Relationship building emails, like this one from Sephora are great ways to engage customers.

This type of relationship-building email goes a long way! I was planning a visit to their Ottawa store anyway as I wanted to pick up a birthday present for one of my good friends, but after I received the email I got a little more excited about going shopping because I was also going to receive a gift – an early one at that! I was allowed to pick up my gift 14 days before or 14 days after my actual birth day.

Sephora made it easy for me to redeem my birthday gift, all I had to do when I went to the store was tell them my email address and they handed me my Lip Gloss Trio. While I was in the store I purchased a few little extra things for myself and since I spent more than $100, I also received some free samples. This small token of appreciation from Sephora enticed me to go spend some money in their store!

But wait! The story doesn’t end there… A few days later I received another email from Sephora asking me to rate my recent in-store purchase. It listed the items that I bought and gave me the option to write a review for each item. When I clicked through, I had the option to write a review, post some images or even a video. What a great way to get people talking about the products that they sell. There is nothing better than actual customer reviews to show people what great products you sell.

Cheers to Sephora for implementing a great relationship building strategy!

Happy emailing,
Alison

Keep it short and sweet. Do your best to keep your subject lines under 50 characters, including spaces. Stick to one concept, eliminate unnecessary words, and use familiar language. You want it to be a teaser to get people to open the email, not a story that risks loosing their attention.

Be specific. “The Green Thumb Newsletter: June 2007″ doesn’t tell the recipient what they’ll find in the email and gives them no reason to open it. Ask yourself “what’s in it for them?” If the subject line doesn’t tell you, it’s missing a benefit. Here is an example of a subject line that shows the benefit of opening: “The Green Thumb: 3 Tips for Summer Gardening”.

Pique their curiosity. Does your subject line make you have to know what the content inside the email will reveal? Use questions, numbers, challenges and statements that compel the reader to open the email and reap the benefits inside.

Make it personal. Personalized subject lines are a simple way to secure the interest and action of your recipients. They can be personalized based on the content preferences, past purchases or web links clicked by the recipient. You can also personalize with the recipients’ first name, just be sure that your database contains a first name for each recipient or at the very least will display a default such as “Dear Customer” if the first name is not there.

Test it. When you have two strong yet different subject lines, split your list in half and use a different subject line for each group. After a number of tests like this, you’ll have a better idea of what works for the people on your list.

Happy emailing,
Alison

Chapters preference email

A couple of weeks ago, I received this email from Chapters asking me to update my preferences so that they could send me personal product recommendations, special offers and updates that I care about the most. I like the wording they used in the email, it made me feel like they really care about me and don’t just want to send me whatever offer they are sending to everyone else on their list.

Preference centers are good for both you and your recipients, you are basically letting the recipient control the relationship, and that way they won’t feel like you are pushing stuff at them, they are only receiving what they want to receive. This helps you because it means that the email relevance will go way up and in turn, your open, click-through and conversion rates will do the same.

Another bonus that the preference center offers is that you will be able to catch a customer before they opt out of your emails and put an end to your relationship. You can give them the opportunity to lower the frequency or change the type of emails that they receive instead of opting out completely.

Just one last note…we should remember that preference centers are not for everyone. If you are only selling one type of product or don’t have the resources to manage multiple sends, then don’t worry so much about a preference centre but try to take your customer feedback into account by using customer feedback forms and reading your customer reviews.

Happy emailing,
Alison

Figure 1 - email with no images

Lately a lot of e-marketers have been using the email pre-header space to add a call-to-action and some brand recognition to their emails. This is especially important when you are sending emails that are all images with very little or no text, because a lot of people are viewing your email with images off by default.

Take this email from Forever21.com for example (see figure 1), this is how it looked when it landed in my inbox. Images are turned off by default, I can’t tell who it is from or what the offer is.

When I downloaded the images, I could see a really nice photo with an offer for party dresses starting at $13.50 (see figure 2). Wouldn’t it have been nice if the pre-header said something like “Forever21.com: Party Dresses from $13.50!” or “View online to get party dress from Forever21.com starting from $13.50″? At least I would have been able to tell who the email was from and what the offer was right away without having to download the images.

Figure 2 - after downloading images

On top of not having a pre-header, there is a smaller image below the big one saying “free standard shipping with orders of $75 or more”. If that was written in text, I could see it without having to download images and it might entice me to click through to the site. Who doesn’t love free shipping?

I’m not saying that every email needs a preheader but it is definitely a good idea to use that space to your advantage.

Happy emailing,
Alison

That is great information to know, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the right days for you to send. First of all, if everyone starts to send on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, that means that our inboxes will be overloaded on those days and the chances of your email being overlooked will be greater.

My second point is that even though these reports do have good information that we should all take into account, the data is pretty broad-based and doesn’t always reflect what happens in your business. At the end of the day, the only way you will really know what day is best for you to send is to do some testing. Why not segment your list into 7 parts and send the same email to one segment per day for one week?  After the week has passed, take a look at your reports and see which day had the best results. That is YOUR best day for email marketing.

Of course, if you are one of our clients you can take advantage of SilverPOP’s ability to send to each recipient based on their preferred time. This more personalized approach will send an email to a recipient based on past behaviors (or behavioral targeting). You can send a message to each recipient at a time of day and/or day of week defined within the list as the most popular day or time for that specific recipient.

So don’t forget that while all the industry reports and expert analysis out there is helpful, you really should look and listen to what your own customers are telling you and it’s pretty easy to get this info by doing some testing and segmentation of your email list.

Happy emailing!
Alison