The seven habits of highly effective email marketing - part 2

by Sali Earls

There is no doubt that email is a cost effective marketing tool. Recent research shows that over 90 of internet users cite using email as their most popular online activity, and the proliferation of broadband over recent years means that the number of consumers and businesses going online continues to grow.

However, using email to communicate with your customers, partners and prospects is not as straightforward as it may first appear. As well as meeting marketing objectives and branding guidelines, businesses must ensure that their communications meet stringent legal requirements.

In the first part of this two part feature, Sali Earls discussed the reasons SMEs should consider using email; the development of a mailing list; spam; and overcoming technical problems. Now, we look in detail at the issues of branding; metrics and legal requirements.

Branding issues

Something that can often be forgotten by small companies when using email marketing is branding. As Ian Creek of NewZapp told itwales.com, "Use the same branding styles through all your online and offline media. Remember that this is not limited to your logo, don’t forget about font styles, sizes, colours and your writing style."

Niall McKeown of ION Technologies concurs, "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."

To ensure that branding is consistent across all marketing materials, it is often useful to develop a template for email that reflects your website and print materials. Darren Fell of Pure360.com says, "When designed, the company’s logo, branding and website design should be incorporated, to give a seamless feel to all communications, on or offline. Everyone who is responsible for their company’s e-communications needs to follow the template and set-brand guidelines."

As Ian Creek said, branding is not just about your logo and imagery, it’s also about writing style. Large companies often develop a "house style" for communication, and this is something that SMEs can learn from, but Mark Brownlow of email-marketing-reports.com recommends that small businesses don’t take this too far. "The big advantage that an SME has over the big corporations is style and personality. If you want to stand out from an increasingly crowded inbox then you need to... inject a little bit of personality into the emails. Drop the corporate jargon and talk to readers like a human being would."

Measurement is key

Your email is ready to go. You’ve checked that it meets all the technical requirements, is on brand and is targeted appropriately to meet the needs of your mailing list. But before you click the send button, take a step back to consider just why you are sending this message.

Like all other marketing programmes, direct marketing activities need to be measured against clear marketing objectives to ensure that they meet the needs of the company and are an effective tool.

As you might expect, measuring the success of an email campaign has its own set of problems to overcome, and timing and message relevance are seen as fundamental to success. Many mass email packages offer the ability to measure a range of criteria including open rates, allowing marketers to see how many emails have been read, and then drill down into the detail of clickthroughs, through to conversions.

Research by digital advertising company DoubleClick, has shown that although the success of email marketing campaigns continues to grow, email opening rates across Europe have declined steadily over the last 18 months. The white paper, "Analysis of Open Rate Trend Data", puts this down to a number of factors, including increased mail filtering by internet service providers; the maturity of the mailing list; and the fact that people are adapting to the increased volume of email received by becoming more selective in what they open, even though they may not unsubscribe.

Marketing software company EmailLabs agree with this point about declining open rates, but also points out that many email packages have preview panes that mean that emails may be "viewed" but not counted as "open".

Once the email has been opened, it is possible to measure the clickthrough rate - that is the email readers who have clicked the links through to your website. Whether you have products or services to sell, or simply want people to respond in a particular way, measuring clickthroughs is important, because without it you cannot measure your conversion rate of prospect to customer.

The average clickthrough rates vary if you’re emailing businesses or consumers. EmailLabs suggest that generally the rate for B2B newsletters ranges from 5 to 15; and for B2C newsletters the rate is lower, at 2 to 12. Marketers experiencing lower rates than this should look at the content of their emails, their subject lines, and the design and layout of the communication.

The Institute of Direct Marketing suggests a range of metrics for measurement in its Guide to E-Marketing.

Delivery statistics should be measured - how many messages have been sent? How many have bounced back? How many have been delivered? Bouncebacks are a fact of life in email marketing; but rather than delete them, look at them as they offer useful facts that will help you keep your mailing list up to date.

Some email addresses will be temporarily unavailable, and the IDM classify these as "soft bounces", estimating that these would account for around 10 of messages in an average campaign. Other emails are classified as "hard bounces", where the domain is invalid, the user does not exist, or the email had some errors that made it unmailable.

Following the measurement of open rates and clickthroughs, the IDM recommend looking at post email activity, namely conversions; average order value; and ultimately, the total value of the activity. Finally, marketers should measure replies, unsubscribes and updates to the mailing list.

There is little point in communicating with your customers, prospects or partners unless it fits in with your marketing objectives. While email is a low cost tool, the time and effort you put into developing campaigns needs to be cost effective. As Ian Creek of NewZapp said to itwales.com, "Track online campaigns to help calculate return-on-investment. This will help you safe guard your investment and more importantly will help develop your future email marketing campaigns."

Legal requirements

The legal requirements of relevance to marketing are stringent and enforceable, and ignorance is no defence. While most people are aware of the Data Protection Act, that’s only part of the story. It’s important that any business using data to communicate with customers, partners or prospects is aware of the laws and regulations that relate their activities.

Malcolm William from law firm Pinsent Masons spoke to itwales.com about the issue. "When considering email marketing, businesses need to ensure that they comply with the Data Protection Act 1998, and the The Privacy and Electronic Communications EC Directive Regulations 2003, regarding the mechanics of mass emailing. In addition, marketers have a duty of care to make certain that their communications are decent, truthful and honest."

