Email Best Practices Email Marketing Case Studies

Brand Reinforcement
Every time your customers open an email from you (or, let’s back up), every time your customers even see your name on an incoming email, you are building brand recognition. Then, when they open the email and see your logo, you are building brand recognition. Some firms spend millions on brand recognition activities. “But now, thanks to the Internet, companies also have the ability to build their brands with virtually every click. It’s important that your email marketing campaigns reinforce the brand values you began to setup while the customer was on your website. While your customers may not become brand loyal after just one email marketing message, over time your brand will become ingrained in the purchasing habits part of their psyche and that’s exactly what you are striving for.

More Transactional Email Marketing Sources: Transactional Email Server, Full Transactional Email Marketing White Paper (PDF), Email Marketing Best Practices

Improved Customer Loyalty 
When a company begins to build a relationship with a customer they do so based on the premise of being able to almost predict a need and then know how to fill it for that customer. Companies can do this best by first understanding their customer base through research and really listening to customer preferences as well as using the information gathered from past transactions to form profiles that are matched with future offers. Then, companies should honor the wishes of their customers. We can’t emphasize this enough. The great thing about transactional emails as we stated briefly above and will go into more detail further down, is that they do not have to provide an opt-out option. However, just because this isn’t the case with transactional emails does not mean those emails should automatically be inserted into your list for other promotions. This type of sneaky work might cost you a customer, so beware.On the other hand, by paying attention to customer needs and being responsive, you can benefit from increased loyalty. According to marketing expert, Claudia Bruemmer, “A major benefit of customer relationship campaigns is that they foster customer retention, which in turn results in increased profits for your business. Existing customers are known to spend more per sale, buy more frequently, refer other customers and cost less per sale. So priority one is to keep your existing customers happy.”

More Transactional Email Marketing Sources: Transactional Email Server, Full Transactional Email Marketing White Paper (PDF), Email Marketing Best Practices

There are so many benefits to transactional email, it is hard to know where to begin. First, we look at the basic benefits, which any marketing-directed email is going to provide. These include: increased communication, improved customer loyalty, brand reinforcement, cost effectiveness, and the ability to track returns. When considering transactional email, you get all these benefits plus: higher conversion rates, your receivers are customers, opportunity to cross-sell and up-sell, all resulting in an increase in revenue (and ROI). So, let’s take a look at each of these benefits in detail.

Increased Communication
As with any email marketing campaign, you are gaining more in-front of the customer time by communicating with them regarding the status of your relationship to and with them. As we look back to our section on Methodology, we see that two of the quotes dealt specifically with the act of relationship building through email: “The best way to prevent your customers from jumping ship is to build a relationship with them over time. What better way to do this than to provide useful information right to their email inbox?” – The Opt-in Email Resource Center

“Email, done well, creates the kind of relationship that drives incremental revenue, loyalty and word of mouth.” – Stephanie Miller

More Transactional Email Marketing Sources: Transactional Email Server, Full Transactional Email Marketing White Paper (PDF), Email Marketing Best Practices

A transactional email is a form of creative communication whereby a company uses operational forms of communication, such as an order confirmation or invoices and uses these emails to also deliver marketing information.

Examples provide just transaction data to Amy. To better utilize the communication opportunity the transactional email, if more dynamic, could present more useful transactional details, such as a method to approximate arrival dates, as well as providing more up-sell opportunities. With additional transactional details, there is more opportunity to provide marketing information, while keeping the sales to transaction info ratio lower. Many companies are beginning to use transactional emails to promote products that compliment the products purchased. An email from the company in the opening scenario to Amy, had they fully used transactional email, might look like as shown in the full Transactional White paper.

The first email had a small amount of information and no marketing purpose. The second had more useful information as well as a marketing purpose. The company is using the transaction confirmation to create a possibility whereby the customer might make another purchase while keeping the ratio between operational and sales information low. The key is to ensure that the customer can make the purchase from the email as opposed to returning to the site and mandating they go through the shopping cart experience all over again. Remember: simplicity is key - you want the customer to be able to click on your email, and place the order, seamlessly.

To further explain the technicalities of transactional email and what exactly constitutes such a communication, we look to the definition provided under CAN-SPAM. We will get more into the specifics such as the potholes associated with CAN-SPAM in a later section, but as for the basic definition, we see that it means any email facilitating, completing or confirming a previously agreed upon transaction. Unlike commercial messages, transactional messages aren’t required to carry any of the following:

• An advertisement notation at the top
• A U.S. Postal Service address
• An unsubscribe link

More Transactional Email Marketing Sources: Transactional Email Server, Transactional Email Marketing White Paper (PDF), Email Marketing Best Practices

In order to ground our argument that transactional email is a fundamental and beneficial marketing and revenue tool for companies, we turn to several stats and survey results from top marketing analysts and email experts, as well as the experiences of various companies worldwide…

