I’ve read a couple of blog posts recently that turned out to be a bit of an eye opener and have really helped me to look at email marketing in a new light (look at the bottom of the page for links).

Now, I can hold my hand up and admit that I may have spent too much time getting obsessed with the strategic side of email marketing and not offering some more inspiration for creativity.

Don’t get me wrong, I think a well thought about and well maintained email marketing campaign can really work wonders for you.  The problem lies in the fact that more and more companies are taking on email marketing and soon enough there will be many well maintained email marketing campaigns and yours will not be standing out from that crowd as much.

As well as having a stand out campaign, the main goal in todays climate is to not only grow the recipient list but to make sure that these recipients are attentive to your messages.  With that in mind I started to think about email campaigns and the holy grail of viral-ability (yes, I have just made that up, but if Ian Dowie can do it….).

In a previous post I pointed out how H&M had exceeded my expectations by giving me a £10 voucher when I signed up, which I then subsequently told my friends about who also signed up.  Though this was an expensive technique that most companies can’t really afford, the idea of it is still worth some heavy thought. 

Yes, I know, it’s easier said than done but if you can get something that has that forwarding on effect, you can guarantee yourself some serious, cheap exposure.

You have your usual just for laughs viral campaign that will guarantee forwarding during those long office hours (such as reggae irie name generator). 

But it doesn’t have to just be the usual type of viral campaign.  The H&M one was just such a good offer, it would be rude not to tell your friends about free money.  Another great example of this is from one of our own customers, The Urban Shop. They offer 15% off to anyone who forwards the email to their friends, plus another 10% for the person who gets the forwarded message.  Both people benefit from the forward whilst at the same time encouraging the recipient to sign up to the list to receive greater discount in the future.

Another thing you’ll have to remember is to not leave it to the customer to forward this email on.  Treat the link like you would a call-to-action (which it is really), and make sure that a well-placed forward button is present for them to click on.

So when you’re next creating an email make sure that you think long and hard about your forward link, it could be a fantastic way to not only re-ignite or maintain your recipients interest in your campaign, but may prove to be a successful way to increase your mailing list size in the process.

Useful Related Articles:

BeRelevant: How To Make Your Email Marketing Campaign Stand Out From The Rest

No Man is an iland: Take a design risk and get animated? I was dubious about this idea until I read the post and then was left with a head-nodding hmmm at the end

I thought I’d be nice and give you some important dates for the summer period. See if you can relate some of these events to your email campaigns:

Sporting Events

Wimbledon - 23rd June-6th July

Major Festivals

Notting Hill Carnival - 24th & 25th August

Bank Holidays

25th August

There’s also Fathers Day on the 15th June

These tips aren’t just about getting a vast amount of new subscribers, they’re designed for you to get a healthy list of active and interested subscribers.

1. Don’t make joining the mailing list mandatory when purchasing something from you.

   We all want to make our mailing lists increase, that’s a given, but there’s no need to increase it for the sake of numbers.  This will undoubtedly lead to an increase in recipients but it’s guaranteed that quite a few will be switched off from your messages.  Leave the “join our mailing list” check box unticked and try and entice them in with what you promise your content will have. 

2. Deliver what you Promised

   If you’ve promised that you’ll send them the most up to date information on new stock and sales, make sure that’s what you actually send them.  There’s a certain level a trust placed on you when a subscriber joins your mailing list and to break that by sending content that you didn’t promise will ultimately result in subscribers losing interest and not opening your communications in the long run.  For an example of how you should and shouldn’t carry this out, see my previous post on this subject.

3. Positioning of Subscribe Button

   Something as small as this can make all the difference.  Many articles I’ve read in the past have shown up to a 400% increase in subscribers joining their mailing list solely on the prominence of the subscribe button on their site.

4. Go beyond expectations

   Something I outlined in my previous post, is going above and beyond what you outlined your subscribers would receive from you.  Giving them a voucher or discount off of future purchases from you can really impress your subscribers, especially when they weren’t expecting it.  Word spreads when something like that occurs and can result in mailing lists expanding quickly.

5. Be consistent

   Try and send regular mail-outs to your subscribers.  The worst thing you can do is leave it for several months and then start sending out again, expecting your subscribers to still be interested in what you have to say.  Regular, relevant campaigns are the essential ingredient to growing and maintaining your subscribers.

