It still works! Let’s learn why and how you can make it work! Email Marketing It still works! Let’s learn why and how you can make it work! Spring 2016

Customer Acquisition by Email has quadrupled in the last 4 years Spring 2016 Source: Custora http://blog.custora.com/2013/06/e-commerce-customer-acquisition-snapshot/

Preferred channel for permission based Spring 2016

Most of the $690 million Obama raised online came from fundraising e-mails. Spring 2016

Email Marketing for Retailers Spring 2016

Information Entrepreneurs Provide content of value and interest to an audience and make offers through an email list. Example: Ramit Sethi: I Will Teach You To Be Rich Marie Forleo: The B-School AppSumo: Deals for entrepreneurs Spring 2016

Why does email marketing work? Cost-effective Valuable content will build loyal followers More followers (“fans”) builds word of mouth referrals Easy to track, test, and optimize Higher engagement means higher conversion rates Spring 2016

Why External Management? Keeping the list current and “clean” Managing and recording permissions A/B testing Professional design Staying current with best practices Spring 2016

External Providers Spring 2016

Digital Marketing Permission Types Opt-In: Recipient proactively agreed to receive marketing content (e.g. RSS feed) Opt-Out: Recipient receives marketing content and needs to take action to stop receiving content (e.g. conference notifications) Very important to preventing delivery issues… Spring 2016

First Goal: Get into Inbox Can–Spam Act 2003 Spring 2016

Most common reasons emails bounce: Recipient’s inbox is full Email address does not exist The mail server at the ISP is temporarily down or unreachable The mail server is blocking the message due to content-based or blacklist-based filtering Spring 2016

Blacklisted! Blacklist – List of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses (the numbers that operate as an online address for your Web server) that have been reported as sending unsolicited email. If you get blacklisted, contact the blacklist administrator and ask how to be removed. In most cases, if you can provide evidence that you are only sending messages to persons who have requested them You can check whether your sending IP addresses are on any blacklists at http://www.openrbl.org and http://www.dnsstuff.com. Spring 2016

Email Marketing Strategies Getting added to recipients’ address books “An increasing number of ISPs are starting to block all email from being delivered that are not approved in advance by recipients. In order to remind your customers to take the step of adding your From Address to their address book, we recommend that companies add a single, explanatory sentence at the top of their emails.” - iContact Example: To ensure delivery of this newsletter, please add newsletters@yourcompany.com to your email address book. Spring 2016

Email Clients’ Impact on Inbox Spring 2016

Email Clients’ Impact on Inbox Target, optimize and test! Target and segment your email list, so recipients only get mailings relevant to them. Optimize your subject line, call to action, and mailing body to boost opens and clicks. Test and tailor until you get consistent high engagement levels. Spring 2016

Second Goal: Get Opened Writing Effective Subject Lines Three words to avoid Help, Percent Off, Reminder Personalization, Localization is good 50 characters or less In Creativity vs. Clarity, Clarity wins TEST, TEST, TEST Best practices case studies by AWeber and MailChimp Spring 2016

Creativity vs. Clarity Subject lines written creatively included: * AWeber’s AWesome Anthony A. * Getting Earth-Friendly Beyond Email. * Threadless’ Frequency Alert: Hot or Not? While subject lines written with clarity included:   * Grow Your Email List 99% Faster: How One Site Did It. * 43 Free Animated GIFs For Your Email Campaign. * Email Timing: A Look At 6 Marketers. Spring 2016

Building your email List Website visitors – give them something of value in exchange for joining Discount White paper/special report Free sample (one song of an album, one chapter of a book) Pop-ups work REALLY well (even though we all hate them) Tradeshows Seminars Point-of-Sale Sign-up Customer Lists One-to-One Word-of-mouth: Make share-worthy content **AVOID PURCHASED LISTS THAT ARE NOT SPECIFICALLY TARGETED TO YOUR AUDIENCE Spring 2016

Email Marketing Strategies - Sample Spring 2016

Email Marketing Strategies - Sample Spring 2016

Case Study: The Skimm Started in 2012, now has 1.5 million readers Raised $7.9 million Uses Skimmbassadors to recruit readers Video Spring 2016

Summary: It works! Why? Keys to effective email marketing Internal vs. External Managements List development sources Effective subject lines Avoiding bounces, blacklists, spam lists, etc Effective content Spring 2016