1. University of Virginia School of Continuing & Professional Studies By: A. Bryon Sabol Email Marketing

2. The Importance of Email Marketing Email is the backbone of digital communications 70% of Americans have at least two email accounts On average, Americans receive 41 messages to their primary email account each day An average of 126 emails are received per day by corporate users 20% of all email are caught by Spam filters. According to Forrester Research, the average number of email offers received each week is 110 3. Emails Consumers Love Consumers love emails that enhance their lives To a smart marketer, understanding and embracing the way readers consume and relate to email is critical to success How can you enhance your readers lives? 4. Economic Impact of Email Email is the most cost efficient marketing medium Direct Marketing Association reports that every $1 spent on email marketing generates more than $48 in revenue 5. Five Types of Email Awareness Consideration Conversion Product Usage Loyalty 6. Awareness Communication Goal: To make customers aware of Company/Product by building imagery Email Purpose: To bridge media (online & offline) to identify interest Example of Usage: Ad placement in email publications or using co-registration to deliver high brand value messages to inbox 7. Awareness The main goal of our first-tier email programs is to drive someone to the call center to get more engagement with one of our representatives. We dont expect to a closed sale on first contact. -Syd Jones, director, IBM 8. Awareness 9. Consideration Communication Goal: To bring Company/Product into the consideration set by consistently promoting the tangible benefits. Email Purpose: To accelerate interest and qualification through benefits immersion Example of Usage: Capture opt-in from media interest; use email to push people through the tunnel to conversion faster 10. Consideration Drive all the potential candidates you want; if they arent qualified, I consider it a waste of marketing dollars -Fiona Connel, account director, Ogilvy One Worldwide 11. Consideration 12. Conversion Communication Goal: To close the deal through a dialogue that overcomes barriers of purchase Email Purpose: To drive customers to sales channels (ie, call center) for conversion Example of Usage: Embed a click-to-call-in email communications that drive customers to call center 13. Conversion Conversion emails are the most common. Buy Now! Shop Now! Sign-up Today! Beware: These emails are the worst performers when evaluating Return on Investment (ROI) The secret to an effective Conversion email is when they are sent only after you receive a buying signal from your customer. 14. Conversion 15. Product Usage Communication Goal: To stimulate interest in other products and services Email Purpose: To drive engagement with brand, establish advocacy, and set the stage to up- sell/cross-sell Example of Usage: Dynamically populated email offers based on business rules 16. Product Usage Consumers are 127% more likely to purchase something else from you immediately after they have completed their initial purchase. 17. Product Usage 18. Loyalty Communication Goal: To broaden and deepen the relationship to promote renewals Email Purpose: To foster and deepen the relationship for lifetime value (LTV) impact Example of Usage: Deliver value-added information (for example, packing tips for a travel organization) via email 19. Loyalty People who are registered to receive email marketing messages from your company will purchase an average of 167% more than those people in your marketing database who are not receiving emails. 20. Loyalty 21. Email Type Exercise What type of email messages are these? What makes these emails impactful? What elements do you not like about these emails? 22. Five Elements of Every Email Create Brand Impact Adding Intelligence to Your Design Driving the Purchase Creating Transactional/Service Messages Adding Viral Marketing Elements 23. Create Brand Impact Whether good or bad, when you send an email your brand will have an impact on the reader When a message is received a decision will be made on the From Line and Subject Line whether to open the message The success of your email campaigns depend on getting the message read If your Brand Equity is low, its due to newness of brand and/or lack of trust and value To build trust and value: State clearly what readers are opting into on your subscriber page. Follow up subscription with a welcome email with value proposition and what the reader has subscribed to. Adhere to these standards. 24. Adding Intelligence to Your Design Match the copy of your email with what your customers use to find you in search engines Use paid search keywords, Google Ads, and Google Trends to determine these words Keep in mind that your email may not be read in an email client. SMS, phones, social media, and RSS feeds Consider integrating email and search 25. Example of how companies integrate search and email intelligence Step 1: User receives an email to which they subscribed Step 2: Upon opening the email, a cookie (tracking pixel) is placed on their computer. Step 3: The same user searches the web for a product and finds the company site again. The search the site. Step 4: The company uses the search intelligence it captures to dynamically insert an image that matches the search results Step 5: The user receives an email and buys because the content appears to match their current needs. 26. Driving the Purchase Consumers have reached email message overload. Always put new content into context Clearly state the long-term benefits in terms of the readers goals. Include attention nodes, such as call out boxes and imagery. Ensure that your brand is consistent from the email to the landing page. 27. Transactional/Service Messages Transactional emails are notifications of purchases and services. Though service in nature, they provide a marketing opportunity to cross-sell or up-sell 28. Adding Viral Marketing Elements Incorporate share features to your email design: Forward to a Friend button Share on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr RSS Feeds if applicable Ask your readers to share your messages Track pass-along rates, click-through rates Some software (MailChimp SocialPro) scours social web and can report back information about clients social network presences. These readers can be targeted with additional marketing. 