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August 05, 2008
Marketing 103: Jeff Pulver's e-mail Marketing Tips
There was a time when e-mail was the primary way for people to market products and services on the Internet. While things have changed, people continue to make mistakes when executing their e-mail marketing strategy. Many new marketing professionals forget they need to extend some respect the person they are targeting.
Since 1995 I have been experimenting with and learning about e-mail marketing. The following notes are based on my on-going experience. While your own experience will vary, I have seen these techniques deliver e-mail marketing results way above anyone’s expectations.
As you plan your next e-mail marketing campaign, and to avoid making classic e-mail marketing mistakes, try following these tips:
- PRETEND you know the person you are soliciting:
Use a well formed SEND to address. If you are going to email me, make me believe it is an email from someone has me as an entry in their address book. emails sent to: jeff@pulver.com usually get much less responses than email sent to: 'Jeff Pulver <jeff@pulver.com>'.
- Always use a real FROM address:
Avoid anyone who suggests using a real name but fake FROM address. email from someone whose name I recognize becomes totally ineffective when the from address is not their real email address. If I was about to send out an email blast, Given the choice, I’d prefer to have my from address set to be: 'Jeff Pulver <jeff@pulver.com>' rather than: 'Jeff Pulver <jeff.pulver@some.mailingservice.com>.'
- Keep it PERSONAL.
email is much more effective when the email is being sent from a person who exists rather than a made up person. And yes, we can tell. Especially when it is from a company we have business with in the past.
- Avoid using e-mail Aliases as your FROM address.
Why do I want to read an email solicitation from: 'info@pulver.com' or 'SocialMediaCamp2008@pulver.com?' What I want to read is an email from a PERSON. I don’t want to guess who is the person hiding behind the aliases.
- Be ONLINE and AVAILABLE.
The sender of the email marketing campaign should be plan to be online and responding to messages as they are received from people asking questions from the email they just received. The more available the sender is, the higher the probability the success rate will be higher. Avoid going dark if you can avoid it.
- Know the BUSINESS HOURS of your Target
For the most effective email messages, send the message during the business hours of the target. Group your databases based on Geography. Send out your email in batches if necessary. When you send a message off hours, the chances are higher it will get unread.
Exception: If the person you are sending a message to is a 24/7 e-mail person, this rule does not apply. In fact, some people are most productive outside of the typical business hours for their time zone.
- Send Messages DURING the Work Week.
Personally I avoid sending messages out on Fridays whenever I can avoid it. I have had the most success sending messages Mondays to Thursdays. (related to the above point.)
- SINGLE Subject Messages
If you are looking for the subject to take action, keep the message to a single subject.
- Don’t assume the targeted person can READ the message. Sometimes a BIG problem when someone blindly sends out rich-text emails without thinking.
Triple Bonus points for people who can work some of the following points into their e-mail marketing strategy. Things to consider:
-- KNOW the DEVICE and Platform being used by the recipient to read their messages. This continues to be the BEST way to increase the chances your message will be seen in a way you intended it to be seen. The information about the default device/platform used to read e-mail can have a tremendous impact on the future effectiveness of future e-mail marketing campaigns.
And while this information is not always known, it is something you can track in your corporate marketing databases. Just ask the right questions and increase the effectiveness of future marketing campaigns.
-- Make the effort to create similar but different messages depending upon the ways your prospects are receiving messages.
If target is using a Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail account - you can generally assume they can read HTML and embedded videos. (But this assumption is broken when someone is reading their gmail account with a mobile device.)
If the target is using a wireless device like a blackberry, keep the subject to 15 characters or less and only send text in the message body. Avoid rich-text elements on blackberry messages.
Referenced Websites need to be EASY to Navigate
How many times do you find yourself trying to take an action from a message received only to discover how difficult it is to navigate a website? Too many times the destination website is too heavy with graphics and widgets and not very functional. Don’t make the effort to bring someone to a cause of action only to frustrate them when they are trying to take that action.
When your cause of action includes clicking on a URL, be sure to support Mobile Devices and Mobile Browsers
Do NOT Frustrate the person you are pitching by sending them to URLs that they can’t easily navigate to.
These days your websites to need to support Mac, PC and most Mobile Devices. No Excuses. You have no control over the device and platform your message will be received on. And not everyone has an iPhone or a Blackberry or a Palm. But your target demographic will vary. If you are only targeting an iPhone or Blackberry crowd, plan your marketing plan accordingly and deliver the best experience possible to these people.
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The Bottom line is that regardless of the fact that you are using email to do your marketing in a Web 2.0 world, remember to R-E-S-P-C-T your prospects. Make it easy for your targeted customers to read your messages and be able to act when asked to a call to action. And remember they are people first. So don’t use your marketing program to test someone’s intelligence.
These observations and this list is a work in progress. Please feel free to add to this list and share your stories for ways for making e-mail marketing more effective. And feel free to give feedback to the person soliciting you the next time you run into someone who falls in to any of the traps described above.
