How to Make Your Email Campaign More Clickable

The makeup of an email newsletter can vary tremendously. Some businesses include entire articles in their emails, others send a list of headlines with a teaser paragraph and thumbnail and some just list out headlines.

What works best, in terms of engaging recipients and getting people to click? We asked Stephanie Miller, vice president of member relations at the Direct Marketing Association. As a digital marketing expert, she helps businesses connect with the people, resources, and ideas they need to optimize their response and revenue.

Her first message: there’s no magic bullet that solves this question. However, here are five strategies that will help you arrive at an email campaign that works for best your audience.

Think about your users

It may seem counterintuitive, but putting an entire article in a newsletter can create a better experience for your readers. They can open your email on their computer or mobile device, read your content and then delete or forward it when they’re done. Most businesses want to strike a balance between the user experience and the needs of the business. “It can be a really good experience but, of course, you don’t have any clicks to be sure that they’re reading anything,” Miller says.

Listing a series of articles and links instead of entire posts seems like a solution, but it’s not always the user-friendly option. “You risk people skimming and not clicking on more than one article or not clicking on any articles because they’re on their device and maybe it’s just kind of clunky. Then they miss the content,” says Miller.

Sending too much content can also be stressful for some audiences, especially if they’re busy and don’t have time to read everything.

Explains Miller: “You really have to think about the experience and think about, ‘Is my objective to get the content and create a good experience that’s content-driven, or is my goal to drive them to a website?'”

Test everything

The best layout for your specific email newsletter depends on your audience, and the best way to determine an ideal format for yours is to test several options. “You don’t know what’s going to work best, so you test it,” says Miller. “You can certainly gather ideas and try some best practices, but you never know for your particular audience what’s going to resonate.”

Tracking the rate at which recipients click on the links in your emails over time is one way to test how changes affect audience reaction. Running split tests—where half of your readers get one format and the rest get another—is another way. Talking to your readers, via surveys, on the phone during support calls or in person at events is also key: ask them whether or not they find value in what you’re sending them and why. Use that feedback to guide your decisions and modify your newsletter layout, if needed.

Be relevant and consistent

Email subscribers like to know what they’re getting. If a reader finds a subject line intriguing they expect to be able to find that content easily when they open your email. Make it difficult for them, or worse yet, create a misleading subject line, and you’ll leave readers frustrated or annoyed.

Smartly segmenting your list, or targeting specific groups in your list with highly relevant content, is another way to make sure the recipients of a particular message are interested in the content, which will boost the rate at which they click.

Make links visible

“You want to make sure that your content is visible with images turned off,” Miller points out. Making sure that you have links within the text of your email for your readers to click even if the images, such as a call-to-action button, don’t load is essential.

Have any advice of your own to add? Share away in the comments.

This post contributed by guest author, Yael Grauer. Grauer is a Minneapolis-based freelance writer and editor. Find her online at Yaelwrites.com.

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6 Ways to Segment Your Email List to Improve Your Success

When you create emails, do you send them out to everyone on your list? If so, you’re suffering from “bulk email disease.” This very common digital illness occurs when small business owners send every email to every single contact on their list.

Common symptoms include low open rates, poor conversions, and confusion about what to do next.
Well, If you’re ready to conquer this condition once and for all, you’ll need a healthy dose of segmentation. This includes dividing your larger list into small, targeted subgroups and coming up with a content strategy for how and when you’ll send emails to each list.

A method with proven results, as illustrated in the chart below, segmentation can increase your open rates by nearly 39 percent. It can also help boost your leads by 24 percent which is much higher than average growth statistics.



Here are six ways you can segment your list and get it back on the mend:

1. Geographic area
Segmenting lists by geographic area is one of the most popular methods and can be helpful for many reasons. This method gives you the opportunity to communicate with and talk to your customers where they are, increasing their ability to relate to your business.

Remember though, there are some businesses like cleaning or meal delivery services, which are limited to a geographical region. For these businesses, splitting contacts into even smaller segments, such as cities or towns, is useful.

2. Demographics
Similar to location, segmenting your list by demographics may work well for a single email or future email campaign series.

