Adestra

In a recent meeting with a client, they wanted to know what to do in order to improve their open rates, my suggestion was to test. As everyone’s recipient base is different, there is no one rule fits all answer, the only way to find out is to test what works for your recipients.

The client did a number of controlled tests, testing one aspect of the email at a time, allowing them to see exactly what caused the increase/decrease in response. The client split their list into two, sending half of the list their regular email, and the other half the email with the testing element. There were a number of aspects which had a small impact on the campaign results, such as, the layout and design of the email, however the aspect which had the greatest impact on the results was personalising of the subject line with the recipients’ company name.

This test saw a 5% increase in open rates, compared to the non personalised version, as well as an increase in the click through rate too.

By personalizing the subject line the recipient knew that the email was relevant them encouraging them to open and interact.

Please email support@adestra.com for the demonstration videos on how to Split Test, and Personalise your Subject Line. Or if you would like any further information please contact your strategy Consultant strategy@adestra.com

Jenna Lovell, Client Strategy Executive

We recently presented our case study “How to win back lost customers and get them spending again through intelligent data driven email marketing” at TFM&A.

For those of you who didn’t manage to see us here’s the video

Whilst we all feel the need to have a forward to a friend (FTAF) link on our email, are we doing enough to get those who are forwarded the email subscribed to our emails? Clearly if someone has taken the time out to think a friend or colleague would be interested in your content then that friend is more than likely going to want to receive your emails.

But have you thought how to get these signed up to receive future emails?

Traditionally links have been placed on the email ‘Have you been forwarded this email? Click here to subscribe.’ But these would have to be placed on the original email sent to those who have already subscribed, using up valuable space. So how about dynamically adding in a link to only those that have been forwarded the email to a subscription page?

This is possible through the Adestra platform (MessageFocus) FTAF feature.

A forward to a friend form would typically ask for your name and email address and your friend’s name, email address and any additional message you would like to add at the top of the email sent on. How about adding in a link here that says ‘Like what you see? Click here to subscribe to further emails like this one’ with a link to your subscription page or a subscription centre setup by Adestra that can automatically trigger out a welcome message and subscribe them to the relevant list(s).

A one off setup that can result in a high amount of new subscribers without using up valuable space in your original email; if you would like to find out more about this feature please contact us.

Andrew Abram, Client Strategy Consultant

Last month I presented at the B2B Marketing Magazines email excellence seminar, and this debate popped up again.  Adestra commented on this very subject in 2008 on the E-consultancy blog but how much has actually changed since then?

It is true that email results for acquisition are still substantially lower than for retention emails, and load and blast isn’t the best method either. There is one obvious reason why retention emails perform better than acquisition and that is because recipient knows who you are and so they read your email.

Now, if we transfer this to email for acquisition, the question is not “Is email for acquisition dead?” it’s “when should you use email for acquisition?” The simple answer is, when they know who you are.

Possible ways to do this:

• Following up your sales teams call list with a newsletter about the service / company.
• Using the data you have collected at an trade show to nurture prospects.
• Your company has spoken at event. See if you can use that data to send out the presentation and start a dialogue with the prospects.
• Competition entries, signups for whitepapers etc etc… use the information you have.

From here, these prospects can be entered into a lead nurturing programme which can include events, letters, email, telesales and face-to-face meetings to ensure they know who you are and you are building a rapport with your leads.

So no, email for acquisition is not dead, but using it to blanket email a bought list just won’t work for you any longer. Email should be a part of the lead nurturing process and cannot be relied on to close the deal for you, but it will help you to build that relationship with your prospects if used with other channels.

Reena Mistry, Group Account Director

Econsultancy and Adestra annual email marketing census has just been launched,  as always it will cover email marketing topics such as  Use of email services, Email marketing budgets,  ROI and effectiveness, Email Integration and Deliverability.

To take part all you will have to do is fill in the Email marketing Census 2010 survey, at the end of the survey you will also get the chance to fill in your details to get your own free copy (worth £150).

Adestra will hold a breakfast briefing in March where we will discuss the latest hot topics and best practice for email marketing for 2010, if you are interesting in taking part of that please feel  free to fill in your details on our contact us page.

Finally we would like to thank the Linus plus the team at Econsultancy and everyone else that has taken part in the 2010 Econsultancy and Adestra email marketing census, if you would like to stay up to date on these hot topics please subscribe to our RSS feed and/or newsletter to make sure that you receive the latest news.

You don’t need to be a whiz at HTML code to create emails nowadays. Like in our platform MessageFocus there are editors that you can use to create nice looking campaigns without the hassle of learning how to bold text or change text to a specific branded colour.

But have you ever thought about learning some basic code to make your emails more enticing for your readers to open, click, reply to and convert?

Here are some easy tips to move your emails forward:-

• Do you send long or lots of infromation/offers in one email campaign?

Why not try adding anchor links so readers can click on the story they want to see.

• Are you creating the same campaign for different data segments?

Use dynamic content to create targetted messages at a click of a button. This will send the correct information from your database to the recipient.

• Who is Mr  ?

Why not add some personalisation code so if a field is blank within your data show a default or another field.

• Want to personalise your subject line?

Adding a recipient’s first name or company name within a subject line could intrigue to open to find out more.

Want to know how to do these tricks? Contact our support team on how add these onto your campaign or email our training department and learn how to do it yourself.

Joanne Taylor, Trainer

Spam filters are the bain of any email marketers life; I am constantly getting asked, ‘why is my email getting considered as junk’.

