1. Silverpop
From First Click to Lifetime Customer
WHITE P A P E R
7 New Email
Marketing Tactics
You Have to Use
in 2010
Engagement Marketing Solutions

2. Silverpop Engagement Marketing Solutions WHITE PAPER
7 New Email Marketing Tactics
You Have to Use in 2010
L ooking for a marketing edge to pull you ahead of the competition next year?
Well, if you’re planning on the same old, lame and cold email campaign, forget it.
With the growth of email marketing flooding inboxes, the pressure has never been greater
to deliver highly compelling and creative communications programs. With more companies
sending out more emails, you’ve got to do more to position your program above the
competitive fray.
Here are seven email marketing tactics that will help you better engage customers and
drive revenue in 2010.
1. Customer Reviews 2. Social Sharing
Consumers today are placing increased value on user-generated content, Social network sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have changed
often trusting their peers’ opinions over advertising when making purchase the way people interact with friends. And they’ve also shifted the relation-
decisions.1 For email marketers, this provides a golden opportunity to ship between companies and their customers. With four out of 10 social
increase engagement by including customer product reviews, making your network participants using these sites to gather product information and
messaging both relevant and persuasive. And a Forrester report showed recommendations,3 savvy engagement marketers use this new medium to
that email marketers who segment using product review content and Web connect more strongly with customers.
behavior are four to six times more effective than blasters.2
Much like successful email marketing requires more effort than blasting
To build up your database of user-generated reviews, set up an automated
away at your customer list, getting your recipients to share your emails
trigger that sends a message requesting a product review one or two
weeks after a purchase. You can then populate personalized emails with on social sites requires more effort than just dropping icons into your
these reviews according to each recipient’s interests or purchase history, message template. For starters, you’ll need to educate your readers about
resulting in messages that are more targeted and engaging to recipients. how and why they should share your content. Feature your social-sharing
option in your welcome messages. Devote prime space in your regular
Courting customers to offer reviews can also help increase brand loyalty. mailings to highlight the location and use of your sharing icons or links.
Consider rewarding top contributors by giving them “superstar reviewer”
status or delivering sneak peeks at new products. Not only will you encour- As with other aspects of email marketing, testing is key. That’s because
age these customers to generate even more content, you’ll also be creating while some of the best practices of email marketing still work when encour-
an army of brand advocates to help spread your message far and wide. aging recipients to post messages on social sites, there are differences and
nuances in what generates the highest results. Since the social medium is
still so new, the various best practices are still emerging and have yet to be
“With Silverpop, we can easily provide customers information about the
agreed upon. So experiment with the placement of social network links in
products they are most interested in. What marketer wouldn’t love that?”
your messages (top, middle or bottom), what social networks you link to and
– Jamey Maki, Internet marketing manager, Golfsmith
how many social network links you include in your messages.
Case Study: National Express East Coast
National Express East Coast, one of the world’s “In a recent ‘one-way fares’ campaign, hundreds of customers shared
leading international public transport groups, wanted the offer on their social networking pages on Digg, Facebook and
to significantly bolster its viral marketing activities and MySpace,” said Sara Borland, brand communications manager, National
engage new customers. By placing social network Express Group. “Of those who posted the link, 17 percent had at least
links in its emails, it was able to reach a whole new one open of the post, and 33 percent who opened a post then clicked.
set of customers. These are people we may never have reached otherwise.”
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3. Silverpop Engagement Marketing Solutions WHITE PAPER
Case Study: Diapers.com
As with many online retailers, Diapers.com—the nation’s Items are held in abandoned carts for two weeks, and no enticements such
largest online retailer specializing in baby care products— as discounts are part of the “come back” program.
experienced high abandoned shopping cart rates. To
It worked. The open rate for Diapers.com’s shopping cart abandonment cam-
solve this issue, it integrated its email marketing and Web
paign was 48 percent higher than any previous campaign, the click-through
analytics platforms and began using the automated data
rate 78 percent higher and the net conversion rate 129 percent higher.
it received to send triggered messages based on certain
criteria. Two days after an abandonment, the system trig- “Once you develop a program like this, it runs automatically and in the
gers an email reminding the customer that some items had background,” said Matt Lindenberg, assistant director of marketing for
been left in his or her shopping cart and encouraging the Diapers.com. “It’s a useful up-front investment to recoup sales that are
customer to come back to Diapers.com to complete the purchase. just being lost.”
