The top 10 ways you're limiting the potential of your email marketing

© 2017 Brian Riback. All Rights Reserved. · Brian Riback · M: 201.258.9171 · E: brian@riback.me · W: www.riback.me
THE TOP 10 WAYSYOU’RE LIMITING THE POTENTIAL OF YOUR EMAIL MARKETING
" T a c t i c s w i t h o u t s t r a t e g y i s
t h e n o i s e b e f o r e d e f e a t . “
- S u n T z u
By: Brian Riback

Whether considering data or design, email marketing is all about
quality over quantity.
Ensuring your list of recipients remains ‘healthy’ is, by far, the most
important consideration when managing an email marketing program. I
would rather have 20,000 fully engaged recipients than 2,000,000 who
haven’t opened a single email in a year. Here’s why:
10 YOU’RE FOCUSING ON QUANTITY, NOT QUALITY
Monetary Loss
If a person hasn’t opened an email from you, they are either no longer
using that address or are simply not interested in your messages any
longer. You are wasting money by sending to them. Thirty percent of
Americans change their email address annually1.
If you are including non-openers in your reporting, you are negatively
impacting your ability to effectively analyze campaign performance. Consider
this example:
Skewed Reporting
The Acme Company is deploying to the same list of
recipients, over a two-week period-
• In deployment ‘A’ they included recipients who
haven’t opened in 90-days
• In deployment ‘B’, this group was excluded
Deployment ‘A’ Deployment ‘B’
Sent 2,000,000 20,000
Opens 2,400 2,400
Open Rate 0.12% 12%
By sending to non-openers, you are hindering your
own ability to effectively demonstrate engagement
levels to your company, potential investors, ad sales
clients, and others.
Deliverability
Emailing non-openers destroys your sending reputation. As a result, your
messages will be sent to the SPAM folder and eventually blocked
completely.
Fixing deliverability issues can be expensive, time consuming, and
completely avoidable.
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Stay away from list rentals and email appends. I have never seen these efforts yield a
positive ROI.
If an active opener of your campaigns changes their address, they will likely either re-register
or update their profile.
Contact us to learn more about cost-effective re-engagement programs. More than anything,
focus on acquisition- driving new signups, instead. It is more cost-effective and yields a much
greater ROI.
1http://sumo.ly/4Cye

9 YOU’RE NOT EFFECTIVELY ADDRESSING DELIVERABILITY
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While there is no official list you can reference, Hubspot
retains a collection of industry-specific trigger words and
phrases that are considered no-no’s.
Do a quick Google search for, “The-Ultimate List of Email SPAM
Trigger Words.”
Pressing the SPAM button is not the only influence on deliverability.
Succeeding with any email marketing initiative is not simple. It requires a working
knowledge of technology, strategy, analytics, databases, design, and coding. But,
one more factor is often overlooked: the legal side.
Laws regulating email differ from country to country. If you have any international
presence in your database, this should raise concerns. ; if you don’t know where
your recipients reside, you are still liable for adhering to their local laws.
Before you get overly concerned, consider that in most cases your provider will offer
the necessary guidance and best practices you need, along with certain fail-safes to
protect you from making crucial mistakes.
But you should still try to learn (at least a little) about the laws that apply to your
audience.
Your ultimate goal is to optimize those facets of deliverability that are within your
control, instead of those that are not.
When you include certain words or phrases that are often found in actual SPAM
messages, providers such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. recognize this, it will
impede deliverability. When writing copy, be creative, but careful with the words you
choose.
There are many other references to deliverability in this eBook, from the quality of
your content to removing non-openers, as well as your registration process.

