of the channel is linked to improving techniques, with over half of brands reporting an increase in open, click and conversion The Email Marketing Guide
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rates last year, marking a 5% increase from 2011. Reflecting this, the DMA’s 2012 Email Tracking Study reported that more consumers are signing up to receive emails, with the number of consumers who have signed up to receive mails from 10 or more brands having increased by 10% in the past year to reach 43%.
Active email users in the US forecast to grow to 227 million by 2017
227,000,000
EMAIL USERS IN
USA
Email sign ups to 10 or more brands now reaches 43%
Furthermore, in contrast to the popular view that customers are irritated by the amount of email messages they receive from brands, consumer approval of the content of marketing emails have
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increased, with one in three (29%) saying that they find more than half of the emails they receive of relevance and interest to them. In comparison, the DMA’s 2010 study showed just one in 10 (9%) consumers reported finding 50% or more of the emails they receive of interest to them. However, there are bigger influences driving email’s performance, and Forrester has identified a number of trends feeding email marketing’s global growth - for instance, an increase in content consumption, and an increase in the number of active email users, with the analyst forecasting that the number of active email users in the US alone will grow to 227 million by 2017. But in particular, there are three ‘mega trends’ that have emerged that – provided brands respond appropriately – will have an unprecedented impact on email marketing.
Growth of email marketing automation
“The hospitality industry, the financial services industry, the retail sector, consumer products and the media industry all require marketers to use very sophisticated acquisition and retention marketing campaigns,” says Forrester analyst Jitender Miglani. “They have to acquire the users and once they are acquired they have to set up email campaigns to keep maintaining the relationship with them, along the lines of retention emails. So if you want to launch a sophisticated acquisition and retention email marketing campaign, you have to have good triggerbased programmes to keep engaging the users. And that has given rise to the entire field of email marketing automation.” The Email Marketing Guide
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From a B2C perspective, core marketing automation is generally regarded as triggered sequences such as welcome emails and shopping cart abandonment emails, and behavioural emails. “It’s really just a matter of leveraging the touchpoint within that consumer’s lifecycle, and then just leveraging them with an automated email,” says Pay. “These are the times when that person has been in contact with us and is wanting to be contacted by us, so as long as you have tested and optimised these processes then you can be looking at getting great results.”
“It’s really just a matter of leveraging the touchpoint within that consumer’s lifecycle, and then just leveraging them with an automated email”
Meanwhile, in the B2B world, marketing automation is being utilised for lead generation, and even further than that, for lead scoring. Pay explains: “When a person has downloaded a first white paper, they are put into a lead nurturing process where they’ll download a paper, then they might click through, then be offered a couple more, click through again and so accumulate these points. Then, when they get to a certain amount of points the sale person knows it is worth them giving that person a call because he/ she is ready. From a cost-effectiveness perspective, it makes sense because it’s saving the sales team from calling until the opportunity is right. It is better The Email Marketing Guide
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for the recipient too – they are going through this lead nurturing stage and finding out more about the products and the company until they are ready. So all of this is actually automated in a system and is making life a lot easier.” What isn’t necessarily so easy, however, is picking a provider now that the marketing automation sector has become a crowded marketplace. Pay has the following advice: “If you are going to be doing marketing automation using lead scoring, not all email service providers (ESPs) offer it. Most of the better ESPs will offer the actual lead nurturing ability, that’s not a problem, but if you specifically want lead scoring then there’s only a few suppliers that will offer that, so make sure that they are the ones you’re focusing on.” She continues: “For all others that don’t need the lead scoring but just want the marketing automation tools, the best thing to do is, instead of being sold to by the ESP, write down your actual requirements – what really matters to you? All the ESPs have wonderful bells and whistles that they would love to dazzle you with, and it is very easy to be dazzled but you are not necessarily going to use a lot of these bells and whistles, even though you will be paying for them. So hone down what it is you are going to be doing, understand what your strategy is, what your plans are, what your tactics are, what features you are going to be using, and then get them to actually demonstrate those to you. Within the ESPs, they have all got these wonderful tools but some of them are a little bit easier and usable than others.”
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Mobile’s mega influence
There has been a rapid evolution of email clients – from text-based, to desktop to web-based and most recently to mobile clients. And this latest evolution is proving to be the most significant yet, with Forrester estimating that by 2017 as many as 78% of all US active email users (178 million) will access their messages through mobile email clients. “We have had advancements in mobile operating systems like Android and iOS and the emergence of entire app ecosystems, so mobile is really the megatrend of the decade,” says Miglani. “When you look at how smartphone subscribers spend their mobile internet time, we find that email has the highest share – people check email a lot on their mobile devices! And as advertisers, you want to tap into the user’s time, so if they are spending a lot of time on email, you want to be part of that. “Given that, email marketers have to focus on making their messages easily seen on the mobile device for consumers. They have to make them easily readable, easily actionable and they have to make sure that the email size is right. So there are a lot of things that marketers have to do in order to target their user base effectively on mobile.”
“The explosion in mobile means that email marketers are now with their subscribers, clients and consumers 24/7” The Email Marketing Guide
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The explosion in mobile means that email marketers are now with their subscribers, clients and consumers 24/7, and that the emails are going to be read in different contexts and situations, whether waiting in a queue or walking down the street. The good news is that the timing of messages, which has always been a huge concern for email marketers, is becoming less of an issue, as consumers are able to access messages at all times of the day. However, the other side of the coin is that marketers now need to understand their audience better than ever before, understand the context they may be reading the messages in, and give serious thought to modifying these accordingly.
