Cyber Monday: An Email Opportunity, Not an Invasion

When I first heard the term “Cyber Monday”, I thought perhaps the Cybermen from Doctor Who were attacking; alas, it has nothing to do with space-age, robotic tin dudes and everything to do with holiday email marketing.

You don’t have to be a retailer to get excited over Cyber Monday. In fact, you may get even more excited if you’re not in retail. Why, you ask?

Because you might stand out from the herd of colorful, Santa-filled, reindeer-clad emails fighting for top slot in the inbox. How big is Cyber Monday, you wonder? Well, Google it and see…over 30,900 results! And look at those web addresses…created for just one day of the year – it is indeed a powerful, and potentially magical, day for email marketing:

Cyber Monday Email Marketing

It’s already begun – the magical season of selling – advertising galore in the shape of emails, direct mail, TV – you name it, there’s a sale with something you “must” have.  But, perhaps, you’re not a retailer and you don’t peddle stocking stuffer-sized trinkets that will be forgotten the next day. Perhaps you sell a service or, like me, an online product that isn’t something wrap-able, shiny or even something one would give as a memorable gift. There is still a huge opportunity for anyone that utilizes email to market anything in the B2C world.

Take the email campaign we sent last year (Company logo and name omitted to appease the corporate legal machine):

cyber monday email campaign example

The product is online credit monitoring – it isn’t glamorous, but it’s useful. The theme is based on all the money that was likely spent on Black Friday (November 25th).  By deploying this email in the wee hours of Cyber Monday morning (November 28th), it will await the eyes of the shopper still looking for a good deal. But, it’s not about offering a deal – it’s about appealing to their financial savvy and being a “good shopper”.  It worked – really well.

I can’t claim the cred for the first deployment as I wasn’t here just yet. Because I wasn’t here yet, please note that my company did about the worst thing an Email Marketer can hear – they blasted! Zero targeting, zero segmenting and virtually no proper testing.  The Open Rate was nearly 5%, which was a strong rate at the time for promotional emails. Of that 5% we saw 529 orders from a single deployment when the previous average was 200-250; hence, the Cyber Monday email marketing campaign was a great success.

This year, with some tweaks, fresh creative and actual segments with strategic targeting (gasp!), I hope to see much stronger results.  Don’t you worry; I’ll definitely share my findings.

Tis the season, so I encourage anyone to take advantage of the jingle jangle and test – test – test!

UPDATE

It was a very interesting campaign this year which, I’m happy to report, was a great success. In fact, many Cyber Monday campaigns were successful this year yielding a 7% jump for retailers and a whopping 22% for online sales (source).

The Numbers: Opens =2.36%, CTR = .20%, CTO = 8.31%, Purchase Rate= 4.55%, Conversions (orders) = 207

This might not sounds awesome to many of you, but do keep in mind what I have to work with. Due to the previous batch and blast “strategy” that ran for several years, the bulk of my email database is frightfully weakened, unengaged and unresponsive. However, with some real strategy implemented along with segmentation and an engagement score model of our database, I’m managing to send less email and still average the same orders as last year, sometimes even beating last year’s performance.  In fact, this campaign launched the month off with a running start and I’m pacing to have the best December on record for email showing a huge 33% lead over 2010.  I’m sure all of you can agree that 33% isn’t too shabby.

About the Author: Samantha Iodice is Email Channel Manager extraordinaire for a Financial Services company. Samantha tripped into the online marketing world via direct mail and has never looked back. She works like mad within the corporate machine to convert thinking, leverage learning and optimize the email channel. Samantha is proud to be a bit nuts, a sci-fi fan and an all-around geek. Follow her on Twitter @e_Maven or drop a line at samantha.iodice@gmail.com

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How to Write Great Email Subject Lines (and how to fix those that are not)

Subject lines for email marketing encompass strategic intent, audience targeting, tone, brand considerations and, of course, language. The purpose of a powerful, clear subject line is to convince the recipient to open the email and take whatever action your campaign is designed to achieve; and this is very much a mission-critical element of your communications strategy.

