Email Marketing: What Works in 2012Tamara Gielen, Plan to Engage@tamaragielen
©2012 Plan To Engage – all rights reserved – www.PlanToEngage.com
About Tamara Gielen• 10+ years of experience in
email marketing
• Author of “Be Relevant”www.b2bemailmarketing.com
• Founder of the “Email Marketer’s Club”www.emailmarketersclub.com
• Independent Email Marketing Consultant & Trainer @tamaragielen
©2012 Plan To Engage – all rights reserved – www.PlanToEngage.com
About Plan to Engage
• Email Marketing Strategy• Email Design & Coding• Campaign Management• Deliverability Support• Email Vendor Selection• Conversion Optimization• Workshops & Training
Courses
www.PlanToEngage.com
The state of email marketing
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* Approximately 294 billion messages are sent each day. This total excludes 106 billion messages that can be classified as spam.Source: SmarterTools.com
Email is still one of the most important elements of a solid online marketing
plan
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Email is the preferred channel for direct, one-to-one marketing communications with consumers
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Email is the preferred channel to communicate with brands
2011 Survey, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and Lithium
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Email is a very important in driver of consumer buying decisions
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Majority shares content via email
“Spending on email marketing in the US is
expected to expand to $2 billion by 2014. A nearly 11% compound annual
growth rate”Forrester
“64% of marketers are increasing their email
marketing budget in 2011 - 32% are keeping their email marketing budget steady”
MarketingSherpa
“If you want to drive retention and repeat usage,
there isn’t a better way to do it than email.”
Fred Wilson, Managing PartnerUnion Square Ventures & VC Blogger
Subscribers consistently spend more!
What works in 2012
Permission, permission, permission
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• Do you really want them to think you’re this guy?
• Because it’s legal doesn’t mean that it’s a best practice
• Always ask permission first!
No permission, no email
Permission is not enough…
Make your emails readable
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Challenge: image blocking
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Design for images off
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Design for images off
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Use HTML buttons instead of images
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Keep It Short!
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Get to the point fast
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Challenge: faster consumption
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Challenge: Smaller Screens
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How Important Is This?
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It’s The Future!
Source: Litmus.com
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Most important platforms
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How Do You Adjust Your Designs?
Larger fonts• Body copy: 14px / Headlines: 22px
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How Do You Adjust Your Designs?
Larger fonts• Body copy: 14px • Headlines: 22px
Less content• Single column layout• Simpel copy• Clear calls to action
©2012 Plan To Engage – all rights reserved – www.PlanToEngage.com
How Do You Adjust Your Designs?
Larger fonts• Body copy: 14px • Headlines: 22px
Less content• Single column layout• Simpel copy• Clear calls to action
Design for the finger!
Sell your newsletter
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What’s in it for me?What’s in it for me?
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©2012 Plan To Engage – all rights reserved – www.PlanToEngage.com
Show what they can expect
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Remove all barriers
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©2012 Plan To Engage – all rights reserved – www.PlanToEngage.com
Take away any friction
Welcome your subscribers
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On the thankyou page
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Welcome them
Tell them what to expect
Ask for more information
Get them to come back to your website
With a welcome email
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Reward them
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Educate them
Test, test, test
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Testing increases ROI
• Small changes can make a big difference in results• subject line, sender name, offer placement…
• Testers achieve 68% higher return over non-testers (JupiterResearch)
• Good news: most marketers don’t test ;-)
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Begin with what impacts ROI most
landing page copy
email offers
subject lines
email creative
landing page creative
text only message
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
43.2%
40.7%
40.0%
34.4%
33.6%
13.8%
32.4%
51.9%
45.0%
59.4%
54.3%
44.8%
24.3%
7.4%
15.0%
6.0%
12.1%
41.4%
High ROI Medium ROI Low ROISource: MarketingSherpa’s Email Marketing Benchmark Guide
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What do you want to improve?
Elements Key Metric
Sender and subject lines Open rate
Anything in e-mail body (product, offer, creative) Click-to-open rate
Anything on landing page (product, offer, creative) Click-to-conversion rate