Email Marketing | In A Nutshell by BMI Elite

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(c) 2015 BMI Elite All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed â&#x20AC;&#x153;Attention: Permissions Coordinator,â&#x20AC;? at the address below. BMI Elite 1095 Broken Sound Parkway NW Ste 300 Boca Raton, FL 33487 www.bmielite.com

Letter From the CEO & Founder BMI Elite is your source for all email marketing and data solutions. Through tactical email marketing, BMI Elite utilizes our extensive database of more than 450 lifestyle selects and segmentations, owning 150 million email records and 183 million postal files. But it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stop there. Our data is one of the most hygienic and wide-ranging databases in the marketplace today, resulting in high delivery rates for email campaigns, while remaining 100 percent CAN-Spam Compliant. The BMI Elite formula has proven effective, earning the business and trust of hundreds of clients all over the globe, yielding dramatic, measurable results for clientele ranging from Fortune 500 corporations to international advertising agencies. Since BMI Elite was founded in 2010, we have built a strong foundation around a talented team of savvy professionals fueled by a passion to create purposeful online and traditional advertising, superior branding and the best marketing strategies possible. It is our hope that you are as excited about the future of email marketing as we are. In a nutshell will help you take advantage of opportunities that are possible when you know how to properly develop successful email campaigns for your target consumer. Let us do the rest. Best Regards, Brandon Rosen | CEO & Founder

Dan Lansman | President

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Sometimes it is necessary to understand where youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been before you can take the right step forward. Email Marketing is no exception. While an entire book could be written about the history of email, we will simply focus on the key points needed to execute successful email marketing campaigns.

Back in 1971, computer engineer Ray Tomlinson sent the first electronic message. Rumor has it he just typed the letters at the top of his keyboard into the body of the message. As you can imagine, that email probably didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get a lot of clicks.

Years later in 1976, Queen Elizabeth II became the first Head of State to send an electronic message. We are guessing the body of her message had a little more substance!

Not long after that, the first electronic advertisement was sent via government and university networks in 1978. And boom! The dawn of Email Marketing was upon us. As you can imagine, more and more marketers caught on to this new tool and began using it.

What is Email Marketing Really? |

With every new marketing method there are positive and negative effects on the intended audience. Email Marketers started to abuse this method of advertising, and eventually this bad behavior led to the CAN-SPAM Act in 2003 to regulate commercial emails.

One year later, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) codified email spam laws. Taking it one step further, Sender Policy Framework (SPF) technology was implemented in 2005 to verify email sendersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; identities. Still convinced there were not enough systems in place to regulate commercial emails, the Internet Engineering Task Force created the anti-phishing protocol DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) in 2007 to secure emails through digital signing.

Fast forward to Email Marketing today. Internet Service Providers (ISP) are consistently making new rules or updates that make it more difficult to get an email into a recipientâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Inbox. As a result, marketers have to constantly change their methods to comply with new guidelines and ensure successful entry into the recipientâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mailbox and not the Spam folder.

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Not only are there ISPs to contend with, marketers also have to constantly be aware of the latest trends and technologies. In the beginning, emails were designed solely for the desktop experience. Today, almost everyone in the world has a cell phone and many others have tablets as well. This means Marketers have to design emails to fit multiple screen sizes and make sure the most important part of their message is front and center.

When it comes to staying relevant and providing the best user experience -- and actually getting into a recipientâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Inbox -- Email Marketers not only have to be aware of all the latest trends and regulations, they also have to anticipate future technologies and possible regulations that may govern them.

If you utilize best practices chances are you will be on the good side of an ISP. Once you get on the bad side however, it is very difficult to reinvent yourself unless you know the right methods to use that will allow you to jump over that mile-high hurdle.

Now that you have a little insight into the history of Email Marketing, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time to roll your sleeves up and get started with the fundamentals of current Email Marketing Best Practices.

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What are best practices? Best practices consist of commercial and professional guidelines and procedures that are accepted as being correct or most effective in the industry. These practices in the email world will help you get in the Inbox, stay in the Inbox and keep your recipients engaged.

There are many best practices an Email Marketer can or should follow. We will highlight the most important ones.

1 | Opt-ins The Opt-in practice requires the user to opt-in (sign up) for your email(s) before you can send them promotional campaigns. Once they opt-in, the email address is added to the list they signed up for. The only exception to this is transactional emails (order confirmation, shipping confirmation). Transactional emails do not require a customer to opt-in.

2 | Know Email Delivery Principles Everything from subject lines, creative content, from name, reply-to address, high volume of emails being sent, filter changes by ISPs and creative saturation can impact a Sending Domain and the IP Reputation. If either is negatively impacted your mail may not get to the Inbox.

3 | Go Mobile or Go Home 51% of all emails are opened on smartphones, and another 17% are opened on tablets. When it comes to how your emails are structured, everything about your email should be created and planned with a mobile-first approach.

Understand Email Best Practices |

Responsive Design Increases email clicks by 130%

To do this you will need to ask yourself a few questions: We will highlight the most important questions. • What will the email look like on a mobile phone? • Will this email’s code actually work on a mobile phone? • Is this email optimized for engagement on a mobile device?

4 | Balance Image and Text in Design Make sure the amount of text and the number of images in the email itself are balanced. If you have too many images — or one big image — this can cause issues getting in the Inbox or with engagement.

5 | Clear Call to Action The call to action should be close to the top of the email, or at least above the fold (in other words, before the user has to scroll down). It is also best if the button is coded directly into the email rather than making it an image.

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6 | A/B Testing Testing things like subject lines, time of day or other elements inside of a message can help your email get into an Inbox. Testing can also help increase open and click through rates. Testing should be done for every campaign.

7 | Descriptive From Name and Reply If you use “donotreply@domain.com” as your reply-to email address it communicates a certain level of cold, unfriendliness to a potential recipient. It can also negatively affect your ability to get into their Inbox. Use something like “customerservice@domain.com” or “newsletter@domain. com” instead. The type of email you are sending will determine the best reply-to address. It is also good to have someone monitoring the reply-to email account.

There are more things you can do in the copy, imagery and code of the email to maintain best practices in each message you send. You will learn more about these in the following chapters.