"The rules for email marketing differ for business to business and business to consumer mailings. If the target market is consumer, marketers must have prior consent to collect and make use of information; while if the target market is corporates, consent is not required, but information about marketing use must be provided at the point that the data is gathered. In both cases, it is critical that those receiving emails are offered an opportunity to opt out of receiving any future mailings."

"The grey area comes when emails are sent to sole traders. Here, the law relating to consumers applies, and prior consent is required before emails can be sent."

William continues, "The key to the legal aspects of email marketing is getting your collection notice right - you need to inform users of your website what you will be using their data for when they give you their details. It’s a very simple and cheap process to get right, but it can be very expensive if you get it wrong. You should also ensure that you include an unsubscribe or opt out notice at the end of every email; and have a suppression list for opt outs, to ensure that once people unsubscribe they no longer receive communications from you."

William shared his legal top tips for email and SMS marketing with itwales.com,

1. Make sure that you get your collection statement right, so that people know that you will be using their data for marketing purposes
2. Include an unsubscribe option within every email
3. Ensure that you have a suppression list - by law people have an absolute right to opt out

The Information Commissioner’s Office ICO has produced a factsheet to help businesses comply with the issues relating to unsolicited marketing, which is information that has been sent without being requested. It can take the form of telephone call, email, text message of fax.

The guidance from the ICO is clear - "Emails of a marketing nature should only be sent where the individual as "opted in" to receive them, unless the individual’s email address was obtained in the context of a commercial relationship. Individuals should always be given the opportunity to opt out - and stop receiving emails."

A spokesperson for the Information Commissioner’s Office told itwales.com, "The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 prohibit the sending of unsolicited marketing emails to individual subscribers without prior consent. The Information Commissioner’s Office has published guidance for businesses on the subject. The Information Commissioner’s Office has powers to take formal enforcement action against companies who flout the Regulations."

Formal enforcement by the ICO against companies can lead to prosecution and a fine of up to 5,000.

The issue is being taken increasingly seriously by industry bodies, and government. In October 2006, the Department for Constitutional Affairs accepted feedback to a consultation paper issued to investigate "Increasing penalties for deliberate and wilful misuse of personal data". The likely outcome of this consultation will see a change in UK law to bring about custodial sentences and larger fines for those individuals who are seen to profit from personal information.

In addition to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, businesses must ensure compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998. It is the one area of email marketing which must be right, and yet is fraught with complexities.

The Institute of Direct Marketing have put together a useful guide to Data Protection for Email Marketing, and offer the following advice, "When creating a company policy for email marketing aim to exceed the minimum standards required by law. Follow what you must do with your privacy policy, use prior consent and unsubscribe mechanisms, but strive to set even higher standards. Those organisations that operate beyond the minimum legal requirements will have little to fear and will probably have the most trusting, respectful customer and prospect databases."

As well as adhering to the letter of the law, there are a number of Codes of Conduct from general advertising best practice, to specific market sector regulations, that require compliance. The CAP Code British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing is perhaps the best known of these, and relates to the obtaining, compiling, processing, management and use of personal data for marketing products or services to the public via targeted mail.

Operated by the Advertising Standards Authority, the CAP Code requires that the claims made by the advertiser in any direct mail must be "legal, decent, honest and truthful".

An important part of the CAP Code relates to the email, mailing and telephone preference services EMPS, MPS and TPS, which provide facilities for removing names from databases enabling individuals to reduce unsolicited mail. The CAP Code requires companies to update their own databases by running the lists against the relevant preference service files to ensure that requested deletions are made.

Darren Fell of Pure360.com says, "Companies must adhere to the Data Protection Act and EU Directive, with a view to ensuring people have a mechanism to opt out of email communications. In order to contact anyone, companies must first make sure people have opted in to receive emails from them. Companies can go further than the law by using a recommendation from the Direct Marketing Association DMA, which suggests a double opt-in policy. This is where you receive an email back from a company asking you to confirm that you subscribed to an e-newsletter from them online. This process simply proves who you say you are and stops unwanted emails."

Conclusion

Email is a cost effective marketing tool, but like all other marketing activities, should only be used strategically and in line with the organisation’s marketing objectives.

As this article shows, it is not as simple as gathering email addresses and sending a message. Email marketing can only succeed if it meets legal requirements, is on brand, and is delivered in a format that is compelling and useful to recipients.

Mark Brownlow, of email-marketing-reports.com offers six keywords to bear in mind to improve your chances of email marketing success,

• Permission
• Relevance
• Timeliness
• Value
• Professionalism
• Personality

Brownlow is clear about the reasons companies should use email, "You should only send to people who requested your emails, and you should make sure they’ll keep on wanting to get them. You do this by offering valuable, timely, relevant information and/or offers. The reader isn’t getting your emails to do you a favour or because they want to hear about your new office. They’re getting your emails because they think there’s something in it for them. You do need to read up on best practices and apply them to your own emails. Which means you need to take a professional approach."

Email marketing can be an extremely effective tool, and return on investment can be swift, but companies of all sizes must make themselves aware of the scale of the situation, and the implications of email in order to use it to their advantage.