email basics for business

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Email basics

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Email basics 1

How to send and create emails


Email basics 1

Find an email provider that helps you create emails and send to a bulk databaseTry these – they represent various levels of price & service:

• www.mailchimp.com

• www.dotmailer.co.uk

• www.mailingmanager.co.uk

• www.jangomail.com

• www.e-shot.net

• www.cheetahmail.com

• www.communigator.co.uk

• www.silverpop.com


Email basics 1

Look out for these features when choosing a provider:• payment structure – pay per email is best when starting out

• tracking software – track opens, clicks and content

• free email templates or html email creation

• ability to create and send text and html formats

• ability for the customer to unsubscribe

• easy data uploading

• data segmentation to create personalised mails

• personalisation – ie. inserting the customer’s name

• ability to send emails triggered by actions on your website


Email basics 2

Types of email


Email basics 2

Marketing emails:Here are the main types of marketing email you can start with:

• Newsletters – contain articles, products, company updates, news

• Product updates – product launch, special offers, new line etc

• Purchase follow-up – check the customer is happy, cross-sell if appropriate

• Surveys – find out what your customers think

• Promotions & competitions

• Support for offline advertising campaigns


Email basics 2

Process emails (sent automatically from the system):Here are the main types of process email you could start with:

• Follow-up on deserters – if a customer clicks away from your site

• Follow-ups containing information such as quotes

• Confirmation of purchase

• Sending account information for recent sign-ups

• Welcome emails – for all who give their details


Email basics 3

Tried and test email designs


Email basics 3

Email creatives should be thought of differently to those used in web pages and print brochures or letters.

However there are simple rules you can follow which have been tried and tested for years.


Email basics 3

Formatting your emails:

• Don’t use javascript – this is supported in web browsers but generally not in email clients

• Backgrounds – avoid using background images but if you do, insert the image into a table. Default your background colour to white.

• Close all HTML tags correctly, ie. </table>

• Check your code on PCs and Macs

• Use universally supported HTML tags

• Avoid any header tags above the <body> tag

• Avoid use of rowspans

• Add ALT tags to your images so that if the image does not appear the reader will know what was in the empty space.


Email basics 3

Designing your emails:

• Remember the preview pane in Outlook. Often this is the first thing the reader will see and if they don’t see anything interesting in it they will click away or delete your email.

• Horizontal preview panes are only generally 300 pixels high

• Above the Fold. The area that is visible without having to scroll down the page is called ‘above the fold’. This is where you should include your most important information.

• Calls to Action. Help the reader to know where to click by using phrases such as ‘click here to’ and ‘read more’.

• Visually sign-post your emails so that scan readers can pick out the important things. Links should be underlined. Headlines in a different colour or size. Important text in bold.

• Keep the size of your email to 600 pixels in width. Your file size should be no more than 50kb wherever possible.


Email basics 3

More design tips:

• make the navigation obvious. Include links to your main website or to other content

• include a contents index or summary near the top – preferably in the preview pane area.

• image sizes should ideally be smaller than 15k

Remember:

Different email clients have different ways to display your email. Therefore it makes sense to use basic HTML wherever possible. For this reason you should also test your creatives in different inboxes before mailing.


Email basics 4

When to send and how often


Email basics 4

When you send out your emails is very important

• Consider your target market. Is it a business person who will be in their office during the day or a teenager who is checking their inbox when they get home from school?

• Timing it right means that your email won’t get lost in a flood of others

• Which day of the week? For businesses, Monday or Tuesday is generally best. For consumer, the evenings are best – Sunday to Wednesday

• Time of day: for business, sending in the morning at around 10am works well if the recipient is office based. Builders knock off work at around 3-4pm. School kids get home around 4-5pm. Parents might check their mail when their kids have gone to bed.

• Research your target market to find out the best timings.


Email basics 4

How often should you send marketing emails?

• Depends on what you sell

• Beware of email fatigue – don’t give a reader a reason to unsubscribe

• Email when you have something to say. Don’t send a newsletter if there is nothing worthwhile in it

• Respect your customers’ inboxes


Email basics 5

Who to send emails to


Email basics 5

Building up a database of email addresses can be difficult. When doing so, remember:

• Only send emails to customers who opt-in to receive them

• If you don’t, you are sending illegal spam

• You must give people the option to unsubscribe directly from the email

• It’s bad practise to pre-tick opt-in checkboxes or similar


Email basics 5

Ideas for building your database:

• Add an email subscription box to your website

• Add a page to your website explaining what the customer will receive from you and how often

• Where possible give the customer preferences as to the email lists they wish to subscribe to

• Add a link to marketing emails

• Add the opt-in check box to offline marketing materials

• Run a competition and put an opt-in check box on the entry form

• Buy targeted email addresses from reputable suppliers


Email basics 6

Testing your emails


Email basics 6

Testing is very important in order to get the best return on your investment for emails

When testing, you should use a larger proportion of your data as the constant and a smaller proportion should receive the test version. This is to minimise disruption in case you make things worse!

Keep a record of your testing so you know what has worked and which areas you tested


Email basics 6

Here are some areas of your emails that you should test:

• Subject lines

• The best time of day to send the emails

• The best day of the week to send the emails

• The images in the email

• The text in the email

• Email design and layout

• Your advertisements or notices

• Personalisation

• Segmentation

• Call to actions


Email basics 7

Measuring your success


Email basics 7

Because email isn’t a free form of marketing, you must monitor the results you get in order to see whether it is worth pursuing for your business.

The best email software will have built in analytics, which can be used in conjunction with your website analytics or sales figures.

Remember that while open rates and click through rates are great, what you really need is too see how the emails are affecting sales.


Email basics 7

• Open rates – this shows how many people opened your email and how many times. Sometimes this data is skewed by things like preview panes.

• Click through rates – this shows how many people clicked on links within your emails. You should also be able to see which links were clicked on.

• You can generally see how many people unsubscribed

• Have a look at how your website analytics software can track visitors that come through from emails.

• If you include a phone number in the email, it is a good idea to have a reference number that shows that the customer came through on email, or a special phone number.

• Ideally your reporting should be able to help you compare the performance of different emails


Email basics

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