If you want your content to go viral, you’ll have to make sharing worth the for extended periods of time. Some companies even include an incentive
effort. Give customers a good reason to share your promotional emails to finalize purchase of the abandoned items. You can also introduce two
with their friends. Turn them into a powerful extension of your acquisition or three other high-margin, related products that the recipient may find
and awareness efforts, helping you to reach highly qualified prospective interesting to further increase message relevance and drive revenue.
customers who share the same interests as your brand’s most engaged
email recipients. Done correctly, social sharing is well worth the effort—
Silverpop research estimates that a posted email message has an average “We are very pleased with the results of implementing a cart
increase in reach of 24.3 percent.4 abandonment program. We typically see a 25 percent conversion rate on
personalized transactional messages focused on items left in carts.”
3. Web Analytics — Carolyn Nye, marketing manager, S&S Worldwide
In a crowded marketplace increasingly demanding relevance, optimizing
integration between your messaging and Web analytics platforms is vital to
communicating with customers, improving loyalty, accelerating the conver- 4. Send When the Recipient Is “In”
sion process and driving measurable increases in marketing ROI. In short, What’s the best time to send customers email? For years marketers have
this integration enables a two-way, action-oriented flow of information that agonized over this question. Different preferences among users compli-
allows you to more efficiently target and trigger campaigns based on Web- cated the situation, a fact highlighted by research that indicated that 34
site clickstream data—i.e., the details of how visitors interact with a Web percent of U.S. Internet users check their email “throughout the day,” while
site. Using Web analytics data enables you to better understand your cus- 23 percent prefer to read their messages “as soon as they wake up,” and
tomers’ needs, improving your ability to effectively target and engage them.
others indicated email was top of mind right when getting home from
One particularly effective way of combining Web analytics and email is work, during lunch and right before bed.5
to run a shopping cart abandonment campaign. Let’s say a customer
Now, a new technology called Send Time Optimization can analyze recipi-
visiting your Web site begins the process of making a purchase, but fails
to complete the transaction. Marketers that implement triggered email ent behavior on a rolling basis to predict the ideal email delivery time for
campaigns to send a reminder message encouraging customers to return each address on your mailing list. The system then individually delivers
and complete the process have experienced tremendous results. To messages to recipients at the precise day and time they’re most likely to
increase the urgency of the call to action, inform your customer that the be in their inboxes. By decreasing the chance that an email gets buried in
shopping cart will expire or that items are not guaranteed to be available the inbox, open, click-through and conversion rates increase.
Case Study: Mint.com
Mint.com, the nation’s leading online personal sending half its list the email at a specific time, and the other
finance service, needed to increase its focus on cus- half with Send Time Optimization enabled.
tomer engagement. As part of its efforts, the com-
pany performed extensive A/B testing to see what “In the group where Send Time Optimization was enabled, we saw
changes in its email campaigns enabled it to connect a 10 percent increase in click rates,” said Lisa Friedman, senior
most strongly with customers. It tested Silverpop’s director, marketing, Mint.com. “We were pleased with the results
Send Time Optimization by splitting its recipient list, and continue to use Send Time Optimization on all our mailings.”
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4. Silverpop Engagement Marketing Solutions WHITE PAPER
Case Study: Santander Consumer USA
A leading company in the automotive finance director of marketing for Santander Consumer USA. “We had
sector, Santander Consumer USA Inc. services more thousands of customers sign up for SMS payment reminders as
than 450,000 customers. Looking to expand its soon as we made it available. It’s obvious that SMS is the next step
multichannel delivery strategy and further engage in optimizing communications with our customers.”
its customers, Santander implemented Silverpop’s
SMS offering. The company’s multichannel approach, which employed both SMS
and email reminders, had immediate positive impact. “Our initial
“Our customers were clamoring for us to results show that for those customers that receive a SMS reminder,
communicate with them via SMS,” said Will Stacy, 15 percent will post a payment immediately,” Stacy said.
