1. Email marketing can be done on the cheap
It’s easy to think that email marketing is just a matter of writing a quick message, perhaps adding an image or two, and clicking ‘send’.
It is true that email marketing can be straightforward if you have a solid email management system in place. But if it’s not done properly, a cheaply-put together email solution can put you in the red: in legal costs and in damaged relationships with your clients. We talk you through these risks in more detail below.
The key is to be strategic with your investment. The beauty of a good email management system is that day-to-day running of it is automated. Once you have it set up, ongoing costs will be minimal while you continue to reap the benefits.
2. If you send an email, your audience will receive it
Eighty-five per cent of all email traffic is spam, according to security vendors Symantec. ISPs and email providers filter out a massive volume of spam to keep communication lines open for useful, relevant messages.
The risk for you is that your important email may be caught by a spam filter and either swept away into a junk mail folder, or not delivered at all. This is particularly likely if:
- Your emails look like spam: misspelt subject lines, ALL CAPS, bolded content, or single large images.
- Your emails act like spam: frequent mail-outs to large lists, single opt-in consent, or badly maintained email lists (see #3).
You can be confident that your audience is getting your messages by:
- using a carefully-designed email template
- using a consent-based approach to building and maintaining your mailing lists.
3. The email will display properly when your audience opens it
You’ve cleared the first hurdle. The email is sitting in your client’s inbox. But, when they open the email, the text runs off the screen, and is full of blank spaces where the images should be. Most businesses would never send out a sales letter like this, but it’s all too common with email marketing.
Formatting problems happen when an email is created and tested using one email package (such as Microsoft Outlook 2010) without testing it across other packages.
Formatting problems can be solved by:
1) Sending an email as plain text. This format is guaranteed to display properly across all systems. This can be a good option if you’re looking for ‘plain packaging’ on your messages. But you lose the chance to link the email with your visual branding, and to create engaging, interactive features.
2) Using an email template. Free tools will give you limited options to customise your template, such as adding a logo. If you only need this limited level of customisation, we can advise you on which providers to use.
You may want more control over what you send out. RockSolid custom-designs email templates to follow corporate branding, and runs them through rigorous testing. If you received this feature article by email, you’re reading it on a template that RockSolid built.
If compiling newsletters from existing web content is your main priority, some CMSs (including RockSolid’s product) will do this for you.
3) Once someone is on your email list, there’s nothing more you need to do.
This is the most dangerous myth. As we flagged in # 2, ISPs will mark your messages as spam if you don’t remove unsubscribes or bounces. If this happens too many times, you may be blacklisted, stopping you from sending emails at all. You may also face heavy fines – up to $1.1 million per day if your emails breach Australia’s Spam Act.
An email template that’s well-designed will tackle many of the compliance issues by including:
- an unsubscribe function
- clear sender identification.
We also recommend that our clients have list management systems in place to automate subscriptions. This includes at least double opt-in consent: clicking on a link in a consent email confirms that you do want to receive the content.
On top of the compliance issues, there’s the reality that a portion of your subscribers will tune out over time. They may stop reading your messages, without taking the extra step of unsubscribing.
A creative solution is to keep your content fresh and engaging. This should be complemented with two practical solutions:
- keep adding new subscribers
- measure click-throughs (or other indicators) to identify how many subscribers are interacting with your content.
This brings us to the last point: performance metrics. Measuring click-throughs or responses creates a feedback loop so that you can adapt your email strategy based on hard evidence of what’s working.
4) Email is yesterday’s technology
With social media’s popularity on the rise, some online marketers claim that email has had its day. But research indicates that permission-based email remains an extremely effective and economical tool. A DoubleClick study reports that 69 per cent of American email users made purchases online in response to an email. America’s Direct Marketing Association reported in 2009 that businesses saw a return on investment of $43.62 for every dollar spent. By comparison, search engine marketing – an emerging technology – returned $21.85 on the dollar.
When someone joins your email list, they are giving you permission to continue a conversation with them. A well-designed email marketing system is not just a tool for quickly distributing messages; it’s a platform for helping you manage relationships with your clients.
Contact us to find out more about email marketing’s capabilities for your organisation.