Email Marketing

Email marketing consists of a number of important focus areas that should all receive equal attention as you build and execute your email marketing campaign/overall email marketing effort.

This form of marketing used to be the most popular form of Internet marketing back in the late 1990’s to early-mid 2000’s but has since lost traction, in part to more complex spam filters, regulations, increased costs and new marketing channels such as social media.

Sending email campaigns through email service providers (ESPs) is popular today because they maintain relationships with Internet Service Providers (ISPs such as AOL, Comcast, etc.) to white-list IP addresses used with their service, building a reputation behind their service.  This method is generally more expensive (up-front) but less expensive in the long run as you do not need to deal with any hassles associated with a black-listed IP address or possibly making a one-off honest mistake or a technical glitch happening that renders your email marketing effort illegal (perhaps in the case of a change in personnel, etc.), giving you ‘peace of mind.’

ESPs, like auto insurance companies are not all alike and can be segmented into three tiers.  The ‘A list’ is composed of all top-notch companies that are full-staffed and tend to serve Fortune 500 companies and leading/cutting-edge startups such as Groupon, Living Social, etc.  They have the best relationships with ISPs and guarantee the highest email delivery rates in the industry.  You will definitely ‘pay the price’ with this tier in light of the higher value but high-volume rates can typically be negotiated.  At times, costs can be negotiated below or match your current ESP’s expense if you are switching but you may be asked to commit to a longer period of time (i.e. 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, sometimes longer) and you would be committing to a volume on a ‘use it or lose it’ basis for packages based on the volume of emails sent versus number of people on your list(s).  This is not a huge concern however as many times A-level ESPs allow prospective customers to commit to a small period of time, perhaps 3-6 weeks or less to trial the service and get a sense of what volume they require/end up using before committing to a long-term email send ‘bucket’.  ‘B list’ ESPs are also an excellent option but may have a smaller staff and/or less resources over A list ESPs.  As you may have anticipated, this tier is not as expensive but following the ‘you get what you pay for’ concept, delivery rates may suffer as a result of a slightly reduced effort in maintaining/building relationships with ISPs, investment in the ESP’s technology/infrastructure, etc.  C-level ESPs are expectantly the low-cost vendors that get the job done but while potentially sacrificing campaign goals, requirements and results.  You may be OK with a C-level ESP if you are willing to ‘do more with less’ (such as emailing more people hoping to get the same results as an A or B level ESP), but the risk of the ESP going out of business or is greater, as is the overall security of your email lists and other data.  There is also a real price tag put on any additional marketing push/self-management, either with paying staff and/or less time available creating marketing copy, etc.

Some great US-based ESPs are VerticalResponse, MailChimp, AWeber, ConstantContact and EchoMail (in no particular order).  Another great ESP I have worked with, based in the UK is dotMailer, developed by dotDigitalGroup plc.  Each has its own advantages and disadvantages but the best one is really whatever works best for your specific budget, list size, perceived/actual email distribution volume, number of publications/lists, regulatory requirements, advanced features such as triggered/automatic email blasts, etc.  A simple decision-making tactic I use that may be helpful in digesting the information is to first make an Excel sheet comparing at least three of these ESPs outlining costs and features.  Towards the end of this process, creating a simple chart with two columns, one entitled advantages, the other disadvantages for each of your top choices may help define the best choice for your business (the ‘winner’ having more +’s over -’s).

