E-Mail Marketing

E-Mail Marketing: On the Subject of Subject Lines …

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Content Creation and Content Management, Creative and Production, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research, Sales , , , , ,

emWith groaning inboxes, is it any wonder why so many e-mail messages get ignored by their recipients?

Indeed, with it costing so little to send an e-mail – especially when compared to the “bad old days” of postal mail – it’s too irresistible for marketers and others to deploy hundreds or thousands of e-mail missives at a pop, even if the resulting engagement levels are so paltry.

And therein lies the problem: The “value” of such e-mails diminish to the point where recipients have a very good idea of their (lack of) worthiness without needing to open them.

In such an environment, what’s the the likelihood of something important inadvertently slipping through the cracks? Not so great.  And so users go on their merry way, hitting the delete key with abandon.

Faced with these realities, anything senders can do to improve the odds of their e-mails being opened is worth considering.

As it turns out, some of those odds can be improved by focusing on the e-mail’s subject line.

We know this from research conducted recently by e-mail platform provider Yesware. As reported this week in Fast Company, Yesware’s data scientists took a look at ~115 million e-mails of all kinds, gathered over the course of a 12-month period, to see how open rate dynamics might be affected positively or negatively by differences in the subject line.

ywThe Yesware analysis was carried by analyzing most- and least-used words and formats to determine which ones appeared to be more effective at “juicing” open rates.

As the benchmark, the overall e-mail open rate observed across all 115 million e-mails was 51.9% and the overall reply rate was about 29.8%. But underneath those averages are some differences that can be useful for marketers as they consider how to construct different subject lines for better impact and recipient engagement.

The findings from Yesware’s subject line analysis point to several practices that should be avoided:

Subject line personalization actually works against e-mail engagement.

It may seem counterintuitive, but adding personalization to an e-mail subject turns out to suppress the open rate from 51.9% to 48.1% — and the reply rate goes down even more dramatically from 29.8% to 21.2%.

Yesware surmises that this seemingly clever but now overused technique bears telltale signs of a sales solicitation. No one likes to be fooled for long … and every time one of these “personalized” missives hits the inbox, the recipient likely recalls the very first time he or she expected to open a personal e-mail based on such a subject line – only to be duped.

“First time, shame on you; second time, shame on me.”

Turning your subject line into a question … is a questionable practice.

Using a question mark in a subject line may seem like a good way to add extra curiosity or interest to an e-mail, but it turns out to be a significant turnoff for many recipients. In fact, Yesware found that when a question mark is used in the subject line, the open rate drops a full 10 percentage points (from 51.9% to 41.6%) – and the reply rate also craters (dropping to 18.4%).

It may be that turning a subject line into a question has the effect of reducing the power of the message. Yesware data engineer Anna Holschuh notes that posing a question is “asking a lot of an already-busy, stressed-out professional.  You’re asking them to do work without providing value up front.”

On the other hand, two subject line practices have been shown to improve e-mail open rates – at least to a degree:

Include numbers in the subject line.

Subject lines that contain “hard” numbers appear to improve the e-mail open rate slightly. Yesware found that open rates in such cases were 53.2% compared to 51.9% and the reply rate improved as well (to 32%).  Using precise numbers – the more specific the better – can add an extra measure of credibility to the e-mail, which is a plus in today’s data-rich environment.

Use title case rather than sentence case.

Similarly, Yesware has found that the “authority” conveyed by using title case (initial caps on the key words) in e-mail subject lines helps them perform better than when using the more informal sentence case structure.

The difference? Open rates that have title case subject lines came in at 54.3%, whereas when using sentence case in the subject line resulted in open rates at just 47.6%.

Similarly, reply rates were 32.3% for e-mails with subject lines using title case compared to 25.7% for e-mails where the subject line was sentence case — an even more substantial difference.

Generally speaking, e-mail marketing succeeds or fails at the margins, which is why it’s so important to “calibrate” things like subject lines for maximum advantage. The Yesware analysis demonstrates how those tweaks can add up to measurable performance improvements.

Consumer E-Mail Marketing: Too Much of a Good Thing?

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research , , , , ,

igAdvertisers often complain about the drawbacks of online display advertising — and it’s not hard to figure out why.

Online display ad viewability, which is defined by the Media Rating Council as at least 50% of an ad’s pixels being in-view for at least one continuous second, is running under 45% these days — meaning that fewer than half of online display ads meet the definition of being viewable.

That’s actually a lower percentage than before; viewability charted closer to 50% in 2014, according to the global media valuation platform Integral Ad Science.

