Email Marketing Playbook
A Best Practice Guide on the Must-Haves When Sending Email to Your Customers
Table Of Contents
Introduction
Making a Good Impression: The First Touch
- Single Confirmation
- Confirmation, then Welcome
-
Set the tone: The Welcome Series
- Keeping it Simple
- Mapping Customer Type to Email Content
- Don’t Forget the Obvious Moments
- Post Click Experience
-
Content Planning
- Obscure but Fun Holidays
-
Leverage the Moments Through Triggers
- Dropped Cart
- Finding Other Moments
- Leveraging the Customer Journey
Getting Personal with Customer Profiles
Preference Centers: Compliance and User Satisfaction
- Channels
- Frequency
- Content
- Brand Elements
Mobile First, Mobile Only
-
Inactives: Reactivate or Retire
- Start with Cleaning House
- Segment Based on Recency of Opens
- Check for Other Channels and Customer Status
-
Automated Re-Activation
- Automate Inactive Lists
- How Much Do You Want Them?
- Engineered for Opens
Ongoing List Health and Reputation
Cool Kids
- The Bigger Picture
Email Marketing Playbook The Go-to guide for email marketing, written with the marketer in mind.
01
Introduction
Email plays a role in every organization. It could be the lifeblood, driving revenue with every email sent. It could be the best way to retain customers or deliver loyalty rewards. Whatever its purpose, the owner of the channel should be thinking about how to improve it.
Our inboxes are filled with vendors who promise to turn customer emails into amazing engagements, and the latest trends are evident in every email we open from our favorite brands. Subject lines filled with emojis and tiny images; gif images that never stop playing; videos that may or may not play in the email; carousels of content; site navigation; surveys within emails; countdown timers; the list is endless. What is most interesting is that many of these same marketers trying to be a “cool kid” are missing some basic elements that I would consider requirements.
So first let’s cover what this playbook is not:
This is what this playbook is:
01
Making a Good Impression: The First Touch
The first email you send is your first chance to make a good impression. Did your Mom have a saying about that – mine did, but it was much more about the length of my skirt at the time. I find it amazing that so many brands do not spend much, if any, effort on this very important message. Let’s say I have signed up for a newsletter, and my first message is a confirmation request, since we are all good email marketers and need that confirmation email. How many of these have you received? If you are like me, hundreds if not thousands, and 95% of them are text emails with links in them. That link must be clicked, or the opt-in doesn’t count, so it’s important.
The example above is pretty standard. It doesn’t give me much good reason to click; communicating with me “time to time” doesn’t really set expectations. And this email was sent by email marketing service, who really does need to know that my email address is correct. And contrary to rumors I have heard, this text email went to my Updates tab on Gmail. Sending text emails does not land you into the Primary Gmail inbox automatically.
| Making a Good Impression | ||
|---|---|---|
| Name | The First Touch | |
| Goal | Gain email confirmation; Engage customer w/ brand | |
| Timing | Confirmation, post opt-in | |
| Number of emails | 1 | |
| Personalization | Name, additional as needed | |
| Dynamic Elements | None | |
Now, let’s consider this awesome moment in time, where a customer has decided to communicate with you. They have filled in their email address, and they are anticipating your email. There is a reason these emails have such high open rates! People want to make sure their request was submitted. So why not leverage the moment, and give them a taste of what’s to come?
Two options come to mind. One is for a single confirmation with customer experience built into the process of response, and the second is leveraging a Thank You after the confirmation to continue the brand experience. Or you may want to take parts and pieces from both and make your own!
Single Confirmation
Of course, getting the confirmation is the most important thing, so first things first. But that doesn’t mean it has to be a text version, and it doesn’t mean that you can’t welcome them to your community of subscribers whole heartedly. In the past, there was an argument that this confirmation email might be triggered from a website. But in today’s world, there is no reason this email can’t be triggered from your email service provider (ESP) and be tracked and measured too!
The things you should consider about this email:
1. You can use the template you will use for future messages this customer will see, or you can use a different one.
2. Tone. Be welcoming in your own branded way. Confirmation emails tend to be dry, so use your imagination.
3. The benefits. Even after someone has taken an initial step, it’s still a good idea to remind them of why they should complete the steps and verify their email address. In the example on the right from Spectrum, the account benefits are listed out nicely. The improvement they could make would be to put a Verify link at the top of the email as well. Don’t make people scroll; best practice is to put your CTA’s at the top, especially when there is a single click that is required.
4. Signer. I like signers, especially in these situations. Think about it from the consumer perspective. Getting a thank you from the big boss could be cool, but it can feel insincere if the big boss is unknown to them. If you have a mascot, a brand celebrity or someone else recognizable as the brand, this is a good time to use them.
5. Offers and other shiny objects. I would be careful of overpowering the moment. This is about making a good first impression, so you could mention the awesome offers that will be coming, but don’t overload the email. After all, the confirmation is the most important thing to be clicked. And this is considered a transactional email, which shouldn’t be filled with offers anyway.