As you select your ESP, I highly recommend you carefully read their Terms of Service/use agreement(s).  If you have more than one brand using the ESP, especially if managed by more than one person/group, you may want to consider creating separate accounts for each brand and registering new domains to use with outbound marketing (i.e. if the domain you typically use for internal and external day-to-day email communication is @alphacompany.com, you may want to use @alphacompanyinfo.com) just in case there is ever an issue with the number of allowed ISP-level complaints going beyond the threshold, any CAN-SPAM compliant concerns raised by the ESP, the domain tied to the email marketing message being blacklisted, etc.  These issues can potentially suspend service or permanently revoke future access to an account which is bad enough for one brand but detrimental to an entire organization.  In addition, territorial laws/regulations and ESP-level regulations differ.  In the UK for instance, it is against the law to email anyone that did not specifically request to receive email communication from your company (i.e. someone signing up to receive a newsletter via your company’s web site is OK but emailing someone from a trade show list, even if it is a trade show you attended is not OK).  Many ESPs may randomly pull a few email addresses from time to time to test compliance.  On the contrary, in the US, this practice is not illegal so long as you provide a way for someone to opt-out of your email and you are otherwise CAN-SPAM compliant.  However, it is generally against ESP company policy to follow this practice and some ESPs test compliance to the same extent as UK-based ESPs do to maintain their relationships/white-list status with major ISPs.  With this said, some aggressive marketers will disregard US-based ESP policy and gradually introduce new people to a list while emailing the list.  Although against policy, they are typically able to stealthily ‘go around’ this policy so long as they do not exceed allowed thresholds.  If they go beyond a threshold, an ESP may try to work with the marketer to weed out non-allowed email addresses, possibly assisting to do some kind of email based opt-in campaign.  (The later is generally frowned upon as well because technically, if no source evidence exists for a valid sign-up, they are technically not allowed in the first place.)

Although I highly recommend pursuing an ESP for your email marketing delivery, if for some reason you wanted to take a look at self-managed desktop solutions, one great programs I have used in the past is called GroupMail (developed by Infacta).  You can also build a somewhat custom web-based solution using Drupal and CiviCRM that works great as well but has a slightly high learning curve to put together and train your staff how to use and manage effectively.  Either way, the number of outbound email messages is likely capped by your webmail service provider and/or ISP.  Gmail for instance caps outbound emails to 200 per 24-hour period.  Many ISPs tend to cap outbound emails to roughly 1,000 per 24-hour period or monitor your bandwidth and will give you a call if they notice any suspicious activity.  As an aside, a higher bandwidth is involved with sending HTML/multi-part emails over text emails so if you are aiming for high volume in a limited bandwidth allotment, you may want to consider sending plain text emails at first and see how that performs.  If you need to increase the outbound email cap, you can contact your ISP to see if they can increase that limit for you but typically it is cheaper to purchase an SMTP relay package through SMTP.com or a similar SMTP relay service.

If you wanted to consider outsourcing email marketing in its entirety (from creating templates, list management, sending the emails, review of metrics, etc.), I know of a popular email marketing/solutions company named e-Dialog, located in the Boston, MA metro area that does great work, as does IndustryConnect in New York, NY (the later having great expertise in the trade show/events industry).  You may be able to find a few others via a Google search.

As you start to build your email message/campaign, think about what your email message will consist of.  The email itself should:

