Email 101 Webinar Presentation
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
2 likes•1,304 views
Email 101 presented by Scott Pearson. The presentation is a great resource for marketers who are just beginning email marketing campaigns. Also a outstanding refresher for people who are in the industry and looking to freshen up on strategy and foundation.
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (19)
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (20)
Similar to Email 101 Webinar Presentation
Similar to Email 101 Webinar Presentation (20)
More from Three Deep Marketing
More from Three Deep Marketing (13)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Email 101 Webinar Presentation
- 1. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 1 Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing Scott Pearson Partner / Vice President eCRM spearson@threedeepmarketing.com | @scott3deep
- 2. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 2 - 20+ years experience driving business growth through CRM and Email - Manages over 1,200 email campaigns per year - Sends over 245,000,000 permission-based emails per year - Works with B2C and B2B Fortune 100 to Small Businesses - Recognized thought leader on email strategies to support mobile devices Visit www.threedeepmarketing.com to learn more about the measureable digital marketing campaigns Scott and his team provide. Scott Pearson Partner / Vice President - eCRM Three Deep Marketing Twitter: @scott3deep Email: spearson@threedeepmarketing.com
- 3. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 3 Why Email?
- 4. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 4 Think email is dead? Businesses will use email marketing more often and more effectively in the next 10 years than they have since the beginning of the internet. Isn’t Email Dead?
- 5. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 5 Cost Effective Reach Your Customers Nurture Repeat Business Email Marketing has an avg. ROI of $38 for each dollar spend. One in 5 companies report an ROI of over 70:1. (DMA National Email Report 2015) In 2014, email marketing was cited as the most effective digital marketing channel for customer retention in the United States. (eMarketer) 70% of people say they always open emails from their favorite companies. (Exact Target) WhyEmail?
- 6. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 6 Email Design
- 7. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 7 Anatomy of an Email Subject Line Preheader Text Header Headline Body Heroshot Image Call to Action (CTA) Footer Secondary Content Recapture Area From Name <From@Address > Email Dissection 550 – 640 px Email Width 15 – 100 kb Email File Size
- 8. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 8 Anatomy of an Email Subject Line Preheader Text Header Headline Body Heroshot Image Call to Action (CTA) Footer Secondary Content Recapture Area From Name <From@Address > 1 From Name – Name of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication name Best Practice – Use a value that the contact relates to most when thinking about your company and the content included in the email. Keep under 30 characters. Examples – (Company) Three Deep Marketing (Department) Email Marketing (Communication) Monthly Promotion (Person) Scott Pearson Fact – 43% of email recipients click the Spam button based on the email’s From Name Source: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/convince-convert/15-email-statistics-that-are-shaping-the-future/ 1
- 9. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 9 Anatomy of an Email Subject Line Preheader Text Header Headline Body Heroshot Image Call to Action (CTA) Footer Secondary Content Recapture Area From Name <From@Address > 2 Best Practice – Make sure the From@Address works in conjunction with your From Name. Together they should represent to the recipient who the email is from within the company. Examples – From Name From@Address Three Deep Marketing news@mail.threedeep.com Email Marketing services@mail.threedeep.com Monthly Promotion specials@mail.threedeep.com Scott Pearson scott.pearson@mail.threedeep.com Tip – Work with your Email Service Provider (ESP) and your IT resources to get your From@Address configured correctly. The setup of your From@Address is crucial for good deliverability. Visit senderscore.org for more information. 2 2. From@Address – Email of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication
- 10. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 10 Anatomy of an Email Subject Line Preheader Text Header Headline Body Heroshot Image Call to Action (CTA) Footer Secondary Content Recapture Area From Name <From@Address > 3 Best Practice – With the explosion of mobile devices shorter subject lines are working better. Include your main offer in the first 35 characters of your subject line. Include personalization like first name in subject lines to increase open rates. Examples – Scott, your free offer to access lynda.com expires today! For you: HP ink & toner coupons ✄ Save $20 on Work Boots Before it's Too Late Scott - meet with Optimizely? Fact – 22.3% open rate increase with personalized subject lines Source: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/convince-convert/15-email-statistics-that-are-shaping-the-future/ 3 3. Subject Line – Describes the theme of the content and main offer of the email
- 11. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 11 Anatomy of an Email Subject Line Preheader Text Header Headline Body Heroshot Image Call to Action (CTA) Footer Secondary Content Recapture Area From Name <From@Address > 4 Best Practice – Should complement the subject line and be under 50 characters. Can also include an Online View link as well as an Unsubscribe link if deliverability concerns. Examples – We Create Animated Explainer Videos Reach new customers with $50 worth of LinkedIn Ads You Still Have Time to Save on New Red Wing Boots Fact – 69.9% of email marketers do not dictate the Preheader Text of their emails Source: Three Deep Marketing Inbox Study, 2014 4 4. Preheader Text – Amplifies the message and delivers key information. Included in mobile preview
- 12. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 12 Anatomy of an Email Subject Line Preheader Text Header Headline Body Heroshot Image Call to Action (CTA) Footer Secondary Content Recapture Area From Name <From@Address > 5 Best Practice – Focus on a narrow Header (less than 75 px) so that important content is not pushed down below the fold. Remember your reader has already viewed your From Name and From@Address so more than a simple header with logo is usually not needed. Examples – Tip – Consider removing the header on cold sales emails to resemble a personal email. 5 5. Header – The main branding element of the email creative. Typically incorporates company logo.
- 13. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 13 Anatomy of an Email Subject Line Preheader Text Header Headline Body Heroshot Image Call to Action (CTA) Footer Secondary Content Recapture Area From Name <From@Address > 6 Best Practice – Keep under 40 characters and one line if possible no more than 2 lines. At least 30 pt font for readability on mobile devices. Focus is to get attention of the reader! Examples – Tip – Do Not embed your Headline in an image. Keep it text so it is visible when images are not displayed. 6 6. Headline – Illustrates the theme of the communication and most importantly the offer.
