7 steps-email-marketing-guide-smart-insights

Email Marketing
Seven Steps to Success Guide
Dr Dave Chaffey and Tim Watson
Published: April 2013
Plan > Reach > Act > Convert > Engage

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© Smart Insights (Marketing Intelligence) Limited. Please go to www.smartinsights.com to feedback or access our other guides.
7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing
!
Email marketing
Seven Steps to Success Guide
Contents
13 Step 1 Prioritise your email marketing efforts with CRITICAL
20 Step 2 Set your goals and build a quality list
31 Step 3 Defining your email marketing proposition
38 Step 4 Segmentation and targeting techniques
58 Step 5 Integrated email communications strategy
61 Step 6 Creating effective email templates and creative
71 Step 7 Test, learn and refine to increase email efficiency

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Introduction
Your options for using email marketing to grow your
business
Email marketing is far from dead as some have suggested in this age of social networking!1
As we’ll see in this section, you can use email marketing both for gaining new customers and
selling more to existing customers. In this guide we’ll look at the options for each, but we’ll
focus on using email as a customer communication tool, which is where it works best and
can integrate well with your social media marketing efforts.
Strategy Recommendation 1 Focus your email marketing efforts on customer retention
Email marketing tends to work best as a tool to improve customer retention and growth.
This is because your emails are received by a warm contact that is already aware of you.
Email doesn’t work well when it’s with a cold contact.
That said, there are a range of options to use email for customer acquisition and it’s worth
considering them. We will start here.
About this guide
We have written this guide for marketers with some experience of email marketing who want
to take their email marketing to the next level of sophistication.
The workbook format is designed to make it quick to review and decide on the changes you
need to make to your email marketing to get better results. It covers both email strategy
topics like segmentation options and communications strategy, but also practical advice on
how to improve your creative and subject lines.
How is this guide structured?
In this section we have introduced the concept of permission marketing and shown how it
can be applied to using email for gaining new customers and communicating with existing
customers. In Step 1 we will show how to prioritise your email activities using the CRITICAL
factors. We then cover each of these in more detail in the next steps of the guide.
About the authors
Dr Dave Chaffey is a consultant, author and trainer specialising in digital
marketing. He started giving courses on email marketing in 2001 and still
advises on email marketing as part of training and consulting. He wrote Total
Email Marketing in 2003. This book was updated to a second edition, but this
guide is effectively the modern version.
Tim Watson, is a specialist, independent email marketing consultant
Tim Watson, from consultancy Zettasphere. He actively promotes email
marketing and frequently speaks on the subject and how to improve use
of the channel. A member of the DMA Email Council and chair of the DMA
Email Best Practice hub. He writes regularly for Smart Insights as an Expert
1 Facebook’s view on email marketing.

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commentator on Email marketing.
Related guides
Recommended resource? Email marketing primer
We have grouped our Expert member resources on our Email marketing hub page. These
guides are related to this one
þþ Email marketing effectiveness audit spreadsheet
þþ Email campaign calculator spreadsheet
þþ Email contact strategy template.
Using email for customer acquisition
Customer acquisition by email generally refers to emailing where first-party permission does
not exist. That is, the recipient has not given permission directly to the sender and is not in
their in-house list. Permission has either been given to a third party using an opt-in to partner
mailings or the law allows emailing on an opt-out basis such as under CAN-SPAM and B2B
in the UK.
When first-party permission does not exist effective email is difficult as it requires much
tighter targeting than first-party permission email and needs a message that has spot on
relevancy. This demands rich and accurate data that is typically not available with third-party
data sources.
The lack of effectiveness is as a result of the cost of data, such as rented data, versus
the level of response. The difficulties that arise are as a result of poor data leading to
deliverability issues that compound ability to gain response.
rr Q. Have we reviewed our options for customer acquisition through email?
Although many just think of email as a customer retention tool there are still some great
options to use email marketing for acquiring new customers through reaching new prospects.
Checklist – email acquisition options
These are the main options to review:
rr 1. Rented list email. Rental typically doesn’t give direct access to data or unlimited use,
however is higher quality data than a purchase list.
rr 2. Co-branded email (and/or co-registration).
rr 3. Competition sites.
rr 4. Third-party email newsletter.
rr 5. Viral email.
rr 6. Event-triggered email.
rr 7. House e-newsletter.
Best Practice Tip 1 Don’t miss the opportunities of advertising in others’ e-newsletters
We highlight the fourth option as particularly worth considering, especially for business-
to-business marketing since the ‘banner blindness’ that we see with display ads doesn’t
occur to the same degree with e-newsletters as visitors scan them.
To help you quickly review the options for acquisition using email marketing, this table shows

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their benefits, disadvantages and issues to consider to help manage.
Table. Summary of methods of using email marketing for customer acquisition and
their advantages and disadvantages
Option What is it? Benefits Issues
1. Rented list.
Text is: This is
as opposed to
list purchase.
Renting
access to
contacts
from a list
owner who
broadcasts on
your behalf.
Reach into new
contacts
§ List source. High typical cost of
acquisition (CPA)
§ Low responsiveness
§ Perception of spam – rent from
a reputable list owner
2. Co-branded
list
Email sent
from list
owner but with
your brand,
message and
offer
Leverage partner
brand. Can also
co-register – sign
up on their site
§ Exclusivity
4. Third-party
e-newsletter ad/
sponsorship
Placing an ad,
sponsorship,
editorial in a
publisher’s
e-newsletter
Responsiveness
compared to other
options
Reach
§ Prime position
§ Clutter
§ Cost
5. Viral email An email is
designed to
be shared and
seeded to a
house list or a
rented list in
combination
with social
media
Potentially
low-cost and high
reach
§ Achieving cut-through
§ Negative brand impact
6. Event-trig-
gered email
Conversion of
leads
Automated – just
sit back and relax
§ Optimising creative, offer and
frequency
7. House
e-newsletter
E-newsletters
are mainly
aimed at
customers and
most sales
will come from
this source,
but they can
work well for
prospects who
haven’t bought
from you yet
Helps build a
relationship with
recipient over time
§ Achieving balance between
informing the list member and
selling to them
Using email for customer retention and growth
rr Q. Have we reviewed our options for customer retention and growth through email?
Most marketers agree that email marketing works best as a relationship-building tool. Review

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the options in the next table.
Checklist – email retention options
These are the main email acquisition options to review:
rr 1. House e-newsletter.
rr 2. House campaign.
rr 3. Triggered email.
rr 4. Research email.
rr 5. Service email.
rr 6. Sales force email.
The table below summarises your options for communicating with existing customers via
email. You will see that some of these options such as event-triggered email and social
messaging are in common with acquisition.
Retention option What is it? Benefits Issues
1. House
e-newsletter
Still one of the best
digital marketing tools
to build a brand and
develop relationships
Add value, gain
response
Defining the best sell/
inform/entertain balance
Integration with social
media
Resourcing
2. House
campaign
A focused send with
a single offer or
objective often has
better response than an
e-newsletter because of
its clarity
Permission-
based
Responsive
Managing contact
strategies of frequency
so that the impact is not
reduced
Targeting
Testing the best template
layouts and offers
3. Triggered emails Behavioural emails
following up on
abandoned shopping
basket, search or
category browses on
site, post purchase
ratings or review
requests, response to
webform completion
or interest expressed
through a click on
an email can be a
cost-effective way to
increase conversion to
sale
Very effective There is growing
customer distrust of
tracking so transparency
on this is required and
opt-in is essential
Requires technical
integration of behavioural
data with email solution
for triggers
4. Research email Research + Responsiveness Selection of sample
Managing frequency
5. Service email Service + Responsiveness Cross-selling

