Digital Marketing Conference and Awards 2016 - E-Concepts Media (Pvt) Ltd eMail Marketing Presentation

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Created on Wednesday, 01 June 2016 07:33

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Email marketing is directly communicating a commercial message to a person or a group of people using electronic mail. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. 

It usually involves using email to send adverts, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. 

^ Liberty Chirove of E-Concepts Media

Email marketing can be done to either sold lists or a current customer database. 

Email marketing can be categorised into Email Signatures, Transactional Emails, Email Flyers, Email Newsletters and Mailing Lists. Lastly, we will take a look at SPAM. 

A company or organisation can effectively use the 5 email marketing activities mentioned above in the following ways:

1. Email Signatures
   
   These are the personal or company details below the email message. Your email signature should be a mini-advertisement for your company.
   
   • Keep it as short- while providing all of the information you deem most important (generally four to ten lines is the accepted standard). It's important to avoid having an email signature run halfway down the page. Clients may not appreciate sifting through 15 lines to find a phone number or website address.
   
   • Condense information. The essentials are the sender's name, job title, company name, company website, contact information usually phone numbers and email address. Include your company logo in your email signature - it is great for branding purposes and will help recipients 'visualize' your company. Don't forget to include a closing statement, such as Sincerely or Kind Regards.
   
   • Simple. Remember that simple plain text is best. Skip special fonts and graphics if possible. Some special fonts do not exist within other email clients and are converted to the nearest possible universal/ basic font when at the recipient’s end.
   
   • Uniformity. For branding purposes uniformity is key. Same font type, size and colours within the organization.
   
   • Optimize your logo or other graphics. Reduce the size and weight of graphics as they make the email heavy and may fail to pass through servers with email limits.
   
   • Include promotions/ special deals/ events. These can come especially as graphics below the signature.
   
   • Include hyperlinks. These tend to drive traffic to your website and or related social networking sites or pages.
   
   
2. Transactional emails
   
   Transactional emails are usually triggered based on a customer’s action with a company. The communications' primary purpose must be "to facilitate, complete, or confirm a commercial transaction that the recipient has previously agreed to enter into with the sender.
   
   Triggered transactional messages include dropped basket messages, password reset emails, purchase or order confirmation emails, order status emails, reorder emails and email receipts. Transactional emails should be:
   
   • Straight forward. What do you want the recipient to do? Confirm sale? Reset password. Including buttons is best.
   
   • Include promotions. For marketing, there is the ability to include promotional messages within the body of transactional emails .e.g Easter Specials, Valentine’s Discounts etc which in turn prompts the recipient to purchase something immediately. These can be in form of text or banners.
   
   • Including hyperlinks. For example clicking the order number takes you directly to the order, where you can track it, write reviews or buy another product, or even download applications. 
   
   • Contact information for the company. Should be below every transactional email. For billing, sales, support etc.
   
   
3. Email Flyers
   
   A correspondence email, usually sent to a mailing list containing multiple email addresses, communicating commercial or fund-raising messages to clients or prospective clients. The main purpose is acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately.
   
   • Develop Your Message. In most cases, it is like designing an ordinary flyer for print. Make a list of your company's features and benefits. Gather images or photos of your product or service to enhance and better illustrate your message.
   
   • Create Your Email Flyer. Email flyers resemble a small landing page for a company because they are sent out to a mailing list in html format (web page). You want to layout your flyer in a similar fashion as you would any other flyer but you can add links and click-throughs to enhance interaction. Don't forget to include your logo, photos and graphics that are important to getting your message across to your audience. At the same time you need to be cognizant of the variety of connectivity speeds in the market. Chances are, not all of your customers will have high speed internet connections so images and graphics needs to be resized to reduce weight.
   
   • Mass Mail Your Flyer. Name your mailing list e.g Clients List and always let the recipient identify the sender of the email flyer such as company or organization name.
   
   Move away from sending plain text messages and attachments to your clients!
   
