Step 1: Strategic Planning

The first part of any e-mail campaign should involve planning around the goals you want to achieve. These will probably be in line with the goals of your Web site, with e-mail marketing being used as a tool to help you achieve those goals. As discussed in Chapter 15 “Web Analytics and Conversion Optimization”, you will decide on the key performance indicators (KPIs) for your campaign as well. Promotional e-mails will usually have an immediate goal:

• Users make a purchase
• Users download a white paper
• Users request further information

Newsletters tend to focus on longer-term goals, and so your KPIs become more important here. KPIs include the following:

• Open rate
• Click-through rate
• Number of e-mails forwarded
• Return on investment (ROI)

A successful e-mail campaign is most likely to be the one geared at retaining and creating a long-term relationship with the reader.

Know your audience; they will dictate the interactions. For more information on writing for your audience, please refer to Chapter 14 “Online Copywriting”.

Step 2: Definition of List

Running a successful e-mail campaign requires that a business has a genuine opt-in database. This database, the list of subscribers who have agreed to allow a company to send them e-mails with marketing messages, is the most valuable asset of an e-mail campaign.

Permission must be explicitly given by all people to whom e-mails are sent. Companies that abuse this can put their reputation in jeopardy, and in some countries, legal action can be taken against companies that send unsolicited bulk e-mail—spam.

Growing this database, while keeping it targeted, is a key factor in any e-mail campaign. The database needs only one entry—the prospect’s e-mail—but the following should also be considered:

• First name, surname, and title
• Date permission granted
• Source of permission
• Gender
• Country
• Telephone number
• Date of birth

Fields such as name, surname, and title should be separated in your database. You should also gather date of birth as opposed to a prospect’s age—it ensures your database can stay up to date.

However, don’t be tempted to ask for more information than is required. The more information marketers can gather, the better they can customize their marketing messages. However, the more information a prospect is required to give, the more apprehensive he will be about parting with these details. This is in part because of the hassle involved and in part as a result of fear around Internet fraud. Following the initial sign-up, further information can be requested over a period of time.

There are a myriad of ways to attract prospects to opt in to a database. An e-mail sign-up form on a company Web site is key. Visitors to a Web site have already expressed an interest in a company by clicking through to the Web site—this is an opportunity to develop that interest further.

The best practice for sign-up forms is as follows:

• Put the sign-up form where it can be seen—on every page and above the fold (i.e., on the page where it can be seen without scrolling down).
• State your antispam stance explicitly, and be clear about how you value subscribers’ privacy.
• Use a clear call to action.
• Tell subscribers what they will get, and how often they will get it. Include a benefit statement.
• Ensure the e-mail address is correct by checking the syntax.
• Test to see what works best.

Every interaction can be used to ask permission to send e-mails.

• Offer something valuable for free (e.g., white paper, gift voucher, music track), and ask if they would sign up to your newsletter at the same time.
• Add a subscribe box to the checkout process of your retail site.
• Use interactions at trade shows to request e-mail addresses.

Step 3: Creative Execution

E-mails can be created and viewed as hypertext markup language (HTML) e-mails or as text e-mails. Bear in mind, though, that sometimes HTML e-mails are rendered as text e-mails.

Text e-mails are the plain ones—text only, as the name suggests. If you have a Windows computer and you open up Notepad and type there, then you will be creating a text file. These e-mails are smaller and plainer. While copy is always important, it is particularly critical in this case, as it is the key driver of action and interaction.

HTML e-mails are the e-mails with all the bells and whistles. These e-mails can contain images, different fonts, and hyperlinks. It’s probably what you’ve had in mind throughout this chapter when we have referred to e-mail marketing.

Step 4: Integration of Campaign with Other Channels

While e-mail marketing can operate as a stand-alone marketing campaign, integrating it with other channels, both online and offline, will serve to both reinforce a brand’s message and increase responses.

There should never be a disparity between the content, tone, or design of an e-mail when compared to the rest of a company’s offerings. In-store promotions can be reinforced and promoted to an e-mail database, or Web site information can be summarized for e-mail.

Custom landing pages, as required, should be created for any promotions being communicated in an e-mail communication.

Step 5: Personalization of the Message

The technology of e-mail marketing allows for mass customization—it is one-to-one marketing on a macro scale. Even simple personalization can see improved results.

Customization starts at using the recipient’s name and sending either HTML or text e-mails based on preference, to sophisticated measurement of a recipient’s preferences and tailoring content to suit them.

Segmenting a database can allow for customization across demographics or purchase history. Being able to reconcile browsing activity to an e-mail recipient can give further opportunities for customization.

