As if this year wasn’t hard enough on businesses trying to keep a positive balance sheet and stay upbeat amidst the dire financial and economic predictions, now this. So what’s a retailer to do? Where can a retail marketer turn during a quarter so crucial to the company’s bottom line? The answer is email. Now, more than ever. Here are three ideas for surviving, and thriving, the Christmas crunch:

• Build an integrated marketing strategy. Use email to celebrate your printed marketing materials – celebrate what you’ve printed now; there’s no point waiting for them to be delivered to post boxes. Create an online version of your Christmas catalogues and circulars and invite your subscribers to check out what’s on offer this Christmas season. Encourage a sense of exclusivity by offering only your email subscribers a special incentive to start shopping from the online catalogue with a discount or voucher.
• Keep the lines of communication open. Email is a great way to instantly alert your customers and prospects that you’re proactively addressing their concerns about shipping and delivery delays. Email subscribers are primed to engage with your brand. They’ve purchased from you in the past or have requested to receive your email updates. Let them know you’re aware of the effects the strike may have on their brand experience, and if you are taking alternative steps to improve that, let them know. Have you expanded store shopping hours? Are you offering free in-store pickups? Do you have an order tracking functionality that updates their order status in real time? Are you offering in-time-for-Christmas delivery guarantees? Let your email subscribers know about it.
• Drive store traffic. If the crowds on the High Street are any indication, shoppers are already out in droves. Use email to promote your store events, sales and promotions. Offer vouchers that email subscribers can use in store and be sure to include a ready-to-print voucher in the email. All the subscriber needs to do is print off the email, rather than write down or remember a special promotion code or click to a landing page to get a print-ready format. Use the data you collected during the sign-up process to make your store promotions even more relevant. If you have subscribers’ post codes, feature their local store’s postal address and hours of business in the email. Consider hosting a special after-hours makeover session or festive cocktail party for your loyalty credit card customers or frequent buyers, and send these coveted invitations by email.
• Spread the word. Email is a fantastic channel for viral marketing efforts and the Christmas season is a great time of year to send an interactive game or quiz that subscribers can pass along and share with friends and family, thereby expanding your brand footprint with each forwarded message. Have a social media presence? Use your email messages to feature links to your pages and invite subscribers to become fans or followers. Encourage social media activity with exclusive prize draws or games only accessible through your network pages.

Now, more than ever, email is the channel to turn to for ROI, branding and relationship building. There’s never been a better time to press “send”.

Don’t forget that we’d also like to see you in the real world at the first of our four Email Customer Lifecycle seminars. On November 10, we will be addressing tactics for growing your lists with active and engaged subscribers. Tickets are going fast for this free morning seminar in central London. To guarantee your seat today, please make your booking here.

Also, now is your chance to take part in fast.MAP/DMA’s 2009 Marketing GAP study. This vital piece of research measures the gulf between what consumers think of marketing messages and what marketers think they think. Sounds confusing? Well it’s not, and if you take part then you’ll be entered into a prize draw to win £250 for your favourite charity. To start this short survey, please click here.

Our articles this month include:

Postal strike – good or bad news for email marketing? Simon Bowker

Research from my inbox…James Bunting

Free email marketing deliverability advice – when to use ‘FREE’ Chris Combemale

Campaigns we like – Firebox denise cox

How? That’s the subject of an article in published the latest edition of Email-Worx our weekly newsletter, on the phenomenon known as the Nudge Effect.  At Alchemy Worx we have spent the last 12 months or so looking at what we as email marketers can learn from behavioural economic theory in general and more specifically how behavioural architectural techniques – the Nudge Effect can be utilized to drive sales both on and offline.  

What is the Nudge Effect?

Essentially it’s a way of influencing people’s behaviour without telling them specifically what to do. You may be frustrated with unopened emails and low click-through rates, but be reassured that even if your subscribers don’t open your email, its presence in their inbox leads to a tangible impact on brand awareness and sales via online and other channels.

The complete article which includes a short video clip is definitely worth a read and covers the following:

• Why the Nudge Effect works for email marketers
• How to make an unopened email sell
• How to optimise your emails for the Nudge effect
• How to tell if your unopened emails are impacting sales or conversions in other channels

» Find out how to create emails that sell – whether they are opened or not.

Additional research

For an amusing and thought provoking insight into how the Nudge Effect works in daily life, watch this video from the entertainer and master of suggestion, Derren Brown.

You can also learn more about the Nudge Effect from the book that explored it in detail – Nudge: Improving Decisions About, Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein. Buy it from Amazon.co.uk

Although the busy period may start in late November, customers are already starting to think about what to buy well in advance. Email is a great way to remind them about products and services that are perfect to put under the Christmas tree. But first, in order to sow the seeds for these emails, you need to have a good list!

