Email Advertising
Permission Email: It's Not Spam When They Ask For It
As postal, media and call center costs increase, customer acquisition & retention through email messages delivered below a penny/name[1] looks pretty attractive. 82% of marketers felt email was the most effective ad method; 49% thought TV was.[2]
Spam is a concern, but emailing your own customer or those who have given permission (opted-in) is certainly acceptable when you follow some self-imposed industry guidelines. Special offers are welcome when requested. The opportunity to upsell products based on previous purchases, survey, retain relationships and collect further data to improve products/services thereby increasing sales at such a low cost is invaluable.
One successful weight-loss company's sole advertising is permission email, messages sent to consumers who registered at websites or otherwise agreed to receive newsletters and promotions and strictly on a cost per acquisition (CPA) basis: risk-free and spam-free.
Campaign expansion to larger, higher quality sites on a CPM basis, as low as $.35/1,000 emails is cheap in today's soft ad market. One software company spent $3 million last year on 300 million emails per month sent by 4000+ web sites/email companies with a 2-3:1 ROI which can be bought for less than half that today.
CPM campaigns, like DRTV, require close attention to metrics. When a test email goes out to 1mm visitors, how many/what % clicked on the ad (click thru rate or CTR)? Industry average in 2002 was .3% for b2c offers.
CTR may vary widely depending upon the fit between a website's audience and the offer. Conversion is likely to be a much more stable number across the campaign.
Conversion is the next critical metric. Once visitors clicked, 1-5% completed the action for 86% of surveyed advertisers; 6-10% completed actions for another 12%.[3]
Best-performing email offers have impulsive appeal like DRTV offers. Anything free or inexpensive, & lead generators all work well. Not that high-ticket offers don't succeed: computers and travel are two of the biggest categories on the Internet. Success falls back on DRTV's strength: a strong perceived value.
Build your list by offering newsletters as well as special offers. Send as often as once a week & always offer value. Watch Unsubscribe counts for feedback. Increase your income with advertising in your newsletters and opt-in list rental.
Expand your list and campaign more: "eppend," or secure email names to your current customer base, barter services with other companies to send email ads to equal numbers of opt-in consumers. Rent lists of opt-in names from $10 to $200 per thousand depending on targeting. All campaigns require the test and rollout method familiar in DRTV. Test quantities can vary from tens of thousands for very niche lists to 1-2mm names. Rollout quantities can be up to 40+mm for the largest files.
Ads with a single advertiser, solo emails, need creative in 2 formats, all text as well as one in HTML. Web visitors are still split on this preference. Prepare Subject: and From: lines. Newsletter ads are shared with other advertisers and vary from text to text/graphic to banner ads. Test and tweak creative often to improve results.
The DMA champions the email industry's self-regulation. To safely build email creative provide:
1) a link to your site's Privacy Policy
2) company contact info or a link to same
3) the ability to Unsubscribe (decline further email)
4) an honest Subject line to the email
Seems simple enough, right? For more info, go to
www.the-dma.org/guidelines/onlineguidelines2.
eMarketer makes an excellent suggestion to maintain the permission trail from how you secured permission from the consumer (list, email drop or date/time stamp at your site) and honor all requests to Unsubscribe expeditiously.
Do these things to join the ranks of the successful email marketers collecting demographics, providing customizable content, targeting by purchase history and geography and enjoy CTR rates of top campaigns of 5-20%.[4]
To learn more, opt-in for free newsletters at: eMarketer.com, MarketingSherpa.com or pick up Seth Godin's Permission Marketing
1 Forrester, Aug. 2001/eMarketer, Strategies, Stats, Technologies & Tools, Aug. 2002
2 eDialog survey 2002
3 eMarketer b2c survey 2002