Techniques That Get Your E-mail Opened

E-mail marketing is new for many catalogers, and most are now concentrating on growing an in-house e-mail file. Some have started weekly or monthly newsletters that contain specials, and others are sending promotions. While many are becoming comfortable with the process of creating e-mail marketing messages, the competition for customers’ attention is growing.

In the near future, it will become important for catalogers to set themselves apart from other e-mail marketers. As with print catalogs, several response-boosting techniques are worth testing in e-mail.

Looking for Lists

Most catalogers are working with their own housefiles right now. They have e-mail registration on their order forms, customer service representatives ask for e-mail addresses when customers place orders and they offer an opt-in e-mail newsletter or regular promotion to sign up on their Web sites.

But now you can begin hunting for e-mail lists from other catalogers. David Schwartz, president of 21st Century Marketing, says the number of company e-mail lists on the market is growing.

“There is a growing group of individual list owner files now, and they are coming out with more of them,” says Schwartz. He says the more of these lists that become available, the better response people will see from e-mail marketing. Database-generated e-mail lists, such as those from NetCreations or Yes!Mail, have been the foundation many marketers have been working from when using outside lists.

Schwartz says these lists are less targeted because the consumer profiles are self-generated and not reflective of an actual interest, such as a magazine subscription or previous purchase. Today, most e-mail lists are not tested because there are so few, and because they encompass many different kinds of people, they are simply used.

“I think you will see a lot more of individual list owners set up conventional list testing patterns. This will raise the caliber of the list format medium,” says Schwartz.

What to Put in the E-mail

Finding the right lists is just half the battle. Next comes the body of the e-mail. Unlike traditional direct mail, there’s no envelope to set yourself apart. Instead, you have a subject line and a sender line. This gives you little room to differentiate yourself.

It is important to write an enticing subject line. Some marketers insert the offer, others use teasers, such as “Big Offer.”

Once you get the reader inside, get straight to the offer. “Keep it short, direct and to the point,” says Andrew Sambrook, director of brokerage services at IDG List Services. “The point of the body of text should be to ultimately get people to click over.”

Unlike direct mail, it is suggested that you make the offer before you even offer a salutation. If you need to be polite, simply use a “Dear” or “Welcome.”

The offer should be attractive, concise and relevant. Relevance will help set you apart from other catalogers and online merchants vying for the same buck. Customers love to receive useful offers, especially after providing you with personal information.

After the offer or promotion, provide a link to your Web site. Some retailers flow sell copy around the link, others drop it in below or above the link. Test each and see which works best for you.

Here are some of my favorite e-mail offers:

Subject line: Hot@bloomingdales.com
First few lines of text:
New. Important. Not-to-be-lived-without. You don’t have to go far to find your must-haves this fall. They’re all in one hot shop. Accessorize with our exclusive ostrich print bowling bag http://web site address.
This was a great offer. The subject line drew me in, the first few lines told me why it was important and the merchant offered something I recently had been searching for: anything in an ostrich pattern.

In its welcome message, bluefly.com sent a discount offer and placed it in the subject line—a proven tactic. But beware, customers get used to formats and stop opening e-mails. So mix it up!
Subject line: Special 20% Discount For You!
First few lines of text: Congratulations and welcome to Bluefly!
Closing: Now that we’ve got you swooning, don’t delay. Compose yourself, cool off, and log on (http://web site address). The fashion is waiting.
Happy Shopping,
Indigo Mosca

Having a real person’s name attached sealed the deal. I like getting e-mail from real people, and so do your customers. Test offers with a closing against one without to see if it holds true. The 2000 retail season is bearing down on marketers. For many catalogers, the question isn’t so much, “Should we use e-mail?” but rather, “How should we use e-mail?”

The catalog industry as a whole has been relatively slow to embrace e-mail marketing, which is somewhat surprising since the e-mail channel offers many ways to leverage and enhance the customer relationship, while complementing the catalog.

