Optimize E-mail Marketing in a Shifting Environment, Part 2

This week we continue our coverage of David Daniels' Nov. 13 speech from All About eMail's Virtual Conference & Expo presented by eM+C.

Daniels, vice president and research director at online market research firm JupiterResearch, offered the keynote presentation. Here we discuss Daniels' take on how four tenets of customer loyalty apply to e-mail marketing, and conclude with some takeaway tips he provided to help make your e-mail campaigns stand out in this multimedia world.

(For part 1, click here.)

4 tenets of customer loyalty
Embrace and build upon these areas to grow your e-mail marketing campaigns, Daniels said.

1. Readiness. Begin with the end — set an end goal for the campaign, and focus your efforts on reaching that goal.

2. Segmentation. Examine customer behavior, and focus on engagement. Create key performance indicators (e.g., open and clickthrough rates) to track list engagement.

3. Reputation. Reward and empower advocacy. For example, use content from consumer reviews in your e-mail creative.

4. Context. Create leverage by integrating and automating your message for all channels, including mobile devices. Test what your content looks like in the inbox — PC and mobile — prior to launching. Use welcome campaigns and behavioral triggers.

Green benefits
The mission of going green is benefiting the e-mail industry, Daniels noted. Consider the following: 25 percent of the online population has suppressed paper statements/bills in the past year. That number swells to 33 percent when the household income surpasses $100,000. E-mail marketing was a $1.2 billion industry in 2007, with a forecast for $2.1 billion by 2012. That's a 10.9 percent compound annual growth rate.

6 takeaway tips
1. Understand the value of consumers' e-mail addresses. With it becoming increasingly difficult to capture consumer attention in the inbox, focus your efforts on reactivation and behavior, Daniels said. Tactics include:

• increase the average call time in your call center to make sure you get an e-mail address;
• increase shopping queues at checkout aisles in retail stores; and
• put a pop-up on your Web site so when a consumer logs in, you tie into that data.

2. Integrate e-mail into all channels to reinforce your brand and create leverage with triggers. Daniels cited a campaign from US Airways, which attached tags to luggage at baggage claims that prompted travelers to use their mobile devices to e-mail a special code for immediate redemption of frequent flier miles.

3. Be ready for rendering issues. Prepare for the chaos of content, Daniels cautioned. No matter the channel, use alt tags, especially for mobile. Other best practices to follow include using fewer and/or smaller images in e-mail creative and using text messages more often.

4. Test, test, test. "Embrace the notion of failure," Daniels said. Use A/B tests to split your lists. "That's the only way to move down the road of optimization," he added. "Figure out what works, and create more leverage within your own programs."

5. Segment your list by behaviors to target e-mail influencers. These consumers are more engaged with e-mail and purchase more often from e-mail. Activities to look out for include:

• viewed a video online;
• contacted customer service or support online;
• forwarded a promotional e-mail;
• downloaded a podcast; and
• posted a product review to a Web site.

"Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior," Daniels said.

6. Make e-mail portable to improve its targetability. Send e-mails to mobile devices, such as iPhones or BlackBerrys, Daniels advised. Nine percent of the online population now receives e-mail on portable devices, nearly double the total from 2007.

Register to view the presentation here.

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