I get a lot of questions about what these services mean to marketers and do they have an effect on deliverability. The topic came up recently during one of my discussions with friend and Deliverability Consultant Greg Kraios (Den Of Deliverability), who emphasized that "it is important to understand why those features exist in the first place. Recipients feel like their inboxes are out of control. And that isn't an issue of SPAM anymore. The large email providers have largely eliminated true SPAM from inboxes."
And that's so very true. And to those of you who just spit out your coffee and shouted "SPAM isn't a problem anymore?!?", calm down. I understand SPAM is still a problem in many ways (from phishing and malware to the the sheer bandwidth and resources it consumes), but SPAM is generally not what is responsible for an overcrowded inbox. The problem they're addressing now is greymail: those emails you may have signed up for, but are either no longer relevant or are coming too frequently.
And why does that happen? Because, in large part, marketers are setting poor expectations and giving little control over frequency at the point of signup. Many marketers take the approach of "keep sending until we get push-back." That "push-back" is often in the form of an unsubscribe (or worse, a complaint.) I've seen growth in the use of profile forms which allow recipients to adjust frequency or type of mailings happening at the back end (after they've decided they've had enough), but very rarely have I seen it being given at the front end.
Keep this in mind as you're creating (or making adjustments) to your email marketing program. Put yourself in the shoes of your audience when examining your sign-up process. Is it apparent what you'll be receiving? Or how often? If not during sign-up, is that information (or the ability to adjust it) conveyed in a welcome message?
Next time, I'll focus more on this from the Marketer's perspective. In the mean-time, if you're looking to evaluate your program or need help making improvements, give us a call. We'd love to help.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
This is absolutely one of my all-time favorite quotes. As a results-oriented-marketer, I've spent many days (and nights) pouring over data, trying to understand why things are they way they are. But the reality is, data only paints part of the picture.
This is a fantastic blog post from MarketingExperiments, Optimization 101: How to get real results from A/B testing by Paul Cheney, illustrating the entire picture to successful testing. I really liked alot about this post, but this paragraph in particular really rang true to me:
So while most marketers can certainly slap together two treatments and see which one gets a higher conversion rate, the marketer that asks “why” more customers responded to one treatment over the other is gleaning the maximum customer insight.
This may seem like a really basic statement, but how many of us actually take the time to combine numerical data with anecdotal data from prospects, customers or other stakeholders? I'd actually love to have your response! Please reply in the comments section with the types of data you collect to run your testing.
What we find from many of our managed email marketing clients is their need to outsource much of this testing to ensure their projects get done, the right way. As marketers, we've all been there, awesome intentions to run a comprehensive A/B campaign only to get side-tracked with another priority mid-stream. Sure you may glean some high level wins, i.e. a particular subject line yielded higher opens than the other... but by taking it one step further and asking "Why" just might yield the biggest win of all.
At Delivra, we're an email marketing agency that provides software and managed services to our clients. We enjoy putting together testing campaigns and ensuring we paint the entire picture of their email marketing programs. If you're looking for an email marketing partner, give us a call at 866.915.9465
For those who missed it, the 2012 Byte Night, an NPower annual event, was awesome: it's one of Indianapolis's premier networking and leadership events for technologists. By the way, you should be sure to attend next year - what a GREAT organization.
Consistent with NPower's mission, Byte Night provides an opportunity to showcase some fantastic not for profit organizations in Indianapolis. In addition, NPower has a long standing tradition called the Tech Angel awards. This year, Delivra has agreed to be a Tech Angel for two sensational organizations in Indianapolis: the Martin Luther King Community Center and the South East Neighborhood Development Inc. Both have amazing mission statements and are out there on the front lines serving our community.
Delivra is excited to offer both organizations a FULL YEAR of professional email marketing. We're going to partner with both organizations to provide a full suite of not just email marketing tools, but every bit of the strategy and consulting they need to create truly effective connections with their stakeholders and donors.
Check out this quick video that provides a great overview of NPower, the Tech Angel awards, and these two, very deserving organizations.
When Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook, he probably didn't consider what a tremendous opportunity this social media website would present for corporations all across the country and even across the globe. In conjunction with Twitter, Blogger, LinkedIn, and more recently, Google+, social media platforms are quickly becoming crucial components of any successful Internet marketing strategy.