Writing great email subject lines is both a science and an art, and it deserves the same attention to detail as every other part of a campaign. One of the most common mistakes marketers make is believing they can simply copy and paste creative and messaging snippets from other advertising mediums into a mailer and expect favorable responses. But, without understanding what you want to achieve, and how to formulate your headline to attain these goals, your return on investment is always going to be below expectations.

While it is essential that continuity in the brand and messaging be maintained, you need to remain true to the nature of the medium, which requires more effort than simply replicating a look and feel.

Email has many unique traits, and some seemingly obvious best practices are often ignored. There are simple rules when creating an email subject line, such as not exceeding 50 characters and limiting punctuation and capital letters. These first few characters are the gateway to your emailing success; since it’s all you have to catch the attention of your reader. And so, every character that makes up your subject line needs to be chosen with care, avoiding words that are universally flagged as spam.

Follow these guidelines to become a supreme being of great subject line writing (you know you want to)

Lead – The subject line needs to lead the person to open the email. It needs to spark their curiosity, however, readers will distrust you and reach for the report-spam button if your subject line doesn’t reflect the actual email content. This means never misleading your prospects with the subject line in order to get them to read further.

Relevance – Relevance is the most important element of a subject line. Your subscribers must always receive information from you that they care about – period. Writing a suitable subject line that the recipient can relate to will increase open rates, and for this it needs to be applicable to the person you are reaching out to.

Objectives – Since a subject line is the essence of an email, consider writing it first. Think about what the objective or end goal of your email marketing programs is. Make sure all components of your email, especially the subject line, will highlight a clear path to your objective without straying off on a tangent.

Value - People buy value, not products. Encourage the recipient to open the email by displaying the benefits of the product or service. You can’t create a sense of curiosity and urgency about your mailer if no benefit is offered. Urgency (such as time-limited deals) is also extremely influential when combined with value, because it provokes an immediate response.

Emotion - By tying the tone of your brand together with emotion, you will build a genuine connection between your content and your audience. Personalized subject lines are also a simple way to secure the interest of your recipients and give them that warm, fuzzy someone-wrote-me-a-private-email feeling. Subject lines can be personalized with the use of the recipient’s first and last names, or based on their product preferences, interests or past purchases.

Test – Perform tests on your subject lines on small subscriber groups before sending out to your full list. A/B tests involve splitting a list into two different headlines to see which had the better result, then using the subject line which delivered the highest open rate. To consistently identify the higher-performing subject line, you will need to repeat this testing phase every time you send a message.

Even disregarding all these tips, as long as you don’t make writing the subject line the last and most hurried step in an email campaign, there should be a noticeable improvement in your marketing success.

About the Author: Wikus Engelbrecht is a writer, journalist and media liaison at GraphicMail, an international email and mobile marketing service provider. Since 2003 his professional career in language and media has spanned the film, print advertising, magazine publishing, web development and online content industries. He is a fanatic blogger and an email metric-o-holic. He can be contacted at wikus@graphicmail.com

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Do You Have These 7 Holiday Emails Ready?

It’s (almost) the most wonderful time of the year! Sales go up, everyone seems more cheerful and the anticipation is building for the start of a new year.

The holidays certainly get a lot of buzz, and the hot topic among marketers these days revolves around holiday campaign planning. How should you market to your customers? Here are a few ideas.

