Stand Out In The Inbox: Best Practices For Unleashing Your Email Potential Jason Lillie Solution Architect Radius Howard Sewell President Spear Marketing Group
Housekeeping AUDIO CHECK Use the chat window if you can t hear or we cut out! RECORDING & SLIDES Both will be sent within 24 hrs post-webinar! QUESTIONS Use the chat the ask Jason & Howard questions during the presentation!
Today s Agenda Introductions Setting the stage Creating the campaign plan Email creative Email deliverability Measuring performance Key takeaways Q&A
About Radius GTM Insights Segmentation & Targeting Inform Territories Data Diagnostics View TAM Build ICP
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About Spear Marketing Group Full-service demand generation agency helping B2B companies generate, nurture and convert sales leads to revenue Specialists in lead generation, lead nurturing, and lead lifecycle marketing Headquartered in Silicon Valley 50+ clients nationwide, mostly in B2B technology
Setting the Stage
Business users expected to send and receive an average of 140 messages per day by 2018.
Set Your Emails Apart Personalized messaging Relevant segments Using fresh lists Sending at the right time Segmented and targeted emails generate 58% of all revenue The Direct Marketing Association (UK), 2015
Campaign Plan
Use a Multichannel Strategy Our most successful customers deploy targeted, measurable campaigns with the right message to the ideal audience using a multi-channel approach Tele-Prospecting Email Social Advertising Direct Mail Calls & voicemails with tailored scripts increases conversion rates by 10x Verified emails and personalization increase opens 30% & CTR 80%, and 95% deliverability Deploying social ads to look-alike prospects reduces CAC from $150 to $40 Customized creative with social data increases response rates by 200%
Outbound Email Use Cases Sales Prospecting Nurturing Blasts Outbound sales team sending individual or small group emails to target accounts Delivered via company client email, Yesware, ToutApp, Outreach Sent from personal email Integrated with larger program Companies with large databases of early-stage/unengaged prospects Delivered via multi-touch campaigns in marketing automation Typically marketing controlled emails focused on soft offers Customize offers and copy with traits of the audience segment Very customized outreached for soft offers only for net-new leads Not recommended in mass quantities Sent via marketing automation delivered via marketing automation Use limited HTML
Creating the Campaign Plan 1. Define your goals and approach 2. Discover your ideal audience segments 3. Build your campaign engagement plan 4. Personalize your email campaign 5. Measure KPIs 6. Optimize subsequent campaigns from learnings
Customer Workflow Build targeted segment with Insights in Radius, balancing net new and success rate Utilize Radius to define campaign-specific signals Build creative using segment insights from Radius
Customer Results +200% increase in cold email open rate +300% increase in response rate The numbers: Deliverability: 96.5% Open rate: 30.2% CTR: 3.4% Download rate: 1.6%
Email Creative
Key Principles for Email Creative 1 What, Why, How 2 Sell the Offer, Not the Product 3 No Longer than Absolutely Necessary
BounceExchange What, Why, How GTM Insights Segmentation & Targeting Inform Territories Data Diagnostics View TAM Build ICP Image of the Offer What You ll Learn Only 53 words!
Insightpool Pre-header copy GTM Insights Segmentation & Targeting Inform Territories Data Diagnostics View TAM Build ICP Headline as image No offer Read more
IBM Commerce Headline as image GTM Insights Segmentation & Targeting Inform Territories Data Diagnostics View TAM Build ICP Offer up front Really long set-up paragraph Too much text; no bullets No text link CTAs
Acquia Offer and CTA up front GTM Insights Segmentation & Targeting Inform Territories Data Diagnostics View TAM Build ICP Headline is topic, not benefit Short set-up paragraph 2 CTA buttons, 1 text link Bulleted benefits Needs an offer image Footer is designed much wider than the body section
Timetrade No idea what the offer is GTM Insights Segmentation & Targeting Inform Territories Data Diagnostics View TAM Build ICP Headline seems to refer to the document below No offer benefits 3 different CTAs (4 if you include the social buttons)
Best Practices Shorter isn t always better, but avoid redundancy Think mobile-friendly (e.g. CTA buttons, alignment, pre-header copy) Repeat your CTA multiple times, in button and text (link) form Make your offer and CTA clear, specific, and concrete Test, test, test 53% of emails are opened on mobile devices. Campaign Monitor
Mistakes to Avoid Selling the product, not the offer Taking too much time to set up the offer No Learn More! (Make your CTA offer-specific) Require scrolling before the CTA
Email Deliverability
Deliverability is a way to measure the success at which an email marketer gets a campaign into subscribers' inboxes. According to estimates, there are over 180 billion spam messages sent every day.
