Once you have decided to run an email marketing campaign, you will need to look for a company which provides ALL the services you think you might need. Take your time when selecting an email marketing firm and find one you trust, as the company will have direct access to your customers and you want to make sure you feel comfortable with the company you hire. What is essential is that the company should be up to date with all data protection laws and ideally be a member of the DMA in the UK.
The company should have excellent relationships with all ISP’s. This means that they will be able to ensure that your email campaign gets delivered effectively. In order to ensure that your emails work from a marketing perspective -- and that they will survive spam filters -- an email firm can edit and proofread your message content.
An email marketing company should also deliver your email with the proper protocols. Although HTML emails are becoming the standard, not everyone can receive them. An email marketing company can ensure that each recipient receives your emails in the format (HTML or text) they prefer.
The email marketing company should also provide you with reports and statistics for your campaign. Metrics such as number of emails sent, number opened and number of click-throughs provide important feedback that will help you design future campaigns, re-think your approach, or decide whether your efforts are working.
An email service should ensure that your email marketing database is kept updated and clean. The company should also provide you with a data appending service. This means that they will be able to add any missing fields to data that you may already have. This level of list management ensures goodwill whilst keeping your business compliant with any existing or planned SPAM legislation.
Finally, email marketing firms are specialists and a good one will be able to provide you with tangible results. Look for a company that works in your industry. Many email marketing companies work in multiple industries. If you can find one that specialises in your industry you are more likely to succeed. It is also important to find a company that allows you to target recipients from many variables including as much demographic information as you can get to make your email campaign more targeted.
Friday, 14 November 2008
Friday, 7 November 2008
Why Email Marketing?
Email marketing is an important part of the direct marketing mix and never more so than during a recession. Whilst it is an acknowledged fact that most companies look to cut marketing costs during an economic down turn it does not have to be across the board when it comes to direct marketing. Email marketing is an area where companies should not be looking to cut costs and there are a number of reasons for this:
Its inexpensive
Email marketing is an affordable way to stretch a tight marketing budget. Unlike other forms of direct marketing there are virtually no production, materials or postage expenses. Email marketing is generally more cost effective than direct mail, depending on what your target market is and how large.Its effective Email marketing enables you to proactively communicate with your existing customers and prospects instead of passively waiting for them to return to your Web site or store. You can easily target your emails by a number of demographical criteria, source or interests. Overall, email communications sent to your prospect and customer lists, can single-handedly improve the ROI of all of your lead generation and customer retention programs.
It’s measurable
Traditionally it has been difficult to accurately measure direct marketing campaigns however results from email campaigns are easily measured. Results are reported in terms of “opens”, which report how many people saw your offer or newsletters, Click Through Rates (CTRs), which measure how many people actually clicked on the links in your email, and in a many cases, who actually clicked on those links.
Its immediate
Email marketing has two great advantages over other forms of direct marketing. Email marketing generates an immediate response. The call to action is clear: “Click here to take advantage of this offer”, or “to learn more about this service”, or to “attend this event”. Initial campaign response generally occurs within 48 hours of the time the email campaign is sent. The stats return on an email marketing campaign also includes how many people have seen your marketing message and have not responded or clicked through. This means that you can, where appropriate, direct your sales efforts to follow up the ‘opens’.
It’s easy
There are a number of companies in the UK which specialise in providing email marketing services. They should provide advice on which creative to use and help with building up a target email list. I will be posting an article on what specific services you should ask about when choosing an online marketing company.
Its inexpensive
Email marketing is an affordable way to stretch a tight marketing budget. Unlike other forms of direct marketing there are virtually no production, materials or postage expenses. Email marketing is generally more cost effective than direct mail, depending on what your target market is and how large.Its effective Email marketing enables you to proactively communicate with your existing customers and prospects instead of passively waiting for them to return to your Web site or store. You can easily target your emails by a number of demographical criteria, source or interests. Overall, email communications sent to your prospect and customer lists, can single-handedly improve the ROI of all of your lead generation and customer retention programs.