  1. Holiday Help – People are busy this time of year, so if you can offer something to help ease their burden, do it. This can come in the form of gift guides, event notifications or advertisements of any service you offer (gift wrapping, party hosting, catering, etc.). Your email may just come to your subscribers’ rescue, strengthening your relationship with them.
  2. Store Hours – The holidays will probably cause some fluctuations in your schedule. If you’re in retail, you’ll probably be open later. If you have a professional office, you might be in the office less. Either way, subscribers will want to know when they can reach you. Send out the notification of the change early (a couple weeks before the actual change), so that your subscribers can plan accordingly.
  3. Sales - At some point, you’ll probably want to have a sale. Be it Black Friday, Cyber Monday or even just a free shipping promotion, you’ll want to let your subscribers know what’s going on. Make sure you send at least one notification about your sales. If you have the time, send several notifications.
  4. Holiday Products – Are you selling anything related to the holidays, such as ornaments, candy or decorations? Or do you sell something that could be used during the holidays, like bakeware or travel gear? If so, that’s another email! Give your products some attention if they relate to the holiday season or can help people survive the holidays.
  5. More Than Christmas - Don’t leave out Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Years in your holiday emails. Either email about each of them or instead of labeling everything “Christmas,” just use the term “holidays.” Regardless of how you approach this, you should address these other important days in some way so you don’t leave anyone out.
  6. Shipping Reminders - Last minute shoppers need to know how last minute they can actually get. Figure out what’s the latest day you can ship something out and have it reach its destination by Christmas. Then let your subscribers know! This is another topic you can turn into multiple emails. You can start a countdown with how many days they have left to order.
  7. Happy Holidays with a Purpose - If you want to send subscribers a holiday greeting, make sure you don’t waste their time. All too often businesses send emails with a simple holiday greeting with good intentions, but really just add to the inbox clutter. The solution is to give your well wishes more value. Offer a free gift, coupon, video or something that your subscribers will enjoy. They’ll appreciate that more than just a “happy holidays” from some business entity.

Start Creating Your Holiday Emails!

Don’t procrastinate; get started on some of these holiday emails so they’re ready to send when the time comes!

 

About the Author: Crystal Gouldey is an Education Marketing Associate at AWeber, a leading email service provider for small-to-medium businesses. Crystal’s spent the past three years teaching email marketers how to optimize their campaigns. She currently writes for the AWeber blog, which you can visit for more tips on marketing with email. Sign up here to get email marketing tips delivered straight to your inbox.

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Awesome Halloween Commercial!

I know…it’s not email-related but it’s so good! Not to worry, if you’re focused on email marketing today check, check out our 2011 Halloween campaign.

 

- Scott Hardigree | Indiemark
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Use Email to Build Your Brand, Not Break it

Does your email marketing work for your brand or against it?

Your brand is everywhere in everything you do. Every customer contact affects your brand perception, from the physical appearance of your store to the online look of your website to the tone of a voice on the phone. Every part of a customer’s experience of your business is part of your brand, including your email marketing.

So let’s stop for a minute to consider how well your email marketing program is building up your brand…or breaking it down.

Take a good hard look at your email marketing program overall. Does it appropriately represent your company’s brand? Think beyond your logo and colors. In this case, we want to consider the whole experience. And by that I mean the customer’s experience. Remember, for customers, perception is reality. If your brand is perceived a certain way, it is a certain way in the mind of your customer.

Below are some overlooked components of your email marketing program to consider when evaluating the impact on your brand.

From Name
This is a starting point in your customer’s experience with your email, remember as it’s the first thing he or she will notice. What kind of brand impression will you make with a From line that starts “donotreply@…” Or “sales@…”? Get a From name in there that builds brand, not distrust.

Frequency
Are you emailing too often? Emailing too frequently is akin to a waitress who keeps showing up at your table as you eat, or a salesperson hounding you as you go through a store. If your brand is meant to be obnoxious, then too-frequent emails are in line with that brand. If not, make sure the frequency is appropriate.

Content
Is your content relevant to your customers or only to you? Are you giving them information they want to receive? What about the tone, voice and language of your emails, does it all fit with the brand perception you want to build among your audience? If your brand is friendly and kind, and your emails are written in stiff corporate speak, you’re going to end up with a painful disconnect in the customer’s mind.

Offer
Does your offer fit your brand? If your brand is affordable home décor, but your latest email campaign touted high-end leather sofas in the four-digit price range, is that going to negatively impact your brand perception? Do your offers fit with the promises made at the time of signup? If you incented people to subscribe for certain types of emails, have you followed through to deliver those very emails?

Your brand is everything everywhere, including your customer’s inbox. Make sure your email marketing is building that brand.

About the Author: Marco Marini is the CEO of ClickMail Marketing and an acknowledged expert in email marketing with over a decade of experience in the field. Follow ClickMail on Twitter: @ClickMail

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