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Help! My Email Open Rates Are Falling and Can’t Get Up
by Karen Talavera
08 28, 2013 | Posted in Email Marketing, Messaging Strategy, Metrics | Measuring Results, Response Improvement | 2 comments
In my ongoing series of email marketing conundrums, I couldn’t possibly overlook this one: declining email marketing open rates.
Although much has been written on the subject, my goal is to provide you with not just a diagnostic checklist for investigating why open rates are falling nor to hand you a “best practices” list of what to do to reverse the decline, but to go beyond that by (most of all) giving you a “reality check” on the subject and presenting a new, more constructive way to see this situation, as well as a new mindset on email marketing performance measurement altogether. In short: while we do need to pay attention to declining open rates, there’s too much focus on them at the expense of more meaningful email marketing performance measures.
The Truth About Emailing Without Permission
by Karen Talavera
07 15, 2013 | Posted in Email Lists, Email Marketing, Lead Generation | 9 comments
Last month we explored how to begin mailing a list of email addresses gathered both with and without explicit permission. You can read about how to handle the “never-been-emailed” list here. While many email marketers have the best of intentions when it comes to obtaining the clear permission of people they want to email, their inexperience with or reluctance to getting a program started can cause both permission and data to age. But there’s a more serious degree of this problem in which permission is not simply lax or questionable, it is ignored altogether. Hence our conundrum for this month.
Keep More Email List Members with Unsubscribe Minimizers
by Karen Talavera
05 28, 2013 | Posted in Email Lists, Email Marketing | 3 comments
Over the next several posts I’ll be addressing a series of email marketing conundrums. A “conundrum” is defined as a puzzling question or problem, and in email there are a few persistent ones I have been asked about on a regular basis since the channel’s earliest days. In fact, these challenges seem to keep so many people up at night that I believe they’re always worthy of discussion and a fresh perspective. So let’s begin with a classic: How do I prevent or minimize unsubscribes from my email list? First, make no mistake about it: over the course of their life cycle with you a certain percentage of subscribers will choose to leave your email list despite your best attempts to keep them and believe it or not, this is good. It’s the nature of any permission-marketing channel for the ultimate choice and control over receiving messages to rest in the hands of subscribers. Plus, we know from the channel’s nearly 15 years in existence that commercial email works best when it is deeply rooted in permission. So, your first step is to
Measuring Email Marketing Impact: 3 Essential Analyses Every Program Needs
by Karen Talavera
04 23, 2013 | Posted in Email Lists, Email Marketing, Metrics | Measuring Results | 0 comments
Today it’s not enough to know how an individual email campaign performed on a one-time basis. To learn whether or not your company is deriving true value from email marketing, you need the both broader and deeper perspectives offered by program- and list-level analyses.
While standard email campaign performance metrics like delivery, open and click-through rates have their place, without looking beyond them the true impact of your email marketing – and opportunities for continuous improvement - will go undetected.
Three Ways to Make Email Your Marketing Star
by Karen Talavera
03 14, 2013 | Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing Vision, Messaging Strategy | 0 comments
As marketing channels go, email has always excelled at developing customer relationships. The key to thousands of successful email programs lies not in using the channel as a low-cost broadcasting medium, but as a relationship-building conduit. Email shines brightest when message purpose, timing, offers and value are matched to distinct customer relationship stages.
Designing an email program to fit customer relationship stages is often compared to dating. New relationships begin cautiously, with each party sharing limited information until mutual trust is built, then expanding their level of intimacy over time. Just as we don’t jump from first date to marriage, neither should your email marketing program ask too much too soon from your customers.
Why Email is a 2013 Marketing Essential & 5 More Email Results-Boosters
by Karen Talavera
01 14, 2013 | Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing Vision, Messaging Strategy, Response Improvement | 0 comments
If you’re like a growing majority of businesses, you've discovered email as the “go to” channel for rapidly accelerating leads into sales, increasing customer engagement and generating revenue on demand. Enterprises of all kinds engage in email marketing not only because it works, but because it works phenomenally well and fast. There is simply no doubt that email marketing is thriving when you consider these compelling facts:
Top Five Ways to Boost Email Marketing Results and Impact in 2013
by Karen Talavera
12 18, 2012 | Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing Vision, Response Improvement | 1 comments
There couldn’t be a better time to strategize final changes and improvements to your 2013 email marketing programs as you ready them for launch. In fact, while many of your new year’s email plans may be firmly sketched out, it’s not too late to give them a final polish with these insights and tweaks. Knowing where to amplify, adjust or even contract can take your email marketing programs from “ho-hum” to significantly greater impact on your bottom line in 2013.
Three Email Marketing Bottom-Line Success Metrics No Program Should Be Without
by Karen Talavera
10 11, 2012 | Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing Vision, Metrics | Measuring Results | 1 comments
Driving Better Email Response: What Makes Subscribers Say “YES!” ?
by Karen Talavera
08 31, 2012 | Posted in Digital Marketing, Email Marketing, Response Improvement | 2 comments
The Permission vs. Relevancy Debate: Navigating the Murky Waters of Email Append
by Karen Talavera
07 31, 2012 | Posted in Customer Loyalty, Email Lists, Email Marketing | 2 comments
There’s an ongoing debate over the role of permission in sending marketing email to customers you have a pre-existing business relationship with. Although in recent years opt-in list building practices have clearly been on the rise, there is still no clear legal mandate for opt-in as a standard email marketing practice in the US and many countries.
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