Creating Effective Opt-in E-mail Campaigns

By Author: Lee Traupel
Total Articles: 8
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Its been said before, but important to re-emphasize, e-mail is
the "killer application" of the information age. According to
the latest Forrester Research numbers, the permission based e-mail
industry is projected to grow from $164M (USD) in 1999 to $7.3B by
2005. E-mail is also rapidly moving from a textual communications
process to one that is rich in multimedia content via server-based
streaming audio or video - virtually anyone, even those with
extremely low bandwidth, can now view compelling content. Here is a
condensed primer for developing an effective opt-in e-mail campaign:

1) First and foremost, what is permission based or opt-in e-mail and
how is it distinguished from Spam? Opt-in or permission based e-mail
(the terms are interchangeable) means recipients have confirmed their
interest in receiving e-mail and have signed up (hence the term opt-
in) to receive e-mail about a subject of their interest. The
recipient may also unsubscribe from the list at any time and all e-
mail messages are clearly identified as coming from a ...
... specific and
approved vendor or source.

2) We do not recommend Spam (unsolicited bulk e-mail messages) to our
clients, nor have we ever developed a campaign that is not opt-in
based - we think there is a growing backlash to Spam and many of
us(author included) are inundated with it and delete it as soon as we
recognize it.

3) The actual opt-in e-mail content is very important, like any
interactive marketing process - the subject itself needs to be
succinct and informative, as this is how most people filter e-mail,
the text in the message should be concise, with paragraphs no more
than 2-3 short sentences, customer references should be referred to
in the lead paragraph to drive the rest of the message, have no more
than two hyperlinks embedded in the content and utilize a close and
signature that thanks people for their time with a link (phone and e-
mail) to a "real" person.

4) Many marketing types don't know whether to use HTML (rich
media)or textual content - a standard rule of thumb is, if your
target audience is consumers, then many prefer the HTML format, due
to the snazzier graphical content; but, if your targeting corporate
or technical types the majority of them want a message that is text
only and one that leaves out any/all marketing hype - just the
concise facts.

5) Costs can vary dramatically depending on your target demographics
or market segment. A good rule of thumb is to expect rates of $.05
(USD) to $.25 per message, depending on the size of the media buy and
frequency (the number of times you are using a list), type of list
demographics, vendor selection (small publisher versus comprehensive
services provider such as YesMail) and market conditions in the
interactive advertising market.

6) What should a good campaign generate in terms of response rates;
i.e. those that clicked through from your message to a web site or
called a toll-free number? These numbers will fluctuate based again
upon your market segment, product or service you are selling, type of
response rate you are seeking (download, ecommerce sale, review of
materials via a web site, etc.). But, industry averages are from 4%
up to 20% - unfortunately these numbers are going south as more and
more companies integrate opt-in e-mail with interactive and offline
marketing processes.

7) Message testing is also a very important component of this
process - meaning, you need to develop 1-3 messages
("creative" in marketing speak) that have different content and call
to action components. Then test by utilizing 10-15% of your total
media buy by sending out these test messages and assessing the
response rates and go to market with the message that generated the
highest return. Be forewarned, this process can slow the campaign
down, but testing can help you increase your response rates or back
end ROI exponentially.

8) Your interactive ad agency or list partner should help you
setup "landing page(s)" - the actual page where people are
taken via a hyperlink in your opt-in e-mail message. This page should
have content that is integrated with your opt-in message and act as a
response mechanism by capturing sufficient information to enable you
to build your own in-house newsletter, which in turn helps to
leverage downstream media costs.

9) Finally, the last and most important part of the process is
setting up tracking reports that will enable you to carefully analyze
the results from your opt-in e-mail campaign. This is typically done
by inserting 1-2 lines of HTML code on 3-5 pages of your web site
(product overview, registration, or home/index pages for instance)
- a report can then be generated that shows the number of respondents
for each page as a subset of the overall response rates from the
campaign. This critical analysis process will help you understand the
effectiveness of your overall campaign and will also provide valuable
insight about your web site content, UI (User Interface) and
navigation. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of marketing experience He is the co-
founder of a Northern California and Brussels Belgium based,
privately held, Marketing Services and Software Company, Intelective
Communications, Inc. http://www.intelective.com Intelective focuses
exclusively on providing services to small to medium sized companies
that need strategic and tactical marketing services. He can be
reached at Lee@intelective.com