- 14. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 14 Anatomy of an Email Subject Line Preheader Text Header Headline Body Heroshot Image Call to Action (CTA) Footer Secondary Content Recapture Area From Name <From@Address > 7 Best Practice – Remember email is never the destination, you are simply trying to provide enough content to convince the reader to take the action you are promoting (typically clicking). Examples – Tip – Use inline text links to provide additional options for the reader to convert on your offer 7 7. Body – Main content area that should include sub-headlines, lists and bullets for easy reading
- 15. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 15 Anatomy of an Email Subject Line Preheader Text Header Headline Body Heroshot Image Call to Action (CTA) Footer Secondary Content Recapture Area From Name <From@Address > 8 Best Practice – The Heroshot image should add value by showing detail or context to improve relevance, demonstrate benefits, and answer questions. The image could be a product or lifestyle shot, but incorporating a product being used in a real life situation can produce best results. Examples – Tip – Download the Heroshot Score Card from our website. http://offer.threedeepmarketing.com/hero-shot-scorecard 8 8. Heroshot Image – Image that relates to body content but sells or draws attention to the CTA
- 16. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 16 Anatomy of an Email Subject Line Preheader Text Header Headline Body Heroshot Image Call to Action (CTA) Footer Secondary Content Recapture Area From Name <From@Address > 9 Best Practice – Make the CTA obvious. Use contrasting color or CTA button. Indicate urgency and a verb that promotes action. Examples – Tip – Visit our blog and check out our slide deck on the use of color and CTA conversion. http://threedeepmarketing.com/blog/color-conversion-science- clockwork-model/ 9 9. Call to Action (CTA) – Main action you want the reader to take. Usually a button or link
- 17. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 17 Anatomy of an Email Subject Line Preheader Text Header Headline Body Heroshot Image Call to Action (CTA) Footer Secondary Content Recapture Area From Name <From@Address > 10 Best Practice – Don’t over do it, make sure that this content doesn’t take away from or distract from the main body copy or Call to Action. Examples – Tip – Limit secondary content to 1- 3 sections to avoid diluting your main CTA conversion. 10 10. Secondary Content – Additional content and offers. May be one section or multiple sections.
- 18. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 18 Anatomy of an Email Subject Line Preheader Text Header Headline Body Heroshot Image Call to Action (CTA) Footer Secondary Content Recapture Area From Name <From@Address > 11 Best Practice – Think of this section of your email as customer service. Provide a handful of information and links to commonly accessed content. From a creative stand point this content should not take center stage and not stand out compared to your Body and Secondary content. Examples – Tip – Test removing this section from your emails. In some cases adding additional links like this can decrease the number of conversions to your main CTA 11 11. Recapture Area – Additional information and links to general content if main content was not engaging
- 19. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 19 Anatomy of an Email Subject Line Preheader Text Header Headline Body Heroshot Image Call to Action (CTA) Footer Secondary Content Recapture Area From Name <From@Address > 12 Best Practice – Make the unsubscribe link obvious, it is better to have a contact unsubscribe than report your email as SPAM or Junk. Examples – Tip – Compliance is important. Check the link below for email marketing compliance rules and laws for your market geography. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spam_legislation_by_country 12 12. Footer – Includes compliance items including unsubscribe and physical address (For US).
- 20. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 20 2. From@Address – Email of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID Anatomy of an Email Subject Line Preheader Text Header Headline Body Heroshot Image Call to Action (CTA) Footer Secondary Content Recapture Area From Name <From@Address > 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 3. Subject line – Offer should be included in first 35 characters. SL’s over 50 characters can get cut off 4. Preheader Text – Amplifies the message and delivers key information. Included in mobile preview 5. Header – Should be well branded and narrow so it doesn’t push main content below the fold. 6. Headline – Illustrates the theme of the communication and most importantly the offer. 7. Body – Main content area that should include sub-headlines, lists and bullets for easy reading 8. Heroshot Image – Image that relates to body content but sells or draws attention to the CTA 9. Call to Action (CTA) – Main action you want the reader to take. Usually a button or link 10. Secondary Content – Additional content and offers. May be one section or multiple sections. 11. Recapture Area – Additional information and links to general content if main content was not engaging 1. From Name – Name of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID 12. Footer – Includes compliance items including unsubscribe and physical address.
- 21. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 21 Welcome to Grainger. For the ones who get it done. Anatomy of an Email Microsoft Outlook Preview 2. From@Address – Email of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID 3. Subject line – Offer should be included in first 35 characters. SL’s over 50 characters can get cut off 4. Preheader Text – Amplifies the message and delivers key information. Included in mobile preview 1. From Name – Name of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID 1 3 4 Notes – You will see that the From@Address is not displayed in the Outlook preview pain. While Grainger does a very good job of branding their almost identical use of Subject Line and Preheader Text is a missed opportunity. They could of used the Preheader text to introduce me to the offer inside while the Subject Line welcomed me to their brand.
- 22. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 22 Anatomy of an Email iPhone 6 Inbox 2. From@Address – Email of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID 3. Subject line – Offer should be included in first 35 characters. SL’s over 50 characters can get cut off 4. Preheader Text – Amplifies the message and delivers key information. Included in mobile preview 1. From Name – Name of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID 1 3 4 Notes – You will see that the From@Address is not displayed in the iPhone preview pain. While Grainger does a very good job of branding their almost identical use of Subject Line and Preheader Text is a missed opportunity. They could of used the Preheader text to introduce me to the offer inside while the Subject Line welcomed me to their brand.
