Blog - Archive for December, 2010

CAN-Spam defines a transactional or ‘relationship’ message as any email that facilitates, completes or confirms a commercial transaction that a recipient agreed to enter into with the sender. It is said that no other message is as personal, relevant or anticipated and as a result, transactional emails generally see open rates of 47% and click through rates (CTR’s) of 20%. Compared to commercial messages, which on average have open rates of 31% and CTR’s of just 6%, it’s easy to understand why marketers are including transactional emails in their overall e-marketing strategy – it provides an additional platform to create awareness for your company.

Traditionally, transactional emails are triggered by the following events:

• Purchase confirmations / customer order processes
• Shipping notices
• Product recall
• New accounts
• Expired subscriptions
• Membership
• Account balance information

A good transactional email will always describe the event in detail, use language that makes the customer feel good about the action they have taken, invite them back to the website for more information or to expand on the event, and provide contact information for any questions or concerns they might have.

There are however, further features and best practices that you can incorporate to help ensure that you maximise the potential of your transactional email.

1. Always use a valid, existing email address and avoid having ‘no-reply’ in the ‘from’ line. This makes it easier for the recipient to identify the sender and to reply immediately if they have any questions.
2. Use the subject line to remind customers who you are and what the purpose of your email is. An easy example could be: ‘Oliver Bonas – Payment Confirmation’.
3. Express your gratitude and thank your customer for their purchase, no matter how big or small the order. It’s quite common for this to be one of the first sentences of your email.
4. Anticipate any questions that customers might have. What different ways can they follow up on their purchase? Then, make it easy for them to do so.
5. Keep the copy easy to read and scan through. Sentences should be short and clear and don’t be shy to use bullet points if need be.
6. Remember a strong call to action. What action does your customer have to perform next?
7. A purchase is personal no matter what, so personalise your transactional email also. This can be something simple, such as: ‘Dear Ms Smith or Dear Susan’.
8. Make sure your company logo is easy to see and recognise. Many spammers use fake transactional emails as their weapon of choice and if your customer can’t or doesn’t recognise the email immediately, it may well get deleted.
9. Include any data that the customer might require to complete the transaction. This might include billing information, or details they would need if they want to change an order or update their profile or preferences.
10. Include a privacy statement. Make sure that it’s detailed and inform your customer about what you intend to do with the details they have divulged to you (hint – keep them to yourself)
11. Clearly state all terms and conditions of their purchase. This should include any information regarding payment, exchanges, returns, shipping etc.
12. An easily located link to your website, in case they would like more information from you.
13. Maintain an HTML format; nearly 60% of all transactional emails are created this way. While you want your email to be easy on the eye, the copy is what’s most important so keep that in mind. Include one or two relevant images but make sure the email still downloads quickly and is easy to read.
14. You can include promotional content in your transactional email, as long as the latter is the most prominent and remains Above the Fold. The transactional information is of course the objective of your email so don’t lose focus and be tempted use it as a platform for a full on promotion. Having said that, according to Ecommerce Benchmark Guide, 57% of consumers have a positive view of marketing content in transactional emails as long as the transactional component is readily seen and the marketing content provides information that is relevant.

In conclusion, it’s important to bear in mind that because transactional emails are so highly anticipated, they get opened more often. Therefore each one is an opportunity for you to create awareness, reinforce your brand and drive deeper customer relationships.

B2B Marketing is the practice of facilitating the sale of a product or service to other companies or organizations that in turn resell them; use them as components in products or services that they offer, or use them to support their operations – thanks Wiki. As with most marketing drives, the purpose of B2B marketing is to bring in new business and generate qualified sales leads. As in real life, your B2B email campaign needs to mirror the same behaviour as your face-to-face meetings with a potential client. Keep the tone sincere and professional and state clearly and simply what you are offering and what benefit it has to the recipient.

Examples of B2B email campaigns might include trying to coax your subscribers to sign up for a free trial, invite them to an event, participate in a conference or webinar or offer expert advice and tips on relevant marketing strategies. Even though what you are offering may genuinely be a great deal or opportunity, if your recipient ignores or deletes your message immediately, then what’s the point? As with any email marketing campaign, a B2B subject line needs to grab your reader’s attention and encourage them to open it and take action. Once they do, it’s especially important that you follow all forwards and new opt-ins, which count towards your sales leads.

We’ve outlined 5 of the most popular B2B email marketing best practices and followed them up with 5 examples of great subject lines, so that you have an idea of what works and what doesn’t.

