"There simply is no better way to stay in touch with a large amount of prospects quickly."
Email marketing lifts brand awareness by 58.4% and purchase intent by 66.1%.
– Ad Effectiveness Study, Insight Express & Datran Media, 11/08
 E-mail campaigns are an essential ingredient to a successful marketing plan. This powerful marketing tool is used to keep in touch with clients; introduce new products and services; announce staff changes, upcoming events and awards; and communicate anything your prospects might find interesting!
$1 for 50x return…not bad!
According to the Direct Marketing Association, the return on investment (ROI) for each dollar spent on e-mail marketing is $57.25. This makes e-mail marketing the highest ROI across all marketing channels. According to Jupiter Research, e-mail marketing is expected to exceed $1 billion by 2010.
No hard selling…
This is a SOFT SELL, and the primary purpose of such campaigns is to make sure your prospects and clients remember your company when “decision time” rolls around. If they are interested in your services or products, they will appreciate the updates. Additionally, your company can make sure that follow-up, up-sell and referral generation programs are promoted consistently.
Starting a successful e-mail campaign:
There are two basic types of emails campaigns. Both use “templates” that match your brand’s image and both are usually included in our branding contracts. Both are highly effective, and both should be used as part of a successful and ongoing marketing and branding strategy:
-
Custom E-mail Templates - Designed and hand coded each issue:
These are highly customized templates that result in high-impact campaigns. They are basically “mini websites.” Using an approved template, and provided content and images…the entire HTML e-mail is redesigned including typography, buttons, graphics, animations, revisions, etc and hand coded. There are no real limitations of this type of campaign. The average cost per this type of email campaign is $400-$1,200 per issue. Many companies use these custom email campaigns to promote specials, success stories, new products and services, important announcements, etc. Most importantly, these emails keep your brand and offerings in front of your customers, increasing the chance of converting them significantly.
- Editable E-mail Templates (Do it yourself style but less impactfull)
These campaigns also work with a custom-designed template; however, the template is much more limited in its look and feel. Such designs need to allow “fields” to add text and modify buttons/links. They usually consist of a top and bottom footer matching your brand identity as well as pre-set areas to add links and body content.
 Because the content is placed automatically…the look feel and layout of the text is limited and usually will leave some “hollow spots.” This is a great option for fast communications and announcements to your target audience or for internal communications.
There is little cost to these campaigns, once the initial design is done, other than the cost to purchase email “credits” to distribute your campaigns. *We recommend such campaigns be supplemented periodic by fully custom designed e-mail campaigns to vary the imagery, and expose your customers to a more interactive design.
Marketing via email is a tricky matter. It is powerful, but easily abused. It is easy, but really difficult. May these tips, tricks and secrets make it easy and powerful for you.
Most Popular Days to send for
The second consecutive quarter, Tuesday (25.4%) is the most popular day of the week to send email messages, followed by Wednesday at 23.3% and Thursday at 18.3%. Bringing up the rear is Saturday at 0.9% and Sunday at 1.4%.
Send Days
| |
Sun |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
Sat |
| Q 3 2003 |
1.4% |
15.1% |
25.4% |
23.3% |
18.3% |
15.6% |
0.9% |
| Q 3 2003 |
1.4% |
15.1% |
25.4% |
23.3% |
18.3% |
15.6% |
0.9% |
| Q 3 2003 |
1.4% |
15.1% |
25.4% |
23.3% |
18.3% |
15.6% |
0.9% |
Email Send Times
In Q3 2008, 17.8% of all messages were sent in the 9 a.m. (PST) hour, followed by 12.6% in the 10 a.m. hour. For the third straight quarter, roughly half of all messages were sent between 8 a.m. and noon; and more than three fourths between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m.
| Time Sent |
9 a.m. |
10 a.m. |
8 a.m. - Noon |
7 a.m. - 4 p.m. |
| Q 3 2003 |
17.8% |
12.6% |
51.0% |
76.4% |
| Q 3 2003 |
17.8% |
12.6% |
51.0% |
76.4% |
| Q 3 2003 |
17.8% |
12.6% |
51.0% |
76.4% |
Open Times
For the first three quarters of 2003, 11 a.m. (PST) was the highest time period for recipients to open their email messages. For the period of 8 a.m. through 4 p.m., more than 50% of messages were opened by recipients and roughly 75% were opened during the period of 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
With 25%-30% of email messages sent between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., it is not surprising that the 11 a.m. time slot is the highest open period. From a recipient perspective, U.S. West Coast recipients are checking emails before lunch, while East Coasters are back from lunch and catching up.
| Time Sent |
9 a.m. |
10 a.m. |
8 a.m. - Noon |
7 a.m. - 4 p.m. |
| Q 3 2003 |
17.8% |
12.6% |
51.0% |
76.4% |
| Q 3 2003 |
17.8% |
12.6% |
51.0% |
76.4% |
| Q 3 2003 |
17.8% |
12.6% |
51.0% |
76.4% |
Sample Click to Open Rates
Open and click-through rates, the most commonly used and bench marked email marketing metrics, provide marketers with a quick and reasonably accurate snapshot of how an email message performed. By combining these two metrics into the click-to-open rate, however, marketers have an additional and perhaps better tool to analyze and benchmark email performance.
Click-to-open rate (CTOR) is simply the ratio of unique clicks as a percentage of unique opens. The CTOR measures how effective your email message was in motivating recipients who opened it, to then click a link. In other words, the click-to-open rate expresses the measure of click-through rates as a percentage of messages opened, instead of messages delivered.
| Email Sample |
B2B Newsletter |
Ecommerce Email |
| AOL |
Open |
CTR |
CTOR |
Open |
CTR |
CTOR |
| Earthlink |
1.4% |
15.1% |
25.4% |
23.3% |
18.3% |
15.6% |
| Hotmail |
1.4% |
15.1% |
25.4% |
23.3% |
18.3% |
15.6% |
| Yahoo |
1.4% |
15.1% |
25.4% |
23.3% |
18.3% |
15.6% |
| All Other Domains |
1.4% |
15.1% |
25.4% |
23.3% |
18.3% |
15.6% |
| Total |
1.4% |
15.1% |
25.4% |
23.3% |
18.3% |
15.6% |
|
