5 Emails Which Drive Value and Response

We all struggle to create emails that are worthy of being opened.

We have to overcome the instinctive “Delete” reflex by our customers and prospects.

Following are 5 opportunities for emails that provide value, engagement and drive response.

1) Triggered messaging

Triggered messages (meaning those that are personalized, real time, or event related such as confirmations that are sent to subscribers in response to a specific action,) outperform generic emails. One of the reasons these types of emails are so effective is because they are relevant and personalized.

Ideas for triggered emails include:

• Cart abandonment reminders
• Order confirmations or shipping confirmations that include a personal thank-you with a time frame based thank you discount on their next purchase.

Additionally, according to eMarketer, for retailers, triggered emails enjoy an open rate nearly 75% higher than nontriggered emails, while clickthroughs more than tripled.

2) Transactional Messaging

According to the Experian’s “The Transactional Email Report, transaction-related emails, [prompted by] customers’ buying behavior, can provide marketers with great opportunity for improving customer service, gaining repeat sales and deepening customer engagement compared with standard bulk mailings…the average revenue per email is two to five times greater and can be up to six times greater than the all-industry average of $0.13.”

But don’t send “off the shelf” impersonal sales-based emails. Today’s transactional messaging, according to the survey is “branded, relevant and engaging...to take full advantage of the high level of customer interest and brand engagement that naturally follows a purchase.” Ideas for incorporating personalized Transactional Messaging include:

• Re-order reminders, accessory replenish reminders, or sales alerts on products or accessories that obviously relate to a previous purchase.
• Win-back emails for lapsed customers with personalized incentives based on buying history and preference data.

3) Engaging Email Subject Lines

Being engaging is more than just using your recipient’s name. Be relevant. Be “to the point” and deliver on what was promised within the body of the email. These, according to Christopher Lester, VP of sales at Emma, an email marketing platform, are the keys to successful and engaging email marketing.

Ideas for engaging email subject lines:

Lester advises that, “The email subject line is probably one of the most important pieces of a campaign... It's the beginning statement of the story… The email subject line is just a…way of giving the user [a] quick analysis... what is the value of the email compared to the amount of time dedicated to opening and reading the message? ...You're building relationships and making full connections... If you deliver [on] the value consistently, you will never have to beg for an open.”

4) Mixed Media Emails

Mobile is changing many of the rules for email. Marketers must now create messaging that is delivery-friendly to traditional email inboxes as well as those on mobile devices.

Ideas for mixed media emails include:

• Today’s consumer is multi-screen and multi-device. Make sure your email messaging provides a mobile device experience that is as good as your desktop experience.
• Be sure your landing pages are also dynamic so that mobile or tablet users can view your messaging clearly, get to forms, or be able to click with ease.

5) Personalized Emails

There is nothing more engaging than a truly personalized email that is all about you, the individual customer.

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Learn from Amazon how they have taken personalized emails to a new level. The company has the ability to analyze and personalize both online and email content based on preferences, search history and previous purchases. Amazon sends its customers personalized product recommendations that entice a recipient to purchase a previously viewed item.

According to an in-depth white paper from Amazon, “The click-through and conversion rates - two important measures of Web-based and email advertising effectiveness - vastly exceed those of untargeted content.” Recommend that you read this report to gain thoughtful insights on sophisticated and effective personalization.

NFL.com Gets High Scores on Engaging Emails

Challenge: Email deliverability is now dependent on a sender’s ability to deliver engaging content to subscribers. Since engagement has become a key ingredient in ISP’s reputation scores, marketers need to up their game to play by the changing rules or risk poor ROI rates on campaigns.

As we reported in a previous blog, 70-75% of Email Subscribers are Inactive, marketers need to capture attention and invite engagement due to Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and AOL now incorporating a new algorithm that includes the original guidelines for identifying SPAM, plus active engagement rates. 

While marketers are using many other forms of communication, email still continues to be a prime vehicle for customer interactions. In the Salesforce.com Exacttarget Marketing Cloud 2014 State of Marketing study that polled over 2,600 mid- to senior-level marketing managers cross all industries; 

» 67 percent of marketers say their number one priority for 2014 is to increase sales directly attributable to digital marketing campaigns,

» 64 percent are focused on increasing email click throughs and open rates.

In our ERDM Voice of Customer (VoC) research findings we learned what customers want relative to email:

»  Consumers expect companies to use their preferences to deliver increasingly personalized offers, communications, and experiences.

»  As a result of preference-based interactions, consumers are more willing to respond to communications and offers.

»  Customers look to personalized follow-up emails as value-added triggers to go online and evaluate relevant products.

»  Customers want more than just buying history-based emails.

»  Create opt-in preference databases to drive true personalization of communications and offers.

The NFL.com Newsletter, winner of the MarketingSherpa Email Awards 2013, took relevancy to a whole new level. Subscribers get real-time content about their designated favorite teams, and even receive countdowns to game time. Fans depend on these emails to stay abreast of timing for the next big kick-off.

These efforts resulted in doubled newsletter open rates and increased click through rates of 26%.

