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Blog posts tagged email marketing
Four ways to reduce the dreaded email churn
June 10, 2011
Email list churn could be considered one of the few “givens” in life (next to death and taxes that is). No? OK fine, it’s not that dramatic but it is something that most marketers have to deal with on a regular basis.
Email churn refers to the number of subscribers who are lost to your list over a given period and it’s measured by the number of hard bounces, unsubscribes or spam complaints you receive. On average a marketer experiences 20-30 per cent of list churn every year, but you can work out your rate with this simple equation:
Tally up your hard bounces, unsubscribes and spam complaints for the time period you’re interested in and divide this total number of lost subscribers by your current list size. A quick example looks like this: 3,000 (lost subscribers) / 10,000 (current list size) = 0.3 x 100 = 30% list churn rate.
It is inevitable to a certain extent but there are steps you can take to reduce list churn. They aren’t quick fixes, but if you make a concerted effort to employ these tactics you’ll start seeing positive results:
1. Be honest with your subscribers
When your subscribers first sign up, tell them exactly what they can expect to receive from you, and stick to your word. If you have a few different newsletters, then set up an email preference centre where they can update their profile and change their preferences whenever they want. This is also a good time to disclose your privacy policy, in layman’s terms, which means letting your subscribers know that you aren’t going to sell, rent or disclose any of their details to anyone else.
2. Learn from your mistakes
If someone unsubscribes, politely request feedback about why they’re opting out and what you could do better, and then do what you can to implement the suggestions into future campaigns. It all helps with customer engagement and you should use the constructive criticism to adapt your strategy and help ensure you meet the expectations of the next customer who signs up.
3. Make things easy for your subscribers
Initially, they want a quick and simple opt-in and unsubscribe process along with reliable contact details, so make sure these aspects of your campaign are optimised for this. Incorporating a simple preference centre also makes for a better user experience. Not only is this a good way of engaging with your subscribers, but the data is hugely beneficial to you too, because you can use it to segment your audience and target them more effectively.
4. Re-engage inactive subscribers
Inactive subscribers (those who haven’t opened or clicked on any of your emails in the past six months) also affect your list churn. Don’t despair! Rather see it as an opportunity to re-engage and get them interested again in what you have to offer. Assuming these subscribers are bored with your email offerings, your reactivation campaign needs to jump out at them and offer something truly irresistible that’s going to guarantee a high open rate.
Georgia Christian is the editor of the online email marketing service Mail Blaze.
What's the value of an email preference centre?
May 12, 2011
In short, an email preference centre is much like a membership page on your website that allows your subscribers to manage their subscriptions.
After signing up and when they log in, they’re given the opportunity to update their profile and also specify what information they’d like to receive from you and how often. This works best and is necessary if you have a variety of email campaigns that you send out, such as newsletters, sales alerts, product information, industry updates and more.
In the preference centre, your subscriber can opt in for as many of the campaigns as they wish, and subsequently make changes whenever they want. They should also able be to specify how often they receive correspondence from you, the format of the emails (html or text versions) and whether they want to subscribe to RSS, mobile or SMS updates.
If you supply products such as books, music, DVDs or clothes then you should definitely look at incorporating an email preference centre to manage your subscriptions effectively. If however, you only offer a single product or service it’s not necessary.
The real value of a preference centre is that it gives subscribers complete control over what lands in their inbox, and this helps build trust and loyalty, which is one of the main objectives of email marketing. By giving them what they want when they want and honouring their preferences, they’ll have less reason to unsubscribe from your email campaigns.
Keep in mind that customers are voluntarily offering private information about themselves at a time and pace that suits them. Therefore, it’s important that your preference centre is friendly and welcoming and the questions aren’t overly complex, in depth or personal. You want them to feel like they can come back at any time to make changes and when they do, it’s a painless process.
Contrary to popular belief, an email preference centre is pretty easy to implement and to begin with many people simply store data on their email platform or CRM, which is perfectly acceptable.
