May 25, 2013
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Let Marketing Automation bestow upon Email Marketers this 2013!

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Email marketing and marketing automation are just so close to one another and you can’t disjoin the two for a successful campaign launch. Infact automating the emails in just one thing the entire marketing automation function can do. The scope of marketing automation is huge and beyond words.

Talking emails, traditionally, marketers do not automate the emails and depend largely on the offline sources of data and in part the preferences of audience through research. Much of these data is not real time. Real-time data denotes information that is delivered immediately after collection. There is no delay in the timeliness of the information provided. Real-time data is often used for navigation or tracking.

Behavioural Data is the core of marketing automation!

That said, the offline sources of data might not really be real time compared to those set up by real time marketing automation softwares. Marketers need data sets to execute the campaign in email marketing automation set up. Integrating the web analytics, email and offline sources, you will be able to create a base for transactional, preference and behavioural data. Behavioural data is the pivotal element for setting up real time automated data.

Apart, running a campaign through marketing automation also requires the customer engagement levels. Knowing the customer engagement across different channels, preferences for communication etc marketer will be able to segment the customer engagement data and get to know the rules to set up for automated email campaign at most opportune time. Over and above the frequency, such data will lead to a better nurturing and ROI in turn.

Segmenting the customer data rules according to their behaviour and insights through email marketing automation will help immensely in executing right communication to right user.

To yield the best results from your marketing automation, go step by step and set up the rules and processes. Start with the low hanging fruit such as basket abandonment emails for quick returns that can justify future investment and then graduate to more sophisticated automation process.

Right offer, right person, right time– Magic of Automation!

There are ample number of extras that become possible with marketing automation like the usage of dynamic content. It can be used more freely than ever before making your content flow to your viewer at the right time. The future of digital marketing is relevant communications for sure. Right offer, right person, right time and right channel. Marketing automation will help with a better behavioural database that will also help marketers to specifically do user activity testing than the normal subject line testing and email testing.

Takeaway:

Marketing automation is all about nurturing your customers, based on their implicit demands. While it is not a one night wonder game to all the marketing challenges, if implemented well with the right technology partner or an ESP, it would surely double the bottom lines you see from your traditional email campaigning.

(Source: Email Vendor Selection)

May 24, 2013
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10 divine subject line secrets – A sure shot ladder to heaven!

Posted in: Email Delivery, Email Marketing Tags : , ,
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Making Email vivacious than never before is gainsay! That said, designing immaculate emails that arrest clickthroughs and opens is becoming imperative and inevitable. Something that marketers play often with is the subject line characters and word counts that lead to either a positive or negative response rate!

Email Monks could come up with amazing insights on subject lines while reviewing the Adestra Subject Line Study Report, July 2012 which did a research with:

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1. 932 million emails were sent over a six month period and a rigorous research was undertaken by Adestra that provided staggering stats on the subject lines. Subject lines with less than 49 characters attracted more than 12.5% open rate compared to those with 50 or more characters. Also, subject lines with more than 60 characters weren’t able to find success and in fact marked into the dead zone.

2. Subject lines can vary from one industry to another. E-commerce, Charity, Events, Publishing, B2B and B2C each of them have a different subject line best practice. For B2B subject line with a word count above 16 does wonders while the same exceeds over 20 characters for B2C. Likewise each sector dominates subject line differently.

3. Surprisingly, the report delineates the significance of longer subject lines. Subject lines which are longer drive more opens once the message is landed in the mailbox. Ideally because longer subject lines allow you to shout more about the benefits of opening an email communication. You can view the details in the below graph.

24. One another finding that report comes up with is about email objectives. Response rate had gone up but open rate plunged and vice versa, testing the different character counts for over 6 industries. This means that your aim and objective should be clear while launching a campaign otherwise you will be baffled with the final result unable to make out whether it is worth an investment or not.

5. So, what’s an ideal subject line word count? The report very meticulously describes the importance of longer word counts like the longer character counts as that again allows you to showcase the benefits clearly from opening an email. This excellent graph gives a detail idea about the word count!

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 From sixteen words on, the results increase both in terms of opens and clicks.

6. There are certain informative and awareness led emails for which a B2B business can use 6-10 word subject lines as they deliver high opens but low clicks whereas 20 word subject lines deliver a massive uplift in response for the B2C sector.

    7. In the E-commerce sector, using “% off” and “sale” in the subject line increases open and Click to open rates. Some other words that worked well with those 932,000,000 emails were: Announcement Video, Last Chance, Newsletter, Appeal Offer etc. Unambigious offers get a poor response rate so if you are promoting an offer, be clear about what it is.
    8. In the Events Sector, the words “conference”, “seminar” and “webinar” have much less impact than selling the benefits in the subject line. The trend is changing and while we restricted the use of symbols in our email design best practices infographic, the spam filtering rules have changes which means mentioning price, discounts or using currency symbols can create a big uplift.
    9. Using “exclusive” in the subject line can have a positive impact on opens and clicks for publishing sector. Likewise using the word “Give” increases the response for charities sector. For the B2B emails, using the word “B2B” leads to a negative response! Teasers work best for the B2C sector.

10. You can split the test up to 11 subject lines per campaign and measure the success rate!

Takeaway:

Trending high in the email world is using a blend of symbols, terms, word counts and character counts within the subject line to make it real godly. Test well to determine the best that will work for your sector, once you have the aims and objectives of the campaign ready as the measuring rod emulate the same and launch the campaign.

April 26, 2013
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Email Marketing Maturity Model

Posted in: Email Marketing Tags : ,
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Most often marketers have a feel that Email Marketing is yet another BTL promotional tool. Email marketing is a convoluted process. It involves a lot of key considerations like the Design, Delivery, Legal framework, List building and beyond. Email marketers have started understanding the bandwidth of email marketing activity eventually because of the unsuccessful campaigns and decreased ROI over the years.