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Before you can begin to understand who your target audience is, you first have to understand your brand and what it has to offer potential recipients. Afterall, who wants to receive an email from someone if it isn’t relevant to them right? Nothing like a non-relevant email to motivate users to click on the “Delete” or “Junk” buttons.

Ask yourself these questions before you define your target audience: 1 | What is the product or service you offer? 2 | What is the value proposition of your product or service? 3 | What are all of the benefits of your product or service? 4 | Who would benefit the most from your products or services?

Break this down as much as you can: • Gender • Age • Family / Single • Adult / Student • Income Level • Location • Interests • Business Type (if relevant)

Know Your Target Audience |

Why would they benefit from your services? Once you have figured out your target audience, it is time to look at your data. You now need to determine if your house email subscriber list reflects your ideal audience. This might not be an easy feat if you have not collected the appropriate data to determine the information needed. What do you do when you know nothing about your Email Subscriber List aside from their email address? There are a few things you can do to rectify that situation. Some companies buy third-party data to append to the email subscriber list they have already built themselves (house list). This has its pros and cons. While it is good to have that additional data, you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily get data for all of your records and the data you do receive could be outdated or inaccurate. Another way you can gather more data on your current subscriber base is to create a preference center. You can host it through your own website, and stand-alone landing page, or through your Email Service Provider (ESP). The advantage of doing this yourself is you can add all the fields on the page that you want to collect information about so you get exactly the type of information you need. You can also offer incentives to subscribers to update their information. Once you have gathered all the data you need to start building customer profiles, you can really start having fun with email campaigns by narrowing your target audience down like a science for each specific type of offer. This is especially helpful when you have more than one type of product, sale or service you can offer to customers.

www.bmielite.com Even if you only have one specific type of service or product, it will still apply to many different audience profiles. For example, you wouldn’t speak to a 21 year-old, female college student the same way you would talk to a 55 year-old, male retired veteran. Even better, you wouldn’t speak to a 35 year-old, single man the same way you would speak to a 35 year-old married man with children. Once you generate segments based on the profiles you’ve created you can then apply the segments to each campaign you implement. This will drastically increase your ROI and overall user engagement. What’s more, segmenting is only the first step. Once you have defined these lists you will then need to tailor the actual email copy and creative. Tailoring the email will allow you to target each of the segments you’ve created in a way they will best understand and respond. P.S. If you don’t have your own house list you can benefit from a third-party list that already has data segments defined. BMI Elite offers hundreds of data selects, giving you the ability to target just about any audience, anywhere.

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Always ask yourself one question before you pick your target audience for any campaign: If I were this person, would I read or act on this email?

Just because you can send out an email every day, any time of day, doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean you should keep hitting the send button and hope something resonates with your intended audience. Timing and frequency should be based on relevance as it pertains to the audience you are mailing to.

Creating an email marketing strategyrequires you to understand what type of promotions and content will appeal to the audience profile segments you created from your main email list. If you have a list that encompasses many different segment types (men and women, single or family, pets or no pets, etc.) it is necessary to serve these different targets with communications that are relevant to them. What does it mean to be relevant? Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s simple. Ask yourself some common sense questions:

Would a 25 year-old single man want to receive an email about a sale for baby products?

If you know the majority of your audience works between the hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., do you think the prime time to send an email is 2 p.m.?

Would a first-year college student find an email about home mortgage loans appealing?

Plan Email Campaigns When Most Relevant |

Would you send an email to an audience about Thanksgiving in the month of July? If you answered “no” to each of these questions — you get it. If you answered “yes” to any of these questions — you might want to brush up on your marketing relevancy skills.

When you develop a strategy that encompasses seasonal and trending topics, in addition to any promotions you know you may have outside of these topics, make sure you create a system that helps organize and visualize the frequency and timing of your campaigns for every target audience you touch.

Map your campaigns out on an actual calendar. Plan as far ahead as you can. While 12 months out is best (even if it is a partial plan), three months should be the minimum you project when doing a detailed strategy. Try color-coding to help you differentiate audience-specific campaigns when viewing the calendar.

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Sun 9/20

Mon 9/21

Tue 9/22

Wed 9/23

Thu 9/24

6:30 a.m. International Peace Day Sale - Men

6:30 a.m. Fall into Savings Campaign Women / Single

6:00 p.m. Weekly Newsletter Women

7:00 a.m. International Peace Day Sale Women

7:00 a.m. Fall into Savings - Women / Family

6:30 p.m. Weekly Newsletter Men

7:30 a.m. Fall into Savings Men / Single 8:00 a.m. Fall into Savings Men / Family

Fri 9/25

Sat 9/26

6:30 a.m. BOGO for Kid’s Shirts Women/Men Family

6:30 a.m. Fall into Savings Reminder Women /Single

7:00 a.m. Fall into Savings Reminder Women / Family 7:30 a.m. Fall into Savings Reminder - Men /Single 8:00 a.m. Fall into Savings Reminder - Men / Family

Fig.1 Example Email Calendar View for one week.

No one can plan for impromptu email campaigns that come their way, but having a clear understanding of what is already in the queue will help you shift or reschedule campaigns in a more efficient way. It will also ensure you do not over send to your segmented audiences.

If you bombard your audience with too many emails, the same campaign repeatedly or campaigns that are not relevant to them, they will unsubscribe — or worse — complain and flag your campaign(s) as spam.

Once your email communications are flagged as spam by an ISP (Internet Service Provider) it will be very difficult to get into any Inbox because your reputation will be tainted. It is always better to stay on the good side of any ISP rather than risk your brand’s reputation if you are sending out your own email messages. If you are using a third-party (like BMI) to send your campaigns, this is something they deal with for you.

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At this point in your email marketing lifecycle , it is safe to assume you have defined your audience profiles, and at least planned a high-level campaign calendar.

Before you start defining the layout of the email campaign with text and imagery, etc., first consider what you are actually trying to accomplish.

Next, determine what is the most effective way to reach your goals. There are over 205 billion emails sent and received every day — why will anyone in your target audience(s) open yours? The answers to this question will help you build an outline for each of your campaigns.

