MarketingProfs

Just about anyone can set up an email marketing account and start blasting campaigns. But successfully engaging your audience and turning them into paying customers is another thing entirely. So, I chatted with email marketing expert and Digital Marketing World (our free virtual conference) presenter Stephanie Miller, vice president at Aprimo, about common email sins, marketing metrics, and the “easiest” way to improve your email marketing results.

Here’s what she had to say.

1. What are some of the most common email marketing mistakes marketers commit?
The three most deadly sins are:

1. Overmailing (This has nothing to do with frequency and everything to do with relevancy—a three-times-a-day alert that is welcome is not excessive for those who want it, but a boring or non-helpful monthly message is too much for almost everyone.)
2. Not tracking sender reputation
3. Not taking advantage of technology that allows for custom, personalized messages at the subscriber or segment level

Most email marketers truly do care about their subscribers and want to provide value. However, there are business pressures on email marketing because of the high ROI and low cost. “Just send another email message” is the answer to a lot of business challenges and is often out of the control of the poor email production manager. Given that, the sins are not due to lack of knowledge of the penalties for overmailing (clicks on the Report Spam button and depressed sender reputation and inbox placement). They are mostly due to short-term demands rather than a commitment to longer-term customer engagement.

2. Is there a new marketing technology that you’re excited to use this year?
I’ve just started a new role at Aprimo, the integrated marketing platform provider, and am very excited about truly integrated marketing.

In the past, “integrated” often meant that we tracked multiple campaigns over multiple channels with  back-end reporting.  Platforms like the one from Aprimo help marketers actually use data intelligently upfront to pull segment populations, dynamically adjust creative messaging, and plan internal workflow and asset management which streamline processes and improve efficiency. Who isn’t trying to do more with less?

3. What are some easy ways that our readers can improve their email marketing results?
Easy?  Define “easy”!  The only way to improve email results is to improve the subscriber experience.  If you are not doing any segmentation, then start with some simple segments that allow you to customize messaging to important sets of subscribers.  Consider new subscribers vs. long time, or active vs. non active.  Sometimes, gender or urban vs. suburban can make a difference. Even if you adjust only the subject line to speak to those audiences, you will see a lift in response. If you already do some segmentation, then improve the results with finer gradients or by including behavioral data in the mix.

Segmentation forces you to consider the subscriber when you map out the calendar.  That is the “easy” way to reconsider your email marketing relevance and improve engagement.

4. What metric do you track that most people overlook?
I love to track response metrics by subscriber over a quarter (or whatever time frame makes sense for your business).  No customer or prospect opens and clicks on every email message or “likes” every Facebook post. However, if subscribers respond to something in a quarter, then we can learn what engages them and start to matrix the kinds of content and levels of urgency that earn a response across important segments. If I only look at the campaign level, I can miss important trending data that informs good marketing decisions.

Also, let me just say that is it shameful to count the number of marketers I speak with who do not regularly review their standard email and social campaign response metrics. You know who you are. Don’t overlook or outsource this review; it’s critical to your digital marketing success.

5. If you weren’t a marketer, what job would you do?
Fantasy job #1: Work with Ann Handley. I’ll do anything.
Fantasy job #2: Have a cooking show, “Hearty & Festive Entertaining from a Small Manhattan Kitchen.”  (working title)

Want to learn more? Join us this Friday, March 11 for our free virtual conference, Digital Marketing World: Email Marketing, and learn the latest ways to ignite your email marketing results.

Tags: Email Marketing, Marketing