“...consumers on mobile are more responsive – some suggest you can get double the response rate from your mobile audience than from your desktop audience,”
“It has been demonstrated in reports and case studies that consumers on mobile are more responsive – some suggest you can get double the response rate from your mobile audience than from your desktop audience,” she says. “So if you do a good job with the optimisation of your email for your mobile and your landing page then you are likely to get an increase in uplift and conversions as well.” But, unsurprisingly, businesses will need to invest The Email Marketing Guide
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time and money to reap these benefits. “As far as the actual logistics of creating these optimised emails, there is going to be a small investment, in terms of redesigning these mails and getting them optimised,” Pay continues. “There are a couple of options. One is just to simplify the email altogether – email is only the vehicle, its purpose is to get the customer to the landing page where they are going to be converting (whether that is to download a white paper or make a purchase), so it makes sense to have a nice simple mail. The other option, which is the ultimate solution at the moment, is to use a responsively designed email so that no matter what device they open the mail on they will be getting the properly designed one. So there is a lot of forethought and preparation needed to go into that, as well as investment. “The other issue is that either your website needs to be fully optimised again using responsive design, or you follow suit on a landing page by landing page basis to ensure that the pages you’re driving traffic to is also optimised, because there is a real disconnect if you have a nice optimised email that then takes customers through to a non-optimised landing page. So there is additional work and additional budget required but it is not huge, particularly when you consider the benefits you’re going to be gaining from it.”
Integration with social media
The final mega-trend that is influencing email marketing is social media. Email marketers have for some time now been exploring how the integration of email and social media can deliver marketing success, The Email Marketing Guide
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and while it remains early days for most organisations, early results indicate that they could be a winning combination.
Paid media includes: • Sponsored tweets • Facebook ads
Paid media Owned media includes: • Landing pages • White papers • Blogs
Owned media
Earned media
Earned media includes: • Retweets • Likes and Comments
Diagram 1: J itender Miglani’s description of media
Miglani explains: “There are three kinds of media: we have paid media, which is charged, such as Sponsored Tweets and Facebook ads; owned media, which is all the landing pages and the white papers you own and the blogs you write; and earned media, which is the retweets and likes and comments you get. We believe that email helps you increase the statistics of your owned and earned media. You can provide the options for following you on Twitter or liking your Facebook page in your emails. And social also helps you increase your email database – you can ask people that like your Facebook page to sign up to your email newsletters.” While email marketers have been largely frustrated in their efforts to see ‘forward to a friend’ ignite, social
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sharing is showing greater potential, with studies demonstrating the impact it could have. Recent analysis by GetResponse, for instance, suggests that newsletters that included social sharing buttons had a 115% higher average click-through-rate. So it is perhaps surprising that the number of businesses that include social sharing buttons in their emails is still relatively low.
“Recent analysis by GetResponse, for instance, suggests that newsletters that included social sharing buttons had a 115% higher average click- through-rate.”
“Social sharing isn’t taking off as much as we had originally predicted – ‘forward to a friend on steroids’ type of thing – but it’s becoming more of a part of everyone’s daily lives and we’re more trusting of it so there is some pick-up,” says Pay. For the most part, there is only partial integration of the two channels at present, rather than fully leveraging each other to cross-pollinate into the other channel. Partly this is a result of a relative lack of maturity in the field, and partly this is due to the siloed approach that most organisations still operate with. “Often email will have a team and social will have a
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team, so there is no unified view of the customer,” explains Miglani.“Everybody is managing their channels in silos and we don’t understand this emerging media right now, so getting a unified customer view and integrating email and social is a challenge.” The downside of this is that there is repetition, says Pay. “You don’t want to be replicating the same content on the channels because if you have got the same audience then you want to be delivering unique content in each channel,” she says. “But this comes down to the fact that there are still silos – the social media silo and email marketing silo – and they don’t always talk to each other. So ideally you need to have a strategy in place where you establish what value the email is delivering, what its objective is and what value social is delivering and what its objective is. These are two different things, yet they are using each other to cross-pollinate. And the advantage of that is that you can be using your email to promote a competition on your social media channel, and also social media should ideally have an email sign up.”
“Ideally you need to have a strategy in place where you establish what value the email is delivering, what its objective is and what value social is delivering and what its objective is.” The Email Marketing Guide
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But Pay emphasises that early results demonstrate that the future of the two channels is to be “completely and utterly” integrated. “Social has been around long enough for us to understand that it has a distinct purpose, and that isn’t necessarily for companies to be driving ROI, whereas email does – so the two tend to blend quite well together “Social has been around long enough for us to understand that it has a distinct purpose, and that isn’t necessarily for companies to be driving ROI, whereas email does – so the two tend to blend quite well together,” she continues. “It’s just a case of organisations identifying their objectives for each channel and making sure the strategies and the content is different and ensuring there is little overlap. “Some of the companies that are utilising them together are probably overlapping a little bit too much, which takes away the value belonging to both of the channels – the user will think why should they belong to both. The challenge therefore is to break down those silos, have discussions internally, get that strategy working and then of course, on a practical basis, remember that we are the email team and we have a competition for social that we need to promote and cross-pollinate.”
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Chapter 2.
How to build a better email marketing strategy Neil Davey, editor, MyCustomer.com Experts share comprehensive advice on building an email marketing strategy from the ground up. With mobile devices driving email engagement and commercial returns rising, investment in email marketing is set for robust growth in the coming years. And with a number of key trends conspiring to drive email marketing to greater heights, there’s never been a better time to capitalise on the email channel. However, those looking for a quick fix will be in for a rude awakening. As with so many initiatives, email marketing demands a structured and strategic approach if campaigns are to succeed. “Modern marketers are under increasing pressure to deliver significant ROI from their marketing campaigns and only by adopting a strategic approach can digital marketers truly enjoy the potential of this channel,” says Henry Smith, director of product marketing at Emailvision. “All email marketing campaigns need to be tactical, but if they don’t form part of an overall marketing strategy marketers will never really gain insight into their broader customer base and how they interact with your brand,” adds Helen Taylor, data analyst at Experian Marketing Services. “Having an overall
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email marketing strategy is important to keep campaigns focused and relevant to customers, as well as ensuring a common trend throughout the emails.” So with that in mind, where should marketers start when building a strategy? “One of the main pitfalls that marketers fall into is creating a campaign before they really know what they are trying to achieve,” continues Taylor. “Before an email is even sent, marketers need to consider a number of elements of their campaign.” She recommends the following: •
stablish the aim or focus for your email E campaign. Is it to inform customers? Are you trying to sell products? Are your campaigns multifaceted? In any case, marketers need to ensure that all campaigns have clear aims and achievable goals that create a benchmark for success.