- 23. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 23 2. From@Address – Email of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID Anatomy of an Email Scott, Welcome to Grainger Grainger grainger@e.grainger.co m 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 3. Subject line – Offer should be included in first 35 characters. SL’s over 50 characters can get cut off 4. Preheader Text – Amplifies the message and delivers key information. Included in mobile preview 5. Header – Should be well branded and narrow so it doesn’t push main content below the fold. 6. Headline – Illustrates the theme of the communication and most importantly the offer. 7. Body – Main content area that should include sub-headlines, lists and bullets for easy reading 8. Heroshot Image – Image that relates to body content but sells or draws attention to the CTA 9. Call to Action (CTA) – Main action you want the reader to take. Usually a button or link 10. Secondary Content – Additional content and offers. May be one section or multiple sections. 11. Recapture Area – Additional information and links to general content if main content was not engaging 1. From Name – Name of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID 12. Footer – Includes compliance items including unsubscribe and physical address. Scot t
- 24. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 24 Types of Email
- 25. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 25 Text Html Multi-Part • Text Only • No Images • No Hyperlinks • Limited Tracking • Text and Images • Text Formatting • Hyperlinks • Open & Click Tracking • Sends Text & Html Always Send as Multi-Part Message Types of Email
- 26. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 26 Tips for Better Text Emails: • Having a text version is best practice • CTA can be “Paste This Link” • Use special characters to break up the email. Such as, “=====“ or “++++” to create lines and “****” to draw attention to CTA’s • Use breaks to create white space to make email scanable Source: campaignmonitor.com
- 27. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 27 Pop Quiz: Is this Email Text or Html? Text HtmlX Use of Image Links Stylized Text
- 28. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 28 Cold Permission Transactional • Purchased Lists • No Relationship • No Permission (Optin) • Compliance Concerns • Optin for Email • Prior Relationship • Permission (Optin) • Compliance Concerns • Transaction Based • Current Relationship Compliance Resources: US: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business Canada: http://fightspam.gc.ca/eic/site/030.nsf/eng/home General by Country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spam_legislation_by_country Types of Email
- 29. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 29 2. From@Address – Email of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID Cold Email – Meeting Request Scott - meet with Optimizely? Ryan Krebs Hit-reply@linkedin.com 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 3. Subject line – Offer should be included in first 35 characters. SL’s over 50 characters can get cut off 4. Preheader Text – Amplifies the message and delivers key information. Included in mobile preview 5. Header – Should be well branded and narrow so it doesn’t push main content below the fold. 6. Headline – Illustrates the theme of the communication and most importantly the offer. 7. Body – Main content area that should include sub-headlines, lists and bullets for easy reading 8. Heroshot Image – Image that relates to body content but sells or draws attention to the CTA 9. Call to Action (CTA) – Main action you want the reader to take. Usually a button or link 10. Secondary Content – Additional content and offers. May be one section or multiple sections. 11. Recapture Area – Additional information and links to general content if main content was not engaging 1. From Name – Name of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID 12. Footer – Includes compliance items including unsubscribe and physical address.
- 30. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 30 2. From@Address – Email of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID Cold Email – Webinar Invite My webinar tomorrow on data unification Brad Hubbard Brad.hubbard@datasift.co m 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 3. Subject line – Offer should be included in first 35 characters. SL’s over 50 characters can get cut off 4. Preheader Text – Amplifies the message and delivers key information. Included in mobile preview 5. Header – Should be well branded and narrow so it doesn’t push main content below the fold. 6. Headline – Illustrates the theme of the communication and most importantly the offer. 7. Body – Main content area that should include sub-headlines, lists and bullets for easy reading 8. Heroshot Image – Image that relates to body content but sells or draws attention to the CTA 9. Call to Action (CTA) – Main action you want the reader to take. Usually a button or link 10. Secondary Content – Additional content and offers. May be one section or multiple sections. 11. Recapture Area – Additional information and links to general content if main content was not engaging 1. From Name – Name of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID 12. Footer – Includes compliance items including unsubscribe and physical address.
- 31. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 31 2. From@Address – Email of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID Cold Email – Asset Download Want to be Agile? 6 Things You Should Know Ashley Riddle ashleyr@workfront.com 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 3. Subject line – Offer should be included in first 35 characters. SL’s over 50 characters can get cut off 4. Preheader Text – Amplifies the message and delivers key information. Included in mobile preview 5. Header – Should be well branded and narrow so it doesn’t push main content below the fold. 6. Headline – Illustrates the theme of the communication and most importantly the offer. 7. Body – Main content area that should include sub-headlines, lists and bullets for easy reading 8. Heroshot Image – Image that relates to body content but sells or draws attention to the CTA 9. Call to Action (CTA) – Main action you want the reader to take. Usually a button or link 10. Secondary Content – Additional content and offers. May be one section or multiple sections. 11. Recapture Area – Additional information and links to general content if main content was not engaging 1. From Name – Name of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID 12. Footer – Includes compliance items including unsubscribe and physical address.
- 32. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 32 2. From@Address – Email of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID Permission Email – Triggered Get Started with Evernote Evernote no-reply@evernote.com 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1112 3. Subject line – Offer should be included in first 35 characters. SL’s over 50 characters can get cut off 4. Preheader Text – Amplifies the message and delivers key information. Included in mobile preview 5. Header – Should be well branded and narrow so it doesn’t push main content below the fold. 6. Headline – Illustrates the theme of the communication and most importantly the offer. 7. Body – Main content area that should include sub-headlines, lists and bullets for easy reading 8. Heroshot Image – Image that relates to body content but sells or draws attention to the CTA 9. Call to Action (CTA) – Main action you want the reader to take. Usually a button or link 10. Secondary Content – Additional content and offers. May be one section or multiple sections. 11. Recapture Area – Additional information and links to general content if main content was not engaging 1. From Name – Name of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID 12. Footer – Includes compliance items including unsubscribe and physical address.
- 33. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 33 2. From@Address – Email of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID Permission Email – Newsletter Green Flash: A June Wedding: Google Loves Twitter Conductor greenflash@conductor.com 10 1 2 3 45 6 7 8 9 1112 3. Subject line – Offer should be included in first 35 characters. SL’s over 50 characters can get cut off 4. Preheader Text – Amplifies the message and delivers key information. Included in mobile preview 5. Header – Should be well branded and narrow so it doesn’t push main content below the fold. 6. Headline – Illustrates the theme of the communication and most importantly the offer. 7. Body – Main content area that should include sub-headlines, lists and bullets for easy reading 8. Heroshot Image – Image that relates to body content but sells or draws attention to the CTA 9. Call to Action (CTA) – Main action you want the reader to take. Usually a button or link 10. Secondary Content – Additional content and offers. May be one section or multiple sections. 11. Recapture Area – Additional information and links to general content if main content was not engaging 1. From Name – Name of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID 12. Footer – Includes compliance items including unsubscribe and physical address.
- 34. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 34 2. From@Address – Email of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID Permission Email – Promotional Scott, your free offer to access lynda.com expires today! LinkedIn linkedin@e.linkedin.com 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1112 3. Subject line – Offer should be included in first 35 characters. SL’s over 50 characters can get cut off 4. Preheader Text – Amplifies the message and delivers key information. Included in mobile preview 5. Header – Should be well branded and narrow so it doesn’t push main content below the fold. 6. Headline – Illustrates the theme of the communication and most importantly the offer. 7. Body – Main content area that should include sub-headlines, lists and bullets for easy reading 8. Heroshot Image – Image that relates to body content but sells or draws attention to the CTA 9. Call to Action (CTA) – Main action you want the reader to take. Usually a button or link 10. Secondary Content – Additional content and offers. May be one section or multiple sections. 11. Recapture Area – Additional information and links to general content if main content was not engaging 1. From Name – Name of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID 12. Footer – Includes compliance items including unsubscribe and physical address.
