You've got mail
Posted on 09/07/2012
In recent years email marketing has joined the line-up of tools that help marketers generate sales leads and connect with customers.Yet many companies still get it wrong with poor response rates and potential damage to their reputation.
Royal Mail will deliver 99% of your direct mail provided the mailing address is correct, regardless of content. Email marketing is different. With over one billion spam emails sent every day, many carrying malicious content, numerous security measures have been introduced to block inappropriate emails. Your email campaign needs to traverse ISP's (internet service providers), firewalls, spam filters, anti-virus software and junk folders.
Even if it does arrive in the inbox of your intended recipient, the way it displays can vary. An email viewed in Outlook 2003 can display differently in Outlook 2010, Gmail or AOL. And what happens if the recipient opens it on their iPhone or Blackberry?
Use specialist email marketing software
To avoid blacklisting your regular email communications, create a separate domain for email marketing and tie this to dedicated email marketing software. Using standard software (such as Microsoft Outlook) is not recommended and may flag your campaign as spam.
In addition to tracking and analytics, choose email software with built-in testing that enables you to spam-score your email and view it in various email clients (Outlook 2007 or Gmail for example) before sending, thereby maximising results.
Design your campaign for the user
While direct mail can sit on a desk for days, you only have a few seconds to engage with a recipient by email. The 'from' on your email address (known as an alias), the subject line and the design of your email are all important.
Image-only emails are not recommended as many email clients (such as Outlook and Hotmail block images) block images. Use good headline copy to engage the recipient sufficiently so they approve images to be shown (ie right-click on Outlook)
Have a clear response strategy
What do you want people to do when they receive your email? Respond to an offer? Request more information? Be clear on what your aims are and incorporate this within the campaign.
If the recipient is interested enough to respond, it is worth investing in a specific landing zone - a dedicated page on your website relevant to the email campaign, or a specific micro-site. Simply pointing them to your website home page with no relevance to the campaign will dramatically reduce your response rate!
Take care of the details
Ensure you incorporate a clear 'unsubscribe' option on your campaign and be sure to remove these addresses from future campaigns. Most email broadcasting software can automatically suppress 'unsubscribes' from future campaigns. It is also worth including a 'view in browser' and 'forward to a friend' to maximise response.
Test your campaign thoroughly. Do all the links work properly? How does your email view on an iPhone or Blackberry? Will the landing zones capture enquiries correctly?
On larger campaigns, it is also worth split-testing different subject lines and designs, then gauging the best response rate before running the live campaign.
Tracking and analysis
One of the major benefits of email marketing is tracking. Using the right software enables you to analyse open rates and responses. You'll know who opened it and what landing zones they clicked through to. In-depth analysis amd tracking enables you to build up visitor and potential customer profiles.
Using this data enables you to manage follow-up campaigns, tailoring specific email offers or products depending on the recipients responses to the first campaign/
Use accurate email data
You will always get a percentage of email bounces on your campaign. Soft bounces, which could mean the recipients email inbox is full or temporarily unavailable and 'out of office' replies are normal. Hard bounces (permanently unavailable or incorrect emails) should be removed from your list and updated.
Sending a campaign to an out-of-date or inaccurate email list can result in blacklisting with your campaign flagged as spam. So ensure you source accurate, fresh email data and update your list regularly.
Get started
Email marketing is a powerful, cost effective marketing tool that can result in some quick wins and longer term brand recognition.
