The Email Wars

I will be posting some recaps from the Sherpa Summit. Flow might be a little off, but tried to hammer down as many notes as my fat fingers could bang out…

Tad Clarke does the intro, Editorial Director of Marketing Sherpa

Anne Holland and Stefan Tonrquist ( I love this presenting combo):

The Good News: The impact of email across both b2b and b2c is on the rise. It is the main driver of impact across marketing. 3600 people were surveyed on these results from a recent Sherpa Study.

List Growth: B to B 3.9%, B to C 6.0% ad Large Lists (Over 300K) 5.3%
At the same time they are losing: 2.1%, 2.9%, 3.2%
Annual growth rate: 22%, 37%, 25%

The losing rates are more of the hard bounces than they are unsubscribes.

Winning opt in campaign example from Blockbuster Video shown.

Interesting that 39% of Sherpa opt ins sign up for the co-reg on the Thank you page of their own site.

Marketing Sherpa did a test of opting in to all the 435 websites of attendees. AUDIT
15% of show attendees offered sign up on home page
18% offered it on a form on the secondary page
42% used a link on a page to drive to subscribe
25% - NO mention on the home page
They feel that not having it on the home page, even a small form, is going to hurt list growth.

55% of sites sent a Welcome message within 72 hours.
45% of the sites that allows opt in DID not send a help or welcome at all
36% of those Welcome messages get opened SO make sure to send it as that is one that subscribers expect…..

Welcome Messages tested:

Brusnwick welcome message with a coupon on the intro was a winner

Monster.com welcome message, simple and clear, broken out in clear boxed areas worked well

Transactional Email:
Do you put marketing in there and how does it work?
How do people respond to all opt in email vs service based emails?
21% read the shipping notice/ transactional emails
But on that note from 2005 to 2007 the consumer perceptions and reactions to this type of email with marketing messages moved the individual acceptance rate to a neutral to strong acceptance reaction rate.

As long as the content was relevant it was positive.

Reputation based acceptance:
AOL 100%
Earthlink: 77%
Gmail: 100%
Hotmail: 40%
Yahoo: 80%

What this means is that ISPs are not looking at content. subject, html, images etc as much. More likely to look at who is a good mailer, uses authentication systems, spam /junk complaints low… what is this mailers reputation…

Reputation Fixes:
1. Slash your lists: Clean them up, who is “active” how can you remove/suppress or put them in a secondary list
2. Third parties and Can Spam: 72% of affiliate emails have issues with them. Your reputation is tied to all partners, third party offers, channel, etc
3. Rendering: Incorrectly rendered spam is perceived as dangerous. So this has a mental impact on your delivery and rates.

OUR Programs: From Test

Prior to the arrival of all the Summit Attendees, Marketing Sherpa subsrcibed to all of the attendees sites.. or tried in some cases.

90% No secondary touch of why you left… No attempt to re-engage at point of unsubscribe or after in notification/confirmation email.
It would be okay to ask them a few questions as WHY they are leaving. Can be on the site and not in the inbox… Think exit survey.

24% had NO unsubscribe link in the footer of newsletters

4% had the process broken - meaning that the unsub page showed Pedro instead of Michelle in the link and unsub page.

Eye tracking:
The example of the newsletter shows that the content is too much. If you can shorten the copy and they keep it simple, use images to navigate and flow the copy. The most important part I see is the USE of a button as an action item. (Why do so many people always use a text link? SHOW me where to go and what to do.

Image blocking:
Groups divided by age:
36% 18-34
48% 35-4
37% 55 and over

Copy DRIVES emails with image suppression. And IMHO drives actions period when done WRITE (sic).

Preview Pane capable:
96% in B t B - 69% use is in business - 72% of people that use it
38% in b 2 c - 27% use it in consumer - 70% of all people that can use it

The Majority of consumers are only seeing: From and subject line before they open. 73%.

Top Creative Results:
Landing Page Copy yields the highest impact 44%
AB Email Offers: 41%
Subject line Tests: 34%
Landing Page Creative: 34%
AB Emails Creative: 33%

New formula presented by Marketing Experiments Director:

Good “The Index” formula presented:

ECE=3Iq+2or+2bc+2it+ef+dr

ECE: Email Campaign Effectiveness
lq: List Quality
or: Offer Relevance
bc: Body copy
it: Intrinsic timing (send times and urgency)
ef: Envelope fields: Subject/From Lines
dr: Deliverability Rate

ORGANIZE your email campaign notes around these 7 things. If you can improve each one, you can drive higher results.