- 35. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 35 2. From@Address – Email of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID Transactional Email 3. Subject line – Offer should be included in first 35 characters. SL’s over 50 characters can get cut off 4. Preheader Text – Amplifies the message and delivers key information. Included in mobile preview 5. Header – Should be well branded and narrow so it doesn’t push main content below the fold. 6. Headline – Illustrates the theme of the communication and most importantly the offer. 7. Body – Main content area that should include sub-headlines, lists and bullets for easy reading 8. Heroshot Image – Image that relates to body content but sells or draws attention to the CTA 9. Call to Action (CTA) – Main action you want the reader to take. Usually a button or link 10. Secondary Content – Additional content and offers. May be one section or multiple sections. 11. Recapture Area – Additional information and links to general content if main content was not engaging 1. From Name – Name of the sender. Can be a person, company, division or communication ID 12. Footer – Includes compliance items including unsubscribe and physical address. - Order Confirmation - Shipping Confirmation - Change Password - Download Request - Product Recall
- 36. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 36 Bad Ideas
- 37. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 37 Images No Images
- 38. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 38 Images No Images
- 39. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 39 Content Overload…
- 40. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 40 Misleading…
- 41. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 41 Not Relevant…
- 42. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 42 Good Ideas
- 43. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 43 Focus On Deliverability • Test Prior to Sending • Clean up Blocks • Monitor Sender Score • Manage White Lists
- 44. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 44 Spam filters use a variety of algorithms to determine what is Spam and what is not. It is not easy for legitimate emails to avoid the spam filter, but there are some best practices of things to avoid (from MailChimp): • Using phrases like “Click here!” or “Once in a lifetime opportunity!” • Excessive use of exclamation points!!!!!!!!! • USING ALL CAPS, WHICH IS LIKE SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS VIA EMAIL (especially in the subject line). • Using bright red or green colored fonts. • Coding sloppy HTML, usually from converting a Microsoft Word file to HTML. • Creating an HTML email that’s nothing but one big image, with little or no text. Spam filters can’t read images, so they assume you’re a spammer trying to trick them. • Clean up your list and remove all hard bounces from your database. Avoid the Junk Folder
- 45. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 45 Focus On Gmail Hotmail Outlook Rendering • Test Prior to Sending for Rendering on all Major ESPs (Desktop, Mobile & App) • Confirm Responsive Design for Mobile Devices • Utilize Tools to Expedite Rendering Testing
- 46. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 46 Focus On Responsive Design Mobile Optimizatio
- 47. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 47 Design for Mobile & Keep Offer Above the Fold
- 48. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 48 Focus On Relevancy• Right Message and Offer at the Right Time • Mix of Calendar Based Sends and Triggered Data Sends • Personalization & Dynamic Content Calendar Sends Triggered Sends • Newsletters • Promotions • Events • New Product / Service • Thought Leadership • Surprise & Delight • Email Interaction • Website Interaction • Product Purchase • Lapsed Consumer • Loyal Consumer • Onboarding / Welcome • Birthday / Anniversary Emails
- 49. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 49 Focus On Relevancy Gerber – Dynamic Content Based on Lifecycle PreNatal Wk 8 . . . . . . . . . Wk 40 PostNatal Mo 1 . . . . . . . . . Yr 2+
- 50. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 50 Focus On Relevancy Gerber – Dynamic Content Based on Lifecycle PreNatal PostNatal
- 51. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 51 Simple Segments • Segment Prospects • Segment Customers • Segment Based on Purchase • Segment on Web Behavior • Segment on Events • Segment by Geography • Segment by Resent Meeting Target Your Emails by Audience
- 52. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 52 Focus On A/B Testing • Always Look to Learn and Optimize • A/B Split Testing and Multivariate Common Tests • Subject Line • Send From • Creative A/B • Copy A/B • Call to Action (CTA) • Offer Testing • Time of Day / Week
- 53. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 53 Simple A/B testing goes a long way. Start with the following: 1. From Name 2. Subject Line Those two items have the greatest effect on Open Rates. Then focus on creative and offer testing to improve conversion. Optimize for Best Results
- 54. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 54 There is no magic date and time. It is best to test when your contacts are most responsive. Highest Optout day is – Tuesday. Know why? B2B – Best results on Weekdays (Tue-Thur). 6:00AM – 8:00AM Test for Best Time to Send Email
- 55. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 55 When it comes to frequency the strategy should be to send to those engaged with your communications more often. (Weekly – Monthly) Those that are not engaged target less often. (Monthly – Quarterly) Send More Often to Your Active Contacts
- 56. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 56 Email Marketing is an extension of your brand. Make sure everything is topnotch before sharing with the world. You’d be surprised how many companies forget items as basic as a simple spellcheck. Make Sure Your Emails Pass The Test
- 57. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 57 Mistakes Happen
- 58. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 58 Make Good Email
- 59. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 59 • Proofreading, Spellcheck, CTA’s • Test Hyperlinks • Images Load Correctly • Email is Responsive and Mobile Friendly • Email Displays Correctly with all Email Software (Desktop, Web, Mobile) • Send Count Matches Your Segment Count • All Compliance Items Are Accounted For (Geography Specific) Email Pre-Launch Checklist
- 60. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 60 Focus On Measurement • Basic Email Measurements + Business Goal Attribution • Advanced Measurement with Litmus Common Measurements • Delivery Rates • Bounce Rate • Unique Open Rate • Unique Click Rate • Unsubscribe Rate • Spam Complaint Rate (By ESP) • Forwards / Social Shares • Click/View Rate • Mobile Device Breakdown • Skim / Read Rate • # Printed • Segments / Geography • Business Goal Conversion! http://www.silverpop.com/marketing-resources/white-papers/all/2014/email-metrics-benchmark-study-2014/ Industry Benchmarks:
- 61. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 61 Focus On Resources for Email Marketing Education: http://www.emailonacid.com/blog http://litmus.com/blog/ http://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/ http://www.emailmonday.com/ http://blog.returnpath.com/ Education
- 62. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 62 Chew On This
- 63. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 63 Three Takeaways to Apply Today 1. Test From Names, Subject Lines & PreHeader Text 2. Simple Segmentation (It’s All About Relevancy) 3. Think Mobile When Creating Your Next Email
- 64. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 64 Is Your Email Marketing Mobile Friendly? Free Email Marketing eBook • How to reach consumers in a “world gone mobile” • How you can use media queries to your advantage • Proven strategies to create email campaigns using responsive design Offer.ThreeDeepMarketing.com/mobile-friendly-email-ebook
- 65. | Email 101: Best Practices for Email Marketing 65 Scott Pearson scott.pearson@threedeepmarketing.com @scott3deep
Editor's Notes
