Internet Marketing Blog

There are four main rules when it comes to email marketing, which are governed by the Privacy and Electronics Communications Regulations Act 2003 (EC Directive) and Data Protection Act ’98.

1. Permission and Consent

You must have permission to contact the person that you are emailing i.e.: they must have opted in at some point. There are three ways in which they could have opted-in:

» Their email was collected in the course of a sale or negotiation – this could have been whilst making an online quote or filling in a survey. The sale does not have to have been completed, but they have to have been given the opportunity to either opt-in or opt-out at some stage in the process.

» They have agreed to receive emails regarding a similar product or service.

» They simply did not opt-out – they must have been given this option in the first place.

2. Who

If you are emailing then you must not conceal who you are - the recipient must know who the email is from.

3. Valid

The email that you are sending must have a valid originating email address via which they can contact you for opting-out purposes.

4. Unsubscribe

You must provide the facility to unsubscribe from your emails.

Consumer Data and Business Data

The ‘grey areas’ of email marketing apply to consumer data and business data. If you have had a relationship with a company or organisation then you can market directly to them. You can even collect data on companies from resources like open directories (or even Yellow Pages) and use this data to directly market to. This does not, however, apply to consumer data where they have to at some point agreed to receive emails from you. Whether you are talking to a consumer or corporate audience you must always follow points 2,3 and 4.

Buying Data

The data that you buy could have been collected one of many different ways including surveys, telephone interviews, online questionnaires or from a 3rd party. If you are buying data then you can be assured (as long as the company is reputable of course) that it has passed all of the checks for consent and permission and now all you have to do is make sure that they know who you are, allow them to opt-out and make sure that they can contact you should they so wish to do so.

If you are at all confused by email marketing, then why not contact us and we’ll be more than happy to explain the opt-ins from the opt-outs.

We are often asked what the ideal open rate should be for a particular client email campaign. To answer this it is important to consider several factors about the people that you are talking to.

Do you know your audience and do they know you?

If you are in regular contact with the people in your database and this list is compiled of people who have opted-in to receive your correspondence or have made a purchase from you, you can expect a higher open rate than if you are ‘cold-call’ emailing them.

How often do you speak to them and do they want to hear from you?

If these lucky people receive interesting and compelling emails from you on a monthly basis (and you know they want to), then you can expect to have a good open rate and bit of interaction with your target audience.

If this is the first time that you have spoken to this audience, either because the list has never been used because it has sat around for a few years (and the addresses have possibly expired) or because they are part of a bought list, then you cannot expect to have a high open rate. Equally, if you have been spamming them – sending them loads of emails every week – then they are less likely to want to open your emails.

Email Marketing works as three different marketing tools. Firstly, it helps you to cleanse your database for people that actually want to hear from you, getting rid of those who don’t, and ultimately giving you a higher open rate.

Email Marketing also acts as a marketing ‘brand’ exposure tool, getting your brand ‘out there’ to the masses. If this is the first time that you have emailed a particular group of people you cannot expect a huge reaction from them straight away. You have to build a relationship and trust associated with your brand, which takes time.

For every email that you send out asking someone to buy something there will be those who make a purchase straight away and those who don’t need your service right now, but will remember who you are and make a purchase at a later date. There are even those who one day are surfing the web and stumble across you and feel a certain tie to your brand because of the email that you once sent to them and there are those who will begin to see your brand name synonymous with what you do.

The results that you get from your email should be measured by the reaction that you were hoping for (sales, enquiries etc) and the remit of your email. Remember that if you are asking people to do something, such as fill in a form, you should make this process as simple as possible; the simpler the process, the more likely you are of a result.

B2B emails have a higher open rate than B2C emails and the more that you send, the more of a reaction you will get. If we have to talk figures, and I know that is what you want, then I would say that on a B2B email anything between 10% - 20% is a sound open rate and on a consumer email you can expect to see a much lower percentage of around 5 – 10%, but again, this is down to the receptiveness of your audience in the first place.

If you want to talk to us about your email marketing, then call us on 0845 838 7435 or email us here.

These are my top tips for creating an effective email marketing campaign. This is by no means the law, but hopefully it is something that you can take away and will give you some food for thought.

1. Understand your Audience

Get inside the mindset of your audience. This will give you an idea of what they would find interesting and what will grab and hold their attention. This is the fundamental underpinning of email marketing and determines your message and how you are going to say it. Get this right, and you are halfway there.

2. What is your subject line

This is the second most important factor in email marketing and is the difference between an opened email and a deleted email. Appeal to the individual in your audience and inspire them to take action. Think about the group of people that you are emailing; what they have got in common and personalise the email to interest them, even split the email database by their interests and personalise the subject accordingly.

3. Consider who the email is from

Are the recipients going to recognise who the email is from? Do they know your brand? If they do, then why not consider sending the email from someone that they would know from within your organisation. If they don’t know who you are, then remember that email marketing also works as a brand exposure exercise, so if they don’t know you that well right now, they soon will.

4. Your Message

Make sure that your message is clear, worth reading and original and not just someone else’s words regurgitated. Make it worth the recipient’s while to open your newsletter; whether it is a discount, some top tips or a recipe for treacle tart.  Give them something to think about.

5. Consider your email design

Once you have got people to open your email, you want them to read what you have got to say. A well thought-out email, with a nice design and clear layout will do just that and can even inspire them to visit your website. If you want them to visit your website, then emulate the look and navigation of your website to get some coherence, which will help them to work their way around your site.

6. Personality

Emails with a personality and an actual person behind them help to build an affinity between your business and your audience. If you are sending a newsletter, then keeping it corporate might not be the way to go, so why not try and introduce a human element into it that people can identify with. One of my favourite examples of this has to be Innocent Smoothies who are fun, not only in the way that they look, but also in the language that they use, inviting you to read and learn more about them.

7. Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3

This sounds obvious, but check for typos, spelling mistakes and that the links work. My favourite email faux pas is a ‘branded’ email, gone wrong. You know the kind I mean. ‘Dear Jen’ reads ‘Dear [company name]’ etc. Not good for your image. Everybody makes mistakes, and everyone knows that, but it does make you look a bit daft, so test it and send it to your colleagues.

8. Signing up

There are several ways in which your email database could have signed up to receive your newsletter. They could have gone to your site and opted-in, in which case they are probably counting down the days until they get your next newsletter or they bought something from your site and never opted-out. Make sure that you manage your database and give people the ability to opt-out should they so desire to do so. Give them the option to tell a friend about you with a ‘forward to a friend’ facility, always allowing your database to grow. A well-maintained database is an engaged database and a strong platform from which to talk to your audience.

9. Sending

There are lots of myths about when to send out your email.  When is a bad time?  When the best time is?  There is no real ‘general’ good day or perfect time; it just has to be right for your audience. If you are a B2B type of business, then try sending out an email on a Tuesday mid-morning or look at when your existing audience is hitting your site and that should give you a good indication.

10. Spamming and Filters

There are certain words that are looked for when you send an email that will inhibit an email from getting into someone’s inbox, so don’t spam your email. Equally do not spam your database, emailing them every week. In the same vein, if you are emailing your audience every month, then keep them engaged by varying what you have got to say.

If you would like a bespoke email marketing campaign, then why not pick up the phone and give us a call on 0845 838 7435, or why not drop me a line?