7 Steps Email Marketing Guide Smart Insights PDF

Email Marketing
Seven Steps to Success Guide
Dr Dave Chaffey
Published: November 2011
Plan > Reach > Act > Convert > Engage

Email marketing
The CRITICAL
factors
Seven Steps to Success Guide
Set objectives
Contents
proposition
Your email
03 Introduction
12 Step 1 Prioritise with the CRITICAL factors
Segmentation
and targeting
18 Step 2 Set your goals and build a quality list
25 Step 3 Defining your email marketing proposition
email marketing
Integrate your
30 Step 4 Segmentation and targeting techniques
45 Step 5 Defining your integrated email communications strategy

Create great
48 Step 6 Creating effective email templates and creative

creative
57 Step 7 Test, learn and refine

Test, learf,
refine!
7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

Smart Insights (Marketing Intelligence) Limited. Please go to www.smartinsights.com to feedback or access our other guides.
!
Introduction
Your options for using email marketing to
The CRITICAL
grow your business
factors
Email marketing is far from dead as some have suggested in this age of social networking!1
As well see in this section, you can use email marketing both for gaining new customers and
Set objectives
selling more to existing customers. In this guide well look at the options for each, but well
focus on using email as a customer communication tool, which is where it works best and
can integrate well with your social media marketing efforts.
Strategy Recommendation 1 Focus your email marketing efforts on customer retention

Email marketing tends to work best as a tool to improve customer retention and growth.
This is because your emails are received by a warm contact that is already aware of you.
proposition
Your email
Email doesnt work so well when its with a cold contact.
That said, there are a range of options to use email for customer acquisition and its worth
considering them. Lets start here.
Segmentation
and targeting
Using email for customer acquisition
r Q. Have we reviewed our options for customer acquisition through email?
Although many just think of email as a customer acquisition tool there are still some great
options to use email marketing for acquiring new customers through reaching new prospects.
email marketing
Checklist email acquisition options
Integrate your
These are the main options to review:
rr 1. Rented list email
rr 2. Co-branded email (and/or co-registration)
rr 3. 3rd party email newsletter Create great
rr 4. Viral email
creative
rr 5. Event-triggered email
rr 6. House e-newsletter
Best Practice Tip 1 Dont miss the opportunities of advertising in others enewsletters
We highlight the 3rd option as particularly worth considering, especially for business-to-
Test, learf,
refine!
business marketing since the banner blindness that we see with display ads doesnt
occur to the same degree with enewsletters since visitors scan them.
To help you quickly review the options for acquisition using email marketing, this table shows
their benefits, disadvantages and issues to consider to help manage.
1 Facebooks view on Email marketing

3 Smart Insights (Marketing Intelligence) Limited. Please go to www.smartinsights.com to feedback or access our other guides.
!
Table. Summary of methods of using e-mail marketing for customer acquisition and
their advantages and disadvantages
Option What is it? Benefits Issues
1. Rented list Buying access Reach into new List source. High typical cost
to contacts contacts of acquisition (CPA).
The CRITICAL
from a list
Low responsiveness
factors
owner who
broadcasts on Perception of spam buy
your behalf from a reputable list owner
2. Co-branded Email sent Leverage partner Exclusivity
list from list-owner brand. Can also
Set objectives
but with co-register
your brand, signup on their
message and site
offer
3. 3rd party Placing an ad, Responsiveness Prime position
e-newsletter ad/ sponsorship, compared to other
Clutter
sponsorship editorial in a options
proposition
Your email
publishers Cost
Reach.
enewsletter.
4. Viral E-mail An email is Potentially Achieving cut-through
designed to low-cost and high Negative brand impact
be shared and reach.
seeded to a
Segmentation
and targeting
house list or a
rented list in
combination
with social
media
5. Event-trig- Conversion of Automated just Optimising creative, offer and
email marketing
Integrate your
gered e-mail leads sit back and relax frequency
6. House Enewsletters Helps build a Achieving balance between
E-newsletter are mainly relationship with informing the list-member
aimed at recipient over and selling to them.
customers and time.
most sales Create great
will come from

creative
this source,
but they can
work well for
prospects who
havent bought
from you yet
Test, learf,
refine!

!
Using email for customer retention and growth
r Q. Have we reviewed our options for customer retention and growth through email?
Most marketers agree that email marketing works best as a relationship-building tool. Check
The CRITICAL
out the options in the table.
factors
Checklist email retention options
These are the main options email acquisition options to review:
r 1. House e-newsletter
r 2. House campaign
Set objectives
r 3. Triggered email
r 4. Research email
r 5. Service email
r 6. Sales force email
r 7. Integration with blogs, mobile and social media messaging
proposition
Your email
The table below summarises your options for communicating with existing customers via
email. You will see that some of these options such as event-triggered email and social
messaging are in common with acquisition.
Retention option What is it? Benefits Issues
Segmentation
and targeting
1. House Still one of the best Add value, gain Defining the best sell/
enewsletter digital marketing tools response inform/entertain balance.
to build a brand and Integration with social
develop relationships. media. Resourcing.
2. House A focused e-blast or Permission- Managing contact
campaign e-postcard on a single based: strategies of frequency
email marketing
Integrate your
offer often has better so that the impact is not
Responsive
response than an reduced.
enewsletter because of
Targeting. Testing the
its clarity
best template layouts and
offers.
Create great
creative
3. Triggered emails Behavioural emails Low cost. There is growing

following up on customer distrust of
abandoned shopping tracking so transparency
basket, search or on this is required and
category browses opt-in is essential.
on site or interest
Test, learf,
refine!
expressed through a
click on an email can be
a cost-effective way to
increase conversion to
sale
4. Research email Research + Responsiveness Selection of sample.
Managing frequency

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Retention option What is it? Benefits Issues
5. Service email Service + Responsiveness Cross-selling
6. Sales force Relationship build. Relationship Control
email
Sell. Integration
7. Blogs/RSS/ Other alerting and Brand and Adoption of different
The CRITICAL
Social and mobile messaging tools relationship networks by different
factors
messaging should be made to building customers.
integrate with your email
marketing for efficiency.
Permission-based email marketing
Set objectives
r Q. Is our email marketing permission-based?
Permission marketing, or gaining consent for marketing communications to be received,
is fundamental to successful email marketing. If you dont practice permission marketing,
customers will see you as a spammer and you may lose them forever. Then there are the
legal requirements in many countries which make permission marketing a must.
proposition
Your email
Strategy Recommendation 2 Ensure your email marketing is permission-based
Audit your email marketing to ensure that your email marketing is permission-based.
Since Email marketing underpins much of digital marketing, but especially email marketing,
lets take a look at whats involved. You will know most of this, but its worth checking.
Segmentation
and targeting
Permission marketing
Permission marketing is an established approach that still gives a practical foundation for
CRM and online customer engagement. Permission marketing is a term coined by Seth
Godin way back in 1999, but its still valid and we think that many still dont work hard enough
to get permission.
email marketing
Integrate your
What is it? Permission marketing
Customers agree (opt in) to be involved in an organizations marketing activities by email,
social networks or traditional channels in return for the value offered.
The classic exchange is based on information or entertainment a B2B site can offer a free
report in exchange for a customer sharing their e-mail address and details, while a B2C site Create great
creative
can offer a newsletter or company Facebook page with valuable content and offers. This is
stage 2 in the classic permission marketing process shown in the next diagram.
Test, learf,
refine!

!
The CRITICAL
factors
Set objectives
proposition
Your email
Its worthwhile optimising this process to ensure youre using the best engagement devices,
messaging and placement to maximise lead generation.
What is it? Engagement devices

A call-to-action that encourages visitors to the site to interact. If these also enable capture
of leads, these are lead-generation devices.
Segmentation
and targeting
To improve the effectiveness of your permission marketing, ask these questions:
E-permission marketing checklist - how effective are our engagement devices?

rr Appeal and range of devices? How effective compared to competitors?
email marketing
rr Balance of lead-generation and non-lead generation devices
Integrate your
rr Placement and call-to-action?
rr Ability to track (see our article on campaign tracking2, the section Assess engagement
beyond the click through web analytics on page 59 or the guidance on event tracking
in our Google Analytics guide)
rr Type of engagement device
Create great
creative
rr Videos
rr Content download
rr Poll, survey or interactive quiz
rr Social recommendation (share through social networks or email)
Test, learf,
refine!
Strategy Recommendation 3 Review engagement and lead-generation devices

Check that you have the best methods of generating leads within your budget. Review
the range of engagement devices you have against competitors. Use testing to review
the messaging and placement of offers to maximise conversion. Its best to use a mix
of engagement devices that include both those that include lead generation and do not
require registration to maximise reach.
2 Campaign tracking for email guide

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Common customer profile
Your options to target your email list will be based on your customer knowledge. Since we
are looking to learn more through time, we need a structured approach to customer data
capture. This can be achieved through a common customer profile.
What is it? Common customer profile
The CRITICAL
A definition of all the database fields that arerelevant to the marketer in order to
factors
understand and target the customer with a relevant offering. It is best if different levels,1-3
of profile can be defined to encourage more customers to sign-up.
Once defined, the common customer profile can then be used as a means of
Set objectives
structuringe-permission marketing and refining understanding about the customer. A plan
with targets for each level can be created about how to learn more about the customer.
Best Practice Tip 2 Identify key profile fields

Identify the profile fields you really need to be able to understand your audience and target
them with future messages. These are level 1 or 2 of the common customer profile.
proposition
Your email
A structured approach to customer data capture is needed otherwise some data will be
missed, as is the case with the utility company that collected 80,000 e-mail addresses, but
forgot to ask for the postcode for geo-targeting!
The customer profile can have different levels to set targets for data quality:
Segmentation
and targeting
Level 1 is contact details and key profile fields only
Level 2 includes preferences
Level 3 includes full purchase and response behaviour
E-CRM and data profiling approach reviewed?

r Q. E-CRM and data profiling approach reviewed?
email marketing
Integrate your
We can refine Seth Godins permission marketing ideas, which have been described in the
previous steps, to make them more practical to apply to retention marketing.
Permission marketing E-permission marketing
Opt-in Selective opt-in

Opt-out Selective opt-out
Create great
creative
Initial profiling Communications preferences

Continued profiling Sense
Targeted communications & Respond
These are some of the key features of E-CRM implementation we suggest you work through
Test, learf,
refine!
for your organisation.

rr 1. Offer selective opt-in to communications. Offer choice in communications
preferences to the customer to ensure more relevant communications. Some customers
may not want a weekly e-newsletter, rather they may only want to hear about new
product releases. Remember opt-in and providing opt-out is a legal requirement in most
countries.

!
Four key opt-in options, selected by tick-box are:
rr Content News, products, offers, events
rr Frequency weekly, monthly, quarterly, or alerts
rr Channel Email, direct mail, phone or SMS
The CRITICAL
rr Format Text vs HTML vs Mobile and now a choice of mobile as Amazon have in
factors
their preference centre
Set objectives
proposition
Your email
Segmentation
and targeting
This is an example of a preference centre or customer profile. Although many mega-brands
use these, they are now within the reach of smaller companies through low-cost E-CRM
tools, IF they have a strategy that acknowledges their importance.
email marketing
Integrate your
Best Practice Tip 3 Create a customer communications preferences centre
A preference centre enables customers to adjust the frequency and type of
communications so increasing the likelihood of engagement.
rr 2. Create a common customer profile. Following on from the idea of a preferences

centre. A structured approach to customer data capture is needed otherwise key data is Create great
creative
needed for delivering targeted e-mails will be missed. You dont want to ask for lots of
details straightaway, so a preference centre enables you to gradually add data. Today, big
brands such as Sears3 are using social sign to integrate customer profile information with
email and CRM database information.
What is it? Social sign-on

Test, learf,
Site visitors log-in to site services through their preferred social network account such as
refine!
Facebook or Twitter. Optionally this process can be integrated with additional profile fields
which are stored in a customer database.
3 An example of how Sears use Social signon

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rr 3. Dont make opt-out too easy (selective opt-out). A bit radical, but my view is that
we often make it too easy to unsubscribe. Yes, providing a straightforward opt-out is part
of permission marketing and in many countries, a legal requirement. Although offering
some form of opt-out is now a legal requirement in many countries due to privacy laws,
a single click to unsubscribe is arguably making it too easy. Instead, wise e-permission
marketers use the concept of My Profile. Instead of unsubscribe, they offer a link to
The CRITICAL
a web form to update a profile, which includes the option to unsubscribe to some or
factors
potentially all communications. Amazons communications preferences page is a good
example of this approach.
Remember though, that offering opt-out that works is a legal requirement. Many opt-out
processes still dont work so instead subscribers may report as spam which can hit your
Set objectives
overall deliverability. Still, we still think theres some merit in what we said way back:
The use of My Profile can be tied to the principle of selective opt-in you could call it
selective opt-out. Put the My profile option in the e-mail prompt the user to keep their
contact details up-to-date.
rr 4. Watch dont ask use Sense and Respond. The need to ask interruptive
questions to better profile customers can be reduced through the use of monitoring of
clicks to better understand customer needs and to trigger follow-up communications or
proposition
Your email
Sense and Respond. Some examples of personalisation through this technique include:
Monitoring click-through to different types of content or offer. The interests of individual
list members can be assessed through monitoring what they click through to. Lastminute.
com reputedly tailor their newsletters to many different template types according to
content clickthrough. For example, if you click through to theatres or city-breaks, then you
Segmentation
and targeting
will receive more of this type of content in future.
Monitoring the engagement of individual customers with e-mail communications. This
is achieved by monitoring trends of opening and click-through by individual customer.
These metrics indicate the level of interest of individual customers and we can monitor
how these vary through time and use follow-up communications. For example, perhaps
a buying signal is suggested by a customer who has not previously responded to e-mails
email marketing
Integrate your
who starts clicking through to the web site more frequently. This could be followed up by a
tailored e-mail communication or a phone call.
Follow-up of response to a specific e-mail. If a B2B vendor offers information about a
new product launch which encourages click through to a landing page then they have two
main choices of follow-up. First, the form could contain a question asking about the future
buying intentions or whether contact from a sales rep is required. Alternatively, if there Create great
is a capability to monitor an individual who has clicked through to a page, then it may be
creative
best to use this to prompt a call from an account manager or sales person. The second
approach may result in more sales, but of course there is a danger that the customer may
react negatively to monitoring or stalking of this type and it is arguably not permission
marketing.
How is this guide structured?