Have you ever thought of that Email Marketing can also have a maturity model like the business maturity model? The business maturity model is fragmented to stages like:

1. Start Up
2. Emerging
3. Defined
4. Managed and
5. Optimized

It is similar to the capability maturity model of the software. Monks have derived Email Marketing Maturity Model. What would be an ideal email maturity model like?

Email Marketing Maturity Model

Level 0: This is the time when you are not practicing Email Marketing or you have just started to practice it within your network to check how it works? You do not have a strategy or you do not have a great content for your email. You do not have an aim or mission here. You are just working on a spray and pray approach.

Level 1: This is an upward movement. You see the potential in email marketing and understand its power as an important marketing channel. Once you know what wonders it can do, you aim higher. You set a mission and a strategy for your next launch on a small scale. You decide the content plan and make a calendar for couple of your next emails along with the content and better design. You research everything in this stage.

Level 2: You start setting small targets, figure out email contacts, build email list and decide on the Email production strategy whether to go for self service model, hybrid service model or fully managed service. Marketers in this step start figuring out what’s going in the email marketing and apply their research in to practice. You also decide upon interaction strategy, engagement of subscribers etc here.

Level 3: This is the time when you see some really better visits compared to the initial campaigns. People might start getting engaged with you due to the better branding you have done this time. Once you are confident, you do not look back and understand what emails yield better response. Strengthen your email list, buy a list and see what works best! You design your emails keeping in mind the best practices so to have better results from the campaign. You start measuring the ROI of all cost that you are incurring after Email Marketing.

Level 4: Here as a marketer, you are accountable for every small thing you plan or implement. Also, as the world is going smart, with an increased number of smart phone users you start targeting your email communication for mobile or catch up with the changing trend. You also do testing of your emails, check the renderability, click throughs and opens minutely than ever. You also integrate the social media and email well.

Level 5: This is the time when you can’t be relaxed. You need to be on your toes, roll up your sleeves and measure the effectiveness of your email messages. Check out on the deliverability, legal framework, ESP Guidelines, Cross Channel workflows etc. You integrate technology within your email communications and measure the impact at large.

The above email marketing maturity model is one of the most ideal way to look at email marketing starting afresh till hitting the bull’s eye. Monks are sure about this model. This approach shall surely suit your business needs. Let us know your feedback once you apply this model.

April 25, 2013
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10 considerations from the Monks Cloister while writing Calls-to-Action

Posted in: Email Marketing, Email Marketing & Mobile Tags : ,
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Followed the email marketing and design best practices, great copy and compelling images with alt text, effective headline and nail biting email layout but still no results? Your answer lies in the call to action.

“A call-to-action is simply a proposition of the value that will be delivered immediately after the action,” said Paul Cheney, Editorial Analyst, MECLABS. “The more value the prospect perceives in the call-to-action, the more likely the prospect will be to take action.” Writing a CTA is most often a back breaking task, given the high expectations from this effort.

So, how can you write an eye candy calls-to-action? Email Monks after a profound research could agree to the latest article from Marketing Experiments Blog that asked considering these 4 questions while writing a CTA the next time so to help you communicate your online value proposition (OVP) in effective and engaging way.

Question 1: Assumed VS. Direct Proposition?

Ideally, the CTA should have a process-level value proposition to tell your visitors, why they should take the action for which you’re asking. Process level value proposition makes the ad very clear to the prospect so to enable him to decide right away.

For Eg. “Get you free consultation” “Free Trial, Get Started!” kind of CTA are more direct than the values like “Call us to know more!” Identify whether the value you are providing is direct with a process attached to it or is it assumed.

The optimized call-to-action can produce up to 357% increase in monthly clients – ” Marketing Experiment Blog Research “

 Question 2: Unsought, Specialty Products, Technical Service?

Visitors will always love to respond to an “ask” that is not premature and matching with the thought process. So, in an extreme example, if you are selling a house on a landing page, it probably would not make sense for you to say “Buy now.” A more effective call-to-action might be “Tour this home.”

Understanding the type of consumer products or service plays a vital role to pen down your CTA. A straight upfront CTA for luxury goods or technical services might not add any value as it is a long term decision making process. Evaluate where the visitor is in the purchase process and what the most appropriate call-to-action is. Some examples:

  • Register today vs. Learn more
  • See full information vs. Buy now
  • Preview report vs. Download now

Make sure you only ask them to do something that of which they already understand the value.

Question 3: What’s the tone of your call-to-action?

There can be a lift of around 84.6% to just one factor, the tone of the calls-to-action you’re your Call to action demanding, polite, baffling, creative etc will determine the engagement of your audience.

The tone can be subtle or extreme, anything within this range but make sure it is in line with your audience’s expectations.

Question 4: Is there a real authentic urgency?

People are bombarded with marketing messages and they are too busy to act on all. In case you have an authentic urgency use words like “act now”. This can improve the conversion rates if used in times of need else it will become meaningless white noise.

Wrapping up:

10 takeaways from the Monks Cloister:

1. Clear Online Value Proposition

2. Direct approach of writing

3. Industry / Product Specific Calls to Action

4. Tone of the Calls to Action copy

5. Unambiguous Message Urgency whenever needed

6. Format of the Calls to Action

7. Use of catchy Font and Colour

8. Link to the right landing page.

9. Content of the Calls to Action copy should sync with the layout

10. Keep it simple and short (KISS)

We hope these questions will help you frame better Calls-to-action and gain higher clickthroughs. In case you have further queries on writing an effective CTA, monks will help you resolve all of those. Just drop us a line at hello@emailmonks.com and enjoy our 24/7 customer service.

(Source: Marketing Experiments and Email Monks)