Email – Small changes with a big difference

Last year there was talk about a downturn in email marketing as the popularity of social media for one-to-one communication rose. However as we start 2012, email continues to be an effective form of personalised communication with customers, as long as it remains relevant. So here are a few suggestions to help you on your way.

To improve your email marketing it’s useful to tackle each component – delivery, open, read and click. If you make small changes at each stage, then the combined effect is far more impressive, for example:

Delivery
Lots of technical advice could be imparted here, but why not start with your list. Believe it or not we’ve just reduced our bounce-rate at ADMA from double figures to less than 2% through sheer diligence in recording and cleaning up data. Quality is about processes and validation; nothing fancy. The other side of the coin is quantity and the key is offering value in return for a customer’s address and consent.

Open
People read the sender first and filter accordingly, and it’s fair to say that what people think about when they see your organisation’s name is outside the realm of email advertising. The subject line is the next most important factor and there are plenty of copy guidelines around length (<50 characters works best) and words to avoid, but here’s where segmentation comes into play for the first time. What you say in the subject line is like a headline. If it grabs me I’ll read on. If you’ve picked a headline which appeals to me because it’s relevant to my segment (whatever that may be) there’s a greater probability that I will open it.

Read
Segmentation again plays a major part. The more customised the content to the reader based on what you know about them the better. Also make the content more conversational rather than the “buy now” approach, by including user-generated content such as testimonials, ratings and links to social networks.

The other thing to consider is that around 20% of emails are read on a mobile device and this is considered to be the number one thing that people do with their smartphones. Having said that conversion is 5 times higher for tablets than smartphones and that’s partly to do with legibility and partly to do with the fact that you’re usually more stationary and it’s easier to browse with a tablet than a smart phone. Seeing as iPhones and their clones are HTML friendly, there’s a great opportunity to be more creative and engaging with your messages. Having said that, download speeds are slower with mobile so don’t go overboard.

Click
If the email is relevant then the click rate will be higher so all the above – segmentation, content, style, creativity apply. But the call to action in particular affects the click rate. There are two components - Easy instructions on how to take the next step and an enticing reason to take that step. Here’s also where social media and email work hand-in-hand. By adding social sharing buttons you’re in effect allowing the customer to respond and hear more from you in future.

Perhaps the biggest thing you can do to improve click rates though is relating the email to the customer’s behaviour or life-cycle. Are there events or patterns of customer behaviour which signify that they are more receptive? Identify them, work out how to detect them and set up the appropriate response. Because email has the advantage of speed, you could get an offer to the customer at the perfect time – and again the importance of this cannot be underestimated if the message is read on a mobile device, which they’re more likely to have on their person at the buying decision moment.

It’s a big topic – moving your email marketing up to the next level – and you can learn far more from the experts, as well as other marketers, by attending ADMA’s one-day Advanced Email Marketing course running in Sydney and Melbourne in April and May this year.