How eMail Marketing Works?

If you consider marketing as communicating with current and potential customers, you will see that every email that is sent from your organisation should be considered as part of your email marketing plan.
Does that sound a little complicated? Consider an online retailer, www.zappos.com. Zappos is an online shoe retailer. What are the ways that, as a customer, you might receive emails from Zappos?

1. Transaction emails: when you place an order, there will be a number of emails that you receive, from confirmation of your order, to notice of shipping. Should you need to return an item, you will no doubt communicate with Zappos via email.
2. Newsletters: these are emails which are sent to provide information and keep customers informed. They do not necessarily carry an overt promotion, but instead ensure that a customer is in regular contact with the brand.
3. Promotion emails: should Zappos have a summer sale, they will send an email relating directly to that promotion.

There are other emails sent by Zappos, for example:

1. Emails to suppliers
2. Communication with affiliates

All of the communication sent out can be used to convey your marketing message. Every touchpoint will market the organisation. However, here we will focus on commercial emails.

There are two types of commercial emails:
Promotional emails: these are more direct and are geared at enticing the user to take an immediate action.
Retention based emails: also referred to as newsletters, these may include promotional messages but should be focussed on providing information of value to the user, geared at building a long term relationship with the user.

As with all eMarketing activities, careful planning is called for, as is careful testing and evaluating, so as to optimise your revenue. Email marketing may be highly cost effective, but the cost of getting it wrong can be very high indeed.

9 steps to executing an email campaign

1.  Strategic Planning
The first part of any email campaign should involve planning around the goals you will need to achieve. These will probably be in line with the goals of your web site, with email marketing being used as a tool to help you achieve those goals.
As discussed in the chapter on analytics and conversion optimisation, you will decide on the key performance indicators (KPIs) for your campaign as well.
Promotional emails will usually have an immediate goal:

• Users make a purchase
• Users download a whitepaper
• Users request further information

Newsletters tend to focus on longer term goals, and so your KPIs become more important here.
KPIs include:

• Open rate
• Click-through rate
• Number of emails forwarded
• ROI

A successful email campaign is most likely to be the one geared at retaining and creating a long term relationship with the reader.
Know your audience! They will dictate the interactions.

2. Define List
Running a successful email campaign requires that a business has a genuine opt-in database. This database, the list of subscribers who have agreed to allow a company to send them emails with marketing messages, is the most valuable asset of an email campaign.
Permission must be explicitly given by all people to whom emails are sent. Companies that abuse this can put their reputation in jeopardy, and in some countries, legal action can be taken against companies that send unsolicited bulk email – spam.
Growing this database, while keeping it targeted, is a key factor in any email campaign.
The database needs only have one entry – the prospect’s email – but the following  should also be considered:

• First name, surname and title
• Date permission granted
• Source of permission
• Gender
• Country
• Telephone number
• Date of birth

Fields such as name, surname and title should be separated in your database. You should also gather date of birth as opposed to a prospect’s age – it ensures your database can stay up to date!
However, don’t be tempted to ask for more information than is required. The more information a marketer can gather, the better she can customise her marketing messages. However, the more information a prospect is required to give, the less likely he is to sign up. Further information can be requested over a period of time.
There are a myriad of ways to attract prospects to opt in to a database. Key is an email sign-up form on a company web site. Visitors to a web site have already expressed an interest in a company by clicking through to the web site – this is an opportunity to develop that interest further.
Sign-up forms best practice:

• Put the sign-up form where it can be seen – above the fold and on every page.
• State your anti-spam stance explicitly, and be clear about how you value subscribers’ privacy.
• Use a clear call to action.
• Tell subscribers what they will get, and how often they will get it. Include a benefit statement.
• Ensure the email address is correct by checking the syntax.
• Test to see what works best!

Every interaction can be used to ask permission to send emails.

1. Offer something valuable for free, and ask if they would sign up to your newsletter at the same time (e.g. white paper, gift voucher, music track).
2. Add a subscribe box to the checkout process of your retail site.
3. Use interactions at trade shows to ask for email addresses.