- Thank You for the great introduction Taylor. I am very excited to be here talking Email 101 today. I want to start by saying Welcome and Thank You for joining us. As mentioned this presentation is meant to be an introductory 101 look into email to help move you past simply batch and blast tactics, but my hope is that even for more experienced email marketers participating today that there will be some best practice takeaways that you will be able to incorporate into your campaigns or even just some simple reminders to get back to focusing on the basics that work. Also, as Taylor mentioned these slides will be emailed to all registrants at the conclusion of this webinar. [CLICK]
- In case anyone was curious what I look like there I am. Again, my name is Scott Pearson and I am a Partner and Vice President of eCRM at Three Deep, a digital agency located in St. Paul MN. As Taylor mentioned I have a long history working in both CRM and Email Marketing. My background includes both B2C and B2B Businesses and I have done a lot of work with Large Enterprise companies all the way down to small Mom and Pop Shops. If you want to check out more about Three Deep I would encourage you to visit our website at threedeepmarketing.com. [CLICK]
- So, Why Email? Why are we all gathered here today? [CLICK]
- After all, Isn’t Email Dead? I mean the first email was sent back in 1971. In digital marketing terms that’s like a million years ago. Over the years Emails Death as been predicted several times. First it was Instant Messaging that was going to kill email. Then it was SMS and Text Messaging. Then it was Social Media… You get my point. Email has been around a long time and it will continue to be. If it wasn’t this would be the shortest webinar of all time. But, the fact is we are expecting Businesses to actually focus more on email marketing in the next 10 years than they have since the beginning of the internet. [CLICK]
- But why? Well, THREE Reasons. First, Email is Cost Effective. In most cases companies report that Email is either their best or second best marketing channel in terms of ROI. Second, Email can be very effective in building new relationships, but more importantly new revenue. As ExactTarget stated 70% of people say they always open email from their favorite companies. And lastly, and probably the best reason email will continue to be so successful; is its ability to nurture repeat business from your existing customers. eMarketer released a report earlier this year showing that in 2014 email marketing was cited as the most effective digital channel for customer retention. [Click]
- So hopefully we all agree that email is and will continue to be a powerful tool in our bag of marketing tactics. Or at least I am assuming that is why you are attending this webinar today. With that lets jump into best practices around Email Design. [CLICK]
- But before we get to far into images and content. To truly understand the whole of Email Design we need to understand the parts that make up the whole. This is something I learned in my 8th grade Biology class. Whoever thought I would be relating Frog dissection to Email Marketing? Well, I can promise that this will be a lot less painful for you, and the frog. Before we slice this email up. The first question that I always get is what size should my email be? [CLICK Advance] The answer is somewhere between 550 and 640 pixels. 640 used to be the magic number before the iPhone got bigger and better screens. Now the number is probably closer to 600. Just make sure you are under the 640 mark. If you are wondering how to calculate pixel size of your design. You can check it in a tool like Photoshop or an even easier way is to download a browser plugin like MeasureIT for Firefox or Chrome. This will let you drag a virtual ruler over your creative and measure in pixels. You don’t need to worry too much about height as long as your email template will scale vertically. You do want to consider how much your viewer needs to scroll though; just make sure to keep important content up top. [CLICK Advance] The other spec to consider is File Size. You want to make sure that the size of your html email file is between 15 and 100 kilobytes. Files larger than that can get caught in spam filters and experience delivery problems. [CLICK]
- Ok, let’s get to the slicing. Our first slice is From Name. The From Name is basically the name of the sender, but that name could be a person or it could be a company, business division or even a communication name. The best practice is to make sure to use the value that will relate most to the reader when engaging with the content. For example if you are sending an email to existing customers and a contact has had the same customer service rep for the past 10 years, it may make the most sense to have the from name be that of the Customer Service Rep. However, if I am a prospect and only vaguely aware of your business. Then having the Company Name as the from may make more sense. The From Name is one of the most overlooked aspects of email marketing. Consider this 43% of email recipients click the SPAM button based just on the From Name. [CLICK]
- The next slice is From@Address. This is the email address that the email will appear to have come from. Again, like From Name this could be the email of a person, general company or more specific to a division or communication stream. The Best Practice – Make sure your From@Address works in conjunction with your From Name. You want them to work together. For example, if I was to send out an email with the From Name as myself – Scott Pearson then it makes the most sense to have the From@Address be listed as my email address - scott.pearson@threedeepmarketing.com and not a general company address. Make sure not to over look the Tip on this slice. Take the time to work with your Email Service provider and your IT resources to get your From@Address configured correctly. An incorrectly configured From@Address is one of the quickest ways to land all your emails in the Junk folder. For more information on finding out if your From@Address is configured correctly you can visit senderscore.org, type in your domain name and it will tell you what issues you may have with deliverability based on how your From@address is setup. [CLICK]
- The Next slice is Subject Line – We are all probably very familiar with Subject Lines. The goal of the subject line is simply to describe the theme of the content and identify what the main offer of the email is. Best practices include writing shorter subject lines because of the explosion in mobile email views - Long subject lines tend to get cut off on mobile devices. You want to make sure you include the main offer in the first 35 characters of the subject line. Another best practice is using personalization in the subject line. The most common execution of this is inserting first name, but you could use other personalization's such as company name or product purchased. Or you can go the simplest route like HP did below and simply use the word “you”. At least this gives the impression that this email was personalized just for me with out needing any data or additional technology to make the personalization happen. Is personalization worth the effort? Take note of the fact listed that you can see an increase of 22.3% in open rate by using personalized subject lines. [CLICK]
- Slice 4 – Is Preheader Text. In short Preheader Text is simply the first line of actual text in your email. Why is Preheader Text so important. Well it is important because on mobile devices there are three values that show up in the preview pain of your email client. From Name, Subject Line and Preheader Text. Don’t waste the opportunity to optimize this content and make it enticing for the recipient to actually click and open your email. Best practice is to keep this line of text under 50 characters. And make sure the first line of text in your email is not something like – If you are having trouble viewing this email click here. This gives the reader absolutely no extra value in why they should open and read your email. If you are not focused on Preheader Text you are not alone. We did a study last year that showed that almost 70% of email marketers were not dictating what the Preheader Text of their emails where. Still confused about what Preheader Text is? Don’t worry we will be seeing lots of examples in upcoming slides. [CLICK]