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Retention option What is it? Benefits Issues
6. Sales force
email
Relationship build
Sell
Relationship Control
Integration
Permission-based email marketing
rr Q. Is our email marketing permission-based?
Permission marketing, or gaining consent for marketing communications to be received,
is fundamental to successful email marketing. If you don’t practise permission marketing,
customers will see you as a spammer and you may lose them forever. Then there are the
legal requirements in many countries which make permission marketing a must.
Strategy Recommendation 2 Ensure your email marketing is permission-based
Audit your email marketing to ensure that your email marketing is permission-based. All
emails sent must be agreed to received by customers and you should have traceability of
how, where and when they opted-in.
Since email marketing underpins much of digital marketing, but especially email marketing,
let’s take a look at what’s involved. You will know most of this, but it’s worth checking.
Permission marketing
Permission marketing is an established approach that still gives a practical foundation for
customer relationship management (CRM) and online customer engagement. ‘Permission
marketing’ is a term coined by Seth Godin way back in 1999, but it’s still valid and we think
that many still don’t work hard enough to get permission.
What is it? Permission marketing
Customers agree (opt in) to be involved in an organisation’s marketing activities by email,
social networks or traditional channels in return for the value offered.
The classic exchange is based on information or entertainment – a B2B site can offer a free
report in exchange for a customer sharing their email address and details, while a B2C site
can offer a newsletter or company Facebook page with valuable content and offers. This is
stage 2 in the classic permission marketing process shown in the next diagram.
In the section “Double or single opt-in?” on page 26 we discuss whether it’s necessary to
send an email after a form is filled in to complete opt-in (we don’t recommend this for most
businesses).

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It’s worthwhile reviewing and optimising this process to ensure you’re using the best
engagement devices, messaging and placement to maximise lead generation.
What is it? Engagement devices
A call to action that encourages visitors to the site to interact. If these also enable capture
of leads, these are lead-generation devices.
To improve the effectiveness of your permission marketing, ask these questions:
E-permission marketing checklist – how effective are our engagement devices?
rr Appeal and range of devices? How effective compared with competitors?
rr Balance of lead-generation and non-lead generation devices?
rr Placement and call to action?
rr Ability to track (see our article on campaign tracking,2
in the section ‘Assess engagement
“beyond the click” through web analytics’ on page 73 or the guidance on event tracking
in our Google Analytics guide)?
rr Type of engagement device?
rr Videos
rr Content download
rr Poll, survey or interactive quiz
rr Social recommendation (share through social networks or email).
Strategy Recommendation 3 Review engagement and lead-generation devices
Check that you have the best methods of generating leads within your budget. Review
the range of engagement devices you have against competitors. Use testing to review
the messaging and placement of offers to maximise conversion. It’s best to use a mix of
engagement devices that include both those that include lead generation and those that do
not require registration to maximise reach.
2 Campaign tracking for email guide.

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Use a common customer profile
Your options to target your email list will be based on your customer knowledge. Since we
are looking to learn more through time, we need a structured approach to customer data
capture. This can be achieved through a common customer profile which you can use to
review data quality of your list.
What is it? Common customer profile
A definition of all the database fields that are relevant to the marketer to understand and
target the customer with a relevant offering. It is best if different levels,1–3 of profile can
be defined to encourage more customers to sign up.
Once defined, the common customer profile can then be used as a means of structuring
e-permission marketing and refining understanding about the customer. A plan with targets
for each level can be created about how to learn more about the customer.
Best Practice Tip 2 Identify key subscriber profile fields
Identify the profile fields you really need to be able to understand your audience and target
them with future messages. These are level 1 or 2 of the common customer profile.
To identify the key profile fields first needs customer insight to understand how customers
segment themselves and the fewest data points needed that provide the highest value for
segmentation and targeting. When possible, analysis of transactional data delivers good
insight, alternatively surveys and feedback data may be used.
A structured approach to customer data capture is needed otherwise the wrong data may be
collected or some data will be missed, as is the case with the utility company that collected
80,000 email addresses, but forgot to ask for the postcode for geo-targeting!
The customer profile can have different levels to set targets for data quality:
þþ Level 1 is contact details and key profile fields only.
þþ Level 2 includes preferences.
þþ Level 3 includes full purchase and response behaviour.
E-CRM and data profiling approach reviewed?
rr Q. Has our e-CRM and data profiling approach been reviewed?
We can refine Seth Godin’s permission marketing ideas, which have been described in the
previous steps, to make them more practical to apply to retention marketing.
Permission marketing E-permission marketing
Opt-in Selective opt-in
Opt-out Selective opt-out
Initial profiling Communications preferences
Continued profiling Sense
Targeted communications & Respond

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These are some of the key features of E-CRM implementation we suggest you work through
for your organisation.
þþ 1. ‘Offer selective opt-in to communications.’ Selective opt-in may be on the basis
of a subscription centre or a preference centre. A subscription centre provides choice of
different newsletters you may have, such as ‘family’, ‘home’, ‘garden’, ‘sport’ and so on,
whereas a preference centre collects interests and choices for content segmentation and
targeting. Either way, providing customer choice enables more relevant communications.
Some customers may not want a weekly e-newsletter, rather they may only want to
hear about new product releases. Remember opt-in and providing opt-out is a legal
requirement in most countries.
As customers do not frequently complete or update preferences then it is best that any
information gathered is of an evergreen nature.
Four key opt-in options, selected by tick-box are:
rr Content – News, products, offers, events.
rr Frequency – weekly, monthly, quarterly or alerts.
rr Channel – email, direct mail, phone or SMS.
The needs of the marketer and the customer need to be balanced. Providing a lot of
choice can make the E-CRM programme difficult to deliver, adding more complexity than
the additional value it delivers to the brand, whereas insufficient choice could mean poor
relevance and unhappy customers.
Giving the customers frequency control may make sense for your brand. However, offering
a lower frequency as an antidote to poor value and targeting is not a solution. It just means
you are sending irrelevant content less frequently. Whereas the aim should be to provide
value and targeting that permits you to provide maximum marketing pressure. When moving
into targeted ‘sense & respond’ programmes the frequency is best the responsibility of the
marketer.

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This is an example of a preference centre or customer profile.
What is it? Customer preference or communications centre
A page or area on a site where customers can edit their profile or communications options
such as types and frequency of email they will receive.
Although many large brands use these, they are now within the reach of smaller companies
through low-cost e-CRM tools, IF they have a strategy that acknowledges their importance.
Best Practice Tip 3 Create a customer communications preferences centre
A preference centre enables customers to adjust the frequency and type of
communications so increasing the likelihood of engagement.
þþ 2. Create a ‘common customer profile’. Following on from the idea of a preferences
centre. A structured approach to customer data capture is needed otherwise key data
needed for delivering targeted emails will be missed. You don’t want to ask for lots of
details straightaway, so a preference centre enables you to gradually add data. Today, big
brands such as Sears3
are using social sign to integrate customer profile information with
email and CRM database information.
What is it? Social sign-on
Site visitors log in to site services through their preferred social network account such as
Facebook or Twitter. Optionally this process can be integrated with additional profile fields
which are stored in a customer database.
þþ 3. ‘Don’t make opt-out too easy’ (selective opt-out). A bit radical, but my view is that
we often make it too easy to unsubscribe. Yes, providing a straightforward opt-out is part
of permission marketing and in many countries, a legal requirement. Although offering
some form of opt-out is now a legal requirement in many countries due to privacy laws,
a single click to unsubscribe is arguably making it too easy. Instead, wise e-permission
marketers use the concept of ‘My Profile’. Instead of unsubscribe, they offer a link to
a web form to update a profile, which includes the option to unsubscribe or opt-down
to some or potentially all communications. Opt-down allows customers to temporarily
suspend themselves from marketing or otherwise slow down communication to them.
Amazon’s communications preferences page is a good example of this approach.
Remember, though, that offering opt-out that works is a legal requirement. Many opt-out
processes still don’t work so instead subscribers may report as spam which can hit your
overall deliverability. Still, we still think there’s some merit in what we said way back:
The use of ‘My Profile’ can be tied to the principle of ‘selective opt-in’ – you could call it
selective opt-out. Put the ‘My profile’ option in the email to prompt the user to keep their
contact details up-to-date.
þþ 4. ‘Watch don’t ask’ – use ‘Sense and Respond’. The need to ask interruptive
questions to better profile customers can be reduced through the use of monitoring
of clicks and behaviour to better understand customer needs and to trigger follow-up
communications or ‘Sense and Respond’. This type of behavioural targeting is more
effective due to the difference between what customers say and what they do. Some
examples of personalisation through this technique include:
3 An example of how Sears use Social sign-on.

