"Marketers may have the best of intentions, but sometimes lack the ability to see things from the audience perspective. without the right processes, metrics and methodologies in place to craft compelling offers and measure their acceptance, e-mail marketing can feel like shouting into the wind at best, and relationship-jeopardizing harassment at worst. Our professional services consultants have an array of services that can help you enhance the effectiveness of your e-mail marketing campaigns and programs."

1. A r t i c l e
Marketing and the ‘e’ challenge
Marketers may have the best of intentions, but sometimes lack the ability to see
things from the audience perspective. case in point—the newest and dirtiest
word in marketing today. Spam. We’d all like to think that the eDirect Mails that
we release are high-value for those on the receiving end. But without the right
processes, metrics and methodologies in place to craft compelling offers and
measure their acceptance, e-mail marketing can feel like shouting into the wind at
best, and relationship-jeopardizing harassment at worst.
E-mail may just be the most powerful tool available to today’s marketers. It is push, not pull. It can
deliver highly personalized messages to carefully selected target audiences at a fraction of the cost
of other media, and provide readily measurable results. Today’s e-mail marketing out-performs the
competition by a wide margin:
• Direct mail – acceptable response rates from purchased lists remain in the 2% range.
• Telemarketing – outbound campaigns suffer from increasing difficulty in reaching target audiences.
Most cost-effective call centers are inbound and integrated with other online programs.
• Web banner ads – the average click-through rate (CTR) has dropped below %. However,
targeted (more expensive) ads are producing CTRs in the 4% range.
• E-mail – house lists are generating responses as high as 40% while high-quality rented opt-in
lists routinely produce responses in the 0-20% range.
Like direct mail, e-mail marketing uses databases to generate lists and send messages directly
to people selected from those databases. Due to their many similarities, one would think that the
well-proven principles of direct mail marketing would be readily transferable to e-mail. Some are,
but many techniques that are routinely accepted in direct mail campaigns can be disastrous to an
e-mail campaign.
Direct marketers rate the relative importance of three components of outbound campaigns: the list,
the offer and the creative. For direct mail, these factors are weighted about 40% – 40% – 20%. It’s
almost the same for e-mail, but one could argue that creative’s increasing importance makes the
new calculus around 40% – 35% – 25%. The right rates are probably still undecided. Still, let’s use
direct mail as a benchmark to discuss what works and what doesn’t work in e-mail marketing.
CDC MarketFirst | Article

2. Marketing and the ‘e’ challenge
the list Build trust and credibility. Whenever you ask for
an e-mail address, surround your online request with
The world of lists encompasses more than just raw links (Privacy Policy, About Us) or icons (TRUSTe,
data. When we talk about lists, we are referring to your BBBonline) that will reassure anyone that may hesitate
target audience(s) in terms of: to provide their e-mail. This is your first step in building
• Their contact information a relationship. Don’t ask for too much. Recognize that
when you ask for an e-mail address, your relationship
• Their needs and preferences has not yet been built. Don’t be intrusive; consider the
• Their key identifiers and segments long-term. As you build relationships, you will get plenty
of opportunities to add data to a contact file. If you need
• How you use and apply all of the above
information to qualify and fulfill an offer, ask for what you
Acquiring or building an accurate list of your target need at that time only. Long, detailed response forms
audience is your foundation. Doing it right remains the encourage opt-outs, rather than opt-ins.
most important determinant in whether your campaign
will or won’t be effective. The identification of the target Observe proper opt-out protocol. Always format every
audience, selection of sources for building the list and e-mail according to proper etiquette, with a clearly
the manner in which the list is used will demonstrate located unsubscribe statement and/or link. (See more
to recipients of any resulting messages whether the on opt-outs, below)
sender is or is not a savvy marketer.
Be cautious about sharing your house list. If you
Your e-mail marketing campaigns will be addressed to are approached to sell your house list to a list broker
Lists built from your house list supplemented, perhaps, or another e-mail marketer, think carefully. Right now,
by lists rented from list brokers. Let’s look at both. e-mail is the only way you can use the Internet to push
your message to your target audience and pull them to
your website. Don’t abuse the permissions you have
the House list been given.
To a marketer, the house list is pure gold. It contains
information about customers, both current and past, Be cautious when using lists others share with
leads, prospects and suspects (as well as, channel you. Your contacts may not have agreed to receive
partners, vendors, investors and even employees). commercial e-mail from strangers. You may be in an
A house list that contains e-mail addresses is further alliance or acquire a company with their own house
distinguished by one important factor. By supplying list. To avoid potential headaches, your first e-mail
e-mail addresses, these people have given you should introduce yourself, explain how you got the
permission, either explicit or implicit, to contact them e-mail addresses you are using and provide opt-out
by e-mail. That is why effective e-mail marketing is options up front.
referred to as permission marketing. As long as you
do not abuse those permissions or otherwise violate Purchased lists
the accepted rules of netiquette, you will be on your
While this section may be more relevant for B2C e-mail
way to effective emarketing and generating those high
marketers, there may be circumstances when any
response rates. Here are a few tips for building and
emarketer will consider using a purchased list for an
maintaining your house list.
e-mail campaign. List brokers who sell direct mail lists
Always be building. Wherever a first time visitor to any send their customers the lists they will use. In most
online program is likely to show up, ask for an e-mail cases, e-mail list brokers don’t release their lists.
address. This means that you should put an e-mail After you select the lists you want to use from the
address entry block on your home page and all other brokers’ inventory, you will be sending your creative
pages that receive high levels of traffic on you web to them to deliver. Since the broker will be in control
site(s). Do that for any offline forms as well. Mine for throughout the program, you should be aware of
that gold! some special implications.
CDC MarketFirst | Article 2

