The Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing

Your Top Email Marketing Questions Answered

Table of Contents

Getting Started 4 36 Lifecycle Email Marketing

Email Types 6 40 Preference Centers

Measuring Success 8 42 Drip Marketing

Interview with Chris Penn 10 44 Segmentation

List Growth 14 48 Google Analytics

Email Deliverability 16 54 A/B Testing

Creative 18 58 Email Monetization

Interview with DJ Waldow 24 62 Email Marketing ROI

Mobile Design 28 66 ESP Selection Checklist

Social Media 30 68 Conclusion

2
 Introduction

Why should you read the Beginner’s In this guide, you’ll learn everything
Guide to Email Marketing? from how to get started quickly to
some more advanced topics like
According to the Direct Marketing Asso- segmentation and how to set up a
ciation, email marketing has a Return on lifecycle email marketing strategy.
Investment (ROI) of $40.56 for every dollar
spent. Are you getting that type of return? If If you ever need more help, feel free to reach
not, you may be leaving money on the table. out to us!

If you want to know whether you have great Let’s get started!
email, you can simply ask yourself the
following question; is it relevant, timely, and
personalized? If you don’t get a kick out of
your own email, why would you assume that
your readers enjoy it?

3
Getting Started

So let’s say you’re just getting started

and don’t know where to start...

1 Diagnose 2 Set Goals

Diagnose the current health of your email Take a look at your goals and see what
marketing program. you’re trying to achieve through email.
• How large and active are your lists, and Are you just trying to keep in touch with
have all of your subscribers opted in? your customers with a monthly newsletter,
• Do you know the ROI of your email send a promotional email, or is your ulti-
marketing efforts? mate goal to make your email program a
• Do you know the value of a subscriber? lead generation engine for your sales team?
• Are your templates consistent in
branding and is your copy reflective of Either way, map out your business goals
your brand? using your tool of choice and you will start
• How many people in your marketing to see a picture forming of where you want
department are dedicated to email and to be.
what can you actually handle?
Then, work backwards from there to
determine what type of email program you
should be creating.

4
 Getting Started

3 Create Structure 4 Create a Workflow 5 Start Small

Put your email programs into buckets and Establish a workflow and approval process If we were to give you only one tip, it would
create a structure to keep it all clear. internally. be to start small.

Whether you create a promotional or drip If you’re a one-man or one-woman shop, it Don’t blast a newsletter to your entire list
campaign, it really helps to have clear goals still helps to have a second pair of eyes. without seeing what works and trying to be
and plans in place well before you get to the more targeted in your approach.
design phase. Regardless of your size, you should attempt
to develop an approval process. Also, don’t overpromise, if you tell your
If you need more help, that is what we are readers to expect an email from you each
here for! Any good email service provider will week but you don’t deliver, this will affect
also have workflow features that will your reputation and credibility.
help you do this.

5
Email Types

Confirmation Emails Informational Emails

Confirmation emails communicate that Informational emails aim to educate
the provider has received their request. subscribers on topics relative to their
preference settings with the provider.
Email address verification, updates to
subscription preferences, and Examples of this are a publishing entity
unsubscribe requests are all examples sending alerts, a travel company
of this type of email. mailing member points status, or a
financial institution communicating new
mortgage rates.
 Email Types

Lifecycle Emails Transactional Emails Promotional Emails

Lifecycle emails are those that support Transactional emails are triggered Promotional emails focus on delivering
acquisition, conversion, growth, reten- events that acknowledge a business a particular offer, or set of offers that
tion, and reactivation of subscribers. deal has been completed. are relevant to a subscriber’s
preference settings.
There are numerous types of lifecycle Receipts for purchases are the most
campaigns. Common examples are: common type of transactional message. Examples of this are a travel company’s
• Opt-in Series (acquire) partnership effort with a hotel, or a
• Abandon Cart (convert) retail organization’s seasonal sale
• Welcome Series (grow) announcement.
• Birthday (retention)
• Win-back (reactivate)
Measuring Success

8
 Measuring Success

To effectively measure success, you your own trend data and looking at results
need clearly defined goals and by campaign type. For example, you may
access to the right metrics. benchmark your results for promotional
campaigns, news-letters, lifecycle programs,
Before you launch a new email program, and transactional email. Just be sure to in-
decide which metrics you’ll use. Are you clude enough data to account for seasonal-
looking to increase opens or to affect your ity, by using at least a 12-month time frame.
overall email marketing ROI?
DEFINE YOUR SUCCESS MEASURES
CALCULATE BENCHMARKS FOR ALL BEFORE LAUNCHING
PROGRAMS & SEGMENTS Whether you’re trying to simply create
An important way to measure success is to better content to increase reader engage-
compare results against benchmarks. ment or increase your lead generation
efforts via email, you’ll need to come up
Your best benchmark will be your own past with your success measures prior to
performance. Email channel averages and launching any campaigns.
industry-specific statistics can be direc-
tionally helpful. They can tell you if you’re This way, you’ll keep these objectives in
performing in the general ballpark of your mind when designing your email and be
peers. However, you’ll learn more by mining more primed for success!

9
Interview with Chris Penn

TechCocktail interviewed Chris Penn, There’s all kind of new innovations. And there’s conversation, which is really
former Director of Inbound Marke- There are ad server innovations, there are social’s main domain of expertise. These
ting at WhatCounts to discuss their ways to pull RSS feeds and blog posts in, three things work in a virtual circle.
top 5 questions on email marketing. there’s multi-variate testing in email. You have good content, you distribute to
There are many ways that people should be people, and then you have conversations
TechCocktail: What’s the biggest mistake testing and they’re not. which creates more awareness which gets
made in email marketing? more people back to the content, which
TC: For boot-strapping tech startups who gives you greater distribution, which creates
Chris Penn: I’d say the biggest mistake in have limited manpower, where do you rank more conversation.
email marketing is not testing. email marketing compared to social media
I’m constantly amazed by the number of and blogging in terms of importance? These things happen in what I like to call a
people who assume they’ve got a best virtual circle. If you do it right, it builds on
practice in place and they don’t test. CP: When it comes to the importance of itself and makes you a more powerful mar-
email, social and content creation, it’s not a keter. With few exceptions, these can be
In this day and age, it’s all about testing. linear scale of importance. It’s more like the relatively low cost to do.
Making sure you’re doing all of the things legs of a tripod. You have content, the meat They’re a lot of work, a lot of effort – you
that are experimental, that you’re finding and potatoes – the value you can provide. have to build a lot of expertise. They’re not
new and different ways to provide value to The distribution, which is email and to some going to be bank breakers like PPC is going
your community, new information to your degree social. to be or direct mail.
audience, and serving them well.

10
 Interview with Chris Penn

TC: What’s the number one piece of advice

for optimizing open rates?

CP: The number one piece of advice for

optimizing open rates is this: provide
really good content. People will look for
your email – they will spread word-of-
mouth about it.

