Correlation vs causation in an email

Did you know… that global warming is caused by a decrease in the number of pirates in the ocean? That’s what the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster believe! Just look at the ‘proof’ – as the number of pirates decreased, the global average temperature has increased! This is a silly example but the same misattributions happens in many areas of culture, science and certainly in marketing. With the availability of big data, the abundance of reporting and analysis tools, increasing time pressure and increasing importance of proving ROI; it can be easy to look at results and jump to conclusions. Seeing a correlation and assuming a causation is one of the most common examples of this.

Recognising correlations

We’re presented with correlations all the time, to the extent that people often want us to assume that one factor caused…

...and what they mean for your own emails

Email marketing has been around a while. Anything with a long history inevitably picks up its own set of truths, half-truths, beliefs, myths, best practices, rules, guidelines and even jokes. A new infographic from Alchemy Worx highlights seven myths. Here's what they look like, followed by my quick review of the practical implications for your own email efforts.

My take on these myths... Yours?

As you might expect, there are plenty of nuances when it comes to analysing the implications of these myths, but here is one simple takeaway to go with each.

Myth 1: Consumers are drowning in emails from trusted brands

If people aren't getting that much brand email, then getting a piece of that inbox pie is critical. Are you making special efforts to promote your list to those who already have a good (customer)…

New survey challenges the myths about consumer email relevancy

Each year, the UK's DMA, fast.MAP and Alchemy Worx produce the Email Tracking Report, covering email attitudes and email-related behaviours among consumers.

The 2013 survey results challenge a few myths about consumer inboxes. For example, of those signed up to at least some mail from brands, almost half of consumers (48%) get less than three a day on average.

Below the report's infographic from the DMA I will look at some specific charts around email relevancy, which have some surprises! I wrote the summary and commentary for the survey so I can recommend some of the most useful data points.

How relevant are marketing emails?

One of the many messages of the report is that consumers distinguish between "marketing mails" in general and the marketing mails they actually get. Putting it simplistically, ask people if they like emails…

Slides, videos, white papers, design galleries, articles and more (+ five quick tips)

Q4...one number and a letter that has heart racing at retailers everywhere... There are lot of great sources to help you with your Christmas and year-end email efforts. In this post I have summarised what I see as the best of the bunch to help your planning & preparation, strategies & tactics, and email design. (Be sure to read through to the end for some quick bonus tips, too.)

Preparation and planning:

Useful articles and white papers: 19 holiday email planning tips A month-by-month guide to holiday marketing success Email marketing holiday planning calendar from ExactTarget and a checklist from Silverpop: [slideshare id=24996872&doc=emailmarketingholidaycalendar-130806132952-phpapp02&w=500] [slideshare id=5390145&doc=holidayemailmarketingchecklist-101008004627-phpapp01&w=500]

Strategies and tactics:

A selection of ideas, examples and screenshots: The retail email guide to the holiday season (from 2012) The Top 12 marketing tips for the holidays 10 holiday gift…

A review of Chad White's new book and recommendations from his webcast

Chad White's new Email Marketing Rules gives a great toolkit to help marketers systematically review all aspects of their email programmes. I love its simplicity, with focused advice given throughout using short tips covering all the key issues that matter in Email Marketing. Altogether there are over 100 Rules or key best practices that can be easily reviewed. The Rules are grouped within different areas that matter to performance from the fundamentals like Permission, List-building and Deliverability into best practice guidance on content, design and targeting plus more advanced topics like behavioural emails. This slide deck from our recent webcast examples some of the main best practices we covered: In the webcast, Chad used examples to show how to improve all aspects of email marketing from Welcome Emails through Defensive Design and Enewsletters to…

3 examples of integrating social media and email lead generation from small and medium businesses

Many businesses are wondering what they’re really getting from the time they spend marketing on Facebook and, more importantly, how they can turn their hard-earned fans into customers. To support the integration between social media and email marketing, Constant Contact created a tool, Social Campaigns, specifically designed to make it easy to get measurable results from Facebook marketing. With Social Campaigns, businesses can offer current and potential fans something special, such as exclusive content like prize draws or discounts that help grow their fanbase and generate sales, leads, brand awareness, and social word-of-mouth. The tool integrates with email to help capture email leads too. Dave Chaffey of Smart Insights asked me to share the examples since they show how Social and Email marketing can be used for Permission Marketing today using our tool or others. Editor's…

Review your Email creative against 60 leading brands

Value: [rating=4] Recommended link: DotMailer Email Marketing Intelligence Report.

Webcast

21 tactics to make your email templates more effective based on examples from the report were also featured in this webcast with Skip Fidura of dotMailer which we hosted. 21 Smart Email marketing Tactics from Smart Insights Free webcast 21 Smart Email Tactics You Can Use Today

Our commentary on the Email Marketing Intelligence Report

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10 permission marketing principles and campaign examples integrating web, email and social media marketing

It is now nearly 15 years since Seth Godin launched his permission marketing mantra. Yet it remains highly relevant - I still recommend newcomers to online marketing download and read his permission marketing principles.

But how does permission marketing apply today? In this post I show examples of how digital marketers today are applying Permission marketing principles  to their email marketing and social media marketing activities today.

In his book, Godin explains the principles of using permission marketing both in the offline world and online world, but he doesn't describe in detail how to best achieve permission marketing using web and e-mail.

For each of the core principles of permission marketing, I identify, define and illustrate my principles of ‘e-permission marketing’ which show how web,social, e-mail and offline communications can be…

Examples from testing the best time of day for email broadcast in different sectors

Sending emails at the right time to reach your subscribers when they are actively using their email will affect overall campaign response. Given the ongoing interest in this topic I've updated this post based on some of latest research from Pure360 where they looked at emails from 40,000 different campaign the last year from 150 of their clients (900 million email delivered). As you would expect the best time varies by sector, but they do recommend a best time for consumer emails:  'In fact, the best time to send an email is now during the ‘Post Work Peak’, as people are finishing up at work and heading home. Over a quarter (26%) of marketing emails that are sent in the most successful hour, 5pm to 6pm, are opened, which is 9% above average. '

Optimal time to send your email by…

How well do you manage your email marketing?

I recently completed the 2013 update to the 80 page Smart Insights ‘Seven Steps to Success’ Guide on Email Marketing. As part of updating the guide I was looking to highlight best practices for email marketing. Thinking through the mistakes or omission that are often made in email programmes is one way to define the best practices, so I thought it would be helpful to pick out ten of the common gaps and errors. I have focused particularly on strategic issues that are less commonly talked about, but nevertheless I encounter fairly often in my consulting work and are most important to the success of the programme. Mistake 1. Not setting long-term Email-specific goals. Measure long-term engagement using hurdle rates or open reach. This measures customers not campaigns and considers the engagement across the whole of the database rather than just customers…