Guide 6: Effective email marketing Andy s handy marketing tips Guide No. 6 of 10 Find out more at justadviser.com FOR FINANCIAL INTERMEDIARIES ONLY. NOT APPROVED FOR USE WITH CUSTOMERS. Boost your retirement business with more effective email marketing Email marketing is a popular means of communication with businesses who want to build stronger relationships with their customers. Why? Because it s personal, fast and cost effective. With more than half of all adults aged 65-74 now using the internet, email marketing is an appealing and efficient method of making contact with your client base. It is a great way to keep in touch with your customers, and, there are some simple guidelines you should follow to help you get the most of your email activity, whilst remaining compliant with both the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and Data Protection regulations. In this guide, we ll show you how to make the most of email, with practical tips on getting it right from targeting clients, to tailoring your message, testing and timing, and measuring your results. Getting started Email is one of the most affordable forms of direct marketing. You can send a message to hundreds of people for virtually nothing. It s also an easy way to target the exact person you want to reach. Measuring response is simple, too. And response rates are high because replying to an email is as simple as a click of the mouse. At the same time, keep in mind that people are easily annoyed when they receive an email that s irrelevant to them. There s every chance they ll delete unsolicited messages or spam without reading them. Computer security software can block these emails automatically so send test messages to make sure you re not inadvertently hitting the spam filter with words you use in your subject box. You ll find more on spam and other things to avoid on page 4. Email can be a highly affordable and effective marketing tool for both existing clients and potential customers. So always ask clients for their email address and obtain their consent to receive information from you by email about products or services even if your emails don t generate immediate business, they may well do so in the future. If you have a sizeable database of customers and potential customers for your email marketing campaign, it s worth looking into what you know about them, so you can send a more relevant message. See our guide on Marketing your at retirement proposition for more information on segmentation. You could use this information to send clients more motivating and relevant messages based on age, lifestage or gender, or other distinctions including their needs, location or income. You can give your email marketing more chance of success if you focus on people who you know are interested in what you re offering. Once you ve segmented your client email list, you can tailor messages to each person and it s easy to create different email campaigns with relevant, individual messages. With email you have a fantastic opportunity to vary content, and make instant changes to future emails based on the response you receive. So don t be afraid to use the flexibility it gives you. It is vital that when you are planning and implementing your own marketing and promotional activity you follow the rules and guidance set by the regulator or other relevant authority. 14786.1
Email planning checklist Steps Things to do Done Build a database of clients to email Set your objective Segment your client email list (if necessary) Develop your message Format your email Run a test email Follow up Analyse your results This is easy to do using simple software like Outlook, Lotus Notes or Excel. Make sure you have: a) clients prior permission to email them b) the correct email address and personal details c) as much information as possible including age, product preferences, recent product performance and attitude to risk. d) quality checked your data to ensure that spelling is correct and that there aren t any duplicate email addresses. Do you want to generate appointments, build traffic to your website, establish your expert credentials in retirement income planning or simply build client awareness of what you offer? Email allows you to tailor messages to groups of individuals with similar requirements/characteristics so don t be afraid to create different email campaigns, based on the profile information that you have captured. The relevance of your message is one of the key components for success so make sure that your content is specific to your client segment e.g. Retirees with a low annual income may have a different attitude to those with more financial security. Your subject line is also very important, as this is the first part of your email that the client will see. Asking a question, creating curiosity with vagueness or revealing your incentive will capture your audience s attention, increasing open rates. A direct and to-the-point subject line to a niche audience may also help increase open rates. Remember to check that your email gets through spam filters see page 4 for more information. Always check the formatting of your email. Don t send it out blindly. Check your content, data fields, client details, website landing page and links in fact check everything you can think of! If you can, get a friend or colleague to proof read it first. You don t want to make your recipients unsubscribe from your future marketing messages because the content or format of your emails isn t relevant to them. Send test messages to a series of personal email accounts ensure different accounts such as AOL, Yahoo, and Hotmail can all receive your email without the format being affected. How does it look when read on an iphone for example? Decide on the most appropriate call-to-action, taking into consideration what you want customers to do and how you are going to respond to it. If you put in a really good offer for example, can you handle the number of calls/emails you might receive? Always remember to respond to customer calls/emails promptly in whatever way you promised. Create a reporting spreadsheet to analyse click-through rates to your website, phone calls, or email enquiries as a result of the email. You may want to analyse the profile of clients who did and did not respond, and use this data to refine future email campaigns. Incentives Clients may be much more likely to sign-up if you give them a useful incentive. For example, you could offer an extra service (regular e-newsletters) or discount to clients who sign up for your email updates. For even better results, make offers available exclusively through your email marketing. Your clients are then more likely to check for your latest email. 2