Because of these middling viewability rates, many advertisers look to e-mail marketing as the panacea. Not only is e-mail marketing inexpensive, the rational goes, it’s also more likely to attract and engage recipients.

But here too, the evidence is that there is mediocre visibility, too. And in this case, it’s actual willful ignorance.

According to the results of a study conducted earlier this year by business technology research firm Technology Advice, ~40% of the ~1,300 U.S. adults surveyed reported that they completely ignore marketing-oriented e-mails.

Of the ~60% who reported that they do open marketing e-mails, only a little over 15% do so on a regular basis.

Here’s a breakdown of the underwhelming stats that were gathered by Technology Advice:

  • ~58% of recipients read from 0 to 25% of marketing-oriented e-mails sent to them
  • ~21% read 25% to 50% of the marketing e-mail sent to them
  • ~13% read 50% to 75% of them
  • Just ~8% read 75% to 100% of them

In an attempt to “juice” these figures, marketers are experimenting with robust personalization in e-mails that become evident even before anyone opens them (e.g., personalization showing in the subject line), along with offering clearly marked discounts and other promo attractions.

In this regard, consumers do expect businesses to provide “value” in exchange for their attention, which explains by ~40% of the survey’s respondents are responding to discounts and similar promotional offers above all other types of e-communiqués.

But with such modest levels of people interacting with any marketing-oriented e-mails at all, there’s a question as to how whether these ploys to improvement engagement are just nibbling around the edges.

Because the reality is, there’s a big portion of the market that’s become jaded about e-mail.

Another approach seems counter-intuitive but just might be working better: reducing the frequency of e-mail solicitations from advertisers.  That theory is supported by the Technology Advice research, which found that nearly 45% of respondents feel that businesses would improve their marketing effectiveness by actually sending them less frequent e-mails.

A case of “less is more”? Probably so.

Copywriting by computer: Wave of the future? … or wild-ass pipe dream?

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Content Creation and Content Management, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research, Publishing, Sales , , , , , , , , , ,

persado logoIn recent years, computers have upended many a job category.  And they include quite a few positions involving “language” – from foreign language translators to medical transcriptionists.

And now, it looks like copywriting itself may be the next domino to fall.

Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal published a story about Persado, a company which has developed a software algorithm that enables it to write copy without the human element.

David Atlas, the company’s chief marketing officer, refers to it as “algorithmic copywriting.”  The process creates sentences with a maximum length of 600 characters that are used for e-mail subject lines and other short persuasive copy.

Persado builds the copy by sending thousands of different e-mail subject lines to the e-databases of its clients, which include large retailers and financial services firms such as Overstock.com, AMEX and Neiman Marcus.  Response rates are measured and used to refine the subject lines to narrow them down to just the most effective.

Company PR spokesperson Kirsten McKenna explains the Persado edge further:

“Typical A/B testing will send out only a few messages – then go with the one that gives the best response.  Persado can send out thousands of permutations of the same message to determine which would be the most successful.”

Alex Vratskides
“We have never lost to a human.” — Alex Vratskides of Persado

Comparing Persado’s machine-generated results with traditional copywriting, “We have never lost to a human,” Alex Vratskides, the company’s president, claimed to The Wall Street Journal.

Those results would suggest that Persado is doing things right.  And here’s another positive indicator of success:  The company raised over $20 million in venture capital earlier this year.

The bigger question is whether Persado will be able to scale its simple and short-sentence copywriting into persuasive copy for longer-form marketing materials such as sales letters and brochures – which would make it an even bigger threat and seriously threaten to upend the traditional copywriting field.

For the answer to that question, I’d never want to take issue with the views of veteran copywriter Bob Bly, whose perspectives I respect a great deal.  In writing on this topic, he states:

Bob Bly
Bob Bly

“I do think that either already or very soon, software will equal or surpass the performance of human writers in both simple content and short copy.  We have to prepare for the eventuality that computers may someday beat human direct response copywriters in long-form copy, just as Deep Blue beat Kasparov in chess and Watson clobbered Ken Jennings in Jeopardy.  Ouch.”

What do you think?  Is computer copywriting the wave of the future?  Let’s hear your own perspectives.

Tripping the E-Mail Spam Alarm

Phillip Nones Business, Content Creation and Content Management, Creative and Production, Direct Marketing, Marketing Communications, Social Commentary , , , , , , , , , ,

Today, it’s more than just the “usual suspect” keywords that are landing e-mails in the junk folder.

se-mMost of us are aware of the kinds of words that trip spam alarms and cause e-mails to be sent straight to the junk folder – or not to be delivered at all.