I like to hold up the gold standard of this,

Peter Shankman’s Help A Reporter Out
(HARO), his list – which has 200,000
people or something like that – he sends
out three times a day. In the world of email
marketing, that is totally nuts, but he has
a ridiculously high open rate. Every single
version of his newsletter there’s an oppor-
tunity for you or a colleague or someone in
a related industry to get some free press.
There’s tremendous value in that.

11
Interview with Chris Penn

Every single issue of HARO – people spring That’s pretty typical of any kind of design. Test your stuff out on different devices, and
to open it, trying to beat their competitors to If it’s not channeling people to do what you see what’s going to render best. Something
replying to the journalists for the opportu- want them to do, it’s not going to perform as that is going to look great on a HDTV-sized
nity to get some free earned media. well for you. retina display MacBook is going to look real
different on a tiny iPhone or Blackberry.
So, provide really good value and people will That said, you don’t need to be creating
want to open your emails. If you provide masterpieces of art. You can if you want to A good proxy for this is to go to look at your
value that’s only so-so, then all the little and in some cases you have to if you’re a Google Analytics data.
tricks like pre-headers and subject lines design firm, but it’s not mandatory. Go under the “Visitors” tab, and look at
won’t matter as much. the operating system and display sizes that
In terms of improving your layout, design people are using. If you’ve got a significant
TC: How import a role does design play in with a multitude of devices in mind. minority of people on a phone sized display,
a newsletter? Do you have any general tips Some people are going to read on their you need to be adjusting your emails to fit
for improving one’s email layout? desktop, some people are going to read on what your web analytics are telling you that
their mobile device – their iPad. All of these your folks are visiting your website already.
CP: The role of design in a newsletter is things have different form factors.
reasonably important. It’s not as good as the
quality of the content, but it’s still important It goes back to the first question you asked
to direct people to where you want them to – the biggest mistake made in email marke-
go, what you want them to do. ting – testing.

12
 Interview with Chris Penn

TC: What’s the most important question Even in niches there’s such dramatic dif- The best advice I can give is to not worry
marketers are not asking in regards to ferences between businesses that industry about an industry standard. Worry about
email marketing? averages are pretty much worthless. making sure your metrics are improving
with each email. Every time you send an
CP: I’m going to be a bit biased on this one Think about it – if you have Golden Slacks email your open rate, conversion rate, click-
because of the company I work for – Hedge Fund and Small Little Credit Union – through, conversion should be a little bit
WhatCounts. Our tagline is “find and grow they’re both financial services but with higher. Tony Robbins calls it continuing and
your email marketing ROI”. supremely different audiences. never ending improvement. The Japanese
People are asking that question, but I think Golden Slacks is catering to the Fortune 50 call it Kaizen. If you focus on this Kaizen,
they’re asking it in the wrong context. crowd and the credit union is trying to get you will get a better newsletter. You won’t
“What’s the ROI of email?” – no the ques- grandma to take the quarters out of the jar really care what the industry average is.
tion should be “what’s the ROI of your on the kitchen counter. You’ll know that your performance and the
email?” These are really, really different audiences, results you drive are going to be much better
still financial services though. Their open over time.
I get this a lot – people love industry rates are going to be different, their
averages. They say, “What’s the industry response rates are going to be different, the So that’s the one thing that marketers
average open? Click-through? ROI?” services they offer and the value of these aren’t asking and should be: “how can
It’s hard to say this but, that’s the wrong services are going to be different. we get better over time?”
question and here’s why. You’re going to see different performances.
Click here to watch the entire interview.

13
List Growth

What about my list? Well, if your list Finally, you can rent a list, but we don’t
1 Social Sharing
is outdated or you don’t have one at recommend this due to the negative conse-
all, you have a few options. quences it can have for your reputation.
Include Share With Your Network (SWYN)
A good way to get around this is by doing a
or Share-to-Social functionality in your
You can create a re-engagement campaign dedicated send through a partner or by
email, allowing subscribers to share your
to have your current subscribers opt-in purchasing a paid advertising slot for your
emails with their social networks.
again to your email programs. syndicated content.
This way, you can remove those people who If you choose to go this route, you will still
Most email service providers offer some
are no longer interested in receiving com- need to ensure that the partner follows best
form of social SWYN functionality in their
munications from you and help to increase practices by requiring opt-ins and honoring
platforms.
your email deliverability. unsubscribes from their list.

Place them prominently above the fold for

The other option is to actively add more Here are four quick tips to help you grow
maximum effect.
people to your list by creating a newsletter your email list.
signup form on your website or including a
signup form with other marketing content
as long as it clearly states that the person
will be added to your mailing list to follow
email best practices.

14
 List Growth

2 Facebook Page Opt-In 4 An Obvious Subscribe Form

Include an opt-in form on your Facebook Put an obvious subscription form on your
fan page using Facebook Apps. website above the fold.

By offering unique content through each Ideally, make it a part of your website’s
marketing channel, you’ll encourage your design and template so that you never have
audience to want to connect with you in to remember to add the form to each page.
multiple places.

3 Ask at Online Checkout

For online transactions, ask customers if Learn More

they want to receive future emails from you Check out our eBook
at checkout. “57 Tips to Grow Your Email List” !

This is a relatively obvious tip that should be

part of your checkout process online.

15
Email Deliverability

You can write all the great content Monitor Engagement

you want and design the most These are engagement metrics to monitor:
amazing emails, but if they don’t get
into the inbox, all your efforts could Open rate Built-in platform features
be in vain. If most of your messages are deleted by the Chances are if you’re using a content-rich
recipient instantaneously (or even worse, platform and avoid embedding spam codes,
Email deliverability is definitely a science, marked as spam), chances are your list viruses, or buttons, you’re probably a legiti-
so we’d recommend you reach out to an won’t be receiving many of your emails in mate marketer. ISPs can identify this right
expert like our Delivery Team, but here are the future. off the bat by how your emails “look”:
some tips to get you started. • Do you avoid attachments?
Click-through rate (CTR) • Are your messages substantive?
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as A higher CTR is another way of signaling to • Do you avoid using copious hot-button
Yahoo! recently admitted that engagement ISPs that you are a trusted, highly regarded spam words like “FREE”?
plays a major factor in how they assess source – not only do recipients want the
delivery for bulk emailers; email marketers information you send, they further seek out These are ways that ISPs can instantly flag
must pivot their approach in order to keep other content you’ve provided. your email according to how they think
up with ISP requirements. readers will respond to receiving it.

16
 Email Deliverability

Prevent Poor Deliverability

These are actions you can take to prevent
poor deliverability:

Simple to unsubscribe Proper authentication Return Path Sender Score Certifica-

Make it very easy to unsubscribe from your ISPs like Gmail look to see if you are pro- tion
emails to avoid being marked as spam. perly authenticated using SPF. (Sender If you’re a high volume sender, Microsoft
Policy Framework verifies the sender’s IP recommends that you be enrolled (for a fee)
We recommend placing an unsubscribe address to prevent email spam by detecting in the Return Path Sender Score Certified
link at the top as well as the bottom of your email spoofing.) Email program.
email template.
Some folks have reported increased deli- If you’re a WhatCounts customer, talk to
This way, it makes it easier for people to verability with properly configured DKIM your dedicated account manager if you’d
unsubscribe and saves your reputation in (Domain Keys Identified Mail lets an orga- like to enroll, as we have a partnership with
the process. nization take responsibility for a message Return Path that makes signing up simple.
that is in transit) as well, so make sure you
have both configured and set up properly.