- Slice 5 – Is the Header – the Headers main job is to provide branding. This usually means it includes the company logo. For Best Practice you want to focus on using a Narrow header. A Header that is less than 75 px. The reason is simple. If the Header is Narrow it keeps the important Body content and Call to Action up above the fold. The Tip on this slide brings up a good point. Not every email is going to need a header. Especially B2B sales driven emails. In that case you will want to remove the header to make the email seem more manual and less automated. As if the sales rep took the time to write it out and send personally. We will see some examples of emails like these in upcoming slides. [CLICK]
- Slice 6 – Is the Headline – Writing good headlines is an art. The goal of the headline is to illustrate the theme of the email and most importantly the offer. You want the Headline to gain enough attention from the reader that they invest additional time in reading the body copy. Best Practices say to keep headlines under 40 characters and on one line if possible no more than 2 lines. You will want to use at least 30 pt font for readability on mobile devices. Take note of this tip – Don’t embed your Headline in an image. Keep your Headline as text so it is visible when images are not displayed in email clients like Microsoft Outlook. [CLICK]
- Slice 7 – Is the Body – This slice should really read Body and Offer. The goal and purpose of the body copy is to provide just enough information about your offer that the reader searches out the Call to Action or CTA. Best Practices are to use sub-headlines, lists and bullets to make skimming the body content easy. An additional Tip is to also include text links in your Body copy that convert to your offer. [CLICK]
- Slice 8 – Is the Heroshot Image – A Heroshot is an Image that relates to your body content and offer but sells or draws attention to the CTA. Your Heroshot should show additional detail about a product or improve relevance about a service. Typically Heroshots are of two types – Product or Lifestyle. A product Heroshot is just that an image of the Product. A lifestyle Heroshot is more about the experience the product or service could offer. A best practice is actually to combine the two. Such as in the example listed here. This Heroshot shows some type of electronic measuring device. But it shows the Product in use in the field. Products in use tend to draw much more attention from readers than simple product shots. If you are interested in more information on what makes a good Heroshot; please visit the link located under the tip for an entire presentation on what makes a great heroshot. There is even a Scorecard you can download to score your heroshot on your next email. [CLICK]
- Slice 9 – Is the Call to Action or (CTA) – This is the purpose of your email. If you do not have a clear call to action in your email than I would argue that you may not need to send the email. Email CTA’s are almost always a click with the request to take some specific action such as Download, Register, Review, Purchase, etc. But in some cases it could be to take other action such as Call or Schedule an Appointment. Keys to creating a good call to action are utilizing contrasting color for your CTA Button. The CTA Button should stand out from the rest of your email. It should draw all the attention. The wording should also show some aspect of urgency. You will see that the word Now or Today is most often used. For more information on how color can impact conversion of your CTA you can visit our blog at the link under the tip section. [CLICK]
- Slice 10 – Is Secondary Content – Secondary Content includes all other content areas typically below your Body Copy. This could be one section or multiple sections, but I would suggest that you do not have more than 3 Secondary Content areas. More than that can greatly distract from the main Body Copy and CTA. You will note in examples that we take a look at in future slides that Secondary content is optional. As long as you include main Body Content and a CTA you do not necessarily need Secondary content. [CLICK]
- Slice 11 – Is the Recapture Area – This section of your email is meant to try and provide something of relevance if in fact the Body, CTA and Secondary Content was not suitable for the reader. This section usually houses links to Highly visited portions of your website or customer service links. You will also see Social Media asks made here. As a tip I would suggest removing this section of your email template and testing without it. Some times the more links you have the more distracting it is and can decrease the number of clicks you get on your main CTA. [CLICK]
- The final slice #12 – The Footer – The last but probably one of the most important parts. The footer includes compliance items including but not limited to Unsubscribe, Physical Address, Privacy Policy, Contact Information and any Legal information you may need to include. A best practice is to make sure the Unsubscribe link is obvious. People will often try to hide the unsubscribe link by making it small and a light colored font. This is wrong. The reason you want it obvious is simple. You would much rather the person Unsubscribe from your emails if they truly are not getting value from them than to click the Spam or Junk button in their email client. Spam or Junk clicks are one of the top reasons for emails to get blocked from specific Email Providers. In regards to Compliance - Follow the link in the tip section for compliance rules and regulations for the Geographies that you market in. [CLICK]
- That completes the dissection of a standard email layout. Again, I hope that was a lot less painful than the Frog you may have dissected in your school days. Now lets take a look at some examples and see how all these parts are pulled together to create an over all design. [CLICK]
- As an example lets use an email that I received from a company called Grainger after signing up to receive emails from them on their website. Remember your preview window in your email client or your phone will be the first interaction you have with the email. If the From Name, Subject Line and Preheader Text don’t do their jobs at this point the chance the email will get opened is minimal. In this example you see that they used the Company name “Grainger” as the From Name. Probably a good choice as I just signed up with them. They did a good job of personalizing the Subject line with my First Name, but they could have done a better job of describing the offer or value that is contained within the email content. The Preheader Text is redundant to that of the Subject Line. The Preheader could have been much stronger in telling me why I should open and read the email. [CLICK]
- This is what the same email looks like on my mobile phone. Here you can really see the value in creating good Preheader Text as it actually gets most of the real estate in your mobile preview pain. [CLICK]
- Here is the full email once opened. You can see that it represents all the slices that we just walked through. Overall, I would say this is a good representation of a pretty standard Welcome email. The Header is narrow and provides branding. The Headline is personalized and short. It could probably do a better job of getting me excited about what other information is contained in the email but over all it’s ok. The Body content Uses Lists and is scanable. The Heroshot Image is excellent in that it incorporates an actual Customer Service Rep with a Catalog and the Website pulled up on a computer Illustrating all the ways I have to Shop Now. The CTA is Clear and obvious. The Secondary Content adds value but stays out of the way of the Body and CTA. The Recapture Area provides some social icons as well as some common Customer Service elements if I need help. The footer contains all the necessary compliance elements for the US geography and it is clear on how I can Unsubscribe or change my Email Preferences. Overall this email represents all the parts of an email quite nicely.
