8 tips to achieve email marketing greatness

1. Image size: 512 px x 768 px 8 tips to achieve email marketing greatness

2. Email matters. Here’s why: According to a recent Radicati Group report, over 191 billion emails are sent and received around the world every day. Bringing that a bit closer to home, the Warwick Business School found that 1 in 12 UK workers are dealing with over 100 emails a day. Brands are as guilty as anyone in terms of filling up people’s inboxes. And that won’t stop anytime soon if econsultancy’s email marketing census is anything to go by. In 2014, 68% of companies ranked email as their best marketing channel in terms of ROI. So how do you deliver an experience that won’t get lost in the rush? That your customers will remember and act on? There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution that guarantees you email marketing immortality (that we know of anyway). However, we believe the following 8 tips can help you move your emails away from the ordinary and towards the remarkable. Take them into account every time you’re working on a new project and you’ll be one step closer to achieving great things with your emails. Once you’ve digested these 8 bite-sized tips be sure to look out for the main course: an in-depth Fresh Thinking session exploring email marketing best practice in action – with a little glimpse of what the future has in store

3. Tip One: Define your audience & objective • Who are you sending the email to and why are you sending it? • Are you clear on which audience you need to speak to in order to meet your objective? How have you defined/segmented that audience within your current data? • What is it you want them to do – upgrade, sign up, download, share? • Have you thought about how the content of your email is meeting their needs (to be informed, inspired, entertained), as opposed to just pushing out a brand message? • Has the email been triggered by previous behaviour? According to research carried out by RedEye, automated triggered emails based on behavioural data can double total email revenues • Is it linked to another piece of marketing you’ve sent them? If so, is your email consistent with that communication (message, tone, imagery)?

4. Tip Two: Set yourself a target • How will you know if it’s a success? • What are your key performance indicators? • A 2014 report by Silverpop found that a good open rate is around 24%, and a click through rate of 4% will put you above most industry averages. • That’s not to say you should limit yourself to standard email metrics though. Conversion rates, upgrades, customer engagement and social shares can also help track success • One thing to bear in mind though, could anything else influence these measures, or will it be purely down to the email?

5. Tip Three: Standout in the inbox • Getting your audience to open the email • Will your subject line stand out? Is it interesting, enticing, intriguing? • Will people be able to read the whole line? 30 characters is a good measure if you don’t want your message to get cut off • Can you personalise it? A 2013 Experian study found that personalised subject lines achieved 26% higher unique open rates than non-personalised lines • Does it link to and work seamlessly with the pre-header, headline and content of the email?

6. Tip Four: Think mobile as well as desktop • Making sure your email displays properly • Has the email been designed for mobile as well as desktop? According to Litmus, 47% of emails are now opened on a mobile device (March 2014). Some reports even suggest this can be as high as 70% depending on your target audience, product and email type • With that in mind, you’ll need to make sure your email design is responsive or scalable so that it be opened effectively across all mobile devices. Amazingly, the same Litmus report from above found that 58% of email marketers still aren’t designing for mobile! • It’s worth considering that people use different devices in different ways. Tablets tend to offer a more immersive experience and are used more for media and entertainment, whilst smartphone usage tends to focus on communication and task-orientated activities. Could you tailor your email content accordingly? • Have you used a big enough font size? • And have you thought about what happens if your audience has their email images turned off?

7. Tip Five: Be relevant • Capturing people’s attention, and keeping it • Is the content relevant to the person you’re sending it to? • What could you do to make it more relevant – personalise it, make it timely (based on real world events), or have it reference or be ‘triggered’ by previous behaviour? • Depending on what reports you read, triggered emails achieve anything from 40-70% better open rates than ‘business as usual’ comms such as newsletters • Is your content easily scannable? Sub heads and bullet points can help readers pick up your key features and benefits at a glance

8. Tip Six: Make your email worth reading What does the customer get out of it? Think of it as a value exchange. They spend time on your email; you give them something in return: an exclusive offer or deal, inspiration, a useful tip, knowledge, a product or service that will make their lives better, easier, more fun…

9. Tip Seven: Give clear direction • What do you want people to do after reading your email? • Is your call to action in plain sight (not hidden away) and is it clear where people will be taken if they click on it/select it? • Have you considered that people opening emails on smartphones (and remember that 47% of emails are now opened on mobile devices) will use their fingers to select items? So use image buttons and keep them simple • Where are you sending people to? Is it a seamless journey? Does the ‘landing page’ feel like a natural extension of the email? Is it mobile optimised? • Can you integrate the email with social channels? If so, how easy is it for people to transfer to your social platforms?

10. Tip Eight: Test. Learn. Apply. Repeat. • Are you testing your emails to continuously improve them? • Email is highly measurable. Make the most of this fact by using it as a means to learn what works and what doesn’t. The elements you can test in order to optimise your communications are (almost) endless. Subject line. Headline. Layout. Images. CTA. Time/day of send. Landing page. Frequency of send. Links Vs buttons. Copy length…. • Then once you’ve found out what works and what doesn’t, be sure to apply those learnings. It seems obvious, but all too often organisations stick with what they know, even when they’ve learnt that what they know isn’t working

11. Sources • The supporting information in this deck was pulled from a number of documents analysing the wonderful world of email marketing, including insights from the following experts: • Econsultancy • http://www.adestra.com/resources/downloadable-reports/2014-email-marketing-industry-census/ • The RadicatiGroup • http://www.radicati.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Email-Statistics-Report-2013-2017-Executive-Summary.pdf • Litmus • http://www.emailmonday.com/mobile-email-usage-statistics • http://www.smartinsights.com/email-marketing/mobile-email-marketing/optimising-mobile-email-campaigns/ • Silverpop • https://econsultancy.com/blog/64994-email-marketing-benchmarks-2014-how-do-you-stack-up#i.14jtzaf54gd53x • RedEye • http://www.redeye.com/resources-and-blog/whitepapers/2014/top-10-tips-for-effective-b2c-marketing-automation/ • Experian • http://www.marketingcharts.com/online/more-data-supports-personalization-of-emails-39688/ • Feel free to expand your mind further by taking a look!