Let’s say you run a retail business that caters to women ages 30-60. When you release a new item that appeals more to the under 35 crowd, you can increase your chance of creating buzz with an email specifically for the people on your under 35 list.

The standard business demographics that are frequently used include age, gender, and income level.You can collect this information from customers by including it on a signup form and embedding it on your website or blog.

3. Loyal customers
Everyone likes to be rewarded for their loyalty. You’ll find that your customers are no different.  With a marketplace overflowing with options, repeat buyers are a much smaller segment than they once were.

Use this to your advantage through emails that show your frequent customers you appreciate their business. Consider making a ‘Loyal Customer Promo’ or send out an email inviting 15 of your most loyal customers to a sneak peek of a product. You can make the deal even sweeter by giving them a chance to buy it with a select percentage off the final cost.

4. Brand advocates
Every business has a group of customers that advocate for their business without being asked to do so. This is also known as benefiting from the power of word of mouth marketing. Create a segment in your email list for this group. Much like your loyal customers, it’s important to reward those who spread the word about your business.

How do you identify a brand advocate? Look for customers that sing your praises on social media. Customers that have referred friends to your business, or reached out with positive feedback should also make the list.

5. Inactive customers
From those who champion your brand to the group that is nowhere to be found, you’ll need another segment of your list that’s dedicated strictly to inactive customers.

You shouldn’t let inactive customers go without a fight. Okay, maybe “fight” is a strong word, but you shouldn’t let them go without making a targeted effort to bring them back into your sales fold.
Consider sending a promo email to those inactive customers. Use a message titled, “We miss you!”
or “It’s been a while, how have you been?” to reestablish contact and attempt to connect with them again. You can also send a survey asking for insight on why these customers have strayed away from your business. Through the survey results, you could make improvements to keep others from straying.

6. Role or position of contact
It goes without saying that to be effective, an email has to land in the right inbox. If an office supply store, for example, sends a promotional email to a CEO rather than the office manager, it’s probably going to be ignored. For this reason, it’s important to break up your list by positions, if possible. By doing so, the right person gets the right email, which leads to increased sales.

A few words on implementation
Curing bulk email disease can take some time. In fact, we suggest starting with only two or three segments listed above. If you overdose on segmentation, you could get frustrated and make your email marketing strategy more complicated than it needs to be.

Need extra guidance? Luckily, we have a resource guide to help you segment your list in your VerticalResponse account. Check out the step-by-step segment instructions to get started.


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The Advantages of Segmenting Your Email Lists

 No matter how perfect an email you send, there will always be a small number of causalities (aka “unsubscribes”). As reported by MarketingProfs, the average unsubscribe rate is 0.25%. That may sound negligible, but if you have an email marketing list with 2,000 subscribers, that’s 6 potential customers lost!

Luckily, there are ways to minimize your loss, and one of the best ways to keep unsubscribes at a minimum is to use list segmentation. By targeting specific groups within your list, you can greatly improve the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.

Why Segment?

Increase sales & engagement
You probably wouldn’t sell San Francisco Giants T-shirts to your customers living in St. Louis (go Cards!). If you know your customers in one region have a preference for some products or services over others, you can target those groups with special offers for the things they most likely want. You may want to offer a special on air conditioners, for example, to a geographic area where temperatures are high on average. If you have a winery, send special emails to your Chardonnay lovers about your white wines. Or if you offer services, create a series of tips or how-tos for people currently using one of the services so they can get more out of it.

You can also segment your lists based on ‘engaged’ users who open and/or click your emails often. These users interact with your emails frequently and will give you an excellent understanding as to what content they desire or like the most via opens and clicks.

Reward customers
Segmenting is a fantastic way to say, “Hey, thanks!” By offering special discounts to your repeat customers, you’re able to show appreciation and sell at the same time. You can also observe their buying behavior and offer them more of the products or services they buy the most while reducing the number of emails they receive about items they’ve shown no interest in.

Avoid being seen as spam
When you email too frequently, your emails run the risk of being marked as spam by recipients. This can be avoided if you’ve managed their expectations at the time of sign up by letting them know how often they’ll receive email from you. When you segment, however, you also send fewer emails to the same list and curb some of this risk.