Okay, we’ll help you figure this out. Let’s break that BIG question into smaller chunks. Each time you start to plan an email marketing campaign, create an outline that fills in the blanks for each of these sections that encompasses the anatomy of your email campaign:

Tailor Campaigns To Fit Your Audience |

1 | Relevant to Target Audience? If yes, continue. If no, start back at the beginning and rework your concept. 2 | From Name: This should represent your brand and be relevant to the type of campaign you are sending. 3 | Reply-to Address: Rather than “donotreply@”, use something a little more friendly like “customerservice@”, “info@” or “newsletter@”. It is also a good practice to have a real person monitoring the Inbox for your reply-to address so you can respond if someone decides to hit the “Reply” button in the email you sent them. 4 | Subject Line: This is arguably one of the most important pieces of your email. 69% of email recipients will report an email as spam solely based on the subject line. Make sure your subject line stands out, but stay away from sounding spammy. You’ll learn more about that in the next chapter. 5 | Pre-header Text: Most email applications not only show you the email’s subject line in the never-ending list of emails you receive, they also preview the pre-header text. This is the small line of text at the very top of the email. It is prime real estate ... use it wisely! Pre-header text is a great way to supplement your subject line so it works hand-in-hand with your overall objective. You can even insert a Call to Action (CTA) here. Be creative. 6 | Header: Once you’ve moved on from the Pre-header Text you might want to insert your branding, navigation, social media icons … or other pertinent information that will set a consistent tone for your emails -- and use this formula for most, if not all, of your emails.

www.bmielite.com 7 | Body: Your main message will go here (including text and imagery). It is best to have one CTA in an email campaign in the upper half of the email. At most, you might include a secondary CTA. We advise against trying more than that as the messaging gets lost once you go beyond two CTAs … and then no one knows what to do and they just do nothing. There are a few exceptions to this: A | Newsletters B | Multi-product emails that introduce new products or specific individual products on sale that are generally part of a daily, weekly or monthly email campaign series: 8 | Footer: Here you need to clarify, at minimum, your company’s name, address and copyright information. If you are running a special promotion you will also want to include the terms and conditions of the promotion or a link to it. You can also include navigation or social media icons here as well. And of course, you must ALWAYS have a link for your subscribers to Unsubscribe. That is the law!

Now that you’ve filled out your email campaign’s outline/form (or creative brief if you prefer), it is time to make the magic happen. Put on your creative thinking cap and flip over to the next chapter!

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You don’t need to be J.K. Rowling or Ernest Hemingway to write good copy for your Email Marketing campaign. You do need to understand how to write Marketing copy. In an email, you have just a few seconds to get your reader’s attention (maybe 10 seconds if you are lucky).

It is important for your copy to grab their attention. It also needs to be clear, succinct and tell them exactly what you want them to do. All of this should be above the “fold” (meaning in the top part of the screen they are viewing the email on before they have to scroll down). Anything below that is mostly ignored.

Subject Lines will determine whether or not a recipient even opens your email to view your message. While it is important you catch their attention, you also need to incorporate these best practices when writing them:

• NEVER USE ALL CAPS or EXCLAMATION POINTS !!!!!! IT’S SPAMMY. • FREE is a four-letter word … in a bad way. Don’t use it. You could get flagged as spam. • Do use geolocation in the Subject Line when relevant to your audience. Ex. New Starbucks in Portland Opening Soon • Do ask a question that ties into the promotion or message you are sending if pertinent. Ex. What’s Your Dream Car?

• Follow the KISS philosophy (keep it simple stupid). Yes: Red Earth Thanks You | Enjoy 15% Off No: Modern Family, Modern Home: The Kitchen | The Sleek Kitchen: Stainless Steel | Your Prep Station: Knives & Cutting Boards | Shiraleah | PÜR Cashmere Throws • Avoid using fluff, symbols or questionable tactics like adding “re:” or “fwd:” in your subject lines. • Do clearly state what’s inside the email and don’t write your subject lines like advertisements.

Wow Your Audience With Mad Writing Skills |

Okay, now you have a great subject line. What next? Messaging and a prominent Call to Action will make all the difference when it comes to them clicking on that CTA button or pressing the delete button. Don’t Forget: Campaign success still depends on whether the promotion is relevant to them.

Be creative with your CTAs when you can. It doesn’t always have to be “Buy Now” or “Shop Now”. When it makes sense, try new ways of getting people to act on your email -- and ALWAYS make sure your primary CTA is at the top of your main message and more prominent than any secondary CTA you may have.

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Once you determine what you want your primary CTA to be, it’s time to construct the messaging in your email. This should tie directly into your CTA. You can have a little fun with this as long as your message is clear. Try not to be too wordy though. 65% of recipients prefer emails that contain more images vs. the 35% who prefer mostly text. Example Messaging with CTA:

Mission: Nutrition

Body

This month is all about nutrition! Sign up to get weekly health tips in your inbox during the month of March.

LET’S DO THIS

Now that you have an idea of how to set up your copy for an email campaign it’s time to breathe a little life into it with some amazing imagery and design.

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Gone are the days where one big image rules them all. So if you’re thinking you will make one glorious all-encompassing graphic to send to the masses — think again Picasso.

The key to an email’s graphic design is balance. Any image you create needs to be balanced with text that will be coded into the email directly rather than be in the actual image. Too many images can get your email flagged as spam. Also keep in mind, if the recipient has images turned off they won’t even see the images.

If you want to have a larger banner at the top of the email you need to consider width. You will have about 600 pixels of length you can play with and still have it display properly on a mobile device. There will be three inches of depth viewers will most likely see when they first open the email. The call to action and value proposition should be in this top area.

Dazzle Readers With The Right Design |

Buttons should be coded directly into an email to account for images being turned off — so make sure your design is codefriendly and the button does not need to be an image. With that in mind, either use a solid color in part of your top creative or leave enough room at the top or bottom to allow for the button code.