For those venturing into e-mail list rental for the first time, here are some rules for the road:

STEER CLEAR OF SPAM. A good starting point for establishing your e-mail marketing practices is to visit the Responsible Electronic Communications Alliance (RECA) Web site at www.responsibleemail.org, and review its principles. This alliance of leading members in the interactive marketing industry, including 24/7 Media, ClickAction, Yes!Mail and Bigfoot Interactive, has developed and proposed “best practices” for companies conducting online marketing. The alliance’s goal is to establish new standards to make online commerce an easier and less time-consuming experience for ‘Net users, while protecting their privacy. These principles should form the playbook for your e-mail marketing strategy.

YOUR PROSPECT ALWAYS HAS THE RIGHT OF WAY. As soon as you mention e-mail marketing, you’ll encounter the term “opt-in.” This term means establishing permission to communicate with someone using e-mail. For catalogers, it is how you establish a relevant dialogue with your customers and prospects. Before renting an opt-in e-mail prospect list, look at your own Web site. Evaluate how you initiate the customer relationship. Are you asking visitors at your Web site for permission to communicate with them via e-mail? If you aren’t, you should be. And don’t wait for them to make a purchase to ask the question. Browsers may not be ready to buy today, but they may be interested in hearing about the next sale.

Building a list of prospects using this simple method can really help you reduce customer acquisition costs.

You’ll generally want to establish an option of one or both of the following levels of permission:

Permission to hear from you. “Please keep me informed about news and developments at Mysite.com.”

Permission to hear from others, if you plan to make the list available on the rental market. “Yes. I’d like to receive promotional offers from Mysite.com and its partners.”

When establishing permission you need to remember a few privacy rules:

• Tell the customer how the information they provide will be used.
• Provide an easy method to opt out.
• Make your privacy policy both easy to find and easy to understand.

YOU CAN’T GET THERE FROM HERE. If you need to jump start your programs and are just starting to research opt-in e-mail lists, you shouldn’t modify your position about permission—always make sure the list you’re renting is opt-in. However, you will need to adjust your expectations regarding targeting criteria. Opt-in e-mail lists still do not offer the level of demographic selectability available on traditional lists. So, the methods you used to target prospects for off-line lists may not be viable when targeting online. E-mail lists though, do offer an extensive range of psychographic, or behavior-based, targeting criteria. Since many opt-in lists are generated from consumer behavior and activity at another Web site, the site at which the consumer joined can tell you a lot about a user’s profile. Think beyond age, gender and income when building your list criteria. Behavioral characteristics are a strong predictor of response. Bottom line: Experiment, test and think outside the box. The way people behave online does not always mirror the way they behave in other shopping channels.

STICKER SHOCK. Before you blanch at the cost per thousand (CPM) charges for your new fangled opt-in e-mail list, remember the traditional costs: printing, lettershop and fulfillment and list processing, all have been eliminated.

It’s pretty much all embedded in the CPM. And your cycle time from test to roll out is reduced to days and weeks, not months. As an alternative, some e-marketing firms are beginning to develop exchange networks. Similar to how list exchanges work in the off-line list world, these networks are essentially e-mail cooperative databases. I-Behavior, the Digital Impact Exchange Network, Prefer Network and RFM Plus are a few examples.

Buyers, not browsers. Pay attention to the relationship between clicks and conversions. In traditional direct marketing, people who respond are generally well-qualified with a high likelihood of converting. They have made an intentional effort to respond, expressing a fairly strong interest in your product or service.

But it is very easy to “click in,” and just as easy to abandon the page or transaction. High response rates with low conversion rates may indicate a problem with your POP (point of purchase) page. It is part of your campaign and should be customized to your offer. Once you motivate the recipient to click on your link, make sure it’s very easy to complete a transaction once on the site. The idea: You want to compare the click rate to conversions. Don’t necessarily write off a list because of low clicks. Continue to analyze all of the data before you draw your conclusion.

These are just some of the rules to fill your tanks. Your customers will look for your e-mail and will respond. Just remember, to stay on that road, you need to ask permission (or rent a permission list) and then keep the e-mail dialogue relevant.

Tim Dolan is vice president of list services at Bigfoot Interactive, a direct e-mail and e-marketing services firm. He can be reached at tdolan@bigfootinteractive.com.