•
onsider how you plan to target your customers C – does your strategy warrant a cover-all-bases approach, or should more time be spent making emails much more relevant? ROI is often higher on targeted and tailored campaigns, so be sure to allow sufficient time for this.
•
ain an understanding of your customer base if G possible; what type of person are they? What is the age range and gender split? How often are they likely to want contact – daily, weekly, monthly?
•
onsider the type of content they receive - would C they appreciate a more luxury email or a more fun email for instance? What type of template will The Email Marketing Guide
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appeal most? Are they heavily socially engaged or show high mobile usage? •
hink beyond the desktop - establish whether T you want to join up your social and mobile interactions to your emails and make sure you research these capabilities carefully.
In addition, Joel Book, principal, marketing research & education at ExactTarget, believes strategic consideration also needs to be given to the following: •
Who do we need to communicate with?
•
hat information or offer would be of greatest W value and importance?
•
Why is this information relevant to the individual?
•
hen would this individual be most receptive to W this information or offer?
•
here will the person to go to respond to the offer W (i.e. landing page)?
•
ow will email program effectiveness be H measured?
“By answering these questions, the email marketing professional will be able to plan specific programs that can be aligned to each stage of the customer lifecycle,” suggests Book. “This process will provide a strategic plan for using email to engage the customer more effectively and avoid falling into the ‘one size fits all’ trap of sending the same email to every customer regardless of where he or she is in the relationship with the brand.”
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The Customer Lifecycle
Marketing Goal
Who
Product Product Product Awareness Evaluation Purchase
Product Usage
Repurchase Renewal
Brand Loyalty
Acquire
Serve
Grow
Retain
Engage
Convert
Contact Type (user/non user)
What
Offer or Information
Why
Interest or Need
When
Timing/Trigger
Where
Landing page for conversion Metrics for Measurement
How
Email campaigns
Diagram 2: J oel Book’s email marketing planning tool
So what should the strategy contain? Email is much more than email creative and the landing page where customers will respond to the offer. Other essential components of your strategy should include: •
Subscriber acquisition plan.
•
mail and landing page design (for both desktop E PCs and mobile devices).
•
Offer and message testing plan.
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sage of customer data to personalise content U based on subscriber preferences.
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mail delivery and sender reputation E management.
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essaging rules to ensure delivery of relevant M content based on lifecycle stage.
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The number one priority for an email marketing strategy is goals, according to Sylvia Jensen, director of EMEA marketing at Eloqua. “Consider what the purpose of email marketing is for your company,” she says. “Is it to drive demand, generate leads or upsell the customer base? Why are you doing email at all? Define this first.” From a high level, the planning steps for email are: •
Define the goals (includes audience).
•
ow are you going to reach the goals? What H is the strategy to get there? (Do you need new technology? Do you need to create more content?)
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Build a content library / content calendar.
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ap out the experience of your recipients (what M email will they get first? What’s second?).
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easure, track and optimise (email marketing M is not ‘set it and forget it’ - it requires constant monitoring and optimisation).
Other pieces of advice to ensure a robust email marketing strategy include: •
nsure you’re following best practice in growing E your subscriber base and obtaining permission. “An effective email marketing strategy should not be built in isolation of other marketing efforts,” Smith says. “Consider all your different subscriber touch-points and optimise their effectiveness, not just on your website but through all of your marketing channels – online and offline. Make sure the context is appropriate to gain subscriber
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permission, and clearly explain the benefits to subscribing and providing personal data.” “There should be a strategy for sustained list growth that is focused firstly on quality then quantity and aligned with legal and permission best practices,” adds Daniel Harari VP client services emarsys. “Segment the clients or subscribers using recency, frequency and monetary values (RFM) or other methods.” •
reate a campaign strategy based upon the C customer’s lifecyle with your business. “For example, create an effective welcome programme – this is essential in creating trust with subscribers and building loyalty from the start,” recommends Smith. “Recognise customers when they have shopped in-store as well as online and reward customers for loyalty. In our second UK retail email benchmarking study – ’Giving your customers a welcome they deserve’ – we found that 64% of the top 100 IMRG UK online retailers send out their first email communication within 15 minutes of a customer signing up online to obtain a maximum on return whilst the brand is still on the mind of the consumer.”
•
xamine the email marketing mix to determine E factors such as the combination of occasional batch campaigns, such as seasonal sales, special promotions, or recurring campaigns such as weekly newsletters and lifecycle communications to deploy welcome messages, first-timer feedback or reactivation campaigns.
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•
e all strive for higher converting messages so W spend time on the content strategy. “Clearly map out the type of content to send to what segment in what type of campaign (batch, recurring and lifecycle) to achieve the highest level of relevancy for the intended recipients,” advises Harari.
•
ocus on longer term customer objectives rather F than short-term campaign objectives – this will be more beneficial to the overall business. “Rather than measuring your performance in opens and clicks, analyse how your campaigns effect average revenue per user, customer lifetime value, advocacy and customer satisfaction or net promoter score,” says Smith.
•
or those that need to outsource to experts, F choose a partner carefully. Harari recommends: “Ask if they can provide me with both the technical solution and consulting services to implement my strategy and help me on an ongoing basis to achieve my goals.”
But an effective email marketing strategy should also not be limited to marketing alone, advises Book. In formulating your company’s email strategy, he recommends taking into consideration how and where email can also be used for sales and customer service.
For marketing: •
eliver relevant and timely information and offers D to customers and prospects.