When creating a mock-up for an email with text that will be coded in the body, make sure you use web-friendly fonts and colors. If you are unsure what those are, ask your internal or external production team (the people who will actually code the email using the layout you’ve designed). Do not design an email to have a background image. Most ISPs do not allow this in emails and it will be stripped out because it’s not supported. As far as the actual aesthetics, try these tips to achieve optimum performance: • Horizontal vs. Vertical layout. When it comes to horizontal email design, just don’t do it. No one wants to scroll sideways. Some people will be confused and simply won’t get it. On the other hand, everyone knows the vertical scroll. It’s standard. • Use a limited number of colors, but do use color for emphasis. Try to minimize your use of red as that can sometimes be a spam trigger. • Font size should not be any smaller than 12 pixels. Your main call to action should be larger (between 14 and 16 pixels) and headlines should be around 20 pixels to stand out. • Provide ample white space. This will reduce cognitive overload and improve the visual appeal.

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• Reduce clutter. If you have too much going on in your design the recipient will not know where to look or what to do. Keep it simple. • Utilize color theory when designing (warm colors excite passion, cool colors calm, etc.). • Balance all elements in the design and keep the ebb and flow of your 2D layout in rhythm. • Proportions matter. Whether it is the size of an image or the font size, this is a great way to call attention to the most important elements in a design. • Negative Space is a positive thing when designing (This creates “places of rest” between busier parts of an image.). • Texture can breathe life into your graphic, adding visual interest and setting the mood. • Incorporate Eye Path techniques, particularly if you are designing a lengthy vertical email like a newsletter, etc. You can easily draw the readers eye with whitespace, color, text variations and graphics.

Once you have finished piecing together your masterpiece don’t forget to save your image files for the web. Make sure your design is developed in RGB mode, and saved out as JPG, GIF or PNG file types.

Awesome! You’ve got your copy working for ya ... your design is rocking ... now it’s time to cut the strings off of Pinocchio. Let’s code this bad boy!

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The year is 2015. With almost everyone in the world attached to a smartphone, it seems almost superfluous to say you should code your emails to cater to a mobile audience, but it is still necessary because there are people that still don’t get it. No matter where you travel in the world, you’ll have a hard time finding anyone without a cell phone. When is the last time you were without yours? There are two ways you can accommodate mobile email viewing, manual mobile design and responsive design. Manual Mobile Design. If you do not know how to code a responsive email and you want to ensure your emails are easy for mobile viewers, check out some best practices below for this method.

• Width of emails should be between 350 and 600 pixels maximum. • One-column designs are best when manually coding/designing mobile-first emails. • When customizing your email’s design in the code you’re building, make sure you use inline CSS. You can write CSS in the header of an email, but keep in mind many ISPs will strip that out, so always include inline CSS either way.

Code Emails That Work On Any Screen | • When it comes to structure -- tables are still the way to go. You will need to code nested tables for more complex designs. Use element attributes (such as cellpadding, valign, and width) to set table dimensions. This forces a box-model structure. • CTA buttons should be big - really big. The CTA buttons should be centered and close to the top of the email if possible. The recipient needs to be able to tap on the button easily. If your CTA is a small text link it will be very hard for them to tap on it. And … let’s be honest, no one wants to spend extra time to zoom in to your email to click on a link if you weren’t considerate to their needs to begin with… • Font size should not be smaller than 12 pixels. • Any images in your email should have both the height and width defined in the code to make sure placeholders show even if images are turned off. This will keep your message’s structure intact and help your intended receiver visualize the message - and hopefully motivate them to turn their images on. • Any images used in the email should have alternate text describing the image, a background color and a font color styled behind them using inline CSS. This will give your recipients a visual even if their images are turned off. • Use only absolute links for images, and host those images on a reliable server. The use of https links are best. • If you need to set a defined space between various elements in your layout and padding or <td> widths are being ignored by an ISP, you can use transparent spacer.gifs to fix this issue. These can be all shapes and sizes. • Make sure all of your characters are encoded. If they are not encoded, you may see your quotation marks, ellipses or em dashes turn into character junk when you preview your email through an ISP’s client.

www.bmielite.com Responsive Mobile Design. Responsive mobile design is the best way to go. Below are a few things you can do with the responsive methodology that you cannot do with a typical manual mobile approach.

• Use media queries to automatically adjust email width dependent on the size of the display screen on which it is viewed. • Font sizes should be larger on a mobile device. You can also adjust this dynamically using different media queries. • With this method you can have a multi-column layout for desktop and change it to a stacking single-column layout on the fly. • Hide or replace different elements (images or text blocks) that are not pertinent for conversion on a mobile version of the email. This can be done based on screen size and which platform the email is viewed on. Here are a few examples of things you can do: • Hide smaller buttons on a mobile display, and instead replace the smaller button with a larger one. • Remove the top navigation when someone is viewing an email from their mobile device. • For newsletters: Replace a lengthy block of text with a clickable headline. Increase headline font size. Remove the Read More button if you have one for the desktop version. Remove the thumbnails that accompany each article as well.

Yay! Your email is done. Let’s go find out who you are going to send it to. Time to crunch some data!

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Now that you have your new shiny email all ready to go, you need to send it to someone. Sometimes you just have one list of emails to send to. Sometimes you have a few. Other times you have one list with segments of lists within that same list. How do you know who to send it to? Should it go to everyone all the time? The simple answer is NO.

The bottom line is, not all recipients are created equal. There will be people in different stages of the sales funnel, and others may not fit the type of promotion you are running. Additionally, some humans may not have engaged with your brand in more than six months so they are less likely to be responsive, and more likely to negatively impact your brandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reputation.

There are many ways you can slice and dice your house data to create the ultimate target for any one campaign. You may have some preset segments already created. If not, you can easily create a new segment from scratch, provided you have the necessary ingredients in your database for the perfect recipient recipe. Not sure what to include in your segment data selects? Below are some different data selects you can use to become a master e-chef with your email list. Segment responsibly.

â&#x20AC;˘ Geography. Is your campaign specific to a location? If so, you should always make sure the correct geographic region is included in the list of recipients you plan to mail to.