Despite the opportunity offered by these social media websites, reports have shown that many email marketing consultants are failing to take full advantage by connecting professional email marketing with social media marketing for ultimate exposure. If you want to enjoy greater exposure and subsequent success for your own company, consider the following tips for leveraging social media in your professional email marketing campaign.
Provide Easy Sharing Features
If you want your emails to be shared more often, you can start by simply making your emails easier to share. If you're thinking, "But our emails already include a 'forward to a friend' feature," you are part of a surprisingly large group that is missing out on incredible opportunities for brand exposure through social media. According to a 2010 study by eMarketer, 48 percent of marketers allow email recipients to forward the email to a friend, while just 13 percent offer special features for sharing emails on social networks. A study by MarketingSherpa discovered that the simple addition of social media sharing buttons in a managed email marketing campaign led to a 25 percent increase in reader interaction and dramatic surges in Internet traffic to a company's website. With the promising results of this study and the slow pace of the competition, integrating easy sharing could dramatically enhance your company's professional email marketing campaign.
Cross Promote
Cross promotion is a highly effective strategy for maximizing exposure. If there is an unusual imbalance of subscribers on your accounts, this likely indicates that your company could be doing a better job at cross promoting. For example, if your company has 16,000 Twitter followers and only 2,000 email subscribers, it's likely that not all of your subscribers are aware of the benefits of subscribing to your email newsletters. Encourage your subscribers on each social media outlet to subscribe to receive emails from your company and stay connected through other social networks. Asking nicely may not work every time, which brings me to my next point:
Offer Incentives
Despite the fact not every company makes it easy for consumers to share emails on social networks, nearly every business in the country has at least one social networking account. This poses a problem for businesses because tougher competition leads to higher selectivity from consumers when choosing which corporations to follow to prevent cluttering news feeds with promotion after promotion. To successfully encourage more email subscriptions, or to follow you on social networks, you need to be able to answer the tacit question of the consumer, namely, "What's in it for me?" Incentives can include discounts, sweepstakes, freebies and other attention-grabbing benefits of this nature.
Because trends in both email and social media marketing change at a rapid pace, an email marketing agency is the most effective way to maintain momentum and stay ahead of the competition. With a world of opportunities available through social networking, your professional email marketing campaign could generate more attention than ever before.
Newsletters have been considerably popular vehicles of information for businesses, clubs, societies, and various organizations since before the Internet was even a concept. Although the advancement of technology could have easily caused newsletters to become obsolete, they survived - or rather, successfully adapted to - the digital age for one very simple reason: both subscribers and organizations continue to find them useful. In accurately describing the power f the newsletter, "useful" is actually a mild characterization of the many benefits that come from this medium. Newsletters grant organizations the opportunity to share current promotions and reviews of previous events in a friendly, journalistic tone.
Why It Works
While the underlying purpose of the newsletter is to increase subscriber interest and ultimately generate more business, the conversational nature and structure of newsletters gives companies the opportunity to build a more personal and relaxed relationship with consumers and partners. Although newsletters come with several inherently positive qualities, they have even greater potential than the average professional may be able to recognize and uncover. A newsletter is more than just formatting and content - it is an opportunity to expand your business and improve customer outreach.
Staying Consistent
The potential for greater success is not something that an opportunistic company would or should take lightly. With managed email marketing by a well-trained and highly experienced email marketing agency, crucial marketing tactics and strategies can be applied to your company's newsletter to ensure a consistent message and maximum appeal to the consumer. Effective email marketing requires more than just creative content and an attractive newsletter design, but requires supervision from an educated and experienced email marketing consultant to integrate specific strategies, tactics and various idiosyncrasies involved in professional email marketing.
Email marketing practices are not something learned overnight, either. Keeping up with popular marketing trends and monitoring the competition are two highly important elements of a successful managed email marketing campaign. Marketing trends aren't always black and white. In other words, what may be an effective strategy for one industry many not be as effective for another. Often, determining the most effective marketing strategy requires a continuous cycle of trial and error to create a solid set of appropriate tactics. With the fast pace of the Internet marketing sphere, these strategy trends change on a weekly, even daily basis.
