The science of email marketing

Recent research by social, search and viral marketing expert Dan Zarrella offers email marketers more handy tips on what does and doesn’t work best.

Zarella’s data was drawn from a variety of sources and surveys, including Hubspot and MailChimp, and is certainly being taken seriously in marketing industry circles. eConsultancy’s marketing director John Gibb blogged in February that over 20,000 people had already registered to listen to Zarrella present his conclusions in a one-hour webinar, noting wryly that while Zarella’s guidance is based on empirical analysis his underlying message remains consistent with the marketing mantra, “test, test and test again.”

His (other) main findings were as follows:

The more links, the better

Although contrary to popular practice, Zarrella found a strong correlation between higher CTRs (click through rates) and numbers of links within emails, with the highest CTRs achieved by emails with the greatest number of links. Data also showed that as the number of links increased the number of unsubscribes went down, although cynics might argue that this may be in part because the unsubscribe link would then be harder to find...

Inclusion of useful ‘reference’ material

Make your email searchable. Qualitative research with focus groups suggested that many use email inboxes as way of filing useful information to be found and referred back to later.

Optimise for mobile

Zarrella’s webinar quotes a figure of 80 per cent as being the proportion of respondents now using mobile to access their email. RIBA Enterprises’ own research may not have set the figure quite that high, but there’s little doubt that the popularity of email-to-mobile is only set to grow (see Architects become more mobile: attitudes to new technologies). Optimising for mobile is therefore a must.

Optimise frequency

Unsubscribes were notably higher for organisations that sent one or two emails per month. As the send frequency reached eight emails a month the number of unsubscribes declined.

Serialise and label

Using continuity and content-based words, such as ‘this week’s...’, ‘newsletter’ and ‘digest’, in the subject line leads to higher CTRs, according to surveys. Unsurprisingly, traditional spam words and phrases continued to be blocked by filters.

Specific offers and exclusivity

Email recipients like to get offers specific to them. While this should come as no surprise to seasoned marketers, research using focus groups confirmed the popularity of this tactic.

Known senders

Zarrella points out that people like to receive email from names they recognise, and suggests therefore sending it from a celebrity or well-known business guru. While this is perhaps impractical (and expensive) in the B2B environment, sending email campaigns (as if) from the person with the highest profile within your organisation – and the name therefore most likely to be recognised – isn’t (for example, the managing director or chairman).

Follow, not forward

Ask people to follow you, not forward your emails, according to Zarrella. Survey data showed that around 80 per cent of respondents rarely or never forwarded or Tweeted B2B emails, despite the advent of ‘share’ and ‘Tweet’ buttons. Instead, he recommends encouraging Facebook or Twitter followers to subscribe to your emails.

Generate desire

While 70 per cent of people claimed to read all or most of their emails, 58 per cent also had separate ‘junk’ inboxes. Given those two facts, Zarrella stresses the importance of taking on board all of his findings in order to maximise the chances of emails being opened, read and acted upon.

Business and personal email boundaries blurred

According to Zarrella, survey data indicates that 88 per cent of people don’t separate their personal and business email inboxes, blurring the distinction between B2B and B2C audiences and providing the clue to some of his more counterintuitive findings.

Editor's note

Zarrella’s webinar neatly draws together a lot of credible data sources, and certainly provides food for thought. Ultimately however, his message remains that what works for one organisation, audience or industry, won’t necessarily work as well for another. The RIBA has more experience of sending B2B emails than many organisations, and yet still continues to learn. The NBS weekly eNewsletter and RIBA Insight’s email product alert select both offer manufacturers and suppliers to the construction industry an established and successful route to an opted-in audience of architects, engineers and other specifiers without the expense or uncertainty of trial and error. Find out more...

 

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