1. Know who you are targeting: You can get a lot of valuable information about a company just from viewing their website. Is it full of graphics? Then go ahead and include a few relevant images in your campaign. Is it mainly composed of text? Then follow a similar style with your message. Customizing your email according to the business you are targeting won’t go un-noticed by your recipient and you are far more likely to start seeing the results you desire if you do so.
2. Keep content relevant, specific and concise: State your offer openly and without reservation right from the beginning of your email message, and certainly keep it Above the Fold. Maintain a professional tone at all times and as always, don’t forget to include a strong, clear call to action that is easily visible. By keeping the content short and ensuring that it opens and downloads quickly, you also appeal to those who are likely to view their email on a mobile device. This option is fast becoming very popular and is worth taking into consideration.
3. Know how to reach the level you want: Quite obvious, but often ignored. If you want your email to get to the CEO or MD then don’t send it to the most junior employee. Here, your ‘from’ name is incredibly important, one that is recognized and relevant will correspond to an email that is relevant and therefore important. Realize that a ‘from’ name is more likely to resonate with a person in power if it’s from a person in power.
4. Know what your B2B customer wants: Because your customer is a business and not a consumer, their interests are different and bombarding them with the latest offers, discounts and sale items is probably not going to get their attention. This is because the B2B audience don’t generally spend their own money so an offer for a coupon off their next purchase is wasted. You need to give them something they can use and something that adds value. Open access to a VIP event or an upgraded status on a favoured networking site are just two unique ideas you could try.
5. Create a follow up campaign: By tracking and using your analytics, you can get a much better idea of who to re-target and how to devise a more relevant strategy. Be sure to only send out one follow-up though. Be respectful of a person’s time, especially if they are a busy corporate, and don’t send countless emails telling them that they are missing out. If they are interested, they will respond. If they haven’t after the second email, then let it go.

Right, so now you have an idea of which best practices to follow, take a look at these 5 top performing subject lines, as given from numerous marketers who count them as their most successful. We’ve chosen these particular lines because they are descriptive, clear and professional in tone.

1. July home sales increased 12 %; median home price declined 19.6 %
2. Complimentary Webinar: (insert webinar name and details)
3. Success Tip: # Ways to a Better (XXX)
4. Save Money and Look Like a Start to Your Boss
5. Event Registration Today: (name of event) (date)

And here are a few that weren’t successful, note the ‘spam’ words and long, boring text.

• Free Evaluation of ABC Encrypted Portable Drive
• Data Company Adds Cascaded Replication to DR Infrastructure
• EFG Company: Request for Meeting
• Meeting Request: Introducing our new product
• XYZ data centers: High density collocation & Managed Server / Storage Solutions

These days, all good email marketing solutions come ready quipped with a campaign builder that helps you put your email message together from start to finish. This of course takes much of the hard work out of the equation and is particularly useful if you are a ‘newbie’ and have never done anything like it before. However, while an email marketing service can do a very good job of creating a beautiful looking campaign, what it can’t do (yet) is optimize it for you.

Optimizing your email is one of the best ways to increase conversions, traffic and interest and you should look to optimize each new campaign that you send out. Look at it as a ‘refining process’, and continuously assess and make small, yet valuable improvements that will drive ever better results with each new email.

What we’ve outlined here are 5 ways that you can optimize your email campaign to help ensure that you reach those desired results.

1. Let’s start with your ‘subject’ and ‘from’ line.

We could dedicate an entire article to this topic alone. To sum it up though, the ‘subject’ line should immediately capture your reader’s attention, and the ‘from’ line needs to come from an existing, valid email address and should be easily identified by the recipient. You should aim to personalise each of these lines. With the subject line, you can include the person’s name and you should specify clearly what the reader can expect when they open your email, all in less than 50 characters. Creating an effective subject line is actually quite an art and there is a fine balance between choosing SPAM safe trigger words and those words causing your email to land up in the junk/spam folder. With the ‘from’ line, you should include your name or the name of your company or both even. If people recognise or are familiar with who is sending the email, they are more likely to trust it and open your message.

2. Secondly, keep your copy relevant, succinct and punchy

Just because this forms the main part of your message, it’s no reason to go overboard with overly long, boring content. Ideally, aim to include all vital information on a single screen Above the Fold and keep the purpose of your email in mind, are you offering, promoting, selling or getting people to sign up? Your copy needs to be relevant, valuable, short and succinct, with the benefits clearly stated. You’ll also want to make sure that it’s easy to scan so use bullet points if necessary and avoid overly sophisticated language. Now is not the time to try and impress them with your lexical range. If you do have a lot of information to convey, rather create a link to your website or landing page so that if your subscribers want, they can read more about your company there.