Test, learf,
In this section we have introduced the concept of permission marketing and showed how it
refine!
can be applied to using email for gaining new customers and communicating with existing
customers. In Step 1 we will show how to prioritise your email activities using the CRITICAL
factors. We then cover each of these in more detail in the next steps of the guide.

!
What makes our guides different?
Weve created our guides to be your constant companion as you learn, review and improve your
approach to digital marketing. We know youre busy and under-pressure to get results so theyre
written to help you do just that by taking you through the questions you should be asking to im-
prove performance and suggesting the right approaches for you. Our Ebooks are all created to
The CRITICAL
help you:
factors
Improve results. A focus on getting the best results from your digital marketing.
Review your current approach. A unique workbook format helps identify priorities.
Apply analytics. Inegrated advice on using Google Analytics to improve performance.
Learn best practice. Strategy recommendations and practical tips highlighted throughout.
Set objectives
How will the guides help you?
Our Ebooks are designed to help you and your team if you are actively managing digital market-
ing. They are also packed full of practical advice if youre working hands-on on a company website
or campaigns like search, email or social media marketing. This is how our guides are designed to
help create different types of people:
proposition
Your email
Company owners and marketing managers. We help you create a plan so you can invest in
the approaches that matter. We help you set goals and put in place a system to measure and
improve since all our guides cover how to get more from Google Analytics.
Digital marketing and Ecommerce managers. We help you get more from each of the key
digital marketing channels plus your web and social presences through reviewing your ap-
proach using using our comprehensive workbook templates.
Segmentation
and targeting
Digital marketing specialists. Whether you work on social media marketing, SEO, PPC,
email marketing or conversion rate optimisation for the website we have a guide to help you
boost your approach.
Consultants and agencies. Many consultants and agencies use our guides to check and
refine their approach and recommendations to clients on digital marketing. Theyre also used
email marketing
to help educate team members on the latest digital marketing best practice and techniques.
Integrate your
Guide features
All our guides include these features to help you improve:
Checklists of questions to ask to review your marketing approach
Guidance on using Google Analytics to improve performance Create great
Colour-coded definitions, key strategy recommendations and best practice tips
creative
Diagrams giving frameworks to develop your strategy

Lots of examples of best practice through mini case studies and screen captures
Tell us what you think

Dave Chaffey and team have developed these guides based on working with many types of
Test, learf,
companies and in training. But improvements are always possible, so wed be grateful if you could
refine!
email: support@smartinsights.com with your comments, good or bad. In particular, were interest-
ed in ideas on improving these guides or for other guides you would find useful. Thanks!

!
Step 1
Prioritise your email marketing efforts
with the CRITICAL factors
The CRITICAL
factors
A review of the CRITICAL success factors for email marketing is a useful place to start your 1
journey to improved email marketing. CRITICAL summarises the main factors which will
determine whether youre successful with your email marketing.
Lets now briefly review each of the eight CRITICAL success factors. Well look at some
examples of good practice to learn from along the way and cover them in more detail later in
Set objectives
this guide.
Conversation
r Q. Is our email marketing two-way are we engaging visitors in a dialogue or just pushing
content?
Email works best when its part of a wider dialogue encouraging user participation and
proposition
Your email
interaction with a brand. Its easy to just treat email marketing as a substitute for direct
marketing. But it works best when it encourages interactions, for example through:
Polls or surveys (for an e-newsletter)
Reviews and ratings on products (for an e-retailer)
Competitions which are announced in several emails
Segmentation
and targeting
Sharing of whats hot in the social channels like Facebook and Twitter
Heres an example from the CIPD B2B Enewsletter showing how a poll is integrated:
email marketing
Integrate your
Create great
creative
Test, learf,
refine!
Relevance
r Q. Is our email marketing targeted? Are we segmenting sufficiently?
It will be no surprise to direct marketers that response rates for emails will be higher if they
are targeted to the interests of individual recipients.
In the section on targeting well review 6 options to targeting which cover both traditional

12
!
targeting options and methods to deliver contextual emails through what my US marketing
contacts call Sense and Respond communications.
1. Customer profile characteristics (demographics).
2. Customer value (current and future)
3. Customer lifecycle groups.
The CRITICAL
factors
4. Customer behaviour in response and purchase (observed and predicted). 1
5. Customer multi-channel behaviour (channel preference).
6. Customer personas including psychographics.
What is it? Sense and respond communications
Set objectives
Delivering timely, relevant communications to customers as part of a contact strategy based
on assessment of their position in the customer lifecycle and monitoring and following up
automatically based on specific interactions with a companys website, emails and staff.
The next diagram gives an example of how Sense and Respond email marketing can
work. It may not be necessary to follow-up on all. Which do you think is most valuable here?
proposition
Your email
We suggest Option C : Click Dont Respond because these respondents may just need a
little push to convert, either through a follow-up email or phone call if they are a high value
customer.
Segmentation
and targeting
Phase 2
Rules- Campaign
E-mail based
response A. B. C. D.
database
engine Dont Open Click Respond
Open Dont Dont
Click Respond
Phase 1
New
Campaign subject New
Line, Offer
Initial e-mail New time
Opens
Promotion(s)
email marketing
Integrate your
New
Creative Timely
Response New Follow-up
Clickthroughs monitoring Offer
tool
Key
Landing page E-mail

Responses Landing page
response
or microsite
Create great
creative
Its apparent that relevance also relates to the email list quality you can only target if you
have collected sufficient information to profile the individual and really understand their char-
acteristics and interests.
Incentive (or offer)

r Q. Are our incentives or content offers effective? Is our email engaging?
Test, learf,
refine!
This is the WIIFM factor or Whats In It For Me for the recipient. What benefit does the
recipient gain from reading the email or clicking on the links within? For promotional emails or
e-blasts, there is a range of product or launch offers we can use in emails which are often in
the Free, Win, Save category. For an enewsletter, this is the content which well review in
the section on developing your email proposition. Is the quality of content or offer consistent
through time?

13
!
Best Practice Tip 2 Highlight your incentives through formatting
Highlight your incentives in headlines, image text and call-to-action.
This example shows how the WIIFM is included within the call-to-action buttons.
The CRITICAL
factors
1
Set objectives
proposition
Your email
Segmentation
and targeting
email marketing
Integrate your
Timing
r Q. Are we sending our emails at the right time?
Create great
creative
Timing refers to when the email is sent or received; the time of day, day of the week, point in
the month and even time of year. It is usually thought that B2B emails are best sent so that
the recipient receives them during the working day or midweek. All of us have a full in-box to
work through first thing in the morning, often containing SPAM and newsletters. It can help
your email stand out if it arrives during the day.
However, only testing can show this for sure some email marketers get good results on
Test, learf,
refine!
Friday, when office workers are winding down for the weekend.
Test the timing that works best for your audience by assessing the open rates for HTML
emails at different times of the day and week. Read our posts on timing for more ideas.4
Timing also means the context of when the email is received relative to user interactions
the sense and response approach we mentioned above.
4 Best time of week to send an email. Best time of day to send an email.

14
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Integration
r Q. Are our emails integrated with other channels?
This is looking at email as part of your integrated marketing communications. How it
integrates with social media, websites and if you still use it, direct mail, are all important to
getting your message across.
The CRITICAL
Questions to ask include:
factors
1
Are the creative and copy consistent with my brand?
Does the message reinforce other communications?
Does the timing of the email campaign fit with offline communications?
Do we encourage social interactions?
Set objectives
Creative and copy
r Q. Are our creative and copy engaging enough?
Creative refers to the overall design of the email including layout, use of colour, images and
copy.
proposition
Your email
Best Practice Tip 3 Make your offer clear up-front
Avoid the direct mail approach of saving the best to last. Email is an impulsive medium
where visitors will scan it quickly, so if the recipient likes your offer from the subject line
and the opening paragraph, then they should be able to click through straightaway. So
in general, emails should always have a link in the first three or four lines and then this
call-to-action should be repeated in the close.
Segmentation
and targeting
Heres an example of an up-front offer repeated in the subject line, images and editorial text -
which almost always receives a good clickthrough rate:
email marketing
Integrate your
Create great
creative
Test, learf,
refine!

15
!
Key issues to consider are:
How is the email structured? Are layouts commonly used in direct mail appropriate for
email?
Where are the calls-to-action? What are the best positions for calls-to-action and how can
clickthroughs be encouraged? Up-front is best.
The CRITICAL
How is the email branded? How should email campaigns and newsletters support the
factors
established brand and when should brand variants be used. 1
Is the tone of voice right for the email?
Attributes (of the email)

r Q. Are our creative and copy engaging enough?
Set objectives
The attributes of the email header which can all determine campaign success include the
subject line, from address, to address, date/time of receipt and format (HTML or text). Of
these, subject line, from address and format are most important in influencing response.
The attributes also include:
Deliverability Delivery will fail if your email is assessed as a spam email
proposition
Your email
Renderability Your creative and email wont be effective if it isnt easy to read in the
inbox
Well look at more tips on subject lines later, but for now, heres one - shorter can often work
best. The lesson from this reseach from Mailer-Mailer5 is clear.
Segmentation
and targeting
email marketing
Integrate your
Create great
creative
Landing page (or microsite)

r Q. Do we send readers to the right pages to engage them?
Test, learf,
refine!
There may be a temptation when experimenting with email to encourage click through to a
web page that is already part of the site, such as the home page or a product page.
However you will get a much better result from a landing page focused on achieving action.
Landing page is the term given for the page(s) reached after the recipient clicks on a link in
the email.
5 http://www.mailermailer.com/resources/metrics/index.rwp

16
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Typically, with a B2B email, on clickthrough, the recipient will be presented with an online
form to profile or learn more about them. Designing the page so that the form is easy to
complete and reassuring about how their personal data will be used can affect the overall
success of the campaign.
The conversion rate on the landing page can make a dramatic difference to the success of
an email campaign, yet this is often overlooked in favour of the email creative. Testing and
The CRITICAL
improving landing pages can pay dividends.
factors
1
This is the landing page for the Euroffice email earlier in this section. You can see the
customer journey is nicely integrated, encouraging fulfilment of the offer.
Set objectives
proposition
Your email
Segmentation
and targeting
email marketing
Integrate your
Create great
creative
Test, learf,
refine!

17
!
Step 2
Set your goals and build a quality
list for email marketing
The CRITICAL
factors
You probably know that interaction with email campaigns is measured through open and
clickthrough rates. While its great to review email response in this way, if this is all you
measure, youre missing the bigger picture of how valuable email is to your company and its
customers.
Define current value of your email marketing to customers
Set objectives
To assess how valuable email is to customers its best to measure the quality of their
engagement how engaged are they?
r Q. How well do we measure engagement of our subscribers?
A review of campaign open, clickthrough and conversion rates is a natural place to start
to improve engagement. Trends in overall response rates are a good starting point, but a
proposition
Your email
capable email marketing system will give you more insight. For a more detailed analysis, you
3
should review:
Checklist measuring engagement with email marketing

rr Click to open rates (CTOR) these will enable you to see how engaging your creative
and offer is
Segmentation
and targeting
rr Open and clickthrough rates by segment engagement will vary by segment depending
upon the targeting and relevance of your content or offers, so be sure to assess this.
rr Open and clickthrough rates based on delivery time time of day and day of the week or
time in month still make a significant difference so advanced email marketers are moving
to target according to time when individual subscribers are most engaged.
email marketing
Integrate your
rr Engagement at different points in the customer lifecycle it is natural that engagement
will decline through time and some subscribers will become inactive. So you need to work
to engage visitors through time, for example through a welcome strategy, or if necessary
reactivate them. Reviewing hurdle rates at different lengths of time from original subscrip-
tion can help assess the success of these strategies.
rr Engagement with different types of offer and message different types of promotion or Create great
message will also vary in popularity, so you need a way of tagging offer-type to analyse
creative
what is effective. Some email marketers tag specific types of links in different positions
in the template to know which part of their template is most effective, for example, there
could be a standard link for hero product or featured category in an email.
rr Hurdle rates of engagement over a longer period this assesses engagement over a six
or nine month period to set goals to review how active your subscribers are measured
through open, click or purchase rates.
Test, learf,
refine!
This is the big one! If you have to choose just one measure to assess customer
engagement, let this be it!

