A Deep Dive into Email Programs: What's Working Now to Engage Customers

Welcome to the 2010
Digital Marketing World
Virtual Conference Series

A Deep Dive into Email Programs:
What's Working Now to Engage Customers

Bill Leming, Vice President, Strategic Services, SubscriberMail

CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY
©2010 SubscriberMail. All rights reserved.

A Deep Dive into
e-Newsletters

Bill Leming
VP S trategic Services
SubscriberMail


Agenda
• Email Strategic Evolution
• Strategy
• Perception
• Human Connection
• SPAM
• Relevancy/Engagement
• Integration
• Social
• Testing/Analytics
• Mobile


Email marketing has evolved into a
sophisticated medium


Email Marketing: Old vs. New
The Old Way The New Way
Build a mailing list, anyway you can Quality vs. quantity

Fool the IS to boost delivery
Ps Authentication and reputation

Avoid “spam words” that trigger filters Engagement and content

How many people opened? Conversions/ROI

Image-focused messages Smart layouts, pre-headers

Cute subject lines Engaging, non-teaser formats


How do I evolve my email
marketing?


Start Thinking Strategically
• The blueprint or foundation of an effective email marketing
program
• S the goals and program objectives for an overall email
ets
initiative
• Analyze results and optimize for sustained success


Key Areas of Email Strategy


Objectives: What business objectives are we trying to achieve?


Audience Segments: How will audiences be segmented?


Data Opportunities: What data should be collected and used?


Message Types: What types of messages will be sent to segments?


Message Frequencies: How often should messages be sent?


Key Metrics: What defines success, and how should it be measured?


Technology: What technology integration is required?


Changing perceptions of email


=


The Necessity of the Human
Connection


You’re not sending to this…


You’re sending to this…

Broadcast has given way to
narrowcast

The recipient definition of SPAM
has changed…So should yours


The First SPAM Message Ever:

DIGITAL WILL BE GIVING A PRODUCT PRESENTATION OF THE NEWEST
MEMBERS OF THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY; THE DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND
2060T. THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY OF COMPUTERS HAS EVOLVED FROM THE TENEX
OPERATING SYSTEM AND THE DECSYSTEM-10 <PDP-10> COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE.
BOTH THE DECSYSTEM-2060T AND 2020T OFFER FULL ARPANET SUPPORT UNDER THE
TOPS-20 OPERATING SYSTEM. THE DECSYSTEM-2060 IS AN UPWARD EXTENSION OF
THE CURRENT DECSYSTEM 2040 AND 2050 FAMILY. THE DECSYSTEM-2020 IS A
NEW LOW END MEMBER OF THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AND FULLY SOFTWARE
COMPATIBLE WITH ALL OF THE OTHER DECSYSTEM-20 MODELS.  WE INVITE YOU TO
COME SEE THE 2020 AND HEAR ABOUT THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AT THE
TWO PRODUCT PRESENTATIONS WE WILL BE GIVING IN CALIFORNIA
THIS MONTH. THE LOCATIONS WILL BE:  TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1978 - 2 PM HYATT HOUSE
(NEAR THE L.A. AIRPORT) LOS ANGELES, CA  THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1978 - 2
PM DUNFEY'S ROYAL COACH SAN MATEO, CA (4 MILES SOUTH OF S.F. AIRPORT AT
BAYSHORE, RT 101 AND RT 92)  A 2020 WILL BE THERE FOR YOU TO VIEW. ALSO
TERMINALS ON-LINE TO OTHER DECSYSTEM-20 SYSTEMS THROUGH THE ARPANET. IF
YOU ARE UNABLE TO ATTEND, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT THE NEAREST DEC
OFFICE FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EXCITING DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY.


Perception vs. Reality
• The definition of SPAM has changed
• “Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems
(including most broadcast media, digital delivery
systems) to send unsolicited bulk emails
indiscriminately”


SPAM is in the Eye of the Beholder
• If a message looks like spam to a recipient, they will
report it even if it is legitimate and/or they’ve previously
opted in
• Avoid ALL CAPS in your subject lines
• Spelling, grammar, punctuation
• Ambiguous subject lines
• Awkward personalization
• The level of recipient engagement far outweighs “SPAM
verbiage” in the eyes of ISP filters
• A legitimate message with major display errors can be
misconstrued as SPAM

• Today we are dealing with more savvy/impatient email
recipients
• Compliance with the legal definition is no longer
enough
• Recipients define SPAM as “any email they do not
wish to receive”


Optimizing for SPAM Filters
• Tools to help
• Run messages through a S PAM check to
analyze content prior to deployment
• Automatic bounce and unsubscribe
processing


Optimizing for SPAM Filters
• Best Practices
• Make sure you are authenticated
• Utilize delivery monitoring whether in-house or
through an ES P
• Ensure everyone sending on behalf of your
organization is utilizing best practices (digital
reputation)


If engagement is king, how do you
increase it?


