This document provides an overview of email marketing best practices. It discusses the benefits of email marketing such as being cost effective and measurable. It outlines the two main types of emails - promotional and retention-based. It then describes a 9 step process for executing an effective email campaign, including strategic planning, defining your list, creative execution, integration with other channels, personalization, deployment, interaction handling, reporting, and analysis. Key aspects like list growth, open rates, and split testing are also covered.

2. Email Marketing
eMarketing: The Essential Guide to
Online Marketing
www.quirk.biz/emarketingtextbook

3. Start a Dialogue

4. Increase customer value

5. Why email marketing?

6. Cost effective
Targeted and
Customisable
Measurable

7. 2 types of commercial emails
• Promotional
– Entice immediate action
• Retention based emails
– Newsletters
– Build long term relationships

8. Promotional emails: entice the user to take
action through purchase or sign up

9. Retention based emails: information of
value to create a long term relationship
with the reader

10. 9 Steps to executing an email
campaign

12. 1. Strategic planning:
Plan around your goals

13. define success metrics

14. Promotional emails

Immediate goal for user

Action taken by user

Purchase

Download

Request information

15. Retention emails

Longer term goals

KPIs important

Open Rate

Click-through rate

ROI

16. create and retain a long term
relationship.

18. 2. Define List
'It is argued by many that the financial
worth of a database should feature on
company accounts in the same way as any
other asset would'
http://technologyweekly.mad.co.uk

19. grow a targeted database

Genuine opt-in

Explicit permission granted

Information can be gathered over
time

20. Your database

Only one entry required: prospect's
email address
but

more information can lead to
improved customisation

21. Your database: more fields
• First name, surname, title (in
separate fields)
• Date of opt-in
• Source of permission
• Gender
• Country
• Date of birth

22. But remember:
• Don’t scare people off.
• All you really need is an email
address.

23. Growing your list:
Use every available interaction
• Incentives to sign up (white paper,
gift voucher, music)
• Subscribe options during retail
process
• Viral marketing
• Offline interactions and promos

24. Web site sign up is key
Above the fold
Tell them what
to expect

25. State privacy
policy clearly
Check email
address is correct
2 stage subscription process

26. Maintaining lists:
• Keep it clean – bounce the bounces
• Opt in vs. double opt in
• Let them unsubscribe
• Don’t become spam

28. 3.Creative execution

29. Two types of email

Plain text emails

HTML emails

30. Plain text email

Text only

No hyperlinks
or images

Smaller file size

Looks the same
across all
platforms

31. HTML email

Contains
images,
different fonts
and hyperlinks

File size is
much larger

Can render
differently

32. Know your audience!

34. Parts of an email
• Header
• Subject line
• Personalised greeting
• Body
• Footer
• Unsubscribe link

36. Use the basics to entice
Subject line:
• Helps identify the newsletter and
maintain consistency
• Avoid promotional words like ‘free','
win’ etc and build trust
‘To’, ‘from’ and ‘reply’ fields:
• Perception of familiarity and
authenticity
e.g robert@quirk.biz

37. Construction and Design
Length
Emphasis
Sectioning

38. Email content

Content should meet the needs of
users

Relevance

value

39. Platform testing

40. Images in emails

Images can reinforce copy

Images are not always displayed
by email clients

Make sure your email makes sense
without the images

42. Light weight HTML
Keep your emails below 100kb!

43. Video in email?
Increase click-through rates up to 25%.
Florist’s conversions jumped from 1.35% to
2.8%.
Remember:
• include a link, host outside message
• Remember that many viewers watch videos for
the “entertainment” value. Keep videos short,
light and relevant.
Sources: https://www.marketingsherpa.com/barrier.html?ident=30200
http://inspireaction.mindandmedia.com/index.php/2007/11/15/hey-its-got-video-
it-must-be-cool/

44. Not everyone reads mails
in the office.
Smart phone adoption is
rapidly increasing
‘Stay informed, not
necessarily to engage’
• Send in multi-part MIME
• Avoid JavaScript on landing
pages (it is not supported by
most mobile browsers)

46. 4. Integrate campaign with other
channels

47. • Reinforce brand’s message
• Increase responses

49. 5. Personalisation

50. Mass customisation
• One to one marketing on a macro
scale
• Simple personalisation can
improve results
• Segment database

51. • Give consumers what they want
• Send different content to different
people
• Insert ‘dear first name’ greeting,
where appropriate
• Personalise forms within email/landing
page – only ask a question once

55. 6. Deployment

56. Email Reputation Score
Definition:
The general opinion of the ISPs, the anti-
spam community, and your own subscribers
towards a sender’s IP address, sending
domain, or both.
If the sender’s score falls within the ISP’s
thresholds, a sender’s messages will be
delivered to the inbox; if not, the sender’s
emails may arrive in the bulk folder, be
quarantined, or be bounced back to the
sender.

57. These could be affecting
your reputation score

58. Email Reputation score
Control your score
•ISPs offer various sender authentication standards
such as SPF (sender policy framework) and
DomainKeys.
•Keep the list clean by removing hard bounces after 3
deliveries (ISPs don’t like e-mail broadcasters who
have a high bounce rate)
•Respond to complaints and unsubscribe requests
•Educate users about whitelists

59. When should I send?
Try and be action based.
Common sense and testing.
Regularly…like the milk man

61. 7. Interaction handling

62. Show you’re on top of everything.
Utilise all touch points for calls to
action / up-sell
Generate emails in response to actions

64. 8. Generate reports

65. Key measurables

Emails delivered

Bounces

Hard - address no longer exists

Soft - inbox was full

Unsubscribes

Pass on rate

Click-through rate

66. What the numbers can tell you
• Subscriber Growth vs. Decline
• Pass on rate
• Open rates
• Click through rates
• Conversion rates
• ROI

68. 9. Analyse results

69. Split test!
This is one of the most basic and important parts of
an email marketing campaign!
Test the open and click through rates using :
 different subject lines,
 different days of the week and times of the day,
 different copy styles and email length
Refine the content and construction to your audiences
tastes!

71. Tools of the trade

Database

Design and content

Test

Display

Deliverability

73. What is spam
• Email spam dates to 1978
• Accounts for 80 - 85% of email
today
• Unsolicited Bulk Email
• Email sent without explicit
permission granted

74. Avoid being a spammer
• Always obtain permission to email
• Make it easy to unsubscribe
• Send relevant emails
• Don’t annoy your database