6. And… they clicked. Now what? I have been redirected to home pages, shown a terrible white page with Thanks in tiny Times New Roman, and occasionally taken to a page of offers. This is a golden moment and one you can reasonably count on. Knowing that, let’s think about what you should show:
A. A nice thank you message, inside your Web site template, with some nice product placements (retail)
B. The same nice page, with some links to some interesting content on your site that you think is relevant (blogs, whitepapers or case studies that will have a long shelf-life, etc.), and potentially an offer (B2B, Technology)
C. A nice thank you message, followed by a sample of the last communication that they can view. Most effective for enewsletter sign-ups. (Financial, B2B, Technology)
D. A nice thank you message, followed by a request to create a profile and/or register current products (Consumer Packaged Goods, Technology, Retail if applicable)
E. If possible, prefill forms to include as much information as possible, even if it is only their name and email address.
F. A nice thank you message, followed by a request to create a profile and fill in contact information, other customer preferences; or update an existing profile with any new information (Travel, Consumer brands, Retail, Financial, more)
G. After you thank them, give them a nice shiny thank you offer and entice them to use it and buy while they are on the site (retail), or give you some additional information in their profile (pretty much all verticals).
Confirmation, then Welcome
Your focus remains on getting the user to confirm the first email, and you may want to tone down some of the suggestions above if your intention is to continue the discussion immediately post-confirmation. But it still doesn’t have to be a text email, without any sense of the brand. The confirmation click is the focus of your message, and you may want to use your content of the message to give them some hints on what’s to come, but don’t bog them down too much in details.
Once the user clicks confirm, continue to use the suggestions above to engage the user in the moment; show them around your website and give them some insider information. If you have brick and mortar locations, a store or location finder would be helpful, and if you know where the user lives, ask them to confirm their local store.
The second email should follow within 24 hours, that is the “official” welcome to the brand. Don’t worry if there is repetitive copy (shouldn’t be duplicated, but it’s hard to know what the user has read rather than scanned.) You may want to use a brand mascot or a senior well-known person as the email signer, and don’t just focus on sales and offers. But if you are considering using that nice “shiny” thank you offer, you could promise it in your first message, and deliver it in the second.
02
Set the tone:The Welcome Series
The Welcome Series is one of the best ways to bring someone into your brand. It’s like a new neighbor dropping by the first time, and you are showing them around the house, giving them a snack and having a nice chat. Just dropping someone into your email stream with the rest of your list is like meeting them at the door, handing them a cookie, turning them around and shutting the door behind them!
Of course, there are different welcomes for different types of customers. Not everyone gets special treatment, so you’ll need a little data to determine if this new subscriber is a customer already. Otherwise you risk sounding like you don’t recognize them, and that’s a bad move in today’s world. If you were a customer of a department store for 20 years, with a store credit card, a member of their rewards club and just joined their email list, you wouldn’t be very pleased if the Welcome email made it sound like they were meeting you for the first time!
Keeping it Simple
Let’s make it simple, and then you can add additional complexity layers.
We are going with a 3-email series, but of course there is no magic number. You can launch out a few, and then watch your results and determine if it makes sense to keep them or replace with other content. The important thing is to make sure you have your strategy clear about what you want this Welcome Series to do, beyond Welcoming.
Are you trying to get a customer to use the product they purchase? Are you looking to get more data from them? Are you making sure they understand their support options? Are you a new brand and want to share your story? Or are you trying to cross-sell and upsell to a new customer? Just be clear on your goals, and then map out the content that will make the most sense.
| Set the tone | ||
|---|---|---|
| Name | The Welcome Series | |
| Goal | Start things out right, with engagement, information that the user needs, things the brand wants to promote as first priority (data collection, profiles and preferences) | |
| Timing | After purchase/opt-in | |
| Number of emails | 1-3 | |
| Personalization | Name, additional as needed | |
| Dynamic Elements | Product names, purchase dates, service dates, etc. | |
When we think about the customer type, you’ll need some data work done, and see if the customer is already in your database. Depending on the type of company you have, you’ll need to categorize differently. You’ll also need to make sure that this is information you can access in your database, to quickly segment the user. Here are some quick examples:
| Vertical | Customer A | Customer B | Customer C | Customer D |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial | New to Bank | New to Product | Current Customer | Previous Customer |
| CPG | New Customer | New Product/Current | Valuable Customer | Previous Customer |
| Retail | New Customer | Current Customer | Valuable Customer | Previous Customer |
| Technology | New Customer | New Product/Current | Valuable Customer | Previous Customer |
| B2B | New Customer | Current Customer | Valuable Customer | Previous Customer |
| Healthcare | New Patient | New Rx/Existing Patient | High Value Patient | Previous Patient |
| Non-Profit | New Donor | Current Donor, 1 year | High Value Donor | Previous Donor |
| Services | New Customer | Current Customer | Long Term Customer | Previous Customer |
Once you have determined your customer types, you can begin to plan out your content strategy for each type of customer. Within your welcome stream, you can leverage dynamic content to display appropriate images and content; you should have one template per email and may be able to use one template version for all your emails.
