The Power and (Occasional) Glory of Email Marketing
Email marketing remains a powerful tool, so powerful that it’s almost like one of those laser weapons in a James Bond film: put in the wrong hands, bad things can happen. I saw an example this week, where a well-intentioned email led to a flurry that had people very upset about their weighted-down inbox. (On that issue, check out the Email Charter devised by Chris Anderson and Jane Wulf to try to get people to send less and engage more—in person or by phone. It’s also in the November Hotline newsletter.)
But in the right hands, email marketing can still be hugely effective, and you will hear how at SIPA’s 28th Annual Marketing Conference in Miami Beach, Dec. 7-9. Sessions on getting people to your site, renewals and rentention, email marketing (led by Mike May of Real Magnet) and case studies will all touch on this subject. The Conference is now just three weeks away—close enough to feel the warm weather but still plenty of time to get on board.
“The key to success in online subscription marketing is to try a lot of different tactics in small and inexpensive tests, throw out the ones that don’t work and do more of the ones that are effective,” writes Bob Bly in his book, How to Write & Sell Simple Information for Fun and Profit. Bly will be front and center at the Conference—leading, with Rachel Yeomans of Astek Consulting, the session, How to Engage Customers Once They’re on Your Site; and then leading the roundtable, Email Marketing Metrics: What’s Working.
There’s a good Marketing Sherpa article case study on email growth. It shows how a B2B team at Kodak overhauled its capture page, added more calls-to-action, and updated its welcome series to grab 33% more email subscribers. Find out how the team integrated its social media channels and grew its audiences there, too.
“I myself would never send more than 1-2 emails per week to the same set of prospects (for my own business it would be even less since I’m a b2b service provider),” wrote Joe Leider of Spyglass Intelligence in a recent LinkedIn SIPA forum. Leider will be leading a roundtable on Trigger Marketing in Miami. “But I have seen some clients send 3+ emails to the same prospects within a week. With marketing automation tools that allow complicated series of emails, I think a lot of Marketing Ops folks are letting the sheer amount of email they send get away from them.”
Robert Lerose has also written and spoke a great deal on email marketing. He will be leading a session in Miami on Renewals and Retention: Making the Most of What You’ve Got. “For some reason, publishers don’t give their renewal series the attention they deserve—which is a shame, since they’re money in the bank,” Lerose has written. “…Come up with a ‘value proposition’ and sell it. Why is your publication valuable to the subscriber? What value will it continue to give? The answer to these questions should inform your renewal copy and become a selling point. Because times and subscriber needs change, you should regularly evaluate your renewal series to refine and sharpen this statement.”
Number three of the email charter could also apply to email marketing. “Celebrate Clarity. Start with a subject line that clearly labels the topic, and maybe includes a status category [Info], [Action], [Time Sens] [Low Priority]. Use crisp, muddle-free sentences. If the email has to be longer than five sentences, make sure the first provides the basic reason for writing. Avoid strange fonts and colors.” Okay, the five sentences may be a little short but the point is to be clear in what you’re asking and don’t overwhelm.
*********************************************
As we said, there’s still time to register!
In addition to the great speakers mentioned above,
others at the Marketing Conference in Miami include:
Larry Nusbaum, CEO of Ronco, Jennifer Schwartz
of Access Intelligence, Jeremy Phillips of The Motley Fool,
Rob Stuart of CFO Publishing, RD Whitney
of Greenhaven Partners, Rob Ransom of Bongarde Media
and Kerry Smith of Red 7 Media.
It really is a value-packed couple days.
Eden Roc Hotel, Dec. 7-9 in Miami Beach
Sign up today and save.
[text_ad]