18
!
Strategy Recommendation 4 Measure longer-term engagement through hurdle rates
To analyse longer-term engagement, you can use the type of analysis shown in the table
below, which shows a diagnostic for longer-term engagement with email marketing.
The CRITICAL
factors
Set objectives
This analysis can often shows that over half of your audience is not engaged, so this gives
you a hurdle rate to benchmark your engagement efforts against.
proposition
Your email
These types of hurdle rates should be used to set goals for list quality and engagement and
3
can also be broken down by subscriber segment or offer type.
Define value of email marketing activity to your company

r Q. How well do we measure value generated from our email marketing?
In the previous section on customer value we looked at value to the customer. But what
Segmentation
and targeting
about company value? To assess this we need to know about the marketing outcomes
generated that lead to sales.
So we suggest you set these as primary goals for your email marketing and how to track
them. You can look at the efficiency from the point of view of emails sent which shows you
overall campaign effectiveness or visits to the site from email that helps you assess the
email marketing
efficiency of your web conversion.
Integrate your
Checklist measuring value generated from email marketing
rr Outcomes (goals) per 1000 (or per 100) emails sent
rr Revenue (profit) per 1000 (or per 100) emails sent
rr You divide by 1000 to normalise value to make it easier to interpret, but its not essential Create great
creative
rr Outcomes (goals) from email marketing per website visit from email
rr Revenue (profit) from email marketing per website visit from email
This will be tracked through your analytics package. To implement your tracking to check
whether you have achieved these goals you will need to tag your emails as described in Step
7.
Test, learf,
refine!
Best Practice Tip 4 Use a conversion funnel model to set goals for your email marketing
Through creating a simple conversion model for your email campaign you can set realistic
goals for your email marketing with an agency. You can also set expectations amongst
colleagues since the multi-step response means that response may not be as much as
they expect.

19
!
The CRITICAL
factors
Set objectives
A conversion model to edit is available for members6.
Success refers to achieving the objectives set for the campaign does the campaign deliver
proposition
Your email
the required outcomes? The success of direct response campaigns is often talked about in 3
terms of clickthroughs the number of recipients who follow a link from the email through to
the organisations
website. But what really matters are results in terms of your original objectives how many
recipients click through and then take the follow-up action on the site such as purchasing
Segmentation
and targeting
a product, agreeing to attend an event, receiving a visit from a sales rep or entering a
competition.
Growing our list

r Q. Do we have a structured process for growing our email list?
email marketing
Integrate your
If you dont have a plan to grow your email list then it will still grow, but not as fast as you
would like since you will be missing opportunities from different touchpoints.
A simple starting point to establish how well this is working is to assess is your current figure
for the proportion of current customers for which you have email addresses. You can then
set targets for this metric and devise techniques to increase this figure. When devising these Create great
techniques dont only think quantity, but also think quality. What procedures can you use
creative
to maximise the number of valid email addresses? Email addresses which have just one
character wrong are no good to anyone since you wont usually know which is the miscreant
character. A further aspect of quality is opt-in. Just because you have obtained an email
address from the customer doesnt necessarily mean it is opt-in and you have permission to
use it.
It is only opt-in if the customer has proactively agreed, and expects to receive email
Test, learf,
refine!
communications. Perhaps there are a range of email communications available to the

customer such as different e-newsletters or email alerts. Which have they agreed to receive
or is there the expectation that they will receive all of them?
6 Download Email campaign calculator.

20
!
Strategy Recommendation 5 Set an allowable cost of email acquisition
It is useful to have an allowable cost of email address acquisition which is a target figure
for addresses from new prospects since it can help control spend on media such as paid
search. Examples include a B2B software company who places an allowable cost of email
acquisition of 0.40 per email and a recruitment company who placed an allowable cost of
The CRITICAL
email address (as part of a job application) at 0.70.
factors
r Q. Do we have an allowable cost of e-mail address acquisition (for non-customers) to help
control the costs of list-building?
Define objectives for email list building and list quality?
Set objectives
Setting specific SMART objectives for your list can help grow the list faster, giving more
opportunities to generate sales.
r Q. SMART objectives for email list set?
Checklist email list size and quality

Here are some examples of objectives for list-building for you to review including:
proposition
Your email
rr List size. Aim to increase the size of list over a particular time period, e.g. add 5,000 sub- 3
scribers to an e-newsletter in a year
rr Email address coverage. Aim to increase coverage of email addresses in customer base
you may have 15% of customers opted into an e-newsletter, but you want to increase
this to 35% over the next year
Segmentation
and targeting
rr Email address quality proportion of valid or active email addresses on your list (i.e.
those that dont bounce back or the percentage of customers who are email active i.e.
they open or clickthrough on emails within a defined period)
rr Email permission quality. Although you may have collected email addresses, you may not
have explicit permission to use them, which is required by laws in many countries. Also
have you got permission to send the full-range of e-communications, or just some, e.g.
email marketing
Integrate your
alerts and e-newsletter?
rr List value value generated per 1000 or list members in terms of sales/leads in a time
period.
rr Targeting quality increase proportion of subscribers qualified for your products who you
have collected profiling information about. Create great
rr Data quality proportion of specific profile fields held about individuals (see 2 below)
creative
This section describes a range of offline and online techniques to increase e-mail address
capture and make sure that the accuracy is a high as possible.
Review touchpoints to improve email marketing

r Q. All touchpoints for collecting and updating email addresses reviewed?
Test, learf,
refine!
It is important to have a structured approach to collecting and maintaining customer data. A

good way to review all the possible methods of capturing email addresses is for marketers to
brainstorm alternative methods for capturing email addresses by thinking about opportunities
for capture which are:
Online
Offline

21
!
Existing customers
New customers
Best Practice Tip 5 Grow your list with online and offline contacts.
Use all customer touchpoints as an opportunity for gaining email addresses.
The CRITICAL
factors
The chart below gives a good way for a company to review all the possible methods of
capturing email addresses and other profile information. Some examples are shown.
Set objectives
proposition
Your email
3
Segmentation
and targeting
Here, we will consider online and offline opportunities for email capture separately. Many of
these apply equally to potential and existing customers.
email marketing
Integrate your
Checklist online methods to build your house list
Here are eight online methods to help build a house list:
rr 1. Direct from website permanent incentives to capture leads should be one of the
main aims of a web presence, particularly for a B2B organisation. Design, structure and
content should be devised to maximise conversion to sign-up. Create great
rr 2. Web response from offline communications. Here an offer is publicised offline and
creative
respondents are referred to a website to sign-up. (e.g. Dell offered a monthly notebook
prize draw (www.dell.co.uk/winanotebook)) or offline ads (such as the now discontinued
Chocollect promotion from Mars (www.chocollect.com) which was featured in TV ads).
rr 3. Renting an email list from a third party recipients who click-through to a landing
page are encouraged to opt-in to your house-list.
Test, learf,
refine!
rr 4. Placing an ad in a third party e-newsletter. This has the same aims as 3, but may be
more cost effective and can often be tightly targeted.
rr 5. Using a third party site, sometimes referred to as an acquisition centre to provide
offers with a view to sign-up (for example MyOffers (www.myoffers.co.uk)).
rr 6. Campaigns with social sharing or viral elements where a friend or colleague is
referred can also increase the size of the house list. Here permission marketing and data

22
!
protection law require you to send an email offering the referred person the option to opt-
in before further communications are sent.
rr 7. Any other forms of online traffic-building not mentioned above. Examples include
graphical online ads or Pay Per Click text search engine ads.
rr 8. E-mail appending services. US companies such as Freshaddress (www.freshaddess.
The CRITICAL
com) or Email Movers (www.emailmovers.com) in the UK can be used to identify likely
factors
email addresses from existing customers who have not yet supplied their address, e.g.
John Smith at IBM is John.Smith@ibm.com (perhaps not the best example). Similar ser-
vices can also attempt to correct email addresses with typos.
Checklist offline methods to build your house list

Offline opportunities are the full-range of customer touch-points. Here are eight more:
Set objectives
rr 1. Any form of paper registration or order form. But be sure to check the form of word- 2
ing such that an opt-in to all forms of future communications is achieved.
rr 2. Visit from sales representatives. Can be used for opt-in either on paper, or through
subscribing online.
rr 3. A phone contact at a call centre. For example a bank could ask customers whether
proposition
Your email
they have an e-mail address during a routine phone enquiry.
rr 4. Telemarketing. This can be specifically to capture email addresses, but is more cost-
effective if it is part of a telemarketing campaign.
rr 5. Point-of-sale. For a retail context.
rr 6. Trade show or conference. For example from a prize draw collecting business cards
Segmentation
and targeting
(but care with the opt-in).
rr 7. Paper response to a direct mail offer. Traditional direct response.
rr 8. Phone response to direct mail or ad. Again traditional direct response.
When email addresses are captured offline, a common problem is the level of errors in the
email marketing
Integrate your
address this can often reach a double figure percentage. So plan to control this also staff
should be trained in the importance of getting the email address correct and how to check
for an invalid address format. Some call centres have even incentivised staff according to
the number of valid email addresses they collect. When collecting addresses on paper, some
practical steps can help such as allowing sufficient space for the email address and asking
for it to be written in CAPS. Create great
creative
Techniques for list maintenance

As with maintaining any customer database, maintaining a list can be a major headache. For
email or mobile-related lists the headache can be more intense since:
1. With permission-based email, the customer can opt-out or unsubscribe at any time
2. Email addresses tend to change more frequently than postal addresses
Test, learf,
refine!
3. Multiple email addresses are held, often to counter spam.

If your e-newsletter or email campaigns are good quality, then the unsubscribe rate shouldnt
be too much of a problem. A typical rate for unsubscribes is 1% or below per broadcast for a
house list.
All the forms of collecting email addresses online and offline that were mentioned in the
previous section can also be used to keep email addresses fresh since the most recent email

!
address can be collected. This particularly applies to the offline methods where employees
talk directly to customers and prospects. Since it is annoying to be constantly asked is your
email contact address still correct? it is best if this is only asked when an address becomes
inactive as described in the section below.
Encouraging self-service through an online profile or permission centre should also be used.
The CRITICAL
Direct mail promotions also give opportunities for gaining email addresses. In fact, whenever
factors
a prospect or customer has to fill in a form this is an opportunity. Collecting the email address
should be an inbuilt part of the sales process.
Another approach to find out more about customers where you havent collected their data
directly is to use information available from registration on other sites like social networks.
This approach is a service available from Rapleaf.com.
Set objectives
2
proposition
Your email
Segmentation
and targeting
email marketing
Integrate your
Create great
creative
Test, learf,
refine!

!
Step 3
Defining your email marketing proposition
r Q. We have defined how our email communications offer differential value?
The CRITICAL
Discussions of how to engage email audiences often start with reviewing creative or the
factors
offers presented to subscribers, but in our view, a better starting point is the customers
needs. Email is like any other digital channel, whether its a social media presence like
Twitter or Facebook, Adwords in Google or mobile marketing
To be successful in comparison with the other channels each channel like email marketing
must offer its own unique form of value that is distinct from other channels. Every channel
Set objectives
needs a distinctive online value proposition (OVP) to succeed. This defines how the digital
channel supports the core brand values but adds its own unique value. Within email
marketing, this is particularly important for an e-newsletter.
Review these examples of the types of value that will engage subscribers and improve
perception about a brand and see which is most relevant for you:
proposition
rr Engaging text content that makes the subscriber feel happy, angry or as if they
Your email
are learning 3
rr Engaging non-text or rich media content such as videos, podcasts, presentations, blog
posts, photos, etc
rr More in-depth content or alternately a summary of content
Segmentation
and targeting
rr Sharing of other subscriber views and opinions through votes, product ratings and polls
rr Exclusive discounts or coupons only available through the channel.
What is the focus of what this campaign is looking to achieve, i.e. focus on acquisition /
retention/awareness/brand building/ROI?
email marketing
Integrate your
Write down different types of value that you do offer or could offer:
Do offer? Competitors offer? Should offer?

