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Jul
19
Turning Data into ROI
Twenty percent of marketers said they can measure ROI, but cannot act on it, according to an April survey of senior-level marketers by the Association of National Advertisers. The survey found that 32% of marketers are satisfied with their ability to measure and act on ROI to improve business results, up from 19% in 2005.
Measuring and acting to improve ROI is a common challenge for email marketers, as well. I’ve got some data, but not enough. Or, I get reports from my ESP, but I don’t know what to do with them. Or, I know the profile of my subscribers, but I can’t segment based on demographics.
Steal one or more of these ideas to help turn whatever data you have today into real ROI.
Use email to educate prospects. Many marketers have both prospects and customers on their house list, sending the same promotions to both and rarely inspiring either segment to action ….
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Jul
10
You've Got 51 Seconds
Readers spend an average of 51 seconds with email newsletters, typically skimming the contents. Only 19% of newsletters are read fully. (Nielsen Norman, 2006)
That’s good news and bad news for B2B email marketers, who are most likely to produce content newsletters rather than tips or pure promotions.
Good news is that 51 seconds is a long time in the email world, as promotional emails get about 15 seconds (Marketing Sherpa, 2005). The average person reads about 200 words a minute, which means, I’m loosely figuring, you’d get about 100-150 words after headlines and images to communicate and engage – or about 5-7 headlines if the reader is skimming ….
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Jun
28
Ads in the Inbox: Know Your Rendering Reality
It’s the email marketing equivalent of looking in the mirror after you’ve been dancing all night. You feel great, you were light on your feet, but WHAM, you suddenly see your beautiful HTML email crammed into the Hotmail, Yahoo! or AOL interface with blinking ads all around it and suddenly you’ve got a hangover. How in the world can we break through all that interface clutter?
The web-based email clients are certainly getting much more aggressive about navigation, promotions and banner ads surrounding the message. AOL recently started placing ads even for paying subscribers. Might be great for advertisers (although I’m not convinced based on my work at Hotmail in the early, pre-Microsoft days), and it might even be okay for subscribers. But it’s lousy for email marketers — it’s more competition (sometimes literally competitors, as with Gmail) for your message.
How will the ad influx affect your email program? Every case is different, so you’ll need to …
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Jun
22
Crazy Idea of the Week: Make Email the Point
We all earn a permission grant from our subscribers, and then watch the response rates falter after a few email messages. Why do consumers and business professionals sign up for email they don’t want to read? Well, they do want to hear from you, but when you don’t manage to keep them engaged, you lose out to other things in their inbox. To break through inbox clutter, you have meet a high standard.
Want your email program to work harder? Apply this crazy idea to your program: Make the email itself the point. Our research shows that the primary driver of opens and response is prior value with the email program itself. It matters less that your brand is recognized, or even that the reader is a loyal customer. The key is providing value in the email message.
To wit. Sending a promotion about merchandise makes the email about the offer. What if the email was the point? Instead, send three tips for summer travel, staying elegant in the heat, or preparing tasty, nutritious meals without turning on the oven. Feature your merchandise “in real life.” ….
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May
24
Content Increases Response
Even a little bit of content can dramatically improve your email campaign results. Why? Because wrapping your promotional messages with some insights, tips, information or how-to counsel makes your email more relevant. Relevancy drives open rates and response. In fact, consumers tell us (Holiday Survey 2005) that what drives response is prior positive experience with the email itself. So even if they love your brand and buy your products, the email itself has to have value if you want a response.
Creating content can sound scary at first, but you don’t need a tome to see the results. A few sentences can do the trick, if done well. Want IT folks to try your demo? Offer testimonials or five ways to make their organizations more productive. Want to sell garden tools? Send some seasonal tips along. The options are endless.
Think these simple things won’t work? Think again ….
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Apr
11
Email + Other Channels = Response
Integration of email with other marketing channels is gaining traction this year, primarily because it works! Audiences – both B2B and B2C – are fragmenting, meaning that both acquisition and retention programs must reach across channels to create interactive customer experiences.
In a survey of CMOs we conducted with MarketingProfs.com, we found that just 35% of marketers were using email in combination with other channels. But if they were using a multi-channel approach, they did so 60% of the time. Respondents reported that email in combination with printed direct mail, trade events, search and telemarketing improved response rates for each medium, in addition to boosting results overall.
Jupiter Research found similar success, reporting in 2005 that marketers using testing, multi-channel marketing and other sophisticated tactics are almost twice as likely to attain conversion rates of more than 3%, compared with marketers that do not.
Get started by considering the end business goal, then work backward toward offer and message to isolate the most effective channel mix. If your goal is improve registrations ….
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Feb
14
Proof: Guessing Gets You Nowhere
Forget experience, gut feelings and opinions. Turns out that the intuition of marketers was completely unreliable in predicting the best performing creative for online, email and search marketing. Results from this Marketing Experiments Lab are posted online.
What’s an email marketer to do? One word: TEST.
All day long our Strategy Group works with marketers to apply best practices to their retention and acquisition emails. We pour over past campaign data and click analysis …
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Jan
26
Consumer Courtship
Every marketer knows that email works when it is done right. Yet the data shows that precious few make that happen in their email programs. Consumers want your email, will open your email, and will buy from you via email–if you build a relationship and keep that relationship relevant. Think of it as a courtship–with better odds.
A recent Return Path survey analyzing consumer use of email during the holiday shopping season showed that consumers respond to email when they have an ongoing positive experience with the sender and have received value from their email program…
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Jan
8
Obituary: Batch And Blast Is Dead!
OBITUARY: MASS email advertising is dead. Marketers mourn the early, heady days of email marketing when generic emails drove high response rates and consumers thought any email was good, as long as it was addressed to them. But alas, we must bid adieu to the old era–if not for the sake of our own careers, then on behalf of consumers everywhere who are tired of irrelevant and uninteresting email messages. As we say good-bye to 2005, we can also say good-bye to this ineffective marketing method.
Rest in Peace, indeed. Batch and blast is so 1999…
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Dec
20
After the Holiday Rush: A Missed Opportunity
We heard some shocking news the other day… that more than 60% of marketers decided NOT to email their customers after the holidays.
While I appreciate the break from the deluge of emails we’ve all received this season, and I would never encourage marketers to send email messages that don’t have meaning and value for their subscribers, I have to think this is a huge missed opportunity! The survey was conducted by Accucast of 52 their own retailer clients, and found that many marketers will pass on the chance to use email for promotions or thank you’s to customers post-holiday.
The week between Christmas and New Years’ — which also happens to be Hanukkah this year — could be a good opportunity for you – both B2C and B2B. Consider some of these ideas…
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