Develop Your Subject Lines

Your subject line is often the one chance you will get someone to open your email. Having a good subject line is often not enough, you have to instil a sense of urgency in the consumer’s mind and give a reason to really make them want to click on your email. You also need to sum up the best or most topical / relevant piece of content in your email in the subject line. People will get many promotional emails every day and it’s becoming a real challenge to get your email opened.

The best way to find the best subject line is not simply though brainstorming and running with the best idea, you should be actively testing multiple subject lines with each send. You may have had multiple subject lines that have worked well in the past and in some rare cases, sticking to these with only small modification will work. For the rest of us it is more difficult than this and you need to use around 3 unique lines per send.  You can then send out a small proportion of your email list to a good sample of your email list and from there determine which has the best open rate. Then you can use this data to choose the email subject line for the rest of the send, ensuring you have gone with the best performing line for the bulk of your campaign.

This may sound tricky to do, but actually most good email providers will do this automatically on each send with the only work involving setting up the different subject line variants.

Segment Your Data

The ideal aim for any email marketer is to have a list segmented out to each relevant area of your business and emails to these people will then always be highly targeted and therefore well received. This can be problematic though and if the lists are not large enough to allow specific sends for only certain interests then you may have to settle for less targeted sends to the whole list.

If you do have the option to target emails then you should be doing this. This should be based on previous buying history, interests registered when signing up, areas of the website viewed previously and data collected from previous emails sent out. You will receive much better rates of open, click through and conversion if you can target people in this way, and also reduce the risk of these people unsubscribing from the list.

Once you have got your data into segments, you should store it in this way in your email system by either sub categorising your main list or using separate lists for each segment. Then when you create your next campaign, only send to the segments that will really be interested in this promotion. This also means you can create more campaigns over the month but individuals will not be bombarded with that many emails in too short a time period, which brings me on to my next tip.

Manage email send frequency

Striking the balance between keeping regular contact with the user and bombarding them with too many is a tricky task, but in general I would advise sending certainly no more than one email per week. For some industries this may even be too much and a fortnightly send is the right amount. A lot of companies try more than this, and even brands that should be able to get away with it by having rapidly changing stock and regular offers send too many emails in my opinion. Amazon is a real offender in my book and I only keep subscribed with them to monitor this situation, I long gave up clicking or buying on the email I receive every other day.

There is a debated technique that is built into a lot of email providers and that the is the “second chance send”. Essentially when an email is sent out to your list and x amount of people receive but do not open your email, you are given an option to second send your email with a some of the key features of the email changed to try and encourage them to open this time round.

This in my experience can be a really powerful tool and can boost enquiries / sales without the need for much extra work in terms of setting up a new campaign. It can however annoy people on your list and lead to much higher than usual unsubscribe rates. It is something to consider and use from time to time, but be careful about which emails you do it from, and which segments you send it to.

Summary

There is obviously more that can be done and I will pick some of these up in my next post. There is another big change happening in the world of email marketing and that’s Google’s priority inbox. Assessing what affect this is having on emails is key at the moment and is something we will be documenting soon. In the meantime check out Matt’s post on the key features of the system by clicking here.

The study assessed emails sent by thirty six UK retailers in April 2010, evaluating each email against a sixteen point list of criteria based on dotMailer’s email scoring matrix and the DMA’s email best practice guidelines, awarding each retailer with a total score out of one hundred. Two new categories of social media and mobile were added to the study in 2010, reflecting the changing nature of recipient behaviour. A concerning finding highlighted in the study is that 73% of the retailers which featured in the 2009 study, achieved lower scores this time round. The average score in this year’s report was sixty, down on last year’s average of sixty seven. In addition from the email campaigns surveyed, only 11% of retailers scored seventy or above.

In terms of retailer positioning in the study, Marks and Spencer were knocked off the top spot by HMV and Republic. Figleaves and New Look, a new entry for this year, came in at joint second place. Harrods, Early Learning Centre and H&M faired worse, scoring under 50%, with the inconsistent delivery of emails across different email clients and mobile devices identified as problematic areas. The study emphasises that through the implementation of some simple changes and improvements, retailers can expect to start seeing some positive results, quickly.

 Four key areas for improvement and tips have been provided which are intended to provide high street retailers with the potential to maximise their campaign returns:

1.  Integration with Social Media & extending brand reach

According to the Econsultancy, although some analysts are predicting that the growing social media presence in the online world is threatening the use of email; I tend to agree with the opposing view that the integration of email and social media in campaigns can attempt to improve the effectiveness of both. For instance email has the potential to increase the awareness of a brands social media presence and encourage recipients to share email content on social networks. The dotMailer report reveals that retailers attempting to do this are scoring on average just two out of thirteen points available. Therefore indicating potential to build on consumer engagement levels and delivering meaningful results such as interactions online, sales and loyalty.

