Email marketing frequency is one of the most important factors in your campaigns. Some marketers send when they want or need to send the message out, and some others don’t know the preferences of their audience at all. In both cases they neglect the receiving end: how often does your audience want to receive your emails? No idea? Read on then. If you have an idea, there will probably still be some tips to squeeze the maximum out of your email campaigns.

1. Inquire

Make sure that you get to know when and how often your audience wants to receive your emails. Do it by offering this as a preference option at the subscribe form and/or at a preference center: make sure it’s not an obscure option but loud and clear. That way everyone can put their frequency preferences in and you can adjust your campaigns accordingly.

2. Segment

After the knowledge comes the application of that knowledge: putting all those numbers and preferences to work. If you could segment in three or four groups, you’re already on your way to delivering your messages better than before when you still sent out one single blast (sorry mr. Kordek). Depending on your audience, segments could include daily, weekly or monthly, but also a specific day or just workdays vs weekend.

3. Build and test

Build the campaigns and setup the mailing system according to the segments: see how many contacts fit in each ‘frequency zone’: be it daily, weekly or even monthly or one of the other options. Record it for future reference and comparison to frequency preference stats 3 months, 6 months and a year ahead. See it as a baseline from where you started, to look back to in the somewhat near or further future.

4. Adjust

No email marketing campaign is perfect, no segment setup is safe. After testing and sending out a couple of mailings, check up on the results. Adjust the program accordingly and make sure the right amount of content is sent the right amount of time: don’t fit 30 items in a newsletter nobody wants to read: make it 10 or 15 of the most important ones, for instance.

5. Follow up

Check back on how you did with the introduction or expansion of frequency prefs: how are the subscribers handling it? Any feedback, good or bad? Put it back into the email marketing campaign, your organization, your people. Everyone will benefit, especially the subscribers.

All in all, it will take some time and effort to implement this, but the results should be worth it as long as it is done well: both your company and your audience will be better off.

Takeaway: Email marketing is as much about listening as anything else. Find out how often your subscribers want to hear from you. Give them options and control.

I’d like to hear you thoughts! Please add your comment!

You’ve done your best to set up a nice email marketing program in the past period: deliverability is turning out well, the designs are great and the people seem to like the campaigns so far. However something is missing: you have the feeling that after all the hard work, one part of the program is still not up to par. Then it hits: a collection of ultra cool landing pages, that is!

The places your subscribers land aren’t exactly sweet spots and eye candy: it’s either sub-parts of your website or basic landing pages which have been derived from your email campaigns.  Why not put the same amount of effort that you’ve put into your email marketing program into the landing pages? Time for a long good look.

Branding

One of the most important things in email marketing is consistency across the board: people have to know who they’re dealing with, all the time. Whether it’s inside email or outside it doesn’t matter. A person who receives an email which is styled with your new logo and brand colors and after clicking lands on a landing page which still contains the old brand style could feel uncertain about that: what company is this? Is this the right landing page or a bad link? And so on. Make sure the experience is the same and people know which company and which product(s) they are dealing with all the time: this will give confidence and trust and will not alienate your visitors.

CTA, WIIFM and more

The call to action (click that button please!) and what’s in it for me (hopefully) have been part of every marketers equation in recent years, and rightfully so. These two marketing terms alone will help you make a landing page a better money maker: either by using better buttons, getting the message across in a clear fashion or both together. Next to that the way a page is laid out in combination with the CTA and WIIFM parts can make or break the joy of usage at the visiting end, and the money making part at your end.

Testing, yes your landing pages too!

Everyone in email marketing knows about the factors involved in testing, and the need and use for it. For landing pages the same has to be set up: take time to devise test scenarios and see which landing pages perform better than others. This way you can maximize the result of the landing pages before the big audience is unleashed upon them. This also prevents making changes during the actual campaign itself, which could interfere too much with the flow of the campaign or stress out end receivers: one moment the page looks like A, and all of a sudden it’s like B.

Takeaway: Putting energy into quality landing pages will make your email marketing campaign look, feel and perform much better than when that energy is only concentrated on the emails itself: don’t forget it’s not all about email.

In email marketing, too many times have I seen beautiful mailings let down by silly mistakes. A lost character (what’s that Z doing there on top of the mailing?), a double, missing or otherwise malformed link and also wrong or missing images. A quick scan through about fifty mailings received in a period of just ten days revealed that nearly half (!) had something wrong with them and about three were severely broken. Is nobody testing anymore these days? No budget, time, or a combination of those and more? Any idea how much potential is lost when delivering a mailing (yaay we delivered!) of lesser than best quality? A simple checklist can make the testing much more efficient, especially if you’re a frequent flyer, uhm sender.