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þþ Monitoring click-through to different types of content or offers. The interests of
individual list members can be assessed through monitoring which landing pages they
arrive onto and which further pages, products or categories they go on to browse.
Lastminute.com reputedly tailor their newsletters to many different template types
according to content click-through. For example, if you click through to theatres or
city-breaks, then you will receive more of this type of content in future.
þþ Monitoring the engagement of individual customers with email communications.
This is achieved by monitoring trends of opening and click-through by individual
customer. These metrics indicate the level of interest of individual customers and we
can monitor how these vary through time and use follow-up communications. For
example, perhaps a buying signal is suggested by a customer who has not previously
responded to emails who starts clicking through to the website more frequently. This
could be followed up by a tailored email communication or a phone call.
þþ Follow-up of response to a specific email. If a B2B vendor offers information about
a new product launch which encourages click through to a landing page then they
have two main choices of follow-up. First, the form could contain a question asking
about the future buying intentions or whether contact from a sales rep is required.
Alternatively, if there is a capability to monitor an individual who has clicked through
to a page, then it may be best to use this to prompt a call from an account manager
or sales person. This approach can be further enhanced to provide more complex
nurturing process and lead scoring, commonly called email automation. Multiple
signals of engagement are used: open, click, web visit, whitepaper download,
information request form completion and so on. Further emails are sent determined by
previous behaviour, or lack of interaction. A score is calculated to enable sales teams
to focus on the customers who are most engaged. This makes sense due to the high
cost of a sales team where the complexity of nurturing and scoring is more than offset
by the increase in sales efficiency
In this section we have introduced good practices for permission email marketing. In the first
step we will add to this by reviewing the CRITICAL factors you control that will affect your
success in email marketing.

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Step 1
Prioritise your email marketing efforts
with the CRITICAL factors
A review of the CRITICAL success factors for email marketing is a useful place to start your
journey to improved email marketing. CRITICAL summarises the main factors which will
determine whether you’re successful with your email marketing.
Let’s now briefly review each of the eight CRITICAL success factors. We’ll look at some
examples of good practice to learn from along the way and cover them in more detail later in
this guide.
Conversation
rr Q. Is our email marketing two-way – are we engaging visitors in a dialogue or just
pushing content?
Email works best when it’s part of a wider dialogue encouraging user participation and
interaction with a brand. It’s easy to just treat email marketing as a substitute for direct
marketing. But it works best when it encourages interactions, for example through:
þþ Polls or surveys (for an e-newsletter).
þþ Reviews and ratings on products (for an e-retailer).
þþ Competitions which are announced in several emails.
þþ Sharing of what’s hot in the social channels like Facebook and Twitter.
Here’s an example from the CIPD B2B e-newsletter showing how a poll is integrated (see full
example creative):
Relevance
rr Q. Is our email marketing targeted? Are we segmenting sufficiently?
It will be no surprise to direct marketers that response rates for emails will be higher if they
are targeted to the interests of individual recipients.
In the section on targeting (Step 4) we’ll review six options to targeting which cover both
traditional targeting options and methods to deliver contextual emails through what our US

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marketing colleagues call ‘Sense and Respond communications’.
þþ 1. Customer profile characteristics (demographics and customer set preferences).
þþ 2. Customer lifecycle groups. Most commonly groups for new subscribers or prospects,
active customers and lapsed or no longer engaging in email.
þþ 3. Customer behaviour in response and purchase (observed and predicted). This is the
most powerful method, though also requires more technology to deliver it.
þþ 4. Customer multi-channel behaviour (channel preference).
þþ 5. Customer value (current and future).
þþ 6. Customer personas. Personas provide a helpful way to target best on multiple
dimensions. More complex methods in this area such as psychographics were created to
control channel costs in direct mail and aren’t used in email marketing.
What is it? Sense and respond communications
Delivering timely, relevant communications to customers as part of a contact strategy
based on assessment of their position in the customer lifecycle, and monitoring and
following up automatically based on specific interactions with a company’s website, emails
and staff.
The next diagram gives an example of how ‘Sense and Respond’ email marketing can
work. It may not be necessary to follow up on all. Which do you think is most valuable here?
We suggest Option C : ‘Click Don’t Respond’ because these respondents may just need a
little push to convert, either through a follow-up email or phone call if they are a high value
customer.
E-mail
database
Initial e-mail
Promotion(s)
Landing page
response
E-mail
Landing page
or microsite
Response
monitoring
tool
Rules-
based
response
engine
Phase 1
Campaign
Clickthroughs
Opens
Responses
Phase 2
Campaign
New
subject
Line,
New time
New
Creative
New
Offer
New
Offer
Timely
Follow-up
A.
Don’t
Open
B.
Open
Don’t
Click
C.
Click
Don’t
Respond
D.
Respond
Key
E-mail
database
Initial e-mail
Promotion(s)
Landing page
response
E-mail
Landing page
or microsite
Response
monitoring
tool
Rules-
based
response
engine
Phase 1
Campaign
Clickthroughs
Opens
Responses
Phase 2
Campaign
New
subject
Line,
New time
New
Creative
New
Offer
New
Offer
Timely
Follow-up
A.
Don’t
Open
B.
Open
Don’t
Click
C.
Click
Don’t
Respond
D.
Respond
Key
Relevance also relates to the email list quality – you can only target if you have collected
sufficient information to profile the individual and really understand their characteristics and
interests. This becomes a catch 22 situation. Asking for information up front reduces the
number of customers who will sign up and best practice advice is to ask for the minimum and
then learn over time. In the critical early stages there is little data for targeting and behaviour-
based data becomes easier to collect than getting further data from customers.

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Incentive (or offer)
rr Q. Are our incentives or content offers effective? Is our email engaging?
This is the WIIFM factor or ‘What’s In It For Me’ for the recipient. What benefit does the
recipient gain from reading the email or clicking on the links within? For promotional emails or
e-blasts, there is a range of product or launch offers we can use in emails which are often in
the ’Free’, ‘Win’, ‘Save’ category. For an e-newsletter, this is the content which we’ll review in
the section on developing your email proposition. Is the quality of content or offer consistent
through time?
Best Practice Tip 4 Highlight your incentives through formatting
Highlight your incentives in headlines, image text and call to action.
This example shows how the WIIFM is included within the call-to-action buttons.
Timing
rr Q. Are we sending our emails at the right time?
Timing refers to when the email is sent or received; the time of day, day of the week, point in
the month and even time of year. It is usually thought that B2B emails are best sent so that
the recipient receives them during the working day or midweek. All of us have a full inbox to
work through first thing in the morning, often containing SPAM and newsletters.
The theoretical best time to send is when the recipient is active in their inbox and your email
pops in at the top. The massive move to reading emails on mobile devices has changed
habits and timing. Increasing numbers of subscribers check their emails somewhere between

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waking up, having breakfast and arriving at work and later into the evening. Your message
determines whether that makes it a good time to send. Whilst your new shoe styles may get
attention before breakfast it’s not the right context for further action and purchasing.
However, only testing can show this for sure – some email marketers get good results on
Friday, when office workers are winding down for the weekend. The truth of the matter
is there are no generic perfect times to send. What works for one brand may not work
for another. It’s also a fallacy to think that timing is always critical, within a few hours of a
particular time may make no difference. This situation is likely to be driven further by the use
of email on mobile devices. With email an always on 24/7 channel for many, the number of
times per day the inbox is checked is on the increase.
Test the timing that works best for your audience by assessing success against your
marketing objective for your emails at different times of the day and week. At a minimum
assess success against click rates. Read our posts on timing for more ideas.4
Timing also means more than the best time to get seen in the inbox, such as:
rr Timing to external factors. Some brands notice increased offer take-up just after pay day.
rr Timing in the context of user interactions – the sense and response approach mentioned
already.
rr Timing according to product need and lifecyle, for replenishment-based products around
the point when the product or service is needed again
Integration
rr Q. Are our emails integrated with other channels?
This is looking at email as part of your integrated marketing communications rather than just
the aspect of technical integration of systems. As always clarity in cross-channel marketing
communication strategy should proceed consideration of technical integration. How does
email integrate with social media, websites, direct mail, telesales, offline adverts and so on
are all important to getting your message across.
Questions to ask include:
þþ Are the creative and copy consistent with my brand?
þþ Does the message reinforce other communications?
þþ Does the timing of the email campaign fit with offline communications?
þþ Do we encourage social interactions?
For example, following up telesales with emailed information or if sending direct mail,
combining with an email pre and or post direct mail send. Tests have shown increasing the
number of touchpoints increases conversion.
Remember, too, that email channel integration means considering use of all other channels
and touchpoints for gaining new permission subscribers.
Creative and copy
rr Q. Are our creative and copy engaging enough?
Creative refers to the overall design of the email including layout, use of colour, images and
copy.
4 Best time of week to send an email. Best time of day to send an email.