“Tough competition will attempt to draw your customer base away by undercutting your costs and doing whatever possible to switch your customers over. The best way to prevent your customers from jumping ship is to build a relationship with them over time. What better way to do this than to provide useful information right to their email inbox? – The Benefits of Email Marketing,” from the Opt-in Email Resource Center

It can be up to eight to ten times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to sell to an existing one. A good email marketing campaign will increase the frequency of repeat purchases from your existing customers. i – WebProNews.com

Only 24% of survey respondents reported the use of transactional email in 2006. Out of that same pool of respondents, 50% said they were only somewhat satisfied with their email marketing efforts. – Skylist, 2006 email Marketing Survey

“I find it inspiring because it means that email success and ROI is a direct result of our ability to build a relationship with our subscribers. Email, done well, creates the kind of relationship that drives incremental revenue, loyalty and word of mouth.” – Stephanie Miller, VP of Strategic Services

54% of transactional emails are very often or always read compared with only 21% who very often or always read opt-in emails. ii – Marketing Sherpa

And probably the most pointed to substantiate our argument is the following:

“Make it easy for potential customers to buy from you and more will buy. Look for ways you can make your buying process easier…and faster.” iii – Business Know-How

There are many more samples available. There is a wealth of information regarding the success companies experience through the use of transactional email including increased revenue, higher conversion rates and greater ROI, driven in large part due to the ease-of-use and functionality provided customers through these emails. There is also a myriad of evidence pointing to the fact that transactional email is highly valuable as a marketing tool when implemented efficiently.

More Transactional Email Marketing Sources: Transactional Email Server, Full Transactional Email Marketing White Paper (PDF), Transactional Email Definition

Problem Identification
According to a recent survey released by marketing software provider, Alterian, “Email marketing still apparently has a long way to go in terms of integration and analysis. Sixty-five percent of marketers surveyed said they don’t integrate email with their other sales channels.” i

However, by not utilizing such a tool, companies do not truly benefit from the direct communication and face-to-face time that such tools provide. It is through the absence of useful tools such as transactional email that companies are losing a significant amount of customers and, in turn, revenue.

Hypothesis
This paper will prove that through the utilization of transactional emails, as a marketing and communications tool, companies can position themselves to increase revenue, boost conversion rates and, as a direct result, receive a greater return on investment.

More Transactional Email Marketing Sources: Transactional Email Server, Full Transactional Email Marketing White Paper (PDF), Transactional Email Definition

Recently, Amy Day, Chief Marketing Officer for Cowtown Creative, went online to purchase a new printer from a Website she learned about through a friend. According to Amy, the site itself was very innovative. It had loads of interesting links, was able to make recommendations based on preferences she had defined, and the shopping basket/checkout experience was fairly seamless.

Amy has been ordering office supplies online for some time and knew that she could expect an email confirmation of her order once the checkout process was complete. True to form, the email appeared in her inbox within one hour of the transaction. However, when Amy opened the email, expecting to find a communication that was just as advanced as her online experience with the company, she was a little put off to find a rich text notification containing only a confirmation number, tracking information and her mailing address along with a vague disclaimer about returns.

She found this odd for the seemingly advanced online provider. In the recent past, after purchasing from other companies online, she had received a follow-up email that not only provided her with the details of each transaction, but also the opportunity to purchase products that may have been overlooked while placing the original order. In this case, the company would have received a positive response from Amy, who forgot to purchase toner for the printer.

Amy found that by continuing to do business with the site meant extra steps in the buying process, including loading the site, entering the search information, as well as re-entering all of her order detail again. As a result, she opted to go with a large name brand toner manufacturer who already has her account on file and required a simple one-step order method.

“The truth is, the service that I received from the online experience from this company was superb, but the fact that their back office process seemed to lag far behind that of its online presence has made me think twice about ordering from them again,” says Amy. “I’m not a fan of spam mail, but I don’t think of this type of transactional email that way – I think about it as an extension of the business transaction. I am familiar with them, I’ve placed an order with them, and I only expect they’ll want my business. Therefore, I also expect that they’ll remind me of potential cross-sells or complimentary products of that which I just ordered. Had the experience been more user-friendly on the back-end, they probably would have captured my ongoing business.”

It’s a simple scenario, but it’s easy to see how the absence of such a tool from a company’s arsenal of marketing activities could equate to lost revenue from future and ongoing purchases. This is in addition to the failure to turn one-time customers into long-term customers due to the inability to capture their continued business when competing against other companies that simplify their shopping experience through the use of transactional email.

It is this and similar experiences as the result of the disconnect between businesses and this form of marketing that this paper will address.

More Transactional Email Marketing Sources: Transactional Email Server, Full Transactional Email Marketing White Paper (PDF) , Transactional Email Definition

In a recent article by Loren McDonald in the Email Insider was very insightful. This article explains what it calls List Churn which basically means the amount of your list that disappears every year just from simple retention. Over the course of the year Loren estimates that as much as 25% of your list vanishes each year which means that you need to grow your list by more than that amount to really grow your list. It’s like your email list inflation rate. If you don’t grow faster than inflation then you are shrinking.