Call off the dogs
People in email marketing or at least, the ‘guys who do those (email) campaigns’ don’t have an easy job. No planning of any value, bosses breathing down their necks, etcetera; everything is a rush job and when it isn’t they wonder what’s wrong because it all works out so well. Therefor, I ask all the people who are on those marketer’s cases: get off and let them do their job. Let them design, test, and send beautiful email campaigns like they are supposed to. When it’s 5pm and that mailing had or has to be sent today, send it tomorrow. The effect will be bigger, the quality will be better, the audience will be happier. Everybody wins!

The checklist
Now about that email marketing checklist, make sure everything is on it that’s essential for your mailing. Stuff like links (trackable!),  images, inbox fields and so on, are the basics of course. It’s possible that for your specific email campaigns things like Google Analytics, social media integration and such are necessary too, put it on the checklist. Make sure that the testing of all mailings with that checklist, however small they are, becomes an integral part of the whole process. Such a process could or should involve these main steps:

1 Outline: first steps of people, material, subjects etc. involved

2 Design, content writing, target group definition

3 Devise the whole mailing in concept

4 Checkup with no.1: did we put everything in there the way we want it in?

5 Put the mailing in proof mode: this is the moment the TESTING alarm bells go off all across the office: this is also where the checklist comes into play

6 Actual sending (this part is easy but, for some people apparently a tense moment)

7 Post-sending administration: process statistical results, reply’s, happy thoughts etc.

For anyone already applying such a process and checklist to your email marketing: good on ya mate. For anyone else who is not doing it yet: why not?

Takeaway: Don’t forget to test your email campaigns, it’s worth it!

Have you got any thing you’d add to Remy’s check list?

In most classic marketing areas, actual marketing is broadcasting: one (or a few) to many. Take TV for instance. You buy airtime for about $100,000 or more and then you still have to come up with something. What do you say to an audience exceeding 100,000 people or even 1 million people? In 30 seconds or less, of course. The moment that such mass media marketing can really be personalized is still far away even though interactive TV is getting towards that point. These days though life is different: technology has finally matured enough to allow marketers to wield nearly unlimited control and power over content, timing, segmentation and way of delivery. All they need to do is push the right buttons and learn.

Why would anyone subscribe to your newsletter or weekly offers? Because the product is so great? Or maybe your logo and tag lines are funny and memorable? You serve your customers 24/7? All those do count, but it should be a primary goal to get someone actually interested in a product or service and then expand on that interest and provide content that is relevant. Why would you waste time and money sending information to people who are not interested in it upfront? That’s starting while being behind and that’s a tough position to be in.

To get people interested upfront marketers should start as early as possible with registering those interests from people subscribing anywhere. This should be done of course with a loud and clear description what will be done with this knowledge: privacy when handled well shouldn’t be a problem, both for organizations and for people alike. What will the subscriber receive, how often and in which form? If you are at or have passed that point you already have some bonus points available: you know what the subscriber wants, and hopefully how often too (read this on frequency if you haven’t already).

The point I’m getting to is this: if people are actually interested in the stuff you’ll be sending them, the ‘barrier’ of opening, clicking, ordering, downloading or doing whatever you want them to do is much thinner than when it’s just a general send-to-all mailing. Chances are (much) bigger your mailing will be succesful, maybe even beyond the most positive projected results. That should be something that makes the CEO and CFO happy: over-delivering on an already very promising and proven marketing channel which is email.

Takeaway: Get ready to target your audience with email: if you’re still sending ‘to all’ it’s time to change strategies and go for profiled content. This will benefit all results positively.

A question that is asked on many surveys and during other contact moments between companies and (potential) clients. The organizations would like to know how you first got to know them, so they’re able to measure to some extent the quality and result (ROI) of their marketing channels. Some channels have better facilities in place to measure that result though: email marketing is quite measurable and so are some of the other online marketing channels.

However word of mouth is one that is hard to measure because so many factors are involved: who promoted the company, when did this happen, why, how does that person use the product or services of the company, and so on. However, word of mouth is one of a company’s most valuable types of promotion: all it needs to get going is a good quality of service you deliver and enthusiastic employees who are passionate about their job.

From xkcd:

The title tag (mouseover) of the image says: “There are a lot of books on marketing out there. I wonder if you’re safest just buying the most popular one”. It’s of course a jab at marketing itself: the one company which has the biggest and best configured marketing drum kit reaches the most potential and existing customers. When you actually deliver a great product or service  it does help for word of mouth: you’re on top of anyone’s mind who get asked for suggestions. Wouldn’t it be nice if your company and product is named? It takes some effort, but will pay out big.

Tips for promoting word of mouth can be found here on Hubpages: they include giving your customers something special that is worth talking about with others: be it a (special) gift, a certain service for free or something else that makes you stand out from the gray mass. A real life example of word of mouth is what Groupon does: they give you $10 for referring a friend: a direct, clear reward for word of mouth activity. Not all businesses can engage in such tactics, but rewarding or promoting word of mouth with your customers can make a huge difference with brand recognition and promotion.

