This document provides guidance on using email marketing to grow a business. It discusses best practices such as building an email list through referrals and forms, using automated forms to move customers to contact lists, planning email strategies to inform or increase sales, testing subject lines and content, emphasizing calls to action, and measuring email campaign performance through open and click rates. The overall recommendations are to engage in ongoing testing, focus on value for recipients, and consistently analyze results to improve email marketing over time.
1. HOW TO USE EMAIL
MARKETING TO
GROW YOUR
BUSINESS
Welcome we’ll start soon
2. ‘TIS THE HOLIDAY SEASON’
"OVER THE FIVE DAY HOLIDAY WEEKEND, PROMOTIONAL
EMAIL VOLUME SENT BY MAJOR RETAILERS WAS UP 27%
YEAR-OVER-YEAR, WITH THANKSGIVING DAY, BLACK FRIDAY
AND CYBER MONDAY ALL SEEING RECORD EMAIL VOLUMES"
Dir of Research, Responsys
Cyber Monday:
• Online sales: 33%
• Over 80% retailers offered a promotion
7. Only send
emails to
people that
know your
business
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8. Ways to Build a List
1. Referrals
2. Get out and network
3. Tradeshows
4. Run a contest, offer an incentive to
sign up Don’t buy email lists
5. Retail - guest book or fish bowl
6. Use social media
7. Email subscriber forms
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10. Automated Subscriber Forms
• Gain new subscribers automatically
• Automatically move new customers into Contact list
10 • Set up Auto-responder to welcome new users
13. Planning an Email Strategy
• Do you want to:
– Inform
– Sell more
– Increase repeat business
– Reduce sales cycle
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14. What’s in It for me?
Why should I sign up?
Why should I listen?
14 Why should I read this?
15. #1 response in EasyContact
customer survey:
“Designing a
professional looking
email”
when asked “What’s most
important…”
Make your email
look
professional:
Use a service
www.easycontact.com
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16. Useful educational content
Great Deals Coupons
Top of Mind
Event marketing
Holiday Greetings
Hints and Tips
Visit Your Website
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23. How do YOUR customers see you?
How do your customers know you?
– By your company name?
– By your product?
– By your personal name?
Add details in your sender info
– Example: EasyContact - Email Marketing
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25. The Subject Line
• Keep it short but WIIFM
• Don’t use - ‘Free’, ‘$$$’, ‘Save’, ‘Discount’,
Caps, Excessive Punctuation
• Test different subject lines
• Ask questions
• Make a statement
• Personalize it
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26. S
Subject Line: Special Mother's Day Offer: Flowers from $19.99
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29. Call to Action
“Click here” trap
Compelling
What
Why (WIIFM)
Visible
•Above the fold
•Add social media
links
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30. Test, Test and Test Again
Open Rate vs Click Rate
High Open/Low Click = not meeting expectations,
benefit not clear
Low Open/High Click = subject line, timing or spam
Continuous Improvement
– Images vs Text
– Short vs. Longer
– Subject Lines
– Days & Times
– Follow Up
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31. Don’t send emails from your own
computer using BCC or showing
your customer email database
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32. Legal Stuff
• One click unsubscribe
• Include your physical address
– Taken care of by my email service provider
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34. Managing & Growing Email Lists
• Keep your list up to date
• Remove emails that keep
bouncing
• Update email addresses
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35. Measure
• Open rate
• Click through rate
• Bounce rate
• Track traffic to
your website from
your emails
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36. Return On Investment
Measure the effectiveness of every campaign
Investment compared to Profit
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37. What should I expect?
Message Type Open Rate Click Rate
Acquisition 10.9% 2%
Editorial 28.3% 10.3%
Marketing (~70%) 19.7% 3.7%
Research 13.7% 2.9%
Service 42% 8.9%
Other 24.4% 4.4%
“Q2 2011 Email Trends and Benchmarks”
Email Experience Council and Epsilon
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38. Mobile Users
• View Results
• Manage/Add Contacts
• View Profile
• Email Status
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39. Top “Dos” and “Don’ts”
Dos Don’t
Ask yourself, “why should a customer Assume something works
sign up for my email?
Convert print promos directly to
Run subject line tests
Get complicate your design just
Use social media to increase open rates because you can
Test (subject lines, frequency & Over or under-mail your lists
timing, content)
Make subscribing or unsubscribing
Analyze (response rates, who’s complicated
responding…
Say too much in a single email
Use clear calls to action
Forget to use email along with your
Keep important content “above the fold” other communication channels
Respect recipients email image Forget a ‘landing page’
blocking and preview panes
Ignore your results and reports
Preview your emails before you send them
Say everything in the subject line
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41. Join Our Community
Deluxesmallbizblog.com
Facebook: Deluxecorp
Twitter: @deluxecorp
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42. Thank You
Sign up for another webinar at:
www.BizLaunch.com/deluxe
Gregg Zastrow
(651) 490-8026
gregg.zastrow@deluxe.com
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Editor's Notes
Build Trust Lead with Benefits Limit to three or four requested fields
Build Trust Lead with Benefits Limit to three or four requested fields
Here’s a tip. Send a series of emails with your coupon to create a sense of urgency. Send an email promoting your offer a week in advance, noting the timing in the subject line. Then.. Send a followup email three days before noting the promotion ends in three days. Then a same day email noting Last day for the sale.
Heres a tip. Send a series of emails with your coupon to create a sense of urgency. Send an email promoting your offer a week in advance, noting the timing in the subject line. Then.. Send a followup email three days before noting the promotion ends in three days. Then a same day email noting Last day for the sale.
Heres a tip. Send a series of emails with your coupon to create a sense of urgency. Send an email promoting your offer a week in advance, noting the timing in the subject line. Then.. Send a followup email three days before noting the promotion ends in three days. Then a same day email noting Last day for the sale.
Heres a tip. Send a series of emails with your coupon to create a sense of urgency. Send an email promoting your offer a week in advance, noting the timing in the subject line. Then.. Send a followup email three days before noting the promotion ends in three days. Then a same day email noting Last day for the sale.
The company is also using social integration, allowing shoppers to sign in to the website via Facebook or join their email list via the network. Fans who "like" the 1-800-Flowers page are greeted with an opportunity to get a 20% discount on their next order using a Mastercard and access to flash sales. The most successful social partnership so far has been with Justin Bieber, targeting not only the young singer's fans but the ones with the money, their moms. While the conversion rate for visitors to the "One Less Lonely Girl" bouquet site page isn't that high—around 4%—the partnership is great PR. "And I suspect that he's responsible for the 40% of email opt-ins that don't convert, but that's okay," says Henrikson. The arrangement—red roses in a clear vase shipped with Bieber's "Under the Mistletoe" CD for the holidays—may eventually be rolled out to franchise stores.
On average, your email has two seconds to make an impact. Better to Use: Click Here! Spread the News! Join Now! Compelling What is in it for me? Visible
Best day to send Best time of day Different layouts