WhatCounts customers perform this during

their on-boarding process.

17
Creative

Creative is quite simply about engage- The Basics Once your template file is setup, it is impor-
ment and compelling the user to take Like all design projects, there are a few best tant to layout the goals of your email, and
the next step in clicking through your practices and rules that you should establish understand exactly what your creative needs
email campaign. within your template before you even start to accomplish.
designing:
With users getting more and more emails There are four questions that you should
everyday, their attention spans have • Your email width should not exceed always keep in mind when starting to design
dramatically decreased. 600 pixels. an email communication:
Staying within this width helps to 1. What do you want to tell the user?
This has increased the importance of having ensure that your message will render 2. Why should they care?
great creative that is built upon proven best correctly on desktop and mobile ESPs. 3. What do you want the user to do?
practices. 4. Where are you going to take them next?
• Design with an ESP’s 500x500 pixels
(320x480 pixels for mobile) email
preview pane in mind.
Use this as the ‘safe zone’ for all
branding, main messaging and impor-
tant links and/or calls-to-action.

18
 Creative

Content All other content should fall in line after It’s not only important to ensure that your
Now that your goals are clearly established the main message – this becomes a balan- content is well-balanced visually, but to
and you have a clear idea of the format in cing act of what content you focus on first, also give yourself a gut-check on whether
which you are designing in, it’s now time second, third, etc. and what content visually the email as a whole looks compelling and
to think about the content of the email, the competes with other messaging on the page. engaging to the user on open.
proper hierarchy and how it can be
represented in a compelling and engaging If you are having some difficulty identifying The bottom line is- does the email feel
way that resonates with the consumer. if your consumers are seeing the content enticing and does it make you want to
in the same light as you are, try this trick. engage with it? If not try these:
Examine your content and start laying Close your eyes. When you reopen them, 1. Incorporate imagery that directly
out what content is the most important, take note of the elements within your email relates to the content of the email.
and should be represented within the first that your eyes are immediately drawn to – 2. Use varying font sizes and thicknesses,
500x500 pixels of the email creative. Then now where do they go next? background colors, and design
determine what the call-to-action should elements to attract your users eye to
look like and which design elements can be Did they immediately go to the most the places you want them to focus on,
used in conjunction with the messaging to important content within the email or was it making the email easy to scan.
garner the most attention from the user on something else? Keep reworking and 3. Design with the Z-Curve in mind.
immediate impact. tweaking each element until your 4. Borrow design elements from your
immediate, secondary and tertiary focus is overall brand and brand website.
homing in on the content you want it to.

19
Creative

Best Practices Gut-Check

1 Overall Design
Once you have a strong grasp of your email
creative, content and layout, it is helpful to
□□ Keep the width of your email template
always keep a checklist of design best prac-
under 600 pixels.
tices in mind when refining and finalizing
your creative.
□□ Create a consistent experience, look &
feel between your email and the subse-
As these are general best practices, use these
quent landing page or website.
as a basis for developing your brand’s own
best practices based on information that you
□□ Design your main content for the
continually learn about how your audience
preview pane and keep main calls-to-
interacts with your email – after all not all
actions, branding and navigation
audiences are the same or react to an email
elements within the first 300 pixels of
in the same way.
the email.

20
 Creative

□□ Ensure your email looks good and is

informational with images turned on
and images turned off.

□□ Keep it short and simple.

Don’t overload your email with content.
Think of your email as a device to drive
traffic to your website – if you give
them all the information upfront, why
click-through?

□□ Include a preheader that summarizes

the content of the email and gives the
user a quick click-through opportunity
at the top of the email to get to the meat
of your message – even with images
turned off.

21
Creative

2 Brand Presence 3 Strong Calls-to-Action

□□ Is it clear who sent the message? □□ Ensure that your main call-to-action The most successful calls-to-actions are
is visible above the fold within the buttons that are designed to actually look
□□ It is important to have your logo placed preview pane for desktop emails and like a tangible button, with a strong short
at the top of the email to set the tone within the first screen (without action item for the user – such as: SHOP
and to draw on the immediate connec- scrolling) on mobile devices. THE COLLECTION, READ MORE, etc.
tion that your brand has with the user. The increased presence of your main
Do the design elements of the email call-to-action will attract users and Being as explicit as possible with what you
reinforce your brand? garner more clicks. want the user to click on while giving them
Are they consistent with your brand information about what they should expect
website and/or email landing page? □□ When designing calls-to-action, make next – always show strong results.
sure that they are obvious, stand out
By staying true to your brand and really and immediately noticeable when a When thinking about the actual appearance
examining all the design elements of your user quickly scans your email’s content. of your calls-to-action, think about ways to
email against the overall look & feel of your render them without the use of images –
brand, you will be ensuring that your email this will ensure that your calls-to-action will
truly stands out, resonates with your consu- be visible, even with images turned off.
mer and makes your send unique.

22
 Creative

4 Design for Mobile 5 Creative Testing Learn More

For more information,
□□ Keep text sizes larger than normal to □□ Test, test, test and then test some more. check out our “Top 10
compensate for the compressing of Find the right creative solution for your Best Practices” eBook!
emails on mobile devices. Body copy brand and your audience.
should be no smaller than 14px with When thinking about implementing
headlines and larger text above 21px. new layouts, dramatically new designs
or concepts, always test into new con-
□□ Design larger than normal calls-to- cepts before deploying them to your
action, and links that are easy to whole list and making them part of
interact with using fingers and thumbs. your marketing toolbox.

□□ Use simple layouts and designs when Without testing new concepts and
thinking about mobile. Different mobile designs, you can easily fall into the trap
devices render emails differently than of implementing something that under-
desktop ESPs. Try avoiding multiple performs and not know it.
column layouts and focus on simple,
single-column layouts that get your
message across effectively.

23
About DJ Waldow
DJ Waldow is an email marketing
consultant, writer, blogger, speaker, and
co-author of “The Rebel’s Guide to
Email Marketing”.

He is the founder and CEO of Waldow

Social, a company that creates oppor-
tunities for social engagement and
community development through a
fresh approach to email marketing.

