The Email Marketing timeline
It’s been 42 years since Ray Tomlinson sent the first ever email. The history of email itself is one thing, but the evolution of email marketing is quite another. Over the past 42 years, email (the ability to send messages through a network) has evolved into one of the most cost effective forms of direct marketing. Not only is the method fast and cheap, but it has opened the door to how marketers can monitor and react to consumer behaviour in a way that was never previously possible.
This blog post provides the history to email marketing along with an Infographic below. How far back do you remember?
Timeline for email marketing
Billed as the 'Father of Spam' Gary Thuerk, a Marketing Manager at Digital Equipment Corp started the ball rolling for commercial email by sending the first mass emailing. (Ok, it was only a few hundred but in those…
Examples of Email campaigns designed to maximise ROI
2012 has proven that email is very much still king; achieving the highest ROI compared to any other channel, as well as the following impressive stats from DC Financial Insights, 2012.
77% of customers prefer to receive permission-based promotions via email
Only 6% of customers preferring these messages via social media
ROI of 3000% achieved through email in 2012
With a great strategy you can expect this to grow into 2013!. In this blog we will look at six key strategies for successful email marketing, illustrated by brands such as Topshop, Tetley, Cosmopolitan and innocent drinks.
6 Key Tips for maximising your email campaigns
1. Realise the importance of good data
Implications of sending to old or non-opted-in data should always be in a marketers mind. Spamhaus monitor senders and have the ability to block IPs with ISPs so…
Email marketers still see much room for improvement, but not all optimization needs may be critical
As Benjamin Franklin no doubt mentioned, "...nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes (and email ROI)."
Of the 1300+ marketers surveyed for the latest Econsultancy/Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census, 66% said email marketing delivered "excellent" or "good" ROI. Only organic SEO was reported as a better in terms of ROI.
This result continues a history of email ROI success that has outlasted every sparkly new online marketing toy.
The census results also echo the UK DMA’s recent National Email Client Report, where 89% said email marketing is "important" or "very important" to their organization. The same report found the average return on each pound spent on email was £21.48:
How much is the approximate return you get back for every pound spent on email marketing?
…
The value of setting, meeting and changing subscriber expectations
If at first you don't succeed, lower your expectations... It's the secret to a happy life.
And one of the (seemingly hundreds) of secrets to email marketing success is guiding and accounting for subscriber expectations.
A problem here is that marketers and customers are not always on the same page.
A recent survey by RegReady, for example, found that 80% of consumers felt very strongly that making a purchase does not constitute permission to market to them via email. Yet 47% of marketers were sending emails to purchasers without this permission.
Marketers and consumers are "digitally different". Research by ExactTarget discovered, for example, that 61% of marketers follow at least one brand on Twitter, but only 12% of consumers do so.
We live in a different world and our understanding of consumers is…
No pain. No gain... Take time out to create an effective contact management plan
From working in different sizes of organisations, it is clear that ‘Contact Management Strategy’ is still an unmet aspiration, often accompanied by other buzzwords like ‘Channel Strategy”, “Multi-Channel Strategy” and “Customer Journey Mapping”.
Why solid contact management plans are needed
From what I see, it’s questionable if the planning or implementation of contact management is as effective it could or should be across many organisations. It seems that while the need is recognised, time is not set aside to create a contact management plan, integrated across customer touchpoints. In this post, I'll reference what is needed, that is, to create a framework and planning tool to plan and roll-out the communication strategy, aligned to the business goals which may include conversion, gaining more customer…
Webcasts from the Smart Insights Digital Marketing Priorities 2013 summit
At our recent free summit many viewers asked to share the slide and recordings, so to collect them together we have a short series of posts to point you in the right direction. These is one for each of the topics covering each of Reach, Act and Convert and Engage in the Smart Insights PRACE digital strategy framework:
The full series of posts covering all eight webcasts are:
REACH audiences using SEO, Social media and content marketing
InterACT with audiences on mobile platforms and for B2B audiences.
CONVERT visitors using persuasive design and CRO.
ENGAGE customers through content and email marketing.
You can view all recordings here.
The two webinars focusing on engaging customers and encouraging advocacy were:
1. Content Marketing priorities for 2013 with Dan Bosomworth of Smart Insights and First 10
Dan Bosomworth MD of First 10 discussed…
3 Gems from Mark Brownlow
In the first of the 3 Gems video series from Plan to Engage, I interviewed Mark Brownlow, author of Email-Marketing-Reports.com. Both Mark and I had recently presented in Stockholm at Apsis’ customer conference and I was very impressed by all the valuable content he shared within his session on “Email Marketing Trends for 2012”.
So in this interview I asked Mark to share 3 Gems from this session. In a nutshell they are:
Design your mobile emails to be easily clickable.
Understand why you are integrating email with social – don’t do it just because you think you should.
Optimise your current triggered email programme before adding new triggers to your programme.
For more valuable insights from email marketing experts, join us at the virtual International Email Marketing Summit on November 15th – held at Your Desk.
I hope that's useful, here is the …
New survey shows that clicks are only one part of the story
Email marketing enjoys a solid reputation as a direct response channel. Which is one reason email marketing metrics tend to focus on just that: the direct response questions:
"Did they open? Did they click?"
We congratulate ourselves when we go "beyond the click" and measure conversions, revenues and profits. And we're understandably excited about new metrics like read and print rates.
All these numbers have important roles to play. But their availability seduces us into forgetting they do not capture all the important responses to email.
The UK DMA, fast.MAP and Alchemy Worx just released the 2012 Email Tracking Study, which looks at the self-reported inbox and social habits of just over 1,000 UK consumers.
New update: Infographic released:
"In this post I share some survey data and explore the implications of email marketing “beyond the open”...showing how consumers really…
Presenting content based on sensory preferences in your email campaigns
We all have our preferred way of communicating: some people prefer to talk, some prefer to write, others prefer to touch or being hands-on. I remember when I was training to be a Primary Teacher, we learn't how young children learned by touch – hence all the tactile based exercises you did in your first few years at school.
Furthermore, I used to observe the children’s reactions when sitting down to read them a story, they would all clamber in close hoping to be able to touch the fabric on my dress or skirt. On the days that I wore silky soft fabric, I noted that I always received a lot more ‘you look beautiful today Miss’ comments from my lovely little six year olds. So, taking a note or two from the four main learning styles, which are used by presenters,…
Getting campaign timing right to boost your email open and clickthrough rates
GetResponse analysed over 21 million email messages sent by US companies in the 1st quarter of 2012, and the results clearly demonstrated the optimum times for open and click-through rates for email campaigns. The infographic below provides clear evidence of when to schedule your email campaigns to improve engagement:
One of the most important conclusions is that sending newsletters during readers’ top engagement times of 8 a.m. – 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. – 4 p.m. can increase their average open rates and CTR by 6%
Be careful! You also need to consider time zone differences, subscribers daily routines and other best practices for email marketing.
Highlights of the research:
Emails have the best results within the 1st hour after delivery. This…