Mapping Customer Type to Email Content
| Type of Customer | Email #1 | Email #2 | Email #3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| New to Brand | Genuine Welcome to the product, brand, or service. A little background on the company “How to” resources relating to recent product purchased or service provided, if opt-in occurs through checkout. | “Did you know” information related to product/ service. What to expect in coming months (from emails) | Request for product review (email should be sent 1 month from purchase); request to join social channels; Light cross-sell |
| New to Email- General Opt- in, Current Customer | Welcome to email list and glad you want to hear from us, recognize current customer status. | “Did you know” information related to products/services. What to expect in coming months (from emails) | Request to join social channels; light cross-sell |
| New Product, Current Customer | Product/Service Thanks for purchase, recognize current customer status. “How to” relating to recent product purchased or serviceprovided, if opt-in occurs through checkout. | “Did you know” information related to product/ service. What to expect in coming months (from emails) | Request for product review (email should be sent 1 month from purchase); request to join social channels; Light cross-sell |
| High Value Customer, New Product | Product/Service, Thanks for purchase, recognize valuable customer status by offering accessory discount or special gift. “How to” relating to product/service, including premium customer support options for help. | “Did you know” information related to product/service. What to expect in coming months (from emails). | Request to join on social channels; light cross- sell. Request for product review or company review. |
| Previous (no purchase in X years) Customer, New Product | Product/Service. Thanks for purchase, recognize previous relationship with brand (with product if possible). Offer accessory discount (less than valuable customer). “How to” relating to product/service | “Did you know” information related to product/service. What to expect in coming months (from emails). | Request to join on social channels. No product or company review; offer light cross-sell to related items if available |
Don’t Forget the Obvious Moments
In every Welcome series, opportunities abound to create a good impression. Sometimes that means putting away our sales hats and offering the customer a genuine opportunity to provide feedback. It doesn’t have to be a social rave or review, that can involve logging into accounts and worrying about names being visible. It can be as simple as a reply to an email (although check with your ESP and make sure that the user can reply and perhaps use a different sending name.) This email from All Things Jeep was thanking the customer for their order and asking for feedback from the customer on the experience, but as a reply to the email. It was a refreshing change.
Being genuine in moments like this can mean a lot. As I mentioned before, I like signers, and this email had one.
Post Click Experience
Keeping your initial goals in mind, begin to plan out the experience that each email generates. As marketers we spend time thinking about the email, but not as much on what happens after someone clicks. Some quick things to remember:
- Deliver on the promise of your email (call to action)
- Remember it’s not a dead end; landing pages should provide a path to the rest of your site or outbound links to other relevant content
- Make sure you are tracking each ste
Put your thinking hat on and consider how you can fill in your plan with great content that will be helpful as the customer is exploring their new products, services or enjoying your brand for the first time.
Mapping emails to Landing Pages
03
Content Planning
Surprisingly, many marketers don’t think about a content plan for longer than a few days or weeks at a time. It happens with both small and large teams and organizations. The best reason to plan is to never have a day when you aren’t sure what to send, or don’t have anything ready. But a well thought out content plan is also necessary for testing.
It might be easier than you think, once you start the process. Depending on your industry and types of email you send, you may always send out consistent emails at certain times of the year. It may just be a question of filling in the blanks. Of course, your calendar should match up to your organization’s marketing plan so that you can leverage content being created elsewhere, or perhaps someone else can leverage yours. Either way, we should think about multichannel effectiveness and plan for corresponding direct mail, SMS, video, digital advertising, and social ads, just to name a few. I have seen very big brands put out campaigns on TV with a compelling message that never filters down to their website, much less their email.
The calendar can exist in an excel file, or something fancier if you want. You’ll want to plan the number of messages per campaign concept (for example, Mother’s Day or Memorial Day may warrant more than a single email, particularly in retail.) Think about timing, but also think about the current trends. According to Fortune Magazine (5/27/16), consumers are being advised not to buy patio furniture or lawn mowers in May as there will be better deals in June (Father’s Day) or July; instead focus on appliances, mattresses, and spring/summer clothes (appliances and mattresses won’t necessarily be any lower in coming months and clothes are seasonally needed.) This is just common sense, but when you have limited space, look at what advice is being shared as well as your inventory, seasonality, etc.
Consumers have so much information today at their fingertips; it’s not like 20 or 30 years ago when the sale was the best time to buy, whichever one came first. We always shopped for our school clothes on Labor Day weekend, but looking back, I doubt school clothes were even in the stores much before then, unlike now when they reach the stores in June.
| Content Planning | ||
|---|---|---|
| Name | Content Plan | |
| Goal | Set content calendar in advance, to ensure proper frequencies, coverage of campaigns, testing | |
| Timing | Prior to Jan 1, Ongoing changes | |
Another example of advice being given is this post by Nerdwallet, that tells consumers what to buy each month of the year: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/shopping/what-to-buy-every-month/. If your industry is other than retail, you will want to consider the buying cycles and trends of your customers.
