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7/30/2019 Kayak OptEmailMkgCon
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THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO
OPTIMIZING EMAILMARKETING FOR
CONVERSIONS How to Grow Your Email List,
Increase Engagement & Ensure
Delierability
A publication of
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IS THIS BOOK RIGHT FOR ME?
Not quite sure if this ebook is right for you? See the below descriponto determine if your leel matches the content you are about to read.
INTRODUCTORYIntroductory content is for marketers who are new to the subject. This content
typically includes step-by-step instrucons on how to get started with this aspect
of inbound markeng and learn its fundamentals. Aer reading it, you will be
able to execute basic markeng taccs related to the topic.
INTERMEDIATE This ebook!Intermediate content is for marketers who are familiar with the subject
but hae only basic experience in execung strategies and taccs on the topic.
This content typically coers the fundamentals and moes on to reeal more
complex funcons and examples. Aer reading it, you will feel comfortable
leading projects with this aspect of inbound markeng.
ADVANCEDAdanced content is for marketers who are, or want to be, experts on the subject.
In it, we walk you through adanced features of this aspect of inbound markeng and
help you deelop complete mastery of the subject. Aer reading it, you will feel ready
not only to execute strategies and taccs, but also to teach others how to be successful.
Opmizing Email Markeng For Conersions
By HubSpot with Kayak Creae Serices Inc. | kayakonlinemarkeng.com | 2
Get Found: Help prospects find you online
Convert: Nurture your leads and drie conersions
Analyze: Measure and improe your markeng
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CHAPTER 1
How to Grow Your Email List ........................................................................................... 5
CHAPTER 2
How to Integrate Email Into Inbound Markeng ............................................................ 10
CHAPTER 3
Delierability: What is it and How to Get it? ................................................................... 14
CHAPTER 4
Fie (5) Say Ways to Segment Markeng Emails ......................................................... 19
CHAPTER FIVE 5
Conclusion and Addional Resources ............................................................................. 23
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75.8% of marketers said they were using
more email than they were three years ago.
2010
2014
As a markeng channel, email isnt going anywhere. In a recent
DMA study 75.8% of marketers said they are using more email
than they were three years ago. In fact, according to Forrester
Research, inestment in email markeng is forecasted to grow
from $1.3 billion in 2010 to $2 billion in 2014.
The investment
in email to increase.
As inestments in the channel grow, how will email fit in your larger inbound
markeng strategy?
Will it be an isolated tool or part of an integrated experience? The following
pages will walk through the reasons and methods for incorporang email more
closely into your inbound markeng strategy.
Opmizing Email Markeng For Conersions
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CHAPTER 1
HOW TO
GROW YOUREMAIL LIST
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Email markeng is only as good as the quality of your recipient list. Each
year there is a natural decay that happens in email markeng lists that reduces
the effeceness of email as an influencer. People leae their companies, get
married and change their names life happens. In B2B markeng, on aeragelists only retain 75% of their members aer one year due to turnoer at
companies and other factors. As a result, markeng lists hae a tendency
to expire at a rate of about 25% a year.
If you arent replenishing your list with new, interested prospects each year,
your email markeng will likely boom out. So how do you keep your list full in
the face of ineitable decay? There are two ways marketers tend to grow their
email lists. The bad way and the good way.
Your list expires at~25% / Year
Opmizing Email Markeng For Conersions
By HubSpot with Kayak Creae Serices Inc. | kayakonlinemarkeng.com | 6
Email markeng is only as good as the
quality of your recipient list.
YEAR 1
50KYEAR 2
37KYEAR 3
28K
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GROwING YOUR EMAIL LIST THE BAD wAY
Many marketers try to increase their reach by buying thirdparty email lists.We adise you against doing that. Buying a thirdparty list, een from
a reputable endor, comes with a number of risks.
You can alienate recipients
If people haent expressly signed up to receie emails from you,
they arent going to be ery happy to get them. This is the anthesis
to inbound markeng, which is based on aracng quality isitors and
leads by proiding alue rather than interrupng them with irreleant
ads or markeng messages.
You could get blacklisted or marked for spam
Well coer this more in the next secon, but one of the biggest
reasons not to buy an email list is that it can negaely affect your
delierability rate.
Bought recipients arent as engaged as opt-in recipients
Emails sent to optin recipients will always hae a higher clickthrough
rate than purchased lists, and the leads generated from those lists will
typically be of higher quality.