Scheduling delivery at the optimized time also solves international mailing of coordinating setup across multiple aggregators or application. However,
challenges. With a single send, messages are delivered at the optimal time, a select group of marketing technology providers can do the work for you,
worldwide, eliminating the need to schedule multiple sends across time zones. enabling the delivery of content to mobile operators around the world.
SMS is an excellent channel to communicate special offer alerts, payment
“In this economy, it’s more important than ever to take a one-to-one reminders, event notifications, exclusive invitations and other timely infor-
approach when engaging customers. Using Silverpop’s Send Time mation customers won’t want to miss. And with new marketing technology
Optimization feature has allowed us to deliver each email to the right solutions, it’s quick and easy to create personalized, engaging messages
person at the right time, positively affecting our bottom line.” that are delivered instantly—or triggered for sends at a future date. As
— Kassie Stephenson Adams, director of consumer marketing with email campaigns, savvy marketers can use deliverability trend metrics
and campaign management, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. to evaluate SMS campaign results and adjust future initiatives accordingly.
6. Lifecycle Marketing
5. SMS and Email Unsophisticated email campaigns treat all people the same, regardless of their
In today’s media-saturated universe, you have to reach customers every which interest level and lifecycle stage. But to strongly engage customers and gener-
way you can. With 1 trillion text messages sent per year in the United States ate improved return on investment, you need personalized messaging that
alone, more than 3.1 billion people using cell phones globally and 40 percent targets specific segments within your customer base, thereby communicating
of major brands using text messaging campaigns to engage customers,6 now with them more effectively than just blasting everyone with the same message.
is the perfect time to work SMS into your multichannel marketing mix.
Despite the advantages of lifecycle marketing, many marketers are con-
Despite the upside, some marketers are hesitant to invest in mobile marketing, fused about where to begin and are concerned about the additional work
either because they don’t know where to begin or they don’t want the hassle required to implement a one-to-one strategy. If you’re not sure how to get
Case Study: Fabric.com
Fabric.com is the world’s leading online fabric store • “Happy Anniversary” emails celebrating the anniversary of a
selling customer-measured fabric. But several years customer’s first purchase with the company
ago, it only had a basic email program in place, with • “Happy Birthday” emails celebrating a customer’s birth date
messages sent to its entire list with no customization • “We Miss You” emails for those customers that purchased
or segmentation. previously, but had not done so in the past year
• “We Want You Back” emails for those customers that purchased
Fabric.com decided to take a new strategic approach previously, but had not done so in the last 12 to 18 months
by focusing on lifecycle marketing campaigns to help
keep customers engaged. Fabric.com segmented its list Fabric.com’s automated lifecycle marketing emails did so well, it
into several different groups ranging from its most loyal decided to make them a regular part of its email strategy. “We are
customers to those considered inactive. Based upon very pleased with the results of our customer lifecycle email cam-
different levels of purchasing behavior, the company paigns,” said Melanie Coombs, email marketing manager, Fabric.
sends out specialized offers. These lifecycle emails offer enticing purchase com. “These automated lifecycle campaigns more than doubled
discounts with the goal of keeping loyal customers engaged and renewing open and click-through rates and increased conversion by more
relationships with inactive customers. The customer lifecycle emails include: than 40 percent.”
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5. Silverpop Engagement Marketing Solutions WHITE PAPER
started, try splitting your list into three simple groups, each with unique Rather than focusing solely on open and click rates, monitor an email’s
goals that align with the customers’ mindsets for each lifecycle stage. effective rate—the percentage of people who click after opening—to gain
a better measure of your message’s relevance. This is a powerful metric for
• New Customers—email recipients who have expressed some gauging the success of retention and loyalty-based campaigns. High effective
desire for communication rates indicate that your message content was relevant to those who open the
• Unique goals: moving them to opt in to receive regular messages message. Conversely, low effective rates mean your content isn’t sufficiently
from you, visit your Web site, make an online purchase or visit a targeted to recipients willing to take the time to glance through your messages.
retail location
• Ideal messaging for achieving these goals: educational campaigns, Conversion rate is obviously an important metric. If you find your conversion
welcome messages, promotions for first purchase rates are lagging, make the call to action clearer and more prominent; design
• Engaged Customers—consumers who are actively involved with attractive, focused landing pages that match your brand and email campaign;
the brand and expect to receive communications and, potentially, and make the process easy by prepopulating forms with the person’s informa-
promotions from you tion when possible.
