email acquisition

04
May 2018

A highlight in email marketing history
Category Blog Current News Media Techtelligence
Written by Rebecca Felker

Back in May of 1978 the “Father of Spam”, Gary Thuerk sent the first mass email. Thuerk was a marketing executive at Digital Equipment Corp of Maynard, Massachusetts. 40 years ago Thuerk sent the first unsolicited mass email to 400 ARPAnet users promoting Digital Equipment Corporation computers. Although email had been in existence for 6 years, it was quite a novelty for recipients to receive a sales email directly to their inbox. And who would have thought that the “spam” email would generate $13 million in sales of the DEC computers...and a few complaints.

Little did Thuerk know at the time he was changing the business of email as we know it today. Email continues to be the most profitable channel in the digital world. Let’s see where the next 40 years of email marketing take us.

18
Apr 2018

3 Best Practices to A/B Testing Email Campaigns
Category Blog Current News Media Techtelligence
Written by Rebecca Felker

A/B testing your email campaigns can take the form of testing copywriting, images, call to action prompts and more. It is a powerful way to drive conversion rate optimization that can be used to justify decision making around enhancing marketing content for your email campaigns. It can be used to test anything from completely different designs to slightly different shades of blues; A/B tests help objectively define whether any given element has an impact. Make the most of your email campaigns by testing out what works best for a particular audience and type of email. Here are some tips to get you started. Make a plan To make your A/B test the most effective, decide what you want to test before you begin. You may have the urge to test a number of things in one campaign, but resist! Only test one thing at a time to get the most accurate results. Testing one variable at a time is the only way to truly determine how effective that variable is. Variables you may consider testing:

Subject line - Example: “25% discount on Product XYZ” or “Product XYZ on Sale”
Call to action - Example: “Sign up now!” or “Learn more”
Layout of the message - Example: single column vs. double column or different placement of different elements
Images - Example: test one image against another or one image against no image
Headline
Body text
Closing text

Keep in mind that depending on what you’re testing, changes will affect different parts of the conversion process. For example, if you’re concerned about open rate, testing subject lines will directly impact the performance. On the other hand, your call to action will directly affect how many people make a purchase or click through to your landing page. Think about what issue you’re trying to address or solve and test based on importance. For example, if not many people are opening your emails, then test on subject line first. Then, let the other variables follow. Statistically significant data So you finished your A/B test, but can you trust your results enough to make changes in your email strategy? You can if they are statistically significant. Statistical significance is a way to mathematically support that a certain statistic is a change beyond what can be attributed to chance. There are a number of accurate confidence level calculators you can find on the internet to help with this calculation. The stronger the result, the more confident you can be that the factors of the test are a reason for a change. Test and test again Continuously challenge results with new tests. Just because you did a few tests doesn’t mean you should stop. As your audience’s preferences change and markets fluctuate, you’ll need to continue to adjust and test your theories. Always try to think of new aspects to test and creative ways to do so. For example, look at your subject line. There are several variables within the subject line that can be tested - length, mention of a promotion, urgency, recipient name, among others. In conclusion, A/B testing can be very powerful. A well planned and executed A/B test can make a positive impact on your email marketing numbers. The biggest benefit is that it gives you the power to make educated decisions based on the results.

11
Apr 2018

3 Common Fallacies about Email Marketing
Category Blog Current News Media Techtelligence
Written by Rebecca Felker

Email has come a long way. The evolution of this media channel over the past 42 years has turned email into one of the most cost-effective methods of direct marketing. However, the evolution of email still leaves people with misconceptions about this tool. Fallacy #1: Email is not as effective as social media. While social media has become the shiny new object, revenue from email traffic still outperforms “likes” from social media followers. In some instances, email is significantly more effective when it comes to reach. Over the past few years, the organic reach has declined to reach about 6% of your fan base according to a 2014 study by Social@Ogilvy. This means if you send 3,000 emails and also have 3,000 Facebook fans, only 180 Facebook fans will see your post, whereas 651 people will open your email. With the decline in organic reach through social media platforms, companies are spending more and more on paid advertising to get their content seen. Email traffic is not only more affordable, but it also offers an impressive 4400% return on investment or $44 for every $1 spent. Fallacy #2: Consumers don’t like promotional emails. It’s true that email marketing is widespread and consumers are increasingly leery of promotional emails. However, MarketingSherpa conducted a study and more than 91% reported they liked receiving promotional emails from companies they do business with. They also reported that 61% said they wanted to receive these types of emails at least once a week. Remember that your customers have given you their email address, which suggests that there is something about your business that interests them. Fallacy #3: The best day to send email is on Tuesday at noon. You may have read or somewhere that Tuesday afternoons are the best days to send emails. Or maybe it was Thursday mornings or Wednesday afternoons? Although there has been a lot of research done in this area, there is no magic day or time to send an email because it all depends upon your industry and audience. Understanding your subscribers and reacting to their preferences will help you define your best day and time along with testing and optimizing your campaigns - not by applying what best practice you heard or read about on the internet. Conclusion As you can see, you can’t believe everything you hear or read. Every business is different and therefore, there’s no one way of doing email marketing. Base your email marketing strategy on your audience, the message you’re trying to get across and your past experience.

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A highlight in email marketing history

3 Best Practices to A/B Testing Email Campaigns

3 Common Fallacies about Email Marketing

Improve Inbox Placement with Better Database Management written by Ongage

High-Volume Email Marketing and the Switch to IPv6

3 Key Factors Affecting IP Reputation

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