8 YOU’RE EMAILS HAVE TOO MUCH CONTENT
The role of promotional email marketing serves only one purpose: to inspire
its recipients to take an action.
Keep your emails short and sweet (even newsletters). Long emails yield high
abandon rates.
This does not mean you should use ‘clickbait’. Instead, focus on calls to action that
engage readers. People, in general, respond best to unique experiences. If you can
somehow apply this to your messaging, you will always observe an increase in
engagement. Always.
G. Simms Jenkins, Founder & CEO of BrightWave, led a study a few years ago with
one of his B2B clients. In this study, Jenkins concluded that recipients will scan an
email first, before actually reading it. If the mailing has too much text, they typically
feel overwhelmed and subsequently abandon2.
2https://goo.gl/cd0QR4
3Unique Clicks/Unique Opens
Jenkins deployed an email to the same B2B list, two weeks in a row-
• For deployment ‘A’, he used a longer creative
• In deployment ‘B’, he used a shorter creative
Deployment ‘A’ Deployment ‘B’
Open Rate 20% 30%
Click Rate 5% 11%
Click-to-open Rate3 13% 17%
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Value and price/discounting are not synonymous. For
example, 25% off is not impressive for a product I have
never heard of before- and it's even worse if the discount is
for something I just purchased at full price.

7 YOU’RE SENDING TO RECIPIENTS WHO NEVER EXPLICITLY REQUESTED YOU DO SO
Just because someone purchases a product or service from you does not mean
that they want to enter into an ongoing relationship. Yet many marketers
interpret every purchase as an invitation to add a customer to their mailing
list.
Automatically opting-in recipients typically aggravates them. It does not make them
engage more with your brand. This action is a key reason many of them will likely hit
the SPAM button or never open your mailings in the first place.
Focus instead on earning explicit opt-ins during the registration/purchase process-
asking your customers to register. You want to establish a strong foundation with
new customers.
4https://www.quicksprout.com
5https://goo.gl/9Myj2E
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I am not a fan of double opt-ins. It negatively impacts list
growth, as typically, 20% of subscribers never click to
confirm5. At the same time, single opt-ins inflate list size,
but lead to deliverability issues or worse, abuse complaints.
Want to learn how I get around using either method?
Contact me today!
“Optimizing a signup form led to a 120% growth in conversions for one company,
and even increased profits by 12 million dollars for another4.”

6 YOU’RE NOT BEING RELEVANT TO THE UNIQUE RECIPIENT
Relevancy is at the heart of what makes an email marketing campaign
successful. There are three ways to achieve relevancy in email marketing:
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Review at least one year’s worth of email reporting and
determine where you see peaks and valleys with respect to
opens and clicks.
Consider any events that may have negatively or positively
impacted performance (e.g., a major weather event) and try
to pick up on patterns where a specific topic or product
may have driven higher engagement.
Messaging
Driving relevancy can be extremely complicated. But, like anything, the
more complicated something gets, the more expensive. Leverage previous
campaign performance and overall sales trends to determine what will
most likely drive engagement from recipients.
Remember: Emails are intended to encourage recipients to click. You may
have a new product or service to promote, but to earn the click-through,
lead with something familiar.
Events/Seasonality
The importance of relevancy shines when you consider factors such as
timing and seasonality. Having “breaking news” templates ready to go is
always a good idea. But, “our company has slashed prices” is not an
example of breaking news.
A few years ago, I was responsible for email marketing at a major media
company. When an earthquake shook NYC, I immediately deployed a
breaking news alert. With our average open rates around 12%, this
campaign reached over 28%.
The same logic can be applied to food delivery services which might send
a $5 coupon offer to recipients who order home delivery during a major
snow storm.
Buying Habits
It is extremely easy to look at previous click or purchasing behavior to
determine what is popular with recipients or behaviors that can help drive
increased sales.
When I worked with a car rental company, I was tasked with improving
sales retention from business clients. By referencing previous campaign
performance and year-over-year rental behaviors, I was able to determine
that these traveling professionals were likely visiting the same clients,
annually. In response, we sent them a timely offer, successfully driving
sales retention.