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Best Practice Tip 5 Make your offer clear up-front
Avoid the direct mail approach of ‘saving the best to last’. Email is an impulsive medium
where visitors will scan it quickly, so if the recipient likes your offer from the subject line
and the opening paragraph, then they should be able to click through straightaway. So in
general, emails should always have a call to action and link in the first three or four lines
and then repeat the call to action throughout the message three or four times, such as in
the middle of the message and at the close.
Here’s an example of an up-front offer repeated in the subject line, images and editorial text
– which almost always receives a good click-through rate.
Key issues creative issues to consider which we will explore later in this guide are:
þþ How is the email structured? Are layouts commonly used in direct mail appropriate for
email?
þþ Where are the calls to action? What are the best positions for calls to action and how can
click-throughs be encouraged? Up-front is best.
þþ How is the email branded? How should email campaigns and newsletters support the
established brand and when should brand variants be used?
þþ Is the tone of voice right for the email? Tone of voice and message should be in the
context of the subscriber and their current relationship. A highly engaged subscriber who
doesn’t need much encouragement will be fine with a strong and simple buy message,
whereas a new subscriber or lapsing subscriber needs more trust and relationship
building before going with a hard sell.

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Attributes (of the email)
rr Q. Are our creative and copy engaging enough?
The attributes of the email header which can all determine campaign success include the
subject line, from address, to address, date/time of receipt and format. Of these, subject line,
from address and format are most important in influencing response.
þþ From name and address – most email clients show the friendly display from name
rather than from email address, so readers see ‘Fred Blogs’ rather than fred@yahoo.com.
Readers start evaluating an email based on from name. Email from the boss or spouse?
It’s going to be read regardless of subject line.
þþ Subject line – if the email has passed the test of being someone the reader is happy to
hear from then the subject is used to evaluate the next action.
þþ Format – technically emails should contain HTML and plain text versions, known as
MIME encoded. When both versions are sent less than one percent of people will see
the plain text version. There is no advantage with sending only a plain text version. Plain
text is not the same as an HTML format that contains just formatted text (i.e. no heavy
graphics). Formatted HTML text can work well is a creative design choice.
þþ Renderability – your creative and email won’t be effective if it isn’t easy to read in the
inbox. This needs to take into account making an email easy to read and action on
different devices: desktop, smartphone and tablet devices.
We’ll look at more tips on subject lines later, but for now, here’s one – shorter can often work
best. The lesson from this research from Mailer-Mailer5
is clear.
Deliverability may be impacted by copy and creative, though in the first instance sender
reputation is more critical than content. See the section on deliverability for more on this
topic.
Landing page (or microsite)
rr Q. Do we send readers to the right pages to engage them?
There may be a temptation when experimenting with email to encourage click-through to a
web page that is already part of the site, such as the home page or a product page.
5 Mailer Mailer Metrics

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However you will get a much better result from a landing page focused on achieving action.
‘Landing page’ is the term given for the page(s) reached after the recipient clicks on a link in
the email.
Typically, with a B2B email, on click-through, the recipient will be presented with an online
form to profile or learn more about them. Designing the page so that the form is easy to
complete and reassuring about how their personal data will be used can affect the overall
success of the campaign.
The conversion rate on the landing page can make a dramatic difference to the success of
an email campaign, yet this is often overlooked in favour of the email creative. Testing and
improving landing pages can pay dividends.
This is the landing page for the Euroffice email earlier in this section. You can see the
customer journey is nicely integrated, encouraging fulfilment of the offer.

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Step 2
Set your goals and build a quality
list for email marketing
You probably know that interaction with email campaigns is measured through open and
click-through rates. While it’s great to review email response in this way, if this is all you
measure, you’re missing the bigger picture of how valuable email is to your company and its
customers.
The rich metrics in email are great. However, there is a distinction to be made between
business metrics and email marketing performance and diagnostic metrics. Click rates
may help you to understand how well you are doing with offer, content and targeting and
complaint rates are important to deliverability management, but neither is a business metric.
Just numbers useful to gain insight and manage activity.
Define current value of your email marketing to customers
To assess how valuable email is to customers it’s best to measure the quality of their
engagement – how engaged are they? How engaged do they need to be?
rr Q. How well do we measure engagement of our subscribers?
A review of campaign open, click-through and conversion rates is a natural place to start
to improve engagement. Trends in overall response rates are a good starting point, but a
capable email marketing system will give you more insight. For a more detailed analysis, you
should review:
Checklist – measuring engagement with email marketing
rr Click to open rates (CTOR) – these will enable you to see how engaging your creative
and offer is.
rr Open and click-through rates by segment – engagement will vary by segment depending
upon the targeting and relevance of your content or offers, so be sure to assess this.
rr Open and click-through rates based on delivery time – time of day and day of the week or
time in month may make a difference so review to gain insight as to when to send.
rr Unsubscribe rate – check that particular messages or offers aren’t causing peaks in un-
subscribe rates.
rr Complaint rate – as with unsubscribe, do particular messages cause high complaints?
rr Engagement at different points in the customer lifecycle – it is natural that engagement
will decline through time and some subscribers will become inactive. So you need to work
to engage visitors through time, for example through a welcome strategy or, if necessary,
reactivate them. Reviewing hurdle rates at different lengths of time from original subscrip-
tion can help assess the success of these strategies.
rr Engagement with different types of offer and message – different types of promotion or
message will also vary in popularity, so you need a way of tagging offer-type to analyse
what is effective. Some email marketers tag specific types of links in different positions
in the template to know which part of their template is most effective, for example, there
could be a standard link for hero product or featured category in an email.
rr Hurdle rates of engagement over a longer period – this assesses engagement over a six-

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or nine-month period to set goals to review how active your subscribers are measured
through open, click or purchase rates.
This is the big one! If you have to choose just one measure to assess customer
engagement, let this be it! Hurdle rates measure customers not campaigns and do so across
your contactable customer base. Thus they provide a vital view.
Strategy Recommendation 4 Measure longer-term engagement through hurdle rates
To analyse longer-term engagement, you can use the type of analysis shown in the table
below, which shows a diagnostic for longer-term engagement with email marketing.
This analysis often shows that over half of your audience is not engaged, so this gives you a
hurdle rate to benchmark your engagement efforts against.
These types of hurdle rates should be used to set goals for list quality and engagement, and
can also be broken down by subscriber segment or offer type.
Define value of email marketing activity to your company
rr Q. How well do we measure value generated from our email marketing?
In the previous section on customer value we looked at value to the customer. But what
about company value? To assess this we need to know about the marketing outcomes
generated that lead to sales.
So we suggest you set these as primary goals for your email marketing and how to track
them. You can look at the efficiency from the point of view of emails sent which shows you
overall campaign effectiveness or visits to the site from email that helps you assess the
efficiency of your web conversion.
Checklist – measuring value generated from email marketing
rr Size of contactable email database.
rr Size of contactable database as percentage of total customer database.
rr Growth of contactable database each month.
rr Outcomes (goals) per 1000 (or per 100) emails sent.
rr Revenue (profit) per 1000 (or per 100) emails sent.
rr You divide by 1000 to normalise value to make it easier to interpret, but it’s not essential.
rr Total revenue from the email channel per month.
rr Revenue per email contactable customer per month.