As an early Christmas gift to all our email marketers, the DMA has partnered with Pure360 to offer a FREE List Growth Email Marketing event to get you started and make your campaigns successful for the holiday season. With an increase in site visits and click through rates throughout December, list growth and capturing good quality data is vital.

Find out how to grow your opt-in list size from the founder of the Email Experience Council Jeanniey Mullen; gain insight into a case study on how Europe’s largest ticket exchange Seatwave built their database; and make sure all your permissions are legal with email legal expert Stephen Groom at our next free event.

Availability is limited and seats are going fast, so make sure you book today!

This week we’re looking at External Monitoring and Strategic metrics:

External Monitoring

1. Authentication

Definition: A process that verifies an email sender’s identity.

2. Deliverability

Definition: Volumes of e-mails sent less the number of bounces received.

Things to take into consideration: Deliveribility is a big issue, it is also important to deal with the emails that aren’t deliver so you keep your list clean.  It is important to note that this is a measure of which emails were accepted by the ISPs and NOT a measure of emails that reached the inbox.

3. Hard Bounce

Definition: Where the recipient does not see the e-mail due to invalid e-mail addresses, domain failure, ISP blocked etc.

Things to take into consideration: A high hard bounce rate often indicates poor data quality.  Ensure that you remove all of the email addresses that hard bounced immediately and look at your data collection processes to ensure only good data is collected in the future.

4. Soft Bounce

Definition: Emails that suffer from  a temporary delivery problem such as inbox full, server down, etc..

Things to take into consideration: A high soft bounce rate can often indicate problems with e-mail delivery where the ISP is not letting an email through becuase of temporary technical problems, becuase you have received  high level of complaint rates or becuase you are sending messages to them too quickly.

5. Soft Bounce Rate

Definition: The number of soft bounces divided by the number of e-mails delivered (as a %).

6. Frequency

Definition: How often you are emailing each person in your database i.e. some recipients may have a frequency of once a week, whereas others are one every month.

Strategic

7. Lifetime Value of Purchases

Definition: The same as above but based on the first action within a short period of time from when the email was sent.

8. Lifetime Value of Visitors

Definition: Not every visitor purchases on their first visit. They may visit other sites, research the product or service then come back directly to the site. The offer may not be relevant at that time, so they might visit the site and interact at a later date. By being able to apply a wider lifetime visitor value, a more accurate value of the visitors can be ascertained. It is advisable to deduct the people who unsubscribe from this analysis.

9. Purchase Rate (average value)

Definition: This looks at the average value of the first purchase (compared to company average first order value).

Things to take into consideration: This is needed if the offer is driven by a reduced/loss leader offer to ensure that the campaign is not attracting people with a lower value. It should be used with monitoring of lifetime value to ensure the right target audience is being attracted.

10. Reach

Definition: Data users can calculate the reach of their e-mail marketing campaigns over time by calculating the number of unique openers or clickers over the period in question, e.g. 75% of the list opened at least one mailing in the last quarter.

Things to take into consideration: This metric gives a good indication of how your emails are performing across your database as a whole.

So that’s part 4. We look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Jonathan Burston

CACI & Legal and Best Practice Hub

Typically, A/B split testing is done by isolating two small groups of around 5% of your list and sending them two different creative’s, subject lines or offers. Both campaigns are left until they have generated enough response  in the form of opens, clicks or sales to be statistically representative (this generally takes less than six hours). The best performing creative or subject line is then sent to the rest of the list.  Surely nothing could be simpler?

At Alchemy Worx we’ve found that the best performing cell in the first few hours rarely ends up in the lead at the end of the campaign. So there is a real danger that the version you select will not perform as well as the version you reject! In email split testing, patience really is a virtue.

It’s simple: the longer you leave your analysis, the better your results will be. The people on your list that respond fastest are often not representative of the whole list.

Our advice is to resist the urge to act to soon, no matter how much better the initial response for one version appears to be. Hold off for as long as you can, several days as a minimum – a week if possible and you’ll find email split testing really comes into its own as a device for marketers.

If you would like learn more here is a free guide to A/B split test for email marketers published by Alchemy Worx

The 2008 survey revealed some unexpected consumer trends and illuminated some glaring marketer misconceptions.

The survey should take no more than 20 minutes to complete. As a thank you, fast.MAP will enter you into a £250 prize draw to benefit the charity of your choice. The report will also be available to download for those that take part.

Please click here to start the survey.

For any questions please contact Ross Caddy 020 7291 3383 or ross.caddy@dma.org.uk

This series of events is designed for marketers looking for information about how to take their email programmes to the next level – from ordinary to extraordinary. Explore the different stages in the customer lifecycle and learn how to improve your ROI.

Part one: List growth, 10 November 2009
Growing the file with active and engaged subscribers.