It’s measurable
Traditionally it has been difficult to accurately measure direct marketing campaigns however results from email campaigns are easily measured. Results are reported in terms of “opens”, which report how many people saw your offer or newsletters, Click Through Rates (CTRs), which measure how many people actually clicked on the links in your email, and in a many cases, who actually clicked on those links.
Its immediate
Email marketing has two great advantages over other forms of direct marketing. Email marketing generates an immediate response. The call to action is clear: “Click here to take advantage of this offer”, or “to learn more about this service”, or to “attend this event”. Initial campaign response generally occurs within 48 hours of the time the email campaign is sent. The stats return on an email marketing campaign also includes how many people have seen your marketing message and have not responded or clicked through. This means that you can, where appropriate, direct your sales efforts to follow up the ‘opens’.
It’s easy
There are a number of companies in the UK which specialise in providing email marketing services. They should provide advice on which creative to use and help with building up a target email list. I will be posting an article on what specific services you should ask about when choosing an online marketing company.
Friday, 31 October 2008
Online lead generation
Lead generation is simply the process of finding prospective customers. This can be done in the more ‘traditional’ manner, mail-shot or telephone marketing but due to the popularity of the web, online lead generation is becoming increasingly popular. There are a number of ways to acquire a steady source of new prospects online.
Some companies will outsource the task of locating qualified leads to a company such as Data Media and Research which will tailor their efforts to the needs of the specific business that they are gathering leads for; this guarantees a better return on investment as the leads gathered are pre-qualified and in the market to purchase the particular product or service.Less expensive and still yielding a good number of qualified leads is purchasing lists from lead companies; however, these lists can become outdated before you know it – this makes these lists a much better choice for an email marketing campaign than for direct mail.
Online lead generation offers businesses a cost effective and relatively easy method to reach a huge audience of prospective clients (the online population in the UK is over 30 million people). Business owners can place opt-in forms for brochure or newsletter subscriptions on their websites or offer surveys and giveaways to generate leads. All of these methods can generate a large list of prospects to market the company's products or services to.
Professional online lead generation companies, which have access to many million more potential consumers than the average website, use a data capture form on their websites. The information provided by the visitor is then ‘qualified’. A qualified lead is one which meets a certain set of criteria set by the business. For instance, a company selling woman’s beauty products will naturally see women as better leads than men. While having a lot of leads is great, you also need to think about the quality of the leads you have. The more qualified your lead, the likelier they are to buy. In most cases further demographic data can be supplied making the targeting of these leads even more effective.
Market research is also extremely important. A business which knows their market well does best at lead generation. If you know your target market, then you will be able to employ the marketing techniques which are most likely to capture their interest and ensure a steady supply of qualified leads.
Some companies will outsource the task of locating qualified leads to a company such as Data Media and Research which will tailor their efforts to the needs of the specific business that they are gathering leads for; this guarantees a better return on investment as the leads gathered are pre-qualified and in the market to purchase the particular product or service.Less expensive and still yielding a good number of qualified leads is purchasing lists from lead companies; however, these lists can become outdated before you know it – this makes these lists a much better choice for an email marketing campaign than for direct mail.
Online lead generation offers businesses a cost effective and relatively easy method to reach a huge audience of prospective clients (the online population in the UK is over 30 million people). Business owners can place opt-in forms for brochure or newsletter subscriptions on their websites or offer surveys and giveaways to generate leads. All of these methods can generate a large list of prospects to market the company's products or services to.
Professional online lead generation companies, which have access to many million more potential consumers than the average website, use a data capture form on their websites. The information provided by the visitor is then ‘qualified’. A qualified lead is one which meets a certain set of criteria set by the business. For instance, a company selling woman’s beauty products will naturally see women as better leads than men. While having a lot of leads is great, you also need to think about the quality of the leads you have. The more qualified your lead, the likelier they are to buy. In most cases further demographic data can be supplied making the targeting of these leads even more effective.
Market research is also extremely important. A business which knows their market well does best at lead generation. If you know your target market, then you will be able to employ the marketing techniques which are most likely to capture their interest and ensure a steady supply of qualified leads.
