Presentation by Joy Cropper about Permission Email Marketing at the 2009 Indiana Tourism Summit

1. PERMISSION EMAIL: EMAIL MARKETING THAT GETS RESULTS Indiana Tourism Summit September 16, 2009

2. What is permission email?

3. Permission email: Email sent to recipients who have opted-in Permission marketing: About building an ongoing relationship of increasing depth with customers. In the words of Seth Godin, "turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers." Personalized, relevant, expected PERMISSION EMAIL

4. Better response rates Increased trust and brand affinity Better deliverability WHY PERMISSION EMAIL?

5. WHAT ARE SUMMIT ATTENDEES DOING?

6. WHAT ARE SUMMIT ATTENDEES DOING?

7. Developing or improving your own permission email program

8. Analyze what you're doing Key performance metrics Subscriber feedback / surveys Content &design Draft an improvement plan List building and maintenance Creative Segmentation and personalization Testing Analytics: Reporting & analysis GETTING STARTED

9. Switch to double opt in; never pre-check the sign-up boxes Deliver on promises you make in the sign-up process Guarantee you will not share address with other companies (#1) Other hooks: tout special pricing, offer first look at new stuff Allow recipients to specify preferences for email content Start opt-in process with a field Optimize forms Minimize fields to increase volume, add fields to increase lead quality / personalization (test) List growth tactics: Incentives, opt-in check boxes, trade shows, offline advertising/direct mail, online marketing/search, call center BEST PRACTICES: LIST BUILDING

10. BEST PRACTICES: CREATIVE Subject line 50 characters or less (or even 35 or less) Use action words (Get your free..., please confirm…, etc.) Resend with different subject line to unopens More links = More clicks Emails with more links get higher open and click-thru rates than emails with fewer links Link = text links, navigation, buttons, images No more than 2 calls to action in an email 1 action = 55% CTR, 2 actions = 38% CTR, 3 actions = 5%, 4 actions = 1%

11. BEST PRACTICES: CREATIVE Make it about the reader, not the sales agenda Provide sense of urgency and clear call to action (think verbs!) Include site navigation in email Cater to skimmers Prime real estate: beginning of paragraphs, first bullet point or two, and first words of titles and subheads Bulleted, bolded, underlined and hyperlinked text all work to spike attention Photograph of a specific person resonates with readers Change images frequently (esp. in newsletters) People don’t mind scrolling, but keep key benefit or offer above the fold

12. BEST PRACTICES: CREATIVE Design for the red 'X’ (43% view emails with images blocked/off) No single-image emails, use ALT tags Design for the preview pane (53% use preview feature) First 2 inches of email are key: Text headline, navigation links, key benefit / offer Avoid large image headers, especially on top or top-left

13. BEST PRACTICES: SEGMENTATION Segment subscribers into modest number of groups for which you are able to deliver relevant, personalized messages BIG impact Consider: Campaigns by user details (past purchases, web pages viewed, geography, interests) Campaigns by sales cycle (customers vs. prospects) Dynamic content

14. BEST PRACTICES: TESTING Test, Test, Test Subject lines Mailing times &days Offers Layout Photos Email clients Blocked images

15. Look beyond open rates and click-thrus & determine priority metrics For ex: click-thru % on specific topics/links, subsequent conversions to requests • Open rate literature • Click-thru rate • Click to open rate (# of unique clicks/# of unique opens) • Bounce rate • Delivery rate (emails sent - bounces) • Unsubscribe rate • Referral rate (“send-to-a-friend”) • Number of or percent spam complaints • Net subscribers (# subscribers + new subscribers) - (bounces + unsubscribes) • Subscriber retention (# subscribers - bounces - unsubscribes/# subscribers) • Web site actions (number of visits to a specific Web page or pages) • Percent unique clicks on a specific recurring link(s) • Number of orders, transactions, downloads or actions • Percent orders, transactions, downloads or actions of emails sent or delivered • Total revenue • Average order size • Conversion rate (number of actions/unique click-thrus) • Average dollars per email sent or delivered BEST PRACTICES: ANALYTICS

16. Integrate email with Web analytics (google analytics) Regularly review performance data (58.8% of youtrack data) After each send, then 1 week later Look for problems, consider resends Compare over time Create a spreadsheet for past 12 months Look at: Consistency Highs and lows Message metrics variances BEST PRACTICES: ANALYTICS

17. INDUSTRY AVERAGES Open Rates Click-thru Rates

18. Who Do You Use?: Constant Contact (8) Outlook/Entourage (4) Exact Target(3) Emma (2) Vertical Response (2) Blue Sky (1) In-house (1) Delivra (1) CoCoTools (1) mail-bots.com (1) eGov(1) For a comprehensive list, check out: http://www.marketingprofs.com/bg/ EMAIL PROVIDERS

19. IOTD Email Case Study: "Putting the blast in the past"

20. Situation: One version sent to 122,048 subscribers once per month Avg. open rate: 12.9% Avg. click-thru rate: 4.8% Goals: Increase open and click-thru rates Scrub list Find out what subscribers want IOTD EMAIL EVOLUTION

21. Email survey to determine: Subscriber demographics, travel habits, favorite activities Desired email topics, frequency, format ASK SUBSCRIBERS % open rate Upcoming Festivals and Events Fall Travel Trip Ideas by Region Nature and Outdoor Activities Museums and Historic Sites Shopping Performing Arts and Cultural attractions Nightlife / Dining Family and Kid Activities Sporting Events Girlfriend Getaways Riverboat Gaming

22. Three new monthly emails: Travel Discounts Festivals & Events Trip Ideas New design templates: Created by agency, updated internally Branding consistency Updates to VisitIndiana.com Personalized, relevant, expected IOTD NEW EMAIL PROGRAM

23. Results: IOTD NEW EMAIL PROGRAM

24. Costs: $15,000: Subscriber survey, email plan, software upgrade, list management, email writing (trip ideas), template design, analytics integration IOTD NEW EMAIL PROGRAM

25. 4 Test Cases

26. 4 TEST CASES On 7/15, I signed up for four emails: Hendricks County Hamilton County Richmond/Wayne County The Children's Museum of Indianapolis

27. HENDRICKS COUNTY 7/15: received email confirming sign up (double opt-in) – great! 8/26: received first email

28. HENDRICKS COUNTY

29. HAMILTON COUNTY 7/15: signed up 8/12: received first email 9/15: second email

30. HAMILTON COUNTY 7/15: signed up 8/12: received first email 9/15: second email

31. Richmond/WAYNE COUNTY 7/15: signed up (nice) 7/15: PR email 3 times 7/16: PR email 8/1: early August events 8/19: late August events 9/1: geocaching 4times 9/10: mid-late September events

32. Richmond/WAYNE COUNTY

33. 7/15: Signed up Today: Haven't received anything yet THE CHILDREN’S MUSEUM

34. Analyze what you're doing Key performance metrics Subscriber survey Content & design Draft an improvement plan List growth Creative Segmentation and personalization Testing Analytics GET STARTED NOW

35. THANK YOU! Joy Cropper Director of Internet Strategy, Williams Randall Marketing Joy.cropper@willran.com