Archive for May, 2009

Use the right metrics in email marketing

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

It is always been very important to measure the results that companies obtain with their marketing campaigns. Today, under the difficult economic situation we are living, due to more restricted marketing budgets, it is more important than ever to know the return on investment (ROI) of every action.

In the internet world in general, and the email marketing specifically, is much easier to measure precisely what results you are getting out of your email marketing efforts. I’m going to explain which are the main data you should be watching after you send the next campaign or newsletter:

Open rate

This ratio will tell you the effectiveness of your subject lines and also the trust and strength of your brand. Using an A/B test, sending the same message with one subject line to half of your list and a different subject to the other half of the list, and then analyzing the open rate, will tell you which kind of subjects work better with your audience.

Unsubscribe rate

This ratio will tell you how relevant your messages are, and also the quality and value of your content. If you are not meeting the expectations of your subscribers this ratio will increase.

Bounce rate

This ratio informs you about your list hygiene. Using a double opt-in system to grow your list will decrease dramatically this ratio

CTR (Click Through Rate)

This ratio will help you to segment your subscribers by their interests and also help you to improve the design of your campaigns.

Conversion Rate

This ratio will tell you the actual profitability and ROI of the campaign and also can help you know if you have the right “call to action” elements in the design of your campaign.

Forward ratio

This ratio will tell you the subscriber interest and viral nature of your message/offer.

How to combine and empower twitter with email marketing

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

During the last couple of moths it looks like in every conversation that involves internet, marketing or both, there is always a common denominator, something everybody is talking about, that has become the hottest thing: twitter. It is almost impossible that a day passes without me reading a story or post talking about a new feature of twitter, new desktop application for twitter, a new iPhone app for twitter, some curious story about twitter, etc.

For me, twitter is a new way of communication, therefore, a new marketing channel through which I can engage with my customers and give them extra value. The fact that is new doesn’t mean that it replaces established marketing channels. That is the reason I wanted to write this post, and explain different ways to combine twitter and email marketing, and how they are more powerful together:

1. Add a link to your company twitter account in every email communication

Add a link in the footer of your newsletter or autorresponder to let your subscribers know that they can follow your company in twitter. You can also add a link to your company twitter account in your signature for transactional emails.

2. Link to your newsletter subscription landing page from your twitter account

It is also important that all your twitter followers know that they can subscribe to your newsletter to receive more quality content from you. So, from time to time, add links to your newsletter subscription form landing page. This way you are converting your twitter followers in your opted-in email subscribers.

3. Post links to your newsletter articles in twitter

Instead of only including one twtit that says: “Check out the latest newsletter”, try to send links to the individual articles of your newsletter over a period of time (a week for example). With a tool like Hootsuite you can schedule all the twits in advanced. This way you give more importance to each article.

4. Add a link in your newsletter articles so that your subscribers can easily “tweet” about them

The same way is important that you add a link in your newsletter to make easy for your readers to forward your message and increase virality, you should add a link that makes easy to your subscribers to twit about the articles in your newsletter. You just have to add a link like this one http://twitter.com/home?status=, and after the “=” you write your under 140 characters message. For example: http://twitter.com/home?status=How to combine and empower twitter with email marketing  http://ow.ly/5nOJ

5. Use twitter as a source of information to write better articles in your newsletter

Twitter is a great way to know in real time what your clients or subscribers think about your product or service, and also a channel to solve different problems and questions. Use this information to write articles in your newsletter with better information to solve those problems and questions and therefore giving more value to your subscribers with your newsletter.