Domain Reputation Email Content IP Reputation Sender Reputation From Name & Subject Line List Freshness Brand Consistency
IP Address Every email send has an IP address associated with it, and every IP address has its own sender reputation. Shared IP Addresses Multiple companies use the same IP address to send their emails Other senders bad practices impact your sender reputation Private IP Addresses Dedicated IP address that belongs to a single organization Better for controlling your IP reputation
Dedicated IP Ramping For the first 5 days, from your dedicated IP, stay under these limits (total messages/day): 50,000 Total (all domains) 10,000 4,000 10,000
Spam Filters & Spam Traps Filters evaluate: Email source Reputation of sender Email content Avoid spam traps: Use double-opt in Validate new email addresses Deactivate bounced email addresses Manage your inactive subscribers
Hard vs Soft Bounces A hard bounce is an email that couldn't be delivered for permanent reasons. Fake email addresses Email recipient's servers won t accept emails Action: All of these email addresses should be removed from your list. A soft bounce is an email that couldn't be delivered because of temporary reasons. Recipient's inbox is full File is too large Action: Keep an eye on these email addresses, and remove if they continue to be an issue.
CAN-SPAM Requirements 1. Accurately identify the sender in the header information. 2. Use a subject line that accurately represents the content of the email. 3. Identify the message as an advertisement, unless you have express consent (opt-in) from the subscriber. 4. Include your physical mailing address. 5. Provide a mechanism to opt out. You cannot require a subscriber to log in or visit more than a single page to unsubscribe. 6. Honor opt-out requests promptly. You must process an unsubscribe request within 10 days, and your unsubscribe mechanism must be operational for at least 30 days after the mailing.
Mistakes to Avoid Not using a familiar from name Not using a real reply-to address Sending to a stale list Using unclear or spam flagging subject lines Confusing transactional emails with email marketing Not knowing your audience Ignoring your campaign reports Sending emails with too many images
Measure Performance
Know what you re measuring Deliverability Response ROI Deliverability rate Bounce rate Unsubscribe rate Forwards and opt-ins Open rate Click-through rate Conversion rate Form completion Abandonment rate Frequency analysis Delivery offer pair analysis Cost per inquiry
Always A/B Test! Determine the variable to test (CTA, Subject line, body text, images, specific offer) Only test one variable at a time for best results Define success (open rate, CTR, conversion rate from visiting website) Use tools that will help you run A/B testing Always test simultaneously to reduce the chance your results will be skewed by timebased factors Test as large a sample as you can Listen the empirical data collected, not your gut instinct Test early and test often for the best results
Additional Resources
Additional Resources Jason Lillie jason.lille@radius.com https://radius.com/resources/ Predictive Playbook: How to Master the Inbox With Better Outbound Email Blog: 3 Emails That Will Actually Improve With Predictive Blog: How To Boost Outbound Email Performance With Predictive Howard J. Sewell howard@spearmarketing.com http://www.spearmarketing.com/resources/ White Paper: Top 10 B2B Email Marketing Mistakes Infographic: 29 Tips to Improve B2B Email Campaign Performance Infographic: 10 Commandments of Email Copywriting
Q&A
Thank you!