Silverpop and eMarketer share insights

In the search for improved ROI, email marketers must strike a delicate balance between their mission to market brand and product, and their customers' acute sensitivity to receiving unwanted, irrelevant messages.

"Part of what makes email marketing work--and what makes it complicated--is that, while people increasingly favor email, they hate unwanted messages," said David Hallerman, eMarketer senior analyst, and author of the recent report, "E-Mail Marketing: How to Improve ROI."

So how do marketers ensure that recipients actually want their messages?

"Ultimately, the most important thing in email marketing is the notion of relevance," said Bill Nussey, CEO of Silverpop and author of the book, "The Quiet Revolution in Email Marketing."

Hallerman and Nussey discussed how to increase email marketing ROI during a June 28 teleseminar inspired by Hallerman's report. During the hour-long presentation, Nussey and Hallerman examined industry statistics and shared four of the most important things email marketers can do to get the most out of their email marketing programs.

Get permission to send the message

Marketers who ask for and receive permission stand a much better chance of being well-received than marketers who don't. According to industry statistics, 90 percent of internet users want to control the email they receive. And, more than 80 percent find spam annoying most or all of the time. But more than half of internet users say they regularly read emails from five or more companies to whom they have given permission.

Send a message of value

Getting messages accepted is only the first step. The next is convincing recipients to open them. Timely, well-branded messages that engage a recipient's interest greatly increase a marketer's chances that his or her emails will be anticipated and welcome.

Highlighting the importance of relevance, email recipients by a margin of two-to-one prefer transactional messages, such as purchase confirmations and account status messages, over commercial messages, such as newsletters, e-coupons and sales promotions. In addition, people are three-to-four times more likely to click-through transactional messages as commercial ones. 

"These are the emails people find most worth reading, because it tells them something directly of value to their lives," Hallerman said.

Nussey said, "This speaks to the future; it's no longer about just having a relevant email or a targeted email; it's about being more relevant and more targeted than the dozen or so other emails your customer may have signed up for. You're not just going up against your competitors' email program--you're going up against everybody who wants your customer's attention," he said.

Don't send messages too often, or too rarely

As a general guideline, and in the absence of testing to determine optimal frequency, Nussey said marketers who blast out plain-vanilla promotional campaigns more than twice a month are probably sending too often.  "The real question isn't, 'How often can I email my customers?' but rather, 'How often do I have something interesting and relevant to say that my customers want to hear?"

The flip side of that coin is sending too rarely, said Hallerman. Recipients may forget why someone is sending them email, or that they have given permission. "While there is no exact rule about how often you should send emails, I would say that once every four-to-six weeks as a minimum can work for virtually all businesses," he said. "Much less than that, and you get into the too-rarely range."

Test and track to boost results

Despite the fact that testing clearly and significantly improves return, more than half of companies with email marketing programs don't test different subject lines to see which performs better, and nearly a quarter don't track open rates, which can reveal how recipients feel about their brand.

"Email is so cheap, and easy, that many companies don't think they have to test," said Nussey. "But it's an incredibly powerful marketing tool. If you do it wrong, you risk damage to your brand and to your ROI," he said.

But, if marketers do it right, the return can be tremendous, Hallerman said.