Tags: marketing, Web 2.0, Social Media, Jeff Pulver
Please consider leaving a comment. And feel free to find me on twitter and continue this conversation.
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Posted by jeff on August 5, 2008 04:28 PM | Permalink
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Comments
ohh wow thats nice
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Posted by: Thomas Schäfer at August 15, 2008 02:32 PM
I send out a quarterly semi-personal update to my network (just sent one to you). It's a 15 year legacy now and I thought about the mobile device issue. It'd be neat if email programs would allow you (or better your contact) to indicate their platform and OS of choice and the program would automatically modify accordingly.
By my count, I violated one, maybe 2 of the rules in my most recent update. Good advice and something to work on for the next rev. Perpetual beta, baby!
Posted by: Jeremy at August 6, 2008 07:58 PM
Just cleaned up some HTML presentation challenges. Now the text is displaying what I tried to originally write.
Posted by: Jeff Pulver at August 5, 2008 04:42 PM
@Arthur - thanks for the heads up. Great catch. I tried editing this blog post from my mobile device earlier today and came up short.
And these are general tips for email marketing, there isn't anything web 2.0 specific about it.
Posted by: Jeff Pulver at August 5, 2008 04:12 PM
This may be old fashioned of me, but I think if you can't afford to take the time to send an actual personal email (instead of short cuts that fill in the first name and such), then don't bother. People are inundated with marketing/advertising/spam and no matter how much you THINK you're coming off like roses, people don't like it.
Will it take longer to build business when you send actual individual emails that clearly aren't part of a mass mailing? Yes, but I think in the long run it's far more effective. Meanwhile you can work to build your opt-in list, which IMO is the only time you should be sending anything en masse in the first place.
The continued ignoring of this will eventually cause us all to be charged for emailing just to keep spam down. The contact barrier has become too low and few respect it.
Be different. You'll be so rare you may end up with more business.
Posted by: Zoe Winters at August 5, 2008 12:37 PM
"KEEP IT PERSONAL"
State of the art email marketing software will let you use every bit of information about the recipient and customize your message with it. One of the more effective customization techniques, (measured in open rates and click-through rates), I have experienced are: Using first names in subject lines, acknowledging past behaviour (e.g. "thank you for visiting our page featured on the last email") and gender-specific content.
Thank you Jeff for such a useful post.
Posted by: David Taboada at August 5, 2008 10:39 AM
Here's another tip that I do personally...
Depending on the size of your list you can do this yourself, or hire a VA.
Often when opting in we don't care about proper punctuation and just enter any 'ole thing.
I go thru and double check the FIRST NAME of every subscriber for capitalization. When I see an email addressed to 'donna' I know it's either an autoresponder or I'm being mass mailed. If it's 'Donna' I won't doubt it as quickly.
Call me persnickety but it does make a difference.
Donna Payne ~ The Web Coach
Posted by: Donna Payne at August 5, 2008 10:18 AM
I would add to Jeff's great advice about making sure that URLs work on mobile devices:
Web developers, especially networking sites like LinkedIn and FaceBook...get your emails coordinated with people's cookies...how many times have I received a friend request, wanted to respond affirmatively, but when I click on the link, it's like FB or LI don't know who I am, they want me to log in all over again, and the login page associated with that URL is not mobile-aware, the buttons can't be pressed from a mobile web browser. Gaaaack!
Posted by: Steven Lubetkin at August 5, 2008 10:10 AM
>>What I want to read is an email from a PERSON. I don’t want to guess who is the person hiding behind the aliases.
Yes! What is it with this? If I am networking, I expect to be communication with a human being. This silliness has now extended to Facebook messages. No thanks. I don't want to connect just to get on a mailing list.
Posted by: Lindy Asimus at August 5, 2008 10:04 AM
Jeff,
Great tips, but I would fix this line:
"As you plan your next e-mail marketing campaign, the follow are some of the classic e-mail marketing mistakes you may want to avoid:"
I think you wanted to say:
"As you plan your next e-mail marketing campaign, and to avoid making classic e-mail marketing mistakes, try following these tips:"
ahg3
Posted by: Arthur Germain at August 5, 2008 09:13 AM
Thanks for this Jeff.
"- Keep it PERSONAL. " The sweetest sound to a man's ears is the sound of his own name. .... It's so simple to personalize. ... No excuse for a limp "Dear friend" as a salutation.
If you don't have a name then use a bulletin style.
"- Know the BUSINESS HOURS of your Target" A local ski facility mails their hot weekend offers to arrive around 10AM on Thursdays. .... (Guess what the recipients' are talking about over lunch).
Regards.
Ted.
Posted by: Teddy Towncrier at August 5, 2008 08:49 AM
Those are definitely great tips, thanks for posting this.
Posted by: Johny Ho at August 5, 2008 08:31 AM
R-E-S-P-C-T ...Find Out What It Means to Me!!
Thanks for making my morning a singing one!
As one who emails and gets emails often, these are great tips.
Posted by: stephanie Frasco at August 5, 2008 08:20 AM