E-Mail Marketing

Today's savvy Internet users are short on time, short on patience for junk mail and short on room in their inbox due to all the messages they receive every day. So how do you make your messages stand out in the crowd? How do you maintain a reader's attention upon opening a message? How do you prevent your subscribers from becoming unsubscribers? And wait - how do you get them to sign up in the first place? Check out our tips for successful e-mail marketing.

Building your e-mail list
Divide and conquer: segmenting and personalizing your list
Crafting an effective subject line
Developing strategic body content
Making improvements based on follow-up research

Building your e-mail list

A few key strategies to enlist new subscribers:

• Be sure to place a sign-up form (or direct link to one) prominently on your website. It should be brief and simple to fill out, with drop-down menus and radio buttons used as applicable.
   
• Include instructions to sign up for your e-news in other printed materials, direct mail, ads, etc.
   
• Make signing up an attractive option. For instance, it may be the avenue by which to enter a sweepstakes or receive exclusive information on specials and discounts. Or perhaps there is a special deal offered upon signing up, such as a thank you coupon. Important: make sure you follow through on your promise!

Maintaining existing subscribers is just as important:

Obtaining readers of permission-based e-mail has its pluses and minuses. On the downside, your target audience is limited to just those who have signed up for your email. On the upside, this audience is comprised of 100% people who have asked to receive information from you. Take advantage of that - but don't abuse it, and don't become lazy. Sending e-mails that are irrelevant or too frequent will likely cause subscribers to opt out of your list or ignore your messages. In a competitive e-mail world, it's important to maintain the subscribers on your list, and it's tough to re-build that trust once it's lost.

Divide and conquer: segmenting and personalizing your list

Sustaining favorable response and high ROI from e-mails is difficult. One way to attain these goals is to develop a more real and personal relationship with your customers. But how exactly do you achieve a personal relationship via a mass e-mail that goes out to thousands of addresses?

Most e-mail marketing vendors today have developed tools that enable businesses to give their customers information that is more tailored to their preferences, rather than just using the old "batch and blast" method. After all, your list of customers is not a homogeneous group; the subscribers have different needs and attitudes toward the services you offer, and they'd likely be more receptive to information that is geared specifically toward them. This is achieved through a process of segmentation and targeting, described as follows:

• Segmentation - the process of dividing customers into distinct groups (or "segments") based on similar needs or preferences - needs that can be satisfied by delivering specific messages/offers, etc. You might segment your list based on preferences indicated in your sign-up form, via questions in follow-up e-mails or by tracking interests based on clicked links in previous e-mails. For instance, a resort with a golf course or spa might develop segments for subscribers specifically interested in these amenities.
   
• Targeting - the process of delivering relevant messages to segments in a manner that best matches the organization's messages/offers needs to the various segments. The resort mentioned above might sent an e-mail to the spa segment to promote new services with a special coupon.

Another way to boost the trust and response of your subscribers is to personalize their e-mails. Personalization is the process of tailoring specific elements of targeted messages to individuals. For starters, you could include a salutation to a newsletter that greets the reader by first name. More advanced personalization might mean the insertion of different paragraphs of copy that pertain to readers' various interests; this is also known as dynamic content. For instance, if a list is segmented into travelers with children and those without, the two audiences may see different lodging specials in the e-mails they receive.

Crafting an effective subject line

Before you can entice subscribers to learn more about the fantastic offer included in your e-mail, you first need to convince them to open the message. And let's face it - it's a tough e-mail world out there. Your message is up against e-mail from bosses, co-workers, family, friends, other organizations and spam - not to mention time constraints. That's where your subject line comes in. It determines whether your subscriber opens your e-mail, deletes it or even mistakenly reports it as spam. The entire process involved in determining whether or not to keep a message takes, on average, only about half a second. That's why crafting such a short phrase can make such a large impact. Here are a few tips on creating an effective subject line. Test different combinations and see what strategies work best for you.

1. Don't beat around the bush. Communicate your purpose and be specific. Give immediate insight into the body of the e-mail. Think in terms of a specific nugget that will entice your subscriber to open the message, and show them the benefits of doing so. If you're too general, they'll probably pass your e-mail over.
    
2. Include something really special.   Mention a special offer or discount in the subject line. If there is a time limit or expiration, subscribers may be even more enticed to open the e-mail immediately.
    
3. Short and sweet is best. Ideally, your subject line should be 6 words (about 50 characters) or less. This can be tough, but it's worth it. Various studies how shown that e-mails with shorter subject lines have much higher open rates. If you need to incorporate multiple thoughts, try integrating colons or commas to separate them instead of extra words.
    
