Three more odd email ideas that (maybe) make sense

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…

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