1. #genoodling
SUPERCHARGE
EMAIL MARKETING
ROI:
MORE THAN BEST
PRACTICES
Kim Albee
President
Genoo / ContentZAP!

2. #genoodling
About The Presenter
President and founder of Genoo and
our professional services “agency”
called ContentZap.
We offer online marketing tools and
marketing automation to small and
midsize businesses. www.genoo.com
We work with businesses to
supercharge their online marketing and
build/augment their marketing teams.
www.contentzap.com
•Kim Albee
@kimalbee
@GenooMarketing
/in/kimalbee

3. #genoodling
Why Email?
• Has one of the highest ROI’s of any tactic, and it’s
not decreasing.
• DMA reported $40.56 return for every $1
invested.
• A current study of consumer habits found that
77% preferred email vs. 6% preferring social
media.
• Only organic SEO scored better as a lead
source over email marketing.

4. #genoodling
Email Is Changing – Biggest Challenges
1. Sending relevant messages.
2. Identifying segments that will boost
engagement.
3. Not testing the best elements.
4. Looking beyond open rate as a measure of
email success.
And this points to…
… CONTENT!!!
97% of businesses do not have
a content development process

5. #genoodling
It’s Simple. Email is getting personalized
(and automated)
Ready to get started?
Segmentation is a huge factor in
establishing relevance.
Having access to comprehensive
metrics makes a huge difference.

6. #genoodling
Today’s Focus
• How to Leverage a Single, Un-segmented List
• Email Metrics – Going Beyond The Click
• The Value of a Newsletter and a Blog Feed
• Segmenting Basics
• The From, Subject and Message
• The Call-To-Action
• A/B Testing
• The Truth About Open Rates.
• Deliverability & How To Avoid Spam

7. #genoodling
• “People want to do business with people.
We’re human, and we crave interaction
with people who know us.”
• -- David Meerman Scott
• “The New Rules of Marketing & PR”
Email done well builds relationship

8. #genoodling
• Personalized, relevant emails, delivered at the right
time, can boost trust and build the relationship you
have with your leads and customers.
• Leveraging the content pathways that you have
assembled can help establish the content that will be
relevant.
• Migrating from batch-and-blast to segmented and
targeted sending can increase campaign
effectiveness.
Relevance is Essential for Engagement

9. #genoodling
• Social Media is one-size-fits-all
• Social will not replace email – they each have
their different characteristics that should be
optimized.
• Email’s big differentiator is that it can be
personalized and targeted to a segment as small
as “one”.
Email Is The Most Personalize-able…

10. #genoodling
• Design emails to aid segmenting.
• Why?
• 208% conversion improvement over batch-and-blast
(Marketing Sherpa)
• $600 investment yielded 48% conversion, and
2500% Return on Investment (Case Study)
• The right tools can make this possible.
How To Leverage An Un-segmented List

11. #genoodling
• Focus:
• Professional Development
• Course Promotion
CASE STUDY

12. #genoodling
• Included Sewing class
• (personal enrichment)
CASE STUDY

13. #genoodling
Mine Your Existing Metrics

14. #genoodling
Going ‘beyond the click’ can be invaluable

15. #genoodling
Going ‘beyond the click’ can be invaluable

16. #genoodling
• 53 recipients clicked through
• 315 Total Site Visits (remember 41 social media shares)
• 42 minutes 29 seconds Total time on Site
Can you identify your most responsive?

17. #genoodling
Design Your Emails Intending to Segment
“When I design an email, I have links designed for each target based
On different interests and for different outcomes.”
Director Continuing Ed Enrollment, Pierpont Community & Technical College
I can see what recipients were most
compelled by, and what links were clicked.
But then I can go deeper…

18. #genoodling
Actionable Metrics Create Auto-Segments
I can click through the recipients and see
who was interested in each topic…
“Before Genoo, I could look at Google Analytics, but
that didn’t help me identify the people specifically.”

19. #genoodling
Trigger Targeted Follow-Ups That Go
Deeper…
I can easily segment based upon a lead’s
active interest.
You don’t need to know the segments ahead of time.
You can learn as you go.

20. #genoodling
ACentralized Lead Database – See Activity Over Time
Click-access to deeper metrics
“Beyond a specific email, we can find out more
specifics about WHO these people are.”
“And how they’ve participated
in our programs.”

21. #genoodling
Drill into lead behaviors to get insights
“And beyond just the email – when have they
come back to the site. I can see their visits…”
“And how much time they
spent during each visit.”