Increasing Relevancy/Engagement
• Gather
• Test
• Analyze
• Optimize


Integration is Key
• A way for clients to connect
their email programs with
other existing sales and
marketing tools
• Creates a way for different
technologies to be used in
tandem


Gathering Data
• Get recipients involved in
choosing what they want
from you
• Email preference centers
• Surveys
• Personalized offers


Gathering Data


Data Through Integration
• Email & CRM
• Send email based on online/offline purchase activity
• Enhance segmentation efforts
• Lifecycle messaging
• Data synchronization


Behavior Driven Messaging


Email testing is about leveraging
the medium’s unique ability to
provide fast and accurate results to
incrementally improve your email
marketing efforts


Beyond the A/B S Test
plit
• Testing is about creating a user scenario or behavior
– not just creating a specific element in your message
• Determine objectives for short term and long term goals,
formulating tests that can help incorporate each of those
aspects
• Go further than just splitting your list into two equal
groups:
• Test within main segments and sub-segments
• Test new subscribers vs. old subscribers


Define Your Goals
• To optimize engagement, test:
• Day/time to send
• From name
• Subject lines
• Creative/layout
• Copy
• Calls to action


Learn and Refine
M T W Th F

Newsletter deployed each day of the week to a different group of 50K recipients.

Test objective:
Which day of the week yields the best results?

An alternative method:
Historical data should already make a strong case for the days of the week that typically
perform best. S egment your most active subscribers and conduct an Nth sample test over the
days in question.

* D epend on your m ost loyal, engaged subscr iber s t o pr ovide t he t ype of
dat a you can act on wit h confidence.


Methods – N-th Level Splits

2nd 1st In this example, every 4th
subscriber is added to the
3rd sample audience.

4t
h

Methods – Multivariate Testing
Gr oup A Subject Line 1 1-Column Layout Offer 1

Gr oup B Subject Line 1 1-Column Layout Offer 2

Gr oup C Subject Line 1 2-Column Layout Offer 1

Gr oup D Subject Line 1 2-Column Layout Offer 2

Gr oup E Subject Line 2 1-Column Layout Offer 1

Gr oup F Subject Line 2 1-Column Layout Offer 2

Gr oup G Subject Line 2 2-Column Layout Offer 1

Gr oup H Subject Line 2 2-Column Layout Offer 2


Advanced Testing
• Heat-mapping to track eye movements of email recipients

Source: 3M Visual Attention Service


Test Against Recent Trends
• Stock photos vs. real photos


Test Against Recent Trends
• Stock photos vs. real photos
• New study shows that “big, feel-good images that
are largely decorative” are mainly ignored online
• Stock photos or generic people are also disregarded
• People engage more with a photo if they know the
image or the person in the photo is real


Analytics Integrations:
Closing the Loop


Analytics Integration
• Email & Analytics
• Data “beyond the click”
• Web funnel analysis and optimization
• Cross/Upsell opportunities based on
behaviors


Analytics Today: S.A.M.E Project
• eec S.A.M.E. (Support Adoption of
Metrics for Email) Project
• Combating lack of consistent email
metrics standardization by creating a
standardized metrics for industry
adoption
• Creating new definitions for email
metrics


Practical Applications


Engaging Through Other Channels


Engaging Through Social Media
• Broaden reach by
allowing subscribers to
share content online


• Build your social
media following
through email


• Use social media to acquire engaged subscribers


Engaging Through Mobile
• More than 1 billion consumers will be accessing email on
their mobile phones by the year 2013, compared to fewer
than 200 million in 2009
• 21% of mobile marketing responders indicated that they
respond to three or more offers per month


• Simple changes to your normal messages can ensure that mobile users can
clearly see your messages
• Include a link to a plain text version in your HTML message
• Use descriptive alt text for images to display on phones where images
are blocked
• Use the subject line and pre-header to promote your main call to
action
• Subject lines should be around 35 characters
• Think vertical – some mobile displays are as small as 320 pixels
wide
• Give links enough space to be clickable


• Email & SMS
• Dual acquisition
• Cross-channel communication
and follow-up
• Message-by-medium optimization
(long vs short, time-sensitive vs
at-your-convenience)


Email

Landing Page

SMS
Message


Text “SMail” to 639227

Visit http://tinyurl.com/3586shq

Summary
• Always be evolving
• Think strategically – long-term how do you achieve
your goals?
• Engage with your subscribers as individuals not just a
number in a statistic
• Always be testing and analyzing
• Look for new ways to integrate your email: mobile/social


Never stop progressing, testing,
exploring


Questions?

Bill Leming
VP S trategic Services
info@subscribermail.com
630.303.5000


Please join us in the Networking Lounge for a
Moderated Q&A with Bill Leming
In the Networking Lounge,
click on ‘Scheduled Chats’ to join the discussion NOW

A Deep Dive into Email Programs: What's Working Now to Engage Customers

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