This list inflation rate is termed the Hurdle Rate by Loren is estimated at ten to twenty five percent per year.

I agree with the rate on the lower end and the one thing I would add to this analysis is that rather than allowing emails to go to the point where they turn into bounces, it is possible to turn inactive email addresses into dormant ones before they get to the bounce stage. This is not easy and requires a lot more attention to detail for email managers, but will decrease the number of bounces over time as well as make for a cleaner list and higher delivery rates.

Resources: Have You Tackled Your List Churn?, Email Marketing Best Practices, Email Marketing List Hygiene

A recent study pointed out that most email list managers fail to send any welcome message to those who sign onto their list. Most fail to utilize basic email design standards that should apply FIRST AND FOREMOST to your very “First Impression” on your new list recipients. Proper utilization of transactional email messages dictates that welcome messages be immediate and designed well. In addition, the welcome message should include numerous action items just like any other transactional message. Any and every opportunity to place an offer in front of readers should be of utmost importance to any serious email marketing professional. The rule of thumb is about 25% to 33% of any transactional message should be some type of offering as an action item. Welcome messages should conform to both the transactional email messaging rules as pointed out in this blog as well as all email design guide parameters as pointed out in the Ultimate Email Design Guide in this blog also. Here’s the list of offenses with the most ludicrous being first on the list:

• NO welcome message at all.
• A Welcome message two days later.
• A poorly designed Welcome Message.
• A poorly design welcome message two days later.
• NO design for the welcome message such as a text only email.
• A nicely designed welcome message with no offers or action items.

This follows another rule we have pointed out in the past also. This isn’t a new concept, just another spin on a new delivery method. Welcome messages are a well-known opportunity as a general rule of marketing, but somehow are overlooked when signing people up to receive emails. If every marketer, business manager and owner just stuck with the same old rules for this new delivery method, then all would be well.

More Resources: Email Design Best Practices Handbook, Email Marketing Server

Your online reputation is as important as your brand name is in the age of the Internet. When you fail to protect your lists and your email reputation, which, by the way, is being judged by email recipient servers, such as YAHOO, and other email integrity entities, you damage your brand name. Who are these email judges you ask. They are YAHOO, AOL, HotMail, GMAIL and hundreds of other email providers who cumulatively can do more damage to your email reputation than any other failure to protect your brand might do.

Don’t Trick Prospects Onto Your List
It is a very common procedure, and even legal, for the general Web population, to have signed up for a legitimate email notice, but also to have agreed to receive emails for all fifty businesses in a network of businesses. Even though you only intended to receive emails from company A, they are tricking onto a series of lists from those in their “network” inadvertently. It is almost the same as getting free software and if you fail to read the agreements, then you might not be aware that you agreed to get ads from the software firms network. Most of these relationships have some type of safeguard for these relationships, but far too many times they end up insulting their audience and turning people off to these purported freebees. Truly opted into lists are much more valuable than TRICKED TO OPTIN lists.

Use Double Optin Procedures
The fear that a new person on the email list will remove themselves from your list is a key factor in the fact that so many list managers will not employ double optin techniques. That is to say that when somebody signs up to receive your emails, they get an email immediately to verify that they were not signed up by another party, AND, to drive the point home that they just signed up for your email. The fact is if they do not remember signing up to get your emails just a few moments ago, they are almost certain to report your email as spam when they get the special offer in three weeks from today. It is truly better not to have these recipients on your list. It waters down your list effectiveness and damages your online brand name. A double opted in list is much more valuable and predictable as a marketing tool.

Email Past, Present & Future
Email was built as a type of file sharing system for the highly technical people on the Web, typically at a place of scientific research or a government entity. In the early days it was common for a person, or business, to piggy-back onto the Internet through some government backbone. Email servers were intended to send one message at a time from your sending email server to the recipient email server for delivery to the intended recipient.

Think of sending email server as a sending fax machine and the recipient email server as the receiving fax machine. Both ends need to work effectively for the fax to be delivered to the intended recipient. The problem is that sometimes both fax machines will report and error, such as a loss of signal or line, and it is not clear if either machine had some error, or if the signal was lost or cut off. Well, with email servers the same can be true but to a much higher degree. Email recipient machines will sometimes report to the sending email machine that an error occurred when in fact what happened was that the server encountered an error, or just believes the sending email machine is a spammer or robot of some type.

The best way for the recipient to believe that your machine is not a spammer, or other malicious code delivery, is for the recipient server to know who you are and who’s is sending the email. Your email reputation is critical to the delivery of your message to the intended recipient.

More Resources: Email Marketing Strategy, Email Marketing Best Practices, Inhouse Email Marketing Case Study