Email Marketing Campaigns
What is an Email Marketing Campaign Anyway?
To a lot of people, the term "email marketing" automatically conjures images of an email intent on one thing - selling. In actual fact, there are a number of types of email communications you can send out, some of which are not directly sales related but can certainly contribute to your overall bottom line in other ways.
All types of Email Marketing use a database of recipients that can be added to or modified at any time.
The various types of Email Marketing:
Quick Announcements
Often called postcard emails, these are simple, brief announcements
you might want to make informing customers of a special offer,
a popular new product or quick fire sale. These types of emails are
typically restricted to a single call-to-action and should be easy for
the recipient to scan in a few seconds.
A great example of a polished looking announcement email is the one pictured here from Apple announcing their latest machine.
Newsletters
The primary purpose of an email newsletter is to build upon the
relationship you have with your own customers. Of course, this might
(and should) indirectly result in an increase in sales, but the focus
should be on providing relevant, useful content your subscribers might
be interested in.
Often the content isn't directly related to your products either.
For example, an online grocer might send a monthly newsletter featuring
a few recipes, a story on the benefits of organic produce and a column
with exercising tips.
Catalogue Emails
A catalogue based email is fairly self explanatory, being an electronic version of a print brochure listing particular products, with the primary goal to encourage customers to purchase. Designers often label catalogue emails as newsletters, and admittedly the lines can get blurry sometimes. (See the example Amazon catalogue email sent to me recenty).
Press Releases
If you have a list of contacts where you have been given permission to
contact them, email press releases can be a great way to attract news
coverage. Of course, there are a number of services that can distribute
your press releases to the media, but maintaining their own list of
media contacts can be a great way for you to send targeted,
personalized press releases only to those contacts who will be
interested.
When considering which types of email to use, it's important to remember that you don't need to take a one-size-fits-all approach. Some will be much more suited to email newsletters than one-off announcements, while the reverse might apply to others.
The best thing about Email Marketing
The best thing is that it's so measurable. Try a newsletter for a month or two and then look at the results. Mix up the the topics you cover to see which creates the most interest. Try a different layout for each issue. As long as you stick to the expectations you set for your subscribers, you can use your creativity to find what works best.
Reasons to use Email Marketing
It works!
The biggest selling point for email marketing is simply that it works!
- email marketing gets results, for less cost than other marketing
methods.
- Emails are a great way to get in closer contact with customers. It doesn't rely on your customer remembering to visit your site, or seeing a print advertisement.
- You can personalize emails to suit the particular interests of that customer, instead of sending a generic brochure.
- It's cost effective - While the cost of actually designing your email creative can be comparable to direct mail, the big savings start when you consider there are no printing costs and you can get your message delivered for around 2 pence per recipient.You only pay for people you are actually sending to, instead of shot-gunning out to the world at large.
- Email marketing returns an incredible ROI in comparison to other marketing methods. To put this in perspective, it's more than double the average return for other forms of online marketing and more than 6 times the return from print catalogues.
- It's completely measureable - More than any other form of marketing, email can provide actionable data on the results it generates. Keep track of who opened your email and when, what topics they were interested in, who forwarded it on to a friend and much more.
- It's immediate - Email generates an immediate response, instead of waiting for a subscriber to visit your site you can get your message to them when it counts. The majority of your recipients will see your message in the first 24-48 hours.
You can see it working!
One of the frustrations with many marketing activities is that it can
be very hard to tell what is working, and what is just costing money.
When you conduct email marketing, you can see very quickly what is
working, and what is not.
With each campaign you send you have your own reporting system account so you can log in and see a comprehensive range of results on each campaign sent when it suits you. You can easily login and see who opened your email, who clicked a link, who forwarded it to a colleague, and so much more. These reports are updated in real-time, so you always know the latest.
Email Campaign Reports breakdown
Below is the complete list of reports that you get with every email
campaign you send out. All reports are in smart graphic format and give
great detail of individual recipient behaviour.
You'll be provided with your own reporting system account so you can log in and see a comprehensive range of results on each campaign we send when it suits you. Easily see who opened your email, who clicked a link, who forwarded it to a colleague, and so much more. These reports are updated in real-time, so you always know the latest.
Campaign Snapshot
The campaign snapshot lets you easily gauge the results of the campaign from a single page. Find out how many recipients opened your email, clicked a link, unsubscribed, forwarded your email to a friend and loads more.
Opens Over Time
The simple Opens Over Time Report shows exactly who is checking out your email, how many times they're doing it, and when they did it. You can get an overview for the life of the campaign or drill down all the way to minute by minute detail.
Recipient Activity
The recipient activity report lets you get down to some serious detail on your campaign. Easily see who opened, who clicked, who bounced and who unsubscribed. You can even search for a specific subscriber to see exactly what they did with your email.
Link Activity
The Link Activity Report makes it easy to guage what your subscribers are interested in. Not only can you see the total number of clicks for every link in your email, you can also find out who clicked that link, when they clicked it and how many times.
Forward to a Friend
By including a forward to a friend link in your campaign, you can easily see which subscribers are forwarding your email and who they're forwarding to. This report can also be a great way to test the viral impact of your emails.