Below is an example of the type of calendar I prefer, although you will likely need additional worksheets for each of the areas. This way, you can evaluate the amount of content that is going out to your subscribers and ensure that you are not over-marketing to them. You also can create different schedules by frequency. This schedule is for 1-2 emails/week.
| Content/Channel | Stream | May | June | July | |||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||
| Email Channel 1 | Stylist | Spring Flowers | Memorial Day Picnic | Schools Out | Summer Looks | Beach Ensemb | Hot Summner Nights | ||||||
| Email Channel 1 | Sales | Spring Closeouts | Memorial Day Sale | Summer Fun Sale | Kickin up som Fun | Dress for Success | Get ready for Fall | ||||||
| Email Channel 1 | Trends | Summer Looks | Staying Cool | Fall Styles | |||||||||
| Email Channel 1 | Profile Build | Survey | Survey | Survey | |||||||||
| Email Channel 1 | News & Exclusive | New for June | New for July | New for August | |||||||||
| Email Channel 1 | Social | UGC, reviews | UGC review | UGC review | |||||||||
| Email Channel 2 | Triggers | Spring | Spring | Summer | Summer | Summer | Summer | Summer | Summer | Summer | Summer | Summer | Summer |
| Email Channel 3 | Drop Cart | A/B Testing | A/B Testing | A/B Testing | A/B Testing | A/B Testing | A/B Testing | A/B Testing | A/B Testing | A/B Testing | A/B Testing | A/B Testing | A/B Testing |
| SMS Channel 1 | Stylist | White Clothes? | Summer Looks | Hot Summer Nights | |||||||||
| SMS Channel 1 | Sales | Closeouts | Closeouts | Closeouts | |||||||||
| SMS Channel 1 | Trends | ||||||||||||
| SMS Channel 1 | Profile Build | Tell us more | Tell us more | ||||||||||
| SMS Channel 1 | Social | UCG | |||||||||||
| SMS Channel 1 | New & Exclusive | New for June | New for July | New for August | |||||||||
Obscure but Fun Holidays
Don’t be afraid to reach into fun resources to find obscure holidays. I’m sure there is one every day! You may discover some that are relevant to your brand that will be fun for the subscriber, and often results in high engagement.
Some holidays to consider:
Here is a link to a list and I’m sure there are others as well:
https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/fun/
We will cover more about testing in our next release. But I think you all see the value of this level of planning, to make sure there is never a day you are wondering “what will we email today!”
04
Leverage the Moments Through Triggers
Triggered messages sound scary, and for a long time, they really were. Many of today’s platforms have integrations that are pre-set to make the job a little easier, but sometimes you do have to rely on a technical team to implement them.
What makes triggers so effective is their ability to be “in the moment” with the customer. When you use triggered messages, their open and engagement rates are usually higher than your promotional messages because they are responding to a need that the user has in that moment. You don’t want to overthink them, though. If you get too many of them going, they will be more difficult to manage when changes occur on your Website or if your campaigns change for some reason.
Dropped Cart
One of the most well-known triggers are dropped cart emails. These triggered emails occur when a user adds something to their cart and then leaves the site or app. Over the years, different schools of thought have been tried and tested - should the email contain an offer or not? Should you list out the contents of the cart, or not bother? Early triggered programs changed some, ahem, user’s behavior since the users learned to drop their cart to get an offer. Brands had to rethink their offer strategy, particularly for repeat users.
Dropped cart reminders are still a good idea, as sometimes we all just get busy and forget what we were doing. You may want to have your tech team look for improved ways to do it, leveraging your web analytics code or other functionality within your eCommerce package.
| Leverage the Moments Through Triggers | ||
|---|---|---|
| Name | Triggered Emails | |
| Goal | Take advantage of moments when user is engaged with brand to continue engagement | |
| Timing | 5 minutes to 24 hours | |
| Number of emails | Typically, 1 | |
| Personalization | Name, additional as needed | |
| Dynamic Elements | Cart information, Form information, Links to session | |
Finding Other Moments
If you are not a retailer, you can still look for those moments. A half filled in application or form; a video that was shut down midstream; an abrupt end to the usage of a calculator or tool. All are moments that can be captured, and reminders can be sent out, provided you know who the user is, usually by a logged in session or a session created by someone who used an email link
Sometimes completion of a task warrants a trigger as well, as it is a signal that someone might be ready for more information on a topic. This can work in both B2B and B2C. Let’s imagine an array of videos on a page, and one of the videos is called “Introduction to Blue Widget”, and the second is called “How to Install Blue Widget”. When someone clicks on and watches the Introduction video, they are mildly interested, and we could think of them as a potential prospect. But when they watch the video on how to install it, they are now serious prospects.
An email triggered in that moment would be effective, as it will hit at the right time – when someone is interested and engaged. This is potentially a content interaction that could trigger a change in communication strategy through marketing automation.
Leveraging the Customer Journey
Triggers and much of email marketing revolves around your customer’s journey. That’s a phrase that is being used quite a bit these days, and if you have taken the steps to understand everything that your customers do (typically a significant scope of work), you may have an outline to follow. But if you have not made the investment, you can still put on your customer’s shoes and outline it to your best ability, and then ask a few customers to tell you how they make decisions to buy your product. See if it fits in with what you believe. You must start somewhere!
The best rule of thumb is to consider the tipping point in each step of the way, from awareness through to a loyal customer. What happens along these steps that is a reasonably good sign someone will continue, and can we track it? Sometimes we get hung up on tracking, meaning is it a digital moment? But offline data can trigger a message just as surely as an online action.
Once we have identified the moment and how we will know it happened, we can plan out how to respond. The message could be semi-transparent; we think you might be interested in our product based on your recent Website visit. Or it could be a little less obvious; Check out our product that can help you do X and Y. We don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable, particularly in B2C. I think that most B2B buyers are aware of how their activities are being tracked and would not find it weird or scary that you knew the information. In either case, we don’t want people to avoid the Website, thinking that it might result in potentially unwanted attention.
