leveraging email to grow your sales

Leveraging Email to Grow Your Sales

Direct Marketing Ecosystem

Direct Marketing

Catalogs & Postal

Mail

Tele-marketing

Text Messaging

Email

Ads on Mobile Devices

Online Advertising

Why Focus on Email?

Direct Mail (Catalog)

Telemarketing

Insert Media

Mobile

Social Media/Networking

Direct Mail (Non-Catalog)

Internet Search

Internet Display

Commercial Email

$0.00 $10.00 $20.00 $30.00 $40.00

$7.25

$8.26

$11.34

$11.37

$12.90

$15.40

$19.71

$22.38

$39.40

ROI by Direct Marketing Channel

Source:  Direct Marketing Association, The Power of Direct Marketing, 2011-2012.

Consumers Prefer Email

Overall 15-17

18-24

25-34

35-44

45-54

55-64

65+

Email 77% 66 74 75 81 79 81 79

Direct mail (letters, catalogs, postcards, etc.)

9% 6 6 6 9 10 14 14

Text messaging (SMS) on cell

5% 10 5 7 4 6 1 0

Facebook 4% 8 7 3 4 3 1 0

Telephone 2% 0 5 3 2 1 1 2

Twitter 1% 4 1 1 0 0 0 0

Mobile App 1% 2 1 1 0 1 0 0

LinkedIn 0% 0 0 1 1 0 0 0

Source:  ExactTarget, 2012 Channel Preference Survey, February 2012

Preferred Channel for Permission-Based Promotional Messages

More Reasons Email Works Well

Reduced Time & Effort: Emails do not take a lot of time to produce relative to other marketing efforts

Cost-Effective: Email costs are much lower than other traditional forms of marketing

Real-Time Messages: Email messages can be sent immediately to communicate quickly

Personalized Messages: Unlike other forms of mass communication, email is addressing each recipient

Segmentation of Database: Segmentation allows for highly targeted messages, which are proven to work

More Frequent Messages: Due to the easiness and cost-effective nature of sending email, more messages can be sent within a given time frame

Establishing Permission to Email Leads/Customers

Qua

ntity

Quality

Opt-Out Only

Single Opt-In, Pre-checked

Single Opt-In, Unchecked

Double Opt-In

CAN-SPAM Checklist• Commercial messages used to advertise products or services

are regulated by CAN-SPAM• Transaction or relationship-based emails are not

Email Type

• US laws do not require opt-in methods of acquiring informationPermission (opt-in)

• Every message must include opt-out instructions• Sender must honor requests within 10 daysUnsubscribe (opt-out)

• Misleading header information is banned: “From”, “To” and routing information must identify person initiating emailSender Identity

• Deceptive subject lines are prohibited• Advertisement identification is required

Subject Lines/ Labeling

• Valid postal address is requiredContact Information/ Post Address

Deliverability of Emails

78%

4%

18%

InboxSpamMissing

Source:  Return Path, Email Intelligence Report Placement Benchmarks, 1H 2013

• Complaints (SPAM)

• Unsubscribes

• Blocked/Blacklisted• Hard Bounce (permanent)• Soft Bounce <5• Soft Bounce >5

• Sender Reputation (senderscore.com)

• User engagement (opens/clicks)

Email Touches All Points of the Customer Lifecycle

Nurture Prospective Customers (Discover & Explore)• Explain product benefits• Provide social proof (i.e. customer testimonials)• Address barriers to entry:

• price• privacy• legalities

• Advertise news/eventsManage Existing Customers (Buy & Engage)• Upsell and cross-sell products• Solicit referrals• Request testimonials• Survey for:

• sales improvements• customer satisfaction

• Advertise news/events

Discover

Explore

Buy

Engage

Email Usage for Prospects – Deep Dive

Various Media SourcesPaid Media

• Print• Radio• Magazines• Outdoor• Banners• Direct Mail• Email List Rental

Owned Media• Brochure• Store• Website• Facebook Fan

Page• Mobile Apps

Earned Media• Word of mouth• Facebook• Twitter• Blogs• Forums• Youtube

Readiness to Buy

Sales Funnel for Leads

Inquiry

Marketing Qualified Leads

Sales Accepted Leads

Sales Qualified Leads

$

Lead

Nur

turin

g via

Email

Recy

cle Le

ads

Scoring Leads

What is Lead Scoring?Ranking leads based on the interest they show in your business, their current place in the buying cycle and their fit in regards to your business. Types of Lead Scoring:

Implicit Explicit

Behavior Online body language BANT data (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline)

Demographics Inferred geography, data quality, etc.

Demographics – typically collected from form data or data appending

Example Behaviors to Score

IMPLICIT DATAEmails

OpenedOpened Multiple TimesClickedClicked Multiple TimesUnsubscribed (negative)

Web PagesViewed product specific

pageViewed pricing pageViewed customer reviewsShared via social sharing

EXPLICIT DATAAgePurchasing AuthorityLocationLead Source

WebsiteEventSponsorshipNewspaper

Household IncomeProduct Interest

Turning Leads into Sales

Less than 25% of new leads are sales-ready.

How do you nurture and close the remaining 75%?

Source:  Gleanstar Research, December 2010 Gleansight on Lead Nurturing

Lead Nurturing

What is Lead Nurturing?The process of building relationships with qualified prospects regardless of their timing to buy, with the goal of earning their business when they are ready.

Why Focus on Lead Nurturing?

Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales

opportunities versus non-nurtured leads.