The 5 winning reasons given for choosing the NFL.com as the best in show winner were:

1. They explored new ways to engage and interact with their audience.

2. They had a goal to create email that was relevant and targeted as possible.

3. They tailored each email on a personalized level.

4. They wanted the emails to be useful.

5. They took into consideration the different vehicles that might be used to read an email and made the messages easy to navigate and easy to read.

On the NFL.com site visitors can register via a preference center to supply personalized information such as favorite team and opt-in to the newsletter.

3 Takeaways:

1. Keep in mind the new rules for email deliverability that take into consideration both recipient interaction as well as content engagement. Develop new strategies that encourage interaction through deeply personalized messaging.

2. Customers are willing to provide in-depth information in exchange for receiving value-added information. For consumers, the rationale for providing preference information is to receive increasingly relevant offers, communications, and experiences.

3. Understand how your customers read their emails—is it on a computer, tablet, or mobile device? Design emails that will enable your message to display correctly for maximum interaction opportunities.

How Viral Emails Can Drive More Sales than Promotional Emails

The Challenge: Viral emails can often generate greater response and revenue than sales-focused emails. Following are examples and tips for sending engaging/interactive emails that do not contain sales pitches or feature products.

Airbnb Case Study

The holidays are an important time for the travel company Airbnb. They recognized that holiday greeting emails are very common and devised a unique campaign. They developed a way not just to send a holiday message, but an interactive campaign that encouraged customers to send a thank you note to travel hosts that assisted Airbnb’s travelers during the year. The email was sent with the purpose of getting the audience to engage with one another, not to drive revenue.

Response and engagement rates were very strong:

• 52.3% open rate — up from the previous average of 27% to 30% on regular marketing emails.

• 26.5% click through rate — increase over the 8% to 12% on regular marketing emails.

• The subscribers who used the tool sent an average of 7.5 emails.

• Airbnb increased sales with 600 bookings as a result of this non-promotional email.

Career Builder Case Study

Career Builder tied in a very successful viral email campaign to their widely acclaimed Super Bowl ad featuring chimpanzees performing common office duties. The campaign was named Monk-E-Mail and uses personalization to engage email subscribers and ease of use to ensure follow through of customizing and forwarding emails.

The engagement and increase in the site’s popularity as a result of the campaign was staggering:

• CareerBuilder was rated the #1 career site.

• 29 million unique users visited the site within the first four months (25% increase in traffic); more than 55 million total visitors.

• More than 150 million Monk-e-Mails have been sent and played.

• 22% of message recipients went on to send their own messages.

5 TAKEAWAYS:

1. Timing is important. Airbnb is in an industry where travel is not an everyday event; the holiday email campaign was good timing because December is a time for travel or planning future travel.

2. Personalization is key. Airbnb pre-populated the emails with each customer’s bookings from the previous year and included images of each user’s profile, making it easy to send the message.

3. Be Humorous. As CareerBuilder showed, a viral email is your chance to lose the serious sales attitude.

4. Ease of Use is essential to enable a high volume of viral actions.

5. Do Not Muddy the Message. Once you decide to go non-promotional, do not include any promotional content. Concentrate on the focus of engagement.

E-Mail: 3 Best Practices for Driving Engagement

The Challenge: Email is an essential element of almost every marketer’s multi-channel mix. But, it needs to do a better job of engaging readers. Here are 3 best practices.

Per the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) Council, 67% of marketers worldwide rated email as the most successful digital marketing tactic. In today’s competitive marketing arena, however, the key to that success hinges on being able to engage your customers. According to ExactTarget, engagement and customer revenue are directly connected to the relevance of your content. RealMagnet holds a similar view, stating that relevant content is fundamental when it comes to maximizing the lifetime value of your customers.

ExactTarget’s research has shown that as marketers increase the level of relevance, the potential to drive revenue increases exponentially as marketers begin to utilize more personalized, one-to-one marketing tactics. Our own Voice of Customer research indicates a similar finding; the value consumers receive in exchange for providing their information must be obvious and compelling. To overcome the legacy of receiving untargeted and irrelevant communications, consumers must see an obvious increase in relevance.

The following 3 best practices about engaging your customers via e-mail will help you deliver obvious value and relevance. Remember: if the value is not obvious, consumers will assume you have betrayed their trust and expectations.

3 Best Practices for Engaging Customers
via E-mail

1. Segment your communications.
Use every piece of relevant data you have about your customers. Their gender, job title, hobbies, interests, purchase history, browsing habits, and social media presence all provide essential insights. Use this information to create messages tailored to their daily needs and expectations.

2. Integrate your e-mail marketing and CRM (customer relationship management) systems.
Instead of spreading customer data across multiple third-party and in-house CRMs (staff-compiled databases), you should consolidate your customer data into one integrated system. Doing so makes it easier to personalize your marketing to create precise segments, acquire new leads, and nurture leads through your sales cycle.

3. Test to discover what works.
Run an A/B test each time you create a new marketing piece, so that you can maximize your level of engagement. Test various subject lines and content - such as sales copy, promotional offers, and calls-to-action - to see what performs best. Simple tests like these are easy to perform and guarantee that you’re delivering the most relevant content that you can offer. You can also give consumers the ability to hear from you through multiple channels by sporadically testing the promotion of other channels within all of your social networks.