Tips for Better List Segmentation

• Collect enough information to segment
  When your subscribers sign up for your email list, capture the information you’ll need to successfully segment your list. For example, if you want to segment by geographic area you’ll want to collect your recipients’ zip codes. If you want to target them by a preference, you’ll want to ask more specific questions. In our winery example, you’d want to know if recipients prefer red or white wines. Adding a question or two to your opt-in form will make segmenting your list much easier down the line. If you find that you haven’t been collecting the right info, you can always ask your readers to update their preferences.

• Review purchase history
  You may have a monthly newsletter that goes to everyone and then more targeted emails that advertise specific products or services. Use segmentation to create lists of  people in your database based on past activities such as purchase history or those who clicked a buy link in your email. Offering special promotions to your customers that you know already buy from you can lead to increased sales and help maintain a loyal following. Or, try creating segments based on where your customers are in the buying cycle. Have they just signed up for your service, but not made a purchase? Are they still in the “free trial” stage? Send emails to these specific audiences to either get them to use your service, help them through any other process they may need, or to eventually make a purchase.

• Use your email reporting toolsYou may not have a lot of geographic information on your customers – but that’s okay! If you’re using VerticalResponse or a similar ESP, you can use the information you already have in your email reporting. Use your reporting to see who clicked certain links in your emails. For example, if you had a sale on candles in your last email, you could send a new, targeted email with a special offer for candles to the people who clicked that link.

Of course, you can do much more than that!  Segmenting your email marketing lists is a lot easier than you may think. If you’re a VerticalResponse user and you want to know how to use our segmenting tools to create targeted mailing lists, read our text tutorial and/or watch our video, “Create Targeted Lists Using Segments.”

Segmenting your email marketing lists can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be, but every little effort helps in keeping your customers satisfied and your lists growing. Even if you run a small business, you can benefit from segmenting. We’d love to hear you segment your lists.


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Start The Year Off Right: Clean Your List

As digital marketers, we know that one of the most important metrics of business is the size of your email list.
But hear this: email marketing is evolving.
As the CEO of Sendlane, I’ve been fortunate enough to see a lot of email marketing data come through our hands (to the tune of over 7 billion emails).
It’s interesting to see the different types of email list sizes and compare the actual activity that comes with them.
And, I’ve come to realize that the question is no longer the “size of your list.”
Now it’s “how active is your list.”
And yes, I’m talking about your open and click-through rates.
Because size doesn’t matter as much anymore… engagement is what we are aiming for, right?
Now, here’s a quick disclaimer: if you read something and worry about it going against what you’ve heard in the past, don’t let that deter you.
This entire article is based on my experience with Sendlane and the data we’ve analyzed over the life of the company.
Basically, the information comes from email marketing that is happening right now in the REAL world!
Now, I want to start off by debunking some MYTHS about “Cleaning Your List” so let’s dive right in!

The Myths

1. You need a service to clean your list

If you built your list the right way and have opted in subscribers (people who actually gave you permission) the idea of a “clean up service” is not the one for you.
Clean up services were created for people who buy data – aka buy email lists.
They will generally clean up known bounces, bad emails, spam traps, and more.
But if your email is permission based (which it should be) this should not be a concern.
So save your money – unless you REALLY want to spend it 🙂

2. They will open my email eventually!

Back when I started in 2009, I remember building my first email list.
I BABIED them.
I was scared to email them.
And when they stopped opening my emails, I started to get worried but I kept trying.
But, inactive subscribers aren’t just waiting for you to send the perfect email before they take action.
Here are the facts – 4 easy reasons why subscribers usually become inactive:

1. They no longer own or use the email (aka they changed emails)
2. They ignored enough of your emails (the email algorithm is now placing your messages in their spam).
3. They marked your email as spam (Ouch! I know, but it’s human nature, either by accident or on purpose).
4. They are simply no longer interested (and too lazy to unsubscribe).

Look, these are not the ONLY reasons – but these makeup MOST of the reasons why a subscriber may no longer be active.