  • Be CAN-SPAM compliant.  This essentially means:
    • The email subject line and ‘friendly from’ email address and sender’s name cannot be misleading.
    • You must provide for a way for someone to unsubscribe from the email message via an automated method or provide an email address/phone number to receive unsubscribe requests (either method requires you to unsubscribe someone within 10 days).
    • Provide your company’s name and physical address and
    • The email displays a clear warning if the content is unsuitable for minors.
  • Be one of three formats: multi-part, plain text or HTML only.
    • An HTML only message displays your standard email marketing message you may be used to receiving (e-newsletters, political messages, product and service marketing, etc.)  These are typically graphic-intensive with either all graphics (not recommended due to spam triggers) or a balanced composition of graphics and formatted text.  Formatted text messages, even in absence of graphics are still considered HTML messages due to the underlying structure.
    • Plain text messages are non-formatted text messages.  The message will not contain any graphics, bold, underlined or italic text.  In addition, no text will contain fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, etc. (if it arrives formatted, that is only due to the default settings configured in the recipient’s email program).
    • A multi-part message consists of a plain text and HTML formatted email.  The idea behind a multi-part email message is the device reading the email will automatically display the most appropriate version to the user (i.e. Blackberry phones and devices with small screens may automatically revert to the plain text message and most PCs will display the HTML version).  These settings can be overridden (typically only done by advanced technical users or by IT departments) but will be the case with virtually all recipients.
    • It is smart to shuffle the email format from time to time as one email format may work best for X number of recipients on your list while another email format may work better for another segment on the list.
    • Plain text emails, especially those with personalization/merge fields (if you use first names vs. Dear First/Last name), have great results as well.  Sales teams can definitely benefit from this format from time to time.
  • Feature a clean, professional design.  Email response rates/conversions significantly increase if the email looks like it was produced by a talented creative department — in the reader’s eyes (subconsciously or consciously), they know time, energy and money have been invested in putting the message together.  On the contrary, a message that looks like it was put together quickly with formatting issues, typos and grammar mistakes is not very attractive.  With the later, the reader may be more inclined to assume the sender is only looking to ‘get rich quick’ and not be in business for the long run (worst case, you may come across as a ‘spammer’).  You do not need to spend a fortune for a great template or set of templates — many starter templates are provided free of charge by most email service providers (ESPs) which are easy to modify, or you can purchase professional designed templates from sites such as ThemeForest.net, etc. for roughly $10-20/template — a great deal compared to hiring a high-priced designer/consultant.  However, with that said, nothing compares to a nice, custom-designed template that closely matches your brand and I highly recommend hiring a professional designer if your budget allows. One item to consider is that some times you can get away with making template changes (beyond simple text-based edits) in WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) mode but other times, this may skew the layout and formatting.  This is due to a programmatic limitation with many template editors tied to ESP’s at the moment.  The ‘margin of error’ as you try to make more complex/layout changes in WYSIWYG mode.  A way many less technical editors avoid these issues is learning basic HTML (which is not that difficult as it is just a set of fundamental tags that wrap around content) and you will have more control over your content and may find making edits is faster from the code view over the design/HTML view.
  • Portray a greater sense of creativity, differentiating yourself from the competition/other marketers.  As some popular phrases encourage you to (“dare to be different” or “break all the rules”), keep in mind many people are used to receiving emails that require one to scroll down to read the entire email.  Why not create an email that invites the user to scroll right to read the message for a change?  You may receive higher open/response rates this way.  Slightly off-topic, but the famous ‘1984’ Apple commercial comes to mind as I write this which may help conceptualize this idea better to help you brainstorm some ideas (video can be found on YouTube).
  • Have an opt-out mechanism that provides more than one unsubscribe option.  If you are just starting out and getting to know how email marketing works, you do not need to focus on this one too much but it helps to retain people who unsubscribe from your emails.  If you only offer one unsubscribe option, people may unsubscribe on an account basis vs. just from your list, depending on how your ESP handles unsubscribe requests.  For this reason, you should program a way for someone to:
    • Unsubscribe across all brands (not desirable but this option should be provided to the user as a customer service feature, which ultimately saves you money as it is one less email address you would normally be emailing on a frequent basis).
    • Unsubscribe on a brand-only basis (i.e. a newsletter/publication brand)
    • Modify email frequency – useful particularly if you email your list on a daily basis (i.e. daily deals, etc.)  The recipient may like receiving emails, but may prefer to receive on a less frequent basis.  In this case, it is best if you prepare a special weekly or monthly formatted email to allow the reader to catch-up on the email content they missed, versus for example simply sending them the ‘daily’ version once weekly or monthly.
  • Have an email subject line that entices the reader to open the email.  While abiding by the CAN-SPAM rules/regulations, you also need to ‘mold’ a creative subject.  Many times if someone receives multiple emails in the day, they might not click on the email so it needs to stand out from the crowd and grab the reader’s attention.
  • Feature a consistent ‘friendly from’ name and email address.  Sometimes your readers/audience will white-list the email address used to send your newsletter or other communications so that is one key reason to keep it consistent.  It also helps your readers associate varying subject lines with an Editor or sales representative for instance, resulting with greater or consistent open rates.
  • Have a clear message/incentive that moves your prospective buyer to purchase your product or service.  This is called the ‘call to action’ or value proposition.  Without this, you are essentially ‘throwing spaghetti at the wall, hoping it will stick’ while wasting time and resources.  You should also make it easy for someone to respond to the email, including a “Buy Now” or “Register Now” button above and below ‘the fold’ (roughly the first 1/3-1/2 point of standard emails), in addition to text links with alternate wording that encourages this action.  The text links work best if they are cleverly placed so as to avoid the reader viewing it as an advertisement.
  • Avoid language that triggers spam flags: words/phrases to avoid.  You want to do everything possible to ensure your email gets delivered and read by the end-user.  You want to avoid using words such as “free” (“complimentary” is a great alternative) and others such as discount, winner, amazing, etc. — anything you may have seen in prior spam messages.  If you are in the pharmaceutical or medical industry for example, you should be especially careful due to the large amount of spam featuring vitamins, anti-aging creams, etc.  Many marketers in challenged fields tend to use all graphics in their emails but this is not suggested (unless all of your recipients white list you/your domain) as spammers caught on to this method a while back as a way around words/phrases triggering spam scanners.  You should always filter/pass your email through a spam checker and review the score before sending an email message.  If between 0-2 points out of the usual 5 point scale (as with SpamAssasin), you may be OK but anything above 2 points is a cause for concern and you should address any suggestions relayed at the end of the scan.  Many web sites offer spam check services, some free, others you will need to pay a small fee to use but offer other services that aim to help save time (i.e. one service lets you preview your email message in multiple email clients and webmail services at once which is also useful in testing how your email’s design looks).  If you use a spam checker, it is important to test both HTML and text versions if you are sending a multi-part email out.  If you only test one over the other for a multi-part blast, your result will not be 100% accurate.