I signed up for two clothing companies email campaigns not too long ago, and I have to say that it has been a mixed bag of emotions since.

The first company I signed up to was H&M. They promised they’d let me know when new stock, new offers and special deals were on (I’m a sucker for bargains). I thought that sounded like something I’d be up for knowing about, so entered my address in.

I instantly received a notification email from them and opened it up to find that they had given me a £10 voucher in the welcome email. I printed off the voucher and went down to H&M and spent it. I also told some of my mates about this cracking offer, who also signed up and spent their £10 vouchers.

Since then I have received another three emails from them, two of which had vouchers for me to print out, and the other gave me news of some special range of clothes coming in from some designer.

So not only did they manage to keep to their word but they also impressed me so much that I went and told my mates about it. They went above and beyond my expectations from an email marketing campaign. This is particularly impressive as they don’t actually have an online shop which means they had to drive us to get up and go to their shop.

Now the not so good.

Another company who don’t have an online shop but who I also enjoy shopping at is TK Maxx (did I mention I like bargains?). They promised to let me know when new labels and new stock was coming into the stores. As you really can find some treats now and then in TK Maxx I was quite excited about this idea and signed up.

The first signs that they hadn’t really thought this through properly was in the sign up process. As some of you may know, the clothing in TK Maxx is not the same from store to store, yet they didn’t ask for my postcode or at least general area.

TK Maxx also houses a wide range of clothing and items, spanning the different tastes of the UK population. Yet when I signed up they didn’t ask what areas I was interested in. I could see this going a bit sour.

Like H&M I received an instant notification email from them. I opened it, hoping for some kind of repeat performance of free stuff. What I got was a plain text email telling me that I had officially signed up and then reiterated what I should expect from them.

Since then what have I received? Nothing.

From what seemed like a great idea has just turned into something really quite disappointing, especially seeing the potential I saw in the TK Maxx campaign.

In contrast H&M have really worked wonders with theirs. The emails themselves are nothing spectacular or groundbreaking. But they don’t need to be as they have put the right amount of effort into their campaign planning before hand that they can just send out their campaign to a fully responsive audience.

As more and more companies turn to email marketing, it’s probably best to return back to the main factors in email marketing that need to be considered for a successful campaign.

So many companies come into email marketing hoping for a quick fix that will boost their sales and then very quickly stop the email campaign as they put no real thought into their emails. 

Whats the Objective of Your Campaign?

Probably the best thing to start off with is assessing what your overall plan is with this campaign.  Are you looking to increase sales? Build your brand up? Keep users in touch with latest happenings?

Once decided, you will be able to make better decisions for your campaign.  For instance, if your main goal is to increase sales, probably best to keep the latest developments in your company to a minimum and focus on the main goal.

Design and Layout

This can make the difference from someone opening your campaign, to clicking through to your website and making a purchase.  The first thing a recipient will see is the design of the email as they open it and as we all know, we make quick judgements.  If you send a poorly designed email that looks quite amateurish, then your recipients will see this as that. 

Remember that it is quite likely that these recipients get quite a few promotional emails, some from well-respected companies with good quality emails and yours must be comparable to them for your campaign to work.

The layout of your campaign can also determine how successful your campaign is.  You must make sure that if there is something you particularly want them to click on, that it is clear and obvious for them to click on.  This is otherwise known as the call to action.

Call to Action

Making your call to action prominent in the email is something that shouldn’t be an afterthought in your designing process.  This small part of the design process is also a major factor in your conversion rate, so put a lot of thought into how you want it to look and be placed.  You can try different methods, wording, graphics to get the most out of it.

Subject Line

Obviously this design thought will all be pointless if no-one is opening the email in the first place.  The subject line should be encouraging opens whilst at the same time summarising what is in the email itself.  Try and remember not to make it too long as you want your message to get across to your recipients without it truncating.  Try experimenting with your subject lines to see what factors change open rates.

Experimenting

There really is no definitive formula to making your campaign a success as every industry and recipient is different.  Though you can get the best practices in place, this may not necessarily mean you get instantly high responses.  The best thing to do is experiment with all aspects of your campaign and see which works best.  One of the most common methods is A/B split testing.  This way you can view for yourself which factors are working and which aren’t.  By experimenting for yourself, you’ll be guaranteed a happy and prosperous future in email marketing.

A little while ago I wrote an article about using transactional email as a promotion tool.  I wrote the article and then just completely forgot about the subject, until recently.