3. Marketing and the ‘e’ challenge
Verify the opt-in. Protect your own reputation. If the A web special is a great offer. Web specials pull
people on those lists haven’t given their expressed your target audience to your site, where its one-to-many
consent to receive commercial e-mail from strangers, advantages can accrue for you. You can make
you don’t want any part of those lists. Have the list your target audience feel special with the
broker send you verification of the opt-in status of the personalization features it offers. You can implement
people in their database. loyalty programs to generate the positive ROI that
comes from repeat business.
Visit list source websites. Make sure it’s a good fit. List
brokers let you search through various audience criteria Pointers to web resources are great offers. If you
to select your lists. They should also tell you where have migrated many elements in your marketing mix
those lists come from. Spend some time on those to the web, ensure that they are promoted by linking to
websites. You will get a good feel for likely response them in e-mails. It is possible that your target audience
rates from such a visit. does not know that these resources are available online.
Ask for e-mail addresses. When migrating recipients to An announcement about anything new is
your house list, include links to a sign-up form on every a great offer. News allows you to continue building
e-mail that goes to a rented list with a request such as, the relationship.
“Please confirm your e-mail address with this link so we
can be sure to send you the information promptly.” Mine the creative
for that gold!
In direct mail, creative includes everything associated
with building and delivering the offer from the size of
the Offer the envelope to the format of the message copy. The
A well-validated principle of web marketing is: People time-tested rule for formatting direct mail is AIDA, which
will come to your site for interesting and useful stands for: get Attention, generate Interest, build Desire
information, and they will return for new, interesting and and call for Action. Let’s take a look at these rules as
useful information. This principle is complimented by they apply to e-mail marketing and a few others that will
another well-known rule for effective direct marketing: make your campaigns more effective.
You can’t get a response without an offer. These rules
should be your guide for developing your offer. Get attention. The subject line is a powerful
gatekeeper. This is what your target audience will look
A newsletter is a great offer. Newsletters give you at to determine whether to open your message or delete
an opportunity to build a relationship with repeated it. Use this valuable space to compel your contacts.
contacts. You can use your newsletter to provide
new interesting and useful information to your target Generate interest. Position the offer high in the
audience as well as pull them to such information on message. Remember that the objective of your offer
your site. However, a commitment to a newsletter is a should be to generate a click to a web response form,
commitment that must be kept. Don’t be late, but don’t so structure it appropriately.
be irritating (See later tip about e-mail fatigue).
Build desire. Explain some of the features and benefits
A web seminar is a great offer. Web seminars give of your offering. This is a good time to emphasize that
you a chance to move leads through your sales cycle. while long copy works well for direct mail, the opposite
The power of the web gives your contacts the time and is true for e-mail. Keep messages short. Less is more!
space to self-qualify and move through your sales cycle
call for action. Make it clear what you’re asking
at their own pace.
prospects to do, early and often. Just like the rules for
voting in some places, do it early and do it often with
hyperlinks. Place links to your response form throughout
your message, and don’t wait for the final paragraph
you would with direct mail.
CDC MarketFirst | Article 3

