Top 20 Best Practices for Email Marketing

1. Top 20 Best Practices forEmail Marketing Top 20 Best Practices forEmail Marketing

2. Your Presenter: The Partner Marketing Group is a marketing consulting resource for Microsoft partner organizations. Virginia Weinstein Virtual Marketing Director Virginia@thepartnermarketinggroup.com

3. Why Email Marketing Why Email Marketing? 1. Email can be tracked, forwarded, linked and measured. 2. Obtain a higher response rate than print advertising 3. Economical

4. Permission is not optional. Think of your list into two parts Opt-in Names: Opt-in mail that is explicitly requested by the recipient. You have obtained their permission to email them. Raw names: Email address that your company has in its possession but the person associated with that email address has not given you permission to send them marketing communication. In other words they have not subscribed. The CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business7 Main Requirements see them herehttp://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm.

5. Guest Speaker: Exact Target is on-demand email marketing and one-to-one digital communication platform. Scott Roth Director, Integrated Partners sroth@exacttarget.com

6. Why do You Need A Subscriber Acquisition Strategy?

7. INTERACTIVE MARKETING HUB

8. “The mix of media channels has shifted from a one-way broadcast model to a set of dynamic two-way media forums.” Source: Booz Allen Hamilton HD Marketing 2010: Sharpening the Conversation

9. “Those who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than non-readers of email.” Source: Forrester Research “E-Mail Marketing Comes of Age.”

10. “Service is the new currency of selling. And email is the #1 tool for serving customers.” Joseph Jaffe

11. SUBSCRIBER ACQUISITION: BEST PRACTICES • Attract • Use SEO (Organic) and Paid Search to attract potential subscribers • Leverage social networks • Engage • Design your landing page to make opt-in simple • Provide a “reason” to subscribe • Convert • Send Welcome Email to confirm email registration • Provide “Thank You” offer for new subscribers

12. WHAT’S WORKING, WHAT’S NOT

13. TARGET YOUR TACTICS TO YOUR AUDIENCE

14. LIST GROWTH TIPS

15. PROMOTE YOUR NEWSLETTER: WEB SITE • Promote on: • Landing pages • Confirmation • emails

16. PROMOTE YOUR NEWSLETTER: TO LEADS Goal: identify when to send promotion to leads Test: segment based on age of the lead - Less than 2 weeks - 23 to 28 days - 1 year

17. PROMOTE YOUR NEWSLETTER : TO LEADS Results: - 23 to 28 days > 5% conversion - All other age segments <1%

18. ENCOURAGE SHARING

19. PROMOTE ACROSS NETWORKS Marketing Spend Continues To Shift Toward Digital Channels – Track It With Microsoft Dynamics CRM http://ow.ly/1q464B Call-to-action: - Attend The TM Group’s Vision 2010 Conference - Download the ExactTarget Marketing Budgets in 2010 Report

20. PROMOTE ACROSS NETWORKS Marketing Spend Continues To Shift Toward Digital Channels – Track It With Microsoft Dynamics CRM http://ow.ly/1q464B Results: - The TM Group – increased exposure for Vision 2010 - ExactTarget – New leads from the white paper download

21. “BRAND FANS” ARE NOW YOUR BEST MARKETERS EXACTTARGETinACTION www. .com

22. 1. SERVE INDIVIDUALS EXACTTARGETinACTION www. .com

23. 2. HONOR THEIR PREFERENCES COMMUNICATION CONTENT FREQUENCY CHANNEL EXACTTARGETinACTION www. .com

24. 3. DELIVER TIMELY, RELEVANT CONTENT THAT IMPROVES THEIR LIVES EXACTTARGETinACTION www. .com

25. Scott Roth Director, Integrated Partners sroth@exacttarget.com

26. Be prepared for churn. Fact: 30% of email addresses churn each year. Make sure you keep your list engaged.

27. Design for the Inbox. • Test sample messages • Try putting you company name in the FROM line for fast • recognition • Use a “Grabber” subject line – 50 characters or less • Use teaser text and HTML colors and layout rather than an image • so readers can get an immediate “preview” of your email even if • images are disabled • Put in the important content – the offer, call to action, newsletter • contents - at the top of the email for immediate viewing.

28. Define your email value proposition (EVP) • Your EVP should: • Be unique to your company and tie back to your company’s business and/or marketing objectives • Clearly define the value your email message brings to subscribers

29. Be prepared for mobile devices and social media B2B Marketing: Most email messages will be viewed on mobile devices – and your carefully designed HTML email will look like gibberish on most of them.

30. Integrate email into your complete marketing mix • Design keyword-rich landing pages that will help with SEO efforts • Promote newsletter content across multiple marketing points • Use social media to increase opt-ins to your emails • Remember mobile marketing

31. Metrics Open TrackingEmails that are “opened” are tracked by hosting images on a server and embedding the hosted images in the body of the email.Click TrackingWhen someone clicks on a link in your email, you can track the link. Forward TrackingForward tracking is when someone forwards the email through the HTML code. Hard to track forwarding if you forward using Outlook.Unsubscribe TrackingWhen someone wants to be removed from your email list. SPAM TrackingWhen someone reports your email as SPAM.

32. Tie into Web analytics 1. Better and more robust ROI tracking 2. Link Placement 3. Effective targeting of prospects 4. Integration with other sources of information

33. Allocate necessary resources Email marketing is different than it used to be. You must allocate adequate budget, resources, and know-how to do the job right and achieve ROI goals.

34. Showcasing Technology Want to become your own email marketing guru? If you text DYNAMICS and your email address to 38767 you can see the program in action.

35. Thank you to Exact Target and Scott Roth for being a guest speaker during this webcast and helping partners grow their opt-in list. Scott Rothsroth@exacttarget.com

36. For more information: For more information please email Virginia Weinstein at virginia@thepartnermarketinggroup.com Don’t forget to sign up for our monthly newsletter on our website!