Get Results
Since time is money in the world of business, most companies can't afford to sacrifice the time (let along the effort or expertise) necessary to create effective newsletters on a regular basis. The cost of hiring a highly qualified and well-experienced email marketing consultant at Delivra is affordable and logical for businesses of all sizes due to the impressive return on investment (ROI) that comes with this business decision. The Direct Marketing Association reported that ROI for email marketing at $40.56 for every dollar invested in 2011. Although this figure is projected to decrease slightly in the year 2012, it is expected to still remain highly substantial at $39.40 for every dollar invested. With the promise of high returns and effective, competitive strategy integration, the question you should be asking is: Could my company's newsletter generate a more successful response and greater impact with the benefits of professional marketing?
Since the advent of social media, Internet marketing has evolved at a rapid pace. These dramatic changes have caused many people to question whether professional email marketing is still a profitable component of the marketing campaign. It's true, email marketing has company in the Internet marketing sphere, but those who disregard its marketing potential will miss out on a consistently performing opportunity despite the increasing success of social media outlets.
Although social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others give users the opportunity to communicate through messaging features, studies have shown email still retains its popularity. During an earnings call in January 2012, Google claimed to have 350 million active Gmail users. In October 2011, Hotmail claimed an identical user base, while Yahoo! reported a figure relatively close at 310 million users -- and this is just coming from the three major hubs. Studies also show most of these users are checking their email every day, which makes this medium a tremendous marketing opportunity for businesses.
When it comes to the value of email marketing, most companies don't need much convincing. Data has shown they are already willing to invest large sums toward professional email marketing strategies. Forrester Research has projected companies will spend approximately $1.676 billion on managed email marketing in 2012 and approximately $1.649 billion on social media in the same year. These statistics indicate many companies have equally assigned values to both email marketing and social media marketing. Actually, with email marketing leading by $27 million, it appears this component is considered slightly more important than social media marketing alternatives.
So, we can see email still has a large user base and is still considered highly valuable by American corporations, but does it pass the test of being effective for generating sales? According to Adrian Mullan of WebProNews, email marketing is not only effective for generating online sales, but offline sales as well. A reported 59 percent of email users claim to have made an offline purchase after receiving an email promotion, which indicates that while one email advertisement may not lead to an immediate sale, it certainly leaves an impression on the buyer. Further research reveals that the average shopper comes into contact with an item nine times before making a purchasing decision. This means each marketing technique plays a key role in encouraging a sale. Leaving email marketing out of the equation can cause this exposure to fall short.
Unlike social media, managed email marketing through an email marketing agency has a unique value because it ensure a personalized and continuous relationship with the consumer. Maintaining the relationship with current customers is highly important, since studies show acquiring a new customer is eight to ten times more expensive than selling to a current customer. New sales are certainly not to be disregarded, but keeping up with current customers through email has proven to generate repeat sales estimated to be four times more profitable than the first purchase.
To take full advantage of the many benefits that come from managed email marketing, an experienced and educated email marketing consultant is essential. With proper execution, your company can soon begin to see why email marketing truly does matter.
What could be more appropriate in finishing up our series on industries benefiting from email marketing than a spotlight on government? With the upcoming presidential electing approaching rapidly, political interest and publicity is on the rise. Organizations involved in government on multiple levels can all use this heightened interest to their advantage through professional email marketing. In fact, many of them already are.
It's so easy to see why managed email marketing might be appealing to governmental entities. For one, an email marketing agency can specially tailor an organization's marketing campaign to approach the issues in an effective, personalized manner. For example, say a government-sponsored public housing sector was looking for support in expanding a certain kind of housing into another district. Residents of the affected district would have to be approached from a more sensitive angle than those in surrounding regions unaffected by this expansion. Under the supervision of an experienced email marketing consultant, candidates can depend on customized messages regarding these types of sensitive political subjects.
Complementing the personal approach taken through email marketing, government also has the advantage of cost-efficiency when integrating this strategy. In an environment where government funding is increasingly limited, this components especially appealing. In addition to the more obvious reasons why an organization in a governmental entity might find managed email marketing useful, the strategy has already proven to be effective for governments in other less immediately obvious ways.