DJ has spent nearly 8 years in the email,

social, and community-building world,
advising clients on how to optimize their
email marketing campaigns and--on
occasion--break some of the“best
practice” rules.
 Interview with DJ Waldow

In an interview between two CP: I have got to ask you then, what makes
WhatCounts alumni, Chris Penn talks an email campaign out of this world?
to DJ Waldow about email marketing
best practices and which rules are DJW: I think in a lot of ways, it is like any
safe or even good to break. other marketing piece of collateral or Tweet
or anything that you send out. It has to be
Chris Penn: Okay, who are you and what something that when you open it, you say,
do you do? “Wow!” or “Holy cow!” or some version of
that where it stands out in the inbox or it
DJ Waldow: My name is DJ Waldow and forces you -- I mean, it literally forces you to
I’m the founder and CEO of Waldow take some kind of action.
Social, a committee that helps take your
email marketing campaigns from so-so to CP: What makes that out of this world?
out of this world. What are the tactical pieces or the nuts and
bolts of making it out of this world?

DJW: To me, it all starts with -- there are

two things that cause somebody to open an
email. There is the “from” line, you know,
who it is from, literally. And there is the
subject line.

25
Interview with DJ Waldow

I think first of all you have to have that trust. But I open every one of your emails because CP: I’d like to play devil’s advocate. What
I will give you an example. When I get an you have built that trust and credibility with was the last email, other than one that
email from you, I know Chris Penn. If I get your name and your brand that it does not you’ve sent out, what was the least email
an email from WhatCounts, I know matter what the subject line is. You could you received that was really awesome?
WhatCounts. I trust the brand. I trust the say, “DJ is an idiot.” I’d open it. Of course, And what made it awesome?
person. I know there is going to be some I would want to know why you would say it,
value in this. So that’s the first piece. right? So I think that’s the first step. DJW: I will give you a perfect example
from my inbox today. I got an email from
And then, second piece is the subject line. But then once you get there, what is that -- Bleacher Report. Basically what they do is
Is it compelling enough for me to open? I mean, something has to pop off the screen. they write some original content. For the
And putting those two things together then I mean, something within that email has to most part, they curate sports news. And so
gets me -- you can’t have anything until you just jump off the page to me to force me -- I’ve signed up to be very targeted towards
actually open the email. Now, I’m not saying and I do say force. I don’t mean compel me, -- I’m a Michigan Alumni, huge Michigan
that you have to have a subject line that is force me to take some action. And that could fan, as you know. I signed up for the Michi-
out of this world, eye-catching, wow because be if you are in the B2C world, it could be an gan football alert. The from-name for this is
let’s be honest, the emails that you send, offer that is free or super discount. It could Bleacher Report. So again, it’s recognizable,
your subject lines are pretty generic. be some kind of headline or article that is something I trust and I know there’s value.
just so targeted towards me and is so on And the subject line says, “UM Steals PSU 4
point for me that I’m forced to open it. Star.” And so when I see that, immediately
I’m forced to do something with it. it triggers a couple of things to me.

26
 Interview with DJ Waldow

I see that Michigan has stolen has a player CP: I’m going to play devil’s advocate on I look at curation in some ways as if I can be
from Penn State. I know obviously there are something else: curation versus creation. the go-to resource for people for all things
a lot of stuff going on at Penn State right It seems like content curation via email email marketing; I’m doing some of the
now. And so I can’t wait to open that email and things like that is the hot new trend. work that you might not want to do.
because I want to see 4-star -- you know, in It’s what all the cool kids are doing. But it
football recruiting 5-star is the best. I want seems somewhat lazy by comparison to the What I add to curation—and frankly,
to see what 4-Star athlete they stole from creation. What is your take on it? I professionally stole this from you and from
Penn State. some others—is I take that curation but I
DJW: Well, funny you should say because also add a little blurb before it or after it
The other part of the subject line actually of course my newsletter recently has moved that has my take on it. So it’s not just strictly
says, “Another Wolverine Suspended.” to mostly curation. I think there is a fine repurposing of somebody else’s content or
So, I’m trying to figure out also who on the line. It depends on what you’re signing up linking out to it. It’s giving my take then
Michigan team has been suspended. for that email for, sort of like we talked the link to read more. So you can form your
Another guy got arrested from a DUI about with Twitter streams. I mean, if all own opinions, but I’m going to give you my
recently. And then I opened the email, and your Twitter stream is just pushing out 140-character, so to speak, take on that
it’s a bunch of headlines, it’s got an other people’s content and sharing informa- particular article and then let you analyze it
image on the left and a link to the article on tion, a lot of the purists would say, “Well, and take it, dissect it for yourself.
the right. It’s simple, straightforward, and that’s crap.” I mean, you’re not interacting
again, I want to open that email, click on the and engaging. But people consume content Click here to listen to the entire interview.
link, and go back to their website. for a lot of different reasons.

27
Mobile Design

If you’re not designing for mobile, you If you’re still new to mobile and don’t use CSS3@ media queries let the presentation
may be missing a huge opportunity. CSS3@ media queries, you can still build of content be tailored to a specific range of
mobile-friendly emails by following these output devices without having to change the
From 2011 to 2012, email opens on mobile guidelines: content itself.
devices grew 83.4%. (Source: “Email in • Single column design Once you’re ready to incorporate CSS3@
Motion: Mobile is Leading the Email • No “view on mobile” link needed if media queries, you can use them to:
Revolution”, Return Path Inc. , 2011) designed well to accommodate small • Display content differently based on
screen viewing screen size
Start by finding what percentage of your list • Email width that adapts to both desk- • Hide or display images or text
is opening their email on a mobile device. top and mobile screens: • Enlarge text size for easier reading
If it’s more than 5%, you should consider • Use percentages for widths • Display buttons sized for thumbs
creating a mobile strategy. • Email scales well, rather than requiring • Realign content and template elements
media queries for easy scanning
By creating a separate mobile design, you
ensure that your readers have a great user
Learn More
experience on any device, leading to better
For more information, watch our “Email + Mobile = Now” webinar.
click-through and conversion rates.

28
Mobile Design

29
Social Media

The online marketing landscape has Allow your recipients to immediately broad- Send newsletters, advice, best practices, or
shifted with the recent explosion in cast email content to your social community other types of quality information that all
social media usage. with the click of a strategically placed button of your recipients can put to good use. After
inside every email you send. That way, the all, not every email you send needs to be
Data shows individuals who use Facebook moment they receive helpful, usable content promotional or trying to sell a product.
or Twitter at least once a week are 38% through your email campaign, the sender
more likely to open email promotions. can show off how great your content is by Your subscribers will appreciate the enligh-
Social media makes people consume more, posting it socially. By adding a simple tenment and will be more receptive to
not less, email. Email and social media button, your subscribers will be more promotional sends down the road.
naturally complement each other by inclined to share because you have made the
empowering customers to tailor commercial process that much easier.
relationships to their preferences.
Social media has nicely allowed more Give your subscribers a reason to want to
opportunities for companies to “continue share your content by providing reliable,
the conversation” with their customers and novel, or helpful information inside each
enhance the overall relationship. and every email campaign.

A key opportunity with social media is to Not only will you build credibility within
include SWYN (Share With Your Network) your industry, but this is a crucial way to
within email footers and navigation links. expand the size of your email list.

