Actually, maybe the first question should be: What’s the purpose of your newsletter? And is that the right purpose?

I was working with a client on a newsletter for an herbal supplement. The goal was to keep the reader engaged, and have them go to the website and order more of the supplement. Well, the newsletter went out twice a month, and the minimum order was 90 days. So the client was disappointed that more people didn’t order. The point he missed was that the newsletter was not supposed to be a sales letter but a sales tool to keep the product brand on the client’s mind.

When analyzing the ROI on an email, you do have to look at the cost to send the email, and how it fits into the overall budget. You might be taking a loss on the newsletter, but it might be a method for others to refer the product. And you wouldn’t know if the new order was from someone who just happened to find you or if it was a referral. Unless you ask. Which wasn’t done, so the newsletter was scrapped.

Another mistake that I think the client made was to send out a coupon for 10% off every 6 weeks that was good for 4 weeks. People got too used to seeing the same coupon. I would have varied the coupon amount to see which had the better pull.

And since the client only had name and email address, there was no way to do segmenting. One way to resolve this is to send out an email asking people to update their account, and then ask for 2 more pieces of demographic data.

A consultant can provide useful information, however, it is ultimately up to the client which path to take. My advice is to have a strategy, and test it.

Another client of mine sends out an email once a month where the articles are only previewed, and there are links back to the website. This works perfectly because it increases the useful information on the website (which improves page rank and offers more text for SEO), and it has a purpose. Once the person is on your website, they can poke around and see what else is there.

Additionally, they have their contact information in the email. Always give your readers multiple ways to say yes. Yes to calling, yes to emailing, yes to clicking through to your website. And hopefully yes to buying your product or service.

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. You have to look beyond just the open and click through rate to better understand your ROI.

First, you need to review the purpose of the email. Did you want people to read it, did you want them to take action, or did you want them to forward it to someone else? Knowing your goal helps you better understand the results.

And hopefully you used Split A/B testing to optimize for this. For example, if you wanted to warn people of something really cool coming up, open rate is the most important thing, and you would optimize the subject line.

If you wanted them to click through to your website, you would have split tested content to verify the best click through rate.

Now, you need to go back to your web site analytics and review what the people did once they hit the landing page. Did they stay for awhile or did they leave immediately. If they left, then you need to update and test your landing page because it wasn’t what they were expecting.

If they stayed and clicked around for awhile but didn’t buy, then it’s time to analyze your sales funnel. Which is another blog entirely.

And what if you sent out a coupon, and really wanted people to forward it to friends to get your name out there. Look at how well the link worked. And test placement and size of the link. If people don’t see it, then they’re not going to use it. Also consider rewarding those who refer their friends.

To stay on top of the new frugality, save time and money by knowing what your objective is, test before you send, and then verify that you’re getting the results you want.

I rely heavily on paragraph tags to add in more white space and improve readability.

So instead, they recommend using break tags (<br>).  Using two in a row will give the same amount of white space as a paragraph tag.  However, if I’m using css, I have more flexibility with paragraph tags.

Most of the problems I’ve seen are with Mac Mail program since that’s what I personally use.  Two years ago, there were lots of issues with emails using tables for layout.  I’ve noticed Apple has done some adjustments and things look much better.  Outlook 2007 will continue to be a problem since, from what I’ve read, it uses the Word engine for rendering HTML instead of Internet Explorer.  Which makes no sense.  And that’s why I use a Mac.

So test test test to make sure your message is going to look the best it can be.

Silverpop has a new whitepaper available on 7 New Email Marketing Tactics You Have to Use in 2010.  Their whitepapers are always very informative and cutting edge.  Sure you have to give up some information; however their emails are always interesting too.  And you can learn a lot on good email structures.

From their landing page:

Learn how to:

• Secure customer comments and create brand ambassadors
• Capture lost revenue with an abandon cart program
• Send the right message at the right time
• Take your program “on the road” with SMS

And then let me know what you thought.

http://www.silverpop.com/landing-engage/DMNews_Email/Tactics.html

Check out http://blog.deliverability.com/2009/11/no-more-excuses.html and see how he can help you improve your deliverability.

I know we just finished up Halloween, however, the shopping season is upon us.  Major retailers are setting up their black Friday campaigns.  Whether you’re a small retailer or a large conglomerate, it’s time to put into action your online marketing plan for this holiday season now.