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rr Outcomes (goals) from email marketing per website visit from email.
rr Revenue (profit) from email marketing per website visit from email.
This will be tracked through your analytics package. To implement your tracking to check
whether you have achieved these goals you will need to tag your emails as described in Step
7.
Best Practice Tip 6 Use a conversion funnel model to set goals for your email marketing
Through creating a simple conversion model for your email campaign you can set realistic
goals for your email marketing with an agency. You can also set expectations among
colleagues since the multi-step response means that response may not be as much as
they expect.
A conversion model to edit is available for members.6
Success refers to achieving the objectives set for the campaign – does the campaign deliver
the required outcomes? The success of direct response campaigns is often talked about in
terms of click-throughs – the number of recipients who follow a link from the email through
to the organisation’s website. But what really matters are results in terms of your original
objectives – how many recipients click through and then take the follow-up action on the site
such as purchasing a product, agreeing to attend an event, receiving a visit from a sales rep
or entering a competition.
Where you have very specific marketing objectives consider how you can measure against
these too. For example, increase the number of subscribers who have provided preference
information, or the average number of different product categories each customer buys.
Growing your list
rr Q. Do we have a structured process for growing our email list?
If you don’t have a plan to grow your email list then it will still grow, but not as fast as you
would like since you will be missing opportunities from different touchpoints.
Lucky Voice set out to dramatically increase the size of their database and almost doubled it
in 12 months. They did this by planning and using many different growth strategies across a
variety of channels.
This pie chart shows the percentage of new addresses acquired by a variety of sources
used.
6 Download Email campaign calculator.

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A simple baseline to establish how well your list growth is working is to assess your current
figure for the proportion of current customers for which you have email addresses. You can
then set targets for this metric and devise techniques to increase this figure. When devising
these techniques don’t only think quantity, but also think quality. What procedures can you
use to maximise the number of valid email addresses? Email addresses which have just one
character wrong are no good to anyone since you won’t usually know what the miscreant
character is. A further aspect of quality is opt-in. Just because you have obtained an email
address from the customer doesn’t necessarily mean it is opt-in and you have permission to
use it.
It is only opt-in if the customer has proactively agreed, and expects to receive email
communications. Perhaps there are a range of email communications available to the
customer such as different e-newsletters or email alerts. Which have they agreed to receive
or is there the expectation that they will receive all of them?
Control your email list acquisition costs
rr Q. Do we have an allowable cost of email address acquisition (for non-customers) to help
control the costs of list-building?
If you are using different channels and acquisition strategies for list growth then ensure you
track the source of where permission was given. Use this to calculate the cost of acquiring
an email address and to check the performance of the email addresses. Whilst one source
might deliver email addresses at half the cost, if the performance of those addresses is only
a third as good it’s actually a more expensive acquisition source. Tracking source is also
useful should you ever be challenged by someone as to why you are emailing them.
Strategy Recommendation 5 Set an allowable cost of email acquisition
It is useful to have an allowable cost of email address acquisition which is a target figure
for addresses from new prospects since it can help control spend on media such as paid
search. Examples include a B2B software company who places an allowable cost of email
acquisition of £0.40 per email and a recruitment company who placed an allowable cost of
email address (as part of a job application) at £0.70.
Define objectives for email list building and list quality
Setting specific SMART objectives for your list can help grow the list faster, giving more
opportunities to generate sales.
rr Q. Have SMART objectives for our email list been set?

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Checklist – email list size and quality
Here are some examples of objectives for list-building for you to review including:
rr List size. Aim to increase the size of your list over a particular time period, e.g. add 5,000
subscribers to an e-newsletter in a year.
rr Email address coverage. Aim to increase coverage of email addresses in your customer
base – you may have 15 percent of customers opted into an e-newsletter, but you want to
increase this to 35 percent over the next year.
rr Email address quality – proportion of valid or active email addresses on your list (i.e.
those that don’t bounce back or the percentage of customers who are ‘email active’ i.e.
they open or click through on emails within a defined period).
rr Email permission quality. Although you may have collected email addresses, you may not
have explicit permission to use them, which is required by law in many countries. Also,
have you got permission to send the full range of e-communications, or just some, e.g.
alerts and e-newsletters?
rr List value – value generated per 1000 or list members in terms of sales/leads in a time
period.
rr Targeting quality – increase proportion of subscribers qualified for your products who you
have collected profiling information about.
rr Data quality – proportion of specific profile fields held about individuals. This section
describes a range of offline and online techniques to increase email address capture and
make sure that the accuracy is a high as possible.
Review touchpoints to improve email marketing
rr Q. Have all touchpoints for collecting and updating email addresses been reviewed?
It is important to have a structured approach to collecting and maintaining customer data. A
good way to review all the possible methods of capturing email addresses is for marketers to
brainstorm alternative methods for capturing email addresses by thinking about opportunities
for capture which are:
þþ Digital channels, websites, social channels, mobile apps, blogs, SMS.
þþ Offline.
þþ Existing customers.
þþ New customers.
Best Practice Tip 7 Grow your list with online and offline contacts
Use all customer touchpoints as an opportunity for gaining email addresses.
Besides looking at new touchpoints and strategies, also review existing data collection
processes. Very often the processes in place were created some time back and have not
been optimised. Lucky Voice improved their online collection process and provided an
incentive, this doubled the number of addresses acquired.
The chart below gives a good way for a company to review all the possible methods of
capturing email addresses and other profile information. Some examples are shown.

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Here, we will consider online and offline opportunities for email capture separately. Many of
these apply equally to potential and existing customers.
Checklist – online methods to build your house list
Here are nine online methods to help build a house list:
rr 1. Direct from website – permanent incentives to capture leads should be one of the
main aims of a web presence, particularly for a B2B organisation. Design, structure and
content should be devised to maximise conversion to sign-up. Be clear on benefits and
where possible, give instant tangible benefits of subscribing. Keep the amount of data
required to sign up low. Place the sign-up call to action across every page of the site in
prominent locations. If very strong incentives to sign up use real-time verification of email
addresses and/or use verified opt-in to gain the incentive.
rr 2. Web response from offline communications. Here an offer is publicised offline and
respondents are referred to a website to sign up (e.g. Dell offered a monthly notebook
prize draw or offline ads (such as the now discontinued Chocollect promotion from Mars
which was featured in TV ads).
rr 3. Social networks. Social media can be a good place to start a conversation or relation-
ship but email can help monetise it. Make an objective of social media strategy to get
email subscribers.
rr 4. Renting an email list from a third party – recipients who click through to a landing
page are encouraged to opt-in to your house-list.
rr 5. Placing an ad in a third-party e-newsletter. This has the same aims as 3, but may be
more cost effective and can often be tightly targeted.
rr 6. Using a third-party site, sometimes referred to as an ‘acquisition’ centre to provide
offers with a view to sign-up (for example MyOffers).
rr 7. Campaigns with social sharing or viral elements where a friend or colleague is
referred can also increase the size of the house list. Here permission marketing and data

