Internet Marketing

Email opens - clicks - and visits are all great signs that there is someone out there at the end of your email list but really what online marketing is all about is seeing lead generation forms filled and extra online sales made.

That’s where the trail can get a bit harder to follow - but where the real action takes place.

A campaign that looks great at the activity end (open - click) can be attrocious at the hard end of lead and sales generation.

Over the last 6 months we have been spending more time setting up the “handover” tracking that needs to happen between an email and the website analytics tools to create this information and help us track its improvement.

I’ll post some examples soon.

Are you putting off your next edition? Has it been a long time since hit “send”? And, was your last edition less news and more letter ?

It’s a common occurrence to see motivations wane when the tasks of turning out edition after edition of email newsletter dawn on those responsible. Plus this is especially the case when these publishing tasks are usually appended to rather than instead of other monthly actions.

So to help lighten the load here is a few tips to help those editions remain rolling out.

Firstly keep in check your expectations of how much content you actually require for each newsletter edition. It is better to have three news items of merit then a total of nine with six that are just there to make up the space. As subscribers we all welcome a newsletter that quickly gets to the point while bringing us information we value.

Secondly take a lead from the success of previous email newsletter editions. Most email deployment tools worth their salt will be able to tell you how many subscribers decided to click your links to “read more” on previous articles. Use this information work out what content areas are being well received and then plan out more along the same vein of interest.

Thirdly create some “electronic buckets” to snaffle away prospective newsletter content in as it comes your way during the month. I keep a “read and review” folder in my email folders list so I can copy messages across that are worth using in my next edition. And my web browser has a similar folder where I can store away pages that are worth considering at content creation time.

And finally if all else fails try planning.

Now I know for some this will be the first on the list but for others that are more tactical than strategic a good content plan can help get some direction on what content is worth producing. Take one whiteboard add some chocolate include a jug of strong coffee - let marinate for 30 minutes with a keen crowd and you should turn out a cunning content plan of your own.

In its basic form this will have a content area for each edition and some initial suggestions on who will create what to fill the three spaces on offer.

Have fun and do keep publishing again, it’s not that scary once you get stuck in.

A few weeks back we published the August Edition of Subscribe. You can get your copy by going here. If you would like your own copy, and delivered a bit earlier on in the month… then subscribe off our home page here (you get some extra content for subscribing).

It is interesting to investigate how subscribers treat your email marketing over various editions. They may well click on the first edition they receive, but what do they do with subsequent editions?

Do they have one quick click and then fail to return, or do they continue to open and read subsequent e-mail messages? To find out, we must examine the degree of loyalty your subscribers show towards your ongoing e-mail messaging.

To measure subscriber loyalty, you need to look at the total number of subscribers that have clicked on any of your links, and then classify them according to whether or not they have clicked previously. Using this information, you will be able to gauge the percentage of your audience that are first-time clickers.

Now, depending on how much your list of subscribers has grown since your previous campaign, you should hope that around 50% of your audiences are repeat clickers.

Email marketing that is carried out too infrequently or lacks good content will achieve a far smaller percentage. In some cases I have seen repeat clicker percentages as low as 20%. Take some time to see how your figures stack up.

Message activity

Not only is it valuable to know who your loyal subscribers are, but also it is useful to understand how effective your messages have been in getting people to click in the first place.

While an email message may contain 10 or more hyperlinks, the vast majority of those who choose to click do so on just one link.

I put this down to the very limited amount of time your readers are prepared to spend on your message. Subscribers will skim-read your copy, choose the link that best interests them, and then click on it to read more.

They may intend coming back to your newsletter to look over other areas of interest, but chances are your message will slowly sink under a pile of incoming mail, and that one click will be all you will get.

Now that you know about this one click phenomenon, you can ensure that the one click you do get will be on your most important hyperlink by highlighting it in some way so that it stands out.

If you do this successfully you can transform it into what I see as the “Golden Hyperlink” as it carries a disproportionate amount of the click traffic.

Of all the tools available in your e-mail marketing kit bag the viral campaign is in my mind is the hardest to master. If a newsletter has the complexity of a hammer, (it doesn’t but please with me with this analogy), the viral solution is a half blunt weighty chainsaw with attitude.

Some times they work well, sometimes they injure all within its radius.