Georgia Christian is the editor of the online email marketing service Mail Blaze.
The five most common email marketing mistakes
April 06, 2011
There is a lot of advice out there to help ensure that your email campaign is beautifully created, sent out successfully and, most importantly, well-received.
What many people tend to forget — and this goes for seasoned email campaigners and newbies alike — are the common mistakes that are all too often made when you are developing the perfect campaign.
Here are five of the most common email marketing blunders. If you successfully avoid them, it will ensure that your content is relevant, good to look at, grammatically sound and entirely logical:
- You want and/or expect instant success. Banish the thought from your head immediately. With email marketing your aim is to develop a relationship with your customer and this takes time, sometimes more time than you think you have. You’ll need to have patience and a strong resolve. You and I know, understand and accept that Rome was most certainly not built in a day so don’t be in such a rush to get that campaign out “like yesterday!” Make sure you are 100 per cent happy with it and it has been tried and tested before you send it out. You won’t regret it.
- Your message isn’t clear. You want it to be powerful, concise and with a strong call to action. If there is any doubt in your mind that it lacks these points then you need to reassess it, even if it sets you back time-wise. It will be worth it in the long term, believe me.
- You aren’t entirely sure you have permission. If in doubt, here’s a quick question you can ask yourself to check: “Have they specifically requested to receive my emails?” If the answer is “no”, then you have to go back to the drawing board and work on building up your subscriber list. It’s a simple enough task and will ensure that your emails aren’t deemed spam.
- You have subscribers on your list that haven’t heard zip from you in six months. Go through the process of getting them to remember you again. Send a friendly “remember me?” email and guide them to sign up to your newsletter again. It’s the best way to ensure that your subscriber list remains entirely “opt-in” and therefore more valuable.
- You buy an opt-in list. I have one word for you here and that’s “unscrupulous”. Your target audience is specific and so is the product or service that you are trying to market, so sending your campaign out to 20,000 people who you don’t know and who certainly don’t know you is not a good idea. Neither is getting blacklisted for spamming, which is what would probably happen if you took this unsavoury route.
Georgia Christian is the editor of the online email marketing service Mail Blaze.
Make your marketing emails fly
March 23, 2011
You’ve got an up-to-date, opted-in email list but how can you get the most from your email campaigns?
Here are 15 handy tips to help your emails on the way. Fly my pretties, fly..
Get matey with ISPs
They are your friend. Send your emails in a steady rate from a dedicated and consistent IP address. This way, you build up a nice reputation with the ISPs and the E-romance begins.
From address
YourpalDatabroker@ = win. 0912478AJTY21@ = #Fail. Make it friendly. Make it personal.
Speak to your prospects
Tell them how you want to communicate with them, better still ask them how they want to be communicated with — frequency, visible privacy policy, opt-in details.
Loopholes = bad news
Don’t use email data that is not permission based. It’s not big or clever and yes, we know there are technical work-arounds but you will just end up blacklisted and with a brand in tatters. That office stationary company in Bury – I will never use you because of your email policy.
Build a loyal following
Put an opt-in box on your email html to opt them in specifically for your company.
Better safe than sorry
Ask to be put in the safe senders list within their address book. This decreases likelihood of your message ending up in the spam file.
Give Unsubscribe options on every email
No excuse not to, there is no point in speaking to people who are not interested in what you have to say. And make it easy, no more than two clicks required. Make sure that it’s branded with your logo and company name, this helps with trust.
Virtual v reality
If possible, have an offline point of contact for people to unsubscribe such as an address or phone number. Again, this helps with trust and service.
Spic and span
Flag your hard bounces and keep your list clean. Don’t waste good money to send to poor data. Your data is an asset and needs to be treated as such. Take out duplicates, flag gone-aways and keep it up to date.
Three strikes
Have a soft bounce policy to deal with temporary errors. A common one is three strikes and you’re out, if an email bounces three times then flag it as gone-away.