1.
Create great
creative
3.
4.
Test, learf,
refine!
5.
6.

25
!
Define the value offered through our email marketing communications
r Q. Do we get the sell-inform-entertain-share balance right?
Achieving the correct balance between using your newsletters or other email communications
as a sales tool and adding other types of value is key to their success.
The CRITICAL
factors
You will definitely have seen examples of overselling, but maybe also underselling where the
call-to-action or connections to products is too limited.
Remember that this relates through to the structure also the most enticing content needs
to be above the fold when the email is opened. Start with what you feel are the strongest
articles for your audience. Have regular features plus new, topical, articles separate in each
Set objectives
issue.
As well as different types of feature, think about how you can use your e-newsletter to give a
sense of community and engage the audience.
Write down your assessment of the types of value you offer through your e-communications:
proposition
Your email
Sell (___/10)
3
__________________________________________________________________________
Inform (___/10)
__________________________________________________________________________
Segmentation
and targeting
Entertain (___/10)
__________________________________________________________________________
email marketing
Integrate your
Share (___/10)
__________________________________________________________________________
Create great
Define email value proposition
creative
r Q. We communicate our email value proposition effectively?

Having clear goals around the value you want to offer will help internal copywriters focus and
can also be defined on the website to encourage signup.
For business-to-business e-newsletters, think about how you can add value by acting as a
filter for information about your market sectors.
Test, learf,
refine!
Your e-newsletters can potentially Alert, Aggregate and Distil information through market
alerts, industry trends and in-depth best practice case studies. But to deliver this information-
based value will not be cheap as the content will have to be up-to-date, relevant, accurate,
concise and clearly presented.

26
!
Best Practice Tip 6 Define and communicate value of your e-newsletter or email
programme
The CRITICAL
You should explain your newsletter proposition, i.e. how it will deliver value to subscribers,
factors
for example, through:
Saving time. By providing a single, up-to-date source.
Learning. Increasing knowledge and solving day-to-day problems.
Saving money. For instance through exclusive offers or offering new ways of working
through a companys products.
Set objectives
Entertaining. All newsletters can and should be fun for their audiences this is not
only the preserve of consumer newsletters.
Sharing. Sharing information about your organisation or facilitating sharing of content
from customers.
proposition
Your email
To achieve engagement, you should review how the newsletter delivers value and try to 3
incorporate these into the e-newsletter. You should answer these questions and emphasise
them through the design of the e-newsletter.
Segmentation
and targeting
B2B Proposition B2C Proposition
Make my work easier Make my life easier
Help me develop Help me learn/have fun
Make me look good Make me look good
Give me a great deal Give me a great deal
email marketing
Integrate your
The example below gives a great business-to-business example of the value an email can
offer:
Create great
creative
Test, learf,
refine!

27
!
And here is an example for an engaging newsletter for a consumer brand focus not around
product or offer but customer need and interest. Sales offers are below the fold:
The CRITICAL
factors
Set objectives
Integrating value into social media marketing communications
proposition
Your email
3
r Q. Do we show the value we offer from our email marketing in our social media
communications ?
With the rise and rise in popularity of social media, email faces competitors for customer
attention, like Twitter and Facebook which are increasingly offering similar types of value. So
the email channel needs to compete with or complement with these to stay relevant. Think
Segmentation
and targeting
how email marketing can be more valuable compared to these other media?
Alternatively, it can be argued that a company simply needs to offer choice and many
customers will prefer email for its lower frequency and richer media. Email can help the
time-poor audience by filtering or summarizing the high frequency messages from blogs and
social networks.
email marketing
Integrate your
In the example below, the retailer is using email to promote an exclusive campaign offer
available through Twitter, but equally, the campaign could work in reverse.
Create great
creative
Test, learf,
Best Practice Tip 7 Enable share to social options

refine!
A Share-to-Social feature allows email marketers to include links from the email so
recipients can easily post emails to their social network profile page, where friends can see
the message, make comments and even post the email on their own profile pages.
Speaking about the Share-to-Social concept, Matt Lindenberg, assistant director of marketing
for Diapers.com, explained the benefits thus:

28
!
Social networks are all about communication. This feature empowers our customers to
communicate with each other, and therefore allows our messages to move beyond our email
list. One of our emails was posted on 50 different social network profile pages. That kind of
customer endorsement turns our email push marketing into a powerful pull campaign.
Finally, a simple, but effective approach is to include more reference to customer ratings
within email as this example campaign encouraging purchase based on customer-picks
The CRITICAL
shows:
factors
Set objectives
proposition
Your email
3
Segmentation
and targeting
email marketing
Integrate your
Create great
creative
Test, learf,
refine!

29
!
Step 4
Segmentation and targeting techniques
r Q. Strategic approaches to segmentation and targeting reviewed and selected?
The CRITICAL
There are many different levels in sophistication of targeting, some of which may or may not
factors
be worthwhile according to the size of your list. But its still useful to review the segmentation
and targeting approach used by the top e-retailers to deliver relevance. Typically, these are
based upon five layered segmentation options used to develop a more effective targeting.
Best Practice Tip 8 Different targeting options can be combined through
Set objectives
layering the segmentation approaches
A layered segmentation approach summarising the segmentation approach used by eBay
UK is shown below.
Here, Ill outline the five segmentation approaches that you could use.
Checklist 5 email targeting approaches
proposition
Your email
rr 1. Customer profile characteristics (demographics).
rr 2. Customer value (current and future).
rr 3. Customer lifecycle groups.
rr 4. Customer behaviour in response and purchase (observed and predicted).
Segmentation
and targeting
rr 5. Customer multi-channel behaviour (channel preference).
4
rr 6. Customer personas including psychographics.
email marketing
Integrate your
Create great
creative
Test, learf,
Best Practice Tip 9 Using event-triggered emails and dynamic content insertion to deliver
refine!
really relevant emails

To implement this level of email marketing needs a capable email marketing system that
supports event-triggered marketing and dynamic content insertion where rules are used to
drop different offers and email messages into a container as described in this post: http://
www.smartinsights.com/blog/digital-marketing-strategy/how-to-plan-event-triggered-email-
campaigns/.

30
!
Targeting option 1. Customer profile characteristics
(demographics).
This is where most will start; based on their traditional strategic customer segmentation
based on the type of customer recorded in the fields of their profile.
For B2C e-retailers this will include age, sex and geography. For B2B companies, this will
The CRITICAL
include size of company and the industry sector or application they operate in. This example
factors
shows a girls and boys creative with the tone and style varying in line with their preferences.
Set objectives
proposition
Your email
Segmentation
and targeting
4
Best Practice Tip 10 Test different targeting options
Use the lower cost of e-mail creative and broadcast to test different targeting to create
more relevant emails for your audience.
email marketing
Integrate your
Many B2B companies target according to industry sector, but do not also look at job role.
Different messages can be developed for people with more strategic interest (e.g. for a
senior manager the benefits of a new printer may be reduced costs, while for an IT manager
it may be ease of administration or throughput). Similarly, many B2C companies may conduct
national campaigns, but with email can add a regional element perhaps using the postcode
to determine different parts of the country and then give different messages according to
Create great
creative
region or airport they will fly from (for a travel company).
Best Practice Tip 11 Consider tone and style preference

Some demographics will naturally respond differently to different types of message. Some
customers may like a more rational appeal in which case a detailed email explaining
the benefits of the offer may work best. Others will prefer an emotional appeal based on
Test, learf,
images and with warmer, less formal copy.

refine!
Sophisticated companies will test for this in customers or infer it using profile characteris-
tics and response behaviour and then develop different creative treatments accordingly.
Companies that use polls can potentially use this to infer style preferences.

31
!
Targeting option 2. Current and predicted value
Retailers work hard to understand their most valuable customers so that they can develop
loyalty in this group. A useful way of thinking about customer value is these three groups,
originally identified by Peppers and Rogers:
1 Most-valuable customers (MVCs)
The CRITICAL
These are the customers who contribute the most profit and are typically a small proportion
factors
of the total customer base as suggested by their position in the pyramid. These customers
will likely have purchased more or higher-value products.
The strategy for these customers focuses on retention rather than extension. In the case of
a bank, personal relationship managers would be appointed for customers in this category to
provide them with guidance and advice and to make sure they remain loyal.
Set objectives
Often this strategy will work best using direct personal contact as the primary communication
channel, but using online marketing for support where the customer has a propensity to use
online channels.
2 Most-growable customers (MGCs)

Customers who show potential to become more valuable customers. They are profitable
proposition
Your email
when assessed in terms of lifetime value, but the number of product holdings or lifetime value
is relatively low compared with the MVCs.
Strategies for these customers centre on extension, through making recommendations about
relevant products based on previous purchases. Encouraging similar re-purchases could also
be part of this.
Segmentation
and targeting
Online marketing offers great opportunities to make personalised recommendations through
the web site and email. 4
3 Below-zero customers (BZCs)

BZCs are simply unprofitable customers. The strategy for these customers may vary
they can be encouraged to develop towards MGCs, but more typically expenditure will be
email marketing
minimised if it is felt that it will be difficult to change their loyalty behaviour or the source of
Integrate your
their being unprofitable. Again, digital media can be used as a lower-cost form of marketing
expenditure to encourage these customers to make repeat purchases or to allow them to
self-serve online.
When considering loyalty-based segmentation, its useful to compare current against future
value, and its best to visualise this within a matrix. Heres an example presented by Chris Create great
Poad of retail group Otto to an E-consultancy Masterclass.
creative
Test, learf,
refine!

32
!
The CRITICAL
factors
Set objectives
Heres a creative for a VIP mailing sent to highest value segment. ESP eCircle shared that
theaverage performance was 5 times higher than the regularnewsletter:
proposition
Your email
Segmentation
and targeting
4
email marketing
Integrate your
Create great
creative
Test, learf,
Targeting option 3. Customer lifecycle groups.

refine!
As visitors use online services they can potentially pass through several stages, often known
as the online loyalty ladder.
Once you have defined these groups and setup the customer relationship management
infrastructure to categorise customers in this way, you can then deliver targeted messages,
either by personalized on-site messaging or through emails that are triggered automatically
due to different rules. First time visitors can be identified by whether they have a cookie

33
!
placed on their PC and their computer setup or user agent settings.
Once visitors are then registered, they can be tracked through the remaining stages. Two
particularly important groups are customers who have purchased one or more times.
For many e-retailers, encouraging customers to move from the first purchase to the second
purchase and then onto the third purchase is a key challenge. Specific promotions can be
The CRITICAL
used to encourage further purchases. Similarly, once customers become inactive, i.e. they
factors
have not purchased for a defined period such as 3 months, further follow-ups are required.
Heres an example of the lifecycle segmentation approach used by e-retailer Tesco.
com which they call a commitment-based segmentation based on recency of purchase,
frequency of purchase and value. Its used to identify 6 lifecycle categories which are then
further divided to target communications:
Set objectives
Logged-on
Cautionary
Developing
Established
Dedicated
proposition
Your email
Logged-off (the aim here is to win back)
This is an example of what we think is an excellent branded welcome email from Clinique:
Segmentation
and targeting
4
email marketing
Integrate your
Create great
creative
Heres a nice low-tech, but often more effective email activation creative where the attempt is
to win-back a lapsed customer.
Test, learf,
refine!

34
!
The CRITICAL
factors
Set objectives
Best Practice Tip 12 Use behavioural email marketing
Rather than manually planning email campaigns, use automated event-triggered
messaging to encourage continued purchase.
For example, Tesco.com have a touch strategy that includes a sequence of follow-up
proposition
Your email
communications triggered after different events in the customer lifecycle.
In the example given below, communications after event 1 are intended to achieve the
objective of converting a website visitor to action; communications after event 2 are intended
to move the customer from a first time purchaser to a regular purchaser and for event 3 to
reactivate lapsed purchasers.
Segmentation
and targeting
4
Trigger event 1: Customer first registers on site (but does not buy).
Auto-response (AR) 1: 2 days after registration e-mail sent offering phone assistance and 5
discount off first purchase to encourage trial.
Trigger event 2: Customer first purchases online.
email marketing
Integrate your
AR1: Immediate order confirmation
AR2: 5 days after purchase e-mail sent with link to online customer satisfaction survey
asking about quality of service from driver and picker (e.g. item quality and substitutions).
AR3: Two-weeks after first purchase - Direct mail offering tips on how to use service and
5 discount on next purchases intended to encourage re-use of online services. Create great
creative
AR4: Generic monthly e-newsletter with online exclusive offers encouraging cross-selling
AR5: Bi-weekly alert with personalised offers for customer.
AR6: After 2 months - 5 discount for next shop
AR7: Quarterly mailing of coupons encouraging repeat sales and cross-sales
Trigger event 3: Customer does not purchase for an extended period
Test, learf,
refine!
AR1: Dormancy detected Reactivation e-mail with survey of how the customer is finding
the service (to identify any problems) and a 5 incentive.
AR2: A further discount incentive is used in order to encourage continued usage to shop
after the first shop after a break.