As far as offline data triggers, purchase data can unlock some consistent trends that could result in triggers. For example, if a consumer is buying outfits for their kids but never buys socks, a trigger could be put into place to show them your sock collections, even matching outfits they have purchased. The same could be done for matching jewelry or shoes for an outfit; acknowledging the great purchase they made and offering additional pieces to complete the look.
Triggers are usually single emails that drive the user back to their Web session or continue an engagement that is already started (online or offline.) The expectation of timing might be different based on the trigger. A dropped cart, for example, should not be immediate. Waiting 12 to 24 hours is advisable, but testing will determine the right timeframe for you.
A form that is not complete might need something timelier. One important part is to make sure you can link the user directly back to their session; avoid user frustration by taking them back to a blank form
05
Getting Personal with Customer Profiles
You’ve probably heard the term “customer centricity” or human/personal marketing by now. It’s all the rage for the right reasons. As consumers, we expect a great deal more from the companies we love. Many years ago, let’s just say Pre-eCommerce, I had a need for a white dress and none were to be found that year. I drove 100 miles in all directions trying to find one. Today, my expectation is that I will find that dress within a google search or two, at the price I want and probably have it shipped to arrive the next day. If I had used a catalog back then, the shipping would have been probably 7-10 days and a hefty price. I would have been content to wait. Today, I am agitated if my Amazon Prime shipping is longer than 2 days, and it’s free!
In the past, I would have never given my personal information to a store; I would always have preferred to spend hours browsing. Now, I'm using personal shopping services based on my preferences and having it shipped to me. I no longer feel guilty about returning it; if I don't like it, I can return it, with really easy return shipping options that are built into the customer experience. Like Amazon taught us to shop online, we are accepting as “norm” that we can get personalized service delivered to our doorsteps, whether it is outfits or curated food ready to be turned into dinner.
The point being: brands are being expected to meet the needs of their customers and pretty much read their minds. Possible? Knowing your customers and listening to the right data signals is where you start.
You can begin by planning your data strategy as it pertains to personal preferences. If I tell you something about me, I expect you to use it when you market to me. And you should tell me what data you really need, as opposed to what you'd like to have. Preference centers (our next step) can house this collection of data safely and assist you with compliance to GDPR or other laws/regulations.
| Getting Personal with Customer Profiles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Name | Customer Profiles | |
| Goal | Collect data to provide relevant information, products and services | |
06
Preference Centers: Compliance and User Satisfaction
This is one of the more time consuming and technical efforts that I am including, but it’s a very important one. Preference centers are tied directly to My Account, My Profile, or other ways you may manage customer logins.
They help marketers by offering ways to communicate with the brand uniformly across the organization, potentially save opt-outs through other options of messaging, and the efforts to create a customer preference center often result in improved processes and uncover gold mines of data stored across the organization. For the customer, they can manage their messaging frequency or content and in the age of data privacy and GDPR, the means to view and manage the data that a company has on file. The effort to build a proper preference center across a large organization is significant but can lead to much higher customer satisfaction.
The four components for us to consider with email and other digital messaging are: Channel, Frequency/Cadence, Content and Brand Elements.
Channels: Offering customers multiple channels may help save an opt-out for someone who does not want to receive email or text messages any longer. You can include phone as an option as well and offer the times of day that the customer is available.
Frequency: A preference center could provide a customer with a way to reduce messaging without opting out. You may need to create a messaging strategy for each cadence, but it will be worthwhile particularly if you are emailing frequently (more than once a week.) If you can't commit to a specific day of week or time, you could offer "less" email at a frequency of 1-2X per week, or once a month.
Content and frequency often go hand in hand, as you will need to decide the hierarchy of your selections. You can start with the channel and ask for the frequency and type of message; or you can start with the message (offers, enewsletters, etc.) and then select channel and frequency.
| Compliance and User Satisfaction | ||
|---|---|---|
| Name | Preference Centers | |
| Goal | Use preference centers to avoid or deflect opt-out, give users access to profile data, provide frequency & content messaging options | |
| Personalization | Name, additional as needed | |
| Dynamic Elements | Profile information | |
Content: Giving customers some options for the type of content or products they would like to see in their email will lead to higher open and read rates. You just need to make sure you can provide the content you are promising. You will likely need to use dynamic content in your emails, so be sure you can technically handle the user's request.
Brand Elements: These are some of the best preferences from a consumer engagement perspective, because they are directly relevant to the brand experience. I’m talking about brands like Marriott asking your preference in bedding; airlines asking for aisle or window; mobile app integrations and preferences; and yes, StitchFix (a clothing subscription site) asking your body type and color preferences.
As the stage continues to be set for better engagement and getting personal with customers and privacy legislation continues, it’s easy to see that consumers and B2B companies will be looking to manage their information. Let's determine how to best leverage those moments and give consumers and companies good reasons to provide their data.
Profile data can be presented in ways that make it very easy for a user to manage their data, and even delete their profile (in accordance with GDPR.) Let’s not forget that GDPR is a landmark decision, and while it applies to European residents and citizens, versions for the US are not far behind.