You shouldn’t use the same coupon week after week because it will turn people off.  I won’t buy something this week if I know that there’s going to be another 20% off everything coupon next week.  Have something really on sale.  You won’t get everyone buying it, but I suspect you’ll get better conversions since it will be more meaningful and it will capture the customers attention.

Last season, people were worried about their jobs and the looming recession.  Well guess what, many more of us are out of work, and are counting pennies.  What this means to you is that you’ve got two types of customers.

The first are those who are looking for deep discounts and will buy and store the presents.  In fact, they’ve been buying presents since last Christmas.  They are patient and will wait until the exact right price for the exact present comes along.  For these people, again, the highly targeted discount is very useful.  Amazon has their daily deals, and they often sell out.  So if you have multiple products, have one as a fire sale and see how well it converts.

If it doesn’t, perhaps most of your clients are the second type.  They have a limited budget and are waiting until the last minute to get the fire sale prices.  In fact, they may be more than likely to go into stores and try to negotiate better prices.  For these people, you need to give them a good reason to buy online.  Perhaps free shipping will be their tipping point.

Know your customers and know that it’s a tough market out there.  So get your holiday emails out there so you’re the one they want to buy from.

First, it is a good thing to capture email addresses. However, you have to ensure that they know you’re doing it. What if they order something from you, and you ask for their email address to send them a confirmation. Make sure that you have some notice in your order process that you will protect their email address, that you will not sell it, and most importantly, that you reserve the right to contact them in the future through this email address.

It can be something simple like: We’re asking for your email address to send you a confirmation, and potentially notices in the future. We will never sell your email address or send you garbage, and you’ll have the right to opt out at any time.

Another method is to put a link near the web form where it asks for email address, with the text “about this” or “privacy info.” You can then either do a pop-up window or send them to another page which has the boilerplate on your privacy policy as well as a single line that you retain the right to contact them via email in the future.

Why should you care? Well, if you have been saving email addresses, and you sign up with a place such as aweber.com, they are going to ask you if you have permission to contact these people. And if you cannot say in good conscience that you have these privacy policies in place, they’re going to reject your list.

Which means that you’ll be putting the email addresses in one at a time. Or does it? Nope, sorry again, but aweber.com does limit the amount that you can put in at a single point in time.

So let’s think it through.  You should have permission to contact them, so cover all your bases and have that line in first.  And then start saving email addresses until you’re ready to start sending emails on a regular basis.

I’ll save subject lines for another time. But today, let’s talk about targeting and your reason for emailing. Some people believe in the shotgun approach where you send out an email to everyone hoping that enough people will open to justify the return on investment.
However, the problem with doing that often is that you numb your audience. At first, everyone is like a happy puppy and opens every email from you. But as time goes on and they see an email that has nothing to do with them, they stop opening, and worse, often unsubscribe.
So how can you keep them engaged?
First, look at what you promised them when they signed up. Did you offer an informative newsletter once a week? Are you still sending that or are you just sending ads?
Good email campaigns require a lot of self-discipline. It’s fine to send the ads occasionally as long as it doesn’t detract from the useful information.
One suggestion is to work with a copywriter (you can find good ones at elance.com or guru.com), and create 50-60 canned emails of information pertinent to your business. If you want to do a daily or 5 days a week, then increase the number accordingly, and shorten the mailing length.
Most good ESP’s (email service providers) have the ability to set up triggered emails. So once a person signs up, it should trigger a welcome message, and then start the series of emails as per your agreed upon frequency.
So what about the ads. Best practices dictate that you should target the ads to some kind of demographic. If the ad is for women’s shoes, obviously, sending it to women only is the better plan. If you have many brick and mortars, and you’re opening up a new store, sending an announcement of the grand opening to the whole list doesn’t make sense. Border’s made that mistake recently and sent out a special coupon to everyone even though they meant to target a few select zip codes. You can learn from their mistake, and identify where your email will be most effective.
So what if you don’t have this information? Part of list management is regular emails every 3-6 months asking people to log in and update their information. It should be handled carefully. You’re building up a relationship with them. So first you get their name and email address, and you build up their confidence when you only send them what they ask for. After awhile, you state that you need them to re-activate their account, or that you need them to verify information. And you ask them for zip code and gender. Perhaps later on, you can ask for household income, and other interests. Another is asking them top opt-in to special offers. This gets them to their account information on your website, and allows them to fill in more information while either opting in to get 3rd party ads or opting out. Remember, this is a long term process, and you need to treat the person’s information with respect.
When you do this, you’ll have people opening and reading your emails again in no time.