Despite the naysayers claiming email marketing is on the way out thanks to the snowballing impact of social networking and new forms of communication, the facts are very different. Email continues to play a vital role in both business and customer communication.
According to Epsilon, email is used more regularly than social networking for personal communication, while 30% of organisations in Econsultancy’s Email Marketing Industry Census claimed an ROI from email in excess of 500%.
Where I think the challenge lies is in understanding how to engage customers using email marketing, integrating with other channels like social media, instead of relying on blast broadcasts and hoping that someone will respond because you’ve taken the time to email. There is so much noise in the world, you need to understand how to make your email communication relevant and worth reading.
Here are my tips on what you can do with your email strategy to help improve performance in 2010...
1. Drive clicks with customer reviews
Research from Manage Smarter (September 2009) found that 74% of people are influenced by the opinions of others when buying products. 47% of the 1,000 shoppers polled said they look to on-site reviews when making a decision.
The first goal is to get customer reviews on your website. Not only good for on-page conversion, this has the added benefit of supporting SEO as major search engines like Google now place greater value on rich snippets like customer reviews.
The second goal is to drive site traffic by promoting your reviews. Email is a perfect channel. Start simple by sending an email with a relevant top rated product and link through to the product and a ratings and reviews landing page.
The next step is to increase sophistication and segment your email audience so that individuals receive review content based on their browsing/buying behaviour.
2. Increase engagement with social media
Every time you contact a customer, you have a chance to offer them your social media services. To make social media presence worthwhile, you need an audience to engage with. The more people signed up and staying in touch, the greater your chance of getting their attention when the wallet is open.
Have a standard button in each email that points to your social profiles. Educate your customers on the benefits of following you. Feature comments from other customers to demonstrate the value. Why not add a screenshot of your current Twitter feed?
Buying cycles can be long, especially when people are more cautious with spend in the current economic climate. Keep people engaged with your brand during ‘quiet’ times, providing added value content via social forums like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Mindshare can lead to walletshare.
Social media can play a quid pro quo role – you can highlight newsletter sign-up on your social profiles. For example, it is possible to add a newsletter sign-up box on your Facebook business page.
3. Improve relevance with event triggered emails
This can be effective if you integrate with on-site functionality like wishlists and bookmarking – an email trigger alerts your customers to the ability to create a birthday wishlist on your site and bookmark to their friends.
Set-up customer email preferences to support event dates, allowing customers to tell you when something special is happening. Use automated emails and dynamic content to tailor messaging to the customer e.g. if a customer has given you his Mum’s birthday, make sure the content contains gifts relevant to the mum.
66% of companies don’t send emails on specific dates like birthdays – how can you use event triggers to improve customer service and engagement via email?
4. Don’t ignore abandonment emailing
As I explored with Charles Nicholls of SeeWhy in my last blog, retargeting is an effective way of driving conversion by email. Adestra research shows that two thirds of UK companies fail to send emails to customers who have abandoned their baskets.
There are many reasons why people abandon baskets – not all you can counter but some simply leave due to frustration with the checkout process or because they’ve been distracted. Abandonment emails offer a route to tackling the issues immediately and striking while the iron’s hot.
According to Silverpop, Diapers.com experienced an increase in email open rate of 48% for abandonment emails and a net conversion rate of 129% higher.
5. Increase activity with a lifecycle approach
If I’m a new subscriber to your newsletter, what can I expect? Why should I instantly think of opening, clicking and buying?
As a loyal lifetime customer, how do you provide me with a differentiated service that recognises me as an individual based on past behaviour? A lifecycle approach can start by splitting customers into 4 segments:
- Nursery program for newbees
Welcome emails, introductory offer to incentivise activity, highlight key elements of the website
- Activation program
Test subject lines to drive open rates, test offers and content to uplift click through and purchases.
- Retention program
Use dynamic content to personalise email content and segment your database to increase the relevance and impact of your emails. Don’t bore people into inactivity.
- Data cleansing
You need to reactivate lapsed customers with timely offers and messages. Purge ‘dead’ contacts from your database and focus your time and money on those who are interested in what you’ve got to say.
6. Increase reach with viral triggers
Make sure that every email you send has a send-to-friend button enabling people to share your content with their friends. This button should land them on a branded form page allowing them to enter multiple email addresses. Re-assure people that you will not use their friends’ email addresses for marketing purposes as from a Data Protection angle you can’t do this.