How about these for starters:

  • Cash
  • Congratulations
  • Discount
  • Free
  • Income
  • Make Money
  • Urgent
  • Viagra
  • $$ / $$$

But research done by MailJet, an international e-mail service provider, looked at more than 14 billion e-mail communiqués and found that a bunch of other keywords are setting off alarm bells nearly as often as terms like “Urgent” or “Viagra.”

… Especially when considering the business categories that are so active in e-mail communications — retail goods, pharmaceuticals, providers of personal services, and the like.

Some of the other terms MailJet has found to be nearly as “toxic” are these:

  • bdcstDear Friend
  • FedEx
  • Increase Sales
  • Increase Traffic
  • Internet Marketing
  • Invoice
  • Lead Generation
  • Lose Weight
  • Marketing Solutions
  • Online Degree
  • Online Pharmacy
  • Order
  • PayPal
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Sign Up
  • Trial Offer
  • Visa/Mastercard
  • Winning

… And there are more, of course – including various permutations of the words and phrases above.

The inevitable conclusion:  It’s becoming more difficult all the time to use the most common phrases in “subject” lines and “from” lines that’ll land your e-mail in someone’s inbox successfully.

And getting into the inbox just the first step, of course.  The next is motivating the recipient to actually open your e-mail and engage with it, which are additional hurdles in themselves.

What words or phrases have you found to be surprisingly problematic in getting your e-mails delivered to your customers’ inboxes?  How have you dealt with it?  Please share your experiences with other readers here.

A Bombshell Forrester Finding? Brands are Wasting Time and Money on Facebook and Twitter

Phillip Nones Advertising, Branding, Business, Content Creation and Content Management, Direct Marketing, Marketing Communications, Social Media , , , , , , , , , ,

Forrester logo

This past week, marketing research firm Forrester published a new analytical report titled “Social Relationship Strategies that Work.”

The bottom-line conclusion of this report is that brand marketers are generally wasting their time and money focusing on social platforms that don’t provide either the extensive reach or the proper context for valuable interactions with customers and prospects.

In particular, Forrester’s research has determined that Facebook and Twitter posts from top brands are reaching only about 2% of their followers.

Engagement is far worse than even that:  A miniscule 0.07% of followers are actually interacting with those posts.

Much has been made of Facebook’s recent decision to reduce free-traffic posts on newsfeeds in favor of promoted (paid) posts.  But Forrester’s figures suggest that the lack of engagement on social platforms is about far more than just the reduction in non-promoted posts.

Nate Elliott Forrester
Nate Elliott

Nate Elliott, a Forrester vice president and principal analyst, believes that brand managers need to make major changes in how they’re going about marketing in the social sphere.  He notes:

“It’s clear that Facebook and Twitter don’t offer the relationships that marketing leaders crave.  Yet most brands still use these sites as the centerpiece of their social efforts, thereby wasting significant financial, technological and human resources on social networks that don’t deliver value.”

With Twitter and Facebook being such spectacular duds when it comes to social platforms, what does Forrester recommend that brand marketers do instead?

One option is to develop proprietary “branded communities” where fans can hang out in zones where brands can be their own traffic cops, instead of relying on a giant social platform to do the work (or not do the work) for them.

e-mailEven better is to return to greater reliance on an old standby tactic: e-mail marketing.

If this seems like “back to the future,” Forrester’s Elliott reminds us how e-mail can work quite elegantly as the centerpiece of a brand’s social marketing effort:

“Your e-mails get delivered more than 90% of the time, while your Facebook posts get delivered 2% of the time — and no one’s looking over your shoulder telling you what you can and can’t say in your e-mails.  If you have to choose between adding a subscriber to your e-mail list and gaining a new Facebook fan, go for e-mail every time.”

I can’t say that I disagree with Nate Elliott’s position.

Now it’s time to hear from the rest of you marketing professionals.  How successful have you been in building engagement on social platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn?  Have your efforts in social paid off as well as in your e-mail marketing initiatives?  Let us know.

Consumers complain about marketing-oriented e-mails — yet they still read them.

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Direct Marketing, Marketing Communications , , , , , , , ,

e-mail ambivalenceFace it, there are always going to be complaints about marketing-oriented e-mails. Just as in the “bad-old-days” of junk postal mail, consumers are conditioned to pass negative judgment on the volume of promotional-oriented e-mails that flood their inboxes.

True to form, according to a new study by global business, technology and marketing advisory firm Forrester Research, consumer attitudes about e-mail marketing are pretty negative.

