Email marketing best practices | Rooted Elm | Email Marketing

5 Incremental Wins With Email Marketing

Lisa Wester — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 17:53:09 +0000

Being methodical with your email marketing program leads to confidence and an improvement in subscriber engagement, conversion, and overall satisfaction.

Break down your email program into small incremental tasks that you can perfect one at a time. One win positively impacts your remaining tasks. We’re doing it, and we see results. Here are five ways you can make an impact on your email marketing program this year.

Plan.

Stop emailing off the cuff and map out what messages would be essential for your subscriber to receive. With email marketing, along with most forms of content, consistency and value are key. There are many ways to keep on schedule but a content calendar that can be shared with your entire team is the perfect place to start. Writing it down puts it into action. Some of our clients utilize a Google spreadsheet. Our team uses Flow, a project management and collaboration system.

Start with your lifecycle campaigns. Pinpoint when it would add value for your subscriber to hear from you. A welcome series is the first place to start but after that would a birthday or anniversary campaign show the subscriber you are thinking of them? What about a reminder of an upcoming appointment or a survey after a purchase, completion of a project or a recent visit? Incorporating a reoccurring re-engagement campaign to your plan will make a huge difference and keep your subscriber list clean.

Tis the season — or is it? Add in seasonal email messages that fit your values and would be pertinent to your audience—not just trends because that’s what you do.

Timing is everything. Be as consistent as promised with your audience when it comes to email newsletters and promotional campaigns. If they expect to receive an email the third Tuesday of the month, don’t disappoint them.

Leave space for ad-hoc campaigns. These messages include latest promotions, company news, local events or an amazing blog post beneficial to your audience.

Conduct an Email Audit.

Audit your own email campaigns and audit others. We flag and share amongst ourselves email campaigns that resonate with us all the time, taking note of something that worked or in many cases something that could be so much better, mainly with email rendering. It’s not critiquing — it’s a learning process — a mental note for us to remember how an email was received and what to do or not to do.

Most likely your inbox is packed full of campaigns as well. Flag what you like then start a google spreadsheet or document with space for notes and a screenshot of the email. Share the link with others to add their input and do the same. Even just hitting print and making notes the old-fashioned way, storing the printed documents in a community folder, works.

Check out our Emails We Love series for ideas and evaluation on email campaigns we’ve received. If you would like feedback on a recent email campaign, please reach out and we will give you honest and validated feedback using our email analytic tool Litmus.

Develop a Remarkably Good Email Template.

Make it easy for yourself and your team to stay on top of your plan. With at least one good email template, your primary task will be writing the relevant content and sourcing supporting images. Almost every email service provider has templates that you can customize to meet your needs.

A template can be a pre-built, drag & drop style template as shown below from the Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

A template can be a custom HTML built to fit your ESP guidelines as shown below using Campaign Monitor.

Our final example is our newsletter, “From Your Email Horticulturists” that we adapt each month using Litmus Builder then sync directly to our ESP.

Most of the assets and code remain the same for each issue. We edit the text and images within the HTML to differentiate one newsletter from the next as shown in this holiday email.

Get Cozy With Your Metrics.

There is so much you can learn if you just take the time to dive in and develop an ongoing visual document of your campaign trends, subscriber behavior, and gaps. A visual dashboard can be created using an excel spreadsheet or an online dashboard software like Klipfolio. Simply being able to quickly see in graphic form the health of your email marketing program will pay off greatly in the long run. Think of all the decisive and validated planning you’ll be able to do.

In addition to trends with your click to open rate, your unique open rate an unique click-through rate, a specific metric to pay attention to is the life of your subscriber; the time from subscription to when they unsubscribe and how they unsubscribe.

In the visual dashboard below, it’s easy to validate that we need to build more trust through our welcome series and increase the email campaigns from one to several. By adding these additional emails, the high unsubscribe rate and spam complaints will reduce within the first 90 days. This visual also tells us that a reengagement series should be applied before the subscriber hits their one year anniversary for sure and possibly sooner after the new welcome campaigns come to fruition.

Listen.

Remember you are sending to people, not just an email address. My opinion: this is the essential piece of the puzzle. Whether it be in a group setting or individually, sit down with members of your team, management, frontline staff, and sales and ponder: what is the reason we are creating this content? What action do we want our subscribers to take? What value do we offer our subscribers?

Talk to your audience individually or through an online survey to find out why they care about your company, your services, the products you offer, and the experience you give them. An A/B split test is a form of listening and so is purchase behavior. Combine your dashboard with the knowledge you’ve received and ask the hard questions, and you’ll be able to plan for a stronger email program in 2019.

Cultivating your email marketing program is ongoing.

Take on one task at a time and perfect it as best as you can, then work on another tomorrow. Be methodical and meticulous. Each day your program will get stronger and you’ll be smarter and your subscribers and your management team will thank you.

Not to mention — we’re also here to help.

Emails We Love

Jason Meeker — Fri, 21 Jul 2017 16:31:36 +0000

With all the emails that end up in your inbox, there are always a few that stand out. Here at RootedELM, we’re email geeks — we admit it. Whether it’s outstanding content, design or development, when we see it, we want to share it. Watch for our insight here, direct from our own inboxes, and use it to inspire your next campaign.

JASON’S PICKS

REI Co-op

SUBJECT
Ready to Get Outside?