Takeaway: Word of mouth is hard to measure as a lead source, but is very much worth the effort of delivering great service and telling your customers to spread the word about how great it actually is. Make sure there’s a process in place to actively promote word of mouth.

What are you doing with word of mouth? Leave us a comment!

Email marketing personal preferences
As a professional marketer, it’s really amazing to me (and sort of disturbing) how so many companies using email marketing won’t let you change your email address, or just personal preferences in general from their email campaigns. I just did a test with a random set of twenty companies and only five had the option to change my email address and/or personal preferences. This means no less than fifteen companies have just received an unsubscribe, purely because I can’t change my email and because ‘this is an automated email’ they can’t handle any replies being sent. These days more and more people have (several) email addresses but this also means more changes in their email preferences and online locations.

Make it handy for Andy: Email campaign throttle back and changes
Take for instance Andy the handyman who has moved into a new town to get a new job as an email marketer (hah!). He is now signed up with a new ISP who provided him with an email address, a new job with a new email address and oh yeah: he changed to AMail for his personal mail instead of BMail, just because he liked the interface and spam filter better. This means Andy will want to update at least one and possibly even two or three email address preferences in his personal and professional email circle of subscriptions.

Imagine Andy trying to do the same thing as I did: change his email address on twenty subscriptions. Fifteen of those fail, so Andy will unsubscribe and maybe, just maybe re-subscribe with the companies from whom he -really- wants to receive email. How would you feel as a company if you would lose those Andy’s or anyone else wanting to update their personal info and preferences and they can’t? Imagine this taken a bit further sideways: Andy not wanting to unsubscribe, but merely adjust the frequency of the email he receives. Providing that as an option could save his subscription(s) and make him feel better about the amount of email he receives, because he is in control of that.

Give your email marketing campaign subscribers options
According to Chad White of Retailemailblog.com, online retailers are sending more and more emails which fill up the inboxes everywhere. Providing an option to opt-down or adjust email frequency instead of a total opt-out could be just the thing your subscribers are looking for. When those options of changing an email address and email frequency settings are combined you’re on to something: you will provide a hassle and time saving service to your subscribers who will love you for it. You may not notice that love rightaway but in the long run it will turn out to be a worthwile investment. To conclude with a positive note: I am seeing more and more opt-down and / or reason for unsubscribe options so the gears are switching bit by bit towards the good side.

Takeaway: When someone hits the unsubscribe button, are you ready to handle it? As a company you can learn from the reasons behind someone unsubscribing, or even better: give them an option to change personal details or preferences on frequency (opt-down) and save them from unsubscribing.

What do you think? Add your comments!

The same was going on with the Canon USA website: I searched for ‘newsletter’ and all I found were scanners and press releases. Oddly enough when checking the website http://newsletter.canon-europe.com/ for a european newsletter, I found the You Connect competition from Canon…but no option to subscribe to a newsletter. How’s that for subdomain misuse? Finally, when checking http://cpn.canon-europe.com (their pro photography corner) I was able to subscribe:

Thank you for subscribing to the CPN newsletter.
You will now receive future issues automatically by e-mail.  We look forward to keeping you informed about CPN and CPS activities.

CPS Team

Dat is de filosofie van Blinker en dus onze tagline. Want dat is precies wat we voor, en met, u willen bereiken als u klant wordt bij Blinker. Uw prospects klanten maken en uw klanten dichterbij uw organisatie brengen.

Online marketing steeds belangrijker
Het Internet biedt fantastische mogelijkheden. Mogelijkheden die u -al dan niet- bekend zijn maar waarvan blijkt dat ze voor veel organisaties moeilijk inzetbaar zijn. Vaak omdat het al snel technisch wordt. Soms omdat de kennis ontbreekt. En ook wel omdat de middelen soms nogal prijzig zijn.

Voorbij e-mail marketing
E-mail marketing is binnen de online marketing communicatiemix een zeer belangrijk onderdeel. Met name de wereldwijde acceptatie van het medium en het kostenaspect van e-mail maakt het een ideaal communicatiemiddel. Maar we sluiten onze ogen natuurlijk niet voor andere communicatiekanalen zoals SMS, website of Direct Mail.

Ons DNA
Blinker heeft als doel om online marketing voor elke organisatie mogelijk te maken. Dat betekent dat we:

1) Oplossingen maken waarbij nauwelijks technische kennis nodig is.
2) U op weg helpen daar waar de kennis van online marketing ontbreekt.
3) Prijzen hanteren die in verhouding staan tot wat onze diensten u opleveren.

Ons team
Wij houden van prettig werken. Met elkaar en met onze klanten. Online communicatie is belangrijk maar, persoonlijke communicatie is nog vele malen belangrijker. Wanneer wij dat goed doen wordt onze filosofie waargemaakt.

Blinker is lid van DDMA (www.ddma.nl)

Blinker is lid van Emma-nl (www.emma-nl.net)