It is harder than ever to get legitimate email messages successfully delivered, this is hardly surprising when according to Symantec 87% of emails sent in October 2009 were spam. Therefore filters are increasingly becoming more sophisticated against spam emails. It’s not just one filter the email needs to get through, there are several, gateway filters, server filters, as well as desktop client filters.

Spammers are changing their tactics constantly to get around these filters, therefore ISP’s need to change how they monitor email in order to keep their customers inboxes clean. The results being that an email may sail into the inbox one week, the same email the following week could be filtered or blocked.

The key to ensuring your email passes all spam filters is to test, set up a number of test inboxes, and test your campaign to these.  An email may pass the spam filter in one email client but not in another, due to different spam rules.

Encourage your recipients to add your from address/domain to their safe senders list, to guarantee entry into their inboxes, it will also mean that images will be automatically downloaded too.

Make it easy for your recipient to unsubscribe from your emails, as it is far better they unsubscribe from your mailings rather than marking the email as spam.

Ensure all unsubscribe requests are adhered to as quickly as possible, if not instantly, also don’t repeatedly send to bounced email addresses, if ISP’s see you constantly trying to deliver to dead email address, this is going to have a negative effect on your deliverability.

99% of the time when I get asked ‘why is my email getting considered as junk’ the reason is content based. Be this the subject line, from name, main body content, link reputation, image to text ratio etc etc.

Tools such as ReturnPaths Campaign Preview and Mailbox Monitor make it easier in distinguishing if and why your email has been marked as spam.

Things to avoid when creating your email campaign are:-

• Subject Line – avoiding using CAPS, quotations marks, exclamation marks, dollar signs, plus spammy words such as discount.

• Main Body – consider the image to text ratio, using 100% images is a common spamming technique to get past content filters. Some words on their own or in conjunction with others can cause spam implications, try to avoid words such as, no obligations, no risk, money back guarantee, free offer / trail / application / access. In addition consider where you links are going, if you have a link in your email linking to a website which has been blacklisted this could cause your email to be classed as spam.

If you are having problems getting your email into the inbox, please contact us on moreinfo@adestra.com or speak to your Strategy Consultant.

Jenna Lovell, Client Strategy Executive

@econsultancy have just posted an interesting article http://bit.ly/4Qz9H1 on a recent Which? report on poor customer experiences relating to product delivery. I expect that we have all, at some point in our lives had issues with delivery companies leaving things on show, damaging items in transit or having completely inflexible delivery processes.

Personally when this has happened to me I haven’t necessarily blamed the website I have used to make the purchase but ultimately they choose who to use for delivery so 9 times out of 10 the end result is that I go elsewhere next time. With so many possible suppliers for products in the modern online age any differentiator, however minor can be enough to sway me.

Brand, price and service are all equally important in gaining me as a customer initially but these standards must be maintained to keep me. Brand and price can be measured as can service post sale but do you do it? You can…

As a self confessed DIY geek I recently purchased a few items from Screwfix. I was attracted by their price, range of products and the promise of fast delivery. They delivered on all fronts but not resting on their laurels they emailed me a few days after delivery to check that I was happy with the product and the delivery service. I was also invited to review the product to share my experiences. Excellent!

Screwfix get to hear all about my delivery experience good or bad and can act accordingly, managing poor experiences or maximising the value of good experiences by enabling happy customers to become brand advocates.

As it transpired they good full marks all round and a glowing review for the product. Job done!

The same process can apply for any fulfilment be it a physical product delivery, event or service and with data fed into MessageFocus automatically the follow up campaigns need not take up resource. Speak with your commercial manager to discuss options for managing your customer experience

Rob Hunter, Group Account Director

Recently I attended the Webtrends Engage conference and one of the most interesting questions that came up was should you let your customers opt in to relevance?

With today’s technology you can easily integrate any ESP with analytics vendors, most free vendors like Google Analytics will not let you track PII but when you are at a level to start harnessing the power of your data and are ready to take the step to an enterprise analytics vendor like Webtrends and Omniture you really can track everything.

But before you do this with automatic retargeting campaigns  should you let your customers opt in for these higly relevant emails or campaigns?

I am not talking about opting in for email marketing as I am sure that before you get here you have already fined tuned your confirmed opt in experience for email marketing.

My question is more… should you let your users opt in for relevance?

All comments and feedback are welcome here.

Fred Wahlqvist, Partnerships and solutions

Centaur Publishing recently demonstrated that Email and Direct Mail can effectively work together in a bid to boost paid subscriptions of its weekly magazine MarketingWeek.

From the outside the campaign incorporated a free subscription period reinforced with an integrated Direct Mail and Email strategy to push the benefits (A new profile section, A Marketer2Marketer section, An updated trends section, new columnists and more) of signing up to a paid subscription.

Without knowing the finer details the campaign seemed to contain the simple process of ‘Offer’ & ‘Reminder’ as a Direct Mail Piece and Email. This can be seen in the diagram below.

The offer and reminder emails were very simple, and clear, with the benefits of why someone should take up the offer being very apparent.

Inital offer and stage 2 email

Subscribers were given the option to subscribe for the free trial by email or fax, and were also encouraged to pass the offer on to interested colleagues in a bid for Centaur to further broaden the reach of the campaign.

Once a subscriber had enrolled they received their complimentary magazines for a set period. Then when it came to the last free magazine they were informed that this would be their last unless they continued with a ‘Paid’ subscription. Anyone that did not sign up to a paid subscription was then targeted with a dual approach by Email and Direct Mail. (more…)