• Unique goals: maintaining or increasing purchase levels, strength- Savvy marketers realize that you can only achieve solid improvements on
ening loyalty, encouraging recommendations to friends, and the campaign elements that you actually take the time to measure. If you’re not mea-
delivery of efficient customer service suring campaign performance, you’re missing out on key insights that can create
• Ideal messaging for achieving these goals: renewal notices, trans- happier customers, improve results and prove your marketing team’s value.
actional emails with upsell or cross-sell offers, special promotions
for top customers
• Lapsed Customers—people who have stopped opening and click- “Through careful data analysis and testing, we have been able to fine-tune
ing your emails or who no longer make purchases how to communicate to our subscribers using targeted emails, resulting in
• Unique goals: gaining an understanding of their concerns, attempt- a 5X increase in open rates and a 7X increase in click-through rates, thus
ing to re-engage them with the brand, and preventing them from creating a more loyal customer base and driving $500K in online ticket
switching allegiance to another company sales annually via email.”
• Ideal messaging for achieving these goals: surveys that identify — Kristie Cobb Hacke, vice president of development,
reason for lack of engagement, incentives to revisit the Web site, Georgia Aquarium
promotions to encourage purchases
As with many elements of sophisticated email marketing programs, the key Conclusion
to lifecycle marketing is getting started. The more you deliver relevant, tar- Before the dawn of the Internet and Web 2.0, a marketer needed only capture an
geted messages to prospects and customers, the better your results will be. audience’s attention with an appealing ad to be successful. But today we live in
a world that demands much more of marketers. People are exposed to around
7. Metrics That Measure Engagement 5,000 ads a day. When connecting with customers using any of these seven
Monitoring more sophisticated metrics helps you quantify the performance email tactics, you’ll want to make sure to coordinate messaging across multiple
of your marketing initiatives. Armed with this data, you can act on your channels, conveying a consistent and personalized experience. By using a mar-
insights and make adjustments to your strategy as needed. Yet 59 percent keting solution that’s integrated with other channels such as email, landing pages
of email marketers only use basic metrics such as opens and click- and social media, it’s easy to spread your message wide, but keep it focused.
through rates,7 failing to properly measure engagement and missing an
opportunity to improve their understanding of customers and prospects, By employing the seven email marketing techniques outlined here, you’ll
tighten the efficiency of their marketing programs and be better able to engage customers in a way that sets you apart from the “noise” that’s currently
defend their budgets and emails’ worth. overwhelming consumers, increasing brand loyalty and profits in the process.
To avoid drowning in a statistical deluge, don’t try to evaluate every possible Footnotes
1- “Social Networking Sites: Defining Advertising Opportunities in a Competitive
data point. Select a measurement you believe would have an impact on your Landscape,” Jupiter Research, March 2007
program and focus on that. But don’t make your focus too narrow, relying on 2- “The ROI of Email Relevance,” Forrester Research, Sept. 2009
the measurement equivalent of a snapshot. Instead, develop a more holistic 3-“Targeting Influential E-mail Subscribers,” Jupiter Research, July 2008
4-“Email Goes Viral: Measuring ‘Share-to-Social’ Performance,” Silverpop, 2009
view of results, observing how metrics trend over time, the implications of 5-AOL/Beta Research Corporation study, June 2008
anomalies and outliers, and what changes can be made to improve results 6-Airwide Solutions independent survey of 50 brand-name companies, Feb. 2009
and increase satisfaction and ROI. 7-“Benchmark Your Email Organization,” Forrester Research, Oct. 2008
To find out more about Silverpop’s Engage solution and how it can benefit your company, please contact us toll-free at 1-866-745-8767
or email us at info@silverpop.com.
Visit us at www.silverpop.com
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