No man is an iland

I love you.

It’s a boy!

Ich bin ein Berliner.

Outlook 2007.

Given the right situation, all those words are capable of provoking an emotional response the equal of any image.

A picture may indeed be worth a thousand words, but not if you hire a good writer.

Yet words are often an afterthought in email marketing.

We fuss about who to send email to, how to send it, when to send it, what design and structure to use, what it is we want to say, but…how we say it gets less attention.

Yet without the right words, your email is a bottle without a message, doomed to float unregarded on the online ocean.

Let’s redress the balance over the coming weeks with the occasional article on the power of text…beginning with a personal overview of the different roles words can and/or should fulfil in a marketing email.

I’ve split them into three categories:

• Engage the reader’s attention and guide them toward action
• Drive a specific response
• Provide functional support

The below list should serve as a reminder of the greater time investment your words deserve.

Engage and guide

1. Attention, interest, engagement

The first role is to draw attention to your email in the inbox, engage the interest of the viewer and draw them into taking a closer look at your message.

The main responsibility for this rests with the from line, subject line and text in the preheader or preview pane area.

Combined, they ensure the email is recognized and communicate the value of the message to the recipient.

It’s not just about winning attention and interest, but winning attention and interest from the people who are most likely to take the action you want them to.

2. Guidance

The second role is to combine with non-text elements to guide the reader through the email so the important parts of the message are easy to find and grasp.

This involves appropriate use of:

• headlines
• bullet points
• text highlighting (bold, italics, colors, fonts and font sizes)
• paragraph lengths and widths
• white space and text positioning

3. Preparing the response

The third role is to persuade the reader to respond. Here a “response” is not just a physical action (click), but also a mental one (like developing an opinion – see Role 7).

Equally important, it’s not just about the first response (e.g. a click), but encouraging an intention beyond that initial response (e.g. a click followed by a purchase).

This is what we traditionally consider the art and science of copywriting.

Drive a response

4. Primary call-to-action

The fourth role is to provide an outlet for making that response (where relevant).

This is the primary CTA: the link(s) you want people to click on to reach the main product, service or content offered in the email.

It begins with the words you use to tell people what to do and why (e.g. “shop now” or “click here to download the white paper” or “click to get 20% off winter fashions”).

But it also involves decisions about the number of CTAs and their position relative to other email content.

The CTA “container” is also important. Do you use just text, text on a button or text/image combinations? Which colors, shapes, sizes and fonts are best?

5. Secondary CTAs

The fifth role is to give readers an outlet for other actions and responses beyond the main goal of the email.

An obvious example is links to other products, services or content.

The challenge is to give those not interested in the main CTA some other way to engage with and respond to your email, but without distracting from the core purpose of the message.

Other examples of secondary CTAs include:

• Forward-to-a-friend (FTF) links
• Share-with-your-network (SWYN) links
• Links allowing interaction through other channels (e.g. “follow us on Twitter”)
• Website navigational links, leading to important areas of the website, such as search forms, content categories or product groups

6. Tertiary CTAs

The sixth role is to provide an outlet for those clicking on parts of the email that are not active calls to action.

We know, for example, that people will click on headlines, product and service names (and images), so we can choose which additional text elements also need to be links.

7. Brand experience

The seventh role is to create an experience or impression that mirrors and reinforces the brand or image of the sender.

Even where the primary goal of the text is to drive people toward a specific physical action (mostly a click), the words you use make and leave an impression.

This concerns the style, tone and personality of the words and language used.

Functional support

8. Fallback words

The eighth role is supporting the message when problems arise. Consider, for example, when images are blocked or the HTML is garbled by the recipient’s email software.

There are two sides to this.

The first is proividing direct fallback for broken images and designs, through links to online or mobile versions of the message, creative use of alt attributes or possibly short text labels under images.

The second is ensuring the headlines and other text used in the mail communicate a clear message even when images are not visible.

9. Administrative words

The ninth role is to fulfil administrative, legal and other support functions, such as:

• “Add to address list” requests
• The copyright notice
• Sender details (address and possibly other business details, like company registration numbers). These reflect legal requirements, but also a need to establish transparency and credibility
• Unsubscribe and subscription management links
• Permission reminders
• Advance notice of future emails
• Sign-up links

Of course, much of the above can rely equally on images and other design elements. Even plain text messages use long combinations of letters and symbols to create graphic-like elements to give the message structure and guide the reader.

Neither are these roles necessarily mutually exclusive. The way you write your administrative blurb, for example, also reflects on your brand and image.

