Email marketing slides for Visit Wiltshire workshop

1. Introduction to email marketing
Dr Philip Alford (Bournemouth University)
School of Tourism

2. Group discussion
• What email marketing do you currently do?
• What data do you currently hold about customers?
• How do you capture customer data?
• Where do you store it?
• What do you do with it?
• What objectives do you set (if any)?
• How do you analyse campaigns?
• What technology do you use to enable email
marketing?

3. Why email?
Other/ Internet/
TV Print DM E-mail
catalogs SEO
2009 spending
($billions)
$65.1 $62.7 $54.5 $59.6 $11.4 $1.4
ROI for every $1
spent (2009)
N/A N/A $7.32 $15.22 $21.85 $43.62
Sent to segments? NO Sometimes NO NO
Personalized? NO NO NO NO
Click to order? NO NO NO NO
Customers do NO NO NO
NO
research?
Triggered
NO NO NO NO
messages?
Transaction
NO NO NO NO NO
Messages?
Measured
NO NO NO
effectiveness?

5. The Golden
Email Rule….
“Don’t say anything unless
you have something
useful/interesting/important
to say.”
- Promotion
- Competition
- New (exciting) products
- Added value content

6. Lifecycle
marketing
Nothing beats a
timely message
based on what
you know about a
customer
PLUS –
transactionals
have a typical 70%
open rate. Make
sure they get
delivered, and
utilised!!

7. Email and social –
turning friends into
customers*
Integrate or die:
“The ROI of
social media is
that your
business will still
exist in 5 years.”
Eric Qualman –
Socialnomics

8. Case study - Filofax
• Integrating email and social media
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-
iH6wC7QOs

9. Data capture – BIG BUCKETS! (or, data = dollars)

10. Grow list at
every
contact
point

11. What are they signing
up for?
Incentive for sign up

12. Forward to a friend

13. • 90% of people have access to email once a day*
• 44% of people have continuous access to email*
• An average person receives 365 email per week*
• Limited number of complaints – Only 1 Civil case in the UK
BUT consumer behaviour is changing:
B2B and B2C recipients are changing their perceptions of and responsiveness to email
marketing- they are becoming more web savvy
Future Implications
• Consumers will become more enlightened and empowered
• Consumers will become more ‘Slippery’
• It will become even easier to report SPAMMERS
• Legislation will become more stringent and more cases will be heard
13

14. Deliverability
• 87.1 % of email sent in 2009 was SPAM.
• Hotmail sees 8m new IP addresses every
day. Good? Bad?
• Deliverability myths – message structure
• Deliverability Facts - Reputation is Key.
– Manage your IP reputation. Volume,
Frequency, message structure.

15. Deliverability
• Data Management
–Remove hard bounces after 1 attempt,
deal with complaints, manage soft
bounces, honour unsubscribes
–Don’t mail to very old lists
–Validate by sending welcome messages
or double opt in. Revalidate regularly.

16. Deliverability
• Volume consistency
–ISP’s evaluate your volumes every
24hours
–Familiarity is key
–Send regular volumes
–Send at regular intervals
–Use same IP

17. Email campaign Objectives
• Reinforce your brand
• Viral marketing
• Convert prospects to customers
• Cross sell/up sell
• Develop loyalty
• Drive web traffic
• Subscription renewals
• Educate & inform
• Communicate with channels or other business
partners

18. Measuring Success
• Clickthrough’s on embedded URL’s
• Conversion to purchase
• Database growth
• Unsubscribes/bad records/bouncebacks

19. Creating Value
• Personalise every message, with a name if possible
• Ensure your ‘From’ name is recognisable
• Discounts, special email only offers
• Keep it brief
• If you need more detail – entice to a website or microsite
• Relevant creative
• Develop follow up messages based on behaviour
• Make sure your messages fit with your other marketing
channels
• Use both Text & HTML
• Remind the recipients why they are getting this email
• Include user friendly instructions
• Keep the subject line brief

20. The new rules of email marketing
The old way The new way
Interruption Anticipation
List size Active recipients
Subject line ‘From’ field
Prospecting for leads Relationships with customers
Lifetime value
Campaign success
Recipient control
Maximum frequency of
Recipient control (preferences)
campaigns
Email is less expensive than other
Communicate anything you want mediums
Email is virtually free Customer Communication
Email marketing Management

21. E-newsletters - http://coolum.regency.hyatt.com
Visually
appealing sign-
up
Target
marketing
Permission-
based
marketing

22. E-newsletters - http://coolum.regency.hyatt.com
Make only
essential
fields
mandatory
Re-affirming
permission
aspects –
builds trust

23. E-newsletters - http://coolum.regency.hyatt.com

24. Double
opt-in

25. E-newsletter - www.egypt.travel
Takes a lot of
space –
usefulness?
Clear choices
– builds trust
Too many
fields to
complete
Difficult to un-
subscribe

26. E-newsletter - www.egypt.travel
No images to
sell the
destination
Impersonal
No link to
confirm
subscription

27. Identify yourself as the sender

28. The subject line
1. The Subject line: the most important sentence in
email marketing
2. Max 40 characters and place the most important
words at the beginning of the sentence.
3. Write as if you are talking to a friend, ask a
question, don’t broadcast an announcement.
4. Give a clear insight to the content of the email,
but leave an element of mystery.
5. Should convey something important, timely or
valuable.

29. The opening – think above the fold

30. Relevance
• The more relevant the campaign, the
better your response rates and
return on investment.
• ONLY use opt-in lists and segment
your lists.
• Ensure your email lists are regularly
cleaned and maintained.

31. THE ACTION
What is the aim?
Make a purchase
Why take action?
£15 off
Why do it now?
Only valid until 2nd
Sept
What to do? Click
the book button

32. Top Ten Tips
1. Define your goals and stay focussed
2. Spend time on your Subject Line. Use a grabbing headline or question in
the subject to get people to open it.
3. Approach copywriting as a customer.
4. Discuss your ideas with your web designer.
5. Build up a library of e-mailers, good and bad.
6. Tailor your content - segment and personalise.
7. Keep your contact regular and ongoing, no less then 1 a month. Always
focus on helping your audience and you'll have a good response.
8. Get your subscribe process right and use incentives to increase opt-in
subscribers
9. Statistically Tuesday and Wednesday give best response rates
10. Test, Test, Test!

33. Contact details
palford@bournemouth.ac.uk
Tel: 01202 961646
Twitter: @philipalford
Web: www.budigitalhub.co.uk
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BUDigitalHub