3. It’s my Autoresponder service

If you are blaming your problems on your provider and thinking you have to move your list you might be right.
It’s true – not ALL Email Marketing Services (aka Autoresponders) are created equal.
But any reputable one, with a mass number of customers, will be pretty equal at the end of the day.
So, if you are bouncing back and forth between big providers (Sendlane, MailChimp, ConstantContact, etc.) expecting great results, you are doing yourself (and your marketing) a disservice.
Look, I wish I could sit here and tell you that Sendlane is the absolute best, but that would be a myth…
Your service doesn’t determine your activity.
But I will tell you what does if you keep reading!

Let’s focus on reality now

Now that we’ve gone over those 3 myths, let’s hone in on what is REALLY going on.
And luckily, these are also things you actually have the power to change.
So, here they are – 5 things that really affect your delivery:

1. Your actual email – simply put, the words that YOU put in your email can cause spam. Avoid the spam and email “curse words.” Really though, just STOP using these words!
2. Your links – You would be SHOCKED at how many links are blacklisted. Get a tool like ClickPerfect and keep yourself protected.
3. Your FROM email address – This is something people overlook. Is your domain aged? Does it have a website attached to it? Does it have good reputation? Consider an email address that reflects you professionally.
4. The TIME you send your email – Simply emailing at different times of the day can EASILY affect your open and click rates.
5. Your list is INACTIVE – Yes, I said it. If Joe Schmoe from 2011 doesn’t read your emails then it’s time to let them go!

And just as before, these are not the ONLY reasons for your delivery problems, but are 90% of why your emails are most likely not getting delivered.
Now that you’ve heard the 3 myths and their breakdown, let’s jump into the actual logic of properly cleaning your list!

How To Clean Your List (The right way)

It’s time to start talking about the actual task of CLEANING your list, the proper way.
List cleaning is actually much SIMPLER than it sounds – but also scary to a person who may or may not be accustomed to the idea.
If you’re using any email platform (such as Sendlane, MailChimp, Aweber, Get Response, Constant Contact, etc.), you’ll have simple and powerful segmentation tools available to you.
These will help clean your list painlessly.
The cleaning itself is generally done using the “Segmentation” tool.
Using Google, Wiki or a search in your AR tool’s help desk will reveal how simple it is to create a segment for your inactive or active list.
Now before you start, here’s the ONE basic rule of thumb:
“If a person has not OPENED an email from you in the last 120 days (4 months) – It is time to delete them from your list.“
Listen, I know that seems “short” but on the Internet, it is a LONG time.
If in 4 months they haven’t paid attention to your emails, what makes you think they will 121 days later?
Scroll above and read MYTH 2 again 🙂

BUT WAIT – What about “List Re-Engagement?”

The age old question – one that everyone who is CLINGING to their email list asks.
I’m going to give you the hard truth again.
If the person on your list has been IGNORING YOU for 120 days and you send an email saying, I’m going to delete you… and they open that email, does that really make them an active subscriber?
In the day and age where each subscriber costs you money (in the form of the monthly subscription to your autoresponder service) AND each subscriber can affect your overall delivery, why are you looking to re-engage someone who hasn’t OPENED an email in 120 days?
It’s the harsh reality and even if it sounds crazy, it’s time to let them go.
You only want people on your email list that are ACTIVE and want to listen to you.

What Do I Do With My Old, Inactive Email List Segment?

If you have a segment of your list that hasn’t opened an email in ages, there’s still lead potential to be had.
You can upload it into your custom audiences on Facebook or Google and create advertisements for them.
They are a warm lead as they opted in with you AND they were at one point active with your newsletter.
So take advantage of that!
Create a targeted ad and get them to buy or opt in to your list again.

Closing Thoughts and the Truth About Cleaning Your List

This is one of those articles people will either love or hate.
Those that love it will understand the importance AND benefits of cleaning your list.
Those who hate it, only hate it because they know what they NEED to do and the thought of removing people from your list is very scary.
But here are the 3 things you will achieve with a proper list cleaning:

1. You’ll have a more active and engaged list, one that will want to hear from you more often, buy from you, and respond to you.
2. You’ll save money. Each subscriber adds another tick mark to your list size. That list size determines how much you pay monthly. Don’t pay for dead weight.
3. Your OPEN and CLICK rates will increase. This happens for people every time I recommend it, and even in regard to my own list. Because you’re delivering LESS email and it’s getting HIGHER engagement, the ISP (like Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, etc.) will favor your emails for the engagement and push it into the inbox.