3. Creative Execution

Emails can be created and viewed as HTML or as text emails. Bear in mind, though, that sometimes HTML emails are rendered as text emails.

Text emails are the plain ones – text only, as the name suggests. If you have a Windows computer, and you open up notepad and type there, you will be creating a text file. These emails are smaller, and plainer. As these are text only, the copy really counts here.
HTML emails are the emails with all the bells and whistles. These emails can contain images, different fonts and hyperlinks. It’s probably what you’ve had in mind throughout this chapter when we have referred to email marketing.

Parts of an Email

Header
This has the “to”, “from” and “reply to” fields. These are also opportunities to build a relationship through creating a perception of familiarity. In other words, the reader needs to perceive that the newsletter is somewhat unique for them and sent personally by the publisher. Using a personalised company email address (e.g. trevor@companyname.com) for the “reply” field creates familiarity and builds trust with the reader. The “from” address should also include the organisation’s name. A meaningless “from” address which the reader cannot identify only serves to confuse the origin of the newsletter.

Subject Line
The subject line could be the most important part of an email! Subject lines aid the reader in identifying the email, and also entice the reader to open it. The subject line is also scrutinised by spam filters, and so should avoid words like “free”, “win” and “buy now”. Consistent subject lines, using the name of the company and the newsletter edition, can build familiarity and help readers to sort their inbox. As with everything online, testing different subject lines will lead marketers to the formula that works for them.

Personalised Greeting
With a database that has entries for readers’ names, it is possible to personalise the greeting of the email. “Hi Kim Morgan” can elicit far better responses than “Dear Valued Customer”, but it is possible to create a greeting with personality without personalising it. Occasionally, the subject line can be personalised as well to boost responses.
 
Body
This is where the content of the email goes. Don’t be tempted to use too many images: it can increase the size of the email, and it can obscure text when images do not load. Be sure that text is not on the image, but rather can be read without an image being loaded.

Footer
A standard footer for emails helps to build consistency, and is the customary place to keep the contact details of the company sending the email. At the very least, this should include the name and contact email of the company. It can also include the privacy policy of the sender. One way to grow the email list is add a “forward to a friend” link in the footer. The most important part of the footer is a clear unsubscribe link.

Unsubscribe Link
It is mandatory to have an unsubscribe link on all commercial emails. Interactive emails are best constructed with lightweight HTML capability allowing the email to open quickly. This helps to capture the user’s attention before he/she moves on. The structure must allow readers to scan and navigate the email easily. The length of paragraphs, emphasis through bolding and colours as well as sectioning information with bullets and borders all contribute to a well-structured email.

Create Content
Email content that is relevant and something that readers will value, is vital to ensuring the success of an email marketing campaign. Valuable content is informative and should address the problems and needs of readers. It is important to realise that the reader determines the value of the content, not the publisher.

Successful email campaigns provide value to their readers. This value can vary from campaign to campaign. Newsletters can offer:

• Humour
• Research
• Information
• Promotions

However, avoid being marked as spam by staying away from words like “free”, “buy now” and “discount”.Test for display and deliverability

The email should be scored to see that it will pass spam filters, and the design should be tested to ensure that it renders clearly in as many clients as possible. Make sure that images line up, that copy is clear and that all the links work.

Emails can be tested for platform compatibility at www.sitevista.com/email.asp.
An email’s spam score can be checked at spamassassin.apache.org.

4. Integrate campaign with other channels
Whilst email marketing can operate as a stand alone marketing campaign, integrating it with other channels, both online and offline, will serve to both reinforce a brand’s message and increase responses.

There should never be a disparity between the content, tone or design of an email when compared to the rest of a company’s offerings. In-store promotions can be reinforced and promoted to an email database, or web site information can be summarized for email.
Custom landing pages, as required, should be created for any promotions being communicated in an email communication.

5. Personalise the message
The technology of email marketing allows for mass customisation – it is one to one marketing on a macro scale. Even simple personalisation can see improved results.
Customisation starts at using the recipient’s name and sending either HTML or text emails based on preference, to sophisticated measurement of a recipient’s preferences and tailoring content to suit them.

