From Email Marketing 101 course taught at Parisoma, San Francisco. Almost every online business utilizes Email Marketing in some capacity to reach their audience, from F500s to small shops. The problem is that very few organizations do it right. Engaging and retaining customers is important, and your customers will love you if you're able to share the content and offers they're looking for. This class will run through best practices, wide-ranging aspects that make a successful program, examples, and personal experiences from being behind some of the largest Email Marketing programs out there. TOPICS COVERED: * Best Practices * Goal-setting * What kind of tools you need * Deliverability * Performance Metrics * Segmenting * Specific programs around target segments * Email-specific Testing plans * Examples and case studies of how the pros are doing it INSTRUCTOR: Anish Shah is a sought-after Strategist that has spent the better half of the last decade growing Email Marketing programs for brands and startups. He currently runs Bring Ruckus Marketing, where he has consulted for brands like Shutterfly, Zazzle, University of Phoenix, and Planet Fitness. In a previous existence, he helped grow Snapfish's Email Marketing program over 100% YoY. And a couple lifetimes ago, he worked with brands like Old Navy, Sephora, Microsoft, Intel, Sidestep, and more at the largest Email Marketing Agency of the time. He also helps companies recruit the right Marketing talent. Because, well...why the hell not? And if you've got a social good project, he will love listening to you about it.

1. EMAIL
MARKETING 101
Anish shah
Class @ parisoma
1/27/2014

2. WHO AM I?
Anish
Shah
Principal
Consultant
Purveyor
of
Growth
WHO AM I?
bringruckus.com
@anish_shah
anish@bringruckus.com

3. DOZEN TOPICS COVERED TODAY
ü Definitions
ü Other Channels
ü Best Practices
ü Myths
ü Deliverability
ü Tools
ü Performance Metrics
ü Segmentation
ü Goals
ü Testing Plans
ü Creative Testing
ü Mobile

4. DISCLAIMER
Lots of my personal opinions inside these walls. So…

5. WHY ARE WE HERE?
Why do companies send emails?
Why do companies over-abuse the email channel?
Why is your inbox so overflowed?
Why do Junk Mail boxes exist?
Why are you interested in learning more about Email Marketing right now?
EMAIL MARKETING IS THE CHANNEL WITH THE HIGHEST ROI.

6. BASIC DEFINITIONS
CAMPAIGN
Outreach designed to bring about a result
§ A campaign can be 1 email or 1 year’s worth of work depending on how it is
defined internally
Data (list)
All available information on your users & customers
Data (analysis)
The performance of your users & customers
database
The physical entity that stores all information on your users &
customers

7. BASIC DEFINITIONS
CREATIVE
copy
design
HTML

8. BASIC DEFINITIONS
DELIVERABILITY
ESP
ISP
FEEDBACK LOOP

9. BASIC DEFINITIONS
Subject
Line
From
Name
Reply-to
address
Subdomain

10. OTHER DIGITAL
CHANNELS

11. OTHER DIGITAL MARKETING CHANNELS
PAID SEARCH
ADS
AFFILIATES
MEDIA OUTLETS
SOCIAL MEDIA
SPONSORSHIPS
BLOGS

12. BASIC DIFFERENCES VS. OTHER MARKETING CHANNELS
These other marketing channels:

13. BASIC DIFFERENCES VS. OTHER MARKETING CHANNELS
OTHER MARKETING CHANNELS thrive and have their livelihoods depend on the
generosity of Marketers.

14. BASIC DIFFERENCES VS. OTHER MARKETING CHANNELS
OTHER MARKETING CHANNELS thrive and have their livelihoods depend on the
generosity of Marketers.

15. BASIC DIFFERENCES VS. OTHER MARKETING CHANNELS
These other marketing channels are quick to execute and able to
iterate with many versions

16. BASIC DIFFERENCES VS. OTHER MARKETING CHANNELS
THESE OTHER MARKETING CHANNELS ARE mistake-proof
Pause
-­‐>
Fix
-­‐>
Re-­‐launch
with
liDle
damage
done
Almost
impossible
to
reverse
or
fix.

17. BEST PRACTICES
& MYTHS

18. BEST PRACTICES
= The Safest Route
Note: Best Practices were made to be broken.
I’ve personally broken each of these rules multiple times.

19. BEST PRACTICES (AND WHY TO BREAK THEM)
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
Don’t mail anybody with no activity for 6 months
Include an equal ratio of text:images
Email width should be 600px
Always include a plain-text version
Don’t blast the same email to everyone
Send emails when your users are most likely to read them
Keep subject line under 55 characters

20. MYTHS: CONTENT BLOCKING
§ Unless the content of your emails include the word porn, Viagra, or
something else equally offensive, do not pay attention to content SPAM
checkers. *
§ 85% of blocked emails are due to reputation, not content.
§ The rest are due to content are from outdated, dying corporate
security firewalls.
* Many disagree with me here.

