E-mail is the go-to device for everyone attempting to deal with these tough economic times. For retailers, each e-mail blast is a predictable ka-ching; one that gets addictive quickly when sales at the cash-wrap desk, the 800 number or through the catalog fall off. E-mail response, like postal mail, degrades with repetitive re-mails which also prompt predictable numbers of opt-outs and complaints. To use e-mail for optimum effect, marketers need to factor in strategic and tactical considerations and link these directly to the business objectives of each campaign.
Strategic Elements
Scope the Program. Everything starts with the end result. What do you want the recipients of your e-mail to feel, think or do? If this is a one-off effort it will need to work differently than if its part of a newsletter, club or continuity program. If this is going to a specific segment or a house list, it will be received differently than if it’s a wide scale mass acquisition effort. If it’s a new product or service launch versus a special offer on a well known brand, response will vary greatly. The scope will reflect the goals – who, what, when, how often and what needs to be accomplished and measured. Clarity on the front end will make measurement and analysis much easier on the back end.
Build/Align the Channels. An e-mail is the front end of a multi-dimensional response system. Before you blast out e-mails you must decide where you will direct the response, usually expressed as clicks or calls, and what experience the responder will have immediately after making a click or a call. This involves designing landing pages, embedding additional links, video, audio, PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, 800 numbers and measurement tools. It also demands that you anticipate the most likely emotional and rational responses to your message and prepare the requisite answers and materials.
An e-mail starts a hoped-for chain reaction. At the outset of a program, you must anticipate each step in that chain and marshal the creative, technical and analytic resources necessary to capitalize on those clicks. If you mail before these are in-place and tested you squander the effort. If you do this smartly, you are rewarded with the results you desire.
Work on the List. Who you address directly influences what happens. Every list is flawed. Assume that 20-30 percent of the names on any list you buy will bounce. And assume that most house lists, even those carefully maintained, will lose 3-5 percent of address after each mailing. The provenance of the lists is also a key indicator for response. Names carefully opted-in by brand loyalists will perform much better than random names gathered by lead generation sites or list compilers. Smart players, and virtually all bulk e-mail programs and services, offer list cleaning, merge/purge and integrity tools that everybody should use. In this market, negotiate a “net name” deal which will give you credit for the names you buy that can’t be delivered.
Craft a Compelling Offer. We have trained everyone to expect a deal in an e-mail. Your offer has to speak directly to your target audience and present something that they have to do right now. Limited quantities, discount prices or time limitations drive some urgency but most of us can discern a real value from a passing promo offer in a nanosecond. So think long and hard about what you are offering. How sensible is it your customers and how can you make it feel like something they must have right away? Also think about how the offer will impact subsequent brand perceptions. Will the offer cement your relationship with customers or could it signal that the brand is slipping in quality or customer focus?
Embed Tests. There are no fixed success formulas for e-mail marketing. We test everything by splitting the list and trying different tactics against different customer or prospect sets. Ideally we test one element at a time so that we can get a clean read on the relationship between any single element and response.
The e-mail game rests on getting the e-mail delivered to a valid inbox and getting it opened If its not opened and read … game over … you tilt out the campaign. Three key factors determine open rates. First is the technical dimension. Is your e-mail sufficiently short, formatted properly, free of words, images or embedded elements that will trigger spam filters or send the e-mail immediately to the “junk” box?
The second key dimension is the “To” line. Is the e-mail coming from a real, credible and known source? They might not know you personally, but if they’ve never heard of you, your brand or your company name; don’t expect much action. The third factor is the subject line. The best results come from a short phrase that instantly conveys user benefit. Subtlety is lost in subject lines and teasers usually fall flat. Words that direct action work well. You must communicate the idea that opening equals something immediately good for you.
Subject lines are the most frequently tested element in e-mail marketing. Smart players always test at least 2 simultaneous subject lines. The smartest players frequently test a small batch of names, get results in 48 hours then incorporate the results in a larger roll-out mailing or campaign, which also includes a follow-on test cell. Test-and-learn is the e-mail marketers mantra.
Tighten Content Short directive copy works best. Many e-mails are read without fully opening the browser frame and increasingly read partially and quickly on mobile devices, so there is a big premium in loading the core idea and the crux of the offer into the opening paragraph. Graphics should be used sparingly since they tend to complicate the underlying technology and/or trigger spam filters. Customers or prospects should be given a limited number of response choices, never more than three, which generally are --buy now, sign-up for future communications, or get more product or service information. The more choices you offer, the less response you get. Similarly on landing pages, the more navigational options, the smaller and more diffuse the response.
The objective is to imagine what you want recipients to feel and do and then offer clear, well-marked ways to do it. Don’t be afraid to make clickable or colorful links bigger or float them between paragraphs in plenty of white space. Use big colorful buttons centered in white space to cue customers what to do. Look at the page and ask yourself, what elements need to pop out to direct someone reading or scanning this quickly?
Also remember that people focus on their own names first. If you personalize, you’ve got to get the names and the form of address right. Remember that people buy from people, so a credible and real name “signing” the e-mail gives customers and prospects another reason to believe.
Be CAN SPAM compliant. Every legit e-mail has to show the recipients who it came from, including a postal address, and offer an opt-out mechanism. This has become an easy, automatic and expected practice. Most vendors can walk you through the steps. There is absolutely nothing worse that being a spammer, not too mention regulatory scrutiny is increasing consistently.
Measure & Tweak. The 4 most important things you want to know about an e-mail campaign are: 1) did the mail get to target recipients, 2) how many opened the e-mail, 3) how many took the desired action and 4) did we achieve the desired business result? These four numbers are commonly considered in making return on investment (ROI) calculations. These are the critical effectiveness measures.
Everything else speaks to the efficiency of the e-mail marketing process, which can be improved over time, assuming the campaign did well enough to justify going again. There are a surprisingly large number of things that can be counted and measured to optimize the time, energy and cash spent in e-mail marketing. Examine the measurement factors that have the most relevance to your business goals. Just because we have a number doesn’t make it necessarily meaningful.
Tactical Concerns
To optimize e-mail marketing, in this environment, you need to stand out from the loud, growing and frequent crowd and take concerted action to get attention for your brand and your message. Try these tactics:
1. Create a distinctive look or feel. Experiment with subject lines and with Personal URL's in the subject line. Use the same template or color palette and be sure it instantly cues brand recognition.
2. Build a Consistent Delivery Schedule. Train your customers to expect certain messages at certain times (Tuesday = Bargain day). Consider a value-oriented TO address to re-inforce the content or the value implicit in a consistent series of offers.
3. Segment and Target Customers. Test the criteria that suit your marketing objective. Communicate the criteria in the subject line. Be sure the value-add is apparent in the subject line.
4. Send Less Better. Rather than do one blast of a million names, do 5 blasts of 200,000 names. Make each segment a different offer or relate the offer to something you know about the behavior of customers in that segment. Focus on behavior it’s the only reliable predictor of future action. Forget demographics or psychographics, they won't help you target anything other than brand awareness; a task much better suited to other channels.
5. RFM Rules. Peg e-mail blasts to frequency of action. People who take a desired action are much more likely to do it again and much sooner than someone who blithely signed up and rarely responds.
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