Is Your E-mail Marketing Optimized for 2019 Trends?

E-mail marketing is constantly evolving and AccuList USA tries to keep our e-mail list and e-mail marketing services clients up-to-date on the latest tactics and best practices. A good overview of trends for 2019 was recently supplied in a Business2Community post by Rohit Munipally. The value of e-mail targeting and list segmentation is so clear that it will be a given for smart marketers in 2019. Munipally cites HubSpot research showing that e-mails that are relevantly segmented and targeted account for 58% of all e-mail earnings and increase profits up to 18 times more. When combined with automation, e-mail content power is further enhanced. For example, if a contact hasn’t opened an email for an extended period, they can be dropped from deployments, while a contact who has visited a web page several times or opened multiple e-mails can receive relevant automated e-mails prompting action. In fact, global automated e-mail marketing alone is expected to account for $2.7 billion in spending by 2025, Munipally reports. Watch for acceleration of the trend away from graphics-heavy e-mail designs in 2019. Research shows e-mail users prefer plain text over HTML-style e-mails because plain text e-mails resemble a personal message that would be sent by a family member or friend. Also expect to see interactivity dominate over product display next year. Response data favors interactive e-mails that encourage engagement through quizzes, surveys, games, contests, GIFs, and call-to-action messaging that lets recipients shop, edit an order, update a wish list, send a shipping confirmation, etc. Story-telling also has proved itself as a content-engagement tool. E-mails that begin with a story that grabs the reader and then leads into value and offers are highly influential when delivered to a relevant audience (again underscoring the value of targeting and segmentation). Mobile optimization also will be essential for success in 2019, with 53% of e-mails opened via mobile devices and 75% of gmail users viewing accounts on mobile devices. And since consumers demand content that is relevant and personalized whether viewed on a computer or mobile device, data use must go beyond first-name inclusion to information unique to the account or buyer persona. Plus, next year should see growing use of AI for everything from targeting, subject line choice, image selection, and more. To illustrate the power of AI, Munipally reports that Adobe recently developed an AI technology with a series of sophisticated algorithms based on e-mail campaigns and audience behaviors, resulting in e-mail users opening nearly 80% of work and 60% of personal e-mails. See our blog post at http://www.acculistusa.com/is-your-e-mail-optimized-for-best-2019-performance/

Reputation Scoring Key to E-mail Deliverability

Deliverability is the first step to e-mail marketing success. If your e-mail never hits the inbox, all those subject line and content tactics are useless. So why do the top e-mail marketers get a 90% inbox placement rate, while others languish below 50%? A deciding factor is reputation, as measured by a "sender score," according to Return Path's annual "Sender Score Benchmark Report." A sender’s reputation score is a number, calculated from 0–100, that mailbox providers use to evaluate whether or not e-mail sent by a particular IP address is likely to be legitimate and wanted or should be filtered out of inboxes. Return Path's analysis finds that e-mail senders with a reputation score above 90 saw an average of 92% of their e-mails reach the intended recipient, but e-mail deliverability drops to 72% for senders scoring between 81-90 and just 45% for senders with a score between 71 and 80. So how do you get and keep a strong reputation score? A recent post by Krista Barrack, for the sendinblue blog, cites six ways you could be damaging your sender score, starting with e-mail list issues. One common error is collecting invalid e-mail addresses in your house list (often caused by typos, especially from mobile users). These create hard bounces to erode your sender score. A second mistake is using purchased e-mail data where people have no opt-in relationship with your brand and so don't engage or mark your message as spam, hurting your score. That's why, as responsible data brokers, we don't sell e-mail data and instead broker list rentals so messages are sent by the list owner with valid recipient opt-ins. A third house list problem is allowing outdated, unmailed addresses to accumulate and become invalid. To deal with the problem, set up a program of regular communication and hygiene to prune your list frequently. Poor content quality affects sender scores, too. If your e-mail message is not mobile-optimized, is loaded with spam words, is plagued by faulty links, and/or is not relevant or honest, recipients are either not going to open it, will label it as spam or will opt-out. Timing matters, too, and the most common sin is embrace of a spammer's excess frequency. Note that studies show read rates drop with increased weekly frequency--and opt-outs and complaints rise. Finally, watch for spam traps hiding in your e-mail list. These can get you blacklisted! For more detail, go to http://www.acculistusa.com/whats-the-secret-to-better-e-mail-deliverability-your-reputation/

Subscription Marketing Basics Still Win Audiences

Despite modern publishing's multi-platform environment (print, web, mobile), many long-time subscription marketing rules retain their relevance. A recent post from Bill Dugan, for niche magazine consulting firm Mequoda, stressed just that point by reminding audience development pros of the fundamentals for price, offer and creative. As a list brokerage with many paid or controlled circulation clients, AccuList USA would, of course, add another important component: quality data. As Dugan stresses, the art and science of pricing still counts. In pricing, whether for print, online, tablet or combination packages, subscription marketers actually have an edge over many other products by being able to sell the same product at different prices each time it’s purchased, from a new subscriber to each subsequent renewal. Pricing strategies can include 1) simply the same price at every stage of buying or renewing; 2) giving the more price-sensitive new subscriber an introductory discount and then selling renewals at full price; 3) maximizing response and profitability with a step-up program from a low introductory price through gradual renewal increases to maximum; and 4) rewarding subscribers with a lower monthly price for selecting a longer (annual) term. Next, marketers can build a range of offers. Based on testing, Dugan reports that the best response is earned by a "soft offer," meaning a trial free issue or more, plus a premium and a bill-me-later for a full subscription. The lowest response offer is the old-fashioned hard offer, requesting up-front credit card payment with no trial or premium,per his testing. And finally, direct marketing success requires wrapping the offer in effective creative. A key to creative response today, whether direct mail or e-mail, is personalization that focuses on the target customers’ needs. Of course, effective personalization requires targeted, quality data! So while Dugan didn't talk about the paramount importance of data, we remind marketers of the continuing relevance of either the 40-40-20 rule (40% of response success from audience/list, 40% from offer and 20% for creative) or the 60-30-10 formula (60% from targeted audience/list). Bottom line, good audience data is key. For more on our proprietary research on market-tested data and selection parameters most likely to boost response, go to http://www.acculistusa.com/subscription-marketing-basics-still-create-winning-formulas/