•
romote events that generate leads; Link to your P brand’s social media sites blog. The Email Marketing Guide
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•
uel Word-of-Mouth! Invite subscribers to ‘share’ F email with work colleagues and friends.
For sales: •
urture leads; provide information that aids N purchase decision.
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Drive repeat purchase or renewal.
•
eliver offers triggered by customer behaviour or D customer insight.
For service: •
eep customers informed of product updates and K special offers.
•
eliver information that enhances the product use D experience.
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se email to respond to inquiries, questions and U problems.
Finally, testing should of course also be built into the strategy. Only by ensuring that rigorous processes are in place for digital marketing teams to regularly test and monitor success throughout all email campaigns can optimisation be driven. “Testing should cover all areas of the email campaign including, subject lines and time and frequency, to certify that all communications are properly resonating with customers,” notes Smith. “Sending the right messages with the right offers to the right customers at the right time is critical to achieving a positive response. Once you base your email
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campaigns around the knowledge you have about your customer, email has the power to create stronger customer relationships, establish deeper brand loyalty and drive revenue.”
“Sending the right messages with the right offers to the right customers at the right time is critical to achieving a positive response.”
And Taylor has the following pieces of final advice for those building a strategy. “Start small - don’t try to implement everything straight away, work through the things that you want to do one by one. It’s better to take your time and have strong campaigns and emails rather than rushing through the set up and alienating customers with mistakes,” she says. “And don’t be afraid to try different tactics on your inactive segments, doing something different can be the perfect way to re-engage customers.”
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Chapter 3.
How to choose the most appropriate email marketing solution Neil Davey, editor, MyCustomer.com Experts provide a comprehensive guide to identifying the most appropriate email marketing vendor for your business, including how to build an RFP. Email marketing automation has had such a significant impact in sectors such as financial services, hospitality and retail, that when Forrester outlined the mega-trends that were shaping the market, the growth of automation tools was one of the top contributors. “If you want to launch a sophisticated acquisition and retention email marketing campaign, you need to have good trigger-based programmes to keep engaging the users - and that has given rise to the entire field of email marketing automation,” says Forrester analyst Jitender Miglani. But with well over 100 different email marketing vendors in the UK alone, finding a vendor isn’t the challenge – it’s choosing the right one.
Where to begin?
“Before you even start your search for the perfect vendor, it’s essential to assess where your current marketing efforts stand, and where you want them to go. Set up a budget, timeline and business case so that you can hit the ground running as soon as you select The Email Marketing Guide
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a vendor,” recommends Ellen Valentine, product evangelist at Silverpop. “Once your goals are identified, share your needs and expectations with prospective vendors. Be honest. Also take time to consider each potential feature suggested by a vendor to ensure it’s right for you in both the short and long term. “Your objective should be to select a provider who fits your needs while also allowing for strategic give and take, especially if you’ve been using an in-house solution. Remember, digital marketing technology mandates a symbiotic relationship based on both the vendor’s ability to meet your desired needs, and their ability to give candid feedback. There should be a professional chemistry that makes you feel comfortable.
“The industry has got very good sales people and marketing is now in control of buying technology but marketers aren’t often technologists so they get oversold.”
Steve Kemish, managing director at Cyance Limited and chair of the IDM’s Digital Marketing Council, adds: “Most people buy way more technology than they need. This isn’t just an issue in email marketing. The industry has got very good sales
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people and marketing is now in control of buying technology but marketers aren’t often technologists so they get oversold. “All the tools do roughly the same thing, albeit there may be a few different bells and whistles depending on the industry you work in and where they specialise. From the get-go, the ROI piece of buying the system is a challenge because you end up buying many more buttons than you’re ever going to use. So you need to find a vendor who will work with you to help you scale what you’re doing as opposed to selling you the big black box of dreams from day one.”
The RFP process
Because of these challenges, it is critical that your business dedicates proper time for the vendor search, regardless of whether your business consists of marketing veterans or rookies. To help assess the resources available and provide greater clarity, the Request for Proposal (RFP) process is critical. “RFPs take considerable time and effort to produce and should lay the foundation for a comfortable, yet incredibly efficient and successful working relationship,” says Valentine. To construct such a plan, she recommends the following: • D ecide which service option is best for you: Every situation is different, and digital marketing is certainly not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Options include: -- Full service solution: Where the vendor runs The Email Marketing Guide
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the entire application and all associated services invisibly to you. - Self-service solution: You operate the marketing application through a web-based interface. - Collaborative solution: Where you and your vendor both operate portions of the application and work together on services related to email and marketing automation strategy, best practices, fulfilment, creative design or marketing. Deciding which service option is best for you will help trim your list of prospects while also providing more clarity about the options available for digital marketing as you engage your shortlist of vendors. •
ecide on vendors: Narrow your search down to a D handful of vendors who best fit your needs based on the research, goals and initial service level needed.
•
pproach vendors: Remember that while vendors A are competing for your business, they are running their own businesses as well. Request information from vendors you’re truly considering engaging so you have a comprehensive view of each vendor’s capabilities.
How to write a RFP
Generally speaking, RFPs should consist of two main sections: ‘information to provide’ and ‘information to request’. •
I nformation to provide: Constructing the ideal digital marketing plan is a two-way street, so be sure to thoroughly document and communicate The Email Marketing Guide
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information about your company, your marketing department goals and reasons why you are considering a new digital marketing platform. Also include administrative information such as deadlines, proposal submission guidelines, evaluation criteria and a schedule of the RFP process. • Information to request: Here is where you find out the nuts and bolts of each prospective vendor, and how each best fits your needs. This section should include: --Vendor information (executive summary, vendor size and other company metrics, competitive differentiators.) --Proposed solution (including features, data security and storage options.) --Customer service and support plans (Including a detailed plan of how problems are identified, handled and prevented.) --Client references (specify the types of clients you would like to include and how those references will be contacted.) --Pricing and purchase terms (this will provide you with a helpful way to consider vendors from a budgeting perspective, while also helping manage all solution costs that may arise.) Kemish adds: “The advice I always give to people on the selection of email systems is to put questions in the RFP such as ‘Where do you see the email marketing industry going in the next 24 months?’ and
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‘What do you think are the biggest challenges with email marketing today?’ And that starts to smoke out the people that actually get the marketing aspect of it rather than just being good at the technology sale. My advice is to think laterally about partnering with somebody who can work on your marketing as opposed to providing you with a really sexy set of buttons, bells and whistles.”
