Basic Tips Aid Even Small Firms in E-mail Success

E-mail marketing success doesn't have to be limited to big firms with big-data technology. A recent CIO.com article combined suggestions from e-mail experts to create 15 basic tips that put an effective e-mail campaign within reach of even small- to mid-sized businesses. Here are just the top seven as an example. Start out by segmenting e-mail lists to select the relevant content and offer by customer or subscriber group. If discounts are available for students or retirees, then segment by age as an example. Next, make sure the e-mail creative uses responsive design and is mobile-friendly. Research shows 68% of recipients open e-mail on a mobile device, and 71% of those will delete an e-mail immediately if it doesn't display properly. Consider testing text-only e-mails versus image-based e-mails to take into account the e-mail clients, such as Outlook, which automatically block images. Try to have a promotional e-mail come from a real person (not just noreply), realizing that 64% of subscribers open an e-mail based on who it is from. Then craft a subject line to maximize opens by keeping it short (lines with fewer than 50 characters have higher open rates) but at the same time compelling and urgent/time-sensitive. Avoid a mass-marketing approach and personalize the subject line and content to the target segment--going beyond first name to use other data, such as past purchase behavior, for the relevance that drives response. Finally, add a clear, visible call-to-action. Research shows that if the recipient can't understand what they're expected to do within just 5 seconds, the e-mail risks deletion! For eight more tips and resource suggestions from the experts, read http://www.cio.com/article/3057992/email/15-ways-to-improve-your-email-marketing-campaigns.html

2015 E-Mail Stats Provide Benchmarks for 2016

E-mail marketers are already launching their 2016 campaigns, but a quick look back at 2015's e-mail triumphs and troubles per marketing research can offer helpful benchmarks for this year. Direct Marketing News magazine recently summarized a slew of 2015 e-mail research data, starting with the tactics most likely to boost click rate response per marketers: Respondents in Ascend2's “Email Marketing Trends” report rated a meaningful call-to-action offer as the most effective tactic for boosting click-throughs (65%), followed by list segmentation for targeting (47%), message personalization (42%), and testing and optimization (35%). The bad news is that the same respondents also rated some of the more effective methods as the most difficult, with 41% citing list segmentation as the most difficult to implement, for example. Another survey found similar agreement on strategies for success: In a 2015 survey by Econsultancy and Adestra, most marketers rely on basic segmentation (76%), optimizing for mobile devices (61%), prompting content sharing on social media (56%), and routine list data cleansing (50%). But they also agreed that their efforts weren't outstandingly successful, with 44% rating e-mail campaign performance as average compared with 41% who saw performance as good to excellent. Nevertheless, e-mail remains a favored marketing channel because of its relatively higher ROI: The Relevancy Group surveyed 300 e-mail marketing executives and 91% rated e-mail somewhat or highly effective in terms of delivering revenue. And the Direct Marketing Association's 2015 "Response Rate Report" found e-mail campaigns provide the highest median ROI of 21%-23%, followed by telephone campaigns (19-20%), social media ads (15%-17%), and direct mail (15%-17%). For more e-mail stats, go to http://www.dmnews.com/email-marketing/email-by-the-numbers/article/462945/

Online Content Can Fall Through Generation Gaps

Online content marketing risks slipping through some surprise generation gaps, according to the latest study from Fractl and BuzzStream of digital content consumption by Millennial, Generation X and Baby Boom age cohorts. As reported recently by MarketingProfs, the study found that each generation's online consumption habits differ in terms of quantity consumed, timing, and device preferences. It turns out that online content viewing skews older, for example. Baby Boomers (those born 1946-1964) spend more time online than the younger generations; a quarter of Boomers say they spend 20 or more hours each week consuming online content, while the largest shares (22% each) of Gen Xers (born 1965-1976) and Millennials (born 1977-1995) spend only 5-10 hours per week with online content. Marketers may also want to think about online promotional timing: Boomers tend to consume online content during the work week, while more Millennials save online content viewing for weekends, and Gen Xers fall in between in terms of consumption timing. When it comes to devices, Boomers prefer to use a laptop (43%) or tablet (40%), while the younger Millennials tilt toward mobile devices as primary online viewing tools (25%). Indeed, of people using mobile devices as the primary way to view content, over half (52%) are Millennials. Marketers aiming for younger prospects better make mobile optimization of online content a priority. At least when it comes to content length, the generations agree: 300 words is ideal. For more details from the study, read the MarketingProfs article: http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2015/28460/generation-gap-online-content-consumption-and-age

