So I received this email from Hovis the other day and it got me thinking – how exactly did they get away with that?

So for all you eagle eyed people out there, yes you’re right, there is absolutely no unsubscribe link…(pause for a collective email marketing gasp)…

I was literally in shock that a company of Hovis’s size could actually disregard the absolute fundamentals of email marketing.

But then I re-assessed the situation.  When I first opened it, my only thought was “oooh free coupon”.  It wasn’t until I actually went into email marketing mode that the unsubscribe became apparent.

It’s always hard to now think on the other side of the fence of email marketing as most recipients still aren’t really that proactive with email marketing regulations. 

Now there is a very good chance that this email got an amazing amount of Spam complaints but I’m just wondering whether they didn’t receive that many as it was essentially an e-coupon, and who wants to turn down free stuff?

This is especially so as bread is virtually consumed by everyone in this country and getting a reduction on it is always welcomed.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.  Put yourself in a consumers position – would you really mark it as Spam when they’ve just sent you a discount on something you’re likely to buy anyway?

 Split Testing

Split testing is such a simple thing to carry out and will allow you to not only get to know your audience better but also increase conversions.

You can split test most aspects of a campaign but it is definitely worth split testing:

Subject Lines – Change the subject lines and see which has a higher open rate.
Email Design – Change the layouts around and see if different call to actions or layouts affect your conversion and click through rates.
Content – See what gets your recipients clicking by doing different versions of your email content.  Maybe put different emphasis on different areas to see how they react.

Triggered Emails

These can be a great follow up to your campaigns. Link triggered emails are an automatic response to a user clicking on a certain link within your email campaign.  Once they have clicked on the link, they receive an additional email that can follow up from the link they have clicked; allowing you to send targeted emails to people who not only want to receive them but who’s interest in that subject is also currently high.

Event triggered emails are also good to have in place to add a personal feel to your campaigns.  Events that are most commonly used – Birthdays, Holidays and events which correspond to your brand.

Autoresponder Campaigns

A great way to keep your recent subscribers interested in your email products is with an autoresponder campaign.  This only requires the initial setting up time and then it is automated so the work on your side is virtually zero after it is set up.

Take inspiration from this recent blog post I did about a few companies welcome campaigns: Judging Welcome Email Campaigns

Preference Centres

When is an unsubscribe, not an unsubscribe?  No this isn’t the build up to a terrible email marketing punchline, but a way to turn an unsubscribe into a positive improvement in your email marketing campaign.  Read more about this process here

Use previous results

It’s something which you will already have to hand and provides so much information about your campaigns and recipients habits but so many people still don’t use their previous email campaigns statistics to their full extent.

Look through previous campaigns and see what factors increased/decreased the opens/click throughs/conversions of your campaigns.  Then split test these factors to further your knowledge of your recipients and before you know it, you’ll be looking back at your early campaigns and wondering how you ever got business with such untargeted campaigns.