After the RFP
While you may be inclined to simply wait for the responses to the RFP, taking a dynamic role in the post-release RFP phase can pay handsome dividends, says Valentine. “Companies should allow for open dialogue with prospects to ensure the best results. Once you receive all proposals, narrow your list further and arrange for detailed demonstrations from your remaining prospects. From there, coordinate inperson meetings to further assess the prospects and decide on which vendor is ultimately best for you.” While this entire process can seem overwhelming, ensuring the best value for the best returns will be more than worth the effort.
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Chapter 4.
How to build an expert email marketing team Neil Davey, editor, MyCustomer.com What are the skills and roles your email marketing programme must possess if it is to prove a success? Having gone through the laborious process of identifying the most appropriate email marketing vendor and tool, it would be easy to assume that the hard work is done. But your email marketing programme must focus on technology at the expense of talent. To get the most out of your ongoing email marketing initiatives, your business needs to assemble a quality team of knowledgeable professionals. While the number of professionals in the team is subject to change, as members can perform several roles, there are several specialised skills that are necessary.
Strategy
“One of the key factors that is eternally missing from the majority of large brands is an email marketing strategy,” says Kath Pay, co-founder of Plan to Engage, communications hub chair of the DMA Email Marketing Council. “If you think of all the channels that are available, most have a strategy – but email doesn’t. It’s still viewed as ‘Hey it works so let’s just do it’, which is why you end up with so many ad
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hoc campaigns. But with email getting more budget allocated now, hopefully some of that will go towards more businesses creating an email strategy.” A strategist will need to lay the foundation for a successful email program, and have a good understanding of how it will fit into the larger context of the business. Aside from creating the overall strategic plan and ensuring that this aligns with other channel strategies, duties could include producing more short-term tactical plans, formulating content of campaigns and managing ongoing campaigns in line with the marketing calendar. For more on producing an email marketing strategy, see our earlier feature: How to build a better email marketing strategy.
Graphic design
Once the plan is in place, the email concept will need to be put in place and a designer will need to develop templates for the email messages. This will involve ensuring that the messages will look good across multiple email clients, have a consistent style and optimise the preview pane. Steve Kemish, managing director at Cyance Limited and chair of the IDM’s Digital Marketing Council, says: “From a creative point of view, visually it has to be appealing. But the designer also needs to recognise that one of the big problems of email marketing from a spam point of view is that too many emails have more images than text, and there is an HTML-to-text ratio that a lot of spam systems will trap.”
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Copywriting
“One of the things that I find isn’t allocated enough to email and is one of the biggest oversights is the need for an actual copywriter,” says Pay. “Can you imagine a direct mail campaign being sent out and the receptionist writing the copy for it? It’s not going to happen. But it happens continually with email marketing – they just get anyone to write the copy. And the copy is so very important, it is one of the key factors within the actual email itself.” Kemish adds: “You need someone who gets marketing and the principles of communication. An email needs a subject line that recognises how to use communication, and has a call to action message that is clear and relevant.”
“A good writer will reflect the company’s voice in every email, using the voice to engage and promote brand recognition.”
A good writer will reflect the company’s voice in every email, using the voice to engage and promote brand recognition.
Data administration and analytics
“In terms of priority, data has to come first,” says Kemish. “It is pleasing that data is becoming cool
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again, because it was very much a geeky subject and in the past the people who looked after it perhaps didn’t make it clear to everyone else in the business just how valuable it is. But data should run all of this.� An administrator will need to manage the email subscriber list, keeping it clean of unsubscribes and duplicate data. But once a campaign has been deployed, stakeholders will also want reports analysing the results, including measuring performance such as open rates and clickthroughs, and identifying trends and anomalies. In addition, work can be done with the bosses to identify segments to better target future messages.
IT management
It is vital that all the software and hardware involved in an email campaign run smoothly. There are several components of IT management that concern a campaign: email marketing programs require a technician to manage the administrative functions and connection parameters; mail servers need to be properly configured by an expert, who will also deal with the likes of email-based unsubscribe processing and managing bounces; domain name system configuration requires a professional to ensure uninterrupted email delivery; network security issues also need managing to ensure protection of sensitive data, involving the configuration of separate database connections and mail server connections.
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Quality assurance and testing
It is vital that every component of your email campaign is 100% correct before you hit ‘send’. As such, testing every aspect of a campaign, from concept to deployment, is critical. Test plans should be created to ensure that rigorous testing takes place on content, rendering, segments and dynamic components and successes and failures should subsequently be documented.
Project management
Usually an email marketing manager will oversee the other various job roles, creating a timeline for resources, collecting the campaign assets such as graphics and copy, and managing the schedule by enforcing deadlines. This person ensures that the project is efficient and successful, and as such is arguably the most crucial role. Appointing an email marketing program manager is the most important decision you make according to Cara Olson, director of digital direct/eCRM at DEG. “As far as I know, you still can’t get a degree in email marketing, so finding someone solid to run your program can be a daunting task,” she says. In the next feature in this series, she’ll explain who and how to hire the best email marketing manager for your business.
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Chapter 5.
Email marketing managers who and how to hire Cara Olson, director of digital direct/eCRM at DEG Appointing an email marketing program manager is the most important decision you make. As far as I know, you still can’t get a degree in email marketing, so finding someone solid to run your program can be a daunting task. With almost a decade of hiring successful performers in this area, it is my experience that those who go on to success have experience in three areas: agency experience, industry experience and email experience. Frequently I find two out of three, but it is surprisingly difficult to find them all.