Some Surprising Factors Affect E-mail Opens

An unopened e-mail is a marketing dud. While many articles focus on inbox placement and subject lines to boost opens, marketers may be surprised by four other factors underlying e-mail open rates, per a recent Direct Marketing News magazine article.  The article cites analysis by e-mail services provider Constant Contact of more than 100 billion e-mails sent mainly by small businesses to their subscribers in 2014 and 2015. The first basic factor affecting open rates is e-mail list size. While the average open rate was 22% for all campaigns, super-targeted campaigns to 35 or less earned an average open rate of 55% compared with messaging up to 7,500, which racked up 14% average opens. The solution for big lists is segmentation, Constant Contact concludes, selecting smaller audiences from the larger subscriber base for more targeted messages. The next surprise factor is the customer's domain. Per the study, e-mails sent to Comcast, Verizon, Cox and SBC Global domains had higher open rates, while messages to Gmail, AOL, Hotmail and Yahoo users had lower open rates. Next, the sender's industry vertical can impact open rate success. For example, the study found that nonprofits overall get the highest opens (29% average), while, at the other end of the spectrum, B2B consultants get only 13%. Finally, mobile-responsive e-mail is increasingly essential to high open rates, with more than half of e-mails now opened via a smartphone or tablet. For details from the study, go to http://www.dmnews.com/email-marketing/4-factors-that-impact-your-open-rates/article/436908/

Mobile Trumps Language in Wooing Hispanics

Marketers are eager to cash in on growing U.S. Hispanic purchasing power, which is rising at more than two times the national rate, but a recent MarketingProfs article warns that success goes beyond how well the brand message is translated into Spanish to how well it is translated to mobile, video and social platforms. For example, Hispanic consumers are less likely to access the Internet via desktop and more likely to own a smart phone than non-Hispanics, the article points out. So focusing on the mobile user experience becomes vital, via use of responsive design, mobile e-mail, an easy toggle to Spanish, or native advertising in appropriate mobile-friendly sites. Video--whether pre-roll, in-banner or social--is another way to engage with an audience that spends nearly 30% of its online time watching videos, streaming twice as much video as non-Hispanics. And with 71% of adults Hispanics using social networking sites, a social brand and ad strategy is another must. For more advice, read http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2015/28109/the-biggest-hurdle-to-reaching-hispanics-isnt-language-its-mobile

Tips on How Mailers Can Optimize QR Code Use

Direct mail QR codes, mobile-device-scannable code storing an online url, have been both touted and declared "dead" by various marketing pundits in the last few years. For mailers pondering QR code inclusion, a recent Target Marketing magazine post by Summer Gould, president of Eye/Comm Inc., provides a useful discussion of the whys and hows of QR code use. Before marketers include a QR code in a mail piece, they need to decide what they hope to achieve with it, Gould points out. QR codes can drive online engagement, facilitate a phone call, provide a coupon, provide access to additional information, or allow order placement. If a QR code isn't doing any of those things, there is no benefit to the recipient (or the mailer), so it's not a useful response device. But once the direct mailer has a clear goal for the QR, the next step is to design the code for maximum results. Gould provides six key design guidelines: include instructions for mail recipients on how and why to scan; keep a 1/16-inch buffer of white space around the code; keep the code between a half inch and 1.5 inches in size for easy placement and scanning; use a url shortener to keep scanning time short; and make sure the user is taken to mobile-friendly online pages. Finally, of course, test the code with different devices and lighting conditions to make sure it works before mailing! For more QR code optimization tips, read http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/post/qr-code-qr-code/

In Web Design, ROI Means More Than Good Looks

We've learned from years of direct marketing that the most important measure of creative design is how well it works rather than how pretty it looks--and it's a principle that applies to websites as well. A recent DirectMarketingIQ article provided seven website elements that help deliver a return on website investment that a merely pretty site just won't achieve. Rule No. 1 in designing a website (or a direct mail piece for that matter) is to realize that you only have a limited time to capture viewer interest so "Don't Make People Think," meaning design obvious, self-explanatory, easy-to-read and navigate content with clear calls to action and response mechanisms. Confusion is deadly to results. One way to avoid confusing design is to follow the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid) and put yourself in the user's place to avoid the complexity that drives away traffic. And generally avoid "reinventing the wheel" with web design; standard site conventions familiar to users make it easier for visitors to grasp your message. Of course, make sure the website is selling, which does not mean preaching about your company and products but rather offering prospects answers to their problems and benefits that fit their needs (addressing "What's in it for me?"). Next, be mobile-friendly; websites today must be designed for the 60% of online traffic accounted for by mobile views, and it's especially important since lead search engine Google made mobile-friendly pages a factor in its search algorithm this year. It's also smart to embrace a design that understands how viewers read a screen, per studies, by scanning in an F pattern from top left across (navigation, search, subscription, etc.) and then down to the first and second paragraphs before skimming the rest. Finally, accept that white space is a marketing design tool as much as copy; overstuffed pages are daunting to visitors, and densely packed text reduces readability and comprehension. For more advice details, see http://www.directmarketingiq.com/article/why-a-pretty-website-doesn-t-work-7-website-elements-improve-roi/1