It undermines your inbound markeng strategy
Inbound markeng is about aracng leads to your website through
useful, aluable content rather than harassing prospece customers
with ads or direct mail. If you use a purchased list as a separate method
youre undercung the work that has gone into building your companys
reputaon as a helpful inbound marketer.
BE AWARE OF THE LAWS IN PLACE
Research the spam laws which govern your jurisdicon. What you might notconsider spam, may in fact be legally deemed spam. Do some legwork before
you send an email to a list or you could potenally be liable for each illegal email
sent. We have another email markeng guide which addresses these laws for
Canada and the US, which can be downloaded for free on our website
(www.kayakcreave.ca/updated-10-step-email-markeng-guide).
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wHAT IS INBOUND MARKETING?
Its markeng with a magnet, not a sledgehammer markeng based
on content that aracts and nurtures prospects, not spam that interrupts
them. HubSpot prepares you for all three stages of inbound markeng.
GROwING YOUR EMAIL LIST THE GOOD wAY
Inbound markeng is a strategy that focuses on building useful interesng
content to aract subscribers and leads. The basic idea is to proide alue,
make it releant, and the subscribers will come.
Taccally speaking, the best way to start generang leads through inbound
markeng is to launch a blog and start creang good, searchfriendly, content.
Dont hide your subscribe box
If youre creang good inbound content, your blog and website will become
a magnet for potenal subscribers. Make sure that those readers can easily find
your subscribe box. Its worth A/B tesng the placement of the subscriber box
on your site. You can start by placing an email submission field in the top of
your blog and remoe any other distracons.
Consider partnerships
Cohost a webinar or another markeng eent with a company that is
in a related but noncompee space. Make the webinar informae
and encourage parcipants to optin to hear more from each company.
Capitalizing on each companys exisng reach can help you grow your
number of engaged subscribers.
Opmizing Email Markeng For Conersions
By HubSpot with Kayak Creae Serices Inc. | kayakonlinemarkeng.com | 8
ANALYZE
CONVERT
GET FOUND
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HOw TO REDUCE UNSUBSCRIBES
An important role in increasing your email subscribers is maintaining thenumber of recipients you already hae. Here are a few ps on how to reduce
your unsubscribe rate:
Opmize the unsubscribe process
The top two reasons for U.S. email users to unsubscribe from a business
or nonprofit email subscripon are too many emails 69% followed by
content that is no longer releant 56% Chadwick Marn Bailey.
When someone clicks to unsubscribe from your communicaon,
gie them the opon to sign up for less frequent emails or emails that
are only on a gien topic e.g, only major announcements. You can alsopresent the former subscriber with alternae channels by suggesng
following the companys social media sites on the unsubscribe page.
TOP REASONS FOR UNSUBSCRIBING
Too many emails
Irrelevant content
Conduct a frequency studyEery audience is different. The best way to determine how oen to
send emails to your subscribers is to test out a hypothesis. If possible,
surey your recipients about how oen theyd like to hear from you.
Test that frequency paern against a second one and analyze which
results in more conersions and fewer unsubscribes. According to
Markeng Sherpa, the aerage unsubscribe rate for more than 80%
of the companies they sureyed was less than three percent.
Focus on targeng
According to a MarkengSherpa study, four out of ten subscribers
reported that theye marked emails as spam simply because thecommunicaon was irreleant. On the flip side, MarkengSherpa
also reports that emails that hae been tailored to specific audiences
through segmentaon get 50% more clicks than their counterparts.
Use the data you hae about your audience to segment your emails
based on subscriber behaior and interests.
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CHAPTER 2
HOW TO
INTEGRATEEMAIL INTOINBOUNDMARKETING
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Email is most powerful when it s integrated with the rest of your markeng.
You hae a lot of markeng channels and assets make sure you use them
together for best results!
In this secon we will reiew some of the different ways you can achiee
integraon between email and other markeng assets, such as search,
social media, mobile and analycs.
EMAIL & SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION
Study aer study shows that email strategies that integrate social media into
their sends lead to beer results. 65% of the top 20% of B2B marketers in social
media lead generaon integrate email with social media, compared to theindustry aerage of 51% Aberdeen Research.
Integrang social media into your email strategy is easier than you might think.
Here are some taccs to help you get started:
Add social media sharing buons to your emails
Adding social media sharing and follow buons to your emails will extend
the reach of your email sends beyond the recipients in your database,
expanding the isibility of your content and brand.
Email based on social media insights
Send targeted emails to subscribers who hae menoned you on socialmedia. Using integrated markeng analycs, like HubSpot, you should be
able to see a list of email subscribers and leads who hae menoned your
company on Twier. In addion to responding to those highly engaged
leads on social media, you might also send them a followup email with
targeted informaon.