35
!
Targeting option 4. Current and predicted behaviour in response
and purchase
As customers progress through the lifecycle, if all interactions with different communications
such as email clicks and pages visited on site are captured, well be able to build up a
detailed response and purchase history.
The CRITICAL
factors
Best Practice Tip 13 Develop an activity score to show levels of customer activity
Here each customer is scored according to their response whether it is the number of
opens, clicks, leads or purchases. Different communications can then be sent to list
members depending on their historical level of activity. Customers who dont seem to be
responsive to online messages can be targeted through other approaches such as direct
mail and phone.
Set objectives
A more sophisticated method of understanding behaviour is to categorise customers
according to the details of their recency, frequency, monetary value and category of products
purchased (RFM analysis). The RFM technique is quite involved, so we will cover that in
more detail in a moment.
proposition
Your email
Using these RFM techniques in combination with the other targeting techniques it becomes
possible to use predictive modelling to identify the Next Best Product for particular customer
types. With the right system of tracking and web analytics, it should be possible to see not
only which types of links in an e-mail a customer has clicked upon, but also which types
of web pages they have visited recently. For example, a select on the database for a wine
promotion could be used to target customers who have been to the wine section of the
Segmentation
and targeting
website in the last 3 months, but have not purchased wine.
4
Targeting option 5. Multi-channel behaviour (channel preference)
No matter how enthusiastic you are about online channels, some customers will prefer using
online communications channels and many others will prefer traditional channels.
We call this Right Touching7 this is the holy grail of digital marketing delivering the
email marketing
Integrate your
perfect message for each customer. Just one aspect of this is determining which customers
prefer email and then upweighting email activity more for them, while reducing frequency and
using more traditional communications for those who prefer these. These days we will also
need to consider social media response.
Best Practice Tip 14 Use a right touching approach to channel preference Create great
It is useful to have a flag within the database which indicates customers channel
creative
preference and by implications, the best channel to target them by.
Channel preference will be indicated by RFM and response analysis since customers with a
preference for online channels will be more responsive and will make more purchases online.
Customers can also be asked direct through surveys.
Test, learf,
refine!
Customers that prefer online channels can be targeted mainly by online communications
such as email, while customers who prefer traditional channels can be targeted by traditional
communications such as direct mail or phone.
To deliver relevance also requires a plan specifying the number, frequency and type of online
and offline communications and offers. This is a contact or touch strategy which is described
7 Daves definition of Right Touching

36
!
in a later section.
Targeting option 6. Customer personas including psychographics

Once we have reviewed and selected from the five targeting approaches above, a final step
to think about is using design personas for typical customer types.
The CRITICAL
Best Practice Tip 15 Use digital customer personas
factors
Web design personas are a powerful web design technique increasingly used to improve
the usability and customer centricity of a web site.
What is it? Digital customer personas
Set objectives
Digital customer personas are a summary of the characteristics, needs, motivations and
access platform preferences of different groups of users.
These have the benefit that they characterise segment types in the context of the targeting
options mentioned above such as stage in lifecycle, demographics and style preferences.
We can also include psychographics which summarise the mental attitudes, motivations and
proposition
Your email
opinions of customers, for example:
Impulsive or rational decision maker
Price-conscious
Risk-taker or conservative
Segmentation
and targeting
Willingness to share information or participate socially
View they want to project of themselves 4
The design persona concept can also potentially be used for e-newsletters, but isnt used so
often.
Personas are essentially a thumbnail description of a type of person. They have been
email marketing
Integrate your
used for a long time in research for segmentation and advertising, but in recent years have
also proved effective for improving web site design by companies who have applied the
technique.
I have not heard about personas being used that much in an email context, but I think they
could be usefully applied, particularly for e-newsletters. One example where they were used
is where the American National Football League (NFL, http://www.nfl.com/nflnewsletter ) Create great
identified three types of scenarios one following a particular team who wanted to check
creative
upcoming games, another who was very interested in the statistics associated with the
fantasy league and another who tended to be more interested in the position in the league.
These are some guidelines and ideas on what can be included when developing a persona.
The start or end point is to give each persona a name. The detailed stages are:
1. Build personal attributes into personas:
Test, learf,
refine!
Demographic: Age, gender, education, occupation and for B2B, company size, position in
buying unit.
Pyschographic: Goals, tasks, motivation
Webographics: Web experience (months), usage location (home or work), usage platform
(dial-up, broadband), usage frequency, favourite sites
2. Remember that personas are only models of characteristics and environment:

37
!
Design targets
Stereo-types
3 or 4 usually suffice to improve general usability, but more needed for specific
behaviours
Choose one primary persona whom, if satisfied, means others are likely to be satisfied
The CRITICAL
factors
What is it? Primary persona
Digital customer personas are a summary of the characteristics, needs, motivations and
access platform preferences of different groups of users.
Once different personas have been developed who are representative of key site visitor
Set objectives
types or customer types, a primary persona is sometimes identified. Wodtke (2002) says:
Your primary persona needs to be a common user type who is both important to the
business success of the product and needy from a design point of view in other words, a
beginner user or a technologically challenged one.
She also says that secondary personas can also be developed such as super-users or
complete novices. Complementary personas are those that dont fit into the main categories
proposition
Your email
which display unusual behaviour. Such complementary personas help out-of-box thinking
and offer choices or content that may appeal to all users.
To summarise the approaches described, the example of Euroffice is a good one .
Euroffice targeted email marketing case study

Euroffice (www.euroffice.co.uk) is a large online office supplies company which targets small
Segmentation
and targeting
and mid-sized companies. This description is adapted from the company web site press
4
releases and Revolution (2005). According to George Karibian, Euroffice CEO, getting the
message across effectively required segmentation to engage different people in different
ways. The office sector is fiercely competitive, with relatively little loyalty since company
purchasers will often simply buy on price. However, targeted incentives can be used to
reward or encourage buyers loyalty.
email marketing
Integrate your
Rather than manually developing campaigns for each segment which is time consuming,
Euroffice mainly use an automated event-based targeting approach based on the system
identifying the stage at which a consumer is in the lifecycle, i.e. how many products they
have purchased and the types of product within their purchase history. Karibian calls this
a touch marketing funnel approach approach, i.e. the touch strategy is determined by
customer segmentation and response. Three main groups of customers are identified in the Create great
creative
lifecycle and these are broken down further according to purchase category. Also layered on
this segmentation is breakdown into buyer type are they a small home-user, an operations
manager at a mid-size company or a purchasing manager at a larger company? Each will
respond to different promotions.
The first group, at the top of the funnel and the largest are Group 1 Trial customers who
have made one or two purchases. For the first group, Euroffice believe that creating
Test, learf,
impulse-buying through price-promotions is most important. These will be based on

refine!
categories purchased in the past. The second group, Group 2 The nursery have made three
to eight purchases. A particular issue, as with many e-retailers is encouraging customers
from the third to forth purchase, there is a more significant drop-out at this point which the
company uses marketing to control. Karibian says: When they get to Group 2, its about
creating frequency of purchase to ensure they dont forget you. Euroffice sends a printed
catalogue to Group 2 separately from their merchandise as a reminder about the company.

38
!
The final group, Group 3 Key accounts or Crown Jewels have made nine or more orders.
They also tend to have a higher basket value. These people are the Crown Jewels and will
spend an average of 135 per order compared to an average of 55 for trial customers.
They have a 90% probability of re-ordering within a six-month period. For this group, tools
have been developed on the site to make it easier for them to shop. The intention is that
these customers find these tools helps them in making their orders and they become reliant
The CRITICAL
on, so achieving soft lock-in.
factors
We can then target these segments through using fields within the database to identify which
segment customers belong to and then using mass customization an personalization to tailor
offers to these customers as described in the following section.
RFM analysis
Set objectives
As is well known by catalogue retailers, knowledge about customer purchase behaviour
typically falls into three key areas:
Recency of last purchase, e.g. 3 months ago
Frequency of purchase, e.g. twice per quarter or twice per year
Monetary value of purchase(s), e.g. average order value of 50, total annual purchase
proposition
Your email
value of 5,000.
Assessing these behavioural characteristics is known as RFM or a similar equivalent FRAC,

which stands for:
Frequency
Segmentation
and targeting
Recency
Amount (obviously equivalent to monetary value) 4
Category (types of product purchased not included within RFM)
These approaches have not been limited to retailers though, they have been a staple
approach for many years for some marketing applications such as catalogue and mail-order
companies; grocers and other retailers with loyalty schemes; charities who can track
email marketing
Integrate your
donations and car manufacturers who can track car purchases or services through time.
However, for many other organisations, they have proved less relevant. With the advent of
web and email marketing, there are many more opportunities for applying this behavioural
customer information to use RFM in virtually every market. This is possible since recency
and frequency of purchase can be used to understand and respond to other types of
digitally recorded transactions and interactions, for example visits or log-ins to a website or
Create great
creative
interaction with emails such as opens or clicks. These types of interactions apply not only to
e-retail sites, but also relationship-building websites, brand-building sites and portals.
We will now give an overview of how RFM approaches can be applied in online marketing,
with special reference to email marketing.
Recency:
Test, learf,
Recency shows the number of days since a customer completed an action.

refine!
Jim Novo stressed the importance of recency when he says:

Recency, or the number of days that have gone by since a customer completed an action
(purchase, log-in, download, etc.) is the most powerful predictor of the customer repeating an
actionRecency is why you receive another catalogue from the company shortly after you
make your first purchase from them.

39
!
(Of course, this applies in particular to catalogue style purchases).
Online we can measure a lot more than days elapsed since last purchase. We can assess:
Purchase
Visit to site or particular type of content (using cookies)
Log-on to a site (more accurate than cookies provided user id is not shared)
The CRITICAL
Opening or clicking through on an email or e-newsletter
factors
Online applications of analysis of recency include:
Monitoring through time to identify vulnerable customers
Set objectives
Score customers to preferentially target more responsive customers for cost savings
Frequency:
Frequency refers to the number of times an action is completed in a period.
Examples are similar to those for recency, for example, but with reference to a time period:
5 purchases per year
proposition
Your email
5 visits per month
5 log-ins per week
5 email opens per month, 5 email clicks per year
Online applications of analysis of include: combine with recency for RF targeting.
Monetary
Segmentation
and targeting
Monetary value is the amount spent in the period. The amount could be per month, per
4
quarter, per year depending on the type of application. For an e-retailer, average order value
would be appropriate also.
Generally, customers with higher monetary values tend to have a higher loyalty and potential
future value since they have purchased more items.
email marketing
Integrate your
One example would be to exclude these customers from special promotions if their RF
scores suggested they were actively purchasing.
Assessing the characteristics of these customers on the database to understand factors
which may make them more valuable is often insightful. These customers could also be
surveyed to find out these factors also.
Since frequency is often a proxy for monetary value per year since the more products
Create great
creative
purchased, the higher the overall monetary value. It is possible, then to simplify analysis by
just using recency and frequency. Monetary value can also skew the analysis for high value
initial purchases.
Values could be assigned to each customer as follows:
Dividing customers into different RFM groups

Test, learf,
The rigorous approach to RFM analysis is to use an approach which places an equal number
refine!
of customers in each quintile of 20% (10 deciles can also be used for larger databases). This
approach is shown below.

40
!
The CRITICAL
factors
Set objectives
The diagram also shows one application of RFM with a view to using communications
channels more effectively. Lower cost e-communications are used for the most loyal
customers and more expensive communications are used for the less loyal customers.
It is also possible to place each division for Recency, Frequency and Monetary value in an
proposition
arbitrary position. This approach is also useful since the marketer can set thresholds of value
Your email
relevant to their understanding of their customers behaviour. For example:
Recency:
0 Not known
1 Within last 12 months
Segmentation
and targeting
4
4 Within last 1 month
This could be purchase frequency, or as here, recency of a visit to the website.
email marketing
Frequency:
Integrate your
0 Not known
1 Every 6 months
2 Every 3 months
3 Every 2 months Create great
4 Monthly
creative
This could be purchase frequency, or as here, visits to the website.

Monetary value:
0 Less than 10
1 10-50
Test, learf,
refine!
2 50-100
3 100-200
4 More than 200
This could be total purchase value through the year, or as here, average order value.
Another example, with real world data as is shown in the next diagram.

41
!
You can see that plotting customer numbers against recency and frequency in this way for an
online company gives a great visual indication of the health of the business and groups that
can be targeted to encourage greater repeat purchases.
The CRITICAL
factors
Set objectives
Source: Interactive Marketing Journal January to March 04 SilverMinds music catalogue
Another example, which shows how it RFM can be applied in non-retail settings shows how a
proposition
theatre group uses these 9 categories for its direct marketing:
Your email
Oncers (attended theatre once)
Recent oncers attended <12 months
Rusty oncers attended >12, <36 months
Very rusty oncers attended 36+ months
Segmentation
and targeting
Twicers: 4
Recent twicer attended < 12 months
Rusty twicer attended >12, < 36 months
Very rusty twicer attended in 36+ months
email marketing
Integrate your
2+ subscribers:
Current subscribers Booked 2+ events in current season
Recent Booked 2+ last season
Very rusty Booked 2+ more than a season ago
This approach shows how the full RFM analysis approach doesnt have to be applied. Three Create great
or four RF groups can be sufficient.
creative
A final example is shown in the next figure where online community provider Magicalia has
categorised its audience to assess the volume of members in different categories (denoted
by the size of the circles). Triggered email communications and on-site personalised
messages are then developed for each group to encourage customers to migrate to higher
recency/frequency categories.
Test, learf,
refine!