So, there are a few ideas of what we need to think about with our text. More details on some of those roles to come in future posts…

Find related articles:

• Channel: Copywriting

The latest update of the specialist email marketing search engine at OnlineMarketing.info just went online.

In this round, I added 37 new sites to the underlying database, as well as 200+ Twitter accounts which offer strong email marketing value.

OnlineMarketing.info is a custom Google search engine which narrows searches to 600+ handpicked (by me) email marketing sites. This avoids results pollution from sites with questionable pedigrees or inappropriate information.

Among the new additions: Social Email Marketing, Smart Insights, AOL postmaster blog, Cauce, Cloudmark, Unica, the Email Fail blog, Scott Writes Everything, the Email Moxie and more.

Try it out.

If you have a recommended site to add to the search database, let me know.

Find related articles:

• Channel: None (just a friendly update)

The flagship stat for email marketing has always been the high ROI relative to other direct marketing alternatives.

Which is why ROI gets mentioned a lot.

But this focus is both boon and bane.

Boon because it’s an easy-to-understand concept to communicate email marketing’s value.

Bane because ROI isn’t the only or even the best measure of success.

In a previous post I wrote:

“The more we understand about the true benefits of email, the better we can judge investment and whether, what and where we need to improve.”

But measuring success in a multichannel world is a real challenge. How can you gauge the true value of your email marketing?

One man who can help us here is Kevin Hillstrom, President of MineThatData, a consultancy helping CEOs understand the complex relationship between customers, advertising, products, brands, and channels.

His vast expertise with database marketing and analytics makes him one of the web’s leading voices on, for example, evaluating and optimizing different marketing channels for profitability.

He’s also unafraid to rail against accepted wisdom when that accepted wisdom is, um, wrong.

Kevin kindly took time out to answer some of my questions on email marketing metrics and analysis: here’s what he has to tell us…

Has the focus on ROI led us astray?

First of all, is the focus on ROI as a success measure for email marketing a healthy approach?

Kevin’s take is that email’s high ROI is genuine, but problematical because it derives from low costs rather than high revenues. He explains:

“For instance, in non-branded paid search, you may generate 100 clicks, spending $50, to generate one order for $100. In catalog marketing, you may spend $50 sending catalogs to generate two orders for $100. In email marketing, you may spend a dollar sending 700 emails to generate one order for $100.”

“So email truly does have the best return on investment, but only because there is so little cost.”

So the relative value of email marketing changes when you look at other measures of financial success:

“In our example, catalog marketing would generate $1,400 sales for every 700 catalogs mailed. Non-branded paid search would generate $700 for every seven hundred clicks. Email marketing would generate $100 for every 700 emails sent.”

“So, sure, email generates a great return on investment. But if your objective is to grow top-line sales, email fails miserably.”

So, he says, the “best” channel depends on your goals. He adds:

“…you’ll find in this example that catalog, with a lower return on investment, generates more profit dollars…email has the best ROI, but has limited potential to drive huge sales and profit increases.”

It seems likely that high ROI has led us to be satisfied with low email conversions and we would do well to change our attitudes. As Simms Jenkins noted in a recent article, we need to build..

“…the business case and models that demonstrate the significant impact email can make on the bottom line.”

Are we capturing email-driven response properly?

But what about calculating email-driven responses? Is it enough to simply track sales or downloads that follow an email click?

Kevin says retailers in particular frequently understate the value of email marketing campaigns because they focus so much on open rates, clickthrough rates, and conversion rates: all metrics that are ecommerce centric:

“The metrics fail to capture incremental sales that happen in retail stores after an email campaign occurs.”

So how do we measure the true impact of email marketing?

Kevin recommends email marketers execute mail and holdout samples in every email campaign. He explains:

“Just take 10% of your email file, and split it into two equal groups. The first group receives your email, the second group does not. In the week following delivery of the email campaign, sum total sales across all channels in each group.”

“Then compare the difference between the group that was mailed, and the group that was not mailed. This difference is the true impact of email marketing. This answer is more accurate than what you see via traditional metrics.”

This, of course highlights the advantages of cross-channel customer data and a holistic view of the customer. Without data on multichannel responses, a proper analysis of incremental benefits from any one channel can’t be done.

But what if that kind of integrated customer information isn’t available? Kevin suggests focusing on one thing at a time:

“Everybody tries to solve something complex, when they can focus on simple issues. You don’t need a doctorate degree in meteorology to know that when dark clouds are forming, rain becomes more likely.”