Step 6: Deployment

By creating valuable content, establishing the correct frequency, and testing an e-mail for display and deliverability, an e-mail marketer should be able to ensure an excellent delivery rate. Consistency in deploying newsletters also aids in fostering trust and fulfilling expectation. E-mails should be delivered at consistent times, but the optimum time for best results should be tested.

E-mail reputation can determine whether or not your message is regarded as spam. It is determined by the general opinion of the Internet service providers (ISPs), the antispam community, and the recipients of an e-mail. It can relate to a sender’s Internet protocol (IP) address, sending domain, or both. This means that if someone sends e-mail using the same server that you use, you could be damaged if they spam. This opinion is a reputation score created by an ISP or a third-party provider. If the sender’s score falls within the ISP’s thresholds, a sender’s messages will be delivered to the in-box. If not, the sender’s e-mails may arrive in the bulk folder, be quarantined, or be bounced back to the sender.

Becoming an effective e-mail marketer requires constant list cleansing and hygiene. In fact, most lists shrink by 15 percent each year due to subscribers changing e-mail addresses. Make sure you are diligent about maintaining a current opt-in list to achieve maximum deliverability via reputation.

Tips to help a reputation score include the following:

• ISPs offer various sender’s authentication standards such as Sender ID, sender policy framework (SPF), and DomainKeys. Use these.
• Out with the old, in with the new—keep your database clean.
• Remove hard bounces after three deliveries (ISPs don’t like e-mail broadcasters who have a high bounce rate).
• Remember that a huge but inaccurate and outdated database is far less useful to an e-mail marketer than a tightly maintained, smaller database. Strive to boost your database, but don’t forget to clean it up as you go.
• Ensure e-mail broadcast rates are not too high.
• Respond to complaints and unsubscribe requests—if someone requests to be unsubscribed, do so.
• Educate users about white lists.

When should you send e-mails? Common sense tells you not on Monday morning or Friday afternoon, but it varies by audience. Testing will guide you.

If the recipient has given permission to be sent marketing messages by e-mail, then it is not spam. Users give permission when they check a box that says, “Yes, please send me offers from your company by e-mail.” The e-mail address can only be provided to another company if the user ticks a box that says, “Yes, please send me offers from third parties selected by you by e-mail.”

Permission must be explicitly given to the company to be allowed to market to that user. Trying to gain explicit permission in a sneaky way will only annoy your users and might result in your e-mails being marked as spam, which subsequently damages your reputation.

Step 7: Interaction Handling

As well as the e-mails strategically planned as part of a campaign (promotional e-mails and newsletters), every interaction via e-mail should be considered as part of a company’s e-mail marketing practice. Automated e-mails, such as order confirmations and even out of office replies, are all opportunities to engage with customers. If a company has a particular tone or content style, this must be reinforced in these interactions. These e-mails can also be an opportunity to cross-advertise other promotions that a company is offering.

Step 8: Report Generation

As with all things eMarketing, tracking, analyzing, and optimizing is key to growth. E-mail tracking systems produce statistics in a user-friendly manner.

The following are key measurables for understanding the performance of e-mail campaigns:

• Number of e-mails delivered.
• Number of bounces. This should be separated into hard bounces and soft bounces.
• Number of unique e-mails opened. An e-mail can be delivered, but that does not necessarily mean it was opened.
• Unsubscribes. Significant or consistent loss in subscribers is a key indication that you are not meeting the needs of your subscribers.
• Pass-on rate. High pass-on rate (forwards) indicates that your list values the content enough to constantly share with others. Putting an easy “forward to a friend” link in every e-mail can increase this. Adding a sign-up link to forwarded e-mails will organically grow the opt-in list.
• Click-through rates and conversion. This measures the effectiveness of an e-mail via the links placed in the content. When a reader clicks through to a Web page, these can be easily measured as a percentage against number of delivered, opened, or sent e-mails. It reveals which content or promotion was the most enticing for the reader.

Step 9: Analysis of Results

Once the reports have been generated, it is time to work out what the numbers are revealing and to use this information to improve the next e-mail sent out.

With e-mail marketing, split testing across a host of factors will enable campaign optimization. The following are some factors to test:

• Open rates across different subject lines and delivery times
• Optimal number of links in an e-mail for click-through rates and conversions
• Different copy styles and copy length
• The effect of video on delivery rates, open rates, and conversions

First, an e-mail campaign needs a database. A plan for growing this database needs to be put in place. Most e-mail service providers will also provide tools for managing this database.

All e-mails need to be tested for e-mail client compatibility as well as for any potential spam problems. E-mail client compatibility can be reviewed at http://www.litmusapp.com, and an e-mail’s spam score can be checked at http://spamassassin.apache.org.

Once an e-mail has been sent, results need to be analyzed to pinpoint areas for growth for the next campaign.