What Not to Do in E-mail
Ten practices to avoid and another 10 to embrace in e-mail marketing.
Last week, I had the fortune of speaking on a Shop.org Webinar titled, “Is Email Marketing Dead?” I thought it was a bit of a silly title and an even sillier question to ask. Of course, we know e-mail isn’t dead, especially if you are in retail.
So Kevin Ertell, VP, retail strategies, ForeSee; Jessica Harley, an e-commerce executive with over 12 years experience managing e-mail; and I decided to approach the Webinar with some stats from Foresee regarding e-mail’s continued strength in driving results. We followed that with two top 10 lists: one explaining what you should not do in e-mail marketing and one highlighting what you should do. The Webinar, which got great reviews, will be posted on Shop.org one year. (There’s a fee unless you’re a Shop.org member.) In case you want the CliffsNotes version of the two top 10 lists, here they are:
What not to do in e-mail. Don’t:
- Stop e-mailing non-responders – these are your best social networks!
- Look at any stats other than CPOs (cost per orders).
- Ignore e-mail data capture’s importance.
- Build for a PC anymore. Most e-mails are read on mobile devices now; (Flash doesn’t work).
- Forget that your e-mail will never die.
- Over-discount.
- Overuse personalization.
- Beg. Win back e-mails can go too far.
- Get big brother with remarketing e-mails.
- Assume your customers are reading your e-mails as much as you are.
Now that you know what not to do, here’s a recap of what you should do. Do:
- Put URLs in the subject line!
- Use YouTube for e-mail promos.
- Test auto-updates of content for older e-mails.
- Make your e-mails 3D (QR codes, digital catalogs).
- Make “exclusive e-mail” offers a priority.
- Format with images that are the same size as those on your site and HTML.
- Ask for feedback and respond to it.
- Use control groups to determine full impact of e-mails.
- Use an offer in order confirmation e-mail.
- Send a full early engagement stream instead of a single welcome e-mail.
There you have it! Now you can print this out and use it as a checklist for success.
Enjoy!
Jeanniey is off today. This column was originally published on June 7, 2010 on ClickZ.