Here’s what a sampling of U.S. respondents age 18 or older reported on the “minus” side of the ledger:

  • I delete most e-mail advertising without reading it: ~42% of respondents reported
  • I receive too many e-mail offers and promotions: ~39%
  • There’s nothing of interest: ~38%
  • I have unsubscribe from unsolicited lists: ~37%
  • I wonder how companies get my e-mail address: ~29%
  • It’s difficult to unsubscribe from e-lists: ~24%

There’s far less to show on the “plus” side:

  • It’s a great way to discover new products and promotions: ~24% of respondents reported
  • I read e-mails “just in case”: ~19%
  • I forward marketing e-mails to friends sometimes: ~12%
  • I purchase items advertised through e-mail: ~7%

I wasn’t surprised at all by these finds.

What’s interesting, however, is that the attitudes of consumers are actually trending a bit better than they were in previous Forrester field studies.

Specifically, respondents exhibited improved attitudes in the following areas:

  • Fewer respondents are deleting most marketing-oriented e-mail promos without reading them (~42% vs. ~44% in 2012 and ~59% in 2010).
  • Fewer respondents report that marketing e-mails offer “nothing of interest” (~38% vs. ~41% in 2012).

The percentages are also slightly better for the consumers today who consider e-mails as a good way to discover new products and promotions.  Additionally, the percentages are lower on complaints about receiving too many e-mail offers.

The bottom line on these results:  It looks as if consumers have come to terms with the pluses and minuses of e-mail marketing. As they once did with postal mail, they recognize the negative attributes as a fact of life — something that just “comes with the territory” for anyone who is online.

Click here to view summary highlights from the Forrester study, or here to purchase the full report.

Business Bust? Lead Nurturing Efforts Coming Up Short

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Marketing Communications, Sales , , , , , , , , , ,

e-mail lead nurturing not effectiveWhen it comes to e-mail lead nurturing in the business world, it turns out there’s a whole lot of mediocrity — or worse — going on.

In discussions with my company’s clients, it seems that most of them are dissatisfied with what they consider, at best, only “middling” engagement levels that they’re achieving on their e-nurturing campaigns.

On top of that, many of them suspect that they’re underperforming their counterparts in the market.

I don’t think that’s the case.  Since we work with a variety of clients and thus hear about the results from a group of firms, not just one or two, we can see that most everyone is in the same boat.

Even so, it’s anecdotal evidence rather than statistically quantifiable data.

But now we have the results from a new B-to-B survey conducted by Bizo and Oracle Eloqua … and what they’ve found is that many companies are struggling like most everyone else when it comes to developing comprehensive lead nurturing programs that perform well.

This survey of ~500 B-to-B marketing executives revealed that nearly 95% of all companies have some form of lead nurturing program in place.   But having such a program in place doesn’t mean it’s all that effective.

How challenged are these marketers?  Consider these key findings from the research:

  • Nearly 80% of respondents report that their e-mail open rates don’t exceed 20% on average.
  • ~45% report that only 1% to 4% of known contacts develop into marketing-qualified leads.
  • Only ~5% of buyers on business websites are willing to provide detailed information on a “gated” contact offer form.

The implications of these findings are varied:

  • E-mail databases that are built from website visits tend to have significant omissions (and errors) regarding contact information.
  •  Only a smallish fraction of e-mail subscribers are reading the e-mails they receive … and by definition, no anonymous prospects are, either.
  • Because e-mail marketing relies on having access to prospects’ e-mail addresses, the e-marketing approach provides no opportunity to engage with a potentially much larger audience of customers who may be in the market for a company’s products and services at any given point in time.

The chances are likely, too, that those prospects are visiting relevant websites.  We know this because Forrester Research reports that the typical B-to-B buyer’s “journey” is nearly complete by the time he or she contacts a vendor’s sales department.

With so much useful information so available online, websites is where research can occur without have to deal with pesky sales personnel until “the time is right.”

It’s also why, despite the well-known negative aspects and limitations of web display advertising, nearly half of the respondents in the Bizo/Oracle Eloqua survey feel that online display advertising plays a role in attracting anonymous prospects and nurturing those leads through the sales funnel.

But marketers are also showing interest in multi-channel nurturing, and are receptive to adopting techniques that support the ability to nurture known and anonymous prospects without using e-mail.  Those tactics will probably the next new wave in lead nurturing practices going forward … provided people know where they can access the tools to make it happen.

More details on the Bizo/Oracle report can be found via this link.