21. MYTHS: CLICK, CLICKS, CLICKS!!
Clicks are everything.
They matter, but look deeper.

22. MYTHS: TECH OWNERSHIP
Building in-house offers more stability, technological
control, and ability to be nimble.

23. Repeat it!
DELIVERABILITY

24. WHAT IS DELIVERABILITY?
The art and science of delivering emails to the inbox
Success: INBOX
Setback: JUNK MAIL
Failure: BLOCKED

25. WHY SHOULD YOU CARE ABOUT DELIVERABILITY?
1 in 5 legitimate commercial emails do not make it to the inbox.
And this number gets worse every year.

26. DELIVERABILITY: WHY EMAILS DON’T GET THROUGH
§ High SPAM Complaints Rate
q (SPAM Complaints/Total Emails Sent)
§ Spamtraps/Blacklists
§ Too many emails sent too quickly (no warmup)
§ ISPs are overloaded (Graylisting)
q
More prevalent in holiday season

27. DELIVERABILITY: PREVENTING PROBLEMS
§
Warm up IP Address and get Whitelisted
§
Keep the quantity of “low value” email recipients a low % of total
emails sent
§
Make it very easy to unsubscribe
§
Mail only people on your list (NEVER BUY LISTS!)
Repeat it!

28. DELIVERABILITY: SCOLDING AND PUNISHMENT
honeypot
Email address posted on forums, websites, and random online destinations.
If emailed, anti-SPAM activists know you’re stealing
Recycled spam trap
ISP de-activates an email address that has been inactive for a long time. Any
activity with that email address is punished.
blacklist
Activist anti-spam organizations maintain “blacklists” of bad email marketers.
ISPs use these lists to block emails
spamhaus
The most well-known, unapologetic anti-spam organization and blacklist
maintainer

29. DELIVERABILITY: I’M IN TROUBLE. NOW WHAT?
§
Send emails only to the most responsive subscribers
§
Keep send volumes low and frequent
§
Watch the offending domains closely for improvement
§
Over time and very slowly, grow your send volumes back to
normal
§
If in a blacklist, send an email pleading

30. CAN-SPAM ACT OF 2003
§ Focused on content, not on permissions
§ UK laws are stricter and require permission
Rules
Rules:
o Functioning Unsubscribe link.
o All unsubscribe requests must be processed within 10 days.
o Official company name and address must be visible

31. TOOLS

32. TOOLS – EMAIL SERVICE PROVIDER
High-end
High end
§ Advanced reporting and campaign
customizations w/o engineering
§ Better feature set for triggered
campaigns and advanced targeting
§ Query full database with any
combination of data
§ Can handle larger sets of data
Rankings:
hDp://assets.exacDarget.com/pdf/wave_email_markeIng_vendors_q1_2012.pdf

33. TOOLS – EMAIL SERVICE PROVIDER
mid-tier
Mid-tier
§ Most features of high-end, with ~25% less cost.
§ Advanced campaigns, with fewer options for
targeting.
§ Reports allow for less customizability. More
focus on standard reports.
§ More errors when working with larger datasets
§ Fewer dedicated account and support staff

34. TOOLS – EMAIL SERVICE PROVIDER
smb
SMB
§ Very low price under $1K per month normally
§ Able to launch ad-hoc campaigns with easy-touse tools
§ Little ability for deep targeting, reporting, or
triggered messages
§ Canned reporting with basic metrics

35. TOOLS – EMAIL SERVICE PROVIDER
b2b
B2B
§ Usually cheaper than B2C tools
Sales automation
§ Focused on simple tools for Sales team to use
personalized templates
§ Focused on automated messaging instead of adhoc campaigns
§ Better for for connecting to a CRM like
Salesforce and tracking lead funnel
§ Less exciting creative and segmentation tools
for campaigns

36. ESP OR IN-HOUSE?
§ Will your emails provide ROI?
§ Would you like any complexity to your emails beyond 1-off launches?
§ Are your development resources very busy?
§ Developers too busy to resolve every issue within 48 hours?
§ Developers focused on building your company’s products?
YES to all of the above? Go ESP!

37. TOOLS – DELIVERABILITY
Inbox placement
§ The last man standing
§ 2 useful services:
q Uses seed lists and sample inboxes to give
insight into inbox placement
q
Offers whitelisting to major domains like
Hotmail, Yahoo!, Comcast, etc.

38. TOOLS – CREATIVE
Inbox rendering
Inbox
Shows what your email looks like in various:
q ISPs (Gmail, etc.)
q Browsers (Firefox, etc.)
q Platforms (iPad, Desktop, etc.)

39. GOALS

40. GOAL-SETTING
The specific goals of your email marketing program will vary
depending on:
§ The type of business you operate
§ What your business model is
§ How far along your business is

41. EXAMPLE OF GOALS
Well-funded startup
Matured user base
Popular b2b company
Most companies

42. Every company thinks they fall into that last bucket, but there are
normally deeper business goals
§ Before building or optimizing your email marketing program, lay out very
specific goals and business problems
§ Make sure that every campaign is aligned with those goals.

43. …BUT BUT BUT …..

