Adestra

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…)

Up to date information on your recipients will allow you to personalise email content, help to build relationships with your recipients and in turn lead to an increase in response rate.

But how and when do I get this information?

At sign up – It is important not to bombard them with too many compulsory questions, this could deter them from signing up. Ask for the essential information only e.g. email address and name, you can append further information later.

Welcome email – to encourage the recipient to give you more details about themselves, again, don’t over do it, only collect information you really need and are going to use. Tell them why you want this information (you want to send them  relevant information) -  if they know why you want to know their hair colour, they are more likely to tell you.

Up-date your details link – include a link to an up-date your details form on every email. Their details/interests may change; give the recipient chance to amend their details at a convenient time to them.  This will see a steady flow up to date data.

Incentivise – Encourage recipients to up-date their details, if they can see they are going to get something out of it by updating their details, they will be more inclined to do so.

For more information on gaining up to date information on your recipients please contact your client strategy consultant or email us strategy@adestra.com.

Jenna Lovell, Client Strategy Executive

In a case study cited on the Marketing Sherpa website, Chiasso, an American online catalogue site used a Green Marketing strategy to increase their open, click and conversion rates to great effect. Chiasso realised that their customers were becoming increasing environmentally aware, which is why they decided to use green marketing to spearhead a new email campaign. It was very simple and effective, given that they would always possess a percentage of customers that will prefer a paper catalogue.

Chiasso embraced a four stage approach–

1. Provide greener options for clients with emotional marketing copy to push the uptake.
2. Redesign email templates to boost conversions and compliement counteract paper catalogue opt-outs.
3. Re-launch email campaigns, sent to subscribers 3 days before the paper catalogues land.
4. Remarket to non-openers 48 hours after the initial campaign was broadcast and provide 10% discount.

The results that Chiasso experienced are really promising –

Customers embraced the fact that Chiasso was becoming socially responsible by incorporating greener options into their business. The migration from paper to online catalogue was gradual with around 1% immediately opting out of the paper version. Their conversion rates saw an increase of 19% with overall revenues increased by 20%.

In relation to the campaign launched 3 days before the paper version, they experienced a 19% open rate with a 7.7% click through rate. The remarketing campaign to non-opens achieved a 21% open rate and a 3% click through rate.
To view the full case study please click here:

To learn how you can run effective campaigns like this and get the most out of your database, please refer to Adestra’s whitepaper ‘The power of automatic data filtering and recurring email campaigns’ or  get in touch with your assigned client strategy consultant to investigate whether green marketing would work for you.

Daniel Murphy, Client Strategy Consultant

A preheader is a short piece of teaser copy that appears at the top of an email.  Email applications, such as Outlook 2007, Gmail and some mobile devices, use the content that appears in this area to provide recipients with a brief snippet of the contents prior to it being opened.

Historically, marketers put navigation links in this area, such as ‘Click here for mobile version’, ‘Click here to view with images’, etc. but as the battle for recipients’ attention intensifies marketers are trying new tricks, such as using the preheader to further entice an email open.

In the example below, using Outlook 2007, Kmart conducted a weekend sale online.  The subject line was “2 days of Email Exclusive Free Shipping – Online Only Deals” but in the preheader they hit home the fact that the sale was happening on “Friday & Saturday” only on “Kmart.com” and that there was “Free shipping” included.

Once enticed by this ‘from name’, ‘subject line’ and ‘preheader’ the email looked liked this;

One can only presume that this worked very effectively -  it was short, to the point and the recipient knew exactly what was in the email prior to opening it.
Utilising the preheader is a good idea, especially for B2B communications where the chances are that the recipient will either be on the move, using a mobile device or using Outlook.

Before making permanent changes to your template layout, I would suggest that you do some testing first; see what works best because, as with everything in email, one size does not fit all. Test your preheader length, content, call to action and go with what works best for you.

To learn more on how to utilise the preheader, using MessageFocus, please contact your appropriate Adestra Client Strategy Consultant or contact moreinfo@adestra.com to find out more about us.

Daniel Murphy, Client Strategy Consultant

Businesses are always trying out new ways to promote brand awareness and interact with subscribers through email. So taking the typical customer lifecycle and superimposing it on to a digital strategy may seem overly complicated or expensive to maintain.

Fortunately, the ability of Adestra’s MessageFocus application has empowered marketers to do just that.

James Bunting explains on his DMA blog the top 5 automated campaigns that every marketer should look to undertake. These are very easy to setup, require little or no maintenance (except when you want to update the copy) and can provide huge uplift in response and ROI.

The top five mentioned here are:-

• Welcome Campaigns
• Order Confirmation Campaigns
• Customer Satisfaction Campaigns
• Abandon Cart Campaigns
• Post Purchase Campaigns

What other ways can marketers approach automating campaign in a typical customer lifecycle?

Here is a simple breakdown on segmenting the customer lifecycle into three distinct manageable groups.

