Creating Effective Opt-in E-Mail Campaigns
Tips and tricks to consider for successful opt-in email marketing campaigns
By: Lee Traupel
It's
been said before, but important to re-emphasize, e-mail is the "killer
application" of the information age. According to the latest Forrester
Research numbers, the permission based e-mail industry is projected to
grow from $164M (USD) in 1999 to $7.3B by 2005. E-mail is also rapidly
moving from a textual communications process to one that is rich in multimedia
content via server-based streaming audio or video. Virtually anyone, even
those with extremely low bandwidth, can now view compelling content.
Here is a condensed primer for developing an effective
opt-in e-mail campaign:
1.
First and foremost, what is permission based or opt-in e-mail and how
is it distinguished from Spam?
Opt-in or permission based e-mail (the terms are interchangeable) means
recipients have confirmed their interest in receiving e-mail and have
signed up (hence the term opt-in) to receive e-mail about a subject of
their interest. The recipient may also unsubscribe from the list at any
time and all e-mail messages are clearly identified as coming from a specific
and approved vendor or source.
2.
We do not recommend Spam (unsolicited bulk e-mail messages) to our clients,
nor have we ever developed a campaign that is not opt-in based. We think
there is a growing backlash to Spam and many of us (author included) are
inundated with it and delete it as soon as we recognize it.
3.
The actual opt-in e-mail content is very important, like any interactive
marketing process. The
subject itself needs to be succinct and informative (as this is how most
people filter e-mail), the text in the message should be concise, with
paragraphs no more than 2-3 short sentences, customer references should
be referred to in the lead paragraph to drive the rest of the message,
have no more than two hyperlinks embedded in the content, and utilize
a close and signature that thanks people for their time with a link (phone
and e-mail) to a "real" person.
4.
Many marketing types don't know whether to use HTML (rich media) or textual
content.
A standard rule of thumb is, if your target audience is consumers, then
many prefer the HTML format, due to the snazzier graphical content; but,
if you are targeting corporate or technical types, the majority of them
want a message that is text only and one that leaves out any/all marketing
hype - just the concise facts.
5.
Costs can vary dramatically depending on your target demographics or market
segment. A
good rule of thumb is to expect rates of $.05 (USD) to $.25 per message,
depending on the size of the media buy and frequency (the number of times
you are using a list), type of list demographics, vendor selection (small
publisher versus comprehensive services provider such as YesMail), and
market conditions in the interactive advertising market.
6. What should a good campaign generate in terms
of response rates; i.e., those that clicked
through from your message to a web site or called a toll-free number?
These numbers will fluctuate based again upon your market segment, product
or service you are selling, type of response rate you are seeking (download,
e-commerce sale, review of materials via a web site, etc.). But, industry
averages are from 4% up to 20%. Unfortunately these numbers are going
south as more and more companies integrate opt-in e-mail with interactive
and offline marketing processes.
7. Message testing is also a very important component
of this process. Meaning, you need to develop
1-3 messages ("creative" in marketing speak) that have different
content and call to action components. Then test by utilizing 10-15% of
your total media buy by sending out these test messages and assessing
the response rates and go to market with the message that generated the
highest return. Be forewarned, this process can slow the campaign down,
but testing can help you increase your response rates or back end ROI
exponentially.
8.
Your interactive ad agency or list partner should help you setup "landing
page(s)"
- the actual page where people are taken via a hyperlink
in your opt-in e-mail message. This page should have content that is integrated
with your opt-in message and act as a response mechanism by capturing
sufficient information to enable you to build your own in-house newsletter,
which in turn helps to leverage downstream media costs.
9.
Finally, the last and most important part of the process
is setting up tracking reports that will enable you to carefully analyze
the results from your opt-in e-mail campaign. This is typically done by
inserting 1-2 lines of HTML code on 3-5 pages of your web site (product
overview, registration, or home/index pages for instance). A report can
then be generated that shows the number of respondents for each page as
a subset of the overall response rates from the campaign. This critical
analysis process will help you understand the effectiveness of your overall
campaign and will also provide valuable insight about your web site content,
UI (User Interface) and navigation.
About The Author
Lee Traupel has 20 plus years
of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of
Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com,
a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services
to clients encompassing startups to public companies. Lee@intelective.com
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