22. #genoodling
Insights lead to discoveries that impact
your results
And how they navigated
during their visit – where did
they spend their time.
For each visit, I can see – in this case how this
person spent the hour and 34 minutes on our
site…

23. #genoodling
And focus your efforts – clicks don’t tell the whole story
And ultimately ended up checking
out a supervision class, an
accounting class, etc.
This person came in through a link to a sewing
class…

24. #genoodling
Case Study Takeaways:
“With typical email marketing programs, all I would know is that they
clicked through sewing.
With this approach and metrics, I can discover the REAL interest based
upon where time is being spent beyond the initial click.
Being able to see that, helps us develop and target better content for
this individual.
But it also helped us see that personal enrichment classes can be an
‘entry point’ that gets people exploring what’s available.
We never realized that before – and would never have made that
connection.”
Director, Community Education Enrollment

25. #genoodling
• Had the opportunity to
send to large list of 160k+
of mainly B2B marketers.
• We had a series of
webinars that we wanted
to use as a Lead Gen
opportunity.
• We designed a series of
“Invitation Emails” and
sent the first one to the
ENTIRE list (in sends of
approx. 40k each).
Case Study #2
Segmenting

26. #genoodling
• Send
Results:
Case Study #2 - Segmenting

27. #genoodling
• Send
Results:
Case Study #2 - Segmenting

28. #genoodling
• We only did additional
sends to those who
opened the email.
Case Study #2 – Re-Send only to Opens

29. #genoodling
• Email #2 Results:
Results from Follow-Up send
49% open rate!

30. #genoodling
• Email #2 Results:
Results from Follow-Up send
49% open rate!

31. #genoodling
• Use broad sends to segment.
• Follow up with those who exhibit some interest.
• Maximize your future engagements based on interest.
Case Study #2 Takeaways

32. #genoodling
The Value of a Newsletter and a Blog Feed
• If you have a blog, then sending a newsletter can
be made infinitely easier.
• You want to set up your newsletter to pull from
your Blog feed.
• (optional) You can even have multiple
newsletters and filter what you pull from the blog
feed.
• Benefit: You focus on the blog posts.

33. #genoodling
CASE STUDY
Blogs have RSS feeds.

34. #genoodling
Embed The Feed In Your Newsletter
Blog Items from RSS feed
(not included in newsletter yet)
Personalized Introduction text
Sign-off and Signature
Schedule the Newsletter to go out on
A recurring schedule based on the frequency
You need (i.e. monthly, bi-weekly, etc.)

35. #genoodling
Schedule Newsletter to Send On Recurring Schedule…
• For example, every month or every two weeks.
• It will ONLY include blog posts that haven’t yet
been sent in the newsletter.
• Apply filters if needed, to allow for topical
newsletters (pulled based upon blog category or
keyword/tag).
• Benefit: You Focus On Blog Posts!

36. #genoodling
• Normal/Standard Segmentation.
• Based upon attributes of the lead (i.e. industry, job
title, company size, geography, age, etc).
• First tier segmenting.
• Ties well to persona for high level segment and
content pathway.
• Can you determine these dynamically? (i.e. saved
search as recipient list) – smart rules to activate?
Segmenting Basics: Demographics

37. #genoodling
• Cannot do this well with Email Service Providers.
• They are LIST based, not lead/activity based.
• Need comprehensive lead metrics (w/centralized lead database).
• Allows you to see what a lead (or leads) are interested in.
• What have they downloaded?
• Where have they spent time?
• Opportunity: Go deeper with content into areas they will truly
value.
• Automation based on activity triggers can ensure the right message
at the right time.
Segmenting Basics: Behavior/Activity

38. #genoodling
Behavioral Segmenting Goes Beyond The Click…
and looks at a lead’s interest
I can see what recipients were most
compelled by, and what links were clicked.
But then I can go deeper…

39. #genoodling
Tracking Lead BehaviorsAcrossAll Campaigns
Allows you to identify WHO might be Sales-Ready

40. #genoodling
Comprehensive TrackingAllows for Targeting that Engages

41. #genoodling
Your Ability to Target Expands Possibilities
Case
Study:

42. #genoodling
And produce powerful results…
Case Study: Lunch & Learn In-Person Event.
Pulled a targeted list from the people who had
exhibited an interest in specific types of
programs.
Was a nice lunch – learned about pending
legislation in this area. Soft sell, focused on
providing value.

43. #genoodling
Leveraged Online Tools for Offline Event
• Sent Email Invitations to targeted list.
• Used Landing Page with Lead Capture Form for
Event Registration.
• Triggered into Follow-up email campaign to
remind people about the event.
• Printed List of “registered” easily for sign-up on
the day of the event.

44. #genoodling
Results from Lunch & Learn Campaign
Total people at the event:
Number who registered into the class:
Total expense for the lunch & learn:
Cost of the class:
25
12
$600
$1250
48%!!!
2500% Return on Investment!