Unsubscribes and Subscriber Complaints Over Time
While the system automatically process all unsubscribe requests and spam complaints for you automatically, the Unsubscribes and Complaints Over Time reports makes it easy to see exactly who, when and why each subscriber left your list.
Bounce Activity
As well as automatically processing any bounced emails for you, you can also see exactly why that subscriber bounced out of your list. Maybe you got an out of office reply, or perhaps their mailbox was full - whatever the reason, they didn't get your email you'll be able to see why. You can even search for a specific recipient to see exactly why your email to them bounced.
Bounces Over Time
It can sometimes take days for a recipient's mail server to show that your email to them bounced. The Bounces Over Time report explains any sudden spikes in your bounce numbers and lets you drill down to exactly who bounced out of your list, and when.
Subscriber Reports
Your subscriber list is a living thing that grows and shrinks over time. Our subscriber reports let you easily keep track your subscriber activity from a month-to-month level right down to each and every minute.Subscriber List Activity
Quickly track how your subscriber list is growing over time. This report includes new subscribers, those that have bounce out and are no longer valid, those that have unsubscribed as well those you have manually deleted yourself.There's always a "but"
The cost-effective power of email marketing is the reason is so attractive to people who wish to use it for large unsolicited mailings aka spam. So in order stay on the right side of your audience (and the law) some guidelines must be adhered the start.
The database of recipients can be gathered from your own website (via a subscribe function) or from a list of people that are either previous customers or willing recipients. This really is the only stipulation with email marketing - to avoid being labelled as a spammer.
It's incredibly important to get this foundation right. Make sure every one of your subscribers has given you acceptable permission to hear from them and you're free to contact them with email.
If the campaign falls short in this area then you may end up doing more harm than good by annoying the very people you wish to contact, or even land yourself in legal trouble. Once you get the basics right for your recipients, you can start experimenting with more advanced email marketing techniques. See below for a quick checklist of Dos and Don'ts
The basics of permission
By far
the most important aspect of email marketing is the concept of
permission. It's the only thing separating us from
the spammers of this world, but for many it remains a grey area. It
doesn't need to be. First of all, let's clarify what spam is, and then
what kind of permission you will need to employ to get started.
The definition here of spam goes a little beyond the laws in most countries and encompasses what I believe to be true permission email marketing.
Spam is any email you send to someone who hasn't given you their direct permission to contact them on the topic of the email.
But that's not enough. Permission is a fuzzy word open to interpretation. Let's get into some specific scenarios so it's clear what does and doesn't constitute permission.
The type of permission you MUST have
You can only email subscribers if you obtained their permission in any of the following ways.
They opted in via your web site
This could either be through a newsletter subscribe form or by ticking a checkbox on another form. This checkbox cannot be checked by default and it must clearly explain that checking it will mean you will be contacting them by email.
They completed an offline form and indicated they wanted to be emailed
If someone completes an offline form like a survey or enters a competition, you can only contact them if it was explained to them that they would be contacted by email AND they ticked a box indicating they would like to be contacted.
They gave you their business card
If someone gives you their business card and you have explained to them that you will be in touch by email, you can contact them. If they dropped their business card in a fishbowl at a trade show, there must be a sign indicating they will be contacted by email.
They purchased something off you in the last 2 years
By making a purchase from you they have provided their permission implicitly. Feel free to email them but at the same time, we think it's always better to ask anyway, so why not include an opt-in checkbox as part of the checkout process.
Scenarios that DON'T equate to permission
Basically, anything outside the examples above doesn't equal permission, but here are some examples to make sure we're crystal clear.
You obtained the email addresses from a third party
Whether you purchased a list, were provided one by a partner or bought a bankrupt competitor's customer list, those people never gave YOU permission to email them and they will consider your email spam. No matter the claims of the source of this list, you cannot email them.You scraped or "copy and pasted" the addresses from the Internet
Just because people publish their email address doesn't mean they want to hear from you.
You haven't emailed that address for more than 2 years
Permission doesn't age well. Even if you got their permission legitimately, they won't remember giving it to you. If you haven't sent something to that address in the last 2 years, you can't start now.
Getting started
If you have tried email marketing in the past, you may have been overwhelmed by unsubscribe requests, or bounces coming back to them. Or you may have tried a system that was just not simply fun to use - If this the case, I can offer something better - An automated processes that handles all the tedious subscribing, making sure people can get off the list when they want to, and keeps track of emails that bounce - and thats just the time stuff that you don't need to worry about!
You just need to have something to say and and an audience recipient email list and you're good to go. You could you showcase a different product each week, and offer special prices to frequent buyers? Maybe you could have case studies of customers using your service, and send them to other potential customers in similar industries. You could email customers who have been out of touch for a little while, and ask if they have any suggestions? The possibilities are endless!
If you're awake at this point and the above sounds right up your street it makes sense we talk. If you'd like to talk new ideas and email campaigns for your business please get in touch on 07813 311253, email me at chris@chrisparker.info or fill out the contact form here It doesn't matter if your cmapaign needs are big or small I'll tell you how I can help.