“Similarly, don’t set out to try and understand the combined impact of social media and mobile marketing and email marketing and paid search and natural search and direct marketing and television advertising and banner advertising and retargeting campaigns all at the same time.”

He recommends doing your email campaigns and holdout tests and then measuring the impact on individual channels:

“For instance, you might find that paid search demand increases as email marketing frequency increases. This means that your email marketing campaigns drive customers to Google to do comparison shopping.”

“If this is the case, then you need to manage your paid search budget in partnership with email frequency, because the two channels are interacting with each other.”

The main advantage of mail/holdout tests

The mail and holdout approach has the benefit of measuring all the other impacts of email that don’t get picked up by simply seeing if people buy/download after clicking an email link.

An example is the one cited earlier: offline sales resulting from an email campaign.

Perhaps the biggest benefit is that it eliminates those responses that would also happen without email. Kevin cites the example of online retail:

“A customer was going to order on Thursday, and then you mail them a campaign with free shipping and 25% off on Wednesday. The customer isn’t dumb, she’s going to use the promotion…”

“Email gets credit for this order, when in reality, the order would happen anyway.”

Incrementality is the key point

The crucial point is that the value of your emails isn’t in the total responses measured directly for the email, but in the incremental responses generated by email across all channels. Kevin notes:

“This is a concept that most marketers fail to consider. Catalogers call this “incrementality”. Each marketing activity should be measured based on the incremental sales it drives, not on the sales that modern metrics attribute to email marketing.”

He notes that the accurate measurements obtained through mail/holdout tests can often come as a surprise:

“Most of the time, the results of the mail/holdout test are significantly different than what is observed via open/click/convert metrics. Because the email marketer is used to seeing traditional metrics, often 100 times a year for a decade, it is a surprise to see data that looks so different.”

“The email marketer will doubt the new methodology, even if it is far more accurate, because the new methodology doesn’t tie out with a thousand different campaigns compiled over the course of a decade.”

“Traditional direct marketers know that mail/holdout methodologies are more accurate. Email marketers have an opportunity to adopt this style of measurement.”

Mail and holdout groups also reveal segmentation, offer and frequency insights

Since you’re now measuring the true multichannel impact of email, this approach is ideal for testing key elements of your email efforts. For example:

“Mail and holdout groups, if segmented properly, will also help you understand that a small minority of your email list, maybe 10% to 20%, account for almost all of your incremental sales.”

Kevin also strongly recommends that retailers test email marketing without promotions:

“Too often, email marketing ‘works’ because the marketer gives away gross margin to beg for an order, offering 25% off and free shipping. Test full priced campaigns with no free shipping and no promotions.”

“If you see that your traditional metrics implode, then you know that you have trained the customer to use email marketing as the way to get deals.”

“If you’ve done this, you’ve done your business a disservice, and you’ve hurt the potential of the email channel to generate sales on its own merits.”

He adds:

“If you really want to evaluate the impact of a single channel like email, then have the courage to execute a test for six months.”

“Sample 20% of your email file, and split it into four groups. The first group gets every message, the second group receives 67% of email marketing messages, the third group receives 33% of email marketing messages, and the fourth group receives no email marketing messages.”

“Measure the performance of each segment for six full months. Now you will see the true impact of email marketing.”

“You’ll also get to see the true impact of email marketing frequency on total sales, as well as on opt-out rates. In short, you’ll learn a ton about what impact email marketing truly has.”

Find related articles:

• Channel: Email analysis

A previous post looked at four tactics that seem illogical on the surface but make more sense when examined more closely.

Now let’s try three more concepts that might raise eyebrows: poor open rates are a good thing, good responses don’t indicate success, and delivering value is a bad idea.

Eh? Read on…

Lower open rates can be better for you

Michael Thom recently reviewed the major webmail and email clients to find nearly all now block images by default.

To drive response in such an email environment, we can ensure headlines, key links, calls-to-action (CTA) etc. are still visible when images are suppressed.

The better job you do in driving response when images are blocked, the less likely people are to unblock those images.

If your message and CTA is clear without images enabled, why would the reader bother to enable images and thus trigger an open?

So a poor open rate on its own might mean a bad subject line, a weak offer or delivery problems. Or it might just mean you’re very good at designing for blocked images.

This highlights a little-discussed problem with open rates: they are easily manipulated by outside factors which may not have the same impact on more important metrics.

If you want a higher open rate, for example, send people a $1,000 coupon via email, and put the coupon number in an image.

Open rates will rise as everyone disables image blocking to get their free money.

But the ROI on that campaign won’t win any prizes.