Source:  DemandGen Report

Determine Email Strategy Using Lead Scores

Source:  Marketo, The Definitive Guide to Lead Nurturing

Email Messaging Changes as Leads Move Down Funnel

Help potential customers better understand their

problems

free whitepapers, guides, videos,

checklists

Help potential customers solve their

problems

webinars, case studies, free

samples, catalogs, FAQ sheets, spec sheets, brochures

Help potential customers choose

you

free trials, demos, assessments, consultations,

estimates, coupons

Discovery Consideration Decision

Email Recency and Frequency Adjusts to Lead Behavior

Lead 1 Welcome Email

< 1 Day

Whitepaper

Opened Either Email?

7 Days

yes

no

3 Days

7 Days

Signed Up atCompany Event

Checklist

Personal Email from Sales Rep

Lead 2 Welcome Email

< 1 Day

Brochure

3 Days

Personal Email from Sales Rep

1 Day

Schedule Demo/Tour

Requested Brochure from Website

Email Trends and Best Practices

‘Age’ of Lead is Important

Source:  HubSpot, An Introduction to Email Marketing

Capitalize on high engagement when lead

is still new

Email Timing is Important

Source:  MailerMailer LLC

Most people open email as they start work

Email Performance Metrics

Q1 2010

Q2 2010

Q3 2010

Q4 2010

Q1 2011

Q2 2011

Q3 2011

Q4 2011

Q1 2012

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

Open RateClickthrough

Source:  Epsilon and Email Experience Council, Q1 2012 Email Trends and Benchmarks, June 2012

Open Rates are trending up; CTRs are

trending down

Email Metrics for Prospect and House ListsB2B House File Prospect File

Open Rate 21.8% 12.9%

Clickthrough Rate 8.6% 7.3%

Conversion Rate (median) 1.2% 0.3%

Acquisition Cost (mean) - $65.66

ROI (median) $52.50 -

B2C House File Prospect File

Open Rate 22.9% 11.1%

Clickthrough Rate 7.7% 5.3%

Conversion Rate (median) 1.5% 0.6%

Acquisition Cost (mean) - $39.96

ROI (median) $16.50 -

Source:  Direct Marketing Association, Response Rate 2012 Report, June 2012

Email Subject Lines by Length

Source:  MailerMailer LLC, 12th Edition Email Marketing Metrics Report, July 2012

4-15 16-27 28-39 40-50 51+0.0%

2.0%

4.0%

6.0%

8.0%

10.0%

12.0%

14.0%

16.0%

Open RateCTR

Character Length

Shorter is better

Open Rate Share by Device

Source:  Knotice, Mobile Email Opens Report, April 2012 & Fishbowl, Q2 2013

Desktop73%

Mobile27%

2012

Desktop53%

Mobile47%

2013

Optimize for mobile

Number of Personal Email Addresses that Users Have

128%

239%

321%

46%

5+7%

Source:  BlueHornet, Consumer Views of Email Marketing, April 2012

Are you counting people more than once?

Other Email Insights• 88% prefer to receive HTML to 12% who prefer plain text

• Click through rate (CTR) is higher when using the recipients first name in the subject line over no use of the first name

• Clicks by button text: “Click Here” gets the highest % of clicks over Go and Submit

• 65% prefer emails that contain mostly images vs. 35% who prefer mostly text

• “Secrets” is the most clicked lead nurturing subject line word

Source:  HubSpot

Email Marketing Case Studies

Improve Deliverability Rates (Ecommerce Company)• Business Problem: Messages for yahoo

customers, which made up 30% of this company’s entire email list, were not being delivered resulting in lost revenue.

• Step 1: Identified & Separated Impacted Email Addresses They pulled the list of all email addresses with yahoo domains (@yahoo, @ymail, @rocketmail, etc)

• Step 2: Defined ‘active’ subscribers Knowing that yahoo has strict engagement algorithms for inbox placement, they segmented their yahoo list into inactive and active subscribers (anyone who clicked or opened in last 30 days) and only sent to actives…which was only 8% of all their yahoo names.

• Step 3: Slowly added more ‘inactive’ subscribers As the deliverability improved for first group of active customers, they added the next batch of inactives (anyone who clicked or opened within 60 days and then 90 days) all while holding out the inactive members.

• Step 4: Created permanent message strategy for Yahoo inactives Once deliverability finally returned to normal, they settled on a new definition of ‘inactive’ for yahoo members specifically, which was more stringent than their other subscriber domains (12 months vs 18 months of no opens or clicks)

• Results: Deliverability improved from 70%-92%, which resulted in over $100k+ in recognized revenue

Increase Conversion for New Email Members (Family Style Restaurant)

• Business Objective: A family style restaurant chain wanted to improve the conversion of new email subscribers into new guests in their restaurants and increase their initial ROI of acquiring that email name.

• Step 1: Evaluated Welcome Offer The control welcome offer of a free appetizer was ‘safe’. They wanted to test a richer offer to create more incentive to visit ‘now’. They decided on $15 off two entrees.

• Step 2: A/B Tested Offer in Email Promotion They worked with a marketing agency to attract new email members via an email campaign that randomly assigned its email list the control offer (50% ) and the test offer (50% ).

• Step 3: Tracked Redemption for Both Offers After the email promotion was sent, the restaurant acquired close to 1k new email members. Interestingly, the same amount of people signed up to the eclub with the control offer as did with the test offer. These results did not hold true in terms of restaurant visits. The test offer - $15 Off 2 Entrées – outperformed the control offer on all performance metrics.

• Results: The test offer raised conversion rates by 62% and increased net revenue per email/member by 70%. Total estimated net revenue impact is $280k for every 100k new email names acquired with the new offer.

Thanks!Contact Info:

Nicole Tabatabai@ntabatabai (twitter)

Any Questions?