On-site add social bookmarking. This enables visitors to bookmark key pages (product and content) across their social networks, increasing content reach. Add This provides a free tool that is easy to implement.
This is not an exhaustive list – there is always room for improvement with email so I recommend maintaining a continuous dialogue with your customers to find out what else you could be doing to improve the quality and relevance of your email marketing. Don’t let the Web2.0 and social media buzz words distract you – you need to define how they can support your commercial goals and enhance existing marketing channels like email, not replace them.
What do you think? Please share your thoughts and other suggestions for delivering effective email programs.
Learn more...
Econsultancy's Email Marketing Buyer's Guide is aimed at those who are investigating the market for email marketing platforms, with profiles of 24 leading suppliers. The 196-page guide, which has a UK focus, provides details on the issues and trends affecting this sector, as well as information about best practice and tips for choosing a suitable supplier.
James Gurd is an e-commerce and marketing consultant who blogs on social media, and a guest blogger at Econsultancy. He can also be found on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Posted 12 November 2009 09:30am by James Gurd with 10 comments
Tags: james gurd, Email marketing, social media optimisation, ecommerce
Topics: Ecommerce, Email Marketing, Social Networks & Online Communities, Strategy & Planning
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Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
Digital Marketing Consultant, Author and Speaker at Marketing Insights Limited
9:48AM on 12th November 2009
Amen to all that James.
Interesting that you didn't mention newsletters that much (other than signup). They used to be the main tactic, but it seems with falling responses, more companies have moved to tactical e-blasts - many event-triggered as you say.
Of course, you can insert event-triggered dynamic content into enewsletters too but the research you referred to shows it still surprisingly rare.
BTW I have just completed a best practice guide on Email Marketing for Econsultancy, so watch out for that soon.
eCommerce & Marketing Consultant at James Gurd
10:57AM on 12th November 2009
Hi Dave
Thanks for the comment - take your point about newsletters, reason why I didn't was because I think people are comfortable with the concept of a good newsletter (less so integrating dynamic content) but there is less evidence of taking email to a more personal and relevant level.
Look forward to the Email Marketing guide, always good to get the latest thinking ready for Client discussions.
BTW who do you think does B2C email marketing really well?
thanks
james
Digital Marketing Consultant, Author and Speaker at Marketing Insights Limited
12:27PM on 12th November 2009
Anyone who has really got event-triggered emails and dynamic content insertion sorted and that's those that have taken the time to develop a customer communications strategy to do the analysis and create the rules and templates to make that work. It's a project.
Most of the big retailers such as Amazon, Argos, Argos, to name but 3 have realised this is important and setup a project to sort out their customer comms strategy, but many haven't.
BTW for the email naysayers, your post prompted me to write this Social Media: Dont Believe the Hype! post which shows that ASOS gets around 9% of sales c10 million from their twice weekly enewsletter.
2:56PM on 12th November 2009
Great advice! That's exactly what I'm doing for my clients. With all the talk about rivalry between email and social media, a major truth is missed. And that's how much they compliment each other.
3:32PM on 12th November 2009
Great article! I think email communication can often suffer from the same "if you build (or send) it they will come" mentality that hurts so many web sites. In the end, whatever you're doing on the web has to be about your customers first. Whether it is your web site, email or social networking - the best results always come from thinking from your customers' point of view and giving them something they want or need.
eCommerce & Marketing Consultant at James Gurd
10:28AM on 13th November 2009
Thanks for the encouraging comments, glad the post has been interesting reading. It is good that others see the importance of communication channels working together - social media is just another channel in your customer communication mix and can benefit existing ones. Take a peek at Dave's blog (link above) for evidence from ASOS - useful reading.
10:48AM on 13th November 2009
A good example of excellent B2C is ARGOS. I don't know who the agency is but the emails are very well put together.
No event triggers though, as I have looked at 32" TV's many times.
They should be smart enough to send me an incentive to make the plunge and spend.
11:24AM on 4th December 2009
This post about email marketing covering all important steps to increase the sale via this new method. Suggestions are very good and I will all tips and suggestions will include in my stratagy.
4:39AM on 16th December 2009
Great advice! That's exactly what I'm doing for my clients. With all the talk about rivalry between email and social media, a major truth is missed. And that's how much they compliment each other.
12:31AM on 19th January 2010
Excellent article on email marketing strategies. I'm learning more everyday from helpful writers like you! I like the send to friend viral trigger method you describe. I put one of them at the top of every newsletter!