According to several studies comparing the efficacy of email marketing among multiple industries, government ranks higher than the majority of measured industries in several components of email marketing. One particular study, conducted in December of 2010, revealed open rate of 25.66 percent for email marketing campaigns of governmental entities. This rate is higher than ecommerce at 14.98 percent, recruitment and staffing at 15.21 percent, sports at 19.54 percent, and even business and finance at 15.47 percent. This high open rate indicates subscribers are both interested in the issues and concerned about what the local, state and federal government agencies have to say about these issues.
The click-through rate for the government is also comparably stronger at 5.37 percent for all emails received. This statistic might seem low from a general standpoint, but it ranks nearly 2 points higher than the average click-through rate of 3.7 percent. Since click-through rates indicate how compelling the message is to the reader, this puts government at a significant advantage in terms of general public interest regarding government issues. Government also has considerably lower rates for abuse complaints and unsubscribers at 0.04 percent and 0.20 percent, respectively.
Ensuring the public's awareness and involvement in government issues is an important component of building stronger communities and a stronger country. With managed email marketing, this goal is made easier than ever for organizations in government, while also offering a convenient outlet for the public to receive word and speak their peace as well.
Email is an integral part of marketing. But if not used properly it can turn into spam. Or worse, it could end up alienating your customers and prospects who are already tired of seeing ‘sales’ emails in their inbox.
So how can you make email prospecting effective? Like in the sales process, the first thing you should be doing is to build trust. Email prospecting should be used to initiate conversations, generate interests and create awareness about you, your company and your products. Some pointers to keep in mind when prospecting via email include:
- Keep your emails short: Long emails are usually not read until the end and usually gets deleted without a second thought. They look intimidating and your prospects may not find the time to patiently go over it. Therefore, it is necessary to keep it simple and short.
- Have a short subject line: Your subject line should be comprised of just a few words rather than a long sentence. It should be clear, purposeful and should relate to your email.
- Personalize your email: Compose your email as you would to your friends and colleagues. You can use short sentences and informal language, but not at the risk of sounding sloppy. It doesn't have to be a standard template either - make it creative by adding the contact information of the Business Development Manager they will be talking to if they respond.
- Pique your prospect's interest: Your email should spark your prospect's interest. This means your message should be about them and not about you. You can highlight a specific problem or interest you think your prospect is facing right now and suggest a solution for it.
- Show what you can do: Rather than just telling them you know about their problem and offering your solution for it, show them exactly how you can help them. Illustrate with an example or better yet, with customer testimonials or third-party product reviews.
- Make it easy for them to connect: Make it easy for them to act immediately adding “reply”, social share buttons, or including important links on your website for contact info, etc.
At Delivra, we have perfected the art of creating email campaigns to build brands and sell products. Consult with our email marketing experts to create a campaign just right for you.
The advancement of technology and Internet marketing has been highly beneficial for the photo and video industry for perhaps fairly obvious reasons. With email and social media marketing, professionals in this industry are able to share their work quicker than ever with greater detail. Having a strong email marketing campaign, in an industry where aesthetic quality has the heaviest influence on whether or not a consumer chooses that particular business, is key to enticing the buyer to take advantage of current promotions, discounts and new techniques or services offered by the company. Although there are a number of reasons that might account for the photo and video industry's email marketing success, consider the following top three contributing factors.
1. More Subscribers Open Their Emails
It may seem like a no-brainer, but the success of many professional email marketing campaigns in the photo and video industry is in part due to the high open rate this industry has overall. Studies indicate a 28.93 percent open rate for all emails sent by companies in the photo and video industry, which proves strong interest among the general public. Even ostensibly more popular industries, such as retail and education, rank considerably lower with just 17.8 percent and 16.64 percent, respectively. Greater interest means greater profit for any business, and for the photo and video industry this certainly holds true.
2. More Subscribers Click the Links in Their Emails
Any experienced email marketing consultant will tell you the click-through rate of an email marketing campaign is one of the most important factors for measuring its success. For the photo and video industry in particular, studies reveal a click-through rate of 5.7 percent. For those who aren't well versed in proper measurement of click-through rates, this figure is exactly 2 percentage points above the average of 3.7 percent. The population used to determine an average click-through rate included several other notable industries, including real estate, insurance and legal industries.