Email is most poerful hen its integrated
ith the rest of your markeng.
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Gro your email list through social media
Leerage your social media presence to gie followers a reason to
subscribe to your email list. For example, consider placing a calltoacon
on your Facebook page. Make sure you determine clear benefits to email
subscripon so that you can turn your social media followers into
subscribers.
EMAIL & SEARCH INTEGRATION
Emails can help you opmize for search. Many email tools, like HubSpot,
enable you to create and host an HTML ersion of your email for people who
are haing trouble iewing the email in their inbox. Not only is that ersion
good for usability, it also helps you with SEO.
Knowing that an online archie of your email will exist, make sure your
email content follows the same SEO rules as your website does. Use your
best keywords and anchor text when construcng the body of the message.
Ensure all images hae alt tags and include social media sharing buons to
stretch the content further.
Ensure your emails can render as web ersions.
INTEGRATED ANALYTICSTodays markeng goes well beyond the boundaries of your website. As a result,
indiidual analycs for your website, social media, email and other channels just
arent enough anymore. A mulchannel iew enables you to see how prospects
are naigang their experience with you. Markeng analycs data can answer
crosschannel quesons, such as:
How many people clicked through on your email but didnt conert?
Of the people who conerted on your website, how many of them came
from social media? How many opened your last email campaign?
Which results in more leads, PPC or organic search: email or social?
Not only do integrated analycs reports show you the effeceness of
your markeng strategy, but they also help you get more targeted in your
email sends. 37% of B2B marketers say lack of user data is the major obstacle
to effece segment targeng B2B Magazine. By exchanging single channel
analycs for integrated markeng analycs, you can begin to segment your
mailing list and send communicaons based on the leads history of
downloads and pages iewed.
Opmizing Email Markeng For Conersions
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INTEGRATION wITH MOBILE
According to Return Path, 16% of all emails are opened on
mobile deices. In fact, this number can rise to 50% for some
companies and industries. Creang an strategy that reflects the
changing way recipients open and read emails is going to beincreasingly important in the coming years. So what does it
take to make your email strategy mobile?
Test your email templates to see how they comes across
in different mobile deices.
Gie your callstoacon CTAs wiggle room make
sure buons and links are easy to click for readers
using touch screens.
Offer both plain text and HTML ersions of your email.
Use descripe alt text under your images in case
they dont display
Opmize for mobile the landing pages and forms
your email links to.
The HubSpot markeng soware automacally opmizes your emails and
landing pages for mobile iewing, so if you are a customer, you should be all set.
37% of B2B marketers say, Lack of user data is
the major obstacle to effecve segmentaon.
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CHAPTER 3
DELIvERABILITY:
WHAT IS IT ANDHOW TO GET IT?
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IBM found that 17% of all emails neer see the inside of a recipients inbox.
From defunct emails to spam traps, the reasons behind the lack of delierability
ary. Achieing a high delierability rate relies heaily on three main factors:
1. Keeping your email lists clean
2. Ensuring youe properly warmed up your IP when starng with a new
email serice proider
3. Following best inbound markeng pracces for email
KEEPING YOUR EMAIL LISTS CLEAN
Return Path reports that 83% of the me an email address is
not deliered to an inbox, the senders reputaon, defined by
the Sender Score, is to blame.
what is a sender score?
A free serice of Return Path, the Sender Score algorithm rates the reputaon
of eery outgoing mail serer IP address on a scale from 0100. Gathering data
from more than 60 million mailboxes at big ISPs like BellSouth and Comcast,
Return Path records if people frequently unsubscribe or report spam fromcertain email senders, and then assigns you a Sender Score based on that
monitoring.
Your Sender Score will connue to change depending on your email sending
habits and the responses of your recipients. Its a crucial number to stay on top
of, because mail serers will oen check your Sender Score before deciding
what to do with your emails.
The lower your Sender Score, the harder me youll hae geng into someones
inbox. Scores are calculated on a rolling, 30day aerage and represent the rank
of an IP address against other IP addresses, much like a percenle ranking.
The closer your score is to zero, the worse it is. If you are using a proider,
like HubSpot, to send emails for you, the Sender Score will apply to your
proiders IP address, not your companys. Dont be afraid to ask your email
serice proiders about their Sender Score.
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Een if an email network or ISP doesnt query your Sender Score to
determine whether they will delier your email, the factors used in
determining your Sender Score are similar to those used by email
networks and ISPs to determine your sender reputaon. As such,
the Score is a great, free email sender reputaon tool to ensure you
are aware of and hae the opportunity to fix any delierability problems.
