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November 3, 2006 |
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By: Louise Rijk - Bio - Blog |
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Email Marketing:
The New World of Email Marketing
Email marketing, the "killer apps" marketing tool that fell by the wayside a few years ago as spam and list abuse raged on has reinvented itself and is back for a second chance. Now, as online advertising costs have risen, paid search bid prices have steadily increased, while email marketing has remained relatively inexpensive, more marketers are returning to email marketing.
What has changed? First, the industry has grown up. Best practices, common sense, and the increased ability to provide relevant email messages, have helped revive email marketing. Improved blacklists, whitelisting and techniques for identifying spam have also helped the cause. These exciting turns of events have created an entirely new landscape email marketers can build on.
To be successful in the new world of email marketing there are many issues that need to be considered. Here are some of those main points.
List Management
Email marketers must make sure that everyone who's on the email list wants to be there, is engaged and receive the messages they are interested in. Email lists must be "cleaned" after each broadcast or at least once a month. At the minimum, invalid and suspected email addresses, email addresses with closed and unmonitored domains, and spamtrap and honeypot addresses - email addresses created and used by ISP's to monitor unsolicited email - must be removed.
ISP's typically monitor the bounce rate of an email sender, so it is important to keep the bounce rate low to avoid having your email blocked. An aggressive policy towards removing bounces from your list is a good first step towards keeping your rate of bounces per mailing as low as possible.
It is also beneficial to segregate new email addresses from old ones for a while until they are proven "clean" and deliverable. Mixing bad addresses with the good ones can damage your sender reputation and ability to get your email delivered.
Designing for the Preview Pane
The preview pane allows viewers with Outlook, Eudora, Lotus Notes email clients, and Yahoo and Hotmail shortly, to view email messages through a narrow 2 x 4 inch window without actually opening the message. The preview pane gives viewers a clear choice: open or delete; and even the most loyal subscribers may choose the latter if you don't give them a good reason to dig deeper. With images blocked, until the viewer requests to download them, it becomes even harder to give the recipient a compelling reason to open your email when viewed in the preview pane.
Now, with 70 percent of business-to-business email readers using the preview pane to view email messages and 30 percent keeping image viewing turned off, there are good reasons to re-think the design of your newsletters and email communications. Here are a few tips:
1. Re-design the top of your email newsletter or commercial email message with all key information displayed in the upper left corner so that they can be viewed in the preview pane even if images are disabled.
2. Newsletters should include the issue content summary at the top of the page and promotional email message must communicate the value proposition at the top of the message.
3. Provide a link, e.g. "Can't see any images - Click to view", to a web version of the email message so that it can be viewed in a regular web browser with all images turned on.
Engaging New Subscribers
Start reaching out to new subscribers immediately after they opt-in to your subscriber list and make them eager to see your email promotions or newsletters show up in their inboxes. Set expectations of what they can expect from the relationship and what you promise to deliver. At the minimum new subscribers should receive a basic welcome message, but a comprehensive package of value offers, information, past articles, software or white paper downloads would be the ultimate engagement package to start the relationship.
To encourage people to sign up for your company email list offer them something in return for their email addresses and sell them on the benefits of being on your list. In addition, remove any barriers to subscriber sign-up from your site, newsletter or landing page. One effective tactic to grow an email list is to reduce the amount of data required to sign-up. Only request vital information (name and email address). Once people have signed up, you can welcome them by email and offer an additional incentive to encourage them to tell you a little more about themselves.
Relevancy
The foundation of email marketing success is creating commercial email messages or email newsletters your customers want to read or find valuable. Content relevancy, timing, and list segmentation are the first critical steps towards an email marketing campaign that targets the right people with the right message at the right time. Sending holiday promotions early October may not be relevant, but after Thanksgiving it is.
Email Metrics and Web Analytics Integration
Integration of web site analytics with email marketing campaign tools allows you to track the effectiveness of an email campaign beyond the inbox and to gather clickstream data about a visitor's behavior and path through your web site. This information can then be used to gauge the effectiveness of your email campaign and to re-target visitors who browsed your web site, but abandoned the shopping cart, with a new offer. Most ESP's offer web analytics integration as an option to their services.
Email marketing is alive and well and the turn of events has created an entirely new landscape to build on. Take advantage of it now, and get a leg up on your competition.
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WebmasterWorld PubCon 2006
Louise Rijk presents: "Viral and WOMM Marketing Management"
Nov. 14-17, Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Clark University - Graduate School for Information Technology
Louise Rijk presents one-day seminar: "Ecommerce Web Sites and Online Marketing"
Jan. 10, 2007, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts. |
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Copyright © 1999-2006. Advanced Media Productions, Inc.
Advanced Media Productions, Inc.
251 West Central St., Suite 28, Natick, Massachusetts 01760, USA
Tel: 508-647-5151 Fax: 508-647-5150
E-mail: info@advmediaproductions.com
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