So today is the perfect day to start!
In the comments below, let me know which one of my tips were your favorite and if YOU plan to clean your list after reading my article!



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Email List Segmentation: How Much is Too Much? Not Enough?

 You probably know by now that segmentation improves email marketing performance significantly, so if you’re still operating primarily in “batch and blast” mode it’s time to start slicing and dicing your subscriber file.

Marketers who practice list segmentation see better open and click-through rates, fewer unsubscribes and better deliverability. The reasons are obvious: segmentation creates discreet audiences we can laser-target with offers, creative, and information crafted specifically for them, at just the right time. This in turn improves relevancy and response, while decreasing complaints or blocking. Who among us doesn’t want to see more of this kind of email in our inbox: messages that speak to us as if we’re the center of attention, and show up at the perfect moment (or not at all?)

Too Little?
Let me begin by addressing the easy part of the question: how much email list segmentation is not enough?

Zero segmentation for one – so get on with it already! I’d also suggest if you’re not segmenting by at least these key attributes, you’re leaving opportunity on the table:

Customer Life Cycle Stage (new, existing, loyal, inactive) – new customers have different needs – and response propensity – than existing or inactive customers, so recognize these distinct stages with message appropriate to each

Geography – Simple geographic segmentation is necessary and relevant to national and certainly global companies. Accounting for seasonal, weather, cultural and current events differences reflect an understanding of where your customers live and how geography affects their habits, lifestyle and needs. It also allows you to hyper-target distinct populations with super-relevant messaging when a specific event – like a natural disaster, sporting or political event – takes place.

Product/Brand Interests – You’re likely not selling one product at one price point, so recognize your customers by product type, brand interests, or your different lines of business.

Purchase History – Not all buyers spend alike, which is why analyzing them by the tried-and-true RFM (recency, frequency, and monetary amount of purchase) formula can yield insights as to who your most valuable customers are, who needs nurturing, and who deserves your most lucrative offers.

Of course there are infinite additional ways to segment (age, gender, education level, content preferences, lead scores, sales funnel stage, customer personae and more), many of which depend on your business type and marketing goals. Still, if you’re newer to segmentation starting with the four types above will at least get you moving in the right direction.

Too Much?
With segmentation so powerful, 1:1, dynamically customized email is on the rise and easier than ever to implement in most ESP and marketing automation platforms. Sophisticated marketers have embraced email automation to the point where so many of their campaigns are sent based solely on individual behavior or conditions, that they’re facing a new challenge: how much segmentation is too much?

I’m all for email marketing automation – in fact automated campaigns produce somewhere along the lines of 5x the revenue and ROI of broadcast email – so much so that these highly-targeted “triggered” emails (like cart abandonment, welcome and onboarding campaigns, up-sell offers, etc.) should be part of most if not all programs. The downside? You’re often sending to an audience of one or very few people, which can leave most of your email subscriber base untouched if you haven’t built a diverse and multi-layered messaging mix.

Consider that you might be over-segmenting if:

• You have no broadcast email campaign in your program such as a newsletter, monthly bulletin, weekly special, featured news item, monthly webinar or content, etc. Yes, broadcast campaigns have their place in your overall mix: they provide continuity, credibility and a predictably recurring touch-point for your entire list. You want this because not every subscriber will be equally engaged nor engaged to the point of qualifying for automated email.

• You’re not conducting segmentation or engagement analysis to mine for high-value customer segments and buyer correlations. Which subscribers open and click on your email the most? Who are your frequent buyers? Have you searched for correlations between product purchases and/or content interests across categories?Mine your data for the propensity and interest of customers who purchase one thing to also need a related product or service. Do women who buy a dress almost always return to purchase an accessory like jewelry or a handbag to go with it? Do guests in your resort hotel usually need to book local excursions and activities – or ground transportation to and from the airport? Do first-time diners come back within the next 30 days to eat in your restaurant again – or recommend it to friends? Searching for behavioral correlations like these can yield opportunities not only for automated 1:1 cross-sell, up-sell and follow-on offers, but also for campaigns segmented to a group of like customers based on purchase history.