Campaigns for Interested Recipients

• Welcome messages – setting to scene for what subscribers have signed up to
• An educational campaign – getting subscribers familiar with your brand & website
• Lead warming activities – for establishing subscribers interest
• Promotions to encourage first purchase – to encourage a conversion

Campaign for Engaged Recipients

• Shopping cart abandon notices
• Service alerts – for informing about existing and new products/services
• Order receipts
• Reminders of upcoming events
• Special promotions for regular customers
• Targeting based on web analytics tracked behaviour
• Subscription Renewal Reminders

Campaigns for Lapsed Customers

• Sending surveys to identify reasons for lack of engagement
• Offering incentives to re-visit the Website
• Delivering promotions to encourage associated purchases

For more information on how to get these types of automated campaigns up and running please contact your Client Strategy Consultant or email us here

Daniel Murphy, Client Strategy Consultant

It’s very apparent that there has been a year on year increase in the number of emails appearing in your Inbox. According to the DMA, there has been around a 25% increase of emails* sent since the same time last year. We all know that we can’t improve our results just by sending more email. The key is getting your email noticed and opened in everyone’s busy Inboxes.

So how can you get your email noticed? The three key factors in getting your email opened are:

• The Sender Name (or From Name)
  This is your calling card, telling the recipient who the email is coming from. Make sure it is recognisable and consistent. One client of ours always has their company name as the sender name, but adds to this when sending a particular offer or type of communication, e.g. newsletter and offers. If your sender name is a person, will the recipient recognise who that person is? Think about when you receive a marketing email from a person, do you want to open it?

• The Subject Line
  A vague subject line may increase the number of opens, but how many of those will click through to your website? Or, indeed, how many of those will mark you as SPAM? Use your subject line in conjunction with your sender name to give clear information about what is in the email.

• The Preview Pane
  Have a think about the layout of the top part of your email and how it will display in the recipient’s Preview Pane. If this is mainly images, with images turned off this will just look like a puzzle of missing images and alternative text. Put your key message and key “incentive to open” in the top left hand corner. People will then be able to see what to expect when they download the images and are more encouraged to do so.

Other factors that you should take into account are time of send, quality of the email and most importantly relevance and value.

If you have any questions or would like some examples of what has worked well, please email us at strategy@adestra.com

Reena Mistry, Group Account Director

*DMA National Email Benchmarking report Q2 2008

Clients are always asking about using Forward to a Friend or Colleague (FTAF) to grow their lists and collect more subscribers.  There has also been a lot of debate over the effectiveness of FTAF in list growth and whether it works or not.

What FTAF does achieve is that it can be effective in reaching like-minded people to your subscriber and spreading the word about what you have to say. So, answering our Clients’ questions, what are the best practice guidelines for sending emails through a FTAF form?

• First and foremost, people who have been sent an email by a friend through a FTAF facility are not automatically new subscribers for you to email.  In order for you to email them again, they need to opt-in to receive your communications.

• Think about the email that is sent using the FTAF.  Ensure that the email gives the new recipient the ability to subscribe to your communications from that email, otherwise what’s the point in sending the email?

• Ensure that the person receiving the email knows where the email has come from, otherwise it may be dismissed as SPAM.  Perhaps allow the sender to add a personal message or ensure the sender’s name, and intention, are in the subject line to avoid confusion.

Finally, do remember that all the normal email best practice guidelines still apply.

To find out more about FTAF functionality email us at strategy@adestra.com

Reena Mistry

Group Account Director

Trying to balance an email template that is beautifully designed and delivered into the recipient’s Inbox is difficult, but it can be done!

The idea is to keep the template as simple as possible, so keep these tips in mind when briefing your designer or creating your own template.

• Keep your template width to 600 pixels- this is the optimal size to view in a preview pane.

• Use a table structure to create your template.

• When using images add alternative and title text – Alternative text (for IE) and title text (for Firefox) – this will show when the images are not downloaded.

• Always add dimensions to an image- Therefore, images will not alter the width of the template, even if they are blocked.

• Do not use background images or background colours – Some email clients will strip this out, in the example below you will see the background image is a keyboard with white text on overlayed. If the image was blocked the white text would become invisable. Similarly, having a dark background colour with white text will result in it vanishing (in Gmail, for example).

• CSS maybe easier, but doesn’t always work- CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is used when creating websites to specify fonts, link colours and other formatting.  Some email clients will strip this out, so make is easier on your designer and yourself, ask to add the formatting or style ‘inline’.

By using these simple pointers, your template will be easier to use within MessageFocus and if coded correctly it will render better in email clients.

Adestra can help you by designing optimised templates, they can also help you with a strategic template. Contact +44 (0)1865 242425 or sales@adestra.com for more information.

Joanne Taylor, Trainer

Yes and here’s why…

Studies have shown by using personalisation in your email marketing, you are more likely to have an average conversion rate of over 3%. Inserting a person’s name into the subjectline can increase open rates by as much as 10% [Jupiter Research].

Personalising an email can be as simple as adding a salutation “Dear Mr Smith” or inserting into  the subject line. However, it can be so much more powerful if you use the information you have in your data.

Let’s take gender for example. Below is an example of conditional content from one of clients Clothing at Tesco.

Quite simply, women receive the bikini email and men receive the swimming trunks (although there is some debate that is should have been the other way around).

This was created using conditional content and creating only one email, but the relevant information being shown to the relevant gender. And guess what, it worked!

Now things can get even more exciting, if you are inviting people to an event you could send them personalised maps based on the venue and their postcode? Or for an e-commerce email, why not personalise the email based on past purchase behaviour. If it’s in your data, you can use it!

For more information on personalising your emails please speak to us.

Joanne Taylor, Trainer