30
 Social Media

LET YOUR FOLLOWING BE YOUR It’s a win-win for both parties – you get to
What makes content EVANGELISTS highlight client recommendations, they get
shareable? One of the best perks of being involved with free ad space for their brand.
99 Trustworthiness social media is having the opportunity to get
99 Tribal interests feedback from your clients and customers. INTERACT AND INFLUENCE
99 Reward/Incentives For better or for worse, you will learn more Get the most out of all of the resources you
99 Content about how your business performs when it have available to you, from email to social.
99 Simple and obvious comes to customer service via this critical
99 Ease of sharing line of communication. Combining these two very powerful tools,
99 Creates value Because of this, be sure to always monitor you’ll have the ability to generate a
99 Social acumen and adoption your social networks and be receptive to any following, maximize engagement, and
among subscribers feedback that you receive. strengthen communication across all
channels. Not only will you begin to see
A great way to showcase your brand and a your reach increase, but the loyalty to your
quick fix for referrals is to track any positive brand, as well.
mentions on social media. If someone is
acting as an evangelist for your brand, thank However, the only way you will be able to
them! Then promote their kind words on take full advantage of the power of email
your website, email newsletter, or blog. and social combined is to actually use them.

31
Social Media

Include Share With Your Network (SWYN)

buttons in every email, send useful content,
cross-promote your email subscription
form, and frequently update your social
networks to get the most out of your digital
marketing efforts.

With impactful, awe-inspiring email

campaigns and the influence of social
media, there will be no stopping the growth
of your ROI.

Learn More
For more information, check out our “18 Ways to Integrate Social Media and
Email Marketing” eBook!

32
 Facebook

Facebook This feature also lets your most devoted Don’t know how to install a button on your
Across the board, Facebook sees the most Facebook fans take their relationship with Facebook page? No problem! We’ll walk you
user logins on a daily basis, making it the your brand to the next level by signing up. through the process in our free eBook on
most popular social media website by far. Facebook Page Subscriptions!
With millions of people roaming the world Once you get your button up and running on
of Facebook every day, are you taking your page, be sure to actually update your
advantage of this prime location for email Facebook page consistently with updates,
list building real estate? news, and conversations with your
followers – an inactive Facebook page won’t
The developers over at Facebook realized be of any help when it comes to
the promotional capabilities behind promoting your email list!
Facebook and have allowed users to create
their own apps and buttons within the Also feel free to plug your newsletter or
platform. Get the most out of this oppor- featured email campaigns via posts on
tunity by building an email sign-up button Facebook. This is a sure-fire way to garner
or app directly into your brand’s Facebook attention to your email list and motivate
page, making email opt-ins quick and easy. followers to sign up on your page.
Even if Facebook followers don’t choose to
“like” your page, they will still have the
ability to subscribe to your email newsletter.

33
Twitter

Twitter
1 Who are you targeting? 2 Is it obvious who you are?
While Facebook may be the most popular
social network these days, don’t underes-
Much like with your email campaigns, it’s Does your Twitter page have a profile pic-
timate the power of Twitter. Home to well
important to tailor the content you tweet ture and profile complete with a link to your
over 500 million active users, Twitter is the
according to who you are trying to recruit to company’s website? If not, Twitter users
place to be when it comes to engaging in
your email list. have no idea who you are and therefore have
conversation, developing brand recognition,
no reason to follow you.
and yes, growing your email list.
Make sure the information you tweet is
relevant to their interests and what they This goes hand-in-hand with building recog-
It’s easier to come across new people,
would like to know. nition and establishing value for those who
brands, topics, and discussions on
could develop a relationship with you and
Twitter than it is on Facebook.
Giving them a sample or juicy tidbit that your brand. Also, make sure that your
Because of this, you can use Twitter to your
you’d usually have in your newsletter will content is relevant to who you are or what
advantage when it comes to increasing your
entice them to want to read more. you do.
number of subscribers. The method will
depend on your product or service, as well
Don’t use Twitter to promote your products If your a company sells tires and all you do
as the demographic you are trying to market
or try to sell. Instead, use it to broadcast is tweet about baseball, no one will know
to. Here are a few things to keep in mind
your brand’s culture, beliefs, and value to whether you’re an expert in your industry.
when strategizing how to promote your
the consumer. If you build it, they will come.
email list on Twitter:

34
 Twitter

3 Are your opt-ins simple?

Would people want to hear about baseball? If you’re going to use Twitter to build your Just make sure that your link to subscribe is
Sure. But if you’re trying to sell tires, you email list, then you most certainly better visible, short, and easy to access. After all,
want “tires” to be the first thing that pops make your opt-in readily available: either the only way you can build your list of email
into their head when people think about include a link to your subscription form or subscribers through Twitter is by giving
you (not baseball) -- if people sign up for website opt-in in your profile or in a daily them a quick, direct method to opt-in.
your newsletter through Twitter with a false tweet. If your followers don’t even know that
idea of what your newsletters will be about, you offer an email list, how will they know Implementing these techniques may take
they’re more likely to unsubscribe and disre- whether they should sign-up for it? a bit of time, especially if you’re still trying
gard your brand as disingenuous or spam. to ramp up your Twitter following. Give it
Make sure to plug your email newsletter or time and test different methods of including
Feel free to tweet about topics outside your upcoming campaign every so often via your opt-in on Twitter, such as using Google
industry to break up the monotony, but Twitter to plant the idea in your follo- Analytics or tracking links to see what works
make sure it’s not to the extent that your wers’ heads that “Hey, we offer killer subject and what doesn’t. Also, make sure that
focus pales in comparison. matter that can be delivered directly to your you’re consistently updating Twitter and
inbox.”, the more they begin to know your posting regularly. After a while, you’ll begin
brand and crave your content, the more to notice your Twitter following and email
inclined they will be to want to open that list start growing exponentially.
line of communication with you.

35
Lifecycle Email Marketing

Lifecycle marketing is changing the Why Switch to Lifecycle

way companies interact with pros- Did you know? Marketing?
pects and customers through the “Online travel agency Hotwire reports that Traditional methods of batch-and-blast,
email channel. their remarketing emails are up to 16 or sending the same generic message to all
times as effective in generating conver- of your subscribers no matter where they
Best-of-breed marketers are shifting from sions as their mass distribution mailings.” fall on the customer lifecycle, are becoming
product-focused to customer-focused email Source: Jupiter Research ineffective in converting today’s consumer.
programs. Traditionally, email marketers Estimates by The Radicati Group, Inc show
spent the majority of their time producing that worldwide email traffic will be over 192
and sending one-off campaigns. billion emails/day by 2016.
Given this prediction, it is becoming
By adopting a lifecycle approach, marketers increasingly difficult to gain access to and
are not only generating more timely relevant maintain inbox placement.
messaging, but they’re also using auto-
mation to free themselves up to focus on The companies who invest now in producing
planning and optimization. This approach relevant, timely, customer driven messages
has a strong emphasis on program orien- will see higher ROI, better customer reten-
tation and customer-driven timing. tion, and lower costs. In order to create a
highly effective lifecycle marketing program,
there are five core requirements to fulfill:

36
 Lifecycle Email Marketing

1 Clear program goals 2 Comprehensive business

rules
You should clearly determine why you are
contacting the customer and what call-to- There are five main message streams in the Identify the behavioral triggers that will
action you want them to take. customer lifecycle: Acquire, Convert, Grow, cause a customer to enter and exit each
Each campaign should have a clear business Retain, and Reactivate. messaging stream, along with necessary
purpose and also a strong value proposition suppressions.
for the recipient. Traditional marketing is short-sighted,
focusing primarily on product conversion. The right message at the right time is
what differentiates lifecycle marke-
Common goals for lifecycle
Lifecycle marketing is customer driven and ting from traditional marketing.
marketing
focuses on maintaining a relationship that
• Increase conversions
starts and extends beyond a purchase.
• Increase revenue
• Increase share-of-wallet
Consider program timing and cadence in
• Increase customer engagement
light of other automated and scheduled
• Increase brand buzz
campaigns. To do this you’ll need to map
• Increase referral rate
out your communications to various seg-
• Decrease attrition
ments at different points in the lifecycle.
• Decrease customer servicing costs

37
Lifecycle Email Marketing

3 Thoughtful segmentation 4 Compelling and relevant 5 creative designed for

content email
Effective list segmentation is essential to
improve the relevancy of content delivered. The right message at the right time is what Best practice-compliant email creative is an
differentiates lifecycle marketing from integral part of your messaging.
Consider classic segmentation models such promotional marketing. Most readers spend three to five seconds
as RFM (recency, frequency, monetary scanning an email before deciding whether
value) or start with something simple like Email personalization is essential to to read or ignore it.
prospects versus inactive customers versus building a trusted relationship.
active customers. It is critical to do everything possible to
make sure that they open and engage with
your message.

38
 Lifecycle Email Marketing

Learn More
For more information, check out our ”Lifecycle Email Marketing” eBook!

39
Preference Centers

Are your subscribers getting what There are many benefits that make creating Keep these key things in mind:
they want? How do you even know? a Preference Center worth it:
1. Make it easy to use
To keep up with consumer expectations, you Your subscribers feel in control of commu- Keep it short and keep their attention -
need to be sending personal messages to nications and their data. They: most marketers ask for between 1 and 5
your subscribers at just the right time. To do • Choose what information to provide fields (Source: 2011 MarketingSherpa
this, you need to know about them first. • Determine what and how often you Email Marketing Benchmark Survey).
send to them Allow them to unsubscribe from every-
thing with a single click.
You learn about your subscribers:
• Personalize and target them 2. Be honest
• Collect additional updated information If you can’t use the information to send
relevant emails, don’t clutter the pro-
cess by asking for extra information.

3. Spread the word

Include links to your preference center
in every email and your website footer,
and remind subscribers that they have
control.

40
 Preference Centers

What do you ask for?

Start with the email basics Then get to know them Go to the next level*
• Email address (add a second field • Name • Categories of interest
to confirm this) • City/Zip • Activities of interest
• Desired subscriptions, for example: • Gender • Birthday
• Newsletter
• Special offers
• Events and contests
• Frequency * If your ESP can support it

41
Drip Marketing

A drip campaign is an effective and ef- Similarly, with a drip campaign, subscribers Whether it’s a habitual campaign where
ficient way to consistently stay “top of receive a pre-set series of messages that are subscribers come to expect weekly, monthly,
mind” with your subscribers through automatically sent out over a period of time or less frequent reminders related to an
an automated series of messages. to ensure the marketer has a thriving pool of upcoming event or re-purchasing of a
engaged subscribers or prospects. product, a drip campaign is set to send
Applying drip marketing will make you a emails to subscribers in a succession.
better email marketer because clients and Much like an automated welcome email or
prospects will receive communications from multi-part welcome series that can be set up Setting up a drip campaign involves a few
you on a regular basis and since you set the to go to new subscribers, with a drip simple steps.
series up once and let the application do the campaign prospects or subscribers at
work, it saves you time to focus on other various points in the customer lifecycle can First, you need to determine the overall goal
aspects of your email marketing strategy. receive a set of pre-determined messages. for the series and then develop content and
creative for each message.
The phrase “drip marketing” comes from Marketers use drip campaigns for ongoing
“drip irrigation”, an agriculture technique nurturing of prospects or to stay in touch From there you will need to determine the
that involves feeding small amounts of with existing customers or constituents. proper cadence and timing for when each
water to plants over a long period of time to message should be sent.
produce a consistent crop over time.

42
 Drip Marketing

Once those are determined you will set up

segmentations with logical conditions to
identify subscribers at the proper time.

Finally, you will set up an automated time-

based series that will ensure deployment of
the proper campaigns to the proper segmen-
tations at the determined time intervals.

For more information visit our blog post

Re-engagement through Drip Campaigns.

43
Segmentation

44
 Segmentation

Segmentation is a powerful technique At the start of 2012, 32% of marketers noted

for increasing the effectiveness of that segmenting their email database was
your email campaigns. one of their organization’s top objectives in
the next 12 months
Segment your list, using subscriber’s self- (Source: MarketingSherpa 2012 Email
reported preferences, different subscriber Marketing Benchmark Report).
characteristics and actions to form smaller,
more targeted lists out of your larger data- You can segment your list many different
base. Segmentation is proven to help reduce ways, namely by:
the number of opt-outs and complaints, as 1. Using self-reported subscriber data that
well as generate higher open rates, click- you collect during opt-in or through a
through rates and conversions from email. Subscriber Preferences Form
2. Segmenting on behaviors like open,
Just like all forms of marketing, the more clicked, shared, converted
targeted and relevant your email marketing 3. Segment by where a given subscriber is
efforts are, the better the response will be. in your lifecycle

With this appealing potential to elevate

performance, it’s no wonder segmenting
was a major focus for 2012.

45
Segmentation

1 Self-Reported Subscriber
data

Optimize your Opt-In Form and Preference WhatCounts’ client, Mashable, allows
Center by collecting more data to later subscribers to adjust frequency preferences
segment by. Collecting preferences on topics which Mashable then uses to adjust their
of interest, gender, geographical location sending cadence.
and communication frequency can allow
you to tailor your approach to fit the needs
of each subscriber.

WhatCounts’ client, Mortgage Success

Source, developed a Preference Center to
allow subscribers to note which types of
newsletters they were interested in
receiving. Since implementing the form and
segmenting by communication type,
Mortgage Success Source has seen a 47%
decrease in spam complaints.

