EightBlack.

Very much alive. Much to a lot of people’s amazement. And still very, very effective. But with the volume of email now, and the relentless offensive activity of corporate and personal SPAM filters, the actual job of engagement and grabbing attention is getting harder.

One of our core focuses at Eight Black is email marketing. We’ve been doing it for 4+ years now and during that time, we’ve learned what works and what doesn’t. On average, we’re sending out around 6 million messages a month, so we’d like to think we’ve earned the right to talk about it as a subject. Our bias is towards large, hard core e-commerce sites. Sites which transact. Which ask for a specific action.

In this post, I want to share with you some of the lessons we’ve learned, plus give you a glimpse of what we’ve been working on over in the corner of the “garage” so to speak.

I also want to disclose that while the examples I refer to are actually real, I am unable to reference the actual client. I know you always should when quoting references, but I can’t. So that’s that.

I then want to outline the top 8 mistakes companies, both big and small make, when it comes to sending email.

Let’s start at the beginning.

The first place is with your list. In many cases, clients we talk to say that they have a database but its split up into three areas and they need some guy from IT (who only works every third Tuesday) to come in and show them how to run a My SQL query, which takes all night, to then export it in a CSV file to someone in accounts, who has a PC who can read the file, to then send it to them.

Or something like that. What nonsense.

Your database is your most critical asset. The more “fields” of information you can collect, the better your email marketing efforts will be in the long run. I’ll explain why later.

We know of a company for example, whose website generates 12,000 transactions a month who does not send email of any sort. To me, that’s plain dumb. And leaving a lot of money on the table. It’s not just the “money on the table” issue either. In this case, there’s a whole section of the customer base giving you permission to talk and communicate with them.

Good email marketing starts with the right opt-in policy on your website. You need to give people a reason to opt-in. Why should I give you my email address? What’s in it for me? To help reassure people, have the privacy policy link right beside the opt-in area. And a lot of people simply think that ONE opt-in box is enough - or simply having the same opt-in text link at the top of each and every page is ample. It’s not. Visitors to your website are a lot smarter than that. Banner blindness is growing so if you have the same link at the top of each and every page, you’re not going to get very far.

You’re also assuming that people come to your website and interract with it logically and sequentially. They don’t. Your web analytics interface will prove it to you. All you need to do is look at the top 10 pages by traffic to your site. Mix it up a little. Use an opt-in box on one page, a text link on another. Move the opt-in call to action around. Test position. And above all, take advantage of the most important piece of real estate on your site - the “thank-you” page (applies to ecommerce sites). Always, always have an opt-in box on this page.

First of all, opt-in’s should be a metric on your website that you treat exactly the same way you treat “bounce-rate” or “time on site”. Or any other key web analytics metric you so choose.

Top 8 Mistakes in Email Marketing.

1. Emailing once a month is SPAM.

Frequency and relevancy is the key. Once a month is a complete waste of time, no matter what you are selling. Think about it. What relationship does a marketer have with you if you only ever hear from them once a month. None. Squat, Nada. That doesnt mean you turn the autoresponder up full bore and bombard someone with crap. It means you provide valid content, and provide a lot of it. You ask questions, you survey when you are not sure, you drive people back to your website and you do what it takes to engage with your audience.

2. Split Testing.

Not enough people are split testing effectively.

It’s all about context now. And relevance. You need to be aggressively split testing subject lines, the “from” field, opening paragraphs, link location, the PS area, the call to action. Assume nothing. And the worse thing you can do is have your ad agency write the copy. Short is better if you’re writing email that requires action - like a travel booking site. We’ve also found that too many companies are wanting to ensure that the email looks good, and so they design these magnificent looking HTML newsletter templates. Then, when it comes time to send, they wonder why their open rates and click thru rates are so low.

When we broadcast, we not only split test subject lines, but all parts of the creative. See image below.

Our advice is always push from text - especially if you’re starting out with a relatively cold or lukewarm list, one that hasn’t heard from you before. Or it’s a new promotion for something. What you’ve got to realise is that if you insist on sending out HTML from the start, then most modern email clients or SPAM settings on corporate firewalls, will strip away all the images and graphics anyway and trap the message in the Junk folder. Use plain old text at the start, until you can educate the recipient to add you to their “safe senders” list will do wonders for conversion.