42
!
The CRITICAL
factors
Set objectives
Additional methods of reviewing online customer behaviour
Jim Novo also recommends two additional measures of customer behaviour in his
DrillingDown blog that can be used to understand behaviour and also to set targets for
proposition
Your email
retention marketing. These are latency and hurdle rate.
Latency:
Latency is the average time between customer events in the customer lifecycle.
Latency can be applied to these events:
Segmentation
and targeting
Website visits
Second and third purchase 4
Email click-throughs
Online applications of latency analysis include:
Put in place triggers that alert you to behaviour outside norm increased interest or
email marketing
Integrate your
disinterest, then
Manage behaviour using e-communications or traditional communications
For example, a B2B or B2C organisation with a long interval between purchases would find
that the average latency increased for a particular customer, then they may be investigating
an additional purchase (their recency and frequency would likely increase also). Emails,
phone calls or direct mail could then be used to target this person with relevant offers
Create great
creative
according to what they were searching for.

Hurdle rate
According to Jim Novo a hurdle rate refers to the percentage of customers in a group (such
as in a segment or on a list) who have completed an action. It is a very useful concept,
although the terminology doesnt really describe its application. Its value is that it can be used
Test, learf,
to compare groups or to set targets to increase engagement with online channels as the
refine!
examples shown below.

Online marketing examples of hurdle rates
20% of customers have visited in past 6 months
5% of customers have made 3 or more purchases in year
60% of registrants have logged on to the system in year

43
!
30% have clicked through on email in year8
Online applications of analysis of include:

Use for objectives to deepen relationship
Use for targeting communications on particular groups, e.g. reactivate those who are less
The CRITICAL
engaged
factors
Use for monitoring impact of communications, i.e. how many change hurdle rates as a
result of tactics.
A related approach to RFM analysis is propensity modelling which is one name given to
the approach of evaluating customer characteristics and behaviour, in particular previous
products or services purchased, and then making recommendations for the next suitable
Set objectives
product. However, it is best known as recommending the Next Best Product to existing
customers. A related acquisition approach is to target potential customers with similar charac-
teristics through renting direct mail or email lists or advertising online in similar locations.
Lifetime value calculations

An appreciation of lifetime value (LTV) is key to the theory and practice of marketing
proposition
Your email
and customer relationship management. However, while the term is often used loosely,
calculation of LTV is not straightforward, so many organizations do not calculate it. Lifetime
value is defined as the total net benefit that a customer, or group of customers, will provide
a company over their total relationship with a company. Modelling is based on estimating the
income and costs associated with each customer over a period of time and then calculating
the net present value in current monetary terms using a discount rate value applied over the
Segmentation
and targeting
period.
There are different degrees of sophistication in calculating LTV. 4
Lifetime value modelling is vital within marketing since it answers the question:
How much can I afford to invest in acquiring a new customer?
If online marketers try to answer this from a short-term perspective as is often the case, i.e.
email marketing
Integrate your
by judging it based on the profit from a single sale on an e-commerce site, there are two
problems:
1. We become very focused on short-term return on investment (ROI) and so may not invest
sufficiently to grow our business.
2. We assume that each new customer is worth precisely the same to us and we ignore Create great
differentials in loyalty and profitability between differing types of customer.
creative
Lifetime value analysis enables e-mail marketers to:

Plan and measure investment in customer acquisition programmes
Identify and compare critical target segments strategies usually involve preferentially
targeting the most profitable customers and minimising communications with the least
profitable customers.
Test, learf,
refine!
Measure the effectiveness of alternative customer retention strategies

Establish the true value of a companys customer base
Make decisions about products and offers
Make decisions about the value of introducing new E-CRM technologies
8 See these ideas on how to treat inactive email subscribers.

44
!
Step 5
Defining your integrated email communications
strategy
The CRITICAL
factors
There is a fine line between being seen as a spammer who sends too much email and
selecting a frequency which maximises returns. The next step involves selecting the best
frequency for you.
Set best email frequency
Set objectives
r Q. Email frequency reviewed?
Is there an optimal email frequency? Is it one email a quarter, week, month or day even? Is
less more or is more more?!
This is a basic question every digital marketer has to try to answer to maximise profit of email
activity.
We are looking to achieve the right balance between email overexposure and
proposition
Your email
underexposure. With overexposure, the recipient receives email from the same company
so frequently that they dont have the time to read it or feel they are being spammed. They
become emotionally unsubscribed.
On the other hand with underexposure, opportunities and sales are lost since the customer
does not receive emails sufficiently frequently.
Segmentation
and targeting
Evaluating current email frequency and customer response behaviour
The first step to help decide is to assess the impact of your email marketing frequency on
customer activity and perceptions. If frequency is too high, subscribers will tune out. The
obvious thing to measure is aggregate open and click rates and most email broadcast
systems are good at this.
email marketing
Integrate your
Best Practice Tip 16 Review your frequency and email types against competitors
5
A good starting point is to look at the average of number of emails you and your
competitors send to subscribers per week, month or year.
Econsultancy reported9 that the average in 2009 for US e-retailers was 2.5 emails per Create great
week and 11 emails per month giving an average of 132 emails per year.
creative
But you need to go beyond this and use these measures that most systems cant measure
readily, so you need to do some more analysis to identify:
rr Average frequency of email received and plot profile by frequency for different list mem-
bers to see the proportion of the list who are receiving too many or two few emails
see chart.
Test, learf,
refine!
rr List activity the % of your list that open, click and buy within a period, e.g. quarterly or
annual.
rr Recency of response what is the average for the last open, click or purchase a good
tip is to store recency in your email database as a field for analysis. Alternatively score list
members by activity and store this in the database also.
9 Econsultancy article

!
rr Break down list activity and recency measures by different type of list members it may
the frequency is working for some segments but not others.
rr Break down list activity by time on list commonsense suggests, that the longer they are
on your list, the less responsive your emails will become.
The CRITICAL
Best Practice Tip 17 Review unsubscribe and email activity levels through time
factors
Graph the response rate and unsubscribe rate of your e-marketing campaigns weekly or
monthly independent of campaigns. Try to maximise clickthrough and minimise unsubscribe
rates.
Testing options to decide on the best email frequency
Set objectives
Its not an easy question to answer by gut instinct, so maybe testing is better. So how do you
decide on frequency? Here are some ideas and examples showing how you can approach
frequency testing. First you need to think about defining a random control group to test
frequency changes against. Here you continue with current mailing frequency for the control
group and then vary the frequency for other groups and review changes in response and
in particular revenue per 1000 subscribers. In one case a bank tried frequencies of 1,2,3,4
times per month and found the right frequency this way.
proposition
Your email
Example 1
Sean Duffy of EmailCenter described how Toptable measured the long term impact of
increased frequency by creating a control group with half the new customers that joined in a
month held back from the second send.
After three months this control group was measured against those who had joined the site at
Segmentation
and targeting
the same time yet received the default setting of two emails a week. Open rates were 86%
higher, unsubscribe rates 57% lower.
But the main figures that proved why sending too many emails leads to long term damage
those receiving only one email a week had made14% more bookingsthan those receiving
two emails over that three month test period!
email marketing
Integrate your
Example 2
5
In this case fashion e-retailer Net-a-Porter.com reduced the number of emails it sent to
customers from up to 10 per week to two according to Brand Republic10
It had been emailing some customers up to 10 times a week with information including
generic updates, highlights from specific designers and details of new products.
Create great
After the experiment Net-a-Porter.com now sends each user two automatically generated
creative
emails a week that take into account their specific interests and preferences. Conversion rate
increased; product update emails get a conversion rate of more than 10% and newsletter
emails are opened by nearly half of recipients.
This report also shows the importance of getting email marketing frequency right. The
company sends out around 300,000 emails a week. Email drives 32% of Net-a-Porters sales
and generates more than 1m in revenue each month.
Test, learf,
refine!
If you have a single email newsletter as in the Toptable example, testing is relatively
straightforward. Its more complex if you have a range of different types of emails such as
e-newsletters, promotional offer emails and also individually tailored event-triggered emails.
Different offers or creative to each segment will also have to be overlaid upon this.
10 http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/630617/netaporter-ups-conversion-rate-cutting-
email-activity/

!
Other options to solve the frequency dilemma include:
A. Reduce email frequencies automatically for lower responding customers? Set a
database field for activity or engagement level for each customer to help implement this.
Amazon is good at implementing this and increases frequency through event-triggered
The CRITICAL
emails sent in response to someone browsing, searching or buying thats the smartest
factors
approach.
B. Change frequency for different segments. One frequency size is never going to fit all.
So if you find that open or click response is lower for certain segments, then decrease the
frequency when they are inactive.
C. Give customers a choice on frequency. You do this through their profile or
Set objectives
communications preference centre. Give options to change content and frequency
preferences through profile or survey (email, DM)?
D. Increase direct mail for customers with a lower email response. This is sometimes
called right channeling. To test the value of this use a holdout group. This small group,
perhaps 5% of your list or a specific segment doesnt receive the catalogue (or email if youre
testing this) at all.
proposition
Your email
E. Re-engagement campaigns. Re-activation campaigns use content or discounts to
encourage email subscribers to become active again.
Segmentation
and targeting
email marketing
Integrate your
5
Create great
creative
Test, learf,
refine!

!
Step 6
Creating effective email templates and creative
r Q. Email templates reviewed for effectiveness?
The CRITICAL
Effective email templates should balance the need for visual prominence of:
factors
A main text headline
Copy to engage (where relevant, like an editorial on an e-newsletter)
Sub-headings
Different blocks of content and offers
Set objectives
The call(s)-to-action
Assess headlines
r Q. Headlines reviewed for effectiveness?
Since most of the readers of your email will only scan them, its important to offer clear
messages in the header and within the sub-headlines or section.
proposition
Your email
Best Practice Tip 18 Ensure the email is scannable even when images are blocked
Since images are still blocked by many as a spam prevention measure, so you will get a
better response where the main headlines and headlines of sub-sections or containers
are clear. This is particularly important for e-newsletters and business messages, but
including some text or at least alternative text for images will give you a better response for
Segmentation
and targeting
consumer messages also.
r Q. Headings and text are clear when images are blocked?

This is an example from our e-newsletter with images blocked, you can see how we make
use of tinted background colours to give focus to the different areas of the email.
email marketing
Integrate your
Create great
creative
6
Test, learf,
refine!

!
This is an example of how not to do it. There are plenty we could have chosen, even in this
time when mobile marketing is becoming more important.
The CRITICAL
factors
\
Set objectives
proposition
Your email
Segmentation
and targeting
Visual focus or priority on a limited number of areas
email marketing
r Q. Email has clear visual focus?
Integrate your
Although we can scan quickly, a page will still be more effective if there are clear visual
priorities on a limited number of areas on screen. Our e-newsletter offers these opportunities.
Use pyramid style copywriting

r Q. Email effective if only first part above-the-fold displayed?
Create great
Oftentimes we will only browse the first part of the email above the fold, so you need to make
creative
sure the first part of your email engages and a call-to-action is visible above the fold 6
Calls-to-action clear
r Q. Are our calls-to-action clear?
Calls-to-action are often embedded as images, but text call(s)-to-action can add to the
response, so need to be clear.
Test, learf,
refine!
Ensure images effective

r Q. Effective imagery consistent with email?
Some of the image issues to consider are:
r Relevant to product or offer
r Quality effective to support message and offer

!
r Images linked rather than embedded to reduce weight of email
r Alt-text tag used to explain message when images are blocked in email reader
Crafting effective copy

To write successful email copy, you need to start by thinking about readers interact with
The CRITICAL
email. If you are familiar with writing copy for print, consider these three important questions
factors
you should ask.
Subject lines effective

r Q. Subject lines effective?
The reality of email subject lines is that your readers arent waiting to lavish their eyes on
Set objectives
your email, rather their fingers are hovering over the delete button waiting to assign it to
trash.
We all know that subject lines are important, but do you know the part which is most
important? For us its the first two words. Lets now look at some questions related to subject
ines.
Make copy scannable
proposition
Your email
r Q. Copy scannable?
Jakob Nielsen reported on research that shows that in a test, 79% of test web users
scanned, while just 16% read word-by-word. Since we tend to read 25% more slowly from a
computer screen, this behaviour is likely to be exhibited in all on-screen copy, whether web
or email.
Segmentation
and targeting
One implication of this is that we should write less copy when writing for the web or email.
Nielsen suggests 50% of the original for web copy. We can suggest that for email, which
tends to be read in a smaller window, and in a different context, this should be even shorter.
To achieve brevity, Steve Krug, author of Dont Make Me Think! suggests we should:
1. Omit needless words! He says we should remove half our original words and then
email marketing
Integrate your
strive to remove half again.
2. Marketing happy talk must die! Avoid that introductory text intended to make the
customer feel comfortable or extol the virtues of a company.
3. Instructions must die! This refers to online forms rather than emails where it is
achieved through making the options clear without extensive text. For email we
can argue that instructions are often useful to explain to the reader what they need
Create great
creative
to do to redeem the offer and to convert them to action. But we can certainly keep
6
instructions succinct.
Of course the other implication of scanning behaviour is that we should make our e-mails
scannable! Nielsen suggests these as approaches to this:
highlighted keywords (we will look at different forms of highlighting for text and HTML
emails later in this guide)
Test, learf,
refine!
meaningful, not clever sub-headings

bulleted lists
one idea per paragraph
the inverted pyramid style, starting with the conclusion
half the word count (or less) than conventional writing.