3. Fewer Subscribers Complain or Unsubscribe
An irresponsible or inexperienced use of email can lead to abuse by overwhelming the consumer with excess emails in a manner technically classified as spamming. When email is abused in this way, it often results in customer complaints and a surplus of customers unsubscribing to the company. Although this abuse of strategy, should rightfully only affect the company at fault, it can often have a negative effect on the customer's perception of the entire industry. With the photo and video industry, abuse complaint rates and unsubscribe rates remain significantly low, with a measured 0.07 percent of the former and 0.26 percent for the latter.
Although the nature of the photo and video industry likely helps contribute to its email marketing success, a well-trained and experienced consultant can often have the biggest impact on compelling subscribers to open emails and further encourage them to click the link embedded in the email. In addition to these highly important components, managed email marketing also decreases the likelihood of abuse, which can frequently have a detrimental effect on the campaign overall. Since statistics indicate email marketing favors the photo and video industry's, companies who are currently taking advantage of professional email marketing opportunities can continue to expect positive returns in the future.
The construction industry has had a rough few years with a sharp decline of demand resulting from the financial crisis of the late 2000s. Although this crisis posed a substantial setback for the industry, the slow recovery of the economy has led to greater business opportunities and promise for the industry as a whole. The gradual improvement of the economy can take most of the credit for this increased success; however, credit should also partially be attributed to widespread integration of email marketing throughout the construction industry. Compared with other industries- including entertainment, health and fitness, and public relations—the construction industry has generated substantially greater interest and success with their own email marketing campaigns.
A Firm Foundation
Recent studies have reported a 28.7 percent open rate for emails sent by businesses in the construction industry, with an equally impressive click-through rate of 8.01 percent. Put in perspective: the business and finance industry follows far behind with a 15.57 percent open rate and a dismal 2.77 percent click-through rate. The music industry lies even further from this point with a 13.95 percent open rate and a 2.43 percent click-through rate. Based on this information, it's clear the construction industry is benefiting much more from managed email marketing than many other industries.
Understanding What Works
Despite the relatively high open and click-through rates of the construction industry and the general success of email marketing among construction companies, surveys have shown many businesses in this field aren't even aware of how well they are doing in terms of email marketing efficiency. When a group of construction companies were asked what their open rates were for their email campaigns, 51 percent responded they didn't know. An even greater 76 percent reported not to know the company's click-through rates either. This lack of communication and data analysis within the company could be caused by a failure to hire an experienced email marketing consultant to analyze data and manage the campaign in an effective manner. With proper management, the construction industry could potentially generate even more success through the strategy of email marketing.
Building Better ROI
Although the construction industry may need better management to ensure maximum email marketing efficiency, collected data indicates the strategy already comes with a great deal of profit potential for this industry in particular. For construction companies working independently or still struggling to get back on their feet, the prospect of email marketing can be especially appealing due to its high return on investment (ROI). Statistics indicate professional email marketing for the year 2012 is projected to generate an ROI of $39.40 for every dollar spent toward the service. This substantial return is unmatched by any other traditional media or Internet marketing strategy available, which is why it's a preferred choice for various industries.
What sets the construction industry apart from other successful industries is the widespread lack of understanding and appreciation of the tremendous benefits they're receiving from email marketing. This industry may be enjoying a unique success now, but as trends develop and more industries become proficient in managed email marketing tactics and understand the implications of increased ROI that result, the construction industry may get company.
Focusing on email marketing may initially seem obsolete when considering how many different forms of media available to businesses as a means of communicating with consumers in the modern digital age. From social media to mobile applications, the consumer base can be accessed with a wide array of media strategies. So, why choose email marketing? One of the best (and most obvious) reasons to stick with the strategy of hiring an email marketing agency is because it has shown incredible success across a wide range of different industries. As a testament to this fact, consider what the travel industry in particular is gaining from this fruitful marketing strategy.
Reaching Out
It may seem elementary, but just being able to get your foot in the door with your consumer base can be a feat in and of itself. To determine the efficiency of email effectiveness, data is collected and analyzed regularly to ensure all emails have been properly sent without error. Measurement of this data is known as the company's "bounce rate," or "non-bounce rate" if the rate of successful delivery is exceptionally high. A 2011 study shows the travel industry has a non-bounce rate of 98.1 percent, with an open rate of 70.7 percent—the latter of which indicates how many email recipients actually open the email. Since the average open rate across several industries is approximately 20.3 percent, this indicates a significant advantage for the travel industry in particular.