   
4. Email Newsletter
   
   An eNewsletter is a correspondence email, usually sent to a mailing list containing multiple email addresses,that allows you to communicate with your clients or prospective clients. The content of the message may cover a broad range of topics, such news, columns, opinions and events.
   
   HTML email messages (eNewsletters) are very popular for several reasons: they enhance your brand, they include links, images, colors and they can be managed easily with templates.
   
   How eNewsletters help your organisation
   
   • eNewsletters will give you the opportunity to remarket your company or organisation and its services in a modern, simple and effective way to your clients or prospective clients. 
   
   • eNewsletters also serve as a continual and regular form of contact between you and your clients or prospective clients. 
   
   • The end result is awareness of your spectrum of services/products, more email feedback and a larger, loyal client base.
   
   • Internet marketing activities are generally focused on two goals; generating feedback and enhancing the value of your brand. These are typical goals, even of traditional marketing, but on the Internet they take on an entirely new dimension. 
   
   Benefits of Email Marketing
   
   • HTML messages (Hypertext Markup Language)- a standardized system for tagging text files to achieve font, colour, graphic, and hyperlink effects on World Wide Web pages. They are not attachments and do not require any software to open. Compatible on computers and mobile devices.
   
   • ow cost. The cost of creating and sending an E-Flyer or eNewsletter is a fraction of the cost of a printed one.
   
   • Viral – It’s so easy for people to forward your message on to others- workmates, friends, relatives- spreading further than you could alone.
   
   • Ease (both for sender and the recipient). For your marketing to be a success it has to be easy for the recipient, meaning they can easily respond to your message. A deal is reached without anyone getting out of office.
   
   • Speed. Email marketing is fast. Email flyers and newsletter lead times are shorter than for printed materials, which means that you can be more responsive and seize opportunities as they arise (For instance, there is an important news flash, notice or story. You then don't have to wait for placing the information in newspapers and wait for them to go out on the streets. You can use an eFlyer or eNewsletter to send an immediate news item/ notice to clients or prospective clients so that they know what is happening quickly.
   
   • Regular communication. By communicating with your audience and prospects on a regular basis you will ensure that your business is always 'front of mind' when they make purchasing decisions.
   
   • Information gathering. Email marketing encourages interaction and dialogue. You can use this data to improve your products and services.
   
   • Including hyperlinks- email or website addresses allows people to respond instantly. In other words, it make it easy for people to buy from you.
   
   
5. Mailing Lists.
   A mailing list containing multiple email addresses (up to thousands) and professionally should sit on a server with mass mailing software. The email addresses can be of existing or prospective clients. Sold lists are lists owned by another company or an organisation.
   
   There are many mailing list management softwares and companies. Liase with your ISP to see which one suits their servers and regulations. Qualities of a good mailing list:
   
   • Opt-In. Perhaps most important, the best mailing lists are always opt-in, meaning you have permission to contact the person. Always include subscription and unsubscription links.
   
   • No carbon copy and/ or blind carbon copy. When mass mailing an Email Flyer or Newsletter, the message is sent to one email address, which identifies with all addresses. Your mailing list is protected and nobody views the emails. 
   
   • No limit. Up to thousands of email addresss can be contained in a mailing list. Email clients do have limits e.g Gmail or even your work email.
   
   • Management. With mass mailing software such as Mailman, it can manage subscriptions and unsubscriptions, senders to the mailing list, those banned, bounces and also archives your messages. Also removes non-working emails.
   
   
6. SPAM.
   Companies considering the use of an email marketing program must make sure that their program does not violate spam laws. Recipients must opt-in. No complains. Our local Internet service providers have those regulations mainly as Internet service provider's acceptable use policy. 
   
   The most popular- United States' Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM), and the European Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.

Conclusion: Email promotions and generate immediate action such sales and inquiries whilst Email Newsletters build awareness, contribute to branding, strengthen relationships, encourage trust and cement loyalty.

Presentation done by Liberty Chirove (E-Concepts Media Managing Director)- 16th March 2016