07
Mobile First,Mobile Only
A few years ago, we would have been saying to get your emails mobile now! Even though in many cases, overall mobile usage may be lower than you expect (depending on your industry), the customer journey that I talked about before includes mobile viewing of your emails.
Mobile statistics have been a bit all over the place, but it's certain that people are using smart phones and they are checking their email on their phone. It’s no longer a choice as far as having mobile versions or not.
But it’s bigger than that. People haven’t just switched from computers to mobile phones, although in some parts of the US there is higher penetration of mobile phone “only” than others. The majority of digital audience in the US are functioning through multi-devices – computer, mobile phone and tablets interchangeably.
This type of multi-device behavior isn’t new, and it makes perfect sense.
| Mobile First, Mobile Only | ||
|---|---|---|
| Name | Mobile Templates | |
| Goal | Provide content for mobile devices cost effectively | |
| Personalization | Name, additional as needed | |
| Dynamic Elements | Profile information | |
| Technical Requirements | Requirements Device identification if required | |
Imagine you are at work, and you check your personal account (it’s okay, we are just imagining.) You scroll through and see an email from Kohl’s just came in and it’s a reminder to use your rewards. You remember that you were going to stop on the way home. You may open the email when you see it, but you will remember it and open it again later when you get to the store. But life interferes, you don’t get to the store, and when you open it again, you are on your laptop at home.
As an example, if the email was not mobile optimized and you couldn’t tell when the reward expired, your frustration level might result in you hitting the delete button and going on with your day.
You need to place trust in industry standards at this point. Your percentage of mobile users may not go over 50%, if that is your tipping point. The point is that you can create mobile templates that work just fine on desktop, and for whatever reason, your customers or prospects don’t hold it against you if your mobile looking email appears in their Outlook on their computer. But sending a non-optimized email to a mobile device has repercussions, with over 70% of users deleting them within 3 seconds.
I only found one or two major brands in my inbox with unoptimized emails, so I won’t call them out (you know who you are!) Just don’t forget that it doesn’t stop at the inbox; make sure resulting landing pages are also optimized. And please don’t just repeat your email content onto a web page as the landing page (not sure how that got started, but it needs to stop – your web version is not your destination!).
Since we are talking about mobile, let’s talk about a pet peeve of mine. I am an app user and have an iPhone full of them. I like the user experience on a great app and find it to be the best way to manage my shopping and other activities. Please don’t send out emails asking me to download a mobile app that I already have, especially when I have registered it or using the same sign-on as the web site. It says to me that the brand doesn’t know me at all, and they are just sending out blanket emails. If you don’t have the app data, then see if you can get it and dedupe your list. I realize sometimes it’s a standard footer in an email, but many marketers spend out special emails for this purpose and those are the ones that I hate to see
08
Inactives:Reactivate or Retire
How old is your email database? If it is more than a year old, this section is for you. Next question: do you manage your inactive subscribers? If no, this is most certainly for you!
An inactive subscriber is one that is either ignoring, deleting (without opening) or moving your emails to another folder (hopefully not spam) automatically without opening. They don’t open, they don’t click, and they don’t unsubscribe.
What are the reasons people don’t open emails? The list is long and here are a few:
- Sender name is suspect (sudden changes by marketers, especially to unknown people’s name)
- Confusing subject lines, which assumes they read it
- Same old subject line, nothing new here
- Too many emails, enough already!
- Bad timing, away on vacation or taking a break from the internet
- Bought something as a gift and signed up for emails for a discount, but never opted back out and not interested personally in the content
- Similarly, got an awesome deal from you as a one-time purchase, but weren’t that interested in your brand
- Something has changed in their lives and they don’t need your content anymore; for example, they sold that shiny car, or that boat, or had a baby and won’t be taking any big vacation anytime soon; you get the drift.
- Switched providers of the service you offer, but haven’t bothered to opt-out
| Inactives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Name | Reactivate or Retire | |
| Goal | Clean your list and send to active subscribers | |
| Technical Requirements | Email verification, database access (some data pulls involved) | |
You might wonder why people don’t opt out if they aren’t opening. I know it’s keeping you up at night. They become what I call “serial inactives”:
- Still a customer, but don’t need anything from you right now
- Not a customer anymore, haven’t bothered to unsubscribe (you mean I can stop getting these things?)
- Still a customer, subscribed to SMS for now or getting Web notifications
- Still a customer, using the mobile app, might go back to emails
- Still a customer, rainy days do come when I might open all my emails
- I automatically move them in another folder that I don’t open unless I need something from you
Many of the reasons above for serial inactives are probably tempting you to keep those subscribers (except "not a customer anymore", they can go.) There is but one problem with that theory; those unopened and deleted emails are likely causing email reputation problems. Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. all want to see emails opened and clicked as a successful relationship between the subscriber and the marketer.
Anyone who is paying attention to the latest news from Gmail knows that relevant email is no joke. Gmail has implemented several user-pleasing platform updates that will help users get the most out of their Gmail accounts. The most troubling change is a prompt from Google to ask if the user wants to unsubscribe based on lack of engagement.
Companies who are actively emailing with good open and engagement rates don’t have much to worry about, but still… It’s planting a seed of doubt in the consumer’s mind. If Gmail has noticed that I don’t care about this brand anymore, maybe I don’t?