!
Make email style conversational
r Q. Conversational style of email marketing?
Although we receive many unsolicited communications, many of the emails we receive are
from work and friends.
So we are used to using e-mail in a conversational, informal way with friends, family, or work
The CRITICAL
colleagues. It follows that copywriters can be more conversational with email than other
factors
media, and this can help us get closer to our prospects and customers.
Some have said we should Write like you talk a good test is to ask whether you would say
it someone face-to-face. If not it is probably the marketing happy talk we referred to above.
Other ways to make email conversational is to use simple words and use colloquial
Set objectives
expressions.
Pronouns such as I, we, you, they are also effective. Some talk about the we-we test
reviewing the email to see whether the emphasis is on the sender we or the recipient you.
The example below shows an email that passes this test:
You already know how easy it is to get instant online insurance cover from Norwich Union.
But did you know that Norwich Union can also offer you online access to low-cost life-cover.
proposition
Your email
For example, would cost you as little as Y per day.
Connecting copy with readers

r Q. Email language connects with your readers?
With so much spam, every email reader is going to be super-cynical about what you are
offering. So, professional email marketers have to work extra hard to establish credibility and
Segmentation
and targeting
prove their benefits. So, as you write, put yourself in the position of a cynical customer who
is fed-up of insincere and bogus offers how are you going to prove that you are a credible
supplier?
These are some approaches to overcome cynicism and build credibility through email:
email marketing
Integrate your
Try to achieve connection with the reader to show that you understand them by using
customer language and buzzwords.
Spell out the benefit the feature gives. For the example a bulleted list could use different
fonts or formats to emphasise benefits.
Backup with facts and numbers.
Build testimonial elements into your emails such as customer quotes, number of
Create great
creative
customers, client names and independent reviews and awards.

6
Customer-centric copy
r Q. Copy customer-centric?
It is often said that to write good direct mail copy, you need to write for your reader, in other
Test, learf,
words to imagine the person who is reading your carefully crafted words. But to do this, we
refine!
need to remember the different types of position that our readers are in. Write down how their
backgrounds vary. These are some of the different aspects you should consider:
rr How well do the recipients know your company? Are they prospects, customers or first-
time customers?

!
rr How well do they know your products? Have they bought single products or a range of
products?
rr What style of communications will appeal? What will they expect from previous interac-
tions with your brand? Do they like a direct approach or do they prefer a more involved
dialogue? What is their age they may prefer more or less formal communications ac-
cordingly.
The CRITICAL
factors
rr How technologically literate are they? Some may have been using email and web sites
for 5 years, others for only 5 weeks. Make it obvious for the newbies, but while avoiding
patronising the old hands.
rr Do they scan or do they read? Depending on time available, and their character, some
recipients will just scan the email body, others prefer to read more carefully. You need to
Set objectives
provide copy and design that works for both.
Through using customer personas and asking these types of questions you will build a
picture of the range of people you are writing for. If it is not practical to write for such a wide
range consider separating your mailing for example into recently acquired customers and
established customers.
proposition
Your email
Does your e-mail have CRABS?
r Q. CRABS email copy?
In my Emarketing Excellence book, my co-author Paul Smith recommends using the
acronym CRABS to summarise effective web page copy. This is even more appropriate to
Segmentation
email copy, since we typically have even less space to communicate. CRABS stands for:
and targeting
rr Chunking Chunking means that paragraphs must be shorter than in paper copy. Think
one or two sentences. Three or four maximum. This helps scannability.
rr Relevance With limited space, we have no room for fillers. Stick with what matters
the details of the offer and how to receive it. Personalise the email where possible.
email marketing
rr Accuracy Dont get carried away with your copy; dont set expectations so high that
Integrate your
you overpromise and cant deliver something you offer.
rr Brevity Brevity goes with chunking and scannability. Write your copy, reduce the word
count and then reduce it again. Give yourself targets and beat them without sacrificing
good English and understanding.
rr Scannability This is reading without reading every word, just picking up the sense of Create great
each paragraph from the keywords. The eye will pick out words at the start of paragraphs
creative
and those emphasised in bold. 6
The title of Steve Krugs book on web usability gives a useful guideline for copywriting for
email Dont make me think. He also suggests that you should consider the amount of copy
you have, half it and half it again.
Test, learf,
refine!
If you have produced copy that follows the CRABS guidelines, you are only a small way
there, since there are many issues of style to make successful copy.
As with any direct mail piece, the first paragraph of an email must:
rr Engage when reading this, perhaps in the auto-preview window, recipients are deciding
whether to delete or read further. So as for any creative, the opening needs to be power-
ful.

!
rr Add detail to the subject line or the headline repetition is less important in email than
in direct mail since it is processed so quickly the recipient will remember the gist of the
subject line, and it is always there at the head of the email, so reinforcement is the main
objective of the message here.
rr Summarise the whole the opening of an email is often compared to the opening of a
press release which typically uses an inverse pyramid structure to summarise the main
The CRITICAL
points of the email message in decreasing order of importance, as briefly as possible.
factors
rr Include a call-to-action if the reader likes the offer or wants to know more, we shouldnt
make them scroll down to find an elusive hyperlink it should be there in the first para-
graph. This is a mistake often made by email newbies leaving the best until last.
Set objectives
Making copy engaging
r Q. Engaging copy developed?
To complete Step 6 here are some other ideas to help your copy connect to the max.
E-mail campaign checklist Eight key copy questions
proposition
Your email
rr Question 1. Does your copy excite?
You have a great offer, but have you supported the offer by writing enthusiastically to appeal
to the readers emotions?
For the consumer you are offering riches, dreams and experiences does the copy
effectively communicate how your offer will improve their life?
Segmentation
and targeting
For the business person you are offering time, knowledge and control does the copy
effectively communicate how your offer can help them work smarter?
The copy also needs to excite from the outset see Question 7 for tips on headlines.
rr Question 2. Does your copy convince?
You may believe that your service or your offer sells itself on its features because you
email marketing
Integrate your
believe in it. But the recipient is less likely to be a believer they dont have the interest or
knowledge you have. Have you backed up your promise with enough detail to convince the
reader that the offer is worthwhile? Is the unique selling point clear?
The style of writing also needs to enthuse about these benefits. This may be difficult if
you cannot personally relate to the customers needs sometimes difficult for technology
markets. The only way to succeed is to develop empathy with your reader by researching, Create great
creative
and maybe even living the role as actors do.

6
rr Question 3. Is your copy natural?
We have said that email is a social, conversational medium we mainly use it to chat to
friends or communicate to colleagues. So we want to avoid our email reading as if it was
written by a machine.
Test, learf,
If you can make copy conversational, write at the same level of your audience and make
refine!
it flow naturally then you will get closer to the reader and predispose them to what you are
offering. However dont overdo the informality some emails seem as if they are written by
someone you have known from back at school.
rr Question 4. Is the copy length right?
Lets look at the extremes. Which is best short copy or long copy?

!
There can be no right answer because it depends on purpose. Most people answer that
short is best since the reader doesnt want to read your carefully crafted words, just WIIFM
Whats in it for me?
My view is that you can combine short and long copy in one e-mail. For those who are more
likely to respond to short copy you use the introduction and the start of the main copy which
is above the fold.
The CRITICAL
factors
For the scanners who scan through the whole email you may impress with detail, provided
that detail stands out.
For the readers who read every word and want the details you need the long copy.
I would argue that the email cannot be too long as long as it is relevant and entertaining and
another call-to-action and summary of the total copy are included at the start.
Set objectives
Some argue that the detail can always be put into a link to a more detailed web page, but I
think that this can cause loss of focus once the reader clicks through to their web browser
you have lost control.
rr Question 5. Did you repeat yourself?
This is a difficult one.
proposition
Your email
Direct mail wisdom says repeat to reinforce.
Email wisdom says the reader doesnt have the time to see information repeated. However, I
think some repetition is desirable. Reinforcement of messages is effective in any media.
We need to repeat and build on what is available in the subject line in the headline. Then,
because the reader has scrolled, repeating the offer in the final call-to-action makes sense.
Segmentation
and targeting
rr Question 6. Which copy stands out?
You have satisfied yourself that you can answer the other questions, but now, looking at the
big picture, what will the scanner notice what techniques have you used to emphasise the
key points in your email?
In text emails you have these options to make copy stand out:
email marketing
Integrate your
CAPITALISATION, particularly in text emails, but dont overuse it.
The SPACE before and after words and between lines is powerful in
highlighting offers or calls-to-action.
Bulleted lists using asterisks or dots.
You can see that text e-mails are limited. But in HTML emails, we have much more scope for
Create great
creative
emphasis perhaps one of the reasons why in many markets, HTML emails receive higher 6
response rates. With HTML we can use the options for text emails listed above, but also:
rr Text formatting bold and italics. But take care since italics may be difficult to read in
small point sizes. Never use an underline which looks like a hyperlink readers will try to
click on it.
Test, learf,
rr Font sizes large font size as headings or separate messages work well for scanners.
refine!
rr Font colour using a different copy from body copy using vibrant colours such as red and
orange.
rr Graphical animations of copy but make sure your animation doesnt prevent the mes-
sage being viewed by scanners
rr Hyperlinks blue underlined hyperlinks attract the eye online.

!
rr Question 7. Do we have a powerful headline?
Many emails do not have a title at all online copywriters seem to think they arent
necessary because thats what the subject line is for. Not so! Headlines do help engagement
if they build on the subject line to engage the reader.
In his excellent book on Online Copywriting, Bob Bly recommends the following approaches
The CRITICAL
that can be used for email titles:
factors
1. Get a terrific benefit up-front
2. Appeal to personal self-interest
3. Get right sort of attention
4. Add news
Set objectives
5. Offer to teach
6. Ask a provocative question
7. Use Quotes
rr Question 8. Will our copy achieve action?
proposition
We finish our eight questions with the most important question whether our email will
Your email
achieve action. Arguably, this should be the first question, since then the whole copy can be
structured around the outcomes we want to achieve!
Approaches that can help achieve action are:
A text-based call-to-action in first screen (for the impulsive) and last screen (for those
with the time to read).
Segmentation
and targeting
A time-limited offer which uses copy to encourage the reader to Click NOW!
Instructions such as forward to a friend or print this email as a reminder can be
other useful outcomes.
Using hyperlinks to highlight the offer at the right position in the paragraph.
email marketing
Integrate your
As an example of highlighting the offer through a hyperlink, think of marketing to an IT
manager to download a best practice guide. Which of these approaches do you think would
be best?
A. Click below to receive your complimentary guide to reducing Total Cost of Ownership:
FREE guide to reducing TCO. Create great
creative
Sign Off
6
B. Click here to receive your complimentary guide to reducing Total Cost of Ownership.
or
C. To receive your complimentary guide to reducing Total Cost of Ownership, click here.
or
Test, learf,
refine!
D. To help you lower the costs of running your IT infrastructure we have a prepared a
complimentary guide to reducing Total Cost of Ownership.
In A separating out the hyperlink on to a separate line does increase its prominence, but
spoils the flow of the copy.
I prefer B rather than C since it is more direct and the eye will be more naturally drawn
towards the underlined hyperlink at the start of the sentence within the copy as a whole.

!
However, approach C can encourage the scanner to read the copy before the end of the
sentence.
Design practice for web pages would favour approach D, which makes the call-to-action part
of the copy. While this may work best for web pages where we are perhaps not seeking the
hard-sell. For simplicity and encouraging action approach B is best.
The CRITICAL
Think carefully about the colour of the hyperlink. On the majority of web pages, Yahoo! And
factors
Amazon, for example, users are used to seeing a blue hyperlink on a white background. You
will get a higher response with this combination because of familiarity. If other colours are
used, high contrast is essential.
Set objectives
proposition
Your email
Segmentation
and targeting
email marketing
Integrate your
Create great
creative
6
Test, learf,
refine!