44. LOOK FOR PATTERNS

45. BUSINESS PROBLEM 1
# of Days between 1st and 2nd purchase
(value of 1=20 days)
LTV= lifetime revenue
LTR = lifetime margins
Average lifetime orders
Dollar amount spent
Both slump
right after the
60 day mark
# of Days after registration
(value of 1=20 days)

46. BUSINESS PROBLEM 2
§ Drop-offs in first purchasers 15, 30, 60, and 180 days after
registrations
§ Big jump in first purchases after 365 days
Population count – Popula'on
Count
–
Days between first purchase date and registration date
Days
between
First
Purchase
Date
and
Registra'on
Date
12000
10000
8000
6000
Total
4000
0
0
38
76
114
152
190
228
266
304
342
380
418
456
494
532
570
608
646
684
722
760
798
836
874
912
950
988
2000

47. PERFORMANCE
METRICS

48. PERFORMANCE METRICS
Basic email response metrics

49. PERFORMANCE METRICS
advanced email response metrics

50. PERFORMANCE METRICS
Basic Email Profitability Metrics
Basic email profitability metrics

51. PERFORMANCE METRICS
User activity/health metrics

52. SEGMENTATION

53. SEGMENTING
What is segmenting?
splitting up users based on available data
Most people segment based on RFM.
I like RFMA – recency, frequency, monetization, activity.

54. SEGMENTING
Build Specific programs around specific target segments

55. SEGMENTING
Somebody bought something! Hooray!
Now what?

56. SEGMENTING: CROSS-SELL/UPSELL
Catering
and
Chef
2nd
requests
2nd
requests
Total
Grand
Total
xxx
DJ
xxx
Photography
Catering
and
Chef
Wedding
Photography
Entertainment
House
Cleaning
214
74
71
35
35
23
23

57. SEGMENTING: CROSS-SELL/UPSELL

58. SEGMENTING
If somebody orders a birth announcement, what
do you know about them?

59. SEGMENTING: LIFESTAGE

60. SEGMENTING
How do you get customers to buy more than they
normally would?

61. SEGMENTING: VIP/LOYALTY

62. SEGMENTING
Our customers have bailed on us.
Now what?

63. SEGMENTING: RE-ENGAGEMENT

64. SEGMENTING: RE-ENGAGEMENT

65. SEGMENTING: WELCOME
Week 1
Week 2
Breadth
DifferenIators
Targeted
recommendaIons
Week 3
Week 4
Brand
and
Excitement
Real-­‐life
examples
Conversion
Goal:
xxx
CommunicaIon
Goal:
EducaIon,
Excitement,
etc.

66. SEGMENTING: WELCOME

67. SEGMENTING: WELCOME

68. SEGMENTING: WELCOME

69. SEGMENTING: WELCOME

70. THE 4-HOUR STARTUP

71. TESTING PLAN

72. EMAIL TESTING PLAN
1) Make it actionable!
2) Testing over multiple days can muddy results
3) Record all results.
4) Re-do major tests

73. EMAIL TESTING PLAN
Actionable =
Leads to planned implementations moving forward.

74. COPY AND SUBJECT LINE TESTING
§ Switch one word or phrase in the SL
§ Add an extra element to the SL
§ Order of call-to-action placement

75. CREATIVE TESTING
§ CTAs

76. CREATIVE TESTING
§ CTAs
• 16% more clicks
• 11% more conversions

77. CREATIVE TESTING
§ Length
• V1: Normal Template
• V2: Normal Template with 3 extra tiles

78. CREATIVE TESTING
§ Length
• V1: Normal Template
• V2: Normal Template with 3 extra tiles
• Longer template got 15% more clicks.
• Shorter template had the best conversion rate
• Shorter template made the featured tile perform
better

79. CREATIVE TESTING
§ Style
• V1: Short tiles
• V1: Long tiles

80. CREATIVE TESTING
§ Style
V1: Short tiles
• 8% more clicks
• Slightly higher conversion
V1: Long tiles

81. CREATIVE TESTING
§ Related vs. Un-related content
V1: Related
V2: Unrelated

82. CREATIVE TESTING
§ Related vs. Un-related content
V1: Related
V2: Unrelated
19% more clicks

83. MOBILE DESIGN

84. MOBILE DESIGN: TIMES CHANGE

85. MOBILE DESIGN: DOMINANCE
May 2013
december 2013
+3%
-6%
+5%
+3%
0%
+1%
-3%
+1%
0%
N/A

86. MOBILE DESIGN: REMEMBER
§ Every platform, browser, and ISP has their own individual
quirks to account for with design+HTML
§ Keep design simple and scalable. What looks great in web, may
look terrible is certain email ISPs.
§ Assume mobile clicks and make sure your landing pages are
mobile friendly.

87. MOBILE DESIGN: TABLETS TOO.

88. RECAP
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
Definitions
Other Channels
Deliverability
Tools
Performance Metrics
Segmentation
Best Practices
Myths
Goals
Testing Plans
Creative Testing
Mobile
Questions?

89. THANK YOU.