Training Marketer

You may want to take a second look at your open rates before making any changes to your email strategies. Email open rates are of limited usefulness, according to those at MarketingSherpa.

Their most recent chart shows that since 2004, email open rates have declined significantly. But, the Sherpas believe that open rates are a highly flawed metric and should be examined carefully before making any rash decisions.

How email opens are measured:
“A line of code resides within an email that asks the server to deliver a single pixel image. When that image gets served, it’s called an open. The problem? If the email client (Outlook, Yahoo! Mail , etc.) doesn’t allow the image to arrive, the open doesn’t get counted.”

With so many email clients (business and consumer) automatically blocking images, you can see why the metric can be tricky.

“Think about your own email reading patterns. How often do you read an article or scan an offer without enabling images? Probably quite often, if you’re like most recipients.”

Proceed with caution …

What do you get when you survey too often? Survey fatigue.

Those at Common Sense PR realize that “there’s a temptation to include custom measurement in every communication activity,” but marketers and public relations professionals should hold back from time to time.

In a recent Quick Tip, they advise to keep your measurement tools less noticeable than the information than you’re trying to communicate. While many customers are happy to fill out a quick survey, asking for too much can cause “survey fatigue” among those who you most want to hear from.

Lesson learned: Ask for customer feedback in the least intrusive way possible.

Example - Before sending post-purchase surveys immediately after a customer checks out, try imbedding a link in the “thank you” email. First thank the customer for their purchase and then ask politely if they would click trough to take a quick survey. It’s not intrusive and gets the job done.

Thanks to those at My Creative Team THINKing for sending out the warning about the trouble in “Email City” and sharing the new study by the Email Experience Council with us.

You have to create an account to view the report, but here’s the gist of it:

• 23% of retailers send emails that are completely unintelligible when images are blocked.
• Of the 77% of intelligible emails, there were significant variations in clarity based on their use of HTML text and alt tags.
• 42% of retailers designed emails that were a good mix of HTML text and images.
• 63% of retailers used alt tags on images adequately or extensively.

Outlook 2007 is a major technical reason for increasing deliverability problems, according to THINKing. Marketers should also be aware that the use of HTML and alt tags are large determinants of email deliverability.

Those at THINKing are working on an email marketing white paper covering the topic of technical considerations in email design that will hopefully shed some light on how to increase deliverability rates.

It is believed by some in the marketing world that consumer marketing tactics should not be mixed with business to business marketing. However, with a strategic campaign combined with the right product line, B-to-B marketing can reap exceptional results by adopting a few consumer marketing techniques and having some fun.

In a case study released this week, MarketingSherpa overturns that marketing myth and studies how B-to-C marketing can work for B-to-B marketers.

Agilent Technologies markets measurement instruments and lab supplies to scientists, with most communication focused heavily on data and detail. The company designed an online game to supplement their data-heavy marketing and saw a 13.79% conversion rate and beat revenue goals by 278%.

The company focused on these 5 steps:

Decide on a theme focused on key products

Agilent’s marketing team created a “Summer of Fun Giveaway,” featuring bright and tropical Flash animation and focused on a select group of products (syringes, vials and lamps for liquid chromatographs). The game was a simple

Visitors had to register on the site before playing the game, providing their name, company name, email address and mailing address.

Customize user experience and prize giveaway

Agilent looked at their customer database looking at product need and purchase behavior. Depending on purchase history, customers would see a certain set of products during the game.

Everyone who played the game received something. Non frequent buyers received a 15% discount code good toward a future purchase. Frequent and loyal customers received a branded beach towel or small cooler.

Set up limits

In order to not go over budget by providing too many giveaways the company set up prize limits. Only 500 prizes would be awarded and the game would only last for two months.

Use a multi-stage email promotion

The marketing team set up a strategic email campaign, hitting customers with three emails in the weeks prior and during the campaign. After the two month game period, sales representatives called customers who had won the 15% discount.

Track customer response

Tracking customers who played the game and their purchase activity with their prize discount gave the marketing team information on how to set up future campaigns.

Even scientists and researchers like to have a little fun here and there. The marketers in this case learned that mixing in some consumer marketing tactics can boost business to  business marketing efforts.

Surveys are a cost effective and quick way to gain insight on what your customers are thinking. If administered correctly, online surveys can be an invaluable business tool.

Like other emails, you can track and test online customer surveys to find out the best way to mold your marketing for your customers. You can even increase survey response rates drastically by molding your survey content correctly.

MarketingSherpa released a new “How To” last week that examines how one survey company creates powerful surveys with high response rates for their small and mid-size business customers.

Tara Zanecki, Director Online Sales Channel at Workshare Inc. boasts that in the past year, four surveys have had completion rates of up to 12% and they have an average 31% completion rate with new online purchasing customers.

With each survey, businesses find something new about their customers, according to Zanecki. Survey results can help marketing companies and small businesses develop effective email subject lines and messaging.

The survey guru shared 12 tips on broadcasting and writing customer surveys. Here are a few of the best survey tips:

Test and retest. Send the survey out to a test list to see how the email renders in different platforms. Testing surveys and having others read them over helps you catch small mistakes like typos that could be embarrassing once sent out.

Keep surveys short. Try to get the information you need in the least amount of questions. She advises no more than 20 questions for emailed customer surveys, but adds that B-to-B surveys may be longer.

Follow send best practices. The middle of the week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) is generally are the ideal days to send. If you’re sending to international customers, think about where they are. An email sent on Friday to a customer in China may be received on Saturday.

Survey the competition. Take a look at your competitors’ surveys and complete them, with an honest opinion. The more surveys you take, the more you find out what you like and don’t like.

Read the full “How To” at MarketingSherpa.

Revamping your newsletter can help you transform stale old leads into fresh new prospects. MarketingSherpa released a case study today with tips on how you can also bring your newsletter and old lists back to life.

The study followed a technology marketer in their quest to increase weak open rates and clickthroughs. What began as a challenge to improve their newsletter, turned into a complete overhaul of everything from design to content. After the process, open rates increased by 52% and clickthroughs were up 1315%.

(I’m not lying on the figures, read the full case study to find out.)

The company used a six step process to achieve the outstanding results. Here’s what they did:

1. Designed a new template. The company did away with their old, excessively busy layout and adopted a more streamlined two-column design.

2. Improved content. Instead of straight advertising, the company decided to create content that positioned their brand as a thought leader in the industry.

3. Approached old leads with caution. Some of the company’s leads were three years old. Instead of annoying any of them with a barrage of emails in their inbox, the company first tested the newsletter on a rented list that had never heard of the company before.

4. Shortened subject lines. The company standardized subject lines to 30 words or less - “Business Insights - January.”

5. Stuck to a regular schedule. They committed to send the newsletter during the last week of every month on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.

6. Used pre-populated landing pages. When a reader clicked through a link requesting a demo or information, they landed on a page with the newsletter title at the top and four fields below, partially filled in with their email address and first name.

The results:

• 52.3% increase in open rates
• 1315% increase in clickthrough rates (from 1.3% to 17.1%)
• 18.3% of clickthroughs requested a demo or meeting on the landing page
• 2% increase in overall sales

Read the full case study at MarketingSherpa.com.