I don’t want blood on the e-mail marketing market so here is my opinion on how to tame this beast to perform each time for all concerned. For I believe if you choose the right benefits and pack them into a simple message your next viral campaign will do its job well.

What you want it to achieve is the first thing to decide.

Do you want 30,000 people in the draw to win your prize? Or, would you like to build permission to talk to 10,000 people at a later date. I would suggest the later has more appeal.

Please don’t confuse the two. The messages for each are very different. Draw entry forms that have sneaky opt out tick boxes hidden at the end of the form surprise everyone. Especially those that accuse you of spamming them when all the thought they did is put their name in the hat.

No, don’t let those teeth get a grip. Make your intent clear and pack in those benefits for trading your email address and you are way on the producing a high-growth way email.

What you offer to entice people to join your list can have a real affect on the people you attract. For example a company wanting to attract members to a new service email that offered a free VW Beetle would attract a fair share of offer seekers mixed in with their target group. Pick a prize that your ideal prospect would like to receive and you have a better chance to weed competition seekers out.

But how can you make your viral campaign get up and grow as apposed to sit dead still in your prospects inbox?

The key personal motivations working against viral campaigns working are lethargy, interest and compassion. These three make up what I call the sloth index. The first is obvious. There is other stuff to do. Why bother. Interest is again a simple one, does the whole process sound worthwhile, simple and fun to follow.

This leaves compassion, the feeling that would I want to receive this from someone else. Do I really want to be a part of spreading this message to my friends? These are big motivations to try to resist.

But resist it you must – so plan your next campaign to fight each with a vengeance.

Email subject lines are a key part in announcing your message to your audience. I think it’s worth taking some time to ponder what details should fit the 50 characters of left aligned text you have to play with.

Here’s a succinct article I just picked up from EmailLabs that goes some way to guide you on what is worth testing.

Les Mills has been New Zealand’s leading gym since first being established in 1968. The numbers are impressive; nine clubs, 250 personal trainers and a total of 10,000 gyms in 55 countries using the Les Mills Group Fitness classes.

While they have a nationwide membership that currently stands in the tens of thousands the process they followed of welcoming new members to their local Les Mills gym was still taken very seriously.

“We knew that the experience a new member had within the first 30 days of joining was very important” says Guy Needham, National Marketing Manager Les Mills.

Here’s a link to the PDF of the case study that tells the full story of how Permission helped Guy use email to effectively welcome new members in.

Traditionally the unsubscribe link on an email has been the last piece of content on your email message. This has meant that subscribers have had to wade down to the end of the message to take up your link and leave the list.

For some this is too much work, so they are now choosing to take the short cut their ISP is offering at the top of the message. But by doing so they are hindering the overall deliverability of the email sender especially when it really wasn’t SPAM but a message from a legitimate list that the person has become tired of receiving info from.

Here are three images from some ISP’s that provide their users with options at the top of the message to classify what’s below as spam.

Some of these buttons feed SPAM checking tools so that when they are clicked enough they begin to affect the future success of email campaigns by the sender.

So perhaps its time to move that unsubscribe link to the top and make it stand out enough to compete with these ISP buttons shown above?

The picture above of me and my latest technical prop is the subject of these next few paragraphs.

I think the funnel shape closely maps the progress of your online visitor going from a prospect to a customer.

Ideally lots of prospects start at the top as they come across your web site while searching for what you offer. Some register for “stuff” and pass on their email address. But at this stage (probably at the same level as the wrinkles around my eyes) they get stuck - “constipated” and unable to move further.

Effective email marketing is the virtual “prune juice” that helps them move on down to becoming a solid lead. And I think I may stop here with the analogy, but you get the picture….

Have fun.

Perhaps a suit and tie would have added a bit more to the content but here is a very early and rather rough take on my latest foray into placing video tips online.

And yes I know I don’t stare down the “barrel” enough but it’s a start.

A bit more on Sender ID, this time from Microsoft.

Add “Sender ID” to your lexicon of email technical terms.

In the fight against spam knowing that the message came from who it should can be quite helpful.

This short PDF from Exact Target is a start to finding out more.

Last month I worked with the team at Marketingprofs and Paul Broni (Inbox Interactive) to produce a handbook to guide marketers through the process of successfully choosing the ideal ESP (email service provider) to partner with.