3. Next, make sure your landing page takes readers exactly where they need to be

If they have just clicked on a ‘sign up here’ button, then take them directly to that page on your website, not just to your home page, where they can become distracted and exit without making any conversions. Studies have shown that if a headline directly reflects on the landing page, it has a favourable boost on conversions.

4. A strong, clear call to action

It might seem like an obvious point, but is your call to action clear, bold and easy to locate on the page? You can test different placements and have this button at the bottom, middle or top of the page and see which results in a higher CTR. Join Now, Sign Up Here, Call Us, Email Us – your call to action needs to be short, sweet, easily understood and quick to locate.

5. Graphics and images add value to an email

Now that your reader has been tempted to open your email after reading the hard to resist subject line, don’t bore them to death with text heavy copy. Short paragraphs interspersed with clever, relevant images add to the value of your message and can elicit emotional and psychological responses that complement your email and keep your readers interested. Having said that, ensure that your pictures have been compressed and resized for email and that they load fast. Also, don’t assume that everyone is on broadband and take into consideration the fact that some of your recipients might choose to open their emails on mobile devices – iPhones, Blackberry and Android to name a few. To be on the safe side, use Alt text to describe an image, in case it doesn’t load. You won’t gain any friends with an email that takes 10 minutes to open correctly and there aren’t many second chances in the email marketing game.

Once you have optimised your email along the lines of the suggestions mentioned, it’s important that you do extensive split A/B testing, which can be conducted on every component of your email. Testing your newsletter has many benefits and will, amongst other things;

• Determine which email version is most user friendly and accurately meets your subscribers needs and expectations.
• Improves the overall performance of your campaign in terms of opens, clicks, conversions and sales

In conclusion, remember that optimization doesn’t finish once you have sent out your campaign. You need to constantly assess your results, see what’s working and what can be improved on. You’ll soon find that the more you polish your campaigns, the more positive results you can expect to get.

YouTube, with over two billion videos viewed daily, is a great indication of the high degree of engagement that is associated with videos. According to a recent study of over 1 billion video emails by internet marketing firm Implex, results revealed that emails containing videos achieved 96.38% higher click-through rates and 5.6% higher open rates compared to non-video emails. That’s an impressive figure to say the least and should go a long way towards converting those who are still sitting on the fence regarding the potential scope of this medium.

It has been said that video email is much more personal than text campaigns. The reason for this, according to HuStream (conversational video apps) is simply because video email is more ‘human’. In fact, their sources go so far as to say that video is 7% words, 38% voice and tone and 55% body language. It’s no wonder then that it has also been said to be more ‘engaging’ of a target market. People are no longer dealing with websites, text and automated responses; they are coming face to face with another human being. This simple gesture can instil a sense of trust and goes a long way towards building customer relationships and brand loyalty.

We’ve looked at a number of reasons why video is proving to be so beneficial to email campaigns;

• It’s simple to use – You can create, upload and send out a video email in as little as 15 minutes
• It generates ‘buzz’ – Web video is a ‘hot’ topic at the moment, people like to forward and share them and it’s easy to get a video to go viral.
• It’s proven to increase the CTR of an email campaign – This is, of course, a huge factor of success for any email strategy. According to a survey by the World Wide Marketing Council, 73% of marketers surveyed said that integrating video with email marketing increased their CTR. The same survey went on to state that 50% of marketers now use video in their email campaigns and an additional 25% are considering it
• It’s more readily viewed and enjoyed than text – This is because it’s much easier to assimilate the information and message being conveyed and also because people are inherently lazy – they would much rather watch a tutorial or review than actually read one
• It makes you stand out from the crowd – Although video email campaigns are increasing in popularity, it’s still far from mainstream, giving you an automatic competitive advantage when you use it
• Simplicity – You can convey a complex marketing message very quickly with video
• It appeals to both a younger and older generation – This, according to ComScore which showed that the highest percentage (21%) of people who engaged with video were those aged 2-17 years. The second highest percentage (18%) belonged to those aged 35-44 years
• It’s highly influential – As stated by the Publishers Association, 76% of respondents found video to be influential and 52% of people had taken some form of action as a result of video
• Videos have higher page ranks- A study by Forrester showed that videos are 50 times more likely to show up on the first page of any given search

Despite all these impressive figures, video email is still considered to be in its infancy and this is evident in the fact that there are really only two different ways that one can incorporate it in their email.