4. Incorporate your company name or brand. This reinforces your identity, increases credibility and alerts subscribers that you're a trustworthy source, thereby protecting you against unnecessary spam reports.
    
5. Be strategic in your word choice. Use popular keywords that tie to your brand, and stay away from over-used, spam-triggering words like "free," "guaranteed" and "approved." Also, avoid unnecessary or excessive symbols like exclamation points.
    
6. Show the customers you know them. Consider personalizing the subject line with your subscriber's name.
    
7. Stumped? Having a hard time coming up with a just few words to convey your message? Many marketers plug in their subject line before writing the body of the e-mail. Try doing the opposite; write the subject line last. You just might have a better handle on the overall theme you'd like to promote after you've spent the time writing it out in more detail.
    
8. Test the effectiveness. You can experiment with different combinations of the tips above to see which strategies work best for you. Monitor open rates based on these elements, as well as days and times sent. Also, many e-mail marketing companies today are offering "A/B testing," which allows you to devise two different versions of a subject line and use them to send your e-mail to two small samples of your whole list. Whichever subject line produces a higher open rate will be used to send the e-mail to the remainder of your list.

Developing strategic body content

Although it's a successful first step if you convince subscribers to open your e-mail, you can't afford to be lazy in crafting what they see in the body of the message. Your ROI is probably contingent upon a certain link clicked or phone call made - a specific call to action such as traffic to a certain page, items purchased or bookings made, etc. So how do you make the e-mail compelling enough for subscribers to make this happen?

1. Craft content that is engaging, yet straightforward. You want to convince readers to take advantage of what you have to offer, but avoid lots of flowery language; they don't have the time to sift through it to find your call-to-action. Creative headlines and subheads can help readers scan through articles more easily and give them reason to spend more time reviewing the content in detail.
    
2. Have a lot to say? Link to it elsewhere. Keep your content short and sweet, just as you do in your subject line. Instead of bogging your readers down with too much information, load the copy with links to more details or full articles on your website. That way, they can choose what they want to learn more about.
    
3. Make sure those landing pages are relevant. The last thing you want to do is frustrate readers when they are interacting with your e-mail, so make sure that when they click on a link, they are finding what you promised them.
    
4. Have a clear call-to-action in mind. Wrap the theme of your e-mail around it. Rather than using the old "click here" standby, use action links or buttons such as "call now" or "book your stay here" - those that you want to track and measure to test your campaign.
    
5. Boost your click-thru rate by incorporating links in a variety of formats. Repeat an offer in the form of links throughout the content, as well as linked images. Also, be sure to include a "spelled-out" version of your full address somewhere in the e-mail.
    
6. Use the e-mail design to your advantage. It's beneficial to develop templates so that you are delivering a consistent brand. These should be clean, yet vibrant, and consistent with the design elements of your website and other marketing materials. It's also wise to include your logo to reinforce your trustworthiness as the source of the e-mail.
    
7. Preview and test. Messages may look great when you're crafting them, but they all appear differently when arriving in inboxes, depending on the providers of your subscribers. Check how the messages appear in a variety of inboxes, from AOL to Hotmail to Microsoft Outlook. Also, take into account how a message looks in a preview pane and without images (those should all be marked with alt tags for these instances). And with all the focus you're placing on the HTML version of the e-mail, don't forget to populate the text version too!

Making improvements based on follow-up research

There's always room to improve upon your e-mail marketing based on the feedback received from your subscribers, whether it's through the questions they answer or the actions they take.

Research based on actions:

• Use the numbers to your advantage. If you work with an e-mail marketing vendor, the company most likely has tracking capabilities built right into the tool, with rates on deliverability, unsubscribes, opens, reads, click-thrus and more. Analyze these statistics and track how they vary based on adjustments you make to subject lines, body copy, template design, links, etc.
   
• Find out about your customers' interests. Take advantage of the opportunity to learn even more about your subscribers based on how they interact with your e-mails. Most e-mail marketing vendors have advanced tracking tools that show how many people clicked on each link within a message. Many vendors also display exactly who clicked on each link, and allow you to create a new list or segment based on those names. So, perhaps you want to send a special follow-up e-mail on romantic getaways to all those subscribers who clicked on a related link in your original message.

Research based on questions:

• Learn from a survey. Don't be afraid to ask your consumers what they think of your e-mails so you can make improvements accordingly. Link to a brief survey on your website that inquires about overall satisfaction, most valuable information, sending times/dates and frequency - and don't forget about basic demographic information.

Resources:
Listrak
Constant Contact
ExactTarget