Friday, 24 October 2008
Commonly used email marketing terms
I have been asked to post some commonly used email marketing and online advertising terms, so here they are. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather indicative of what is being used at the moment. Expect more acronyms to emerge as new technologies and online strategies come into play.
Above-the-fold – When talking about web pages, this is the part of the screen which is visible without scrolling. It is generally the most popular placement on any website because of its visibility. When talking about emails it is the part of the email which is visible in the readers viewing pane. Above the fold is where most call to action mechanisms should be placed.
Affiliate and affiliate marketing - An affiliate essentially enters into a contract with a supplier to promote a product or service. Links on your site (the affiliate) direct users to a sales promotion or product page of the company. Affiliates earn money either by click-throughs, leads, or sales generated by their promotional efforts.
Bounces – This is when an email is returned to the sender because it cannot be delivered for some reason. There are two kinds of bounce e-mail, hard and soft bounces. Hard bounce e-mail is permanently bounced back to the sender because the address is invalid. Soft bounce e-mail is recognized by the recipient's mail server but is returned to the sender because the recipient's mailbox is full, the mail server is temporarily unavailable, or the recipient no longer has an e-mail account at that address.
Conversion rate – Is the ratio of recipients who respond to your call-to-action in any given email marketing campaign. The conversion rate is a measure of how successful an email campaign is. It is important to note that this can be measured in a number of ways like website visits, telephone calls and footfall.
CPA - Cost per action or acquisition. Payment is based solely on qualifying actions. This means that you only get paid when a specified action is completed, such as a sale, registration, etc.
CPM (Cost per thousand) – When renting a list of email addresses etc, CPM commonly refers to the cost per 1000 names on any given rental list. For example, a rental list priced at £250 CPM would mean that the list owner charges £0.25 per record.
CTR (or Click-through rate) - The percentage (the number of unique clicks divided by the number that were opened) of recipients that click on a given URL in your email communication.
HTML email – (Hypertext Markup Language or HTML refers to the language used to design the email). Sending HTML emails makes it possible to include unique fonts, graphics and background colors.
Open rate - The percentage of emails opened in any given email marketing campaign, or the percentage opened of the total number of emails sent.
‘Opt-in’ – This is when a visitor a site has given their express permission to be emailed by owners of the website and any possible third parties. The subscriber can often indicate areas of personal interest (e.g. kittens, sewing, surfing) and/or indicate what types of emails she wishes to receive from the sender (e.g. brochures – newsletters etc).
Opt-out (or unsubscribe) - To opt-out or unsubscribe from an email list is to choose not to receive communications from the sender by requesting the removal of your email address from their list.
Permission-based email – emails are sent to recipients who have opted-in or subscribed to receive email communications from a particular company, website or individual. Permission is an absolute prerequisite for legitimate and profitable email marketing
Personalisation – Addressing individual recipients by first name, last name or both in an email.
Privacy policy - A clear description of a website or company’s policy on the use of information collected from and about website visitors and what they do, and do not do, with the data.
Rental list - A list of prospects or a targeted group of recipients who have opt-in to receive information about certain subjects.
Retention list - A permission-based list that you built yourself. It can be used to cross sell and up-sell and to establish a relationship with customers over time.
Signature file - A tagline or short block of text at the end of an email which identifies the sender and provides additional information such as company name and contact information.
Spam - An email communication sent to someone who has not opted-in or given permission to the sender. Characteristically, spam is unwanted, unexpected email from a sender unknown to the recipient.
Targeting - Selecting a target audience or group of individuals likely to be interested in a certain product or service.
Above-the-fold – When talking about web pages, this is the part of the screen which is visible without scrolling. It is generally the most popular placement on any website because of its visibility. When talking about emails it is the part of the email which is visible in the readers viewing pane. Above the fold is where most call to action mechanisms should be placed.
Affiliate and affiliate marketing - An affiliate essentially enters into a contract with a supplier to promote a product or service. Links on your site (the affiliate) direct users to a sales promotion or product page of the company. Affiliates earn money either by click-throughs, leads, or sales generated by their promotional efforts.
