Email marketing

Email marketing involves permission-based email broadcasts either to customers (or prospects) on an in-house list or prospects on third-party list (list rental).

When devising plans for email marketing communications, marketers need to plan for:

• Outbound e-mail marketing , where e-mail campaigns are used as a form of direct marketing to encourage trial and purchases and as part of a CRM dialogue;
• Inbound e-mail marketing , where e-mails from customers such as support enquiries are managed.

In our articles, we focus on outbound email broadcasts and integration with other channels.

These are factors which we think are are important to look at for effective Email marketing. These focus on managing your in-house list, but many apply to rented lists also. They are in the form of questions email marketers should ask either when planning a new email marketing strategy or reviewing existing strategies.

Questions to review

1. Achieving permission marketing. Which incentives are used for different audiences to acquire new e-mail addresses?See articles from this site on E-permission marketing
2. Which forms of Email marketing to use for acquisition. For example – rented lists, co-branded campaigns, acquisition centres, ads in third-party e-newsletters and triggered emails which are automatically sent in a sequence following registration to encourage conversion.
3. E-mail value proposition. What content, offers and features can you offer within different forms of email marketing such as e-newsletters and standalone or solus emails or eblasts? See articles from this site on online value proposition
4. Targeting and personalisation. How do you target your emails to deliver relevant offers and content for different audiences? See articles from this site on Email personalisation
5. Deliverability.Ensuring that your emails are delivered to the inbox of recipients and aren’t registered as SPAM – a ‘false positive’. See articles from this site on deliverability
6. Renderability. Ensuring that emails are readily viewable in different email readers such as Outlook and also webmail readers such as Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail.
7. Creating effective templates. These need to achieve ‘inbox cut-through’, i.e. stand out from the many other permission-based e-mails received. The form of creatives and calls-to-action need to be designed so that they achieve AIDA – Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action in the short time that recipients view e-mails. Templates also need to be designed to maximise deliverability and renderability. See articles from this site on email templates
8. Email marketing integration. How should email marketing be integrated with other media, in particular direct mail – this is sometimes known as ‘right channelling’.
9. Right Touching. What is the right frequency of email marketing combined with different forms of offer and content which maximises sales and branding objectives, but does not cause email fatigue leading to unsubscribes and lower response?** See articles from this site on right touching
10. Testing and measuring for email marketing. Are emails creative, targeting and offers testing sufficient to maximise response and do the pre-send tests check correctly for deliverability and renderability issues?
11. Resourcing Email marketing. Should emails be sent from an in-house server or outsourced to using an email service provider (ESP)? How should you select the best email service provider for you? See articles from this site on email software software&submit=Search

We recommend these sites as the best blogs to find out more about email marketing:

• Be Relevant Be Relevant (www.b2bemailmarketing.com) The European perspective from Tamara Gielen who is an independent consultant works for eBay in Belgium where she works as an Email Marketing Manager. Tamara also coordinates The Email marketer’s club which has over 2,000 members and active forums: http://b2bemailmarketing.ning.com
• Deliverability.com (http://blog.deliverability.com/) Multi-author blog from ESPs of the latest developments in deliverability
• Direct Marketing Association UK Email blog (http://dmaemailblog.com) Best collection of writing on best practice within UK plus the Email Marketing Council (http://www.dma.org.uk/sectors/emk-introduction.asp) have other essential resources such as the UK National Benchmarking Report and the Best Practice Guide.
• Ecircle email marketing resources (http://www.ecircle.com/en/resource-centre.html) We have partnered with Ecircle for several years sharing their European-wide research and their excellent case studies.
• Edialog resource libarary (http://www.e-dialog.com/index.php/resources/library) – Edialog is a good source for surveys
• Email Experience Council blog (www.emailexperience.org/blog).  The premier resource for US-based Email marketers. Resources (www.emailexperience.org/email-resources) on the main site are, of course, relevant for everyone.
• Email Marketing Reports (www.email-marketing-reports.com) is an extensive collection of articles on all aspects of opt-in email compiled by Mark Brownlow.
• Email Matters Blog (www.newsweaver.co.uk/emailnewsletters) Advice on Enewsletter best practice from Denise Cox.
• Email Monday (http://www.emailmonday.com) Produced by consultant Jordie van Rijn, this blog is full of practical insights on the latest developments such as mobile email marketing for example.
• Email Vendor Selection (http://www.emailvendorselection.com/email-service-provider-list) Great advice on selecting the right email vendor
• Retail Email Blog (www.retailemailblog.com) has lots of good examples of creative and merchandising practice.
• Email Wars (http://theemailwars.com) Active blog with practical tips and examples from US ESP eROI.
• Exact Target Blog (http://blog.exacttarget.com/blog/the-exacttarget-blog) An active blog from this US ESP.
• Email Gallery is a great benchmark for email templates in different categories such as enewsletter, 2 column, etc: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/gallery.
• EmailVision (http://www.emailvision.co.uk/resources-email-marketing/white-papers-reports) Best practice summaries
• Inside the Circle (http://ecircleblog.wordpress.com/) Multi-author blog from European ESP eCircle.
• Return Path In the Know Blog (http://www.returnpath.net/blog). Latest developments in deliverability.
• SilverPop Resources (http://www.silverpop.com/marketing-resources/index.html) One of the best collection of reports on best practice and subscriber behaviour, some of which are incorporated into this report.