eMarketing Innovation in Pittsburgh PA

It’s important for email campaigns to look professional.  Most recipients will not read emails that arrive in an unprofessionally cluttered format.  The information needs to be clearly laid out in a clean design.  When creating an email campaign there are basically two layout options.  A custom design or a email service provider template.

A custom layout that supports the organization’s brand is ideal. This ensures that your email campaign won’t be confused with any other company’s messaging.  It can also be tailored to provide an ideal fit for your email content.

Email service provider templates can be a lower-tech solution.  Two criteria need to be met to ensure it will work for your email campaign:

1. The layout allows customization to adhere to your email content needs (i.e. if you need two columns you have the ability to set them up while maintaining some company-specific customization).
2. The layout isn’t widely used.  Some stock designs become popular and quickly saturate the market.  Credibility diminishes if recipients receive an email that has the same design as another campaign.  Swapping out the logo is not sufficient to make a template yours, so do some legwork to ensure you aren’t implementing a design that is identified with other organizations.

In either custom or template layouts, make sure the layout is flexible so that it can be consistent.  Meaning, the campaign should have a consistent design so that it is recognizable on sight to recipients.  However, it should easily allow for different content to be applied so that different messages can use the same design.  This facilitates recipients receiving unique messages while recognizing it as a piece of the entire campaign.

People will judge your email campaign by it’s cover.  Make sure the design reflects the professionalism of your organization.

It should go without saying that your email campaigns should be legal.  However, many people that get started with email marketing are unaware of the legal requirements.  Here is a list of the base legal requirements:

• Authenticate return address
• Include a valid physical address
• Provide a one-click unsubscribe feature
• Prohibit importing lists of purchased addresses that may not have given valid permission

I won’t cover details of these requirements in depth but this guide is a good resource for all the particulars.  Most people now use an email marketing provider that provides list upload, templates, and email sending from their servers.  These typically combine for built in features that guarantee your email communications are CAN-SPAM compliant.

If you are self publishing email campaigns it is essential that you follow these email marketing send rules.  Nothing can be as damaging as sending out email that is rightly designated as SPAM.  The damage to reputation is bad enough but adding litigation into the mix is disastrous.

The only tricky requirement on the list is the last one.  Chances are that the email marketing service provider covers the first three.  Self publishers should build in systems to ensure all email marketing communications comply with the first three.  However there is no way to automate assurances that the email list is valid

Opting in for receiving email marketing communications is technically a legal requirement.  Refer to Email Marketing Tip #4 for guidance on opt- in list building.

Email marketing does not work like regular advertising.  Regular ads are sent out to the general population.  The hope is that it will engage a small subset who will take action.  Subscribers typically opt-in for specific content or topics, not ads.  They might appreciate advertising that features products or services they have expressed interest in. They are often excited for exclusive offers.  Overt advertising is rarely well recieved it neglects your email campaigns value proposition for blatant promotion.

Sign ups for email campaigns that will send random ads don’t get subscribers.  Email marketing is about solidifying a relationship with the audience by sending communications that are relevant to the subscriber.  In informational email campaigns, ads can be interspersed but should never be the primary focus.  If subscribers have requested updates on certain products or services, they shouldn’t be haphazardly solicited for other items.

A good rule of thumb for both is the 1/3 minimum.  One in three communications can be advertising focused.  So for informational campaigns 2 content related communications need to go out for every 1 advertising centric communication.  For product or service offer specific promotions, 2 specific offers can go out for every one that tries to cross-promote or cross-sell other items.  Remember this is a 1/3 ratio minimum rule.  It’s OK to intermix advertising less frequently but increases run a real risk of subscriber fallout.

Don’t over-advertise.  Subscribers provide a great marketing opportunity by opting in to hear from you or your organization.  Respect what they have signed up for.  More often than not, the content and product/service specific offers convert much better than strait advertising.

Tracking and measuring is an often overlooked piece of email marketing.  Everyone likes to talk about the data that is available through email marketing but few people actually use the information to improve their email campaigns.  Track and measure your email campaigns success to optimize it for maximum returns.

The first step in tracking and measuring is getting comfortable with the metrics.  Open rates and click throughs are a good starting place.  This helps define how engaged the audience is with the email campaign.  Likewise opt-outs and SPAM complaints are a good indicator of how far off the mark the campaign might be. 

The real value is in analyzing and using these numbers.  An email campaign should really be an ongoing test.  Testing is always a good idea but even the actual email sends serve as tests.  Small changes should be made throughout to see how it effects opens, click throughs, and ultimately conversions.

