Creating Effective Opt-in E-Mail Campaigns
by: Lee Traupel
It's been said before, but important to re-emphasize, e-mail is
the "killer application" of the information age. According
to the latest Forrester Research numbers, the permission based e-mail
industry is projected to grow from $164M (USD) in 1999 to $7.3B
by 2005. E-mail is also rapidly moving from a textual communications
process to one that is rich in multimedia content via server-based
streaming audio or video. Virtually anyone, even those with extremely
low bandwidth, can now view compelling content.
Here is a condensed primer for developing an effective opt-in e-mail
campaign:
1. First and foremost,
what is permission based or opt-in e-mail and how is it distinguished
from Spam? Opt-in or permission based e-mail (the terms are interchangeable)
means recipients have confirmed their interest in receiving e-mail
and have signed up (hence the term opt-in) to receive e-mail about
a subject of their interest. The recipient may also unsubscribe
from the list at any time and all e-mail messages are clearly identified
as coming from a specific and approved vendor or source.
2. We do not recommend
Spam (unsolicited bulk e-mail messages) to our clients, nor have
we ever developed a campaign that is not opt-in based. We think
there is a growing backlash to Spam and many of us (author included)
are inundated with it and delete it as soon as we recognize it.
3. The actual opt-in
e-mail content is very important, like any interactive marketing
process. The subject itself needs to be succinct and informative
(as this is how most people filter e-mail), the text in the message
should be concise, with paragraphs no more than 2-3 short sentences,
customer references should be referred to in the lead paragraph
to drive the rest of the message, have no more than two hyperlinks
embedded in the content, and utilize a close and signature that
thanks people for their time with a link (phone and e-mail) to a
"real" person.
4. Many marketing
types don't know whether to use HTML (rich media) or textual content.
A standard rule of thumb is, if your target audience is consumers,
then many prefer the HTML format, due to the snazzier graphical
content; but, if you are targeting corporate or technical types,
the majority of them want a message that is text only and one that
leaves out any/all marketing hype - just the concise facts.
5. Costs can vary
dramatically depending on your target demographics or market segment.
A good rule of thumb is to expect rates of $.05 (USD) to $.25 per
message, depending on the size of the media buy and frequency (the
number of times you are using a list), type of list demographics,
vendor selection (small publisher versus comprehensive services
provider such as YesMail), and market conditions in the interactive
advertising market.
6. What should a good campaign generate
in terms of response rates; i.e., those that clicked through from
your message to a web site or called a toll-free number? These numbers
will fluctuate based again upon your market segment, product or
service you are selling, type of response rate you are seeking (download,
e-commerce sale, review of materials via a web site, etc.). But,
industry averages are from 4% up to 20%. Unfortunately these numbers
are going south as more and more companies integrate opt-in e-mail
with interactive and offline marketing processes.
7. Message testing is also a very
important component of this process. Meaning, you need to develop
1-3 messages ("creative" in marketing speak) that have
different content and call to action components. Then test by utilizing
10-15% of your total media buy by sending out these test messages
and assessing the response rates and go to market with the message
that generated the highest return. Be forewarned, this process can
slow the campaign down, but testing can help you increase your response
rates or back end ROI exponentially.
8. Your
interactive ad agency or list partner should help you setup "landing
page(s)" - the actual page where people are taken via a hyperlink
in your opt-in e-mail message. This page should have content that
is integrated with your opt-in message and act as a response mechanism
by capturing sufficient information to enable you to build your
own in-house newsletter, which in turn helps to leverage downstream
media costs.
9. Finally, the last and most important
part of the process is setting up tracking reports that will enable
you to carefully analyze the results from your opt-in e-mail campaign.
This is typically done by inserting 1-2 lines of HTML code on 3-5
pages of your web site (product overview, registration, or home/index
pages for instance). A report can then be generated that shows the
number of respondents for each page as a subset of the overall response
rates from the campaign. This critical analysis process will help
you understand the effectiveness of your overall campaign and will
also provide valuable insight about your web site content, UI (User
Interface) and navigation.
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About The Author: Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business
development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective
Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com,/ a results-driven
marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients
encompassing startups to public companies. Lee@intelective.com
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