46
 Segmentation

2 Behaviors 3 Placement in Lifecycle

A second way to divide your database is A third way to develop a more defined
through past email behavior. subset of your master list is to use
date/time segmentation capabilities paired
For example, retarget a group of subscri- with behavioral conditions to send different
bers that clicked to take a survey but did not campaigns to different subscribers depen-
complete the survey, allow behavioral con- ding on how long they’ve been on your list.
ditions to automatically retarget or remove For example, send an automated “Welcome
those that have not opened or clicked in a Series” to a first time subscriber, launch a
certain period of time, reward most engaged cross-promotional email to subscribers that
subscribers with special perks, etc. have been on your list for a set period of
time but never converted, or send stale past
WhatCounts’ client, TrueCitrus, developed a purchasers an incentive to buy again.
multi-part re-engagement series to get
action from subscribers who have not Techniques for breaking up your larger
opened or clicked in 60 days. database into smaller, more valuable groups
are nearly endless, but start with a simple
segmentation technique, like dividing your
list by location, and build upon it.

47
Google Analytics

48
 Google Analytics

We’re huge fans and advocates of Google Analytics passes 3 snippets of text
using Google Analytics for your along using its URL builder: source,
website as part of understanding the medium, and campaign. When you’re
ROI of your digital marketing and creating trackable URLs for marketing
email marketing. campaigns (via any channel), you assign
values to these.
Most of the time, we use Google Analytics
to track what happens after you use email to For example, if we advertised in the NY
send customers back to your website. Times online edition, we’d specify the
But what if we could use Google Analytics’ source as NY Times, the medium as
tracking codes a little earlier in the process Advertising, and the campaign would likely
and segment your list with them? be the date the ad ran.

It turns out, this is not only possible, but This is an important step to take for any
relatively straightforward. campaign where you want to generate
If you have developers or an IT department trackable URLs that will show up in Google
to help you with some of the coding, please Analytics, and many of you already do this.
share this with them.

49
Google Analytics

1 Create trackable URLS

On the right is another example, using

advertising in Facebook:

50
 Google Analytics

2 Add custom variables to

your mailing list

The next step is to add these three custom

fields to your mailing list. You can do this in
the WhatCounts Publicaster or Professional
editions with ease by adding fields to your
list, as shown on the right.

51
Google Analytics

3 Copy Custom fields to

your opt-in Form

The third step, and the part that you may

need to have your developers help you with,
is to copy Google Analytics’ fields into your
subscription forms. Use the programming
language of your choice to grab the tracking
codes from your website’s URLs and assign
them to your mailing list’s fields.
Here’s an example using the PHP language:

Update your subscription forms using this

code (it’s invisible to the subscriber).
Congratulations! You’re now collecting
Google Analytics data in your mailing list.

So what can you do with that information?

Segment your list and send highly-targeted
email, of course!

52
 Google Analytics

You can and should send separate email

campaigns to people who come in via PPC
or social media, or track the action rate of
different audiences. Any segmentation,
tracking, or reporting that you’d do on a
piece of custom data, you can do with your
newly-tracked Google Analytics data.

We emphasize that this works with both

the Publicaster and Professional Editions of
the WhatCounts platform; Chris Penn, used
Publicaster in this instance since his mailing
list runs on it.

If you need help implementing this ad-

vanced tracking method, please contact our
Strategic Services team today.

If you’re not a WhatCounts customer,

consider contacting us now!

53
A/B Testing

54
 A/B Testing

Testing based on subscriber behavior

1 Open Rate
is the quickest way to gain valuable
insight to your reader’s email
• Subject line testing
preferences, and gives you the oppor-
tunity to provide them with the most
• From line testing: This pertains to the
relevant message, in the best way, at
decorative part of the From Address
the right time.
only. Frequently changing the domain
portion of the From Address will
Some of the most commonly measured
actually lead to deliverability issues.
metrics and their complementary campaign
elements are as follows:
If you’re already comfortable with A/B tes-
ting, check out our blog post on Multivariate
Testing for some more advanced tips.

55
A/B Testing

2 Click-Through Rate 3 Conversion Rate 4 Unsubscribe rate

• List Segmentation: Are you reaching • Are you able to follow your subscribers • List Segmentation: Are you sending
the right audience with the right offer from acquisition, to targeted campaign, your recipients relevant content or
or call-to-action? To whom you’re send- to open, to click, to conversion? offers? An increase or decrease here
ing the message will largely determine will answer that.
the success of your email campaign! Better integration with your ESP can assist
with this, and is a must, because this is the • Messaging Frequency: Are you keeping
• Message Content and Format: Does ultimate measure of the success of your your audience active by sending them
your presentation map to your brand? email program. enough email, or are you messaging
Does it make sense to test a different them too frequently?
look and feel than “the norm?”

• Calls-to-Action: What works best?

Where are they clicking? Pay special
attention to the area 1”–2” in the
header, as that’s the area subscribers
see when a preview pane is enabled.
Do your messages contain HTML
buttons, or simply links to your offer?

56
 A/B Testing

SUMMARY OF A SIMPLE ‘SUBJECT’

LINE A/B TEST IN 6 EASY STEPS Easy testing options
1. Choose the metric to be measured • Subject lines
• Call-to-action, offers
2. Decide how you will segment your list • Graphical buttons
• Navigation/footer link
3. Create your test “Subject” lines, e.g.: • Recovery content
-- Subject Line A: “Order soon – this
special offer expires in 48 hours”
-- Subject Line B: “We have never
dropped our prices like this before”

4. Test the message internally to satisfy Learn More

email marketing best practices and to For more information,
ensure that the test-list and segmenta- check out our “Optimize
tion rules are behaving correctly Your Email Strategy by
Testing” eBook!
5. Deploy Campaign

6. Analyze your findings & create

actionable items from your results

57
Email Monetization

58
 Email Monetization

Recently, Marketing Sherpa reported

85% of companies’ primary email
objectives was to drive revenue.

That said, most companies struggle to gene-

rate any significant amount of money from
their newsletter email program. Here are
seven ways to monetize on email marketing.

1 Display Ads 2 Dedicated advertising

The most common method for mone- Another very popular email monetization
tizing email lists is through the use of strategy is the dedicated advertisement
display advertisements. message, where the advertiser has 100% of
the marketing message.
Ad sizes, placement, and number of display
ads vary dramatically from one company to Advertisers like this option, because they
the next. don’t have to compete with the publisher’s
content for exposure and therefore see
higher click-through rates.

59
Email Monetization

3 Advertorial 4 Video Display Ads 5 Text Link Ads

Some companies will give advertisers the In the WhatCounts email platform, clients Text link ads are one of the most traditional
opportunity to write an article for their can create Video Enhanced Email. methods used by publishers.
newsletter so it doesn’t appear to be an
advertisement to the subscriber. A number of our clients are leveraging this There is a limit to the number of characters
technology to sell pre-roll video advertise- allowed and, typically, this is a very cost-
This can be an extremely effective option for ments or direct video advertisements. effective option for advertisers since their
advertisers if their content is in context with ads are seen whether images are on or off;
the rest of the editorial in the email. these ads are less expensive than rich media.

