This Email Marketing Best Practice Guide is designed to help B2B marketers make best use of their number one communications tool. It will help them evaluate, refine and improve every aspect of their email marketing activity, from strategy development through database management and content to post campaign analyisis.
Overview:
Email marketing has been established as a key B2B marketing tool for many years, but its use has evolved dramatically in response to changes in user behaviour, the impact of new channels and the abundance of spam. Ultimately all these factors have detrimentally impacted on response rates and its effectiveness as a marketing tool – the days of email as a quick win for B2B brands are sadly long over. However, with careful planning, resourcing, attention to detail and management, email can still be a highly effective and therefore very valuable marketing tool. This Best Practice Guide is an in-depth examination of the different elements required to develop and deliver an email communications programme, avoiding all the many potential pitfalls, which will work as part of an integrated approach to meet your marketing objectives.
This guide will help you:
- Benchmark your current activity – understand how your current activity measures up against best practice standards.
- Refine and hone your activity – identify areas for improvement and a plan for adoption.
- Get better results – improve effectiveness and your ability to report and demonstrate ROI.
- Be strategic and sustainable – adopt an approach that meets long term as well as short term objectives, and does not undermine the viability of your customer relationships through this channel.
- Future-proof your activities – ensure your practices and communication strategies are robust enough to withstand new developments and upcoming changes in customer behaviour and preferences.
This guide covers:
- Content - advice on structure and article types.
- Design and formatting - how visible presentation and design should be set up to ensure content is most easily accessible and widely viewed.
- Segmentation and advanced targeting - advanced use of data, including segmentation to different groups to drive up effectiveness.
- Integration - how to use email best in harmony with other communication channels, to ensure the best contact strategy.
- Analysing the results - best practice in terms of results and understanding interaction and behaviour, with the aim of ultimately increasing effectiveness.
Section 1 – Background to email marketing
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Key factors to consider
Section 2 – Developing your newsletter strategy
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Setting objectives
2.3 Database creation and management
2.4 Developing a communications schedule
2.5 Selecting the right platform option
2.6 Avoiding spam
2.7 Managing opt-outs and emotional unsubscribes
Section 3 – Content
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Set up a content strategy
3.3 Make it compelling
3.4 The content path to conversion
3.5 Calls to action drive conversion
3.6 Different types of messages
3.7 Make your content scannable
3.8 Posting content – in the email or on the website?
3.9 Use content to get new subscribers
3.10 Tracking content gives you powerful intelligence
3.11 Summary
Section 4 – Design and formatting
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Objectives
4.3 The grid
4.4 Above the fold
4.5 Understanding Outlook
4.6 Don’t forget mobile users
4.7 Image formats
Section 5 – Managing data and distribution lists
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Always aim for opt-in
5.3 Make sign-up easy
5.4 Keyword consistency
5.5 Tailoring to the smartphone
5.6 The opt-out process
5.7 Customised opt-in
5.8 Requesting information
5.9 The unsubscribe link
5.10 Temporary opt-out
5.11 Recipient feedback
5.12 Mailing list management
5.13 Summary
Section 6 – Analysing the results
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Reporting – What to expect from your platform?
6.3 Industry standard statistics
6.4 How to improve your emails
6.5 Understanding user behaviour
6.6 Auditing and benchmarking effectiveness
Section 7 – Segmentation
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Understanding the value of email marketing
7.3 What is segmentation?
7.4 Why segment?
7.5 Does segmentation work?
7.6 Managing and collecting data
7.7 Putting segmentation into action
7.8 Using segments to analyse campaign success
7.9 The secret to advanced marketing
7.10 Summary – 10 steps to segmentation success
Section 8 – Email integration
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Strengths and weaknesses of email
8.3 Integrating email into the customer relationship
8.4 Integrating email into your brand personality
8.5 Integrating email into the customer journey
8.6 Integrating email into the decision-making process
8.7 Integrating email into social media
Section 9 – Automation
9.1 Introduction
9.2 What is marketing automation?
9.3 Using triggered messaging
9.4 Closing the sales/marketing gap
9.5 Selecting a vendor
9.6 Summary
9.7 Key learnings
This guide is suitable for:
- Marketing directors
- Heads of marketing
- Vice presidents of marketing
- Marketing managers
- Marketing communications managers
- Marketing executives – anyone involved in using email marketing as a key communicaitons tool