HOw TO TELL IF YOUVE GOT A GOOD LIST
Here is a checklist to ealuate if your email list is good or not. Answer the fie
quesons below and find out where you stand.
Does everybody on this list have a prior relaonship ith your business?
Get rid of the list or at least the people you dont hae a relaonship
with. If they dont hae a prior relaonship with your business, theyre
not going to be expecng your email. Not only is emailing them spammy,but it will also hurt you. Without a prior relaonship, many of the recipi
ents will mark your message as spam. Those spam designaons will then
turn around and hurt the Sender Score of the serers you send from,
which will make it harder for you to get your messages deliered.
If you answered yes. Nice job! On to the next queson...
Do you have an unsubscribe list?
Dont send to this list. Go back to the drawing board, and build a new
list. Eery list should be accompanied by an unsubscribe list. If you hae
a prior email relaonship with the people on your list, you will ineitably
hae people who hae unsubscribed from that list. When you load that
list into a system like HubSpot, you need to load both the master list and
the unsubscribe suppression list. If you dont, youre going to end up
emailing people who hae already unsubscribed. Thats against the law,
and, since people on the unsubscribe list are likely to mark your email
as spam, it will also reduce your ability to send successful emails.
Opmizing Email Markeng For Conersions
By HubSpot with Kayak Creae Serices Inc. | kayakonlinemarkeng.com | 16
Dont be afraid to ask your email service
provider about their Sender Score.
1
2
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Did you purchase, rent, or lease the list from a third party?
Any sending you do to this list will get flagged for spam and reduceyour future conersion rates. The people on that list dont hae a prior
business relaonship with you. At best, they gae their address to
somebody else and are expecng email from them, not you. At worst,
their address was harested from some sort of directory, and theyre
not expecng any type of email.
will the people on the list be expecng (not be surprised) by your email?
Game oer. Time to do some more inbound markeng to build
yourself a clean and quality list of recent optins. Which leads us
to our final queson...
Have you emailed these contacts ithin the last 12 months?
No? Sorry. Twele months is a long me. Chances are, a big chunk
of your list already forgot about you and will be surprised by your
message (remember queson #4?). That means theyll mark it as
spam, which means your deliery rates will drop.
Yes? Youre good to go. Your list is smelling great. Create some awesome
emails with super useful content, and youll hae yourself some amazing
conersion rates.
wHAT TO KNOw ABOUT SERVER IP ADDRESSES
A serer IP address is a series of numbers that uniquely idenfy the serer thats
sending your emails, e.g. 172.16.254.1 Each me you send an email campaign
out, its associated with your IP address.
The reputaon that you build, posie or negae, through your email
campaigns is also associated with that gien IP address. You can either opt to
hae a dedicated IP address for your email sense or use a shared IP address.
Dedicated IP
A dedicated IP is an address that is completely unique to you. The adantage
of using a dedicated IP is that the reputaon staked on it is completely your
own. The disadantage is that dedicated IPs tend to be ery expensie and if
you arent sending enough emails, the IP wont een register on the Sender
Score scale. Haing an unknown Sender Score isnt a bad thing, but it s a good
thing to hae a high Score registered.
3
4
5
1
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Shared IP
Most companies that send emails through a proider like HubSpot, ConstantContact, Mail Chimp and they likely use whats called a Shared IP. This is one
IP address that sends for mulple companies. Shared IPs are much more
affordable than dedicated ones, and gie you the scale of sends to actually
register a Sender Score. Howeer, since you are sharing your reputaon
with others, consider talking to your email serice proider about their
highest and lowest Sender Scores on record.
wARMING UP YOUR IP ADDRESS
Spammers are known for moing quickly through IP addresses to hae the best
shot at aoiding filters and other blockers. They will use one IP address, send out
thousands of unwanted emails, and then moe on before their IP address can
get blacklisted. Because of this pracce, a number of companies hae automac
blocks set up to limit or reject large-scale email sends coming from brand new
IP addresses.
When you moe to a new IP address, dont send emails to your whole list all at
once. Instead, warm up your IP by slowly building up your total sends oer
me. You only need to do this once. If you hae been sending emails from your
IP address for awhile, it s already stretched out and ready to go.