• Static Image (Click to View) Video - This is the most simple and popular solution. A static image taken from the video is embedded in the email campaign. This image normally has a large ‘play’ arrow that, when clicked links to the real video which is hosted on a landing page or even a social media site such as YouTube. The advantages of using this solution are that there are no certification requirements, it’s widely supported and compatible with all email clients, it has established best practices and there are rarely deliverability issues. The downside is of course that users have to click through to view the actual video and audio, so it is important that the image you select clearly depicts the content of the video, which will help ensure that the subscriber follows through.

• Optimized video GIF (video in email) – The advantages to this solution are much the same as using a static image but it has additional benefits. The video is displayed directly in the preview pane or email and it doesn’t require downloading prior to viewing. The downside of animated GIF however is that there is no audio, it can take time to load, it requires embedded images, your subscribers email client might not support it, and it’s often expensive to produce and deliver.

Of course you need to remember that when using any form of video in your email, best practices still apply. This means that the video still needs to add value to the recipients experience (what do they get out of it?), contribute directly to the campaign objectives (more clicks, conversions, page views?) and it must be in line with other emails and campaigns you send in terms of brand recognition and corporate identity.

The ultimate measure of video email success lies in the audience engagement time and there are a number of factors that affect this; permission, interaction and attention. If you get the balance right, it can result in increased content consumption, increased brand awareness and an increased conversion in call to action rates.

There is a much to be said for implementing ‘best practices’ in email marketing. Many practitioners adhere to them religiously; others choose to ignore them completely and further still, there are those who claim that so-called best practices have become obsolete and are no longer relevant. As with most things in life, best practices evolve over time and can be adapted to suit your specific requirements as and when you need, so you can see why people are divided in their opinion.

In the e-marketing industry almost everyone has their own list of what they deem ‘best practices’, in other words, what has worked for them in the past and what is working for them right now. We’ve summed up some of the best of these, here they are:

1. Don’t buy email addresses. It will do nothing for you in the short or long term and chances are the people on the list aren’t even your desired target market. You are  much better off developing and building up your subscriber list the good old fashioned way – by diligently collecting data from people who have signed up to your newsletters via the sign up form on your website.

2. Make signing up simple and straight forward. This goes for the actual sign up link, which should be clear and easy to find on the page, and the sign up form.  Remember initially, all you need is a name and email address to get the ball rolling. Be very cautious about sending potential customers to complete a full registration form. It can put them off quickly and this can affect your opt-in rate drastically.

3. Tell them what they can expect to read in your newsletters and how frequently they will receive them. Also let them know if they can expect to receive other campaigns from you that might be of interest to them. If you let them know exactly what your intentions are, they are less likely to become irritated – and possibly unsubscribe – from an email they weren’t expecting or don’t know they signed up for.

4. State your privacy policy clearly. All too often this is simply a link right at the bottom of the page that lays out the terms of the policy in fine print that no-one can read. All you really need to state is that you won’t sell, disclose or pass-on their details unknowingly, so make sure this information stands out. Remember, this is your personal guarantee and failing to deliver on this policy may have very negative and irreparable consequences for you.

5. Send a welcome email after someone has subscribed. The internet is a rather ‘faceless’ medium, so this gesture goes a long way to making people feel that their email has been received and their action was successful. Sending a welcome email has numerous benefits. Besides building trust, it often carries a ‘double opt-in’ link, so you can be sure that the person who has subscribed really is interested in what you have to offer.

6. Keep your content relevant. People will unsubscribe immediately if what you have promised them is not what they are opening in their inbox. Have a look at our article on ‘Keeping Content Relevant’ for interesting ideas you can use to help ensure that your newsletter appeals to your subscribers and keeps them opening your emails.

7. Know when to send your campaign. Do your research and find out when it’s the best time for your email to be received. Obvious times like Monday morning or Friday afternoon are out of the question. Think about it logically and practically. When are you more likely to open and act on an email that prompts further response from you?

8. Don’t spam, ever. This is a sure fire way to lose your subscribers trust, loyalty and valued email address. Check your campaign for spam before you even think about hitting ‘send’. Spam filters are a welcome prerequisite and a quick check is all it takes to make sure you are abiding by the CAN-SPAM act and that your email marketing strategies fall well within its regulations.

9. Test, Test, Test. Just because your campaign looks absolutely fabulous when you send it to yourself, doesn’t mean that it’s going to come out looking the same on everyone else’s email. Is it going to be opened using Outlook, Yahoo or Gmail? Test as many options as you can and adapt it accordingly. A great way to ensure that your subscriber opens your email the way you intended is to ask them what format they would like to receive it in. You can then go about segmenting your list depending on what they requested.

10. Lastly, track and take note of everything. Delivery rates, open rates, click through rates and conversions all offer vital data that you can use to improve your campaign and techniques.