Agency experience
Successful agency experience tells me that the individual can multi-task effectively. Ad agencies are generally fast-paced work environments with tight deadlines, demanding clients and significant pressure to perform. An individual who has navigated these waters has seen projects that did not go as planned, and learned to adapt quickly to still meet client requirements and due dates. Most email marketing campaigns have a project timeline of about two weeks. If an unexpected hurdle occurs (products featured are suddenly sold out, management adds a promotion at The Email Marketing Guide
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the last minute to increase sales, or a hundred other things) the timeline can be even shorter.
“You need an individual who manages the unexpected with ease and poise, and effectively interacts with the team to get the project done.”
You need an individual who manages the unexpected with ease and poise, and effectively interacts with the team to get the project done. Individuals without agency experience are not guaranteed to be unsuccessful by any means, but I find that it takes them longer to get up to speed. For the first few weeks on the job they may have a ‘deer in the headlights’ look as they work to keep up with the speed of the environment. I am not saying I only consider candidates with agency experience. The ability to be resourceful, decisive, and intuitive can be gained in other roles as well. But my experience tells me that people who’ve spent time in an agency and been successful have mastered this particular dynamic. How to ask this in an interview: Tell me about a time when you realised you were going to miss a deadline. When did you realise it and how did you handle the situation.
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Industry experience
Because email lends itself so well to retail, I tend to hire candidates with retail industry experience. No matter what industry you’re in, I strongly suggest that you hire from that or a very close analog. I’ll use retail to demonstrate why this is important. A candidate with successful retail experience, either on the agency side or the client-side, understands discounting, couponing, merchandising, and (in some cases) driving sales both online and offline. Without this experience it is difficult for the individual to understand why one promotion would outperform another. The individual may not understand what questions to ask to know if the promotion would even be possible. For example, can the POS accept unique coupon codes, scan barcodes from a phone, attribute sales to email and so on? A candidate with retail experience also understands how to adhere to a company’s brand standards, how the staff may be structured (who is responsible for what), and how to better navigate internal politics. How to ask this in an interview: Tell me about the last presentation you gave. How did you prepare and who did you present to?
Email experience
Depending on the level of sophistication for the role you are hiring, this may be the most important experience for the candidate to possess. With email marketing experience, regardless of the industry, an individual will understand the jargon, terminology, performance metrics, common pitfalls, typical
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timelines, software expertise, and a dozen other elements that can only be learned by doing. For an entry-level role this may not be necessary, but with the number of candidates in the job market today, a company can require this more easily. Experience with email gives an individual a feel for how campaigns should perform, allowing them to more astutely assess your current programs. Through that assessment, she will be able to recommend new campaigns and programs that will have the lowest cost and highest return. Email experience can be varied in nature – just be sure the individual’s experience is with a reputable sender. After that, their experience should closely mirror the responsibilities in the role you’re looking to fill. How to ask this in an interview: Tell me about the new email programs you were able to launch in the last 12 months for your previous employer. Why did you select those programs and how did you determine their success?
Two out of three
Perhaps your business isn’t as fast-paced as a retailer. Or you have a large lead time and extensive training program to on-board a new hire. In this case you may choose to forego agency experience. Perhaps your industry experience is easily taught, or so unusual it would be highly unlikely to find a candidate with this experience. In this case you may choose to forego industry experience. If you are hiring for a less sophisticated role, and the person will be reporting to someone with deep email expertise who can teach
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the new hire, then you may choose to forego email experience. Finding all three would always be the ideal, but it’s not always possible. If that’s the case, closely examine the demands of the role you’re looking to fill and find which two of the three are requisite and go from there.
Take the lead
With today’s unemployment rate you can obtain a more experienced candidate. Many of my entry level hires today even have a master’s degree. But hiring the right candidate is just the beginning. Give your associates autonomy and the right tools, empowering them to do a great job.
“Be a mentor and a sponsor for their career, and reward them for a job well done.”
Be a mentor and a sponsor for their career, and reward them for a job well done. Do these things and your team will become a magnet for more great talent – which will make hiring great people much less of a challenge in the long run.
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Chapter 6.
Email marketing measurement the three most powerful metrics Karen Talavera, head of Synchronicity Marketing Forget email campaign metrics like delivery, open and click-through rates – measure marketing performance in terms of the goals and objectives that matter. In today’s world, it’s not enough to know how an individual email campaign performed on a onetime basis. To learn whether or not your company is deriving true value from email marketing, you need the both broader and deeper perspectives offered by program- and list-level analyses. While email campaign process metrics like delivery, open and click-through rates have their place, without looking beyond them the true impact of your email marketing – and opportunities for continuous improvement – will go undetected. It’s high time email marketers assess email marketing performance in terms of the goals, objectives, and contribution expectations that matter.
So what matters?
Determining what matters most requires a clear understanding of your organisation’s strategic objectives and goals for email as a marketing channel.
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In other words, why are you using email marketing for and what do you want it to do for you? •
o you want it to accomplish softer marketing D goals like generating brand impressions, communicating with customers and influencing purchase decisions? Or;
•
o you want it to drive harder revenue-producing D goals like generating new leads, inquiries and direct sales?