In addition to this text there is an online database of answers that vendors provided to a previous capabilities survey that removes some of the hard work of finding out what each supplier can offer. (See below)

It was fun putting the content together.

Check more of it out here.

Every month or so I open up the Permission offices for customers to gather over a fresh coffee and a few sweet pastries to talk about a range of subjects generally to do with online marketing.

This time we also talked about testing .

Specifically the amount of testing people did with their own email marketing.

I posed the question of what each was doing in this area and then around the table we went looking for feedback.

It was a short discussion.

There’s not much testing going on out there.

Its more a function of “ build and blast” and then onto the next job.

Perhaps it’s a sign of under resourced NZ marketers? Or maybe it’s a general state of thinking “ this is the best I’m going to get anyway so why do any testing”

Well I’m off to do my own research as I think there’s an opportunity here for better results - so expect more testing results to be shared in this blog.

The next edition of Permission’s email newsletter “Subscribe” is out and about.

You can find a version here

I’m testing two different subject lines to see how they affect response.

Option one

: Subscribe : May Edition :

Option two

Left brain lead generation

Any ideas which will be the winner??

Please excuse this half-formed idea but it may be handy.

Subject lines are well known as a great piece of campaign content to test. Positive changes in this and the FROM email address can greatly increase email message open rates.

Choosing the right subject line, however, can be an area that is difficult to test until you unleash it on your list. But how about taking the learning from any Gooogle adwords campaign you are running on what ads pushing the most clicks and then transering this now tested content directly to the subject line?

In both areas you have minimal space to tell your tale in text and the result you want is the same: a click on.

Maybe worth a go?

I’ve written before about the small amount of time you have to impart your story in your subscriber’s Inbox.

So here’s a list of what should be in and conversley out of your message to portray the most in the time you have.

In

A single purpose
Bullet points
Short sentances
Underlined hyperlinks
Color to clarify not confuse
White space

Out

Animation (for the sake of it)
Over 300 words of copy text
Images that total more than 60k
Rambling prose

All done

Part of the job I do is working with customers as we both plan out an email communications strategy. The success of these plans are never assured. With a fair amount of relevant previous experience and a detailed approach the chances of hitting the success marks are good BUT there are never any guarentees once that first campaign starts running.

I always recommend to my customers that they take an emergent approach to their strategy once it all kicks off. That is for them to learn how subscribers are reacting to their messages and then to alter the messaging to suit the needs of their unique audience profile.

Yes, it takes time to make this work. (It is very easy when it is campaign time again to just run through the motions and repeat what was done before.) However from my experience, time well spent honing the strategy is very worthwhile.

Those committed to this approach are supreme testers. Subject lines, From names, times and days are all worked through the mix – in the search for the best results.

And gradually out from the fog of data overload the winning mixture “emerges” ready to take the challenge of the other tests.

Do your email marketing and web site user stats shake hands?

I picked this up from Chris Baggots blog today.

A web site well used can extend on the story your email message started. Whereas in a message you have a few seconds to tell your tale, online you can extend this to a minute or two.

Your email stats will tell you who clicked, but what about their journey after they arrived on your site? This article by David Daniels from Jupiter Research reveals a growing trend for email vendors to integrate their stats with the main web analytics providers.

By doing so they are providing a neat “hand shake” between those that clicked and decided to read more online.

Now you can begin to see how your subscribers interests are revealed from the pages they visit on your site. Technically it’s quite a simple task to achieve. And as always how marketers learn from all this new data will be the key test of its usefulness.

Your subcribers are working away at their desktop. Deadlines are to be met, coffee appointments kept and BANG, in arrives your message, compacting down what was there before.

Say it looks like this one that arrived in my inbox below a few moments ago.

Hmm, will it break the flow of work? Is it using any color properly to snatch some of the limited amount of attention on offer? Nope and nope.

The subject line was OK, the FROM address let me know it was from the correct place but the Preview area was awash with boxes of red making it just remind me that this messages needs my work. I have to open it full size and source the images so I can read what they want me to. (You should see what it looks like full size in the email client – it is a mess.)

The preview area is your only chance to use colour and shapes to entice an open. The remaining fields of From and Subject are just lands of text. Make Preview work for you rather than letting it create work for your subscriber.