!
Step 7
Test, learn and refine to increase email efficiency
In this section, we look at some of the more advanced techniques to get more from your
The CRITICAL
email marketing. We will cover:
factors
Improving email delivery
Tracking email campaigns
Improving email marketing for mobile devices
Improving Email delivery
Set objectives
r Q. Email delivery techniques reviewed?
Email delivery arguably isnt the most interesting part of email marketing for marketers. But
since it can directly affect your results its worthwhile knowing the right questions to ask.
Since this is a specialist area I turned to my friend Tim Watson11, who has spent many year
optimising delivery for clients through his work as operations manager at email services
providers.
proposition
Your email
How do ISPs identify spam?
Spam is defined in the eye of the beholder. In the case of the ISPs and webmail services,
they define spam as emails that users dont want. So these are the factors that ISPs use to
spot spammers:
Segmentation
and targeting
Poor list hygiene. Often with limited ability or interest to receive and process bounces
from botnets, bouncing addresses stay on spam lists.
High spam complaints. Users clicking the junk and report as spam button in their email
client.
Very low engagement. Low open rates and a high number of deletes without reading.
No user reply emails in response to a spam email.
email marketing
Integrate your
Campaigns sent across hundreds if not thousands of IP addresses. The IP address-
es rapidly change and come and go as spammers use a botnet of zombie computers.
The email volume from each zombie IP address does not have smooth flow. It shows
high peaks of activity.
Incomplete setup of technical criteria. The include DNS, reverse DNS, SPF and Create great
DKIM. (See Deliverability.com) for discussion of these.
creative
Sending from a dynamic IP address. For example, those allocated to home ADSL con-
nections.
So, to not be treated as spam means to not look like spam with the above characteristics!
In the early days ISPs used content to filter spam, words such as Viagra were obvious
choices. These techniques were crude and easily circumvented. The ISPs are clever people
Test, learf,
refine!
with large resources and have been moving closer and closer to measuring the metrics that 7
are fundamental characteristics of the spammers business model. This is shrewd as it is
something that spammers cant fake.
So, what can we do to avoid being identified as a spammer? The factors today that are
important to inbox placement are low bounce rates, low complaint rates, high engagement,
correct technical setup, content validity and consistent email volume flow.
11 Follow Tims advice at: http://www.twitter.com/tawatson

!
Assessing your current delivery
r Q. Email delivery optimisation reviewed?
The delivery rate as provided by email marketing tools is the percentage of emails that didnt
bounce. If you are emailing at least weekly to each email address on your customer base
and you have good list hygiene practices in place then your delivery rate should be over
The CRITICAL
98%, that is less than 2% of emails sent are bounced.
factors
But delivery rate isnt the same as inbox delivery, ReturnPath have recently reported an
average inbox placement as low 88%, even when the mailer has a good IP reputation as
measured by a SenderScore12 of over 91!
By the way, if you havent encountered bounce rate applied to email marketing, bounces are
commonly categorised into hard bounces and soft bounces. Hard bounces are bounces due
Set objectives
to a permanent error; whereas soft bounces mean a temporary error. As an example, a hard
bounce will occur if someone terminated their email account, whereas a soft bounce example
could be if the persons inbox is full.
If your delivered rate is lower than 90%, then your next step is to review and change list
hygiene best practice and reduce your bounce rate before moving on to the guidance in this
post.
proposition
Your email
Deliverability, as opposed to delivery, is about more than just removing the bounces. Its
about arriving to the inbox. Before the rise of spam and aggressive spam filters to counter it,
just knowing an email had not bounced was sufficient to be confident it was delivered to the
inbox. Spam forced ISPs into additional filtering and the difference between deliverability and
delivery arose.
Segmentation
and targeting
An ISP will do one of three things for emails not bounced:
Place in the inbox
Place in the junk folder
Throw the email away
Unlike bounces issues, whereby the ISP tells you that youve not reached the inbox box,
email marketing
Integrate your
there is not such notification to senders by ISPs if you are put in junk or deleted.
The challenge then, is given the ISPs wont tell you, how do you monitor if your emails are
placed in the inbox?
There are two main methods:
1 Delivery confirmation seed addresses. Delivery confirmation seed addresses are Create great
simply email accounts you create with the ISPs and include on your mailing list. Once the
creative
campaign has been sent, log into each of the seed accounts you created and check if the
email arrived to the inbox. The inference is that if the seed address email got to the inbox
you can expect the rest of the campaigns emails for that ISP to have reached the inbox.
This is generally a sound assumption.
Thankfully, as creating seed email accounts and manually checking inboxes is rather time
Test, learf,
refine!
consuming(!) this capability is automated and built into some ESP solutions or offered 7
as a service by companies like ReturnPath. Using an automated service means you just
need to read the reports as part of your campaign metrics review process.
2 Campaign metric changes. Your open, click, bounce and complaint rates also provide
insight to inbox deliverability and alert you to a potential change in deliverability.
12 You can review your Senderscore at https://www.senderscore.org/

!
Its not as simple as just looking at your average open or click rate and if it drops concluding
there is a deliverability problem. There are so many other factors that could cause this such a
conclusion is nonsensical.
To use these campaign metrics you need to look at how these vary and trend across ISPs.
The CRITICAL
The key is knowing what is normal for your list and campaigns. Here the ratio from Hotmail
factors
to Yahoo is 1.82 (4.04/2.21). If this ratio changes significantly it implies the deliverability has
changed between Hotmail and Yahoo. So ask your email service provider to do an analysis
of this ratio.
Best Practice Tip 19 Review delivery variation by email platform
Set objectives
Email delivery will vary by platform such as Gmail, Hotmail, etc. If you see a much lower
delivery rate, then it may indicate a problem with delivery.
Tim Watson recommends keeping spam complaint rates below 0.2% to ensure a good
reputation and the lower the better. However, dropping spam complaint rates can be a sign
of trouble too. If your open, click and spam rates all drop together it indicates you are not
proposition
Your email
reaching the inbox. The spam complaint rates are dropping simply because no-one is seeing
your email and thus will no longer complain about it!
Two more tools to consider are blocklists and Hotmail SNDS. All ISP filtering includes use of
block lists. These are lists of IP addresses which are considered to be sending spam. ISPs
hold their own private lists as well as using the public lists. Use a service that will alert you
Segmentation
if your IP address appears on a block list. If you are using a good ESP they should be doing
and targeting
this for you.
Finally, Hotmail provide a service called SNDS13. This shows you how Hotmail rate your IP
addresses and is one of the few ways to find out if you are hitting spam traps.
Assess engagement beyond the click through web analytics
email marketing
Integrate your
r Q. Effectiveness of email beyond the click reviewed?
For many years, it was difficult to track engagement of your visitors after they clickthrough
on your email through to the site. In more advanced email systems you could, and still can,
tag the conversion page such as a sales or subscription thank you page, but this was time
consuming and now theres a better way.
Create great
creative
Best Practice Tip 20 Integrate web analytics campaign tracking

You should define standard campaign tracking codes for different email campaigns to
enable you to review engagement against conversion to sale or other goals, otherwise
emails will be recorded within your analytics system as direct visits. If your site is a
transactional site with a clear sales conversion goal then success in conversion will be
shown by Ecommerce tracking.
Test, learf,
refine!
7
With the widespread adoption of web analytics and in particular Google Analytics for tracking
pay per click Adwords campaigns, many email marketing vendors including smartMarketer
eChannel have made it easier for you to track after the click by automatically integrating
Google Analytics campaign tracking into the hyperlink in your email templates. Integration
with other advanced web analytics systems such as Omniture and Coremetrics is also
13 https://postmaster.live.com/snds/

!
possible. To find more about campaign tracking in Google Analytics see our 7 Step Guide to
using Google Analytics or try using the Google Analytics URL builder14 that shows how the
Google Analytics tracking tag is introduced.
Here is an example tagged URL (split across several lines):
http://www.domain.com/landing_page.htm?
The CRITICAL
utm_campaign=EnewsNov
factors
&utm_medium=email
&utm_source=HouseList
&utm_term=editorial-link
Set objectives
&utm_content=header
For Email marketing the parameters (* are optional) I recommend are:

utm_medium medium used for marketing, i.e. email
utm_campaign campaign name, e.g. EnewsNovember
proposition
utm_source This is usually the media owner, but for email marketing can be used
Your email
to specify the source of email list, e.g. HouseList or the name of external list providers/
Newsletter ads
* utm_term In AdWords used to identify the keyword used to trigger the ad, can be
used in email marketing to identify individual links (optional), e.g. Offer1, can be based on
click text summary
Segmentation
and targeting
* utm_content Used to track an individual or segments response (optional), this could
be based on any field in database, e.g. user-id, user email, etc.
If your site is not transactional, then you should define other conversion goals for
engagement with the site. In both cases you can define an actual or nominal monetary value
for conversion. In Google Analytics this will enable you to compare campaign effectiveness
according to $Index value or total value.
email marketing
Integrate your
Best Practice Tip 21 Review web analytics bounce rates
Compare landing page bounce rates (for the site not hard bounces for the email campaign)
for evaluating the relevance of the landing page content. If you find the bounce rate for
the landing page is relatively high, you can be sure you are directing your visitor to a less
relevant page from your email. You can also compare landing pages on duration, number Create great
of pages subsequently viewed and conversion to goals pre-defined in the analytics system.
creative
Improving email marketing for mobile devices

r Q. Use of email on mobile devices reviewed
The reading of emails on mobile devices and particularly on smartphones and tablets is an
Test, learf,
important part of the future of email marketing. This is suggested by this data
refine!
14 http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55578&cbid=t375m2oo6
7as&src=cb&lev=topic

!
The CRITICAL
factors
Set objectives
The source of the data is Sydney-based Email Service provider Campaign Monitor its
based on 3 billion emails delivered for its clients in 2011. The Campaign Monitor data also
proposition
Your email
shows data for different mobile platforms:
Segmentation
and targeting
email marketing
Integrate your
Create great
So, weve seen the industry trends, but you still need to check to see how important mobile
creative
email marketing is for you. Im hearing figures of 5-15% quoted quite often now, but these
are still the exception.
Best Practice Tip 22 Define the target platforms for mobile email marketing
You should decide which platforms your emails should work on and then take steps to
evaluate how effectively these work.
Test, learf,
refine!
7
To find your mobile usage levels take a look in your Google Analytics at the Visits, Mobile
Devices. Youll be able to see the main types of devices you need to support:

!
The CRITICAL
factors
Set objectives
Target mobile email devices selected targeted and reviewed
r Q. Effectiveness of email marketing on target mobile devices reviewed?
proposition
Your email
You can create separate versions of your email for HTML and mobile in your preference
centre and then let people choose between the two. But most wont select their preference,
so a more common approach is to actively target recipients who your analytics or email
software indicates are using a mobile, then send them the mobile-optimised version.
Fortunately Internet-enabled phones now include browsers and email clients that are based
Segmentation
and targeting
on the WebKit rendering engine, which has fantastic HTML and CSS support. This includes
the iPhone, Android devices, webOS, Samsungs Dolfin browser and the the most recent
versions of RIMs browser for Blackberry. This is an example of the approach. You can read
more about how this is achieved through media queries15
email marketing
Integrate your
Create great
creative
Test, learf,
refine!
So design and code an email that works on the desktop, and you can be fairly certain that it
will render faithfully on all these devices. All the best for the future.
15 Overview of media queries

!
What, where next?
We hope you have found this workbook interesting and most of all
useful?
The CRITICAL
Wed love to know how you have found working through it - good points
factors
and bad! The benefit of Ebooks is that we can update based on feedback
much quicker than printed books so, so do tell us what you think - please
email: support@smartinsights.com.
Thanks, Dave Chaffey and the Smart Insights team
Set objectives
More in-depth advice
You can find further guidance at www.smartinsights.com/membership.
Our workbooks, online training and Word plus Excel templates are designed to help companies
get better returns from their marketing by:
proposition
Your email
Reaching more
Digital marketing strategy
SEO
Google Adwords / Pay Per Click
Display advertising
Segmentation
and targeting
Act and Convert more
Improving results from your website
Landing page conversion
email marketing
Content marketing
Integrate your
Using Google Analytics to improve online marketing
Engage more
Building online communities
Create great
Email marketing
creative
Online PR and influencer marketing

Social media marketing
Test, learf,
refine!

!

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Email Marketing

Seven Steps to Success Guide

Published: November 2011

Plan > Reach > Act > Convert > Engage

12 Step 1 Prioritise with the CRITICAL factors

25 Step 3 Defining your email marketing proposition

45 Step 5 Defining your integrated email communications strategy

48 Step 6 Creating effective email templates and creative

57 Step 7 Test, learn and refine

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

Strategy Recommendation 1 Focus your email marketing efforts on customer retention

1 Facebooks view on Email marketing

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

will come from

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

Retention option What is it? Benefits Issues

3. Triggered emails Behavioural emails Low cost. There is growing

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

Permission-based email marketing

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

What is it? Engagement devices

E-permission marketing checklist - how effective are our engagement devices?

Strategy Recommendation 3 Review engagement and lead-generation devices

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

What is it? Common customer profile

Best Practice Tip 2 Identify key profile fields

E-CRM and data profiling approach reviewed?

Opt-in Selective opt-in

Initial profiling Communications preferences

for your organisation.

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

rr 2. Create a common customer profile. Following on from the idea of a preferences

What is it? Social sign-on

3 An example of how Sears use Social signon

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

How is this guide structured?

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

Diagrams giving frameworks to develop your strategy

Tell us what you think

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

What is it? Sense and respond communications

Landing page E-mail

Incentive (or offer)

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

Attributes (of the email)

Landing page (or microsite)

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

Define current value of your email marketing to customers

Checklist measuring engagement with email marketing

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

Define value of email marketing activity to your company

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

Growing our list

communications. Perhaps there are a range of email communications available to the

6 Download Email campaign calculator.

7 Steps Guide to Successful Email Marketing

Define objectives for email list building and list quality?

Checklist email list size and quality

Review touchpoints to improve email marketing