Email has provided a cost-effective and expeditious vehicle to communicate with customers. The cost per contact may be the driving force behind the temptation to use email as a mass communications vehicle. It appears there is a complete abandonment of response principles that can increase the effectiveness of emails.
I have a hypothesis as to why so many email marketing programs are either not meeting expectations or even considered a failure. My hypothesis is that there is an overuse of email as an awareness medium, and a tendency for companies to utilize general emails.
Mass emails are quickly going to be a thing of the past. With the average user receiving more than 9,000 emails annually, mass emails are quickly going to lose complete effectiveness and as a result become obsolete.1
The reality is that many email marketing programs have the opportunity to fully leverage response marketing principles. Email is a targeted medium and applying proven response principles ensures the chance for generating click-through behavior. Are marketers deliberately ignoring these response and direct marketing best practices in email? Or is there uncertainty as to how to apply proven response techniques to improve open, click-through, engagement and conversion metrics?
This article will discuss 6 adjustments that should be considered to better apply proven direct marketing best practices to improve email performance.
1. Utilize a limited-time offer or incentive.
One of the core principles of direct marketing is to provide a reason to act NOW. Many emails are deployed with no offer or incentive. Borrow from the proven principles of direct marketing: Utilize offers that are time-sensitive and provide reasons to act now. Attributes of an effective offer include a motivating incentive and either a limited time frame, limited availability or limited quantity of participants.
More often than not, offers and targeting will define the success or failure of a marketing communications effort. Offers are one of the most critical levers that can impact click-through and conversion rates, and they can define a successful email campaign. Consider integrating an offer into your email. If you’re at all skeptical, email is the perfect medium to conduct a side-by-side test.
2. Ensure proper integration of the call-to-action.
The purpose of most emails is to get the user to the next step in the process. Successful email campaigns are often measured based on metrics such as click-through and conversion rates. These metrics are largely impacted by the effectiveness of the call-to-action to get the user to the next step.
Calls-to-action should be delivered in more than one format in email. It is critical to use both links and buttons in email marketing. Don’t rely on only one of these techniques, as users don’t all respond to these devices exactly the same way.
It’s also essential to test different button colors and be sure you deliver the optimal way for a user to respond. Direct marketing best practices were predicated on testing and then applying those learnings to future efforts. Testing how to present the call-to-action and the number of times to deliver a call-to-action tends to be a fairly low-cost way to achieve tremendous learnings.
3. Don’t forget expiration dates.
One of the fundamental proven direct marketing best practices is to provide an expiration date. Why would someone act now when procrastinating is so much easier? Email marketing simply doesn’t take advantage of expiration dates enough.
I recently went through a sample of my email to determine how many emails actually provided an expiration date. I found that less than a third of the emails included an expiration date out of about 50 emails. Many included copy such as, “time is running out,” but no date. People don’t really believe marketers unless we give them context, and in this example a real date.
Imagine someone emails you and asks, “Can you get that report done?” You’re thinking, I can get that done, but when do you need it by, right? This is a real-life example that highlights the importance of expiration dates. Due dates are important, and in response marketing they ensure the recipients knows when they need to take action by or there is a chance they might not be able to take advantage of that offer.
4. Don’t assume everyone wants to respond online.
Everyone wants to respond online to emails; after all, it is an electronic medium, right? WRONG. Digital media has reinforced that users want options. They are accustomed to having alternatives on how they want to respond. Yes, the majority of responders are going to respond online to email, but don’t limit your results.
I’d argue that digital media has set an expectation for immediate gratification. Users expect to have the answers to their questions and the ability to move forward with a process quickly and easily. The direct marketing best practice calls for providing users with several methods to respond. Our recommendation: Give people a phone number, just in case.
5. Don’t assume people can’t read.
Yes, I prefer two-sentence emails as well, but the reality is that when you are asking people to spend money, or make a purchase decision, they might need more information. Traditional direct marketing best practices call for providing all information necessary to make a decision. This is not a good rule of thumb for email, though. Email should be shorter.
The direct marketing best practice that does apply to email, however, is to provide the user with information two ways. The content should include full content in paragraph form in the body, with key bullets called out in either the right-hand column or within the body copy. This allows the audience to read the content however they prefer, i.e., in-depth or by scanning. Or consider use of photography and copy, again telling the story in two different ways.
The key net takeaway is that people don’t all consume information identically. Web usability studies demonstrate that people don’t actually read everything top to bottom. The idea of providing information in two ways really plays into this behavior and can lead to greater success in email marketing campaigns.
6. Don’t assume everyone is alike.
The average person gets 9,000 emails a year, and that number is conservative for many of us. Digital media has increased the number of messages that inundate prospects and customers, further underscoring the need for relevancy and personalization.
Email relevancy is the only hope email marketers have to get users’ attention and their response. This year, J&C conducted several communication preference research studies. And we have universally found that customers prefer and have come to expect personalized communications.
This, however, isn’t a surprising finding. A direct marketing best practice is to utilize segmentation, targeting and personalization to deliver relevancy. Email is an extremely cost-effective medium for delivering tailored messages. To ensure you aren’t just sending out mass emails, embrace this proven direct marketing best practice, which always demonstrates an improvement in response. Tailoring and personalizing emails is likely to lead to more successful email marketing campaigns.
Mobile optimization of emails is another reason that email programs may be failing. Although this topic is beyond applying direct marketing best practices to deliver successful email campaigns, it is a key consideration and worth a mention. Check out our article on mobile-optimizing email for more details.
Direct marketing best practices are being significantly underutilized by email marketers. In reality, the same core direct marketing best practices that apply to direct mail can be leveraged across a number of different channels, especially email. To learn more proven ways to enhance the effectiveness of your email marketing programs, sign up for J&C’s email marketing assessment.
1. Lyris
Topics: Email Marketing