Further ways to extend the reach of email marketing campaigns include the addition of a link which allows recipients to forward emails to friends. The study reveals that very few retails are actually using this feature. Viral and word-of-mouth marketing can also provide lucrative opportunities to spread marketing messages, driving traffic, collecting contact data and increasing revenue at little or no cost to the marketer.

 2. Email Personalisation

The 2009 study criticised retailers for failing to personalise their emails, yet this year’s scores have declined even further. From the thirty six campaigns studied, just three were using personalisation. Even more worrying is the revelation that 33% of the retailers studied collected extra data in the email sign up process, yet only four of them actually used this data to tailor the email content specific to their customers.  Statistics provided in the dotMailer study indicate that opening an email with a personalised greeting can significantly improve both open and click-through rates by engaging the recipient and can also help to establish one-to-one communication. 92% of the emails assessed failed to do this, a significant increase on the 70% in 2009. This is clearly an area where retailers have potential to improve on.

 3.  Email Content, Coding and optimisation

The study revealed that 19% of recipients tend to avoid reading emails which they anticipate is spam and a further 19% perceive an email is spam if it is blank when the images are turned off. There is still more work to be done in this area as only 8% of the emails studied actually displayed correctly in every type of email account. The results in this category indicate that retailers are not taking the straightforward actions required to overcome the risk of their email being mistaken for spam. The dotMailer study indicates that simple steps can increase email open rates by up to 40%. It is recommended that email templates have a good balance of text to images in order to pass through spam filters more efficiently and also ensures that an email is actually readable when images are switched off by the recipient.

 In addition as the usage of various Smartphones is still growing strongly, the likelihood is that more and more customers will be reading their emails on their phones. It is therefore important that marketers monitor emails being sent to mobiles and optimise as required. Top tips include keeping emails brief with clear call to actions along with adding links such as view on a mobile.

 4.  Persuading recipients to take action – the ultimate purpose of email marketing!

The key to success for any email campaign is to help recipients determine who the email is from, making the message instantly clear along with providing any follow up actions required in terms of what is expected from recipients once they have read the email. A third of the retailer’s emails assessed in the study essentially failed to provide clear call to actions. It is recommended that retailers brand names along and call-to-actions are obvious and clear to see, both above and below the page fold in order to drive recipients towards taking action.

Summary

This year’s dotMailer report shows how slow many of the high street retailers are reacting to the need for best practice in their email marketing in order to fully maximise their returns. Email marketing remains a powerful tool in the digital marketing mix in terms of tapping into consumer’s online channels and communities along with using personalised and compelling content to deliver results. Furthermore in terms of building campaigns that remains fresh and relevant email messages must now promote integration with social networks pages and mobile channels. If you require any help or assistance in terms of improving the overall effectiveness of your emails; don’t hesitate to contact us.

Resist the temptation to over send to your list!

In our experience we find a campaign is most successful when the customer is contacted fortnightly and in some cases once a month. Sending out any more than this not only annoys people but they stop reading them as the view is that the email will simply contain more of the same. This takes the impact away from your emails when you have a good offer that customers will likely want to take up but don’t get to even see it as they think it’s another one like the last.

This equates to having a valuable email address wasted or they could unsubscribe and leave the list altogether. When you think about the lifetime value this customer could bring to your company you have to question whether it is really worth over sending and losing lots of these potential customers.

Is the content of the email relevant to your customers in the email list?

Legally you can only email people on your list a similar product or service to the one they bought when they transacted with you (if you signed them up in this way) but there is a much bigger incentive to make the email targeted. In our experience click through rates and conversions have been up to three times better when the email has been targeted towards the customer base it was sent out to.

Are your emails always just about the hard sell?

If you want customers to engage with you more (which you should) you need to do more with them than shove your products and services under their nose every time you talk to them. Break up your selling emails with ones offering “tips and tricks” and “how to guides” about products they have bought recently or on areas they have expressed interest in. This will give customers a reason to read all of your emails and not be always expecting the sell. It also helps build a relationship between them and your brand.

Finding the best subject line!

Getting the right subject line is key to getting people to open your email. A good subject line will vary depending on the industry you operate in. The best place to start is to look at previous campaigns and which subject lines have worked for your list before in relation to the emails content. For example it may be that your product is time sensitive and adding an element of urgency to the subject line encouraged people to click through and act. Others may find a much more subtle subject line works for a more considered purchase.

The subject line should inform but not mislead, you don’t want people clicking through to then only be disappointed by the offering on the website and subsequently leave. Lastly remember to summarise the emails content with key information first as this may be the only words a potential customer glances over amongst many others sat in their inbox.

Sending at the best time and date!

