With online audiences becoming more sophisticated, and more jaded, it is important to keep up with current online marketing tactics to achieve the ROI you or your client needs. No where is this more true than in your email marketing campaigns. Several recent studies show however, that many companies-small, medium, and large, are not utilizing latest techniques to achieve the best results in their campaigns.
A recent report released by Strong Mail, authored by email marketing analyst and Relevancy Group CEO David Daniels, based on a survey of US and UK companies, found that they would have generated double the revenue from their email campaigns. This was achieved by doing proper targeting, comparing those that did to many that did not.
Doubling results is nothing to sneeze at, so it is important that we take a look at what some of the sins you want to avoid to keep your campaigns returns above those of your competitors. While email is a key element of any marketers tool box, as this survey shows, many are making common mistakes that are costing them lots of potential revenue.
Not targeting your customer and their specific needs
This is key if you sell more than one product or service, or if your prospects’ needs vary through the customer life cycle. It may seem like you are doing everyone a favor by sending a general email blast to customers letting them know about current offerings. The reality is that you can increase interest and exponentially increase revenue by targeting customers specific needs. If your customer needs widget xyz , don’t try to market them widget abc. If they have specific needs provide that specific group of customers valuable content and information to those with that specific product or service need. Know what your customers’ specific needs or wants are and target those customers in segmented groups. This can also change in the sales cycle or in the customer life cycle. This was the factor that doubled revenue for companies in the Strong Mail survey.
You will also greatly reduce unsubscribes and other negative connotations from being developed by customers regarding your lists, by providing them exactly what they need.
Ignorance
It is important to know what the current best practices are, and also what your list is doing. Some businesses look at email as a send it and forget it campaign, without knowing what their customers are thinking. As in the above example, knowing what is going on with your customers, what they think of being on your list, and addressing them specifically can all have a huge impact on your bottom line.
This also includes not ensuring that prospects can easily and quickly unsubscribe. A recent report showed that around 4-5% of retail customers unsubscribe requests failed. Besides Can-Spam legal issues, there is the fact that those customers still have value, and possible interest if unsubscribed. That can quickly turn to anger, however, if they are unable to do so easily.
Improper Timing
Many businesses fail to realize that the timing of your message, that is when in the sales cycle, as well as the day and time of the message, have a major impact on response rates. This is just as important as the message itself and who receives it.
Numerous studies seem to show a consensus that messages sent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, have the best chance of being opened with many direct marketers finding Tuesdays best for new offers. Most agree that time of day has a great impact on if it is opened or not. Some say 10-11am is good, others say that around 2 is best. There does seem to be debate over what is best, and likely varies from market to market.
A lot of thought should be put into when messages are sent, with day and time tracked closely.
Not properly utilizing advanced techniques
To those that use them, it is known that advanced or trigger based segmentation can achieve much higher results than typical email campaigns. Despite this, a survey from Econsultancy reveals that only a minority of companies use this and other advanced tools that impact email campaign revenue.
Multivariate testing is another valuable tool, that is frequently either ignored or mis-implemented. For those unfamiliar, multivariate testing provides results based on multiple variables within a campaign, and how they interact with one another in effecting results. Not to be confused with more simple split testing, this may include multiple copy versions, subjects, day, time, customer list segment, and more all in a campaign. While testing is obvious in theory, proper implementation of multivariate testing sometimes can become the issue, when improperly set up. This is according to a SiteSpect whitepaper, indicating that implementation can be complicated for some, and results sometimes surprising. It is, however, an important tool in understanding your campaigns and achieving proper results.
Ignoring the trend towards IP/domain reputation
There is a clear new trend in email filtering and delivery. Many major ISPs are putting in place domain based reputation systems. This is a major shift in delivery and email marketers need to prepare. It is already estimated that less than 70% of emails reach their recipients. It is important that the domains or IP through which your messages are sent are whitelisted and have low bounce and spam complaint rates. “Trust” of the IPs and domains are going to be an important factor in delivery. This is a major issue all onto itself and is important to understand and prepare for.