Now let’s add in the increasing frequency of spam issues that many senders are facing, and your email list could be in trouble. And for those of us who depend on that email list for revenue – or our jobs depend on it – then we may need to take some action.
The first question is what does inactive mean to you and your organization? If your products can be purchased every day and you send out frequent emails, your inactive list may look quite different than a company where a customer only buys another product every few years and they only email once or twice a month. But unfortunately, it appears to be the same filter being applied as far as what is relevant by the ISP's.
Start with Cleaning House
The first step is to make sure your list is clean. Remove all hard bounces. Then do some data cleansing if you don’t do it regularly; make sure your email addresses are properly formatted. Best practices to address this issue is to use a confirmation process when someone opts in, and don’t count them “in” until they respond.
- Emails could be auto-directed to another inbox and never seen
- Emails could be delivered to an abandoned email address, that has been taken over by an Internet Service Provider to try and catch spammers (called a “spam trap”), which impacts your ability to send to the rest of your list
- Emails could have been moved to the spam box by the user, and never seen
Segment Based on Recency of Opens
Depending on your list size and length of time in business, start with separating out everyone who has not responded in two years (if you don’t sell items frequently to the same consumer); one year for more frequent purchases. You may want to look at some additional click data; look for people who were previously very engaged but dropped off. You will probably want to remove everyone else from your active list entirely (I told you it might hurt.) The previously very engaged subscribers might be worth trying to save (see the next paragraph).
Now let’s create another segment of people who have not responded in less than one year and more than six months for frequent purchases; less than two years and more than one year for infrequent purchases. These folks are worth saving, so create a re-engagement campaign for them. Your intent is to get them to open so that you know they want to stay on the list. You can even ask them in the email, and you can entice them with an offer in the subject line as well (if that makes sense). Be sure to archive these responses as valid opt-ins.
Automate Inactive Lists
But before you send anything to anyone, do a check against your database for purchase/service data. If anyone is buying or is a current customer, just move them to a less frequent segment. You don’t want to tell them that they have been missed from your email program, as that wouldn’t make any sense. Also, look at your other channels. Are they subscribed to your SMS programs?
You should setup A/B tests for your subject lines and see what works best to re-engage them. Because the next step (automating the process) requires you to have a baseline of knowledge.
09
Automated Re-Activation
Depending on your industry and company, email opens may be an indicator of whether the customer is still engaged with the brand in a tangible way. Which means that when they stop opening, there is real risk. For example, if I don’t open Starbucks emails, it doesn’t mean that I’m not stopping for coffee tomorrow. I rely on their app as my connection to the brand. And if I don’t open all of Marriott’s emails, it doesn’t mean that I’m planning to stay anywhere else because they are my “go to” brand. Their emails don’t have much to do with that. However, I am a subscription shopper as you might have guessed, and if I stop opening my emails from StitchFix or Trunk Club, they have reason to worry as they are telling me what they would like to ship next and when. If I have been opening emails from a retailer for two months and buying, and then I stop, there is a reason to get me engaged again.
Rather than waiting for inactive subscribers to become a problem, consider creating a winback or reactivation series that kicks in at an appropriate time for your brand. It will be a shifting segment, of subscribers who fall into this category, but it should not be a manual effort to go get them re-engaged.
Automate Inactive Lists
The first step is determining your state of inactive (see the previous section for more information on that), and when someone begins to show the signs. Unopened emails are the primary concern. Subscribers who open but do not click are engaged enough to see your content, which is a different area to work on. Once you know your state of inactive, you can set a trigger series that will run every month that will pull in anyone who has not opened in the last XX days. Dedupe those users against your database, if possible, to look for anyone who purchased online or in-store, active mobile app or SMS users, etc. In other words, pull out anyone that is an active customer, just not in email.
| Automated Re-Activation | ||
|---|---|---|
| Name | Ongoing Reactivations | |
| Goal | Identify potential inactives and engage back in | |
| Number of Emails | 1-3 | |
| Personalization | Name, additional as needed | |
| Dynamic Content | Offers, content re: purchases or services | |
How Much Do You Want Them?
A subscriber is just a receiver of email to many brands. The marketing team may be judged on the number of people in the list, and depending on what you are sending out, you may not be as focused on the ROI of your emails. But if a subscriber is a customer, and you are concerned about losing them to the competition, then you need an additional data layer applied. This is particularly relevant if you are planning to use offers to entice them back.
You may want to create a model, that will help you determine the right enticement based on their purchase or activity history. You will need to determine your own customer values, of course, based on your average order or sales size. The example below is made up and shows some examples of some actions that you can take. You may want to adjust the timings and the activities. Once you implement a model like this, it will be critical to carefully monitor and track to see which offers and treatments are performing the best.