4. Marketing and the ‘e’ challenge
the logistics Be careful about using the word ‘Free’ in your
subject line. Without qualifying information, this word
test. test. then test again. Leverage the capabilities may send a red flag that will be a turn-off to your B2B
of the medium. Send different messages to different contacts. They don’t have time for Get Rich Quick!
target segments. You will probably know the results e-mails. Responses will be generated purely by offering
within 24 hours of launch. People either respond to useful and interesting information.
e-mail quickly or not at all. Test your call-to-action link
placements with a different URL for each response link. less is more. When it comes to copy in text e-mail, we
Don’t be surprised to see that the first links are the ones need to reemphasize this rule: Don’t make your copy
with the highest click-throughs. Testing can be effective more than a couple of screen views long. Use spaces
for even small-volume campaigns. to separate information summaries and early hyperlinks
to reach your response form.
Beware of e-mail fatigue. Think of how it feels to be on
the receiving end of e-mail campaigns. Be considerate. Keep qualifying with every touchpoint. While it is
Give yourself a ‘karmic budget’—pretend every e-mail ill-advised to ask for too much, seemingly intrusive
drop costs you a million dollars and treat it as you information with your first response form, every
would if it did. Use sparingly! E-mail campaigns get succeeding e-mail or response form will give you an
such high response rates because e-mails are received opportunity to obtain the information you will need to
rapidly. If your list starts to associate your e-mail with provide increasingly personalized communications.
uninteresting or unimportant messages, they just won’t
open them, and, if they do, it may well be to find your look long term. If e-commerce is your objective, your
opt-out link. Avoid the temptation to over-communicate. cost of acquiring a new customer might not be returned
with a single sale. You need repeat business for a
Use HtMl e-mail. HTML e-mail continues to produce positive ROI. That is why your first steps should have
higher click-through rates than text-based e-mail when the objective of getting permission and obtaining e-mail
it is sent to people who can receive it. It’s a good idea addresses. Then use the personalization capabilities of
to have an HTML opt-in button wherever you have the medium to build a relationship and build loyalty and
a link on a webpage that asks for e-mail addresses. the sales will flow.
However, you can lose all its benefits and more if your
recipients can’t display it when they receive it. Look Placement of opt-out information is important. Every
to your emarketing campaign manager to determine message should have an unsubscribe option. That said,
appropriate formats how you construct it and where you put it are relevant
for your lists. to the effectiveness of you campaigns. While you have
to offer it, this is an offer that you don’t want to be
Pay attention to format in text-based e-mails. accepted. The default rule is put how-to instructions
Recipients will be reading your e-mail with different at the end of the message with an unsubscribe e-mail
clients and on different desktops. Apply the rules that address or link. However, if you are using a new list or
good web developers use by going to the lowest confirming an opt-in contact, it’s better to make this
common denominator when formatting your messages. offer early in the message. Give consideration to using
Since the wrong word wrap can have an adverse a selective opt-out web form. You can then let your
effect on response rates, play it safe by only using contacts unsubscribe to the current program, but stay
24 characters in subject lines and using 64 characters enrolled for others.
and a hard return in body text.
Use internal banners on your website. Draw walk-in
traffic to your programs. If you have created a great lead
generation program, don’t hide it from visitors to your
web site. Create a web banner linked to the program’s
response form to capture additional prospects. Put the
banner on your high traffic webpages. Studies show
high click-through rates for internal banners.
CDC MarketFirst | Article 4

5. Marketing and the ‘e’ challenge
conclusion
E-mail offers marketers the most powerful and cost-
effective tool that is available for reaching their target
audiences, generating leads, qualifying prospects,
moving them through the sales cycle and then retaining
their loyalty. CDC MarketFirst provides marketers the
most efficient means available to employ e-mail in their
marketing mix. It automates the process of targeting
market segments by many criteria and providing tailored
messages to multiple segments and realizes the
one-to-many efficiencies that are possible with e-mail
marketing.
However, even the most efficient e-mail campaigns
will not achieve their objectives if no one clicks on the
response links. Moreover, while online relationships take
a long time to build, they can be irreparably damaged
in one ill-advised campaign. By employing the best
practices for effective e-mail marketing outlined in this
bulletin, marketers can deliver e-mail campaigns that
are both efficient and effective.
For cDc MarketFirst customers
Prospects
Our professional services consultants have an
array of services that can help you enhance the
effectiveness of your e-mail marketing campaigns
and programs including:
• Pre-Launch Assessment – of all program content.
Usually customers develop the content they will
use in their e-mail programs and send it out upon
program launch, but this content can be reviewed
prior to launch if requested.
• Post-Program Results – report on the results of
the program from both quantitative and qualitative
aspects with recommendations for improvement.
• Integrated eMarketing Support – from the beginning
and throughout the development of e-mail campaigns
and programs.
For more information, please visit www.marketfirst.com or call +1 877-748-6825.
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