Building an email list When you re creating other marketing material, ask for email addresses and put opt-in tick boxes for email promotional information on all your paper-based marketing material. You can use your website as a great way to get opt-ins too. Highlight the benefits of subscribing to your email service and provide an online form to register immediately. Don t ask for too much information lots of boxes to fill in will act as a barrier to response. Name, email address and phone number should be enough to get started. Email contacts go out-of-date faster than addresses or telephone numbers, so check your database regularly against those of the Email Preference Service (EPS) and update where necessary. Did You Know? You can buy or rent a mailing list of email addresses. What makes a good email? People make quick decisions when they open an email: can they see something they want? Is it interesting to them? If not, they ll close it. Make sure your email is: Useful the purpose of your email should be immediately clear. Usable people need to quickly find what they want. Interesting do people want to read on and click through a link in the email to your website to find out more? Is it a positive experience? Once you re ready to start typing, the following guidelines will help you create an email that will improve your response rate. Avoid ALL CAPS Especially in your subject line. We tend to read only the tops of letters so reading text in caps is very slow. The subject line is the most important part of the email. Use no more than 35 characters and make every word count. Ideally the text should be designed to be scanned rather than read. Check it against spam filter words, examples of which can be found on page 4. Dear <Title> <Surname> Unlock the savings you didn t know you had <LINK> Unlock savings you didn t know you had As a homeowner, you ve no doubt planned your finances carefully to allow for a certain level of income throughout your retirement but what it doesn t stretch far enough, or over time simply want more? We can give you the opportunity to of your home s value into a regular income, without ha move house. This can be a release plan. This could enable improve your suppl Personalise your email so greet the recipient by name, if possible. Try to include hyperlinks to relevant pages on your website and make sure recipients can see them in the email without scrolling down (also referred to as being above the fold ) otherwise they may miss them altogether if they don t read on. Your opening paragraph should describe the main benefit of your offer for your clients. Make sure it follows on from your subject line and remember the WIIFM test What s In It For Me? Use short paragraphs to help recipients quickly scan and understand your key messages. Include a simple but prominent call to action, such as for more information, call me today on xxx or visit our website xxxx to register. Your email should be signed by a real person. Make sure you comply with Data Protection and FSA regulations for example, by enabling recipients to unsubscribe from future email and ensuring that you have obtained their consent before you send them an email about your products and services. Make your privacy policy clear and put any necessary disclaimers at the bottom of the email. For example, if you re a limited company include your company registration details. 3
Some ideas on possible content Providing you have their consent to email, what could you email existing and prospective clients about? You could use email for a variety of tasks: Invite to an evening seminar or breakfast briefing on maximising income in retirement or equity release. Short newsletter with links to relevant pages on your website or news articles. Client questionnaire on income in retirement, helping to build your customer profiles. Invite to register for a financial advice blog on income in retirement. Register for a full financial review. A reminder of key messages presented in a direct mail pack you sent. A campaign to a target group of customers e.g. those who retired more than 5 years ago who may now require additional retirement income through equity release or investment products. Text or HTML? HTML HTML is the most popular format for emails because it offers graphically rich messages. You can highlight topics with headlines in specific fonts, and use colour as well as company branding. The email may contain images, graphic links and buttons, and offers better tracking and reporting. Text Only A Plain Text email has little scope for formatting. It does not offer the ability to use bold, italics, colour or images. Links will be underlined as they are on the web. Plain text lacks the branding and personality of an HTML email, however they are less likely to be blocked due to the plain formatting a point worth considering if you need to ensure that your message is received by as many of your audience as possible. Best of both worlds Do not over design HTML emails. Keep it simple to achieve the trust of Plain Text formatting with the functional benefits of HTML keeping your brand in mind. Things to avoid Don t trip the Spam Filter Outlook, Hotmail, AOL etc. all employ spam filters, so it s important to avoid language in the subject line which could bar your email from reaching your intended audience. Words to avoid: 1. Free 2. Opt-in 3. Cash 4. Forward to a friend 5. Investment 6. Child 7. Guaranteed 8. Credit Lag Avoid including any large files in the email, such as graphics and rich media, which take a long time to download and could block someone s system (called Lagging ). Gobbledegook Be aware of special characters used in word processing that can cause problems when sent as email. This is because they are transmitted as codes and may be interpreted in various ways by different software. Common examples are the pound sign ( ), bullet points, language characters (umlauts, accents etc ) and curly quotation marks. Running test emails will help you to avoid this. 4
Guide 6: Better Effective email email marketing Remember email marketing can be an effective marketing tool when used correctly. Here are a few points to remember before you start emailing your customers. Segment your client email list to tailor messages relevant to their interests Always ask for clients email addresses and consent to receive information by email Use a checklist to guide you through the process (see page 2) Provide an incentive to encourage your clients to sign-up to receive your marketing emails It s all in the timing Can you make your email seem more immediate (and therefore relevant) by e.g. relating it to a retirement income or equity release article in one of the Sunday papers or a new piece of relevant research? Consider what makes a good email (see page 3) More information on email marketing can be found at: www.ico.gov.uk www.dma.org.uk www.fsa.gov.uk Be consistent Make sure your email marketing reflects your off-line marketing strategy. Don t have one message for your digital marketing and a different message for your off-line strategy. Try and keep your font styles, sizes, colours, logo and your writing style consistent. For more marketing guides and free sample marketing material, visit: www.justadviser.com/tools Remember that all marketing material should be fair, clear and not misleading to comply with the Financial Services Authority rule requirements and ensure that you continue to treat customers fairly. You can find out more about both of these requirements at http://www.fsa.gov.uk/doing/regulated/promo Just Retirement Limited. Registered office: Vale House, Roebuck Close, Bancroft Road, Reigate, Surrey RH2 7RU. Tel: 0845 302 2287 www.justretirement.com. Registered in England Number 05017193. Just Retirement Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. For financial intermediary use only. Not approved for use with customers. Lines are open 8.30am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday. Please note your call may be monitored and recorded and call charges may apply. 5