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protection law require you to send an email offering the referred person the option to opt-
in before further communications are sent.
rr 8. Any other forms of online traffic-building not mentioned above. Examples include
graphical online ads or Pay Per Click text search engine ads.
rr 9. Email appending services. Companies such as Freshaddress (www.freshaddess.
com) StrikeIron, Mintigo or Email Movers (www.emailmovers.com) can be used to identify
likely email addresses from existing customers who have not yet supplied their address,
e.g. John Smith at IBM is John.Smith@ibm.com (perhaps not the best example). Similar
services can also attempt to correct email addresses with typos.
Checklist – offline methods to build your house list
Offline opportunities are the full range of customer touchpoints. Here are eight more:
rr 1. Any form of paper registration or order form. But be sure to check the form of word-
ing such that an opt-in to all forms of future communications is achieved.
rr 2. Visit from sales representatives. Can be used for opt-in either on paper or through
subscribing online.
rr 3. A phone contact at a call centre. For example a bank could ask customers whether
they have an email address during a routine phone enquiry.
rr 4. Telemarketing. This can be specifically to capture email addresses, but is more cost-
effective if it is part of a telemarketing campaign.
rr 5. Point-of-sale. For a retail context.
rr 6. Trade show or conference. For example from a prize draw collecting business cards
(but care with the opt-in).
rr 7. Paper response to a direct mail offer. Traditional direct response.
rr 8. Phone response to direct mail or ad. Again traditional direct response.
When email addresses are captured offline, a common problem is the level of errors in the
address – this can often reach a double figure percentage. So plan to control this also – staff
should be trained in the importance of getting the email address correct and how to check
for an invalid address format. Some call centres have even incentivised staff according to
the number of valid email addresses they collect. When collecting addresses on paper, some
practical steps can help such as allowing sufficient space for the email address and asking
for it to be written in CAPS.
Double or single opt-in?
This is not a requirement by law in the US or most of the European countries. Double opt-in
addresses are of higher quality but there is leakage in the double opt-in process so you will
get fewer subscribers on your list if you use this method. We advise using it for publishers
who may will use their lists for rental, but it is not general practice in the UK for companies -
single agreement to sign-up on a form is taken as consent.
What is it? Double-opt-in
Double opt-in requires new subscribers to confirm their email address by clicking a link
within an email sent to the address they provided.

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Examples of opt-in techniques
Let’s return to the Lucky Voice example which Tim Watson has written up in more detail7
.
The nine list growth methods that worked well were:
þþ Incentivising the home page sign-up, increased sign-ups by 92%
þþ Adding Facebook Social Connect sign in, increased sign-ups 40%
þþ Using online competitions, prized appropriate to target audience
þþ Incentivise customers who booked to recommend to friends
þþ Promotion through X-Factor partnership
þþ Adding incentivised email sign-up to Facebook presence
þþ Facebook App to vote for best customer Karaoke pic, with integrated email collection
þþ Quiz events at Lucky Voice venues with raffle entry in exchange for email address
þþ Cross-selling between venue and online databases
You can see the home page social sign-in and incentivsation here:
Here is a collection of examples of offline paper opt-in subscription forms.
This is a small card in a restaurant, with one on every table positioned with the menu to
ensure that all customers see it at time of making their selection.
7 Smart Insights: Email list growth example

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The next example is a postcard placed at the checkout of the Marko trade retail stores.
Park Resort formed a partnership and ran a promotion to the benefit of both companies in
Shoe Zone stores. This was incentivised with a competition which required online entry and

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giving of permission.
Finally a simple low-tech call to action in a pub/restaurant, to chalk up some new subscribers!

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Techniques for list maintenance
rr Q. Options for list maintenance reviewed?
As with maintaining any customer database, maintaining a list can be a major headache. For
email or mobile-related lists the headache can be more intense since:
1. With permission-based email, the customer can opt-out or unsubscribe at any time.
2. Email addresses tend to change more frequently than postal addresses.
3. Multiple email addresses are held, often to counter spam.
If your e-newsletter or email campaigns are good quality, then the unsubscribe rate shouldn’t
be too much of a problem. A good rate for unsubscribes is under 0.5% or below per
broadcast for a house list.
All the forms of collecting email addresses online and offline that were mentioned in the
previous section can also be used to keep email addresses fresh since the most recent email
address can be collected. This particularly applies to the offline methods where employees
talk directly to customers and prospects. Since it is annoying to be constantly asked ‘is your
email contact address still correct?’ it is best if this is only asked when an address becomes
inactive as described in the section below.
Encouraging self-service through an online profile or permission centre should also be used.
Direct mail promotions also give opportunities for gaining email addresses. In fact, whenever
a prospect or customer has to fill in a form this is an opportunity. Collecting the email address
should be an in-built part of the sales process.
Another approach to find out more about customers where you haven’t collected their data
directly is to use information available from registration on other sites like social networks.
This approach is a service available from companies like Rapleaf.com, FlipTop, Mintigo.

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Step 3
Defining your email marketing proposition
rr Q. Have we defined how our email communications offer differential value?
Discussions of how to engage email audiences often start with reviewing creative or the
offers presented to subscribers, but in our view, a better starting point is the customer’s
needs. Email is like any other digital channel, whether it’s a social media presence like
Twitter or Facebook, AdWords in Google or mobile marketing. Consider the customer’s
emotional needs.
þþ Be admired by friends.
þþ Impress a boss.
þþ Increase ego.
þþ Save money.
þþ Get something exclusive.
þþ Have fun and be entertained.
þþ Save time and be efficient.
þþ Maintain good health.
þþ Care for family and friends.
To be successful in comparison with the other channels each channel like email marketing
must offer its own unique form of value that is distinct from other channels. Every channel
needs a distinctive online value proposition (OVP) to succeed. This defines how the digital
channel supports the core brand values but adds its own unique value.
Within email marketing, this is particularly important for an e-newsletter. This doesn’t
preclude content re-use from other channels in emails. The unique value of email could be
adding additional commentary or simply a round-up of social content that was most popular.
One of email’s distinctive values is the ability to be timely and relevant. Blog posts, website
offers, Tweets and other social media are more broadcast in nature and timing isn’t tied to
individual customer activity, behaviour, demographic or lifecycle stage.
If your brand offering is wide then this may include different email streams each with their
own value proposition. Such at the big grocers that offer newsletters specifically for mums
with babies and toddlers as well as their mainstream newsletters.
Review these examples of the types of value that will engage subscribers and improve
perception about a brand and see which is most relevant for you:
rr Engaging text content that makes the subscriber feel happy, angry or as if they
are learning.
rr Engaging non-text or rich media content such as videos, podcasts, presentations, blog
posts, photos, etc.
rr More in-depth content or alternately a summary of content.
rr Sharing of other subscriber views and opinions through votes, product ratings and polls.
rr Exclusive discounts or coupons only available through the channel.
The email value proposition is tightly connected to the sign-up. The expectation is set at time
of sign-up and in your welcome emails. The emails should deliver the email value proposition
that has been positioned to the customer.

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The success of daily deal email illustrates this. The customer expectation is for a daily email
that carries content which they believe are really good deals. In this case the customer has
not signed up for in-depth product reviews, household tips, travel advice and so on.
Contrast this with a newsletter that sets the expectation of weekly tips and advice. It would
not be appropriate to send a daily email with product deals.
What is the focus of each campaign? In many cases the direct focus is revenue. Can this be
more specific? Reduce old stock, cross sell into new categories, up sell to more expensive
products, increase basket size.
Does brand awareness and trust need to be built? In a complex sale, typical for many B2B
companies but also in B2C high ticket items such as cars, the immediate message isn’t buy
now.
If your offer is a service with regular payments then is the focus on ensuring customers get
the most value from the service so that they are retained?
Write down different types of value that you do offer or could offer:
Do offer? Competitors’ offer? Should offer?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Define the value offered through email marketing communications
rr Q. Do we get the sell-inform-entertain-share balance right?
Achieving the correct balance between using your newsletters or other email communications
as a sales tool and adding other types of value is key to their success.
You will definitely have seen examples of overselling, but maybe also underselling where the
call to action or connections to products is too limited.
Remember that this relates to the structure also – the most enticing content needs to be
‘above the fold’ when the email is opened. Start with what you feel are the strongest articles
for your audience. Have regular features plus new, topical, articles separate in each issue.
Use the inform and entertain content to bring subscribers through your mail and mix in the
sell content so they see that as a result.
As well as different types of feature, think about how you can use your e-newsletter to give a
sense of community and engage the audience.
The balance might need to change for different customers. Highly engaged, active customers
who buy a lot don’t need the same amount of engaging content. They trust you and are