Bounces – This is when an email is returned to the sender because it cannot be delivered for some reason. There are two kinds of bounce e-mail, hard and soft bounces. Hard bounce e-mail is permanently bounced back to the sender because the address is invalid. Soft bounce e-mail is recognized by the recipient's mail server but is returned to the sender because the recipient's mailbox is full, the mail server is temporarily unavailable, or the recipient no longer has an e-mail account at that address.
Conversion rate – Is the ratio of recipients who respond to your call-to-action in any given email marketing campaign. The conversion rate is a measure of how successful an email campaign is. It is important to note that this can be measured in a number of ways like website visits, telephone calls and footfall.
CPA - Cost per action or acquisition. Payment is based solely on qualifying actions. This means that you only get paid when a specified action is completed, such as a sale, registration, etc.
CPM (Cost per thousand) – When renting a list of email addresses etc, CPM commonly refers to the cost per 1000 names on any given rental list. For example, a rental list priced at £250 CPM would mean that the list owner charges £0.25 per record.
CTR (or Click-through rate) - The percentage (the number of unique clicks divided by the number that were opened) of recipients that click on a given URL in your email communication.
HTML email – (Hypertext Markup Language or HTML refers to the language used to design the email). Sending HTML emails makes it possible to include unique fonts, graphics and background colors.
Open rate - The percentage of emails opened in any given email marketing campaign, or the percentage opened of the total number of emails sent.
‘Opt-in’ – This is when a visitor a site has given their express permission to be emailed by owners of the website and any possible third parties. The subscriber can often indicate areas of personal interest (e.g. kittens, sewing, surfing) and/or indicate what types of emails she wishes to receive from the sender (e.g. brochures – newsletters etc).
Opt-out (or unsubscribe) - To opt-out or unsubscribe from an email list is to choose not to receive communications from the sender by requesting the removal of your email address from their list.
Permission-based email – emails are sent to recipients who have opted-in or subscribed to receive email communications from a particular company, website or individual. Permission is an absolute prerequisite for legitimate and profitable email marketing
Personalisation – Addressing individual recipients by first name, last name or both in an email.
Privacy policy - A clear description of a website or company’s policy on the use of information collected from and about website visitors and what they do, and do not do, with the data.
Rental list - A list of prospects or a targeted group of recipients who have opt-in to receive information about certain subjects.
Retention list - A permission-based list that you built yourself. It can be used to cross sell and up-sell and to establish a relationship with customers over time.
Signature file - A tagline or short block of text at the end of an email which identifies the sender and provides additional information such as company name and contact information.
Spam - An email communication sent to someone who has not opted-in or given permission to the sender. Characteristically, spam is unwanted, unexpected email from a sender unknown to the recipient.
Targeting - Selecting a target audience or group of individuals likely to be interested in a certain product or service.
Friday, 17 October 2008
The importance of email design
So the 'western' part of the world might be going into a recession or perhaps not. We might be going into a period of poor economic growth or not. Whatever we're going into and winter seems the only real certainty at the moment, it’s going to get tough at the top, mean in the middle and crowded at the bottom. In order to get ahead and in some cases just to stay afloat, many companies are going have to turn their marketing budgets towards the online market place and like any market place, there are traps, pitfalls and ne'er do wells aplenty. It's not just that there are more shiny things on offer to spend your money on; it’s that a lot of the time the shiny things are not designed well.
Let’s take email design as an example. There are some very basic mistakes that get made time and time again which are wholly avoidable. The first thing to consider is that most people who design emails are not email designers. They are either web designers or people who design for print and are largely unaware of the thought processes involved in designing emails which not only look good, but more importantly work.
Most designers do not take into account that different email programs have different sized preview panes. Mozilla Thunderbird's viewing pane is horizontal whilst an Outlook 2007 preview pane can be both horizontal and vertical. These are just two of many many email programs so it's important to make sure that your 'catch their attention' phrase is visible - the top left hand side works well most of the time.