If you are managing large campaigns for your company and want to maximize the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts, A/B (multivariate) testing can help.  You can either do this manually or use the built-in configurations found in some ESP administrative areas to automate this.  Basically, A/B testing lets you compare different subject lines (most common), in addition to the actual email content and/or varying templates.  Factors such as open rates and click-throughs are reviewed and compared to help identify the general feel/spirit of what subjects/content/design(s) is/are most effective/appropriate going forward.

Microsoft Access and Excel are great (and arguably essential) tools for list management, in absence of a comparably powerful in-house system or all-in-one list management tool/service from an outside vendor.  Excel is great for easily and quickly removing duplicates on-the-fly (version 2007 above), while Access is great for managing lists without needing to delete/modify the original lists provided.  Access can do list comparisons (useful/valuable for ‘removing’ a suppression list from a master list (or otherwise ‘list A’ from ‘list B’ and so-on), ‘combining’ multiple lists together based on certain criteria, etc.)  Access’ SQL tool is very powerful but easy to use at the same time, allowing you to visually design queries and modify basic queries from within SQL/code view.  Free tools such as those found in the OpenOffice.org suite are ‘OK’ in my opinion for day-to-day office admin tasks but simply does not cut it when it comes to the stress-free management and powerful features found in the Microsoft Office suite.

As you plan your email marketing strategy, you may want to consider creating a private Google Calendar (free with any standard Google account or basic Google Apps account) to schedule emails with.  This calendar can be shared with others in your organization, so long as they all have a Google account (I suggest this be done through a Google Apps account however so you can control who has access to the calendar and when, in the event someone may leave your organization in the future).  Each scheduled ‘event’ can reflect an email campaign’s subject line, list(s) the email needs to be sent to, email format (HTML, plain text or multipart), whether it requires any merge fields, from name/email to use and any other information that would be useful to the person preparing the email.  Rescheduling email blasts is very easy with a Google Calendar as well as you need only click and drag to another date if necessary.

A wide assortment of free educational material is made available by ESPs on their web sites.  I was surprised when I read some of this as it tended to be very comprehensive, essentially being a full online course, expanding on the basic principles relayed here.  Some of this may appear to only pertain to their product but conceptually, the process of designing/building emails and other aspects is very similar among other providers.  Definitely worth taking a look.