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happy to buy already. New subscribers or lapsing subscribers might respond better to a
higher ratio of inform and entertain content.
The only way to get the balance right is to test different ratios of content over a period of
time.
Write down your assessment of the types of value you offer through your e-communications:
Sell (___/10)
__________________________________________________________________________
Inform (___/10)
__________________________________________________________________________
Entertain (___/10)
__________________________________________________________________________
Share (___/10)
__________________________________________________________________________
Define email value proposition
rr Q. Do we communicate our email value proposition effectively?
Having clear goals around the value you want to offer will help internal copywriters focus and
can also be defined on the website to encourage sign-up.
For business-to-business e-newsletters, think about how you can add value by acting as a
filter for information about your market sectors.
Your e-newsletters can potentially Alert, Aggregate and Distil information through market
alerts, industry trends and in-depth best practice case studies. But to deliver this information-
based value will not be cheap as the content will have to be up-to-date, relevant, accurate,
concise and clearly presented.
Best Practice Tip 8 Define and communicate value of your e-newsletter or email
programme
You should explain your newsletter proposition, i.e. how it will deliver value to subscribers,
for example, through:
þþ Saving time. By providing a single, up-to-date source.
þþ Learning. Increasing knowledge and solving day-to-day problems.
þþ Saving money. For instance through exclusive offers or offering new ways of working
through a company’s products.
þþ Entertaining. All newsletters can and should be fun for their audiences – this is not
only the preserve of consumer newsletters.
þþ Sharing. Sharing information about your organisation or facilitating sharing of content
from customers.
To achieve engagement, you should review how the newsletter delivers value and try to
incorporate these into the e-newsletter.
You should answer these questions and emphasise them through the design of the
e-newsletter.

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B2B Proposition B2C Proposition
Make my work easier Make my life easier
Help me develop Help me learn/have fun
Make me look good Make me look good
Give me a great deal Give me a great deal
The example below gives a great business-to-business example of the value an email can
offer:
And here is an example for an engaging newsletter for a consumer brand focus not around
product or offer but customer need and interest. Sales offers are below the fold:

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Integrating value into social media marketing communications
rr Q. Do we show the value we offer from our email marketing in our social media
communications?
With the rise in popularity of social media, email faces competitors for customer attention,
like Twitter and Facebook which are increasingly offering similar types of value. So the email
channel needs to compete with or complement these to stay relevant. Think how email
marketing can be more valuable compared with these other media.
Alternatively, it can be argued that a company simply needs to offer choice and many
customers will prefer email for its lower frequency and richer media. Email can help the
time-poor audience by filtering or summarising the high frequency messages from blogs and
social networks.
In the example below, the retailer is using email to promote an exclusive campaign offer
available through Twitter but, equally, the campaign could work in reverse.
Best Practice Tip 9 Enable ‘share to social’ options
A ‘share to social’ feature allows email marketers to include links from the email so
recipients can easily post emails to their social network profile page, where friends can see
the message, make comments and even post the email on their own profile pages.
Speaking about the ‘share to social’ concept, Matt Lindenberg, assistant director of marketing
for Diapers.com, explained the benefits thus:
‘Social networks are all about communication. This feature empowers our customers to
communicate with each other, and therefore allows our messages to move beyond our email
list. One of our emails was posted on 50 different social network profile pages. That kind of
customer endorsement turns our email “push” marketing into a powerful “pull” campaign.’
Getting a share to social click is no different to succeeding in getting the reader to take any
other action. Simply putting in social icons with little reason to explain what they are for or the
benefit in clicking will result in little social sharing.
For example, just a Facebook logo on its own doesn’t explain whether clicking will like the
brand or share the content.
This example of icons in the footer from Screwfix does a better job of explaining what
customers can expect from the social presence.

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If getting social engagement is important to campaign objectives then doing all the same
things as for any other call to action will increase sharing or social media interaction.
rr Dedicate more space to the social share.
rr Use headlines, copy and images to highlight the call to action.
rr Explain the benefit of clicking.
rr Use an incentive.
Here is an example from Pizza Express with a call to action to join a debate on Facebook:
A simple, but effective approach is to include more reference to customer ratings within email
as this example campaign encouraging purchase based on customer-picks shows. The
Macys example uses this approach.

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Best Practice Tip 10 Using social media channels to encourage email opt-in
A like or a follow is essentially a low commitment action. Whereas providing an email
address and marketing permission is a higher commitment which should be encouraged
for the more personal, targeted communication it offers.
Now that many brands have grown fan bases and have ongoing social media activity, the
social media and email integration opportunity is the reverse. To bring socially engaged
customers into the email channel. Social media is a great conversation medium and email
is a great conversion medium. Reaching out through social media to gain new email
subscribers should be a key objective of the social media marketing plan.
You can even get the best of both worlds by encouraging email sign-up and liking
simultaneously. Smart Insights Expert Scribblers use as described in this post8
and the more
detailed case study.
Scribblers grew their email list when they integrated their Facebook page with Constant
Contact’s Social Campaigns system as a way of ‘Likegating’, i.e. a customised version of
Constant Contacts Social Campaigns app was created to give people access to the PDF in
exchange for a like.
8 Smart Insights: Facebook Email opt-in example

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Step 4
Segmentation and targeting techniques
rr Q. Have our strategic approaches to segmentation and targeting been reviewed and
selected?
There are many different levels in sophistication of targeting, some of which may or may not
be worthwhile according to the size of your list. But it’s still useful to review the segmentation
and targeting approach used by the top e-retailers to deliver relevance. Typically, these are
based upon five layered segmentation options used to develop a more effective targeting.
Best Practice Tip 11 Different targeting options can be combined through
layering the segmentation approaches
A layered segmentation approach summarising the segmentation approach used by eBay
UK is shown below.
Here, I’ll outline the six segmentation approaches that you could use.
Checklist – six email targeting approaches
rr 1. Customer profile characteristics. Demographics , geographics and customer set
preferences.
rr 2. Customer lifecycle groups. Most commonly groups for new subscribers or prospects,
active customers and lapsed or no longer engaging in email.
rr 3. Customer behaviour in response and purchase (observed and predicted). This is
the most powerful method, though also requires more technology to deliver it.
rr 4. Customer multi-channel behaviour. Targeting based on channel preference.
rr 5. Customer value. Current and future.
rr 6. Customer personas. Personas provide a helpful way to target based on multiple
dimensions. More complex methods in this area such as psychographics were created to
control channel costs in direct mail and aren’t used in email marketing.
The wider the audience and the product or service offering the more segmentation layers and
sophistication within each that are needed. This is how eBay manages this:

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eBay has a huge number of different products and a diverse set of members, calling for
several segmentation layers to maximise response.
This example email from eBay shows how some of the content has been targeted based on
behaviour, in particular purchases and items on the watch list. The watch list has the auctions
a particular eBay user has selected to bookmark or watch. The closest equivalent for a brand
is a wish list.
A company with just a handful of related products will need relatively little segmentation,
since by definition anyone who subscribes is already targeted to a limited degree. Simply
being on the list is by definition enough.
There is also the possibility of wrong segmentation or more likely over-segmentation, in
which case business performance may be reduced. Take, for example, a very tightly defined
segment. An offer may have a high take-up rate within that segment, but that is not to say
that the offer would not have been taken up by a larger segment, albeit at a lower rate.
Best Practice Tip 12 Using event-triggered emails and dynamic content insertion to
deliver really relevant emails
To implement this level of email marketing needs a capable email marketing system that
supports event-triggered marketing and dynamic content insertion where rules are used to
drop different offers and email messages into a container as described in this post and our
event-triggered email template.
Again, using eBay as an example of triggered emails, this shows an example when someone
bids but does not win the auction. eBay send a triggered email showing ‘Buy It Now’ options

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and more current auctions for the same item.
Let’s now review the six core targeting options available through email. Review which you
use now and which could be relevant in the future?
Targeting option 1. Customer profile characteristics (demographics)
rr Q. Options for profile-based targeting used?
This is where most will start; based on their traditional strategic customer segmentation
based on the type of customer recorded in the fields of their profile.
For B2C e-retailers this will include age, sex and geography. For B2B companies, this will
include size of company, job role and the industry sector or application they operate in. This
example shows a female and male creative with the tone and style varying in line with their
preferences. Gender can very often be a good segmentation criteria, not only in the very
obvious cases such as shoes, but also less obvious, such as pizza. Spicy and hot for males