29. Key Drivers of Your Email Campaign Email Address Acquisition Creative/Copy Reporting & Analytics Privacy & Government Control 30. Email Address Acquisition Ask for and collect only information that you will use to segment your groups Ensure that you site registration complies with COPPA Direct traffic from search engines and online ads to dynamic landing pages Ask for permission to opt-in to email newsletters and marketing material Provide expectations on the number and frequency of emails Provide examples of the emails that they will receive Provide link to privacy policy 31. Email Design Content-Dont assume your message is compelling! Ask yourself the following questions: What is this message about? Why should my subscribers care? Is it clear what action I want my subscribers to take? 32. Creative & Copy Subject Line Pre-header text Copy Preview Pane Message Construct Recovery Module Footer 33. Subject Line The subject line is the mechanism to get your readers to open your message. It should be compelling, drive interest, and tease the subscriber. The key message should be clear in the first 50- 60 characters so that if the rest in truncated, the message still makes sense. Avoid using words, symbols, and punctuation that might trigger spam filters: Free, Percent off, Help, Reminder. Make the subject line describe what the email contains and how it will benefit the reader to open it. 34. Subject Line Subject Line Length - The general rule of thumb in email marketing is to keep your subject line to 50 characters or less. Localization Helps- Providing localization, such as including a city name, does help. Personalization May Help-Research and reports vary on whether including name of recipient in message subject line helps. State whats inside - If your email is a newsletter, put the name and issue of the newsletter in your subject line. Because that's what's inside. If your email is a special promotion, tell them what's inside. Either way, just don't write your subject lines like advertisements. 35. Subject Line Newsletter Half Life-Newsletters tend to start with high open rates, but all experience some reduction in time. Keep content fresh; each new campaign should provide a clear indication in the subject line of what is inside this newsletter that is of interest. The From Line -The From line should communicate who you are as the sender. As much as possible this entry should not change and should concisely convey who you are. Promotional Emails--By their nature, promotional emails tend to not perform well. Keep the message straightforward and avoid using splashy promotional phrases, CAPS, or exclamation marks in your subject lines. Subject lines framed as questions can often perform better. List Quality & Frequency -Two additional factors that are difficult to track but can have a big impact on open rates are list quality and frequency. Email marketers that build high-quality lists where readers know what they are going to receive enjoy the best open rates. If you start with a good list but send too frequently, open rates drop precipitously 36. Subject Line 37. Subject Line Exercise- You are Apple. You just signed a deal with the Beatles to release the collection of music for the first time in digital format. Write a compelling/impactful subject line that describes this release. 38. Preheader/Header This is the information at the very top of the message body. Reserve this space to reinforce important tactics, such as the following that will assist with image rendering: Include text content teaser to inform your reader of the message content. If you include add to address book language, make sure the address is correct. Add links to mobile and hosted versions. 39. Preheader/Header 40. Preview Pane In many email client software applications, such as Outlook, there is a preview page which shows a portion of the message body. Make sure the primary message is visible above the fold. Make sure the call to action is visible above the fold. If this is longer-form newsletter, did you include a table of contents with anchor tags linking to each body content section? 41. Preview Pane The Average Preview Pane is 194 42. Message Construct Review your message prior to sending to ensure that it is constructed properly. Spell check Confirm all punctuation is in place. Verify that as a much text as possible is system/HTML text instead of graphics. Make sure the primary call to action pops. 43. Recovery Module Just above the footer of the message, you have one last chance to inspire subscriber and drive the call to action. Include a recovery module as a last chance to inspire engagement. Consider using alternative links to categories. Consider including incentives. 44. Recovery Module 45. Footer Include an Unsubscribe link Include a statement on how you acquired the readers email Include your business address Consider including a Forward to a Friend link Consider including social media posting 46. Footer 47. Audience When writing any email, the number one rule is to know your audience. Who is your audience? What do you want them to do in the email? How is what you are requesting them to do relevant to them? What is the most impactful way to influence them? 48. Means of Persuasion Logos (Appeal to logic and reason) Pathos (Appeal to emotions & values) Ethos (Appeal to ethics & integrity) 49. Audience Exercise. With Audience in mind, construct each of the following email types: Awareness Consideration Conversion Product Usage Loyalty 50. Awareness You are the marketing director for a rock musician with a loyal fan base. Your label has ask you to construct an email to the fan base informing them of the musicians new clothing line. With audience in mind, construct the email content and subject line. 51. Consideration You are the Business School communications director at a national university. Potential students have completed submitted online forms expressing interest in the school. On the form, you ask the students what their GPA and GMAT scores are. You want to target the top 1% of the students and convince them to come to your school instead of Harvard. With audience in mind, construct the email content and subject line. 52. Conversion You are local computer company. You want to sell 200 computers by New Years. Your email plans to offer a $200 discount off of an iMac if they enter a promotional code and purchase within two days. With audience in mind, construct the email content and subject line. 53. Product Usage You are a travel agency. When your customers purchase tickets to the Bahamas, you believe that the receipt email is a good chance to advertise and sell them an island boat cruise. You plan to advertise a 10% discount off the cruise. With audience in mind, construct the email content. 54. Loyalty You are a local real estate agency. You realized that your next email newsletter is your 100th. You want to draw attention to the success that you have had with the e-newsletter fostering a relationship with your client base. With audience in mind, construct the email subject line. 55. Reporting & Analytics Identify key performance indicators and metrics Delivery Rate Bounce Rate (Hard Bounce, Soft Bounce) Complaint Rate Unique Open Rate Unique Click-through Rate Unique Conversion Rate Unsubscribe Rate Forward Rate Profit Margin Per Mailing Use Unique Landing Pages and Google Analytics for Tracking 56. CAN-SPAM You must give recipients a opt-out mechanism that is available for 30 days Unsubscribe mechanism must be easy If reader unsubscribes by clicking the link or replying to the message, the sender must remove them within 10 days Every commercial email must identify itself as an advertisement and include the valid physical address of the sender Sender must be identified in the message More information can be found on www.ftc.gov