3. Aborting too early.

We’ve often gone into clients and worked with them on devising a fully integrated email campaign. The HTML newsletter has passed all the legal, branding and visual standards checks and balances, the links work, the offer can be fulfilled, the call centre is ready. Everything all set to go. Then we launch. At the very first sign of a “hiccup”, the client panics and wants to stop everything. The hiccup is someone complains to the company or writes an email complaining how his identity has been stolen, that he is the victim of some Nigerian scam and why on earth have you sent him this email. He threatens to get legal on your arse, wants compensation for having no life and demands a Royal Commission.

Folks, remember this. Email marketing is a pure numbers play. Consumers are a lot braver behind their 20 inch monitor than they are on the phone and more so, face to face. You cant just say that you’ll try email marketing for a week and see what happens. You need to commit. To have a strategy. To have the right resources. And to be able to be consistent.

4. Number Overload - Click Thru Rates, Open Rates, etc.

The only metric that matters is conversion. Pure and simple. People get carried away with statistics. We’re not so worried about list sizes, we’re more concerned with actual engagement and conversion. While it is important to understand metrics at a base level, and to be committed to relentless testing, I am far more interested in the statement by the client that says, “we sent out the email and we sold X”.

5. Scrimping on costs.

If you have a database of any size, (ie above 30,000 records), why then would you consider using a $300 off the shelf product? It’s only asking for trouble. There are so many email marketing solutions out there that are cost effective and scalable. Whether you choose to use a company like ours is of no consequence. What matters more is that you invest the same amount of time in developing an email strategy as you do the rest of your marketing. Commit the right resources. Consult with specialists. Buy good advice and then act on it. And, if you do choose to outsource the function, use well respected experts with a track record in the space.

6. Not Remailing.

If you’re promoting a product or offer or competition, the biggest mistake we see is a lack of desire to communicate the message. This does not mean bombarding someone’s inbox. And it assumes that your are committed to “permission marketing” rather than what Seth Godin refers to as “interruption marketing”.

We do a lot of “viral” marketing work for clients. Here’s a specific example. Let’s say we’re promoting a competition for a client with the specific purpose of building their opt-in email database. The creative is solid and with a heavy emphasis on “refer a friend”. The initial broadcast goes out to the entire list and the promotion is under way. Using the technology we’ve developed within our proprietary mail application lets us then send a follow up email 4 days later to all those people who have yet to enter the competition or even open the initial launch email. Look what happens to engagement and entry/referral numbers. The lighter shade on the graph is entries into the competition and the darker shade is how many people were referred by a friend to enter.

7. ISP Reputation

Your email marketing provider - or indeed your own application, needs to be able to track and monitor ISP activity and effectiveness. Many ISP’s will throttle you back if they notice a large volume of email coming down the pipe to their users. Our application (see shot below), tracks how each ISP treats our mail and we then analyse deliverability statistics.

8. Tell A Story.

One of the best examples of good emailing marketing is where the sender, perhaps one of the best online marketers I’ve met, sent a 3 part email. Only he didn’t tell you it was a 3 part message. He just put “to be continued”. This guy by the way has a list which is probably 500,000 plus records in total and one which is highly responsive. So why don’t more of us tell a story. I don’t care if you’re selling property, travel, cars, accommodation. Too often, we’re so consumed with getting the look and feel right that we forget about the actual relevance of the content. And we don’t stop to think about splitting the message up over the course of a week or so. All we want to do is blast the message out there, so we can cross that task off our list.

SUMMARY:

I am constantly amazed at just how many large companies still don’t place much emphasis on collecting and then sorting email addresses. It’s not because they lack resource. Many large corporates I come across have invested literally millions of dollars in CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solutions. Perhaps many think that email is not an effective medium anymore. Perhaps it’s too hard. Perhaps they simply just can’t be bothered.

It’s inexcusable to to have a customer base of 1 million people and less that 20,000 active email addresses. Everyone’s website needs to give people a reason to “opt-in”. The sales and marketing channel of a company needs to be fully committed to email marketing.

And finally, a wise word from our resident email technology expert - Ben Dyer. Ben is the key driver of TaguchiMail, our new email marketing platform that’s in Beta. He’s got some wise words about “deliverability” issues. Worth watching.

I’d be keen to hear your stories and receive your feedback on your experience with email - good or bad. Over to you.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 8:55 am and is filed under Email Marketing, Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.