By tracking and measuring a lot of guesswork is removed from email marketing.  Objective analysis of the data is the only way to ensure ongoing improvement.

An email marketing campaign is only as good as the list it’s sent to.  Of course Tactic #4 covers getting names responsibly but maintaining contacts must also be actively managed.  After all, just because a person subscribes to the list doesn’t mean they are agreeing to receive it forever.  Maintenance efforts are necessary to ensure your email marketing subscribers continually receive the content they expect.

All email campaigns are a bit different.  Simple email campaigns, like a monthly newsletter, have an easier time of maintaining contacts.  It’s hard to get off track when the content is singular and the frequency is low.

However, as campaigns get more complex, more effort needs to be placed into contact maintenance.  This is typically achieved through list segmentation.  When a campaign begins to have multiple topics or user groups it is imperative that contacts are distributed into appropriate groups.  Furthermore, segmentation can get complex.  A subscriber might fall into multiple segments depending on what they desire or their subscriber profile.

As a rule of thumb contact maintenance through segmentation should be kept to meaningful groups.  Client and prospects (Past purchasers vs. first time purchasers) is a common delimiter.  Segments by topic is another.  As a warning, don’t start segmenting too granularly unless it serves a function.  Unnecessary segmentation only increases send complication and raises the chances for mistakes.

Map out a strategy for contact management that allows for efficiently running the email campaign but breaks subscribers down into meaningful groups that ensures they are receiving the content they desire.

Even in email, content is king.  A significant portion of marketing emails do a poor job with content.  This comes in two forms:

• Ads with no value proposition
• Untargeted blasts

Ads with no value propostion are the “selfish” looking SPAM emails we all receive . . . “Look at this” . . . “Buy This” . . . etc.  Poorly done advertising emails arrive provide an unexciting and unfocused message.  It’s a sad fact that these emails are usually less relevant than chain emails that get forwarded around.  Sure there’s no valuable content but at least a chain email typically comes from someone I know.

Untargeted blasts are the second culprit.  These are slapped together and sent out to any list that can be scrounged together.  It’s likely that the people receiving the message aren’t interested in the first place.  The content is poor because the people creating the email have no clue what content would be useful to the audience.  They don’t know that because they don’t know who the audience is.

There’s an easy fix for both these problems, spending some time and energy on your email campaign.  90% of the time emails with poor content are the result of laziness.  No effort has been placed into ensuring that the email campaign provides valuable information to the audience.  If the information isn’t valuable, the emails are worthless, and no conversion should be expected.

Email marketing without good content is SPAM.

An email marketing campaign is only a campaign if it has cohesion.  Recipients should easily see a progression.  The progression should be designed to provide expected content and lead recipients to a goal.  The most common goal is a conversion to a sale or a lead.

So how is cohesion attained?  The first is that content should be similar.  Is it an educational or informational campaign?  Pick a single focused topic, break it down into sub-topics, and fully cover each sub-topic.  Is it advertising?  Pick a single product or service.  Break the product or service into feature/benefits and fully cover each. Is it an invitation? Break down multiple invites and deliver them several times and with more urgency as the event date gets closer.

The beauty of email is that it lends itself perfectly to campaigns.  It’s easily and predictably delivered and remains affordable for multiple sends.  “Email blasts” that are one-time promotions never have as much impact as a campaign because a campaign builds credibility and focus.  A blast is a scatter-shot.  It makes a blind stab and then goes in a completely different direction and makes another stab.  It’s impossible to learn from metrics if the focus is constantly changing.  A campaign provides multiple opportunities for recipients to convert when their individual need is assessed.

Set a schedule for sending emails and stick to it.  It is not OK to haphazardly deviate from the send schedule.  A major part of email marketing success is due to reinforcement.  When the reinforcement is eroded the message fractures.

Think of the email campign as a publication (whether subscribers are paying for it or not).   There is a production deadline that needs to be met because the audience has been given an expectation.  A lack of consistency will erode the value of the email campaign.  The best content in the world isn’t useful if the audience doesn’t know when or if they will get it.

It’s not necessary to explain the send schedule to subscribers, though that is helpful when people subscribe so they have realistic expectations of when they will receive your content.  However, people get used to seeing email subscriptions at a certain recurring interval.  They will notice a significant change or delay even if the schedule hasn’t been explicitly laid out.  Always make sure that the email campaign schedule is consistent.