Abandoned cart and no purchase transactional emails can be extremely engaging and profitable too. Retailers often make the mistake of making these emails seem a little creepy in nature — no one likes a stalker. REI has taken a less “stalkery” approach to their remarketing emails and crafted them so they aren’t too different from their standard marketing fare. All this while of course keeping everything branded and multiple device friendly. Proof that remarketing emails can be profitable and look good as well.

VIEW THE EMAIL SCOPE

Nike

SUBJECT
Nike Air Max for the Littlest Feet⁩⁩

For some time Nike has used a single column mobile friendly approach to their emails and just recently I noticed they’ve made the switch from all images to using webfonts and real text instead. This is great example of how a company that is very protective of their branding can create emails that are in-line with their brand and easy to read for everyone.

I also love the image choice and main title…it actually ended with me purchasing a pair for my niece.

VIEW THE EMAIL SCOPE

CHRISTINA’S PICK

American Girl

SUBJECT
This week’s AGenda: National parks for newbies

Design wise, I really love all the bright colors and I liked how the CTA buttons are translucent as the background in the two top boxes. And, as a content writer, I like how “AGenda” is on brand with the AG overall theme. It’s a perfect name for this newsletter and lends to a nice hashtag should readers choose to share photos of their adventures on social (as prompted in the email).

VIEW THE EMAIL SCOPE

LISA’S PICKS

Help Scout

Twice a week I receive a beautifully illustrated email from Help Scout. They are colorful, vibrant and unique. In fact, I recommend you read the post featured in the first email example I’ve included, titled Portrait of a Post: Illustrating the Help Scout Blog.

A couple of years ago I subscribed to Help Scout because of a referral that came out of a MarketingProfs course I took on content. Help Scout is a superb example of what a blog should be and how to promote it through email. The blog is written to help the reader think. They offer insight through stories, real life examples, experiences and tips. What I love most about these posts is that they don’t sell. It’s just really good content that drives me to click through on other pages of their website to learn more.

I’ve included two examples here to show the consistency of their emails. The friendly from name is always the author of the post and the subject is the title. For example, Sunett at Help Scout, with the return email address yourfriends@helpscout.com. The informative lead-in paragraph is typically three lines or less with a bold title. This is the only company I’ve seen use this style, but I may test it out myself in our next few emails. Help Scout always includes a clever, friction-free CTA button that intrigues me to convert. For example: “Say Sorry The Right Way” or “Get Inspired.”

SUBJECT
Portrait of a Post: Illustrating the Help Scout Blog

VIEW THE EMAIL SCOPE

SUBJECT
How to Apologize: 5 Elements of a Successful ‘I’m Sorry’

VIEW THE EMAIL SCOPE

A Campaign to Love

Christina Noll — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:00:43 +0000

Hyde Park Jewelry can add sparkle to just about any special occasion but Valentine’s Day may be one of our favorites. We’re in love with how their Valentine’s Day series turned out. We talked to our client Molly Wojcik, Interactive Marketing Director, about Hyde Park’s recent Valentine’s series and the thought process behind her email marketing strategy.

“We take a multi-tiered approach when planning for campaigns leading up to Hallmark holidays,” says Molly. “Our audience is our number one priority, so we strive to keep them top of mind when planning frequency and content.”

Valentine’s Campaign

Valentine’s Day tends to have a much shorter lead-time in terms of messaging (as opposed to Christmas, which builds up for a month or more), so Hyde Park typically begins messaging about 2 weeks out, and tries not to exceed 3 emails per week. “The immediacy and precise timing of email makes it the perfect tool for the gift-giving messaging that we are pushing,” says Molly.

“We take a lot of inspiration from other marketers out there as well, both within and outside our industry. For instance, during the December holiday season, we noticed a trend of category-based emails, so we decided to try this for a Valentine’s Day campaign, focusing on earrings,” says Molly. Using the subject line, “Make Her Smile from Ear to Ear,” the ad focused on one category and helped take some of the guess work out of gift-giving. Hyde Park saw an immediate reaction after the email send, selling one of the pairs of earrings over the phone within an hour of deployment.

Design

Design of the emails is a collaborative effort. Working with RootedELM, Molly likes to keep the design of the emails clean and simple. “We are a luxury brand, so we never want to compromise our reputation as a fashion-forward, high-end retailer,” she says. “At the same time, we like to add some playful elements into our design concepts, whether it be through the use of clever copywriting, animation techniques or creative use of some of our jewelry imagery (i.e. heart shape using jewelry images).”

Sweet Success

Success of the campaign is measured in conversions, including opens, clicks, phone calls and store visits. “Since we have a high entry price-point, many of our clients prefer to shop in-store or over the phone with one of their sales associates that they have worked with in the past – they like the personal contact,” explains Molly. “It’s not an exact science, but just like in the story of the customer calling and ordering the earrings after seeing the email, it’s always a great feeling to see a campaign work – from concept to transaction.”

Molly credits the collaboration with RootedELM for the success of her latest campaigns, which feature design consistency across messaging and implementing best practices for placement of design elements. “We are light years ahead of where we were last year in terms of our email marketing,” she says. “This year, our campaigns have been well-thought out with a purpose in mind, and I believe the execution has been fantastic! I’m thrilled with how far we’ve come in such a short time and I’m excited to keep growing in this area!”