• All of your email campaigns are automated based on individual behavior. Yes, you want as many 1:1 automated campaigns as possible relevant to your business, but these are by far not the only email campaigns you should be sending.

• You’re seeing declining open and click-through rates across your list. Again, likely an indication that you’re not engaging often enough with large swaths of subscribers to keep them interested.

Optimize Targeting with a Diverse Messaging Strategy

Optimal segmentation is both art and science and is achieved by creating a multi-layered email campaign strategy that ranges from broad to specific and includes a mix of general, promotional, categorical, segment-specific, and individually-triggered messages. True, the most sophisticated (and successful) email programs can become complex due to the risk of high frequency and/or overlapping campaigns for certain subscribers, which is where suppression and campaign prioritization rules can help. But once we accept that balance – neither too general nor too specific a level of segmentation – is key, and that subscriber engagement is our priority, we’re fully harnessing the power of email.

Check out our Email Marketing courses to learn more about how you optimize your targeting and strategy.

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International Email Marketing: How to Master Time Zones

 Sending your email at the “wrong” time can derail the most well-crafted campaign. So it’s no surprise that many email marketers put significant effort into optimizing their send times to make sure messages reach subscribers when they’re actively checking their inboxes. Twenty-three percent of all email opens occur within the first hour after delivery, GetResponse found; within the second hour, opens drop by half.

When you’re sending to a global audience, though, things can get tricky. An email sent at noon in New York City reaches inboxes in Sydney, Australia, at 2AM. Your Australian subscribers might check their emails as they wake up in the morning, but the longer your message waits for the open, the more competition it has in the inbox as emails pile up.

Optimizing emails for different time zones is one of the key challenges for email marketers who send to international subscribers. Here are some hands-on tips to help you master this task.

GET TO KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: WHERE ARE YOUR SUBSCRIBERS BASED?

Finding out where your subscribers are located is the first step toward time zone optimization and making more informed send time and copywriting decisions. Collect geolocation data during the opt-in or use email analytics to better understand the geographic distribution of your subscribers. With the help of geolocation data, you’ll get a better understanding of:

• Where your subscribers are based
• How many subscribers you have in each time zone
• Whether your subscribers concentrate on specific parts of the world or are scattered across a broad range of time zones

INTERNATIONAL AUDIENCE

Based on the results of geolocation analysis, email marketers can choose between two strategies: Choosing a send time based on the most important time zone, or segmenting their list to optimize for different time zones individually.

PRIORITIZING TIME ZONES

If the majority of your audience is based in a single time zone—or in time zones close to each other—it can make sense to focus your optimization efforts on this region. The number of subscribers is one factor that determines time zone prioritization. Also, consider business-related factors such as average customer value for each region and strategic expansion plans for your targets.

Prioritizing time zones and sending your campaign at a time that fits your most valuable region does not require list segmentation and is thus particularly appealing for marketing teams with limited resources. However, you’ll likely miss out on immediate opens and clicks in areas outside of that region, especially when sending time-sensitive promotions.

SEGMENT YOUR LIST BY LOCATION TO OPTIMIZE SEND TIMES IN EACH TIME ZONE

If your subscribers span across a range of time zones, and important markets aren’t close to each other, segmenting your list can be the best approach. This doesn’t mean you have to create a segment for every time zone on your list. Instead, cluster subscribers into manageable segments.

But what if you don’t have the geolocation information for all of your subscribers? This can happen when you only track location with email opens, but not during the sign-up process. Most geolocation analytics rely on a tracking pixel that loads when a subscriber opens your message. If subscribers have not opened any of your emails before—because they’re new on your list or an inactive subscriber, for example—email analytics can’t provide geolocation data for them. Or, if they are reading your email with images disabled, then geolocation data won’t be counted.

Also, Gmail’s image caching makes it impossible to track geolocation. Instead of seeing where a Gmail reader is located, email analytics will show the IP address and location of Google’s proxy servers, potentially placing your subscribers in a wrong time zone.

