When it comes to sending marketing emails, it’s still common practice to send manual batched campaigns where the same message is sent to the same people. The smarter marketers are sending more targeted emails to segmented lists based on information such as purchase history, previous email interaction and demographics but there’a a wealth of more subtle information available to really take your email marketing to the next level. Executed well the use of behavioural data and the subsequent generation of emails triggered by certain actions and events can improve customer retention rates as well as increase acquisition levels. When you send an email blast to a large list, you are guessing the message might resonate with the recipients. But when you let customers…
Email strategy – getting the basics in place
Creating a strategy for email marketing will keep you in the race for customers. Continuity is key – both in terms of implementation and in identifying and reacting to change. Outlook (Hotmail), Gmail, Yahoo et al have been employing user interaction (or lack thereof) to determine whether emails are delivered in the inbox or junk folder for some time now but engaging users should, of course, be a marketing fundamental. Email is the mainstay of online marketing – commercial tools for sending mass marketing emails have been available in the UK since 1999. Every year since has shown double digit growth in email marketing spend despite the decline in the cost of email volume. Why? Because people like emails. Well,…
Set the tone
Many businesses are still creating online marketing collateral that comes across as rigid and impersonal. It often mirrors more traditional offline advertisements and brochure formats. Whether the excuse is ‘we’ve always done it this way’, fear of brand perception or just plain lack of imagination, adopting a so called ‘professional’ approach and conforming to old school thinking no longer fits with the new user of the Web. Of course, certain business sectors allow for more flexibility than others but, generally, there is scope to increase the appeal of marketing messages using a more conversational approach. TV advertising has been doing this for years. Why? Because you can see people in situations where anything other than interaction and behaviour we can…
Love at first sight
We all know how important it is to make a good first impression – especially when we’ve spent time and effort to look good in front of those we want to attract! So how do you do that with emails? Building an email database is about more than building a data capture form on your website as you need to drive traffic – whether it’s SEO, PPC, generating followers through social platforms or more traditional media – getting people to your website is an expensive business. So, when people do find their way to your website, ensure two things are done well; make it quick and easy for them to add their email address to your mailing list and create…
If not now, when?
Welcome to the first in a series of what to test and why with email marketing. It’s said that timing is everything and, given the change in the way we access our emails and the online world generally, it’s now even more important to send the right message at the right time. I’ve read a few posts lately saying 2015 is the year of customer experience, where marketers will put the customer first and create a positive experience from initial contact through to purchase and beyond. The other ‘big thing’ for this year is for marketing to become truly omni-channel. The drivers for these remain unchanged; fear and greed. Fear over rival brands stealing a march and customers, fear over…
Keeping up with the mobile Joneses
As email marketers, it’s easy to become trapped in the focus of what our company is doing and how best to reach people we want to sell our products and services to. But it’s important to hop over the fence now and then and try and understand how people shop now. I read recently that, on average, only 3% of people that visit websites buy. The good news is that leaves a whopping 97% that can be converted into paying customers. So what can you do you bump up the numbers? As always, it’s about making the journey from initial interest to purchase as quick and easy as possible, but taking into account that there are added distractions creating break…
display block – What’s in a name?
Here at display block we often receive the response, cool name, what do you do? We immediately know from that response whether we are talking to a geek or a marketer. Geeks get the name. If you look at the raw source code of any HTML email it’s likely to be littered with, display:block; and you can see the colon, semicolon in our logo. We thought it pretty clever and likened it to an Easter egg, the gift that you unwrap and then when you get into it, holds another little surprise for you. However, in the interests of full disclosure, this is what’s in a name…
Your pace or mine? The art of email frequency and timing
Email marketers (myself included) always say; don’t over mail your email list. Whilst this is still good advice, what determines over mailing has changed. We are all used to email now and Spam is pretty well controlled by Outlook (Hotmail), Gmail, Yahoo etc. We also spend a lot more of our lives online and managing our various email accounts is just part of what we do during our day. This means that our tolerance for email has increased, in fact, if we receive too few emails we are likely to forget about the brands that send them (see here for more about frequency). So when is the best time to send emails these days? The huge uptake of mobile devices…
Tapping potential – email click through rates
With 60% of emails being opened on mobile devices, we all want as many people as possible to tap links and visit our websites. So, what can you do to encourage people to get tapping? Email design is key and should be all about clear communication. Your message should be both precise and concise in our overloaded and fragmented digital World. Email click through rates can be improved by adopting the following actions; Don’t think, feel Our reactions to most things aren’t driven by thinking, they are driven by emotions with desire and fear usually right at the top of the list. Tapping on an image is easy if we see something we want. Equally, a fear of missing out…
Testing times
When we ask email marketing folks what testing they do when sending email campaigns, the list is usually pretty short. In fact, it’s often limited to subject lines and list segmentation. Whilst segmenting your list is probably the number one type of testing you should be doing, there are many other tests you can do to get a solid understanding of how well your email marketing is doing and where there is room to improve. Start by clearly defining what you want to achieve and set benchmarks so you can keep track of where you are along the way. Typical KPIs are opens, clicks, purchases and revenue. You should also define who you want to test various elements to and…