- So, that was one example. But just like Frogs, Emails have many shapes, sizes and colors. Lets take a quick look at different types of emails to help us better understand further design considerations. [CLICK]
- When we talk about email types these three values are most often considered. Text – Html – and Multi-Part. [CLICK Advance] Text emails are just that Plain Text. No Images. No Hyperlinks and have very limited tracking available to them. [CLICK Advance] HTML emails can be a mix of Text and Images, you also have a lot more control on how you can stylize text with colors and sizes and you can Hyperlink images or text in the email. Html emails also offer much better measurement of Open and Click Rates. [CLICK Advance] Then you have this thing called Multi-Part. What this means is the email platform with actually send your email as both a Plain Text email and an Html email. It will be up to the contacts email client to decide what version it is best suited to render. [CLICK Advance] [CLICK Advance] This is the option you always want to send. It is best practice to always have a Text version of your email. You may not think many people will view your email as plain text but we see on average that still between 3-5 % of views come from Text versions. A big enough number to still care about creating it. [CLICK]
- Since creating a Text version is best practice here are some tips for making them better. Since you can’t include image buttons or inline links use a CTA like “Paste This Link” or “ View Link In Your Browser” Use special characters like equals, dashes or plus signs to help break up the email and draw attention to the CTA Finally use line breaks to create White Space to make the content more easy to scan and read. [CLICK]
- Here is a quick Pop Quiz – Is this email Text or Html? ………………. [CLICK Advance] The answer is it’s Html. [CLICK Advance] The dead giveaway was - they used an image of the logo at the bottom. [CLICK Advance] Next they included inline text links. [CLICK Advance] And finally they used stylized text including a different font and color. [CLICK]
- Another set of email types to consider are the following, Cold – Permission and Transactional. [CLICK Advance] Cold emails are typically sent to purchased lists or lists obtained by other means such as trade events or business development research on the Internet. Cold emails mean there is no past relationship with the contact and the contact has never provided permission to be emailed. Please note there are many compliance issues to be aware of, especially in Canada and some EU countries. [CLICK Advance] Permission Based emails are contacts that have explicitly opted in to receive marketing emails from you. That means at the very least there is that relationship, but often these may also be your customers. Note while not as many compliance concerns as with cold email there are still rules for Permission based emails in most countries. [CLICK Advance] And finally Transactional – Transactional emails are triggered after a specific transaction occurs. Think of requesting a White Paper and immediately receiving an email with a link to download. Or Ecommerce emails such as Order Confirmations or Shipping Confirmations. While Transactional email is very important in the overall scope of email marketing it tends to be a more advance topic so we will spend most of our time taking a further look at Cold and Permission based emails. [CLICK Advance] Here are some links to Compliance Regulations. There is one for US and One for Canada. The third link will lead you to a resource that will have links to other countries and geographies. [CLICK]
- Lets take a look at some of these email types. Here is a Cold B2B email example Requesting a Meeting. You can see many of the elements are missing. As mentioned earlier this is ok. Removing these elements make this seem more like a one off email sent directly from the sender. They do a good job of personalizing the subject line and even though the CTA is an ask for a meeting there is a clear CTA button to reply. [CLICK]
- Here is another Cold B2B Email Requesting a Webinar Invite. Again we have many of the elements missing to represent a more one off look. You will also notice that while these are html emails there are almost no images. I find that this can be very effective for these types of emails. [CLICK]
- This Cold email is asking for a White Paper Download. There is a better balance of images to text in this example, which makes sense so they can include a heroshot of the White Paper. You will also notice that some of the items have been rearranged vs. our original example. Again, not all emails are alike. I would encourage you to test and experiment with your email templates, include, remove or just move around parts to see what gets the best results. [CLICK]
- Here we have a look at a Permission email for Evernote, a Software program. The main CTA is to download the Evernote App. This template includes almost all the elements but they have been moved around a bit. I would definitely encourage them to incorporate the Preheader Text that they are missing.
- This Permission Email is that of a Newsletter. It has one main CTA with additional news content sections below. You can see this email is also missing preheader-text and is missing the Recapture Area, but overall has most of the parts we have reviewed. My one comment on this email is they could do a much better job of personalizing the content. This email feels a lot like a one-size fits all message. They could avoid that by personalizing the Subject Line and at least providing a personalized salutation. [CLICK]
- Here is an example of a Permission based Promotional email. The CTA is 21 days of Free Access to a product LinkedIn owns. Again it includes all the elements minus the Preheader Text. As you can see even big brands and experience email marketers forget the basics some times!!!!! Otherwise this email is great. It has personalization elements, and a great CTA. [CLICK]
- As I mentioned previously we will not be focusing on Transactional Email for this presentation but I have listed some examples of common emails. Order Confirmation, Shipping Confirmation, Change Password, Download Request and Product Recall are all versions of Transactional Emails. From a design aspect in most cases they will include more text than images. And because of their Transactional nature, in most cases they do not require Opt-In or Permission Compliance. [CLICK]
- Bad Ideas - lets take a look at some things Not to Do. [CLICK]
- This is a big No, No. This email arrived to me as One big image. The problem is I use Microsoft Outlook and Outlook doesn’t download images by default so what I see is the view on the right. A RED “X” were the content is supposed to be. There is not a single aspect of this email creative I can see with Images Off that would lead me to understand what the email is about or has to offer. Without downloading the image there is no value. To the left is what it looks like with the images downloaded. [CLICK]
- This is actually a better example of what to do in that case. Here we see our email from LinkedIn that uses a good balance of images to text. Even in the version on the right without images downloaded I completely get the idea and value of what the email is about. Even the buttons represent well with out images. [CLICK]
- This email from Menards is a perfect example of Content Overload. - Ummmmm, What am I supposed to focus on? Menards has sent me way to much to think about. Too many click possibilities leads me to choice trauma. My next action is simply to ignore this email and move on. [CLICK]
- This is an email I received at 8:03 AM the other morning while trying to drop my kids off at daycare and get to work. All I saw was the Subject line on my phone and quickly freaked out and scrambled to dial my IT guys to figure out what was wrong with our Blog. Only to take a closer look when I got to the office to discover that it was just a misleading Subjectline to get me to pay some guy named Charles to write blog posts. Misleading Subject Lines and Misleading Headlines are actually part of CAN-SPAM compliance here in the US. Your company can face fines by the FCC if it finds you deliberately sent marketing email to mislead your contacts. Don’t do what Charles did. [CLICK]
- Gerber did a great thing here by sending me a Welcome email when I signed up to receive email from them. But, Hey Mom? They clearly can Identify that it is me as they have it personalized with my name. A much better and more relevant experience would be - Hey Dad and a picture of a Dad holding his baby! [CLICK]
- Ok, enough with the bad. Lets take a look at some more good ideas to Focus On when developing and deploying email campaigns. [CLICK]
- It is not only a good idea, but a great idea to focus on deliverability. [Talk to this.]