Today, I was just catching up on all the blog posts I’d missed over the past week or so and stumbled across a couple that really got me thinking about this subject again (see links at the bottom of my post).

When I wrote my post I just thought that by throwing in a couple of other related or best selling items into the email might increase a bit of interest within your company post-purchase.

As Nick Valeriote points out in his blog post, on average 54% of transactional emails are opened compared to the 21% of promotional emails that are opened.  As far as I can see it, you have opportunities to do so much with that transactional email.

Firstly you could try and get repeat business by offering a time-constrained deal or voucher.  Offering a month long discount or promotion to them will encourage repeat purchasing and may even put them on the step to the marketing holy grail – brand loyalty.  This kind of promotion as well would not be something that would annoy your recipient; whilst it is encouraging them to return to your site and purchase, it’s giving them something for free and not being too pushy.

Another option you could take up is a “send to a friend” promotion.  Once again, you will be offering a discount or voucher to both the sender and recipient of the promotion.  This way as well, you can take advantage of the purchasers recent interest in your company and reward it by giving them something for passing on your companies information.  Not only could this be a great way to increase both sales and email list size but there is no more trusted marketing channel than word of mouth; especially when the deal is sweetened with a discount.

Urgent: Why you should put house ads in your transactional emails starting tomorrow

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=29944

Enhance your transactional emails

http://www.inboxmarketer.com/blog/2008/03/enhance-your-transactional-messages.html

That’s right, some of you have already noticed a few things changing in mailingmanager.

We’re updating the system, and there’s some great new features in there. Not only have we got great little gadgets like multi-inbox viewers and some really handy list segmentation and filtering options now installed, but behind the scenes is running a whole lot smoother now.

We’re pleased as punch with it and hopefully you will be too.

The subscribe and unsubscribe process can often be overlooked.  People can sometimes just be so desperate to get those names into their database that they forget about actually putting some detail and effort into their sign up process.

Understandably, you don’t want to  put off the potential sign up by asking reams of questions to make your email marketing life simple but you can add a bit more in there that will work wonders for your campaign.

If you’re worried about putting them off by asking questions, why not have different emailing lists based on where they have signed up.  For instance, if they have signed up through a purchase from your company, you can send a campaign to them offering new products and discounts knowing that they already have an interest within your products.  If you have obtained their email address through a competition, you can feel pretty safe that you know that prizes and freebies will be a large motivator to them, and you can use that to drive them to the site.

Asking questions though will really help you in achieving a successful long-term email campaign.  Probably the best time to ask a couple of questions will be just after they have purchased something.  At that point, you know that they are receptive to you and will probably be quite happy in that post-purchase feeling so will be more likely to answer what kind of emails they would like to receive.

At the other end of the scale, you could avoid a lot of unsubscribes if you just ask a couple of questions on the unsubscribe screen.  Give them the option of what they want to receive and even how frequent they can receive it.  They may not want to receive latest product updates but are still open to a discount or a freebie but as you haven’t given them the option, they’re just going to unsubscribe from the whole lot.

Both these techniques can be used to help build and maintain a healthy mailing list that will keep you and your recipients happy in the long run.

After a recent dispute with someone I started to think about the different factors you need to consider when sending to business addresses.

With webmail addresses it basically comes down to authentication and reputation; with business addresses it’s a completely different game.

You basically have to make a decision. You either:

Accept that some of your emails are going to bounce and not go over the top on compromising on your design and tracking capabilities.

Or

Concentrate your campaign on deliverability and strip out as much as you can. Remove tracking and send a text email.

Okay, so it’s not as black and white as that but you get the idea. And before you ask, there really is no right and wrong answer. I’ve seen customers of ours have success with both methods so it really does depend on what the content is and what you’re trying to achieve from your campaign.

You’ve also got to look at which stage of your email marketing campaigns life you’re in. Are you starting up and generally just looking for exposure? Do you need to gage the success of your campaign to see where you can improve? Is it more the case that you have an amazing offer on at present that you want everyone to see? Is it your companies newsletter that is just updating people on recent events? Are you concerned about really putting your companies branding across?

These questions really have to be brought up at the beginning of your campaign planning so that you have a clear idea of what your goals are.

Unfortunately there is no general rule for business address as each organisation has different rules for what can and can’t get through the filter so don’t be shy to test the water.