Stephanie Martin, head of marketing operations, Guardian Professional Enhance your email marketing workshop www.charitycomms.org.uk/events

2. Stephanie Martin
Head of marketing operations, Guardian Professional
Inbox Insight
Today we receive a mind-numbing amount of incoming email which clutters our
inboxes and destroys our time management. How do you get your email
opened, read and responded to in this sort of environment? This session
explores nine key things to consider before you hit 'send' in order to improve
your response rates.

3. Why do marketeers choose email?
• Email is the cheapest way of creating and sending marketing messages
ever
• Consumers would rather businesses contacted them by email than any
other channel
• Email is extremely effective at delivering sales and conversions in other
channels eg phone, in-store
• Unlike web analytics and behavioural targeting, email is attributable: you
don’t just know what, you know who
• The email inbox is a competition-free zone compared to a search results
page

4. Email is a very personal method of communication
‘Users tend to glance at websites when they need to
accomplish something or to find the answer to a specific
question. In contrast, newsletters feel personal because
they arrive in users’ inboxes, and users have an ongoing
relationship with them.
Newsletters can create much more of a bond between users
and a company than a website can. The negative aspect is
that email usability problems have a much stronger impact
on the customer relationship that website usability problems’
Jakob Neilson and Amy Schade, Email Newsletter Usability

5. Consumer email trends
• One in three people say the majority of emails are of interest (up from 1 in
10,2010)
• Email frequency at an all-time low: two emails a month per sender
• 38% hold on to email for at least one week – 12% for one month
• 22% use email as a nudge to go to url by another route
• 50% receive emails from 20+ trusted brands each week
“Recipients
underestimate the
number of emails they
receive from brands
they trust”
Dela Quist,
AlchemyWorx

6. Nine key things to consider before you hit ‘send’ in order to
improve your response rates
1. Prospect list

7. 2. Subject line
Should be:
• Instantly understandable
• Front-loaded for reader interest
• Impactful enough to stand out amid a busy inbox
• Related to the content of the email
Should not be:
• Cryptic or ambiguous
• Too clever or long-winded in getting to the point
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8. 3. Sender profile
• Unambiguous sender information showing product or company name
• Easy inbox retrieval
Sounds obvious but…
From: Flying Club
Who? Virgin Atlantic
From: Harry Potter
Who? Borders Stores

9. 4. Images
5. Pre-header text
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“67% of emails received
have the images turned
off.”
Jay Schwedelson,
President-CEO,
Worldata

10. 6. Scannability
• Break content up with clear signposts, labels and calls to action
• Choose a scannable layout to format your information such as a bulleted list,
numbered steps or Q&A
• Front-load your content
• Use everyday, conversational language
• Think about how you content will display as an email snippet or in preview panel

11. 7. Offer
• Exclusive, email-only
• Serialisation – content, vouchers
8. Personalisation
 Dear Stephanie
x As an Ocado Smart Pass holder, we thought you might be interested in…

12. 9. Call to action
• Does your email content pass the SO WHAT test?
• Do you have a clear sense of what you want your recipients to think, feel
and especially do after looking at your email?
• What’s the value of the message to the recipient?

13. Questions…