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Posted: Thu, January 24, 2008
Email Marketing Clinic: On time and on messageEmail is among the most flexible and cost effective tools at a marketers disposal. However, before diving in and sending emails to your customers and prospects, there are several things that should be taken into account. In this month's email clinic, email marketing experts Pure discuss the ways in which small businesses can get the right message to the right customer at the right time.
With the advent of increasingly sophisticated email marketing software, it's now possible to experiment with the content and timing of messages, creating unique and targeted one-to-one communications. Dynamic email marketing allows you to create a message that's personalised to every member of your database and it's estimated this can deliver a response rate which is four to eight times higher than static campaigns. Email marketing software can do the laborious and time-consuming task of customising the content of your campaign for every recipient, but first you need to understand what each of them finds engaging. Get to know your customerAsk the right questions at the right time and you can build a complete picture of your customer, collecting their likes, dislikes and information on their behavioural patterns.
It's important to gather this information from the start to avoid list fatigue and give the recipient confidence that your communication will always be relevant to them. For example, if you're a travel agent why not ask your clients about their preferred destinations? If you don't, sending a customer an email on skiing packages in Canada when they're interested in receiving information about the hot sunny climes of Mediterranean islands could be a complete turn-off. A recent industry survey showed that 60% of consumers who made immediate purchases from an email did so because it contained products they were already considering. It's all in the timing Once you've got the ability to deliver only the most relevant and targeted messages, you want
to make sure your recipients will open and read them.
One of the important factors in increasing your open rates is the time your campaign arrives in customers' inboxes. We all check our emails and use the internet at different times - if you can calculate what this time is for each one of your recipients, you will be able to pinpoint when they will be most receptive to your marketing. Previously marketers have had to rely on industry research which usually indicates that business-to-business emails usually receive the best responses when sent on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday between 11 - 4pm. Messages to consumers are said to receive better response rates on Fridays, evenings and weekends when they are more likely to be checking their emails. However, this type of research will only give you a rule of thumb. As email marketing becomes more competitive, more emails are being delivered during these popular times and it is becoming increasingly difficult to grab the attention of the recipient.
Intelligent Time Sending, for example, will even calculate this for you, by monitoring the times at which the recipient has previously opened and clicked on your messages or signed-up to receive your emails. Using this data, it can discern the time the recipient will be most active on their email account or surfing the internet to ensure you put your email in front of them at the time they are most likely to read it. Creating a relevant and timely communication can mean more work than blanket email marketing but by collecting the right data you will create far more effective campaigns which result in a higher return on investment. About the author Send a comment about this article to editor@itwales.com. |
Subject lines, design and deliverability are all important to the success rate of your email
marketing, but there are other areas that deserve equal attention. 
This can be done when people sign up to receive your emails. After they press submit on
the initial sign up page, present them with a short and simple form asking them to indicate what information they would like to receive in the future. 
New advances in email marketing technology enable you to calculate the optimum time to
send your email, for each recipient on your database.|
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