Standing on the shoulders
Consider Email Service Providers (ESPs) that offer a delivery management solution – this monitors your ISP reputation and status.
Standing on the shoulders 2
Again, consider using an ESP to take advantage of their reputation and status with ISPs. They are often white-listed and have years’ worth of good rep!
Spam score your email HTMLs
Avoid large images, lots of different coloured text and excessive numbers of links.
Subject lines
Nothing dodgy in there. Avoid FREE, OFFER, caps and !!!! — those little blighters will cause you spam problems.
Testing: inbox preview
Preview your HTML in various ISP inboxes to check it all looks fine and keep the best call to action above the fold (in the preview pane ).
The DMA has a whitepaper on Email Deliverability. This has additional detail and is certainly worth a read.
John Keating is an expert contributor to Marketing Donut and director at Databroker.
Top tips for successful newsletters
March 21, 2011
- Get sign up first. However lovingly worded and beautifully designed, if they didn’t ask for it, it’s spam.
- Be brief. People are busy. Even scrolling down too far is too much. One page max.
- Grab their attention. Headlines matter. Newsletter 73 isn’t going to get anyone rushing to click, but a great offer just might. Be careful though. We all love a bargain, but too many once in a lifetime sales make you look desperate.
- Use your voice. Newsletters need to follow your brand guidelines, in a tone of voice that matches the rest of your communications. So no text speak if you’re a firm of solicitors, and no stiff formality if you plan parties. (Actually, no stiff formality anywhere. Straightforward, honest and warm covers most bases).
- Reward. People on your mailing list are your special customers. Make them feel part of an exclusive club and they’ll reward you with loyalty. Money-off deals work, but so does information. Letting your favourite customers in on the news before the rest of the world makes them feel important.
- Get the timing right. Once I signed up for a diet newsletter and they mailed me twice a day. Way too much. Once a year, and your customers might have forgotten who you are. (Unless you sell Christmas trees).
- Share success. Letting your clients know about your latest award makes them feel happy to be associated with you. It’s an affirmation that they might the right choice in working with you. We all like to be right.
Sharon Tanton is an expert contributor to Marketing Donut, a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant and a Valuable Content associate.
The price is right on social buying sites
March 15, 2011
In today’s cash-strapped times, we are all looking for a bargain. But where does this leave the small business?
There are so many ways that shoppers can find the best price. There are price comparison websites, online voucher sites and even apps that allow you to scan barcodes and compare prices elsewhere.
Price-cutting is rife and big businesses are at it all the time. Some retailers are running almost continuous sales in a bid to bring in more business. Meanwhile, the supermarkets can afford to offer highly competitive prices on loss leaders just to get shoppers into their stores.
These kinds of practices don’t always work for small firms whose margins are already tight enough and who can’t afford to be constantly discounting. But the fact is that many consumers now expect some kind of special offer before they are prepared to open their wallets.
And so the arrival of social buying sites like GroupOn, BuyWithMe, TownHog and LivingSocial could well be very good news for small firms with a local customer base — as well as being good for canny shoppers.
The social buying sites all work slightly differently but essentially they allow businesses to promote a specific offer to subscribers in their local area offering tempting discounts with extra money off when groups of three or four buy together.
Sites like GroupOn send out emails to their subscribers with a daily offer. Subscribers respond, they get a voucher for the product or service and the business gets the revenue after the social buying site has taken its cut. So businesses only pay when they sell something.
Yes, businesses advertising on the sites have to offer a discount. But it’s a targeted offer to an audience of interested subscribers. It’s not constant price-cutting. It’s much more strategic and measureable than that.
But does it work? One upmarket restaurant in Bristol — Bells Diner — sold an impressive 413 meals for two via LivingSocial when it offered a 52 per cent discount on an eight-course meal in November 2010. Now that’s an attractive offer, for sure. But that’s 826 additional customers that have come through the door — and they could well be back for more.
Rachel Miller, editor, Marketing Donut.
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