26 Feb 11 Personalize Your Email Message Like A Pro
Email marketing delivers. But only when it is crafted patiently embedding all the elements that are considered “best practices” by experts in the field. But what do experts think? Like every lesser email marketer, I have also been wondering about this question. It is when I found myself face-to-face with a study on email message personalization conducted by MarketingSherpa.
The result of this study may not answer all the pressing email marketing questions, but it will help us go multiple yards closer to creating the ultimate e-mail marketing message. The study was conducted by taking a sample size of more than 1100 email marketers. Let’s go direct to the results and see what you should do to make your email messages convert better.
81% of the respondents said that they collect and use personal name of the subscribers, whereas another 17% said that they do collect subscribers’ names but do not use it. Personalizing mail by greeting subscribers by their first name appears to be the most important tactics.
Expert email marketers also use data like lead source, company name, subscribers’ role in the company, etc., to make the e-mail message more relevant. See image below for the complete data.
So what are you planning to include? Let me know what tactics you use for personalization of email messages? I am waiting eagerly to hear from you.
Tags: Best Practices, e-mail marketing, Elements, email marketing, Email Messages, Expert Email, Face, Mail Message, Marketer, Marketers, Marketing Study, Personal Name, Respondents, Source Company, Subscribers
16 Nov 10 E-mail Marketing – What Is Its Place in Your Marketing Budget?
The question posed in the title has more to do with the actual place in the budget document than has to do with the amount allocated for e-mail marketing. In an attempt to find how important e-mail marketing is for an organization, MarketingSherpa, an online market research company, has asked 1,500 email marketers for MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Survey the following question:
Q. Does your organization have a separate line item for email marketing in the budget?
The answer to this has unearthed the place of email marketing in a budget document. Finding it was important to see if email marketing is given due weight or not.
47% of total respondents said that e-mail marketing is not listed separately in the budget, whereas, 32% said that it is explicitly mentioned as a line within interactive marketing budget. 13% said that it is mentioned within CRM, or customer services heading, while 9% said it is mentioned under lead generation heading. (See image).
What all these mean?
Finding it was important because the place of email marketing in the budget document suggests how a company perceives it, and how much budget is going to be appropriated to it. For example, a company may invest more in email marketing if it sees it as a lead generation tool, but the company may pump in less cash, if it is seen as just another marketing channel. In this case, the company may decide to cut on some other channel to fuel email marketing, or vice versa.
This knowledge was therefore important. It was not mere of academic interest.
Tags: Academic Interest, Benchmark Survey, Budget Document, Crm, Customer Services, e-mail marketing, email marketing, Find Mail, Generation Tool, Image, Interactive Marketing, Invest, Lead Generation, Market Research Company, Marketers, Marketing Budget, Marketing Channel, Marketing Organization, Marketing Survey, Respondents
13 Nov 10 “Anything for a Better Experience,” – US Consumers
This is what consumers of the United States have told to the researchers of RightNow Technologies. Well, not in so many words.
According to a study titled, “” conducted by RightNow Technologies, 85% of the US consumers are willing to pay a premium for a product if they get better experience. Some of them have said that they would pay as much as 25% extra for better service (10% respondents said so). 76% of American consumers can pay 5% premium for better experience, whereas, 55% are willing to pay 10% more for the service. (See image for the complete data).
In the same study, 55% of the respondents cited better customer service as the reason for buying from the company they buy now, and 40% said they have switched to competitive products because of the customer service they offer.
Better experience and better customer service are the things that stood out in the study. It appears that people of the United States, despite their struggle with the recent economic slowdown, are willing to pay more if a company promises a better experience and give better customer service.
Tags: American Consumers, Better Customer Service, Competitive Products, Economic Slowdown, Extra, Image, Reason, Respondents, Rightnow Technologies, Struggle, United States
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