Adopting an E-mail Program Improvement
How a total makeover or a room-by-room improvement can bring in more revenue.
How a total makeover or a room-by-room improvement can bring in more revenue.
Moving your e-mail program from a basic broadcast model to one that incorporates targeted and triggered messages is like buying an old house and trying to figure out whether you should do the entire project at once, or work room-to-room as your time and budget permits.
In the column, “Creating a Good E-mail Marketing Strategy”, I encouraged marketers to “start somewhere; start anywhere. Even the smallest change you make today will start you down the path to the right strategy.”
My company recently designed a total e-mail-marketing makeover for a client. The makeover incorporates a mix of programs, including triggered, transactional, and targeted messages for a consumer-products company. It is credited with helping the company nearly double its annual e-mail revenue, from $3 million to $5.1 million.
Although the company implemented this design as a whole, you can also implement programs one-by-one, thereby building each new initiative on the foundation of the previous ones.
Case Study: Elements of an E-mail-Marketing Makeover
Company background: The company is a mid-size manufacturer of a popular brand, sold both in major department stores, some outlet stores, and its online store. Previous annual e-mail revenue was $3 million.
Pre-Makeover E-mail Key Performance Indicators:
The new e-mail-marketing program incorporated three initiatives: triggered and lifecycle messages; adding marketing content to transactional messages; and targeted messaging, where the client swapped out one of its five monthly broadcast campaigns for a campaign that was targeted for a portion of its list.
Key Performance Indicators:
Click-through rate: 8.7 percent (2x average)
Conversion rate: 9.8 percent (3x average)
Revenue per e-mail: $1.07 (6x average)
Annual revenue: $683,000
The new welcome program generated 23 percent of what the company used to make with the entire program.
Key Performance Indicators:
CTR: 13.3 percent (3x average)
Conversion rate: 5.7 percent (2x average)
Revenue per e-mail: $1.03 (5.4x average)
Annual revenue: $328,000
Key Performance Indicators:
CTR: 17 percent (4x average)
Conversion rate: 17.8 percent (3x average)
Revenue per e-mail: $2.97
Annual revenue: $280,000
Key Performance Indicators:
CTR: 2.7 percent (0.6x average)
Conversion rate: 9 percent (3x average)
Revenue per e-mail: 29 cents (1.5x average)
Annual revenue: $152,000
Annual revenue: $180,000
Average monthly revenue: $90,000 ($40,000 incremental revenue on top of $50,000 average monthly campaign revenue)
The Bottom Line: An Extra $2.1 Million (70 percent more than prior year.
Here’s how the numbers stack up for the first year the client used these new marketing programs:
$1.44 million (Events and dialogues)
0.18 million (Transactional)
0.50 million (Targeting incremental revenue)
3.0 million (Broadcast messages)
$5.12 million (Total revenue attributed to e-mail)
Key Takeaways
So find a room and fix it. What are you waiting for?