That’s why you need to look at your end goals to properly judge the success of a campaign.

The open rate story gets more complicated, the deeper you look. For example, let’s say your message is unclear without the images within rendering properly.

If you have a track record of interesting content/offers, the email is well targeted, the subject line is promising and you arouse enough curiosity using image alt attributes etc., then people may be more inclined to activate images.

The open rate is perhaps better than for our well-designed image-lite version.

If your subject line is vague, the relationship to the recipient weak and the mail poorly targeted, then people will be disinclined to activate images.

The open rate is perhaps worse than for our well-designed image-lite version.

User actions are a response to the sum total impact of all the various factors that contribute to the email experience.

And the impact of any one factor might change from case to case, depending on the unique constellation of factors impacting that one email.

Which is why, for example, it’s not acceptable to say image-rich emails always get lower responses in an era of default image blocking. Because under the right circumstances, image-rich emails can outperform emails crafted for image blocking.

There are few absolutes in email marketing.

Excellent subscriber metrics are not a sign of a healthy email program

Consider these two customers:

Customer A just found your site and placed a big order which they’re very pleased with. They’re certain to buy again from you.

Customer B just found your site and placed a small one-off order. They’re not likely to buy from you again.

Which one is going to sign up for your email list?

Then you look at purchase patterns for email subscribers and non-subscribers. Yippee! Email subscribers are much better customers. They spend more money and place more orders than non-subscribers. Your email marketing must rock!

But the comparison is unfair and doesn’t tell you about the true impact of your emails on the purchase habits of subscribers.

Customer A – the subscriber – was always going to buy more from you than Customer B – the non-subscriber. What you need to know is whether your emails mean they’re buying more or less than they were going to anyway.

The true incremental value of your emails comes from mail/holdout testing, as outlined by Kevin Hillstrom here and here (check the comments!).

Related questions worth asking are:

• Is email leading to new online responses that would otherwise never occur?
• Is email simply changing the timing of responses, for example by prompting a purchase earlier than would otherwise have occurred?
• Is email shifting response from one channel to another? Are email sales, for example, at the expense of offline sales?
• Is email creating new responses for other channels (like driving incremental purchases at offline stores)?

These are areas we’ve yet to explore in detail.

Consider this real example from my inbox: a book recommendation that arrives from amazon.co.uk.

I can buy the book from amazon.co.uk. Sometimes that’s a book I’d never otherwise have bought (email makes a new sale). But sometimes it’s a book I’d have bought eventually anyway (email simply changes purchase timing).

Most of the time I get the recommendation from amazon.co.uk and then visit amazon.de and buy the book there (they have free shipping to my country).

Now amazon.de gets a sale that is not credited to email, even though it was email that drove the purchase!

Fun, isn’t it.

The more we understand about the true benefits of email, the better we can judge investment and whether, what and where we need to improve.

More on this in a future post…

Delivering value is not a good email marketing tactic or strategy

Providing value has always been a central tenet of a successful email marketing program. Even more so on today’s social web, as explained here and here.

So why is it not a good tactic or strategy?

Because delivering value as a tactical or strategic business decision is like scaling Everest without oxygen masks. You can go a long way, but you won’t reach the top*.

Delivering true value comes when you internalize the idea as part of a core and genuine business philosophy. When value is a business decision rather than the result of an internal philosophy, then three things are likely:

First, you are always tempted to compromise.

Some compromise is inevitable anyway through the practical requirements of running a profitable business. You have to balance the value you give against what you receive in return. And our skills, resources and technology limit our ability to be perfect.

But when value is a decision rather than an attitude, the temptation is greater and email quality suffers.

Second, holes eventually appear.

You see this in the social media sector. Those companies who genuinely treasure the customer relationship and the idea of interaction and value exchange have flourishing blogs, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages.

Those who don’t have blog entries that slowly migrate into press releases, empty Twitter feeds and lonely Facebook pages.

Three, you get found out.

Consumers are getting better at spotting bullshit.

Take the value test: do you care what people get out of your emails? Or do you just look at the ROI? I’d argue that maximizing the latter is helped by a positive answer to the former.

Of course I’m an idealist. But you get the point…

*to be strictly accurate, you can reach the top (like Reinhold Messner did in 1978) but it’s a lot harder…

Find related articles:

• Channel: Email marketing tactics

Just a bit of tongue-in-cheek weekend fun on the frustrations of HTML email design, courtesy of Google’s Search Stories tool. Larger version here.

Find related articles:

• Channel: Marketing humor and Email design