Gaining Attention
The real statistic an experienced email marketing consultant would specifically look for is the company's click-through rate in the email marketing campaign. A click-through rate indicates how often a consumer feels compelled to click the link provided in the email they received. Essentially, this rate indicates the appeal of the product or promotion the company is highlighting in the email. Studies have shown the travel industry has a measured click-through rate of 6.4 percent, which is higher than many other leading industries, including the retail apparel industry at 3.5 percent and the consumer services industry at 4.1 percent.
Generating Profit
Let's face it: the bottom line of any professional email marketing campaign is to make money, which is why this is the most important factor in determining the success of email marketing. According to Ken Magill of the Magill Report, the return on investment (ROI) for email marketing in 2011 was $40.56 for every dollar invested. This exceptionally high figure is predicted to drop slightly for the year 2012, with an estimated ROI of $39.40 for every dollar invested. Overall, email marketing is predicted to generate $67.8 billion in sales for the year 2012, indicating businesses involved in the travel industry can expect big gains for the year 2012 by implementing email marketing into their campaigns.
With excellent consumer response to current email marketing strategies implemented by the travel industry, companies who have yet to adapt to these trends or would like to capitalize on the success of the strategy can benefit greatly by utilizing the services of an experienced and well-trained email marketing agency. Integrating managed email marketing not only ensures maximum appeal and outreach to the consumer, but also ensures a substantial profit considering the projected promise of the industry.
Delivra is sponsoring All About eMail Live! - a one-day event for email marketers. This intensive workshop will allow you to join your peers and collaborate with an all-star lineup of industry leaders who will discuss the hottest email marketing trends, including best practices and strategies, acquisition, data management, email and social, rendering, and more.
It's being held at:
New York Marriott
http://live.emarketingandcommerce.com/agenda/
I'm moderating a roundtable at 1:30pm entitled: 2012 Email Marketing Best Practices.
We will be discussing the top trends and best practies for 2012 such as: data integration, relevant list building, content, content, content, mobile (design and messaging), testing and analysis and much more!
Look me up if you plan to attend...
Recently, I had to call the pharmacy to make sure they had been able to refill a prescription for me. The lady was very nice and said it was ready. In addition, she asked if I would be interested in signing up to receive a text message when my prescriptions were ready in the future.
Of course!
How convenient to be able to get a text message when my prescriptions are ready for pick-up. CVS also allows you to sign up to receive emails to better manage your prescriptions, receive health information, and receive special offers throughout the store. And that's just one example! They're taking advantage of several different types of marketing channels to make their program more efficient for customers. Many email marketing firms are encouraging their clients to expand into other channels to increase their reach to audiences.
Only working in one channel right now? Pairing with an email marketing agency, like Delivra, can help you implement other programs in addition to your email campaigns. It might make sense to set up an SMS program (outbound test messages) as a way to communicate with you audience. Or they might be able to help set up a text to subscribe program as well. Text to subscribe refers to having people text you their email address to join your email marketing list. It's a great way to build your email list without much effort on your part.
For the best email marketing results, incorporate it with other channels, whether that's mobile marketing, social media marketing, blogging, or all of them!
I'm looking forward to receiving my first update from CVS via text and email (now that's I'm signed up for it). Want to learn more about managing your email marketing and incorporating some additional channels? Reach out the email marketing consultants at Delivra today!
A week ago, three members of the Delivra team and one of our clients attended the 2012 Email Evolution Conference. On several occasions, I heard the conference referred to as "an email pep rally." It was exactly that - a place to meet and network with others in the industry, learn more about the latest email trends, and represent our email marketing agency.
As a group, we shared amongst ourselves information we gleaned from the different presentations we went to. I attended Auditing Your Email Marketing Program to Improve Performance presented by Jeanne Jennings of JeanneJennings.com and Sanije Gjokaj of Scholastic and Essential Email Prospecting Strategies to Test in 2012 by Jay Schwedelson of Worldata. They were both incredibly informative presentations and left me with tangible advice I could consider implementing into our email campaigns.
Unicode: In Jay Schwedelson's presentation he mentioned emails that included Unicode in the subject line received an increased open rate of 18%. Not a perfect fit for all email programs, but perhaps a good addition to some email campaigns. If nothing else, it should be monitored and tested.