45. #genoodling
• The ability to target effectively based on both
demographic and behavioral data can provide far
greater ROI and conversion than general
marketing and content.
• Being able to mix online and offline can make
excellent sense, and
• Email with other online tracking and capabilities
makes more efficiencies possible.
Case Study: Takeaways

46. #genoodling
Tips For Your Emails

47. #genoodling
• No-reply@...
• info@...
• support@...
• Emails sent from these sorts of email addresses do not have
recipients feel like they are getting an email from a person.
They are getting an email from a Company – and those are by
definition, Impersonal.
Send FROM A Real Person

48. #genoodling
• Get Attention Up Front.
• Watch Your Length.
Subject Lines Get People To Read Further…
Desktop Inbox
Mobile Inbox
~35 Viewable characters
~75 Viewable characters

49. #genoodling
• Be careful to take studies ‘at their word’.
• Google ‘optimal length of email subject lines’ to
get a variety of studies and results.
• The better you know your audience and
understand what engages them, the more
success you will have.
Subject Line Tips

50. #genoodling
• As marketers, we fuss over the email itself –
spending hours constructing the “perfect” email.
• Then we spend about 5 minutes on the subject
line, and wonder why our open rate and
engagement was low.
Spend Time On The Subject Line
Book Recommendation:
Great Headlines Instantly
by Robert Boduch

51. #genoodling
• “Dear Subscriber”
• “Valued Customer”
• The greeting doesn’t convey that the recipient is
special, but rather, lumped into a category. The
recipient knows that it was sent as a mass email:
Impersonal.
• Are you too formal for the world we live in today?
What’s Your Response To Your Greeting?

52. #genoodling
Crafting The ‘Right’/’Best’ Message
• What is your objective?
• What do you want recipients to do?
• If they don’t do that, what else would you like
them to do?
Great Book by Victor Schwab
How to Write a Good Advertisement

53. #genoodling
• I received this email
this morning – how it
looks on my iPhone:
If Using Responsive – Make sure it Works
Doing test sends and looking at on popular platforms is worth it.

54. #genoodling
• Decide what you need to test…
• and what will be considered success.
• Test only ONE thing at a time.
• What to test?
• Call to action / offer
• Subject line
• Headline
• Layout of the message
• Personalization
• Body text
• Closing text
• images
A/B Testing

55. #genoodling
• Generally, if possible, you want to test your entire list – that will give
you an accurate picture of response and engagement.
• If you have a very large list – you may only want to test a sample.
Test the largest sample you can afford.
• If trying something “on the edge” you might want to limit how many
people see it, just in case it doesn’t work.
• If it’s a limited-time offer, and need to maximize conversions, run a
small (a few hundred recipients) test, and then send out the winner to
your entire list.
• The larger your test sample, the more accurate your results will be.
A/B Testing – Test entire list?

56. #genoodling
• Can be really valuable – but will it alter what you would otherwise get if you
used BOTH A & B as sends to your audience?
• Our experience with SMB marketers is you struggle to put a SINGLE email
together.
• We’ve also seen that it’s inefficient (and ineffective) to send ONLY one email
to your audience on a specific subject.
• Oftentimes if you send multiple emails, the SECOND email will get better
results than the first one.
• That would be a better use of your time and maximize your results and effort.
A/B Testing – For Smaller Lists

57. #genoodling
Example
A B

58. #genoodling
Example
A B

59. #genoodling
Example
A B

60. #genoodling
• Most unreliable metric.
• Be more interested in click-throughs
• And what happens beyond that.
• Be hungry for what’s working rather than a
simple Open metric that doesn’t help you learn
and improve.
A Word About Open Rates

61. #genoodling
• With B2B markets, you deal with corporate spam
filters, managed (and often times unnecessarily
“locked down”) by corporate IT.
• With B2C markets, you deal with Cable
providers, Gmail, Yahoo!, AOL, and Microsoft
(MSN, Hotmail, and Outlook.com)
• Engagement matters (clicks, replies) if you want
Inbox delivery.
Deliverability & Spam

62. #genoodling
Ask Subscribers to White List Your Email
And have a page that gives them instructions
on how to do that.

63. #genoodling
• Google “spam words to avoid” and get yourself
familiar with the language that will land your emails
in spam traps and hinder your deliverability.
• Adhere to good CAN-SPAM practices and make
unsubscribing from your list easy.
• Seek to understand your target audience (i.e.
personas) and develop good, relevant and
engaging content.
Avoid being seen as SPAM
Check out this Blog Post of SPAM Words:
http://bit.ly/spam-word-list

64. #genoodling
• http://bit.ly/gscoop-1
Additional Tips
http://bit.ly/gscoop2

65. #genoodling
• Evaluate your email sending capabilities
and determine what you can and cannot
do
• Not all Email Service Providers allow you
to easily segment, or include an RSS feed
in an email – or they do not have the
metrics and capabilities you need – so
understand that up front.
Take the First Steps…

66. #genoodling
• Construct an email for your target
audience that will allow you to further
understand what they are interested in.
• Include at least three different links back
to your site/blog that allow you to derive
meaningful distinctions.
Create an Email To Your Target Audience

67. #genoodling
1. Email is one of the most powerful tools you have in your
online marketing arsenal.
2. It’s possible to start with an un-segmented list and start to
build segments you can engage.
3. The metrics that are available can make a huge difference
on your email effectiveness.
4. The ability to “go beyond the click” can help provide insights
you would otherwise miss.
5. Open rate is the least reliable metric.
6. Use good sending practices and make opting-out easy.
Key Takeaways

68. #genoodling
THANK YOU!
QUESTIONS?
Follow Kim:
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kimalbee
Twitter: @kimalbee
Follow Genoo & ContentZAP!:
Twitter: @GenooMarketing
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/genoo-llc