Data, Data, Data | Know Your Email List(s) Inside and Out | • Age. Will a woman over the age of 60 be interested in pre-natal vitamins? Probably not. Make sure your campaign is relevant to the age group(s) you plan to send to and segment accordingly. • Gender. Men, you really don’t want to receive an email about feminine products, right? And women, are you interested in learning more about that little blue pill? Probably not. The wrong messaging to the wrong gender can be a total turn off. • Persona. Is this person single, a parent or a grandparent? Do they have a full-time job, go to school or are they a stay-at-home mom? Any one of these personas will react to your offer in different ways and from different perspectives. • Interests. Does your recipient like to eat out frequently? Do they like sports? Are they an avid bowler? Do they like to keep up with the latest beauty trends? Interests are a great tool to whittle down your email list even more when you really want to zero in for specific types of campaigns. • Type of Organization (B2B). If you are targeting other businesses, make sure it is one that’s in line with what you’re pitching. • Household Income. If you are trying to sell a $450,000 home to someone that only makes $50,000 in one year — do you think they are going to be able to buy that house? Nope. If they cannot afford what you’re selling it will do you no good to email them about things they cannot have. It will just make them angry and more likely to hit the SPAM button. • Past Purchases. If a customer has bought products from you in the past, chances are they are likely open to the idea of buying from you again as long as they did not have a negative experience. This information is great to use with loyalty email programs. • Buying Frequency. Does your customer buy daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly? Depending on the product, if you know what they buy and the frequency, you can use this information to send out reminders to encourage them to buy again.

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• Engagement Level. If you have a recipient base that constantly engages with the emails you send to them (opens and/or clicks) you can reward these “elite” customers with special sales, etc. Consequently, if you have recipients that haven’t opened an email in six months or more, you might want to exclude them from your email list for that campaign to avoid any flags from ISPs in case their account was turned into a honey pot (spam trap) as this will negatively affect your brand’s reputation and could prevent you from getting into Inboxes. • Stage in Sales Funnel. If you maintain an e-Nurturing program this information can be useful to determine what stage your customer is in. You can then send them one-off campaigns tailored directly to where they are in the overall email lifecycle you have in place.

These are just a few ways you can create a killer segment for your in-house email campaign. When choosing a third-party to send your campaigns, make sure they have the ability to create detailed segments. BMI Elite offers everything from demographic, interest and engagement level data selects, to geographical information and more.

If you utilize the “AND” function when adding segments, the recipients who receive your campaign will have to match ALL the criteria in each segment you add. If you utilize the “OR” function when adding segments, the recipients who receive your campaign may be in one or more of the segments you add to the campaign. You also have the option of using a combination of “AND” and “OR” segment definitions. Okay. We’ve built our segments. Now what? Can we send yet? No. Next is the fun part. Quality assurance and testing. Read on troopers.

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Amazing work! You have determined your audience, written your copy, designed your email, coded its structure, selected the lists and segmented with any additional data points needed. Don’t get trigger happy yet. There is still work to do.

It is important to know, not all email clients play nice with Email Marketers. Many ISPs have their own idiosyncrasies and these can adversely affect how your email renders on the screen through their client.

You will always need to test any new email design across all potential clients, not only to make sure it is rendering properly, but also to make sure the links work, etc. If you send an email to 100,000 people and the Call to Action is linked to the wrong page, or worse, broken … how effective do you think that campaign will be?

There are a few ways you can test your email. One way is to manually create multiple email accounts for all the major ISPs and then send that email to all of those email addresses. This would be your “test list”. Then you manually log in to each client and view the email to make sure it is rendering properly on the desktop.

But wait, there’s more. You have to view it on mobile devices as well. It is best to have at least one iOS and one Android device to test on. At minimum, view the emails on the native mail apps, and the Gmail, Yahoo, AOL and OWA mail apps if you’re really feeling spry.

When testing the links during the manual process, you’ll do this twice. Once on a desktop client (any one will do) and once on a smartphone. It is important to make sure your landing page works on both the desktop and any mobile screen as well.

From Quality Assurance To Launch |

I know all of this seems like a lot of work, but you only have one shot to get that conversion. Quality Assurance (QA) is necessary to ensure your recipients receive the very best presentation of this message you have worked so hard to send to them. Otherwise, what’s the point in pressing SEND?

Is manual labor just not for you? There are a few other options. Some ESPs actually have rendering capabilities within their platform. You may have to pay extra for this, but it will save you some time. You will still need to perform the link tests — that is not something you can automate.

If your ESP does not offer the rendering option within their client you can use third-party services like Litmus or Return Path. To use a service you will have to pay a monthly fee. And yes, you will still have to do your link testing separately. This is for client render testing only. No matter which method you use to test your emails, just remember — it must always be done!

www.bmielite.com QA Checklist • Legalities. All emails must contain an Unsubscribe link to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act. They must also have the name and address of your company in them. • From Name and Reply-to Address. Make sure these are correct. You wouldn’t want them getting an email with an invalid From Name or Reply- to Address … especially if you have a live person manning that reply-to address. • Spelling and Grammar. This is your last chance to catch any typos or grammar booboos. You can’t expect your recipients to take you seriously if you can’t even spell properly. • Email Renders Properly. Of course, the email needs to look good on any screen. Make sure you check on multiple screens and in multiple clients before every send. • QA your email in at least one client with the images turned off so you can see how that renders with the styling you set up behind your images. • Make sure there is a “Title Tag” and a web/hosted version link so users can click it and view it in any environment. • Links Work. If your links don’t work … your campaign was dead before it ever began. Check ALL of your links (including links for navigation if you have one, etc.). • Landing Page Renders Properly. If the landing page looks great for desktop users, but it is not mobile friendly, chances are your mobile conversions will be just as unfriendly. Follow through with your mobile- first approach to the very end.

Sweet! Your email has been QA’d, and it is A’OK. Yes. Yes. Go ahead and press the SEND button. Cross your fingers, but don’t hold your breath. Time will tell how successful your campaign is once the stats start rolling in. Let’s move on to find out how to play with email metrics!

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Congratulations! You’ve finally sent out your email. Are you done yet? No. Sorry. You still have a lot of things you need to do before your email campaign reaches the end of its lifecycle.

