It has been busy period for us with a bunch of pitches and new projects. Christmas week is typically a planning period but we are abuzz and on the verge of going into quite a project high.
On the email marketing front, we've been running quite a few campaigns as well as introducing minor new enhancements to our solution.
Thought I would share a few thoughts here from our own experiences as well as studies we've been following.
1. Segment, Segment, Segment
A recent study by MarketingSherpa said segmentation had a dramatic impact on open and click through rates even for very small lists (lower than 5,000). We've found this true, if you want your messages to be more effective, its well worth the effort to segment and craft customized messages.
2. HTML Visual Checklist
- dont' use forms or javascripts in your emails
- keep style reference within the body tag
- provide your images with 'alt' references
3. Catching the right time
Another recent research paper found that for B2B email campaigns, the highest response rates were towards the end of the week and the lowest were mid week.
4. Regular Content Checklist
- link to see the content on the web
- why the user is receiving your email
- instructions for adding your email address if they want to continue receiving mails from you
- means to unsubscribe
5. Test-Blast Checklist
a) Depending on your audience base, test blast your campaign to
- important web-mail providers such as Google, Yahoo, MSN...Myrealbox
- mail clients such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Lotus Notes (especially if your audience includes government addresses for Singapore), Thunderbird, Eudora Pro
Recently we spent a lot of time validating HTML code for a campaign because the email could not be seen in Lotus Notes, it turns out Notes is really strict about HTML. Check this out as well.
b) On another note, test blasts are also important to seeing if your emails are getting past the spam filters-they help you understand if you are using spam-friendly terms. The funny thing is, due to the large amount of spam I get, my spam filter, is turned to 95%-block - this often means I send out test blasts and have to go find them in my "Possible Junk Mail" box. It's a fun challenge to try and beat your own security systems!
-Food for Thought-
Incorporation of RSS feeds into Yahoo Mail / Google
Google and Yahoo both have have implemented betas of RSS integrated into their web mail products. This will change the way we view and use RSS as a marketing tool...hopefully more on that later.
If you are keen to get our help with your email campaigns, let me know!