So what can you do? Create a segment and pick a send time for all subscribers that lack reliable time zone information. You can pick your local time zone or the one of your largest market for this fallback segment.

A segmented approach not only allows you to send emails at the same time in each time zone (for example, always at noon local time), but also gives you the opportunity to test and optimize send times in each location. Reading time preferences differ by audience, and regional habits and schedules can play an important role, too. For example, MailChimp found that most subscribers in Spain read emails between 10am and noon, while optimal send times in Egypt peak at 2pm.

Optimal send times by country, according to MailChimp

Depending on the range of time zones you cover, the number of segments you choose, and the level of testing you commit to, this approach can become very complex and time consuming. However, accounting for local differences and acting on them when sending emails can be a powerful way to increase open and click rates with your international audience.

TIME ZONE MANAGEMENT THROUGH YOUR ESP

Many email service providers (ESPs) have features to help their customers through their time zone struggles.

Time zone management features can be a key criterion when picking an ESP, especially for companies looking to reach subscribers in various time zones but may not have the resources to handle segmentation themselves.

Many ESPs offer features that allow you to send your email at the same local time for each subscriber. For example, when you’re setting your campaign to go out at 9am, the ESP will delay sending to anyone until it’s 9am in their time zone.

If you’d like to experiment with different sending times for each time zone—for example, sending the message at 9am local time to US subscribers, but at 10am local time in Spain—you’ll have to set up manual segments and test them individually.

Time zone management in email marketing goes far beyond testing and optimizing send times. They also impact the content of your email, especially when you’re sending time-sensitive promotions or announcements that contain dates and times.

TIME ZONE EMPATHY

Whether you’re segmenting your email list or focusing your efforts on your most important time zone, always make sure your message is relevant to your audience. A lack of time zone empathy won’t just mean you miss out on clicks and opens, but also can damage your brand reputation.

Being empathic about your subscribers’ time zones is especially important when sending time-sensitive campaigns. The more you emphasize timing in your email—with “Today only” or “Sale ends at midnight” campaigns, for example—the more crucial it is to double-check your campaign for time zone conflicts. Let’s say you’re sending a “Monday only” offer at 10am on a Monday morning in San Francisco. Without segmentation in place, your subscribers in Sydney will receive it on Tuesday, 3am local time, and will likely end up confused and frustrated.

Put yourself in your subscribers’ shoes and ask yourself: What does the timing of this email mean for my subscribers in different time zones? Does the message make sense no matter where people live? Does the email contain time and date information that need special attention?

HANDLING DATES AND TIMES IN EMAIL

Time zone challenges become most obvious when your email contains actual information about dates and times—for example, for events, webinars, or deadlines.

Here are three things to remember when sending emails that contain dates and times:

1. ALWAYS STATE WHAT TIME ZONE YOU’RE REFERRING TO
   

   Never let your subscribers guess what time zone you’re referring to. Make checking for time zone information part of your email proof-reading process, especially when the time changes during daylight savings time. If your automated emails contain times and dates (like weekly webinars, for example), set a reminder to switch templates at the beginning and end of daylight savings.
   

2. LET SUBSCRIBERS VIEW TIMES IN THEIR LOCAL TIME ZONE
   

   Stating the time zone you’re referring to allows subscribers to convert to their local time zone. However, converting time zones can be tedious and confusing, so don’t let your subscribers do all the work. Instead, offer a link to a time zone converter, like Permatime, to make it as easy as possible for your subscribers to translate a date and time to their local time zone.
   

3. MAKE YOUR EMAIL RELEVANT, NO MATTER WHERE YOUR SUBSCRIBERS ARE LOCATED

   Even if you optimize events so that they are at a time when most of your subscribers can attend, it’s not always possible to make it work for everyone. And that’s fine—as long as you find a way to still make your email relevant for every single subscriber, no matter where they’re based.
4. In the email above, for example, we’re promoting a webinar that subscribers in the US and some parts of Europe can attend. However, for our audience based in Tokyo, Japan, the webinar takes place at midnight, making it impossible for them to join. Without additional information, this email would be of no benefit to our subscribers in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Australia, likely causing confusion and frustration.
   However, the email asks subscribers to sign up even if they can’t attend the live webinar, because the webinar recording and slides will be shared with all registrants. Subscribers who cannot attend the webinar—because of their time zones or any other reason—can still get the benefits from it.

