E-mail marketing success factors

Posted by Offer Tsuriel on November 2, 2009

Effective e-mail marketing shares much in common with effective direct e-mail copy. We suggest you use the mnemonic ‘CRITICAl: as a checklist for e-mail marketing success factors. CRITICAL is a checklist of questions to ask about your e-mail campaigns (Chaffey, 2006). It stands for:

• Creative -This assesses the design of the e-mail including its layout, use of colour and image and the copy (see below).
• Relevance -Does the offer and creative of the e-mail meet the needs of the recipients?
• Incentive (or offer) -The WIFM factor or ‘What’s in it for me?’ for the recipient. What benefit does the recipient gain from clicking on the hyper/ink(s) in the e-mail? For example, a prize draw is a common offer for B2C brands.

 

• Targeting and timing -Targeting is related to the relevance. Is a single message sent to all prospects or customers on the list or are e-mails with tailored creative, incentive and copy sent to the different segments on the list? Timing refers to when the e-mail is received; the time of day, day of the week, point in the month and even the year; does it relate to any particular events. There is also the relative timing -when is it received compared to other marketing communications -this depends on the integration.
• Integration -Are the e-mail campaigns part of your integrated marketing communications? Questions to ask include: are the creative and copy consistent with my brand? Does the message reinforce other communications? Does the timing of the e-mail campaign fit with offline communications?
• Copy -This is part of the creative and refers to the structure, style and explanation of the offer together with the location of hyper/inks in the e-mail.
• Attributes (of the e-mail) -Assess the message characteristics such as the subject line, from address, to address, date/time of receipt and format (HTML or text) Send out Multipart/MIME messages which can display HTML or text according to the capability of the e-mail reader. Offer choice of HTML or text to match user’s preferences.
• Landing page (or microsite) -These are terms given for the page(s) reached after the recipient clicks on a link in the e-mail. Typically, on c1ickthrough, the recipient will be presented with an online form to profile or learn more about them. Designing the page so the form is easy to complete can affect the overall success of the campaign.

Designing direct e-mail copy is as involved as designing direct mail and many similar principles apply. Effective e-mail should:

• Grab attention in subject line and body.
• Be brief and be relevant to target.
• Be personalized -Not Dear Valued Customer, but Dear Ms Smith.
• Provide opt-out or unsubscribe option by law.
• Hyperlink to web site for more detailed content.
• Have clear call-to-action at the start and end of the message.
• Be tested for effectiveness .
• Operate within legal and ethical constraints for a country.