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vs. healthy eating for females.
Best Practice Tip 13 Test different targeting options
Use the lower cost of email creative and broadcast to test different targeting to create
more relevant emails for your audience.
Many B2B companies target according to industry sector, but do not also look at job role.
Different messages can be developed for people with more strategic interest (e.g. for a
senior manager the benefits of a new printer may be reduced costs, while for an IT manager
it may be ease of administration or throughput). Similarly, many B2C companies may conduct
national campaigns, but with email can add a regional element – perhaps using the postcode
to determine different parts of the country and then give different messages according to
region or airport they will fly from (for a travel company).
The data acquisition source may also convey information for targeting. Here are a couple of
examples when this is the case
rr Offline data collection. A paper form based collection gives likely geography for future
targeting.
rr Online subscribe forms. Where a sign-up form appears on multiple webpages or even on
different websites, then the content of the page or site of sign-up provides initial product
or service interest.
Best Practice Tip 14 Consider tone and style preference
Some demographics will naturally respond differently to different types of message. Some
customers may like a more rational appeal in which case a detailed email explaining
the benefits of the offer may work best. Others will prefer an emotional appeal based on
images and with warmer, less formal copy.
Sophisticated companies will test for this in customers or infer it using profile characteris-
tics and response behaviour and then develop different creative treatments accordingly.
Companies that use polls can potentially use this to infer style preferences.

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The most traditional way of gaining customer demographic and profile information for
targeting is by means of a preference centre.
Since customer interests are not always so black and white, rather than tick boxes for
choices Amazon use Like, Neutral and Dislike in the example. Note, too, how the user
interface has been improved by use of pictures and headings. Providing an easy to use
preference centre can do a lot to improve the accuracy of completion and number of
subscribers who complete it.
Where demographic information is missing one approach is to run campaigns to ask for the
information. In the next example the incentive of a birthday gift is used by Norm Thompson to
get age information.
Targeting option 2. Current and predicted value
rr Q. Options for targeting based on customer value review?
Retailers work hard to understand their most valuable customers so that they can develop
loyalty in this group. A useful way of thinking about customer value is these three groups,
originally identified by Peppers and Rogers:
1. Most-valuable customers (MVCs)
These are the customers who contribute the most profit and are typically a small proportion
of the total customer base as suggested by their position in the pyramid. These customers
will likely have purchased more or higher-value products.
The strategy for these customers focuses on retention rather than extension. In the case of
a bank, personal relationship managers would be appointed for customers in this category to
provide them with guidance and advice and to make sure they remain loyal.

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Often this strategy will work best using direct personal contact as the primary communication
channel, but using online marketing for support where the customer has a propensity to use
online channels.
2. Most-growable customers (MGCs)
Customers who show potential to become more valuable customers. They are profitable
when assessed in terms of lifetime value, but the number of product holdings or lifetime value
is relatively low compared with the MVCs.
Strategies for these customers centre on extension, through making recommendations about
relevant products based on previous purchases. Encouraging similar re-purchases could also
be part of this.
Online marketing offers great opportunities to make personalised recommendations through
the web site and email.
3. Below-zero customers (BZCs)
Below zero customers are simply unprofitable customers. The strategy for these customers
may vary – they can be encouraged to develop towards MGCs, but more typically
expenditure will be minimised if it is felt that it will be difficult to change their loyalty behaviour
or the source of their being unprofitable. Again, digital media can be used as a lower-cost
form of marketing expenditure to encourage these customers to make repeat purchases or to
allow them to self-serve online.
When considering loyalty-based segmentation, it’s useful to compare current against future
value, and it’s best to visualise this within a matrix. Here’s an example presented by Chris
Poad of retail group Otto to an E-consultancy Masterclass.
Here’s a creative for a VIP mailing sent to highest value segment. ESP eCircle shared that
the average performance was five times higher than the regular newsletter:

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Targeting option 3. Customer lifecycle groups
rr Q. Options for targeting based on customer lifecycle or relationship used?
As visitors use online services they can potentially pass through several stages, often known
as the online loyalty ladder.
Once you have defined these groups and set up the customer relationship management
infrastructure to categorise customers in this way, you can then deliver targeted messages,
either by personalised on-site messaging or through emails that are triggered automatically
due to different rules.
Once visitors are then registered or identified by means of an email link click and resultant
cookie, they can be tracked through the remaining stages. Two particularly important groups
are customers who have purchased one or more times. Although a customer is sometimes
not considered to be a loyal or repeat customer until they have purchased two to five times,
in which case a single purchase segment is more akin to a warm prospect than a loyal
customer.
For many e-retailers, encouraging customers to move from the first purchase to the second
purchase and then onto the third purchase is a key challenge. Specific promotions can
be used to encourage further purchases. Similarly, once customers become inactive, i.e.
they have not purchased for a defined period such as three months, further follow-ups are
required.
The actual period of inactivity should reflect the product or service. Holidays are purchased

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less frequently than shoes. Analysis of customer transactions should be used to determine
the average and variation in re-purchase frequencies.
Here’s an example of the lifecycle segmentation approach used by e-retailer Tesco.
com which they call a ‘commitment-based segmentation’ based on recency of purchase,
frequency of purchase and value. It’s used to identify six lifecycle categories which are then
further divided to target communications:
rr ‘Logged-on’
rr ‘Cautionary’
rr ‘Developing’
rr ‘Established’
rr ‘Dedicated’
rr ‘Logged-off’ (the aim here is to win back).
This is an example of what we think is an excellent branded welcome email from Clinique:
As emails should be typically kept short there may be too much to say in a single welcome
and the welcome email should be made into a welcome series, providing a mix of offers,
brand offer education, information about other channels, service channels, mobile apps and
so forth. The most sophisticated brands make these welcome series behavioural based. So
what comes next in the series depends on what engagement, if any, occurred in the previous
welcome emails. Here’s a nice low-tech, but often more effective email activation creative
where the attempt is to win-back a lapsed customer.
A more polished win-back example here from Audible, a subscription service targeting

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previous service subscribers with a coupon to get them to subscribe to the service again:
Best Practice Tip 15 Use behavioural email marketing
Rather than manually planning email campaigns, use automated event-triggered
messaging to encourage continued purchase.
For example, Tesco.com have a touch strategy that includes a sequence of follow-up
communications triggered after different events in the customer lifecycle.
In the example given below, communications after event 1 are intended to achieve the
objective of converting a website visitor to action; communications after event 2 are intended
to move the customer from a first time purchaser to a regular purchaser and for event 3 to
reactivate lapsed purchasers.

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Trigger event 1: Customer first registers on site (but does not buy)
þþ Auto-response (AR) 1: Two days after registration email sent offering phone assistance
and £5 discount off first purchase to encourage trial.
Trigger event 2: Customer first purchases online
þþ AR1: Immediate order confirmation.
þþ AR2: Five days after purchase email sent with link to online customer satisfaction survey
asking about quality of service from driver and picker (e.g. item quality and substitutions).
þþ AR3: Two weeks after first purchase – direct mail offering tips on how to use service and
£5 discount on next purchases intended to encourage re-use of online services.
þþ AR4: Generic monthly e-newsletter with online exclusive offers encouraging cross-selling
þþ AR5: Bi-weekly alert with personalised offers for customer.
þþ AR6: After 2 months – £5 discount for next shop.
þþ AR7: Quarterly mailing of coupons encouraging repeat sales and cross-sales.
Trigger event 3: Customer does not purchase for an extended period
þþ AR1: Dormancy detected – reactivation email with survey of how the customer is finding
the service (to identify any problems) and a £5 incentive.
þþ AR2: A further discount incentive is used in order to encourage continued usage to shop
after the first shop after a break.
Here is another example and excellent option for visualising these types of campaigns.

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