Opmizing Email Markeng For Conersions
By HubSpot with Kayak Creae Serices Inc. | kayakonlinemarkeng.com | 18
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CHAPTER 4
Fie (5) say
ways to segmentmarkeng mails
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Releancy is becoming een more central to todays markeng strategy, and
buyers hae come to expect personalizaon in their communicaons. According
to a study by MarkengSherpa, four out of ten subscribers reported that theye
marked emails as spam simply because they were irreleant. On the flip side,MarkengSherpa also reports that emails that hae been tailored to specific
audiences through segmentaon get 50% more clicks than their counterparts.
There are a number of different ways to start segmenng your audience.
For a segmentaon method to work, howeer, it needs to reflect two things:
1. Your core business strategy
2. What you know about your typical buyers purchasing decisions
Here are fie great ways to segment your audience to create more tailored and
effece email communicaons.
GEOGRAPHIC SEGMENTATION
Segmenng by geography works best when the locaon of a buyer plays
a significant role in his or her purchasing decision e.g. with eents and other
initaons. Here is a quick list of instances when you should segment
by geography:
When sending initaons to special eents
When your company or serice has geographic limitaons When your connecon to a town or region is a strength. For example,
with local landscaping companies, cleaning serices, or restaurants.
Opmizing Email Markeng For Conersions
By HubSpot with Kayak Creae Serices Inc. | kayakonlinemarkeng.com | 20
4 out of 10 subscribers mark email as spam
due to irrelevancy
1
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INDUSTRY/ROLE SEGMENTATION
For B2B companies, a recipients role or diision is an important factor in howhe or she interprets your communicaons. In simpler terms, you would speak
differently to a salesperson than you would to a marketer. They hae different
goals, and different interests in your company. Targeng these interests can
increase your clickthrough rates.
CONTENT INTERESTS
The best segmentaon taccs are based on true data about your audience
rather than assumpons based on their role or geography. To segment based
on interest, take a look at the content that members of your audience haeiewed or the materials they hae downloaded. The easiest way to start doing
this is to pull a list of people who hae downloaded a certain whitepaper or
other markeng offer, and then segment them into more targeted email
or lead nurturing campaigns about that topic.
The HubSpot markeng soware enables you to do this type of segmentaon
by easily creang a list based on recent conersion eent.
BEHAVIOR-BASED SEGMENTATION
In addion to segmenng by interest area, you can also use audience behaioras a filter for your communicaons. This segmentaon also relies on haing the
right closedloop markeng analycs set up on your site to understand your
typical sales cycle.
Think about it: a person who has spent a lot of me on your site and iewed
a lot of different markeng materials has different needs than someone who
is just ising for the first me. If you are using analycs that enable you to
disnguish the browsing behaior of different website isitors, you can start
to leerage this informaon to make your communicaons more releant
to how far along the recipient is in his or her purchasing decision.
2
3
4
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Segmentaon by Brand Advocates
Brand adocates are a key segment that you should get right.Your brand adocate segment should contain:
Frequent buyers
Social media fans
Customers who hae recommended you to others
Noncustomers who hae adocated for you online
Customer loyalty needs to be nurtured. Once you determine
a list of your best and most ocal adocates, tailor your emails
to acknowledge them. Send thankyous, adanced noce on new
serices or products, requests for feedback, rewards, and othercommunicaons to show you recognize and appreciate their support.
You can start small with segmentaon. Take a look at your audience,
and see if there are any standouts or natural differenaons. Een the
slightest segmentaon can increase your email success rates. The list
aboe is just a starng point, and youll likely discoer other ways
to segment based on the indiidual characteriscs of your audience
and your industry.
Opmizing Email Markeng For Conersions
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CONCLUSION
AND ADDITIONAL
RESOURCES
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Aer haing read this ebook, you now hae a solid foundaon in opmizing
your email markeng efforts for lead conersion and customer acquision.
We started by looking at ways in which you can grow your email list and reduce
unsubscribes. Then we coered processes of integraon between email and therest of your markeng efforts. We also introduced some delierability concepts
and how you can ensure your subscribers receie your communicaon.
Lastly, we coered segmentaon and how you can approach it.
Now you are fully equipped to opmize your email markeng for success.
Go ahead and apply this new knowledge!
No you are fully equipped to opmize
your email markeng for success.
were here to help. Whether it s a consultaon or part of an enre markeng campaign,
Kayak can help you achiee the results you need. visit us at kayakonlinemarkeng.com
to explore the many ways we can help.
Tollfree anywhere in North America: 1-855-228-2525
@kayak360
www.facebook.com/KayakCreae360
hp://www.linkedin.com/company/kayakcreaeonline
markengonline[at]kayakcreae.ca
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