5 YOU’RE NOT PUTTING EACH RECIPIENT IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT
Relevant messaging is not enough
Putting the customer in control of their journey with your brand is a crucial step in
ensuring they remain engaged and satisfied with their experience.
Here are a few examples of how you can do it…
Give them options
With the popularity of ‘Big Data’, marketers often turn to analytics
platforms to uncover which topics, products, services, etc. are most
popular, using this information to dictate which content to include in a
mailing.
But, why don’t they just ask their customers what they want to receive?
If you run a media company, ask your customers which topics interest
them most and then feature it in the version of each mailing they receive.
Embrace the unsubscribe button
Yes, you read that correctly! I see emails all the time where the
unsubscribe button is written in small text, text decoration is set to ‘none’-
truly any effort is made to hide this option. This is a mistake.
If the user can’t find the unsubscribe button, they are more likely to select
the SPAM option in their email client, instead.
In most cases, every unsubscribe page I see is generic- almost treated as
an after-thought.
Some companies include surveys on these pages. That’s almost like
conceding defeat. Use your unsubscribe page as a promotional
opportunity and give your reader options (E.g. Changing the frequency
with which they receive messages or registering for alternative
campaigns).
If a recipient isn’t interested in your emails, they are more likely to just
ignore them. If they take the time to open them and click through, even to
the unsub page, it is an opportunity to grow your relationship.
I built a preference center for one media company, reducing their
unsubscribes by over 18% and increasing click rates by 14%, overall.
Don’t ignore your unsubscribe page
6https://goo.gl/os0w5s
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Nearly one-third of emails are opened and read within one
hour (53% within six hours)6 of being received. However,
mailing at a consistent time and day will greatly influence
whether or not your most engaged recipients will click
through.
But my question is, have you ever considered how the
varying time zones of your recipients can influence
engagement?

4 YOU’RE FOCUSING ON FASHION, NOT FUNCTION
In a mobile-first world, Email design is all about function over fashion.
When designing an email, it is important to consider the placement of text and calls
to action. Strict design standards must be adhered to in order to support
deliverability; it is also an important factor in driving engagement.
Many Email Service Providers (ESPs) offer tools making it easy to update their
catalog of pre-designed templates. However, I have yet to see any of the creatives
they offer reflect the ideal layout considerations important for driving high levels of
engagement. Having a strategic designer work with you is a worthy initial
investment.
Email is truly a science. Similar to chemistry, what makes it work, is when you
combine just the right amounts of each ingredient.
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Many ESPs offer custom design services. Quite often, they
can ‘templatize’ these designs into their proprietary editors
so you can update them without the need to learn how to
code.
If they do not offer this service, there are third party tools
that you can turn to, which can help.

3 YOU’RE NOT SENDING THANK NEW EMAIL’S TO NEW SUBSCRIBERS
If someone shares their email address, they are showing they have
an interest in either your brand or its products or services. This is an
opportunity to establish a foundation from which you may grow a
relationship with this customer.
Here are a few do’s and don’ts for you to consider:
Do:
• Thank them for subscribing
• Educate them on your brand and share customer service contact
information
• Ask a question that promotes action when offering new subscribers
(who have not yet made a purchase)
“Companies that include an offer typically enjoy a modest 9% lift in
transaction rates and a 30% lift in revenue per email, compared to bulk
welcomes with no offer7.”
Don’t:
• Ask them to share anything with friends or on social media- Keep the
focus on how else you can help them
• Send transactional emails, using web servers or shared IPs. This
approach often leads to delays in delivery and sometimes, prevents it
completely
• Invite them to join a ‘loyalty’ program. You just met them. Get to know
them first
7https://goo.gl/wyUsW5
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Don’t confuse affinity with loyalty.
Every “loyalty program” I have
seen, without fail, is in fact an
“affinity program.”
“Loyalty” to a brand means that a
customer begins to spend more with
them, purchase new products, etc. In
contrast, “affinity” describes a
person’s feelings toward a brand,
their dedication and appreciation.
And you don’t need a large budget to
achieve this goal, just good service.

2 YOU’RE NOT USING THE “FROM” ADDRESS AS AN INVITATION
The best way to get customers to lose interest in your brand is by
losing interest in them.
I've never understood why the ‘from’ address reads,
“noreply@yourcompany.com” in many of the promotional emails I receive.
Why would anyone deliberately push customers away? Not to mention
the fact this can negatively impact deliverability. What should you use?
Create a test plan that identifies the best option for your needs- and if
you need help, we’re here for you.
From asking for their feedback, to reminding customers you are there for
them, service is the single most crucial element to building and sustaining
strong relationships with them.
Stop hiding your hours of operation and contact information in the footer
of the message. It is myth that being up front about how to reach you will
cause an unmanageable spike in calls and inquiries.
Two-way conversations are about speaking and listening, so it is
important to ensure you ‘listen’ to what your customers are telling you.
This is where reporting comes in. The best way to determine the wants,
needs, and preferences of your customers apart from listening to those
who directly respond to you, is to closely monitor and study click metrics.
Clicks tell you which topics you will want to focus on in subsequent
campaigns- and which ones you shouldn't waste any more time on.
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Clicks are important, but my favorite metric is the, “click-to-open” rate
(clicks/opens). It tells you how many of those who opened the mailing,
actually clicked through to your site.
In other words, the click-to-open ratio tells you how interesting your
content was to your customers.