Segmenting a database can allow for customisation across demographics or purchase history. Being able to reconcile browsing activity to an email recipient can give further opportunities for customisation.

6. Deployment
By creating valuable content, establishing the correct frequency, and testing an email for display and deliverability, an email marketer should be able to ensure an excellent delivery rate. Consistency in deploying newsletters also aids in fostering trust and fulfilling expectation. Emails should be delivered at consistent times, but the best time for best results should be tested.
Email reputation, which can determine whether or not your message is regarded as spam, is the general opinion of the ISPs, the anti-spam community, and then subscribers towards a sender’s IP address, sending domain, or both. This opinion is a reputation score created by an ISP or a third party provider. If the sender’s score falls within the ISP’s thresholds, a sender’s messages will be delivered to the inbox. If not, the sender’s emails may arrive in the bulk folder, be quarantined, or be bounced back to the sender.
Becoming an effective email marketer requires constant list cleansing and hygiene. In fact, most lists shrink by 30% each year due to subscribers changing email addresses.
Make sure you are diligent about maintaining a current opt-in list to achieve maximum deliverability via reputation.
Tips to help reputation score:

• ISPs offer various sender’s authentication standards such as Sender ID, SPF, and DomainKeys. Use these.
• Out with the old, in with the new – keep your database clean.
• Remove hard bounces after 3 deliveries (ISPs don’t like e-mail broadcasters who have a high bounce rate).
• Remember that a huge but inaccurate and outdated database is far less use to an email marketer than a tightly-maintained, smaller database. Strive to boost your database, but don’t forget to clean behind you as you go.
• Ensure email broadcast rates are not too high.
• Respond to complaints and unsubscribe requests – if someone requests to be unsubscribed, do so.
• Educate users about white lists.

When to send mails:
Common sense tells you not on Monday morning or Friday afternoon, but it varies by audience. Testing will guide you.
If the recipient has given permission to be sent marketing messages by email, then it is not spam. Users give permission when they tick a box that says “Yes, please send me offers from your company by email.” The email address can only be provided to another company if the user ticks a box that says “Yes, please send me offers from third parties selected by you by email.”

Permission must be explicitly given to the company to be allowed to market to that user. Trying to gain explicit permission in a sneaky way will only annoy your users, and might result in your emails being marked as spam.

7. Interaction Handling
As well as the emails strategically planned as part of a campaign (promotional emails and newsletters) every interaction via email should be considered as part of a company’s email marketing practice.
Automated emails such as order confirmations and even out of office replies are all opportunities to engage with customers. If a company has a particular tone or content style, this can be reinforced in these interactions.
These emails can also be an opportunity to cross-advertise other promotions that a company is offering.

8. Generate Reports
As with all things eMarketing, tracking, analysing and optimising is key to growth. Email tracking systems produce statistics in a user-friendly manner.
Key measurables for understanding of the performance of email campaigns:

• Number of emails delivered.
• Number of bounces (and this should be separated into hard bounces and soft bounces).
• Number of unique emails opened: an email can be delivered, but not opened.
• Unsubscribes: significant or consistent loss in subscribers is a key indication that you are not meeting the needs of your subscribers
• Pass on rate: high pass on rate (forwards) indicates that your list values the content enough to constantly share with others. Putting an easy “forward to a friend” link in every email can increase this. Adding a sign-up link to forwarded emails will organically grow the opt-in list.
• Click-through rates and conversion: This measures the effectiveness of an email via the links placed in the content. When a reader clicks through to a web page, these can be easily measured as a percentage against number of delivered, opened or sent emails. It reveals which content or promotion was the most enticing for the reader.

9. Analyse Results
Once the reports have been generated, it is time to work out what the numbers are revealing, and to use this information to improve the next email sent out.
With email marketing, split testing across a host of factors will enable campaign optimisation. Some factors to test include:

• Open rates across different subject lines and delivery times
• Optimal number of links in an email for click through rates and conversions
• Different copy styles and copy length
• The effect of video on delivery rates, open rates and conversions