MindComet

Email Marketing- Something to Consider Before Hitting Send

There have been some newly released data from a quarterly eROI study of sent emails that report on having read and clicked on the email.  In 3Q05, midweek was the lowest point for the number of emails read and clicked on, yet it was when the most number of emails were sent out.  The most read emails occurred on Sunday and Friday which was when the fewest emails were sent out.  So in relation, email volume is inversely related to read and click rates, except for on Saturday according to this data.

Other data found that the larger the list compiled for an email send out, the less rates of emails were read and clicked on.  Its found that the management of larger lists requires a higher level of maintenance making individual accuracy more difficult where as smaller lists are more easily maintained hence making them more accurate.

Before your next email marketing campaign, considering the day and list size may help increase your success.

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Posted by MindComet on Nov. 16, 2005

Email Newsletter Advertising Measuring Cup

How do you measure the effectiveness of advertising in an email newsletter?

If you learned anything from my last post, you took away that it is so important to test, test, test. Advertising is no exception. You can do some very simple AB split tests to determine effectives over a broad range of variables including demographics, geotargets, etc.

What variables can you test with email ads?

• Creative positioning of ads with the HTML of a newsletter


• Overall response rates and their increase/decrease over time based on ad placement


• Click-through rates and segmentation based on demographic behavior


• Return on investment


• Length of an ad


• Text versus graphical ads

The list goes on…

Optimizing ads in email can be considered subjective and relies on the knowlege of your email expert team and the creativity of marketing teams with concentrations in online behavior.

Advertising in emails provides many benefits including targetted highly responsive audiences for partners and offers.

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Posted by MindComet on Nov. 08, 2005

Email Testing - Why Bother with AB Testing?

Why bother with testing your emails? It seems pretty simple, but when it comes down to tight deadlines and turn around times even the best in the industry tend to skimp on testing time. It truly is a critical step that should not be glanced over when architecting a campaign or optimizing an existing email campaign. Testing also proves extremely valuable when truly driving towards quantifiable goals and business objectives.

Let’s take a step back to our elementary school science lessons and talk about AB testing. First, let’s define common terms:

Control = to check, test, or verify by evidence or experiments b : to incorporate suitable controls in (a controlled experiment)
Variable = characterized by variations
Constant = marked by firm steadfast resolution or faithfulness : exhibiting constancy of mind or attachment, invariable
(definitions by Webster.com)

Email Variables Include:

• Subject Line


• From Line


• Content


• Creative


• Color


• Number of Links


• CTA (Calls to Action)


• Copy length


• Delivery type: HTML, plain text, etc.


• Price


• Offer


• Frequency


• Time of Day

When performing an AB test you must first select a variable to test and keep all of the other variables set as constants. To achieve the most significantly sound results you want to isolate your variable in order to test each variable independently. You will then hold all of your other variables as constants. When architecting your email campaign be sure to outline how you’ll test and keep track of the increase/decrease in effectiveness based on each variable.

Multi-variable testing is another consideration and a subject we’ll cover in a future post.

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Posted by MindComet on Oct. 31, 2005

What is Sender ID Compliance?

You’ve probably seen or received those phony emails that claim to come from your bank or credit card company. Among other techniques used to dupe unsuspecting recipients, crooks forge the “from” address on the email in an attempt to steal valuable personal information from people who think the message is legitimate.

Sender ID is the method MSN uses to check whether emails are actually coming from the company they say they’re coming from by confirming that the visible “from” address matches the sender’s backend Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records.

Sender ID is expected to reduce the number of victims who fall prey to these “phishers” or “spoofers.“ Microsoft says Sender ID will also benefit legitimate emailers by helping protect their “from” address against spoofing.

DoubleClick recently announced their compliance: click here

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Posted by MindComet on Oct. 28, 2005

Email Cocktails: Integrating Email with Online Marketing

Remember that email should not be a stand alone solution for marketing; rather, it should be integrated with other tactics for a truly sucessful online marketing campaign. Think about it like a bartender: if you poor every patron a drink straight up you’ll have a small percentage of returns, but if you remember the garnish, mixers, cocktail napkin and appetizers your email cocktail and presentation will go a lot farther.

What tactics should be part of your email presentation?

• Landing pages


• Incentives


• Double opt-ins


• Welcome letters


• Promotional/sweepstakes elements


• Dynamic content


• Group segmentation


• Offline tie ins


• Online and offline advertising


• Frequency and relevancy

Go ahead and play around with your mix. You won’t make a perfect email cocktail unless you test it - never skimp on the testing!

Don’t forget the mixers!!!

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Posted by MindComet on Oct. 20, 2005

Top Spam Competitors

Some of the more popular email alternatives are becoming bigger players and may pose a threat to compete directly or indirectly with one of our favorite marketing communication tools. The rise of IM, mobile marketing, RSS and desktop apps question the future flexibility of email and have creative ways of ‘Spamming’ the message out.

According to Marketing Sherpa’s Email Marketing Metrics Guide 2005, “Worries about spam for Instant Messaging are growing, but there are barriers to IM spam, or SPIM.

IM list access is controlled by the company. If you want to makret to a large number of buddies you must talk to AOL first.

It is still uncommon for corporations to have standardized IM nomenclature. Unlike email, spimmer cannot use one address to spray messages to a group.

There is no mechanism for using op-out permission in IM. Users must actively decide to accept a new buddy capable of sending a message. However, there have already been cases of fraudulent ‘robot buddies’ that steal buddy lists and spread virally while recording sing-in names.“

With the rise in use of IM in the corporate environment you have to wonder how far off are the new nuisances such as SPIM and when are the robots really coming?

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Posted by MindComet on Oct. 05, 2005

Special Considerations for Emailing Executives

There’s a lot of buzz in the B2B email world about deliverability to C-level executives. They exhibit different behavior than average consumers and should be treated with special attention when attempting to communicate via email. I’ve provided a few tips for your consideration below:

1. Executive assistants are typically screening email Monday - Friday during normal business hours. For higher open rates (by your intended recipients) try sending on the weekend when the executives are checking their own email or blackberries.

2. Keep in mind corporate spam filters and sophisticated content filtering that may block your message from being delivered.

3. Some speculate that you should target administrative assistants, but there’s not a lot of imperical data to support that arguement.

Stay tuned for more B2B tips & tricks in the future.

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Posted by MindComet on Sep. 21, 2005