1 YOU’RE NOT INCLUDING HIGH-QUALITY CONTENT
Nobody is asking you to become a professional copywriter. However,
there simply is no one better than you to tell your brand’s story.
According to Content Marketing Institute, Eighty-eight percent of B2B
companies leverage content marketing tactics. However, only half of this
group clearly understands how to effectively facilitate it8.
Content marketing has always existed. It is the foundation on which we
establish, sustain, and grow relationships with customers. The difference
today is that companies are so consumed with the methods of delivering
content, that they fail to focus on effectively telling their story. You can
send countless emails, but if your messaging isn’t right, you will never
maximize your revenue and ROI potential.
The subscription-based, content marketing software company NewsCred
found that customers who engaged with their content had a 41% higher
renewal rate, were 33% more likely to be upsold and had a 24% higher
monthly recurring revenue rate9.
It simply isn’t about how many followers a brand has on Twitter. Rather, it
is how the brand’s story connects with people.
8http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2016_B2C_Research_Final.pdf
9http://lizbedor.com/2016/01/07/how-content-marketing-can-help-ensure-customer-retention
102016 B2B Content Marketing 2016: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report
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Need help coming up with content?
Ask your best customers to be guest writers- submitting
reviews, comments and other applicable thoughts on
products, services, industry trends and more.
Over the years, our research has consistently shown that
marketers who have documented their content
marketing strategy are more effective than those who
have a verbal-only strategy or no strategy at all10.
- Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Brian Riback
Thank you for reading my eBook.
With over 16 years of experience building and launching
channel marketing campaigns for national companies, my
approach is founded in the principles of upstream marketing
and the belief that to enhance consumer engagement, you
must first truly understand a brand’s story.
I am confident in my ability to provide immediate value to
your organization and welcome the opportunity to discuss
how I may help you achieve success.
• Marketing Technology Management
• Behavioral, PURL, Database Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Consumer Insights & Analytics
• Sales Enablement
• Web Development
• Multi-Channel Campaigns
• IT & C-Level Collaboration
• Business & Technical Insights
• Contract Negotiations
• Team Leadership & Training
• Strategic Communications
• C-Level Collaboration
• Relationship Building
• APIs, RSS, XML
Specializations Achievements
Revenue Acceleration
Demonstrated record of success catalyzing dramatic revenue
growth (including a 75% net income increase for one prominent
client) via consultative leadership, as well as the facilitation of
technological and marketing innovations.
Data & Behavioral Marketing Specialist
Background of conceptualizing, documenting and overseeing
development of 1:1 marketing initiatives, leveraging
personalization and dynamic content to increase user
engagement.
Current & Former Clients
Over the past sixteen years, I have worked with hundreds of
companies, supporting their email marketing needs. The
following is a sampling of the email marketing programs on
which I have worked -
• 7-Eleven
• Arch Diocese of Bridgeport
• Avis/Budget
• Popular Community Bank
• Cendant
• Century21
• Citibank
• Coldwell Banker
• Coldwell Banker Commercial
• Daas Knowledge
• Disney Theme Parks
• Dunkin’ Donuts
• ERA
• Fairway Markets
• Genworth Financial
• GNC
• Go Smile
• Hofstra University
• Key Food
• Minetech
• Disney Theme Parks
• Dunkin’ Donuts
• ERA
• Modern Bookkeeping
• New York Daily News
• New York Mets
• New York Yankees
• NFL
• OXO
• P.C. Richard & Son
• Prudential
• RICG
• Six Flags Great Adventure
• St. Peter’s University
• The Smithsonian Institute
• Universal Studios Florida
• U.S. News & World Report
• Victoria’s Secret
• Vistaprint
• Weight Watchers
M: 201.258.9171
E: brian@riback.me
W: www.riback.me
C o n t a c t I n f o .

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