Once your email starts making its way out into the world, data will eventually start making its way back in. The first thing of note is the deliverability metrics. This will tell you just how successful you were at reaching the Inbox of those you targeted to receive your message. Beyond that will you want to check engagement metrics (opens, click-to-open rates, etc.) as these will indicate whether or not your message was well received by the intended audience. Let’s take a closer look at some of the email metrics you will encounter from your in-house email campaigns below. • Delivery Rate (Delivered). The first thing you will keep track of after you send out a campaign is the deliverability rate. This is an indicator of whether your message is actually reaching your recipients. Depending on how large your list is, and the settings on the server the emails are being sent from, delivery can take anywhere from an hour to many hours before the final metric is displayed. • Open Rate (Total Opens). This is the total number of opens each time an email is viewed. It doesn’t matter if it is the same person opening the email 10 times, it is counted every time. The rate is determined by the # opened / the # delivered. • Unique Open Rate (Unique Opens). The opens tied to this metric indicate the unique number of emails opened. Meaning, the open is only counted one time per recipient, no matter how many times the email is re-opened. This is a more accurate number when trying to determine true engagement. • Click Rate (Total Clicks). This is the total number of clicks counted based on every click made, even if the same person keeps clicking the same link or different links ... all clicks are counted separately every single time. The rate is determined by the # clicked / the # delivered. • Click-to-Open Rate (Clicks per Open). When it comes to knowing the true performance of your email with regards to actions based on those who actually opened your email, this is the more accurate metric to pay attention to rather than clicks or unique clicks. The click-to-open rate will show you the percentage of individuals that clicked on a link in the email you sent as it correlates to the number of individual opens.

Analytics, Analysis and Attainment | • Unsubscribe Rate (Unsubscribes). Anytime you are looking at this number after an email is sent out, you will see how many people opted out of your email list. Meaning, you cannot send them future emails. Don’t get too concerned if you see people have unsubscribed. There is a continuous ebb and flow of subscribers and unsubscribers for all email lists. The key to a low unsubscribe rate is making sure you are giving your users what they want and what they need so they don’t opt out. • Hard Bounce Rate (Hard Bounces). A hard bounce indicates a permanent reason an email cannot be delivered (e.g. bad email address). Typically, most ESPs will automatically remove that email from your list so it does not get sent to again. This will keep your reputation and your list clean. • Soft Bounce Rate (Soft Bounces). Soft bounces typically indicate a temporary delivery issue to an address. The recipient’s Inbox may be full or there could be a technical issue with the actual ISP at the time you are trying to send the message. Often, ESPs will try to resend the email to that recipient after a certain amount of time based on their server settings. • Block Rate (Blocked). Some ESPs will show you a “block rate”. This gives you a definitive confirmation that your emails are being blocked by specific ISPs. Most of the time it will be accompanied by a list showing you where you are blocked so you can troubleshoot why you are being blocked. It is important to resolve this as soon as you can if you hope to deliver future mailings.

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Depending on the ESP, email software or third-party company you are using, different metrics will or will not be available. Every platform is different, so be ready to use anything they provide to determine your campaign’s success. Ask your provider how to use their metrics to understand its performance. All of this information is useful when drawing a picture of your campaign’s success — or failure. Why? Here are some examples of things you can deduce from some of these metrics:

• Open rates can tell you how effective your Subject Line is. • Click-to-Open rates can tell you how effective your value proposition or call to action is. • High Unsubscribe rates can tell you how ineffective your segmenting or message was. • High Hard Bounce rates can be an indicator that your email list or data is not clean. If you are getting a lot of hard bounces, you may want to reach out to a third party to clean your list, or you may want to segment your lists to only include more active subscribers. • Looking at the top links clicked will show you what part of the message resonated with your audience — if anything. If you see a high amount of clicks in the navigation and not on your actual offer’s CTA you might want to consider putting a CTA in your pre-header text and link that to the offer as well.

Phew! Okay The email went out. You’ve looked over your campaign’s metrics, and now you think you have the big picture. Wrong. This is just a drop in the bucket. Now you need to add what you’ve learned into a life-long, never-ending and always changing email lifecycle performance analysis workbook. O-M-G. Did you just have a panic attack? Pick yourself up and flip over to the next chapter. It isn’t so bad. Honest.

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Once you have looked at the accumulated reports for your campaigns, over time you will be able to map out patterns. Based on this information you can draw psychological associations to a particular audience’s preferences and behaviors that you can then apply to your overall future campaign strategies and planning.

How is this done? Listen to what your users are telling you (they can talk to you even if you aren’t physically speaking to them). For example, if you send out an email at 11 a.m. repeatedly and your mailings have a low open rate, but you have a high open rate when you send other campaigns repeatedly to the same audience at 7:30 p.m. then … well … STOP sending the campaigns at 11 a.m.! There are various things you can track over time to help you alter your campaign strategies based on performance. Below are a few simple things you can map to get you going, provided you have access to all the data.

• Time of Day. Testing what time of day is best for specific campaigns can increase conversions. You can do this by splitting your mailing to be sent at different times of the day equally as a test during the initial launch, or you can send the same type of campaign (daily or weekly newsletter for example) at different times each time you send. Doing this repeatedly and then analyzing which times of day yield the highest Unique Open Rates over time will give you a good indication of when your audience is most susceptible to receiving your communications. • Day of Week. Much like the time of day, testing the days of the week will also help increase engagement and conversions. Generally it is not feasible to split up one promotional campaign over a span of days. Instead, you can send the same “types” of promotional campaigns on different days to see which day has more traction. You will plot the Unique Open Rates over time to reach this conclusion.

Look. Listen. Learn. | Rinse and Repeat |

• Revenue per Email. This gives you a good high-level understanding of how much revenue you are generating from your email list. The formula to calculate this is simple: revenue generated / (email quantity sent - number of bounces). Plot this out over time to see how your promotional campaigns are resonating with your audience and come up with strategies to change offer types if your returns start to falter (e.g. If you keep sending the same promo over and over your recipients may start suffering from email fatigue). • Type of Offer. It’s always good to categorize your email campaigns (newsletter, BOGO, XX% Off, etc.) so you can see which types of offers or content capture the most engagement from your subscribers. Plotting this with Unique Open Rates and Click-to-Open Rates (on separate lines preferably in a line graph) over time will show you which approaches work better and what your audience is more attuned to. • Subscribe Rate vs. Unsubscribe Rate. Maintain a clear view of your subscriber list over time. This will show your list’s progression as it grows. It will also show you any patterns of increased Unsubscribes or decreased Subscriptions — either of which are cause for concern and deserving of investigation. At minimum, plot these values once a week in a standalone report if your ESP does not maintain historical data in its database. • Device Type. Knowing what type of device your subscribers are using will not only help design efforts, it can also help to persuade higher ups that it may be time to rethink outdated methodologies that are not so mobile friendly if your target base is highly mobile.

