Email marketing is more popular than ever before! Almost all companies seem to be utilizing email campaigns these days because they are a relatively inexpensive marketing approach. But some businesses are not getting the most out of their email marketing.

In a recent eMarketer study more than a third of email marketers surveyed said they did not test their email campaigns at all.

While testing can be time-consuming, it is the most vital part of running a successful email campaign. With that in mind, why don’t all marketers take the time to test their email campaigns? Most reported that they simply didn’t know how!

I sat down with Ashley Boening, an email marketing specialist, to discuss email testing. Here is the information he shared with me:

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Personalization vs. Standardization

Personalizing emails with customer names or by user level can be very attractive for email marketers because it offers the appearance of a personal relationship with the customer. While certain personalization efforts like touting membership level perks and rewards standings can excite customers and encourage them to buy more frequently, overtly personalizing based on things like purchase history can actually achieve the opposite.

Sometimes personalization can feel fake to customers or make them worry about what you are doing with their personal information. In general, you should keep personalization genuine and only use it if it will actually benefit the customer. The key to achieving this is subtlety. Instead of saying, “You bought X so you might be interested in buying Y as well!” try simply sending them an email advertisement for Y.

Calls to Action

Images (buttons) vs. Text (links)

People are more likely to click on buttons in emails rather than links. If all your calls to action are in images, however, and customers’ email clients block those images, your email success will be limited. The best compromise is to have some calls to action in buttons and some in links as backup in case the images don’t make it through to the recipient.

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Give Me Email or Give Me Death

Email is life for many Americans. In fact, recent studies show that 87% of Americans use email as their primary form of online communication. The prevalence of email in our culture may be the driving force behind the approximately 4.4% conversion rate from email marketing reported earlier this year. Unfortunately, these positive statistics have led some marketers to abuse the success of email marketing.

Recently, a survey asked North Americans how often they unsubscribe from emails. Fourteen percent of respondents said they “frequently” unsubscribe, with an additional 55% reporting that they “sometimes” unsubscribe from emails. As a marketer or small business owner, obviously, you want to minimize the number of customers unsubscribing to your emails. But how can you keep people from unsubscribing? (more…)

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Permission based emailing (or “opt-in” emailing) has become a powerful tool for businesses. Inexpensive and easy to maintain, it seems like the perfect marketing tool for reaching a wide audience. But what do customers have to say about it? Studies have shown that they react positively to permission based emailing. From increasing brand recognition to influencing the purchase process, email is playing a vital role with today’s online shoppers.

1. Shapes the Impression of a Brand
   Of those surveyed, 57% of consumers had a more positive impression of companies that they had purchased from when they received emails from them afterward. Not surprisingly, conducting email correspondence with customers on a regular basis tends to make the brand more personal to them. It also stresses dedication to customer service and interest in them and their purchasing needs. Businesses that email current customers and prospects forge a stronger bond with the customer because communication is opened up between both parties.
2. Encourages Future Purchases
   57% of participants surveyed said that they remember emails that they have received from companies when they are going online to buy. This shows that companies with a strong email campaign may have a competitive advantage. If consumers are recalling emails that a company has sent when they are headed online ready to make a purchase chances are they will be looking at that company’s site first for the products/services they desire.
3. Has A Lasting Impact
   Surprisingly, 72% of survey participants said that they will still review email from companies they know days or even weeks after it was originally sent. This statistic can give companies utilizing email marketing campaigns some reassurance that their efforts are not being deleted in bulk as consumers flush spam emails and emails that do not interest them out of their inbox. Consumers do, in fact, read emails from companies that they trust. They may postpone reading them if they are busy checking personal correspondences or replying to emails for work, but they do read them. In fact, 60% of those surveyed said that they will save emails from companies to review later when they are looking to purchase products that the company offers. Think about how long you save a newspaper or mailed flyer. Do you store it where you can easily find it and pull it out when you are ready to make a purchase? Probably not. In this sense, these permission based emails have a much greater lasting impact than other traditional forms of marketing.

Certainly spamming consumers or making it impossible to opt-out of email correspondence is a bad idea, but sending consumers that have provided you with permission to email them timely interesting information every so often can greatly strengthen your brand and increase sales. Senior vice president of Epsilon Strategic Services Kevin Mabley, puts it simply when he says, “E-mail builds loyalty and brand awareness and drives on and off-line behavior.”

Helpful Links:
Volusion email how-to
Accessing Volusion email
Using third party email with Volusion
Configuring Volusion email with Outlook

-Kate Pierce eCommerce Specialist

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1] Loyalty. When consumers look for a particular product or service, they probably have only a few local brick & mortar options. But online, every option in the country crowds onto their PC monitors. A store in California is only a click a way from a store in New York. E-shoppers are sometimes overwhelmed by the wealth of choices. Unfortunately, this means that plenty of your customers will forget you, even if they don’t intend to. But they won’t forget to check their e-mail. A

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Target email promotions: Sending emails with relevant content to a specific group of people based on one or more criteria. This involves selecting a target market, identifying their needs and creating email promotions to address those needs.

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