Getting the email out to customers at a time when it will be most effective is one of the most important considerations when improving an email campaign. As with an effective subject line this will vary greatly depending on your list and the type of product or service you are promoting. You can look at industry best days or recommended days but this will unlikely help you at all. You need to consider when people should get the email and how this links in with the website.

If the email is promoting a time sensitive offer that is soon to expire, the email simply needs to go out as soon as possible. If on the other hand it is promoting a sale on a fixed day, give the customer a good amount of notice and on a day that has traditionally given you good open rates then follow this up with an email the day before to remind them.

Final Thoughts

Each of these areas in itself is worthy of a full post and the next set of email articles will start to address these in turn to inform you in detail good tips and tricks to get the most out of your email campaigns. Keep checking back to the blog over the coming weeks for these updates and in the meantime if you have any questions please feel free to contact us.

This obviously applies whether the email is being used in B2B or a B2C context and if you have spent money on a targeted list that you plan to send out to, you don’t want to suffer from high unsubscribe rates or low click through rates. If this is your first email campaign then I have listed a few pointers that should be considered when making a campaign plan which you should find more than useful. If this is not your first email campaign it is vitally important to use any data collected from your previous emails to improve your future campaigns.

Making an email campaign plan

Below are some questions to consider when making an email campaign plan for getting the best out of your emails and ensuring they are as effective as possible.

1) What do you want to achieve by sending out the email?

This is probably the most important question you need to ask. If you don’t know a good reason for sending out the email then you shouldn’t be sending one out. You need to be clear about the objective of the email as this should dictate the tone and content of the email when it is being designed. For example are you simply trying to drive traffic to your website or are you promoting a specific product or service on your site? Are you trying to re-engage inactive customers or inform current customers about a change to your business? All of these are valid reasons for an email but your must have your objective clear before commencing the design.

2) What can you do with the email to make it work?

This is the hardest part and you will need to rely on your marketing experience (or use us if you want help with this!). Knowing what will work obviously depends on hundreds of factors and what are you promoting will affect how this should be advertised. If you are promoting a proposed long term business to business partnership then focusing on cheap prices is not likely to be a deciding factor in the customers mind. Conversely promoting a product that is being sold by hundreds of retailers really needs to focus on good price, free p&p and good delivery lead times as well as being from a reputable company. It’s pointless promoting something that the customer potentially finds somewhere else for half the price if there is no incentive to buy from you instead.

3) Designing and building your email!

The first thing to note is that most people on your email list will also be on tens if not hundreds of other companies email lists. You need to do something with your email to make it stand out. Using pre-made templates that are given with a lot of email software may seem like a quick convenient way of getting emails churned out but what’s the point if people then don’t read them. You need to make your brand stand out and send people something that makes them want to open it and click through. This should be a unique offer each time and not just harassing people who will at best not read your email and at worst unsubscribe from your list. Other considerations need to be to the way the email is built. The coding should look right in the whole spectrum of email clients such as Google, Yahoo, Outlook, Hotmail etc. The email also needs to be built in a way that is friendly to spam filters as you don’t want to end up in the users junk folder or the email be so large that it takes someone 5 minutes for it to open in their browser.

4) How good is your email send list?

The only thing that is going to affect your results as much as the content of the email is the quality and size of the list you are going to send to. If your list is made up of previous customers who have made a purchase and you are sending them a promotion relating to their interests you are going to experience much higher click through rates and conversions that if your list is made up of people who have only submitted their email for a competition. With this in mind, if your list is large enough consider segmenting it out and sending a more targeted email to a particular group in the list.

5) Is the subject line catchy enough?

The subject line is sometimes the only way you will catch the users attention as they may not even open the email if the subject is not catchy. With this in mind you need to summarise the emails content and offer some incentive to click all in a small sentence. Also bear in mind the target audience and ensure the subject offers something that will make them want to click. Using multiple subject lines is a good way to ensure the best one is sent out to the majority of your list and this can be done within all good email software (our system can handle this for you so again if you need some help with your email marketing just give us a shout).

6) Is the email fully tested before you send it out?

Don’t put in all the effort on all the above areas to then have it ruined through sending out an email with a mistake on it. Double check the email and its content during some tests and ensure the offers and any details are all correct. Once the email has been finalised it should be sent to a test email account for all the different email providers to ensure it looks correct and does not go into the junk folder. Once this is done your ready to send. Good luck!

In Summary

Before sending out any email make sure you have the objectives clearly set out. You need to make the email unique and offer something to differentiate it from the competition. Ensure the subject line is catchy and the email is built and designed in spam friendly manner to ensure better click through rates.

I will discuss post send reporting and how to improve your campaigns in the next post. For the moment please feel free to ask any questions using the box below. Happy holidays!