Frequently Asked Questions

How do you get your email message to attract your target audience?
How can you get the recipients to open the email?
What are 'calls to action' and how to they influence conversion?
What target page on your site should you drive the traffic to?
How can you get the converted visitors to further self-qualify?
How can you avoid having your emails converted to spam?
What should you look for when renting a list?
What type of results or ROI can you expect?
Do you have enough email addresses to achieve your goal?
How do you manage your own email database?

How do you get your email message to attract your target audience?

You want to think about the audience. If you've done some search engine optimization, you probably know your target keywords. Use the most effective keyword(s) in your subject header. Repeat the keywords in your message body. Make sure the keywords are repeated on the landing page. A consistent and relative email message is crucial. If your audience comes to your web site through search engines using certain keywords, they will probably respond to these keywords in an email message.

How can you get the recipients to open the email?

Subject is everything! State clearly and succinctly what you are offering and how it will benefit them. Throughout your email campaign planning, put yourself in their position. What makes you want to open an email? What makes you want to click on the link? If you know your audience, then you know what they want. If you're not sure how they will respond, test the list in small increments and measure the results. Adjust the message and possibly the target page to increase conversions.

What are 'calls to action' and how do they influence conversion?

A successful email campaign does more than drive a lot of traffic to a site, it converts enquiries into sales too. Consider featuring a ‘call to action’ to influence conversion. Similar to offline marketing, this involves offering your audience something valuable so that they will be willing to give you something of value in return. An example would be a free software trial download or access to a free research paper.

Think about your audience and what they might respond/convert to. If you're targeting a high-level audience (CEO, President), don't offer them a freesoftware trial download. Write in a style that speaks to them in the manner they are used to. Try to keep the email message short. Get to the point early within two sentences and then provide a link to take them right to your site.

It's important to make it as easy as possible for the visitor to respond to the call to action. Provide a link to the landing page that gives them exactly what the email message said they could get. Don't force them spend time navigating your site to find the page for conversion.

How can you get the visitors to further self-qualify?

If you're a B2B that doesn't sell products or services via a web site, use this opportunity to get the visitor to self-qualify themselves even further. For example, at the end of the request for literature form, ask them if they would like more information. If yes, ask them to complete a more detailed questionnaire. This may help you prioritize the telemarketing or direct sales phone follow up. Measuring these actions can be an additional measure of success for the campaign. You'll have to work with your webmaster to automate this process on your web site.

How can you avoid having your emails converted to spam?

As you collect email addresses through visitors submitting request forms or making purchases from your web site, indicate clearly your Privacy Statement, to assure visitors that their email address will not be sold or distributed. Be selective about how often you send them emails or your emails may be converted to spam. Send emails only when you have something of high interest or value to offer and they will be less likely to opt-out of opening the message. Often, if you send an email message from a real person rather than a generic email address can be successful. The recipient may feel that any response they send will actually be read by someone rather than ending up in a black hole. Be honest or they will never open your emails again and probably set your emails to list as spam. Always give them the opportunity to opt-out with any email campaign. If a recipient asks to be removed from your distribution list, be very careful to do this. If you're renting a list, make sure the list provider follows best practices as well.

What should you look for when renting a list?

Portal web sites that provide product or industry vertical information often offer email list rental opportunities. Shop around and compare CPM (Cost Per Thousand) prices. Ask about Selects, the ability to slice the list by selection criteria i.e. job title, annual budget for your type of product, geography, and other demographics. Enquire as to whether there is an additional charge for sending out an email. Sometimes the list rental and the actual sending of the email are separate charges. Ask about content guidelines i.e. text limits, HTML and text message options. Many print magazines have web sites and offer email list rental. Some email list rental providers offer a CPA (Cost Per Action) or CPC (Cost Per Click) model. This means you only pay when the recipient actually clicks on the link in the message to your site. It is in their best interests to help you craft a successful message for conversion and they typically offer this type of service.

What type of results or ROI can you expect?

Consider your email marketing goals: online purchase, requests for literature, free trial software download, sales contact request, response to some other promotional offer. Whatever it is, you'll want to implement mechanisms to measure it. Divide the number of click-throughs by the total number of email recipients to calculate your click-through rate (CTR). Divide the number of conversions by the number of clicks to calculate your clicks to conversion rate. You could divide the number of conversions by the number of recipients if you are not concerned about clicks. Of course, the percentage will be lower, but this may be your metric for success. A rate of 3% to 8% of recipients to conversion represents a successful email campaign. However, using a new rented list could capture only 1% while your own in-house list developed from previous campaigns could achieve 5%. You should also calculate the cost per conversion. Were the conversion rate low, but the cost considerably lower than another campaign, it could still be considered successful. If conversion is your goal, then you may want to make sure you have the mechanisms in place to measure conversion. This information is also useful if your email campaign proves unsuccessful and wish to seek compensation from the list provider.

Do you have enough email addresses to achieve your goal?

Based on the conversion rates mentioned above, calculate whether you are sending your message to enough recipients to achieve your email campaign goals. If you don't have enough email addresses in your own database, you may have to rent a list to supplement it.

How do you manage your own email database?

It is ideal to be able to maintain your email list in the same SFA or CRM tool as that used to manage your prospects and customers. How will the database be populated? Assuming that email addresses gathered from your web site are the result of a purchase or some other type of request form, how is the contact data fed into the database, SFA or CRM tool? Whatever database you're using you will want to think about the demographic fields you want to maintain in the beginning i.e. original campaign source for that contact, industry, product interest, geography. This way, you can easily do your own selections based on these criteria in the future. Think about how you will manage opt-in, opt-out, and undeliverable records. If you're in the market for an SFA or CRM tool, the ability to manage email campaigns may be a product requirement to consider.