Exclusivity: Again in Jay's presentation, he mentioned that a subject line which mentions exclusivity generates an additional 27% open rate in email campaigns. Whether it's presented by 'Invitation Only' or 'For CFOs Only' - might be something to consider testing.
Improvement: Among other things, Jeanne recommended in her presentation to improve how email marketing is managed and measured by justifying sends and by implementing test programs. We've been focusing on the processes of our email marketing program at Delivra for some time now. It was good to be reminded of and motivated by the importance of doing so. It was also helpful to leave with information about how analyzing data can enhance performance.
Anthony Scott from the Eiteljorg Museum and Delivra's Director of Marketing, Megan Glover, were also in the presentation line up. Their presentation was about Combining Text and Traditional marketing Channels to boost Subscribers and Sales. It was a real use case of how Eiteljorg Museum was able to use Delivra as their email marketing consultants to help build and implement a text-to-subscribe program in addition to their email campaigns and other traditional marketing efforts. Based on this success, the museum now plans to expand the text-to-subscribe campaign and include SMS (outbound messages) as well.
Find out more about setting up a text-to-subscribe program or SMS.
Although email marketing has proven effective across a wide range of different industries, the strategy has recently shown especially notable promise in the restaurant industry in particular. This promise is evidenced partially by a recent study that revealed a 20 percent open rate of all emails sent by restaurants in 2010. This may not sound like an impressive statistic by itself, but when compared with other industries surveyed, it ranks considerably higher. For example, the entertainment industry came in at just a 16 percent open rate, followed even further behind by the medical, dental and healthcare industries, which have a 13 percent open rate.
What Email Offers
Again you might be thinking: What's the big deal if customers are opening more of their emails from restaurant companies? According to Forrester Research, this open rate increase is complemented by a 17 percent revenue increase from each customer in this population. This inference is based on a study conducted by Forrester Research, which revealed that there is a 17 percent increase in purchase value of email subscribers versus non-subscribers. Although opening an email may not necessarily solidify a sale right then and there, it can still have an influence on the customer in the future. A reported 87 percent of consumers in the same Forrester Research study claimed email marketing impacted their future purchasing decisions.
The Proof isn't in the Pudding—it's in the ROI
Investing in managed email marketing is something both small and large restaurants truly can't afford to miss out on because of its proven efficacy in generating more business. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing generates ROI of $57.25 for each dollar spent on the service. Compared with alternative options for online marketing, such as social media marketing, the ROI for email marketing is 150 percent greater. Looking at it from a purely objective point of view, it's difficult to argue with an investment generating such a substantial return.
A Recipe for Success
If the proven efficiency of hiring an email marketing consultant isn't enough of a motive to take advantage of this highly lucrative service, consider the fact that many other restaurants in the industry are already following this recent trend. According to a study by National Restaurant News, an average of seven out of ten restaurants in the industry are actively pursuing an email marketing agency for their own campaigns. This statistic indicates that restaurants which don't incorporate professional email marketing may lose customers to restaurants which are more accessible, and thus could be left behind by the competition.
Intuition Matters
The success seen in the restaurant industry is likely due to the widespread popularity of using Internet resources to find information about a particular restaurant. Studies show that 89 percent of customers always research information about a restaurant online before dining there. The benefit of email marketing is it can bring this information directly to the customer, which increases the customer's convenience and improves the chances they will choose that particular restaurant over another requiring an active search to acquire the same information.
With the prevalence of Internet usage today, it's increasingly important for all kinds of businesses to maintain a presence in the same spheres consumers frequent. Since email is a primary form of communication among so many people, and because of the proven potential of email marketing, the benefits restaurants can enjoy from following this trend are immense.
With all the Super Bowl craziness going on in Naptown this week, it's a little hard to catch your breath! As an email marketer though, you probably know the feeling. This week's madness is really no different than what you normally deal with on a regular basis at the office while trying to send out immaculate email campaigns to your subscribers. Do you feel overwhelmed sending out emails because you alone are the entire email marketing team or because you only have a handful of burned out help? It might be a good idea to look into an email marketing agency to help manage your email marketing program who offers more than just the software. An email marketing company can act more like your email marketing partner and offer services to help ease some of the pressure and stress from your team. Some of those services at Delivra include:
Consulting. Who wouldn't appreciate an email marketing pro offering advice on how to make your email marketing program the best it can be and boosts your long-term results?