60
 Email Monetization

6 Background Wrap 7 Landing page and micro-

sites
A fairly new and growing option is a back-
ground wrap advertisement. In this In this approach, once a subscriber clicks
approach, advertisers can purchase the on an advertiser’s ad, they are redirected
space behind the main newsletter copy for to a landing page or micro-site within your
their marketing message. website with additional content about the
advertiser’s product or services.
Advertisers like this option because it’s This provides advertisers an integrated way
unique and eye-grabbing. Also, this is a to showcase their message.
great option as more readers continue to use
small-screen (iPhone, iPad, Android, etc.)
devices to view their email.
Learn More
For more tips, read our
“How to Monetize Your Email
Marketing” eBook!

61
Email Marketing ROI

62
 Email Marketing ROI

Let’s address one of the most common By its very definition, you must be able to
questions about email marketing: how measure what you earned on your email
to measure email marketing ROI. marketing and what you spent on it.

First, let’s start simple. This is the Let’s look at an example B2C health and
mathematical formula for ROI: fitness club for the purposes of illustrating
how to calculate email ROI.
(Earned - Spent) / Spent = ROI expressed as
a percentage

63
Email Marketing ROI

How to calculate email spend How to calculate email revenue

Combine the cost of your ESP over the Next, calculate their effective hourly rate as The simplest and most direct route to
period which you’ll be measuring. an employee (annual salary / 2,080 wor- calculate the effective revenue of email is to
king hours per year) and multiply that by ensure that you have goals and goal values
For example, if you pay $300/month and the time spent on email. set up in Google Analytics and then track
you’re measuring your email ROI for the your email channel’s earned revenue via
quarter, your spend is $300 x 3, or $900. For example, our fitness club marketing Google Analytics. Be sure to read this post
We’ll use that for our example fitness club. employee earns $50,000/year; their on the WhatCounts blog for how to set this
effective hourly rate is $24.04/hour. If they up if you haven’t already done so.
That’s not all, however! You also need to spend 13 hours a quarter on email, they are
factor in how much time you spent on email spending $312.52 in time on email. You’ll want to ensure that you’re using your
as money. If you have an employee or multichannel funnel conversion number
employees working on your email marke- Combine the email service provider cost to get the most accurate picture of email’s
ting, determine how much of their time plus the time spent as money and you have revenue delivered. See this post about MCF
during that period was spent on email your spend calculation for email ROI. email value for more information.
marketing. If they spend an hour a week, for In the fitness club example, that’s $312.52 +
example, then the time spent was 13 hours $900 = $1,212.52 for the quarter. For the fitness company, their monthly gym
for the quarter. membership is worth $150/month.

64
 Email Marketing ROI

calculating the email roi

They know that if they can get someone to The effective value, therefore, of a comple- Let’s plug in the numbers:
set foot in the door, they have a 90% clo- ted appointment form on their website is: (Earned - Spent) / Spent = ROI
sing rate - that is, 9 out of 10 people who ($10,935 - $1,212.52) / $1,212.52 = 8.018
physically come into the facility sign up for a $2,430 value x .25 = $607.50
membership, and they know that the ave- That’s a return on investment of 801.8%,
rage member sticks around for 18 months. The fitness club inserts this into their which means that for every dollar the fitness
Google Analytics account as the goal value center spends on email marketing, they earn
Thus, the value of getting someone into the assigned to that website form and tracks the it back plus an additional $8.02.
facility is: impact of email on conversion for the Any business would be thrilled to be getting
quarter. From their Google Analytics infor- back 8x what they spent on any marketing
18 months x $150/month x .9 probability of mation, email delivered 13 direct, last channel, which is why email marketing is
conversion = $2,430 interaction conversions worth $7,897.50 still one of the most powerful marketing
and an additional 5 assisted conversions methods available to you.
They also know that if someone fills out a worth $3,037.50 for a total of $10,935 for
“book an appointment” form on their the quarter. Now that you’ve seen how our example
website, they have a 25% probability of fitness club calculated its email marketing
actually showing up at the facility. ROI, you should be able to do the same for
your business. Here’s a quick worksheet you
can use: www.whatcounts.com/roicalc/

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ESP Selection Checklist

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 ESP Selection Checklist

Are you considering a switch to a new

email service provider (ESP)?

Before you make a final decision, make sure

to consider whether the ESP can provide the
following:

□□ Advanced platform features like □□ Professional services like creative,

segmentation, A/B testing and video- campaign production, deliverability
enhanced email and strategy
□□ Dedicated technical account manager □□ Flexible deployment options (both SaaS
instead of a 1-800 number and an on-premise solution)
□□ Dedicated account manager to help you □□ Integration with industry partners
get the most out of your email program relevant to your business
□□ Online learning opportunities via □□ CRM integration with CRM software
webinars, white papers and eBooks like Salesforce.com
□□ Tools and processes to help you find □□ Customer testimonials or case studies
and grow your email marketing ROI on the web and in social media

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Conclusion

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 Conclusion

It is no longer acceptable to just “batch- WhatCounts is taking many steps to

and-blast” email without creating a larger automate this process and we wanted
framework to create targeted emails that to share a snapshot of our vision for
engage your subscribers. Readers have come our product over the next few years:
to expect personalized messages and with
all the competition for the inbox – including Consumers have come to expect relevant,
new filtering and unsubscribe tools – it is personalized messages from marketers. In
more important than ever to make sure your order to deliver these messages, you need
emails stand out. The best email programs to combine all of your customer data across
are now utilizing lifecycle marketing to channels - web, email, social and mobile.
communicate with readers on a 1:1 basis.
The WhatCounts Smart Marketing Engine
Email marketers are also creating more in- enables you to harness your customer data,
tegrated marketing campaigns that include enhance that data and combine it with
email, web, mobile and social channels. behavioral and web analytics to create
In the future, we’ll see even more personali- Smart Segments. Once built, these segments
zation as enterprises begin to capitalize on will transform your marketing by helping
the data they already have. To stay relevant you create smarter, dynamic messages that
as a marketer and organization, you’ll also lead to better marketing insights and
need to stay relevant to your subscribers. smarter marketing.
This means greater emphasis on data, better
segmentation, dynamic content as well as an
increase in mobile email design.

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Get a free copy of this book Contact Us Find us online
www.whatcounts.com/resources/white- WhatCounts, Inc.
Website: www.whatcounts.com
papers/email-guide 3630 Peachtree Rd
Suite 900
Twitter: @whatcounts
Additional Resources Atlanta, GA 30326
• Subscribe to our newsletters: LinkedIn: www.whatcounts.com/l
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• Additional Resources: Email: [email protected]
www.whatcounts.com/email-
marketing-resources/

70
Written by
Agatha Niedzwiecki - Marketing Manager

Other content provided by:

Alex Bardoff
Lauren Bell
Lindsay Ferrara
Chrissy Levering
Karissa Lew
Adam Peddicord
Christopher Penn
Brittany Schneider
Sarah Zibanejadrad
© 2013 WhatCounts, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Smart. Personalized. Marketing.
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