Confused how to handle social media
Many marketers have been unsure with how to handle social media, with regards to their email campaigns.
The question is often if it should be ignored, or if its style and message should be replicated to hopefully increase response.
The answer proposed by Econsultancy, along with Adestra in their in their fourth annual Email Marketing Industry Consenus, is to use it as an enhancement or complement to the email campaign. The report found that 37% of companies are using email to encourage prospects and customers to engage on social networks. About a third at 31% claim that they have plans to integrate social media, and only 21% say that they use email to promote customer ratings and reviews.
This leaves a large amount of mind share available within social media for most businesses. Those that integrate first will have the best opportunity to capture mindshare, and improve not only email response, but often general marketing ROI.
Not noticing new regulatory trends
There appears to be a strong sentiment towards much more regulation online and direct marketing in government right now, both at the FTC and in Congress. Some of this may be good, but some is quite business changing in how things are to be done. Recent changes in the past year include new rules changing and limiting automated voice message delivery, testimonials and product marketing restrictions, email, privacy, blogging and referral requirements, continuity/recurring charges/retention program restrictions from visa, and much more. The FTC is becoming more aggressive and this trend looks to continue. Staying on top of all these changes even BEFORE they happen will give your business a competitive advantage. It helps cull weaker players, and the winners are the ones with clear ideas on how to proceed in new regulatory environments. Keeping a watchful eye will keep your business not only ahead in email, but all online marketing campaigns, and out of potential legal issues.
In the end, keepings all these points in mind, and aware of coming changes will help your business achieve maximum results and stay above the competition.
Filed under Advertising, Email Marketing, Internet Business, Internet Marketing by on Nov 27th, 2011. Comment. 
New Regulations are coming for email marketing.
Two recent actions by the FTC, as well as new privacy legislation that is being bandied about in the house of representatives, indicates that email marketers will soon find not only new regulations, but reinterpretation of old ones, that will have an impact on email marketing, and in turn on all direct marketing conducted online.
There are several provisions slipped into a proposed bill under the guise of online privacy that are quite worrisome for the marketing community, according to panelists at the annual Email Experience Council’s legislative update.
Privacy legislation introduced in a bill during May, by members of the US House of Representatives, would require notice to and consent from any individual prior to collecting or using personally identifiable information, including email.
The DMA has opposed this bill explaining it “has potentially sweeping impact for direct marketers” by requiring notice and consent from individuals prior to any collection, use or disclosure of information. As of the time of writing, there are no exclusions within the bill.
At the Email Experience Councils legislative webinar, according to the DMA’s VP of Government Relations, this impacts nearly all first party senders (those to whom the lead orginally opted in), as well as any other third party company that has access to that data, which proposes coverage of an extensive list of “unique and persistant” personal consumer data.
Another panelist, the Chief Privacy Officer at Return Path, said in particular, that the scope of covered data, which includes “unique identifiers” everything from email address to ip address, is quite worrisome. “If the exceptions for transactional and operational purposes and for service providers are not effective and clear, this bill could interfere with many industry collaborations. This includes IP-based reputation systems – data that determines if email messages reach the inbox or not. It may also impact the operation of Feedback Loops provided to email senders by mailbox providers like Yahoo! and Hotmail. These feedback loops are a key component in how the industry keeps bad actors out of the email ecosystem.”
There is also legislation to expand the powers of the FTC, which could have broad impact on the industry. They are already expanding their reach into all things cyberspace. In their recent actions with regards to email, they have indicated they have a problem with personalized subject lines that imply “personal familiarity” with a person, or anything else that may be intrepreted as misleading.
What are some of the things that the FTC doesn’t like?
Moving forward it will be important for your business to keep an eye on these moves and adjust your business practices accordingly as some of the things covered here are currently common practice in online marketing campaigns.
You can also review more commentary on the specifics of the proposed regulations here at the blog of Return Path executive Tom Bartel on their site.
Filed under Internet Business, Internet Marketing, Online Business by on Nov 21st, 2011. Comment.