Design. We have a design team at Delivra who is dedicated to making client email campaigns look professional and get them results.
Account Management. Each Delivra customer has a dedicated account manager who is paired with them to answer questions, provide email marketing insight, and assist in long-term goals and objectives.
To find out what else Delivra can help you with, click here: http://www.delivra.com/managed-email-marketing/.
For more information about the launch of our new website, please check out the official press release! Have feedback for us on the new site? Feel free to leave a comment!
As a marketer, we would love for everyone to actually subscribe to our email updates so we can reach out to them every week to keep our brand in our consumers' minds. However, email is one of the most prominent aspects of our daily working lives, where we are inundated by work emails, social media updates, and email advertising campaigns. Therefore, getting someone to actually subscribe to your email can be tough. Instead of immediately asking someone to subscribe to your email updates, my suggestion is to ease them into the process to give them exposure to the types of emails you are sending out. Here are 2 ways to do this:
1. Use social media to promote your email.
Every email has a link associated with it, generally located in the header or footer of the email. Use this link to share your most recent email via social media. Mention the most important content of the email, and make sure to ask people to subscribe to your updates. Think of the most important content in your emails as almost a blog post - if people like what's being said, they will most likely subscribe to your blog, or in this case, to your email.
2. Have an email archive widget/page on your site.
One of the best ways to let more people read your emails is to have them on your site. My suggestion is to have an archive widget on your site, either located on the sidebar, or having a page specifically dedicated to your email archive. I would organize this by month, week, or whatever works best for your email campaign. You can create an RSS feed for your emails so they automatically show up in these sections.
I know some brands might be skeptical doing these things since it might decrease email conversions, but they of it this way: if visitors like what you're saying, they will want more. Why wouldn't they want to subscribe to your email updates if the only other option is to continually go back to your site or social media networks every week to read your newest email?
Email marketing is permission-based marketing at its core. Giving your potential consumers an idea of what content you are providing will allow them to make a more educated decision when subscribing to your email updates. As a result, you will have more dedicated subscribers and less unsubscribes.
Guest Blogger | Jenn Lisak Jenn is a relationship manager with DK New Media. Jenn consults and manages marketing strategies for clients and speaks and writes on marketing and social media.
I read a study by Marketing Sherpa. It said that 4 out of 10 recipients reported emails as spam only because it wasn't relevant. Sherpa also reports that emails which use segments get 50% more clicks. Below are a few segmentation ideas to help get you that needed lift.
1. Geographic: Send invitations to local events or use geographic limitations on service delivery to choose your audience.
2. Role: For example, a salesperson has different interests than a marketing manager. Segment with targeted content. Industry verticals also may demand a different approach.
3. Interest: Review the content your recipients have viewed. Re-market based on this information.
4. Behavior: You can use audience behavior as a filter for your communications. Of course, you need to have analytics set up on your site and you should integrate other purchase behavior into your email marketing system as well.
5. Brand Advocates: Your brand advocate segment could contain - frequent buyers, social media fans, or customers who have recommended you.
Segmentation can grow to be a beast, but even the slightest segmentation can increase your email success rates. Start small and expand as you encounter success.
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This week, the Email Experience Council and Sponsor, StrongMail, released the results of its "2012 Marketing Trends" survey which provides insight into how businesses plan to budget and prioritize marketing dollars in the New Year. Conducted in November 2011, 938 business leaders participated in the global survey.
The 2012 Marketing Trends Survey highlights:
- 92% plan to increase or maintain marketing spend in 2012
- 60% plan to increase email marketing budget; 54% social media; 37% mobile/search (tied)
- 45% cite data integration as primary email marketing challenge in 2012;
- 43% cite lack of resources/staff as primary email marketing challenge;
- 40% cite content management as primary email marketing challenge;
- 48% cite increasing subscriber engagement as top 2012 email marketing initiative;
- 44% cite improving segmentation/targeting as a top initiative;
- 32% cite growing opt-in email lists as a top initiative;
- 68% plan to integrate email marketing with social media; 45% with mobile; 17% with search
2012 is a new year but the survey, for me, merely reinforced what I hear regularly from staff, clients and prospects.
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