- Solutions to deliverability issues are more suited for an Advanced session. But here are a few things to consider. Try not to use phrases like Click Here or definitely not “Free Viagra”. Also, don’t use excessive exclamation points or all CAPS. Even Red or Green Colored fonts have been known to cause problems. Make sure the person that codes your emails has at least basic skills in html or delivery issues could arise. And finally make sure you clean your list. If you don’t remove all the hard bounces, unsubscribes and SPAM complaints from your list before every send – I can 100% guarantee you will run into significant email delivery problems. [CLICK]
- It is a good idea to Focus on Rendering. [Talk to This]
- Focus on Mobile Optimization and Responsive Design. [Talk to This]
- Here is that Red wing example - you can see that they used Responsive Design to keep the offer button up above the fold so you do not need to scroll. Even on a phone they put the heroshot down below the body copy, combined the Headline and Sub-headline into one and moved the CTA button up so no scrolling is required to convert on the offer. There is one device however that is not optimized. Do you recognize which one? It’s the iPad in Portrait. You can see that you would need to scroll to the bottom to see and click on the CTA button. That is something that they should address in the future. [CLICK]
- Focus On Relevancy [Talk on This]
- Here is a great example of Gerber using a combination of Calendar Based Sending with Triggered Lifecycle dynamic content to achieve a high level of relevancy. [Talk on This]
- [Talk on This]
- Something that is easy to do to increase relevancy is to use at least Simple Segments. Even simple segments can make a world of difference in how relevant that message will be to your contact. Listed are just a sample of some easy segments to target. Segments like Prospects vs. Customers or segmenting based on a customers last purchase or web behavior. Or one of the easiest is simply segmenting based on geography were the contact is located and providing relevant content based on that. [CLICK]
- It is a good idea to Focus On A/B and Multivariate Testing. Here is a list of just a few of the variables you can test on. [CLICK]
- When you start to Test and Optimize your emails! – Simple A/B Testing of From Name and Subject Line is where you should start! These two items can drive immediate increase in open rates. Once you have maximized your viewership of your email then you can move on to items like creative and offer testing that focus more on conversion improvements. [CLICK]
- I get asked a lot about the Best Time of day and week to send email. My answer is to Test! There is no Magic date or time but the Highest Optout day is Tuesday. Know Why? Because someone published a study that says that Tuesdays are the best time to send email. So now you have a lot of email being sent on Tuesdays so the most Optouts happen on Tuesdays. Guess what might not be the best day anymore? Tuesday! I do know that for B2B we have had the best luck sending Weekdays (Tue – Thur) early morning between 6:00 AM – 8:00 AM. For B2C it is more varied depending on your offer and your audience. You should Test your own database and see what your best day and time is. [CLICK]
- Probably the next most frequent question I get asked is How frequent should I being sending emails? As for sending Frequency. The rule of thumb is to Send more often to your active contacts. There is no magic frequency number, but these can by general guidelines. For your engaged contacts send Weekly to Monthly. For those that have not even opened one of your emails in several months I would drop down to a Monthly or Quarterly interval. [CLICK]
- Everyone – Even the most experienced Email Marketer needs to remember to focus on this. Do your due diligence and check your emails over before you send them. You would be amazed at how many forget to even spell check. [CLICK]
- Here is an example. Mistakes really do happen. Here is an email I got just a couple of days ago from Petco. If you look up at the pre-header text you will see that the personalization of “Pet Parent” is duplicated, but the big mistake is on the offer. It says $15 eGift Card with your $15 order. Well, that should read $50 order. These are the kinds of mistakes that will drive your legal department nuts. So what do you do when you make a mistake? [CLICK]
- You look to correct the mistake and resend the email as soon as you can. In this case Petco didn’t acknowledge that they made the error. I would have probably advised them to put a couple lines of text in the header illustrating the earlier mistake, but at least they followed up right away with a correct version of the email. [CLICK]
- Here is a basic punch list to use before you send out your next email to avoid a mistake like Petco. Make sure to Proofread, Spellcheck and confirm that your CTA’s are correct. Test all the links Make sure that all images are loading correctly Check that the email is mobile responsive or at least mobile friendly Check that the Email is rendering correctly in all Email Clients including Desktop, Web and Mobile Verify that your Send Counts Match what you were anticipating And finally make sure that all necessary Compliance Items are in order for your specific sending Geographies. Another rule that we have in place at Three Deep is we do not allow any Campaign Managers to send their own campaigns. That means if they setup the content and the campaign that another Campaign Manager must review with them and actually schedule or send the campaign. It is amazing what a second set of eyes will catch. [CLICK]
- It’s a good idea to Focus on Metrics. And make sure to compare them to Industry averages. Included on this slide is a link to Silverpop’s 2014 Industry Benchmarks so you can check your delivery, open and click rates against others in the same industry. You can use a tool like Litmus to gain some insight into other metrics such as Mobile Device Breakdown, Skim/Read Rate – which is a metric similar to Website bounce rate and Litmus can even track number of times your email was Printed. One note about metrics. Open and Click rates only go so far. Make sure what you are really measuring are business results. Like Sales, Appointments, Downloads etc. [CLICK]
- And of course it is always a good idea to Focus On Education - Here are some of my favorite Blogs for Email Marketing Education. Technology and tactics for Email are constantly changing, especially for Mobile design and deliverability. Make sure to stay up to date by reading the latest information. [Click]
- And Finally – A Little Something to Chew on
- If you are to takeaway anything from this presentation today I would hope it would be the following. Start putting more effort into your selection of From Names, Subject Lines and PreHeader Text. Optimizing here can give you immediate results. Simple Segmentation works. Don’t just blast to your whole list. Segment it out. Even if it is basic. Think mobile. Not ready for Responsive Design? That’s ok, still use some of the best practices we talked about today on your next email. [CLICK]
- And to help you with planning your next email to be Mobile Friendly, we are offering a Free eBook called “Energize your Engagement with Mobile Friendly Email”. You can download the eBook by visiting Offer.ThreeDeepMarketing.com/mobile-friendly-email-ebook. [CLICK]
- And that concludes our webinar on Email 101 Best Practices. I appreciate everyone's time today and think we still have a few minutes for a couple of questions.