   AVAILABILITY AND RESPONSE TIMES: MANAGING EXPECTATIONS

   Email is a great way to receive vital feedback from customers, answer questions, and create a line of communication between brands and consumers. When sending marketing messages to an international audience, you can adjust your send times to fit your subscribers’ time zones; your support hours, however, might not always match your subscribers’ business hours and you might not always be available when your subscribers hit reply. Here’s how you can set the right expectations if your team can’t offer 24h support.
   An email is an asynchronous form of communication and most of your customers will not expect an immediate response. But when time differences come into play, subscribers might have to wait longer than usual before they’ll hear back from you. Keep this in mind, especially when sending emails that likely trigger responses and questions, like major feature announcements or pricing changes. 
   Consider setting up an autoresponder for your reply-to address that reflects your time zone, your support hours, and give an estimate of when subscribers can expect to hear back from you. This helps to set the right expectations.

   HOW DO YOU MANAGE SENDING EMAIL ACROSS TIME ZONES?

   Do you have more tips for sending email internationally? Share them with the email community!
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4 Email Marketing Integration Tactics

Email marketing remains one of the key communication tools for business. Eighty-two percent of companies today are leveraging email marketing. The ability to segment lists plus personalize and tailor messages to any part of your audience has wide appeal. But with so many companies leveraging this channel, how can you differentiate your email marketing campaigns? One effective way is to integrate other marketing channels into your email marketing.

Integration can actually help take your email marketing efforts to the next level and provide added usability and connectivity benefits for your customers. These are four key areas to consider as you begin email marketing integration.

Email and Social Media

Leveraging social media platforms within your email marketing can drastically impact the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns. Emails that include social media sharing buttons have a 158% higher click-through rate than emails sent without them. Most email marketing service providers make it very easy to add social sharing buttons within email campaigns. You can also segment your email lists by social media network to better target specific types of users, offering them a more personalized experience.

You can also use social media to drive email sign-ups. The pin tweet feature of Twitter enables users to leave a Twitter card at the top of a profile, urging people to sign up for an email list. Tactics like this can be effective in growing your email list.

Email and Mobile

Today, 64% of decision-makers read their email on their mobile device. And this number is only going to grow. Integrating your email efforts with mobile optimization is a natural progression. When you craft email marketing campaigns, it's important to test them on different mobile devices. Since many of these devices have different screen sizes, testing compatibility is key.

Email optimization doesn't end with testing for mobile devices. If your email contains links sending customers to landing pages or web pages, you need to ensure that these spages are optimized for mobile. You worked really hard to get them to click through to your landing page; you'd hate to ruin your success by taking them to a non-optimized piece of content.

Email and Search Marketing

Integrating email and search marketing can have a positive effect on your website search engine optimization (SEO). When you create email marketing campaigns, you can also generate HTML versions of emails and host them on your domain. Inside most emails, there will be header text that reads "not viewing properly, view email in web browser." This will take you to the HTML version of the email. Since you're creating a webpage with the email content, your domain will become more relevant to Google for the search terms associated inside of the email text. Doing this allows for an extra boost in usability for your customers plus it can help your site's SEO.

Email and Marketing Analytics

Tracking your marketing initiatives is as important as implementing them. Only 22% of mid-sized companies use analytics to manage their marketing campaigns. Without analytics, you can't gather any data to decide if the campaign was a success or failure.

Your email marketing platform should provide you with specific data around your email list. Items like open and click-through rates should be studied and used to enhance the content and how you communicate it.

Another easy way to track success is by implementing Google Analytics into your email campaigns. You can accomplish this by creating unique URLs for your landing page using Google's URL builder. These will show up in Google Analytics and allow you to easily track visitors and conversions. With this type of tracking, you can also A/B test your email marketing campaigns to understand what type of messaging, imagery, and content your users like best.

Integration of email marketing initiatives with other marketing channels will create a more streamlined and pleasing customer experience, plus enabling you to consistently build a unique marketing experience for your customers.

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