Whether your purpose for email marketing is ‘soft’, ‘hard’ or a combination thereof, here are three types of email marketing analyses that, in my opinion, should become standard practice because they’re so powerfully effective in measuring the impact of your investment in this channel regardless of how you use it:
1. Responder segmentation analysis
Are you analysing who your email responders are by unique attributes such as gender, age, geography, past buying behaviour, time on list, source of name, or social media connections? If not, you should be! The beauty of this ‘back-end’ analysis is that you don’t have to divide your list into multiple segments before deploying a campaign. Provided your email database is searchable by the subscriber characteristics mentioned above (and more), you could categorise responders post-campaign to begin developing a detailed profile of who they are. For this type of analysis, you could create responder profiles by different response actions (open, click and The Email Marketing Guide
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conversion), but to keep it simple, define what your desired call to action is (the thing you most want people to do) and profile only those who completed that call to action (your ‘converters’). Also, don’t stop at conducting responder analysis on a campaign-by-campaign basis. Conduct it in aggregate for all campaigns deployed quarterly, semi-annually and annually. For example, a responder-analysis by time on list might reveal that established members (who signed up more than six months ago) convert at a higher frequency than new list members (who signed up within the last six months). Knowing this might lead you to increase the frequency of email to new members, or test an onboarding campaign to new members as a way to get them familiarised, engaged and converting faster. Or, you might find that analysis by age indicates that your subscribers aged 45-55 are more responsive than the 25-35 year olds. Knowing that would change how you position your offers would affect your creative choices for email copy, images, font sizes and so on. What do you do with what you learn from this analysis? Use responder profiles to: •
nderstand how demographic or geographic U differences affect response
•
I mprove targeting and segmentation on future campaigns
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ary offers and creative to improve response on V less active segments
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2. Email subscriber engagement analysis
It’s great to have a performance report for each email message you deploy, but you’ll also want to know how your entire list of subscribers behaves in response to your email over longer periods of time. This type of analysis relies on measuring cumulative actions by responder (opens, clicks, conversions) during defined time periods (usually quarterly or annually) to uncover both the best, most active responders as well as uncover inactive list segments for re-activation or culling. Unlike a responder segmentation analysis which tries to paint a picture of who responders are, an email subscriber engagement analysis is more concerned with measuring the total reach and effectiveness of email marketing to your list. For example, how many people across your entire list have ever clicked on an email? How many have done so more than once? How many click on every message? Analysing the frequency distribution of response actions like open, click and conversion across your list over time tells you a lot about both the depth and breadth of your email program’s impact. What do you do with what you learn from this analysis? Use the data to: •
ffer incentives to increase response from O infrequent openers, clickers or converters
•
I ncrease frequency on less active segments to see if it improves engagement
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•
I dentify weak or non-responsive list segments for reactivation campaigns, or suppression
•
reate a premium program for your best C responders. Reward them with exclusive offers, content or other special treatment
3. Channel contribution analysis
What’s the bottom-line impact of email as a marketing channel on your business? This analysis seeks the answer in terms of economic impact.
“Economic impact doesn’t have to mean direct sales revenue”
Economic impact doesn’t have to mean direct sales revenue. It could, but it might instead be measured in increased site traffic, leads generated, new subscriptions attained, social media connections made, or gross brand impressions. Or, it could be measured in the cost savings and efficiency gains of email vs. more expensive marketing channels like direct mail. So, understanding the economic value of each response action that an email marketing message generates is key. For example, what do you have to pay to get a page visit? What about a qualified lead? How about a new customer? Or a purchase from a repeat customer? Do you know your allowable maximum cost for any of those actions (known as your cost-per-action or CPA)?
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If you do, you can attribute it to those your email program generates. For example, if an email campaign produced 1,000 unique site visits that would normally cost you $0.25 each if using paid search marketing to drive traffic, then your email campaign just saved you $250 on search (or contributed $250 in value, depending on how you want to measure it). hat do you do with what you learn from this W analysis? Use the data to: •
etermine return on investment: D Is email generating more economic value than it costs or is it costing more than it contributes?
•
etermine average response/order value (AOV): D How much economic value – in soft or hard dollars – does a conversion via email contribute? If it’s sales, what’s the average order amount from email?
•
Calculate revenue-per-email: If your email marketing generates sales, how much is each name on your list producing in revenue each year?
•
Calculate value-per-email: If your email marketing does not generate sales but does drive site traffic, social media connections or new leads, what would each of those be worth to you if you had to pay to get it? Assign that value to each name on your list and add it up annually.
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Remember, measuring what matters is not necessarily as easy as just glancing at those simple email campaign process metric reports that come your way after every message you send, but it’s not rocket science either. And at budget time, when you’re clamouring for more staff or money, having the results of these analyses at hand is absolutely worth it. Karen Talavera is the head of Synchronicity Marketing and writes about how to successfully use email, social media and content marketing on the Enlightened Emarketing blog.For a free Digital Marketing Breakthrough Session revealing how to generate more visibility, revenue and results from your e-marketing click here.
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Chapter 7.
The beginner’s guide to A/B testing Lucy Acheson, head of data planning at WDMP Lucy Acheson provides an overview of A/B testing including guidance, advice and a list of potential pitfalls to avoid. The joy that digital and direct communications can offer a marketeer if done right stems from the empirical insight, which is made available through the tracking of consumer behaviour after each and every encounter with them. Measurability is the lifeblood of what we do and should sit squarely at the centre of all communication planning.
“Woe betide the brand that says they can’t afford to test, as those in the know would argue you simply can’t afford not to test and optimise.”
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and the consumer. Woe betide the brand that says they can’t afford to test, as those in the know would argue you simply can’t afford not to test and optimise. Indeed, it is music to our ears when a client says, “OK, let’s test each route,” signalling their humility in allowing consumer behaviour to dictate strategy.
Why test?
And at the forefront of that measurability and metrics battle lies the modest but brilliantly effective A/B or split test. I wasn’t sure how I would use my biology degree in my chosen career in marketing when I left university, but obviously proving that something works better than a variation on a theme is as important when studying the heredity of pea plants as it is in email marketing. The humble A/B test allows for objective campaign planning and strips away the dreaded HiPPO (high paid person opinion) school of decision making, allowing brands to communicate with their consumers in a quantitatively proven manner. It forms the back bone of the ever-evolving strategic roadmap, whereby brands and marketers constantly battle to refine previous thinking and improve the results they can coax from their customer bases and websites. Walk into any marketing department in the land and ask the first person you see, “Which is the best day to send out an email?” I guarantee you will get seven different answers, or maybe more. For this question, and any of the other recurring ones such as “What shall we put in the subject line” and “Should we direct consumers to Amazon or the on-line shop”, the only The Email Marketing Guide
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way to prove the answer categorically is to test one option against another in a head to head response-off!