• Hard Bounce Rates. Viewing your hard bounces over time will help you determine whether or not there could be a potential problem with your list. If the pattern of your hard bounces ever starts to steer into an incline you should see little red flags dancing around you like there is no tomorrow. Get that list cleaned ASAP, or segment even more to send the bulk of your campaigns only to your engaged subscribers (e.g. only those who have opened an email in the last six months). • Complaints. Have complaints increased over the last three months? What’s changed? Mapping this over time can give you a visual representation of possible initiatives that tend to get more complaints than others so you can plan to avoid those that generate more complaints. Just using these few suggestions you can start to analyze data and learn from it. Typically, it is easier to view these progressions over time using line graphs.

You’ll start out with week over week, then month over month and eventually you’ll hit year over year analyses. Use the information to continuously refine your strategies. Never settle. Not only will you curate and cultivate a healthy email list, you will maintain engagement, ultimately leading to higher and higher conversion rates as you learn and adapt to your ever-changing subscribers’ needs.

Happy Emailing!

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Don’t know what your agency, client or colleague means when they throw out words like ESP, Click-to-Open, ISP, etc.? No problem. We’ve got you covered in this comprehensive Email Marketing Glossary — complete with words, phrases and concepts you may encounter during your Email Marketing journey. • A/B Testing. Testing one element in an email such as the Subject Line or Time of Day. You can test more than “two” subject lines if your application allows it. The key point is, you are testing only one variable. • Above the Fold. The part of the screen on your device that you can see before you have to scroll down. • Acquisition. The process in which you add a new email address to your email list. • Alternate (Alt) Text. The text that shows up in the email behind the images when images are turned off. • API (Application Programming Interface). This is a set of coded routines, protocols or tools for building software components that operate as connectors between software platforms to facilitate data transfer (inputting or outputting data). • Below the Fold. When viewing an email, the part of the screen on your device that you cannot see without scrolling down. • Blacklist. A list of email senders associated with spam. This list is usually maintained by an independent organization and then used by ISPs to determine whether the email from that sender should be delivered. • Blocked. When an ISP prevents your emails from being delivered into their users’ Inboxes. • Bounce. When an email is rejected by an ISP because it was sent to an unknown email address or because of a temporary condition like the recipient’s Inbox being full. • Call to Action. (CTA) What you are asking the recipient to do in the message of your email. Usually presented in the form of a button or link. • CAN-SPAM Act. U.S. Laws set in place to govern commercial email senders to prevent spamming, phishing, etc. • Clicks. When a subscriber clicks on a link or button in an email message with a mouse, trackpad or tap on a touch screen. Links typically lead to a landing page.

Email Marketing Buzz Words Glossary | • Click-to-Open Rate. The percentage of subscribers who opened an email and then clicked on the content inside the email. Calculated by dividing clicks by opens. • Content Block. Content defined separately from the actual code in the overall email’s body. This content can then be inserted into the body of the email by using tokens to call the content into the HTML file before an email campaign is launched. • Content Filtering. When an ISP evaluates an email’s subject line and content elements to determine if the mail should be delivered and where (Inbox or Junk folder).

• Conversion. When a subscriber clicks through an email and takes the action requested by the email (purchase, registration, etc.). Creative Saturation. When a marketer sends the same creative/messaging in an email across multiple email providers at the same time potentially to the same ISPs. • Creative Saturation When a marketer sends the same creative/messaging in an email across multiple email providers at the same time potentially to the same ISPs. • Deliverability. The ability of an ESP to get emails into the Inboxes of the subscribers, rather than the emails getting blocked. • Delivered. When an email makes it to the Inbox (or Junk folder) of its recipient without getting blocked. • DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail). This is a validation system created to stop email spoofing. It has a mechanism to allow the receiving email exchangers to check the incoming email to determine if the domain is authorized by that domain’s administrators. It also makes sure the email has not been modified during transport. • DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance). Technical specification created to reduce the potential for email-based abuse to solve long-standing operational, deployment and reporting issues related to email authentication protocols. • Double Opt-in. A subscription process in which the actual opt-in to an email list is only activated after sending a confirmation email and the new subscriber then clicks a link in the email to confirm they are signing up for said email list. If they do not click on the link to confirm, they will not receive any further communications.

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• Dynamic Content. Content within an email that can change dynamically whenever the email is opened. Content changes based on geography, demographics, behaviors, etc. This is generally inserted into an email with a token from a third-party organization. • E-Nurturing Campaign. Series of emails sent to entice a new subscriber into converting or engaging with your brand. These are typically deployed right after a subscriber opts in to an email list. • Email Authentication. The process ISPs use to accurately identify email sent by a brand to its users. This includes DKIM, SPF and DMARC • Email Automation. Emails that are set up and sent automatically without manual intervention when a certain condition is met based on rules established during setup. • Email Body. The section below the header of an email, typically where the main messaging and CTA (Call To Action) are located. • Email Client. The application the subscriber uses to view the email. E.g. Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, etc. • Email List. A list of subscribers’ email addresses and information that opt in to receive emails from your brand. • Email Metrics. Measurement of data to determine the effectiveness of your email campaign / program. • Email Template. An email file that is preformatted to follow a specific style where each of the major elements within the design are located in the same place each time it is used to generate a campaign. • Engagement. Open, clicks and other interactions with emails by subscribers. • ESP (Email Service Provider). A company that has its own proprietary platform. You can pay to use their software and server(s) to send out your email campaigns. • Footer. The HTML text at the bottom of an email below the body section. This can contain various information, including brand/company information, terms and conditions, privacy policy link, social media links, unsubscribe link, etc. • Freemail. Email ISP clients that individuals can use for free, such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail or AOL Mail. • From Name. This is the name the recipient will see in their Inbox indicating who the email is from. This should always be reflective of your brand or something relevant to the campaign being sent to them. • FTAF (Forward to a Friend). This is when one of your subscribers forwards the email you sent them to a friend. Some ESPs have a special link you can add to your email body to track this. • Header. The section of an email between the pre-header and body areas of your email’s template.

