frequently asked questions about e-mail marketing
What is CTR?
The term CTR (click through ratio) refers to the ratio of people viewing a link (often in a marketing email or pay per click ad) to those clicking through to your website. For e-mail marketing campaigns, one of the measurements of success is a high CTR. However, bringing customers to your website via an email marketing link is only the first step. Enhance your e-mail marketing success rate by determining how many of those visitors achieved a goal (ie. completed a survey, purchased product, registered for event, etc.).
By testing different variables in your e-mail marketing campaign, you can find ways to increase your CTR. Each company, campaign, website, target audience is different, so the best way to find out what works for you is through testing, testing, and more testing. Modify your visitor landing pages (the page the visitor is taken to when they click on your website link), change your ad copy (in your website or email), create multiple 'calls' to action. All of these are examples of ways to test and watch your visitor behavior and analyze what combination of marketing efforts if bringing you the best return on your investment.
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What do I need to know about spam laws and regulations?
The latest research presents the statistics that every 9 out of 10 emails we receive are spam. The anti-spam and anti-virus industry has flourished into a billion dollar industry over the last 10 years and efforts are continuously being poured into government legislation, product development and social marketing to help decrease spam. As this gets more and more out of hand, more of your online customers will be weary of any email communication they receive from a third-party website, regardless of whether they signed up to receive your emails in the first place.
The CAN-SPAM law was enacted to help prevent spammers from sending unsolicited mass e-mail. Here are a few things to live by before starting any type of e-mail marketing campaign in order to prevent getting you blacklisted from ISPs or deemed as a spammer from your customer base.
- Do not send ANY e-mails to participants that did not directly request to be on your communication list (this includes purchasing lists from companies selling contacts).
- Create a 'double-opt-in' process to verify that each e-mail is valid and directed to the appropriate person who requested to be a member of your communication list. This process includes sending an automated follow-up e-mail asking the person to click on a confirmation link to confirm their subscription.
- You must always include the ability for your subscribers to unsubscribe from your mailing list and be able to guarantee that they will be removed from you list and will not be sent any future e-mail communications without their request.
- Keep your email list private and confidential. Do not sell your subscribers' names and contact info to any third-party companies.
- Make sure your email marketing messages have substance. Test each campaign to make sure it is easily read by different e-mail platforms and can be delivered to all of the major ISP providers.
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What are the best strategies in designing an e-mail marketing campaign?
The best thing you can do to create an effective e-mail marketing campaign is to test, test, and test again. Make sure that your e-mails can be viewed appropriately through different e-mail platforms (ie. Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL). Email platforms, especially web-based platforms such as Gmail and Hotmail have strict regulations when analyzing incoming e-mail messages. Images may not be displayed correctly, text formatting and styles may vary from platform to platform, and more.
Here are a few tips to keep in mind when designing an effective email marketing campaign
- Do not create email messages that contain only images. If all your text is embedded within your images, it's unlikely that it will get through a majority of your customers' spam filters.
- Do not design an email wider than 500 - 600 pixels. This should not be equivalent to a website display. Keep in mind that each of your customers will have different email platforms and monitor resolution settings. By keeping your e-mail design within this width, you're likely to find a medium that will help attract all of your visitors.
- Write an effective subject line. Keep it short and to the point, but also think of ways to entice your visitors to open your e-mail.
- Keep the text in your e-mail short. Utilize bullet points. With the amount of e-mail that is sent every day, people are unlikely to read long lengthy messages in the body of an e-mail. If you are sending them a new article announcement, put a short "teaser" line only and link to your website to view the rest of the message or article.
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