“...the only way to prove the answer categorically is to test one option against another in a head to head response-off!”
An A/B test is a clean and clear experimental approach that tests two variations of an email to a statistically valid subset of a target audience focusing on just one altered element. The result can quickly be acted upon and rolled out to the remaining target audience with confidence, knowing that on the day, Route A was preferred to Route B.
It really works
A good example of an A/B test in action can be shown with work we did recently for Philips mother and baby brand AVENT. We created an email campaign to launch a new breast pump, with two different versions. Version one focused on recommendations for the product from other mums while the second version included a discount of 25% off the product. Discounts cost money so we wanted to evaluate the difference between offer and no offer and see if any increase in response would make the extra cost worthwhile. 15,000 consumers were sent the first message and the same number received the special offer email.
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Both emails were blasted simultaneously. We found that the offer uplifted response by 50%, but we didn’t stop there. We then ran another A/B test with ‘exclusive discount’ in the subject line and this uplifted results by a further 6%. Quantitative substantiation had been achieved on the best creative route to take and the subsequent results spoke for themselves in terms of elevated response metrics.
Avoiding mistakes
It sounds simple and the beauty of an A/B test is that it is! However, mistakes can be made. The core being that A/B tests need to focus on just one changed variable. If more than one thing is altered then it isn’t possible to isolate which variation is responsible for the change in consumer behaviour: you have learnt nothing. In addition your A/B tests need to be carried out at exactly the same time. This ensures that the results can be attributed to the altered variable(s) and not external environmental response influencers, such as time of day, day of week, market place conditions, and economy. Secondly, a classic error is not calculating how big a cell size needs to be to run the initial split test. Use a tool, or an analyst, to calculate confidence levels based on the proposed cell size and your expected response rate. That way the result can be relied on and opportunities aren’t missed. A 95% confidence level is the norm for email marketing purposes. Thirdly, allow your test to run its natural course. There is a temptation to dive in and grapple with the figures as soon as they start to come in, but an A/B test should be measured over the same time period The Email Marketing Guide
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as you would normally track an email campaign for. If you know that historically you have received 80% of your response in 48 hours, then let the test run for a similar time frame, once again ensuring statistical robustness. Another pitfall to avoid is once a test has taken place and you are ready to roll out your optimised message to the bulk of your target audience, ensure that the conversion funnel is primed and ready to receive the increased volume of traffic. This is especially true at peak sales or response periods throughout the year. There is no point in working hard to optimise response if the backend management systems such as call centres, websites and e-shops aren’t stocked and primed and ready to receive the volume of consumers you are about to drive towards them. There is no bigger turn off for a consumer than arriving at a website, excited and ready to spend some money, and finding that the product and service isn’t available. In essence, think past the marketing strategy and include other stakeholders in planning your campaign.
Don’t reinvent the wheel
As a small housekeeping point, store and name your test campaigns in a structured way. You are expending energy and budget to learn something. Those learnings should be made available to all concerned to avoid the corporate marketing amnesia we all face, as campaigns come and go and personnel change on a regular basis. A results database is something we always recommend to ensure that the insights garnered are methodically stored and that the same ground is not covered needlessly; unless of course the
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environment has changed sufficiently to merit a retest! The only other key thought is around the fact that once you have treated a consumer in a certain way, then that consistency should be maintained from thereafter. Tracking tools and campaign management systems available today should be able to track who has seen what, and deliver content accordingly. So for instance, if you personalised an email subject line for me and then made changes to a website you were driving me to, which lead me to respond or behave in a good way, don’t take these facets of my experience away next time you speak to me.
“Today’s outright winner in an A/B test will be tomorrow’s control cell.”
Lastly, continue to test discretely, always striving to enhance the consumer’s experience and elicit the behaviour you seek. Today’s outright winner in an A/B test will be tomorrow’s control cell. Harsh but a reality in the ever-evolving consumer landscape facing us as marketers in 2013 - 170 years since Gregor Mendel used A/B tests to develop his ground breaking laws on genetics for pea plants, changing the world forever. Who knows, following a methodology he pioneered, your statistically robust and quantified email campaigns might do the same!
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About Yesmail We redefine the market by delivering technologyled, insights-driven, and services-supported email marketing solutions that seamlessly integrate mobile, web and social channels. Our clients are sophisticated marketers who value the creation of meaningful connections. They understand that building relationships with customers who are media-saturated and increasingly distracted requires intelligent, original thinking. They come to us because they want email marketing solutions that represent the leading edge of technology. They come to us because they want to get to “yes� with their customers faster. They demand results, but know and appreciate great service. For them we will deliver both. We provide the insights that enable you to identify and understand your customer in order to create lasting connections through relevant communications, driven by email and synchronized across all digital channels, while respecting your customer's unique preferences and privacy. Infogroup, parent company of Yesmail Interactive, was founded in 1972. Infogroup is the leading provider of business and consumer information products, database marketing services, data processing services and sales and marketing solutions. Headquarters: Portland, OR, United States. Learn more about Yesmail at www.yesmail.com. Follow us at yesmail. com/resources/blog. And on Twitter @Yesmail. The Email Marketing Guide
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What is
MyCustomer.com is an online community of customer-focused professionals, sharing news and advice on fields including customer service, customer experience, marketing, sales, CRM and social CRM.
Published by Sift Media
Sift Media is a leading business-to-business publisher specialising in online, interactive professional communities. With a range of services including websites, email publications, industry awards and events, Sift Media delivers original, branded content to over half a million professionals in accounting and finance, small businesses and start-ups, HR and training, IT, marketing, customer management and knowledge management.
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