Acxiom Digital's VP and GM reports in from the frontlines with ideas that are counterintuitive yet brings success for his email clients.
It has been a few months since I've talked about lessons learned from the day-to-day operations of an email marketing program, so this month I'm bringing things back down to earth. Specifically, I'll be talking about what we have learned about counterintuitive ideas that work in email marketing. Next month I'll get back on my soapbox!
Counterintuitive Idea #1
We were working on an email offer recently with one of our more leading-edge email clients. This client really likes to work at its programs, track ROI and make continuous improvements. This particular campaign went to a highly targeted list of people the client selected based on prior purchase behavior. We sent the first wave of email to the list and as expected (gee, targeting works!), response was very strong. However, there still remained a large group of people who clicked on the email, but took no further action, and an even larger group that ignored the offer entirely.
As we were preparing to send a second offer to those who had not opened the original email, one of our clients asked an interesting question: "Why don't we re-target the folks from the first wave who opened, but didn't transact, rather than just those who didn't open? The first group at least checked out the offer."
In other words, those who opened the original email and did not transact represented people who had shown they might be interested, we just hadn't made the offer attractive enough yet. The fact that they browsed told us we had attracted their attention. We decided to test this theory, and sure enough a significant number of them did transact after the second email; a percentage greater than those who had done nothing with the first email.
The lesson here? Don't assume the game is over if potential customers don't do what you want them to do the first time. These people might actually remain your best prospects going forward. Give them another opportunity.
Counterintuitive Idea #2
It's pretty much standard practice to put unsub links at the bottom of an email. After all, why would any marketer want to encourage customers and prospects to unsubscribe by reminding them how easy it is to do so? But, if you read my last article, you might recall that I pointed out that as people receive more emails, we've seen that their definition of "spam" tends to broaden beyond "mail from a company I don't know" to include "mail from a company that sends me too much" and even "mail from a company I opted to receive, but no longer find valuable."
Now if that's the case with one of your customers, which action would you prefer he takes: spam complaint or unsubscribe? Nearly all ISPs and Mailbox providers now provide their users a "Spam" button in the email client interface. However, this process can create some problems for senders. As I said, many users hit the button not just to report real spam but also to stop opt-in email that they don't want to receive anymore. And if you think this isn't already happening to you, check out the latest ESPC survey, which reports that 20 percent of spam complaints were intended to be opt-outs.
Often, senders don't know a recipient has reported their messages as spam or junk. And one of the principal reasons senders are blocked is complaint rates! (At my company we subscribe to several feedback loops to guarantee we are not blind to user complaints. When a customer clicks on the "Spam" button for a message from a client of ours, the ISP will then forward the message to us for the purpose of unsubscribing the member. A feedback loop is a trusted unsubscribe mechanism: the end user trusts the ISP to handle the complaint, and the ISP trusts the sender to unsubscribe its customer.)
The solution? Put an unsub link at the top of your email in addition to one at the bottom. This makes it easier for people to unsubscribe from your emails, and may reduce spam complaints. In addition, if you design your unsub page correctly, you may be able to reduce the number of people who actually unsubscribe by asking them if they prefer to receive fewer emails from you, or if they have specific content they would like to see in the future.
Counterintuitive Idea #3
Total list size doesn't matter (though it might to your ESP who gets paid by the number of people you mail). It is the active list that is truly important to your company.
Sending to fewer people, of whom a higher percentage are active, is better for long-term results.
Why? Because if you keep hitting inactive people, your reputation score with the ISPs will suffer: Inactives are more likely to submit spam complaints and are more likely to include dead accounts. Ultimately, this can result in volume-based throttling or outright blocking by the ISPs. Recency and frequency scoring models are excellent ways to target your active accounts and eliminate the dead wood.
How do you get people active? The starting point is a proper onboarding program that sets a customer's expectation about the email program and gives him or her helpful tips at the beginning so as to build the (email) brand promise. Nothing beats a good welcome campaign! You can also try a good re-activation campaign, something I talked about in my last article.
I know it can be hard for an email marketer to reduce the number of people to whom he sends, and this seems to be excruciatingly hard for retailers in particular. But that doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do. You are never going to get someone to interact with you in any meaningful way by making a nuisance of yourself.
Chris Marriott is vice president and GM, Eastern Region, Acxiom Digital. Read full bio.