Meet Your Teachers
Hello, and welcome to this course on creating effective email campaigns. My name is Stephanie Root and I am a media and business trainer. Along with Mike Weston, our digital marketing expert, you will discover how to take advantage of emails and all of the data that comes with them.
Why focus on emails?
Let's brainstorm do a quick exercise. What’s the first thing you do after buying something online? Let’s say you’ve just bought a plane ticket for your next vacation. You’ve filled in your credit card information and hit Pay Now. Most likely, your next step is to open up your inbox to check for your confirmation email. Or, at the very least, you’ll check your phone for a notification.
Now consider which details are required when signing up for almost any online service. With a few notable exceptions (such as WhatsApp and Snapchat), you’ll need to give your email address.
Understand the Importance of Email Marketing Within Your Multichannel Strategy
Critics have downplayed the importance of email as a marketing communications channel for years. But the numbers tell a different story.
In their annual Marketer Email Tracker study, the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) shared some interesting findings:
Every £1 (or $1.42) spent on email generates over £35 ($49.60) return on investment (ROI).
75% of marketers surveyed use email to contact customers.
46% of consumers favored email as a way to hear from companies.
For various e-commerce sites, email generates the most last-click revenue (the last channel a client went through before purchasing) - and normally as a low-cost option as well.
Emails are a Precise Measure of Performance
Emails are fantastic. They allow you to gather real-time feedback on how your audience reacts (opening, clicking, purchasing, unsubscribing, etc.). And we don’t just mean overall performance: with emails, you instantly know who has opened, clicked, and converted.
This ability to gather feedback opens up huge opportunities for optimization. With this data, you’ll be able to measure how different aspects of your message perform, optimize them, carry out tests, and better segment and personalize your messages. We’ll go over all of this later in the course.
Emails are More Popular Than You Might Think
Source: Consumer Email Tracker 2020, DMA.org.uk
The Direct Marketing Association in the UK carries out annual research into both marketers’ attitudes and consumer feelings. As usual, in the 2020 report, email was the consumer’s preferred channel when it came to receiving marketing communications.
Surprising? Not really. With email, brands are reaching out to consumers. And not just any brands, but those that consumers have actively decided to welcome into their inbox by becoming customers and signing up for their newsletters.
However, consumers are less keen on spam. They do not like marketing emails from companies that they do not have a strong relationship with. Such companies run the risk of complete rejection, finding themselves consigned to the spam folder.
The Legal Context for Using Data
Though perhaps not the sexiest part of the course, it’s an essential one. When you communicate with existing or potential clients via email, you’re using personal data. Therefore, it is essential to respect the relevant legislation.
Of course, we’re talking about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 25 May 2018. You’ll hear GDPR spoken about a lot, especially if you have customers in any of the 27 European Union countries or in the United Kingdom, which currently follows GDPR despite leaving the EU in 2021.
It doesn’t matter where in the world you are. If your customers are in one of those countries, you are legally required to abide by GDPR.
The aim is to protect individual's privacy, and this should be your goal as well.
What are my obligations?
Get Active Consent to Use Personal Data
Before sending any communications, you must obtain the active consent of your prospective recipient. This permission must be given freely. It must also be specific, informed, and unambiguous. In practice, this means that your current or prospective client has ticked a box on a form agreeing to receive your emails. This box may not be pre-ticked.
Keep Evidence of Consent
Simply obtaining consent is not enough – you must also be able to provide this evidence for your client or even in a legal setting if challenged. In such an event, this evidence will allow you to demonstrate that you acted in good faith: IP address, date of collection, collection URL, etc.
Practice Data Minimization
This principle of data minimization means that you must only collect data that is strictly necessary.
For example, there is no reason why you should request social security numbers on a newsletter sign-up form.
Be Transparent About Data Usage
Your privacy policy should be as transparent as possible. Internet users should be able to understand what their data will be used for.
Why are you collecting my data? (E.g., to send newsletters or updates about new products)
Who will hold my data? (Company X)
Who will use my data? In other words, will you share my data with other partners?
How often will you send me communications? (E.g., every month)
Respond to Requests for Action and Information
You must respond to any of the following requests within one month:
The right to rectification: The correction and modification of contact details.
The right to be forgotten: The permanent erasure of information.
The right to data portability: The right to transfer data to another organization or a competitor.
The right to object: The option to unsubscribe.
The right of access: Knowing what data has been collected.
Finally, you may not keep a contact’s data for more than three years if you no longer have any relationship with them (no more purchases, unopened emails, etc.).
Does GDPR cover business-to-business (B2B) email?
Yes. Unlike the legislation it replaces, GDPR rules still apply to B2B, as it applies wherever you are processing personal data. However, there are some nuances. In particular, many businesses rely on the idea of legitimate interest instead of active consent to send B2B emails. It's best to get legal advice before deciding whether this could apply to your email program.
Identify Different Types of Emails
It would be almost impossible to compile a comprehensive list of all different types of emails. Ultimately, the only limit is your imagination. There are some standard, basic categories worth mentioning, as you may find yourself using them:
Type of email | Description | Examples | Tips and tricks! |
Transactional email | An email sent following an action taken by an internet user. | Order confirmation; appointment confirmation. | Use these messages as part of your email strategy. |
Triggered email | An email that is automatically triggered from data you hold about a contact. | Cart abandonment email; birthday email. | Don’t forget these three essential triggers: welcome emails, cart abandonment, and reactivation emails. |
Newsletter | Though widely used to refer to almost any type of email, these should provide company updates and information. | Company news; products of the month; weekly updates. | Your contacts don’t only want to receive promotions. |
Promotional email | Promotions or special offers to help boost sales of certain products. | Flash sales; free delivery on selected products; 50% off a certain product category. | Carefully target your contacts to avoid irritating clients if the message isn’t relevant for everyone. |
Relational email | Improve contact engagement by building a relationship. | A message from the CEO; opportunities to meet with clients; "Did you know…?" about the company. | Create a narrative through regular mail-outs of relational emails – once a month, for example. |
We’ll go back over these different types of emails throughout this course to guide you through their development.
Set the Goals of Your Email Strategy
Many marketers struggle to answer the question, “What is the key goal of our marketing email strategy?”
Discern the Interests of Your Existing and Prospective Clients
Learning to discern your client’s interests is rarely the first goal that comes to mind, but it’s so important! How? By categorizing your emails and links. If an individual mainly opens and clicks on the bike category in your online sports store, they are probably interested in cycling. Gathering that information means you can target your clients with increasingly relevant emails. Time and time again, relevance has been proven to be strongly linked to the success of an email program.
It makes sense that people are much more likely to respond positively to relevant emails.
Set Key Metrics to Measure Goal Achievement
Whether it’s creating customer loyalty, increasing recurring revenue, or generating second purchases, there are many great reasons for rolling out an email strategy.
The most important thing when setting goals is measuring their success. When implementing your strategy, you’ll need to establish the metrics you want to see progress. Some examples could include:
Reducing the average number of days between the first and second sale.
Increasing the average annual budget per client.
Increasing client lifecycle length and value.
You’ll use the success of these metrics to make major structuring decisions to transform your email program.
Let’s Recap!
It may not seem cutting-edge, but email is still an essential channel in any multichannel marketing strategy.
Almost all internet users have an email address, and it also allows you to gather feedback in real-time.
Feedback from emails can enhance knowledge of your contact base, as well as helping you optimize your messages.
It is essential to respect your contacts’ privacy and get their consent before sending any communication.
Email marketing is more than promotional emails, and your overall goals must guide you in deciding which messages to send out.
In the next chapter, we’ll look at how to create a high-quality list of contacts.