Part two: Conversion, 3 March 2010
Earning the open and click, and driving channel revenue.

Part three: Engagement and retention, 7 June 2010
Providing subscribers with relevant and useful content so that they anticipate and interact with the marketer’s email messages, regardless of whether or not they are in-market to make a purchase.

Part four: Winback, 27 September 2010
Bringing unresponsive subscribers back into the fold and removing those that have no intention of reengaging with the programme.

Who Should Attend?
Email marketers who are looking to build on the knowledge they already use and implement daily.

•    Marketing managers and directors
•    Business development managers and directors
•    Campaign and account managers and directors

Date: Tuesday 10 November 2009
Time: 8.00am – 11.00am
Venue: Central London
Cost: Free

PROGRAMME
8.00    Registration and coffee
8.30    Welcome and introduction
Richard Gibson, Channel Relationship Manager, UK, Return Path
8.40    Keynote address: The World According To Email Marketing
Jeanniey Mullen, Global EVP and CMO at Zinio and VIV Magazine, Founder and Executive Chairman at Email Experience Council
9.20    Case study
Marc Munier, Commercial Director, Pure360
9.50    Get your legal permissions right at the start
Stephen Groom, Head of Marketing and Privacy Law, Osborne Clarke
10.20    Q&A
10.50    Closing comments
11.00    Close of seminar

HOW TO BOOK

Online:    Follow this link to book online.
Email:    catherine.gibbon@dma.org.uk
Phone:    Catherine Gibbon on 020 7291 3355

As part of our anniversary celebration, we also have included our four most read articles during this period which have been written by some of email marketing’s leading experts: Dela Quist, Bill McCloskey, Jeanniey Mullen and Stephanie Miller.

Recently we held our inaugural B2B email conference. One of the speakers, Tamara Gielen, said: “it was the best email events I attended in a long while”. You can read all the tweets from the conference at #DMAEMC or you can find a synopsis of them here.

Our next conference is on 10 November. It is the first of a four-part breakfast briefing series on advanced email marketing and it is addressing list growth. Sponsored by Pure360 and with keynote speaker Jeanniey Mullen of the EEC, it is sure to be a great event.

Our articles this month:

Three years on and still going strong – Mark Brownlow

Subject lines – length does matter – Dela Quist
First published in July 08

The true secret of successful email marketing – Bill McCloskey
First published in October 08

Does it take 90 days to master email marketing? – Jeanniey Mullen
First published in January 09

Not just “talking ’bout” your rep-rep-reputation – Stephanie Miller
First published in March 08

View the full issue of October’s Infobox

1. Conversion rate

Definition: Clicks on a particular link within the email divided by the total clicks.

Things to take into consideration: The number of ‘take-ups’ resulting from the e-mail activity e.g. the number of credit cards or personal loans offered as a result of the e-mail. Only includes data that is clearly based on known responses to e-mails.

2. Hard Bounce Rate

Definition: The number of hard bounces divided by the number of e-mails delivered (as a %).

Things to take into consideration: Hard bounces are e-mails which are no longer in use. These need to be removed from any future campaigns. There is no benefit in sending e-mails to an address no longer in use and there is likely to be a negative impact on deliverability.

3. Increase in Web Traffic During Effective Period of Campaign

Definition: Lift in web traffic over the established benchmark.

Things to take into consideration: It is important to monitor the number of direct visits to the website during and just after the campaign is sent to account for the individuals who do not click but enter directly into the site.

4. Link Click-through Rate

Definition: Clicks on a particular link within the email divided by the total clicks.

Things to take into consideration: This can be used to see which links are most popular with the recipients, and can be used to gauge how to further target users when sending future e-mails, and where to concentrate efforts in future campaigns.

5. Opt-out

Definition: When a recipient unsubscribes or opts-out of further communications.

6. Opt-out Rate

Definition: The number of opt-outs/unsubscribes divided by the number of e-mails delivered (as a %).

7. Refer a friend rate

Definition: The number of people who request that the email be forwarded divided by the number of emails delivered.

Things to take into consideration: Refer to DMA best practice on refer a friend. Don’t inappropriately incentivize people to forward it on. Make sure it is a one off email clearly stating why the individual has received it, giving them the option to opt in or engage with you but do not follow up if they don’t.

8. Response Rate

Definition: The number of responses including clicks, email replies, increased web traffic, store visits or call to the call centre divided by the number of emails delivered.

9. Sign-up Rate

Definition: How many people sign up to receive future communications from the company.

Things to take into consideration: It is important to make this an option that users can find easily.

10. Unique Click to Open Rate

Definition: This metric attempts to answer the question, “Of the Unique e-mail Opens, how many individuals took an action?” It is calculated as Unique Click-through over Unique e-mail Opens.

So that’s part 3. We look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Jonathan Burston, CACI & Legal and Best Practice Hub