You may want to include considerations for length of time as customer, member of rewards programs, geographical implications (that might impact purchasing) and their purchasing behavior (are they frequent purchasers, one-time purchasers, only purchase at holidays, etc.)
| 1 Year CV *>$100 | 1 Year CV $101-$500 | 1 Year CV <$500 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Month, No opens | No offer, Reminder | Offer 15% | Offer 20% |
| 2 Months, No opens | No offer, Reminder | Offer 20% | Free gift w/ purchase |
| 3 Months, No opens | Offer 10% | Offer 25% | Offer 20%, free gift w/ purchase |
| After 3 months no Opens | Move to broadcast general list, once/month | Send email to update preferences, re- confirm opt-in | Send email to update preferences, re- confirm opt-in |
A great example of looking at seasonality: I tend to purchase items for holiday gifts from the same companies that I like, and I don’t purchase (or open emails) with these companies at any other time of the year. Two of these companies have understood my behavior, and only send me emails in October, November and December, and then put me on a “vacation mode”, which is really appreciated.
Engineered for Opens
Your email series should contain subject lines that are engineered for opens, and the content should not be what is being sent out to the primary list. It should be reminding them about the reasons they signed up, potentially asking about their product/service, a genuine “check-in” on the health of the relationship. The same rule of thumb applies to email as it does to overall CRM: it’s cheaper and easier to retain the customers you have then continue to get new ones.
Some general best practices on the subject lines: If you have an AI service in your ESP for subject line creation, you should leverage it. If not, consider using a third-party service like Phrasee. If you are creating your subject lines manually, then you’ll want to look for words that will get attention in a positive way.
So first let’s cover what this playbook is not:
10
Ongoing List Health and Reputation
Ongoing List Health and Reputation
Do you know how “healthy” your list is? Unfortunately, we don’t always know when our list starts going to the spam box, unless you subscribe to a service like Returnpath. And if you use an email service provider (ESP), there is no guarantee that spam monitoring is in your contract.
The signs are reduced opens and clicks and resulting traffic to your site. Unfortunately, because email that goes to spam is delivered to the subscriber, your “Delivered %” does not reflect spam. You can use some free services to find out more, through Senderscore.org, or work with your ESP or a deliverability consultant.
But the cleansing and inactives management should be put of your every day email health activities. Avoid the issues before they happen by maintaining a clean and engaged list.
View into the Spam Box (and at least one email that doesn't belong there)
Obscure but Fun Holidays
Don’t be afraid to reach into fun resources to find obscure holidays. I’m sure there is one every day! You may discover some that are relevant to your brand that will be fun for the subscriber, and often results in high engagement.
Some holidays to consider:
Here is a link to a list and I’m sure there are others as well:
https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/fun/
We will cover more about testing in our next release. But I think you all see the value of this level of planning, to make sure there is never a day you are wondering “what will we email today!”
11
Cool Kids
We all want to be one of the cool kids, don’t we? Email is cool again, with so many services and trends popping up to jazz up our messages. Animations, video, data-driven responsive emails, new features by the ISP’s; all are lining up to make things interesting for email marketers!
I put a picture of a Marriott birthday email in this eBook; you couldn’t see that the background of the email was animated beautifully. It wasn’t distracting, just confetti swirling around. Usage of animation can make emails more eye catching and improve click rates. All things in moderation though; just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should! Bad examples of animation are jerky movements that distract the user to the point that they don’t see your message. I see fewer of these now and I think marketers are getting the general idea.
Companies like Movable Ink and LiveClicker are providing tools to create customer experiences in email – through dynamic content that can change, even after someone has opened the email. Adding count down timers are particularly helpful when you have flash sales or real deadlines around response. Many of the solutions out there are elegant; look at the data-driven infographic-like images built into emails, such as the email on the right from a hotel rewards program.
Now, with artificial intelligence and machine learning, we can expect another upsurge of “cool”. Subject line generators based on data, optimized sending, the list is long. And it’s taking away some of your crazy moments handling internal and external teams! No more worrying about when is the right time to send an email, because it will be sent based on the individual’s behaviors. No more concerns about subject line testing and hearing all those voices chiming in on their opinion, because they will be generated based on performance and tested at a whole new scale. It’s an exciting time to be in email!
But here’s the thing; with all the cool stuff and even the standard things, it comes down to your strategy which revolves around two things. Your goals/objectives and your customer experience. If you are meeting those two requirements, you are already well on your way.
We are so busy today, and it seems like our jobs are part firefighter, lawyer, account manager, project manager, salesperson, and techie. One of the risks of being pulled in so many directions is not being able to take the time to reflect on what we’ve done.
When we track email performance, we tend to look at single emails or campaigns. We may hold them up as great examples when people ask and try to replicate their performance again.
Your data has a story, that goes much further than a single campaign. Looking at emails across 6 months or a year may tell a different story; rising or falling open rates on average with spikes now and then that could have distorted the view. Combined with your Web data and looking at ROI, the value of your email will become more apparent. By itself, it looks like website traffic generation. When looking at campaign performance and overall performance by groupings tied to conversion, your money makers will begin to be obvious, and help you make the case to invest in better platforms, newer technologies or bigger investments like preference centers and revamping communication plans.
Bringing in the rest of your channels to a true “big picture” story is next, which will help you understand the value of each channel as well as the impact they each have on the other.
It is indeed an interesting time to be in email marketing.
About the Author
Jeannette Kocsis is SVP, Marketing & Business Development for Netcore Solutions, Inc. She is located in New York and has over 20 years of experience in digital marketing including email. She is a long-time speaker on digital topics and has authored many articles, along with co-writing both Social Media for Dummies and Mobile Marketing for Dummies.