Email Marketing Buzz Words Glossary | • Honey Pot. This is another phrase that refers to a spam trap (see spam trap). . • HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). This is the actual code used to create your email, tying the text and the images in a cohesive design for sending to recipients. • Inactive Subscriber. A subscriber who has not opened or engaged with an email in a long time. • Inbox Placement Rate. The percent of emails that reach the recipient’s Inbox versus being blocked or ending up in the Spam or Junk folders. • Inline CSS (Cascading Style Sheet). Formatting and style attributes that are coded directly into the body of the email code rather than in the header section of the code. • IP Address. Unique set of numbers separated by periods using Internet Protocol identification to communicate over a network. • ISP (Internet Service Provider). Companies who manage email distribution services like Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo Mail. • Junked or Bulked. When an email has been filtered by an ISP into the Junk or Spam folder after content filtering. • Landing Page. Webpage subscribers are directed to when they click on a link in the email. • List Churn. Subscribers lost to unsubscribes, spam complaints or bounces from email addresses that don’t work anymore. • List Hygiene. The process of keeping your list clean and free from invalid email addresses, undeliverable mail, spam traps, unconfirmed email addresses or inactive subscribers. • Multivariate Testing. Where you test multiple variables in an email instead of just one. E.g. Testing Subject Line, Time of Day and Main CTA for one email campaign. • Onboarding. The process of getting new subscribers familiar with your email program and your brand with a series of welcome emails. • Open Rate. The percentage of recipients who open your email. If the same person opens the email multiple times it will be counted each time. This only works if images are enabled as the images have to be loaded/rendered to register as an open. • Opt-down. Rather than opting out of an email list all together, the subscriber opts to receive a brand’s emails less frequently.

www.bmielite.com • Open Rate. The percentage of recipients who open your email. If the same person opens the email multiple times it will be counted each time. This only works if images are enabled as the images have to be loaded/rendered to register as an open. • Opt-down. Rather than opting out of an email list all together, the subscriber opts to receive a brand’s emails less frequently. • Opt-in. When an individual subscribes to your email list. • Opt-over. When a subscriber opts into another channel you offer during the unsubscribe process, like mobile or social. • Opt-out. When a subscriber requests to be removed from your email list. • Opt-up. When a subscriber opts into additional mail channels from a single brand via a preference center, loyalty program or sister brands. • Navigation Bar. Typically, a row of links to specific pages on your website. • Personalization. Information included in an email that is unique to the recipient in the subject line or body of the email. • Phishing Email. Fraudulent email that looks legitimate in an attempt to gather personal and financial information from the email recipient. These messages typically look like they are coming from a well-known brand. • Preference Center. Webpage that gives subscribers the opportunity to change their profile information, communication preferences, etc. • Preheader Text. HTML text positioned at the top of an email, before the header section, most often used to reinforce the subject line. • Preview Text. See Preheader Text. • Product Grid. A multi-column / multi-row layout where each cell in the grid contains a product image or other copy / information like product name, pricing and / or CTA button. • Promotional Email. An email sent to subscribers to sell them something or tell them about a sales event… Something that ultimately leads to some type of conversion action unlike a transactional email that is solely for giving a user information without the expectation of further action (e.g. order confirmation email). • QA (Quality Assurance). The process where an email is tested to make sure the email itself is error-free and functions properly before it is sent to subscribers. The targets and email setup are also confirmed to ensure an email reaches the right audience on the right day and at the right time. • Relevance. The value a subscriber applies to the emails offered to them, determined by how many emails you send, when they are received and the content within each email as it pertains to the interest level of the receiver. • Rendering. How an email client translates an email’s code and then displays it in the client.

Email Marketing Buzz Words Glossary |

• Reply-to Address. The email address a recipient sees as the email address they would “reply to” if they hit the Reply button of their email client. • Responsive Email Design. An email coded to adjust to screen sizes dynamically with the ability to manipulate various elements that show up in the email based on screen size and media type. • Segmenting / Segmentation. The process of defining the exact audience an email is sent to based on various data sets and selections. • Spam. An email that is determined to be unwanted either by the receiver or the ISP — even if it is from a brand they know and gave permission to email them. • Spam Trap. Email addresses are used by ISPs and blacklisting organizations to identify spammers by using addresses that have been abandoned, uncirculated or even contain typos. • Subject Line. The text that appears in the subject line of an email client. This is what a recipient sees in their Inbox that will determine whether they open an email or not. • Subscriber. An individual who has opted in to receive your brand’s emails. • Subscriber Lifetime Value. The cumulative profit or specified ROI generated by a single subscriber during their time on your email list. • Targeting. See Segmenting / Segmentation. • Tokens. Snippets of code inserted into an email to pull in content based on pre-defined code written outside of the actual email itself. • Transactional Email. Emails that are sent based on a direct action of a customer or subscriber. These do not require unsubscribe links as they are purely informational. E.g. Order or Shipping Confirmation emails. • Triggered Email. Emails that are set up and sent automatically without manual intervention when a certain condition is met based on rules established during setup. E.g. Abandon Cart emails.

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• Unique Click Rate. The clicks tied to this metric indicate the unique number of emails where an individual has engaged with content. The

clicker is only counted one time, no matter how many links they click. • Unique Open Rate. The opens tied to this metric indicate the unique number of emails opened. Meaning, the open is only counted one time per recipient, no matter how many times the email is re-opened. • Unsubscribe. When a subscriber requests to be removed from your email list. • Winback Campaign. A message sent to a subscriber who has not interacted with your brand’s emails or made a purchase in a long time as an effort to re-engage them. Also referred to as “re-engagement emails”.

References Adobe

MailChimp

BtoB Magazine

MarketingTechBlog.com

Comm100

Mashable.com

Convince and Convert FitBit Hubspot Litmus

Salesforce / ExactTarget SilverPop The Radicati Group, Inc.

Lyris

Unbounce

Return Path

VerticalResponse