Balance is important when looking at text vs. images within an email. Many email programs have a fascist (from an email marketeer’s point of view) approach to unsolicited mail and block most if not all images. So it’s not normally advisable to combine your core marketing message with an image as it just won't get through. It’s also important to include alt-text for all images. Alt text? What this means is that even if the image is blocked it will preview a brief description of the image. It’s also a good idea to create a text version of your email so that no matter what happens one form of your marketing communication will get through. This brings us neatly onto email copy and those pesky spam filters.
Avoid using the word free and any phrase which has the word free in it. In fact just don't use it ever! Apart from the fact that its jelly tots to spam filters, it's also lazy copy writing. Other phrases to avoid include cash bonus, do it today, don't delete, subject to credit, supplies are limited, take action now - yada yada. I will post something more comprehensive on spam copy at a later date. A point to remember on email copy though is that you have, on average, less than 3 seconds in which to get the reader’s attention before your email makes a gentle whooshing noise at it gets filed in the folder market J for Junk. So attention grabbing headline and then get to the meat of the message quickly. It is also important to include a call to action near the top of the creative, but more on that in a later post.
Unsubscribe links are not only important they are now the law. They are normally included as part of the footer, however at Data Media and Research we have even started to include an unsubscribe mechanism at the top of all our B2B emails as well as part of the footer. It has not affected our unsubscribe rate but it does make us uber compliant with any legislation. You should also always include you physical mailing address as well as any permissions you might have gained in order to do the mailing within the footer.
Lastly, it is important to test everything and I mean everything. Test how the creative looks in different email programs. Test your copy against spam filters test your image to text ratio and test how it looks. A good email creative is a beautiful thing and hopefully, by observing what I've mentioned in this blog, you can have a beautiful thing that works for you.
Let’s take email design as an example. There are some very basic mistakes that get made time and time again which are wholly avoidable. The first thing to consider is that most people who design emails are not email designers. They are either web designers or people who design for print and are largely unaware of the thought processes involved in designing emails which not only look good, but more importantly work.
Most designers do not take into account that different email programs have different sized preview panes. Mozilla Thunderbird's viewing pane is horizontal whilst an Outlook 2007 preview pane can be both horizontal and vertical. These are just two of many many email programs so it's important to make sure that your 'catch their attention' phrase is visible - the top left hand side works well most of the time.
Balance is important when looking at text vs. images within an email. Many email programs have a fascist (from an email marketeer’s point of view) approach to unsolicited mail and block most if not all images. So it’s not normally advisable to combine your core marketing message with an image as it just won't get through. It’s also important to include alt-text for all images. Alt text? What this means is that even if the image is blocked it will preview a brief description of the image. It’s also a good idea to create a text version of your email so that no matter what happens one form of your marketing communication will get through. This brings us neatly onto email copy and those pesky spam filters.
Avoid using the word free and any phrase which has the word free in it. In fact just don't use it ever! Apart from the fact that its jelly tots to spam filters, it's also lazy copy writing. Other phrases to avoid include cash bonus, do it today, don't delete, subject to credit, supplies are limited, take action now - yada yada. I will post something more comprehensive on spam copy at a later date. A point to remember on email copy though is that you have, on average, less than 3 seconds in which to get the reader’s attention before your email makes a gentle whooshing noise at it gets filed in the folder market J for Junk. So attention grabbing headline and then get to the meat of the message quickly. It is also important to include a call to action near the top of the creative, but more on that in a later post.
Unsubscribe links are not only important they are now the law. They are normally included as part of the footer, however at Data Media and Research we have even started to include an unsubscribe mechanism at the top of all our B2B emails as well as part of the footer. It has not affected our unsubscribe rate but it does make us uber compliant with any legislation. You should also always include you physical mailing address as well as any permissions you might have gained in order to do the mailing within the footer.
Lastly, it is important to test everything and I mean everything. Test how the creative looks in different email programs. Test your copy against spam filters test your image to text ratio and test how it looks. A good email creative is a beautiful thing and hopefully, by observing what I've mentioned in this blog, you can have a beautiful thing that works for you.
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