Build Email Campaigns to Engage Your Customers

Email Marketing can be a very effective way of keeping people who are interested engaged in your products and services.

I know that of late email has developed a bit of a tarnish and the buzz has gone to Social Media like Facebook and Twitter but this misses much of the immediacy that email offers. Email is very targeted and appears in the personal email in-box of recipients. Whereas, Social Media generally has to be actively visited and has a greater noise-floor (hiss under the music) to be overcome. Sure email has, and continues to, be mis-used but that is little impediment to a well delivered email campaign.

This article enlists the support of Lori Lee from Robot International. Robot is the organizer behind the mighty cool GreazeFest Kustom Kulture Festival, held annually here in Brisbane Australia. GreazeFest is all about the Rockabilly lifestyle including bands, dancing, cars, tattoos, art and of course friendship. The festival has an international following, much of which has grown from word of mouth (viral in forums etc.) and Lori Lee's canny use of her email newsletters.

All the Robot International websites offer users the ability to receive the Robot Roundup newsletters. The offer is completely non-aggressive. There is no inducement other than to be kept up to date with what is happening in the world of Rockabilly. This ensures that subscribers are truly interested in staying engaged with Robot happenings. While it would be tempting to pad the database with free offers. Lori Lee has avoided these hard-sell tricks because she realizes that her product is unique and the right people will join and those who don't join aren't really her customers. Classic "Tribe" building. As you will see when we look at the statistics this has paid off well.

Kontent Kontrol

The power of the email newsletter is in the content. While in many ways you may write anything but if your emails contain only news about how clever you are and thinly veiled pressure to buy more product people will switch off pretty fast - by your 3rd send your readership will be very poor. Far better to focus on the reader and what they want from you to improve their life. This means adding value to people's lives around the subject of your products.

Lori Lee has done this very well; "The Roundup has an informal, person-to-person language style, and uses easy to use features such as a clickable contents list, headlines, sub headings, photo captions and subject summaries."

The Roundup indeed is very personal. Every issue I can sense Lori Lee's passion in the writing. All the content is kept very much on-topic. I am happy to open every issue because I know that even if there isn't an event I want to go to this time there will be at least one picture of a Rocker with big hair and a big guitar (there might be pretty girls and cars too but I won't mention them lest I get in trouble). This is perfect for maintaining her tribe of Rockabilly and Kustom Kulture followers.

As a matter of interest I have seen Lori Lee's skills grow over the years simply from practice (and maybe some study). The message here is that it is better to get started with passion than to wait till you are perfect. After all it is the passion that really sells. Polish simply helps.

Counting the Beat

One of the interesting things about email marketing is the statistics. All decent email marketing applications (Lori Lee uses Ezemail) give feedback on the number of emails opened, links clicked, bounces (return to sender). These statistics let us know how well the emails are being loved by the receivers.

While we would like to feel that 100% of all emails are read from cover to cover this simply isn't likely.

The industry keeps track of average read rates and sadly they are pretty poor. Vision 6 publish stats every 6 months and they have been showing an average open rate of 22-24% for several years. Currently 23.75%. That simply means that less than a quarter of all emails sent are actually opened - let alone read. If the same numbers existed for a magazine they would have no advertisers in about 3 minutes. This is shocking. These numbers prove that most emails sent are top-down instead of inclusive.

Industry Average Statistics - sourced from Vision 6 statistics January-June 2009
Send	Emails Sent	Open Rate	Click-Throughs	Bounces
Large	1-499	34.62%	8.87%	6.82%
Medium	500-999	31.68%	7.86%	6.94%
Small	1,000+	23.22%	4.39%	7.24%

If a reader no longer wants to receive a newsletter they can i) un-subscribe, ii) delete it every time it arrives, or iii) declare it Spam. Of the 3 options, un-subscribing is the best option for all as it lets the sender know that this person is leaving. This information is more valuable than a non-open statistic. Some systems will ask for a reason for un-subscribing. This is great info if you can get it (and not get personally upset at the rebuff).

Roundup on Roundup

Lori Lee writes and sends a main Robot Roundup newsletter roughly every 6 weeks that is sent across Australia and to International subscribers. This is supplemented with a state-only send for us locals. Here are the average numbers Lori Lee has shared with us:

Robot Roundup Statistics - courtesy of Lori Lee & Robot International
Send	Emails Sent	Open Rate	Click-Throughs	Bounces
Major Show	1.700	42%	40%	1%
General	1,700	42%	27%	1%
Local	800	43%	14%	1%

The open rate is about 200% of industry average. Click throughs are up to 1,000% better. Bounces are almost negligible.

The Major Show emails have higher click throughs because the bulk of the information is on the GreazeFest website - and there is always heaps of it too
The General send has less compelling incentive to click to anywhere but still the rate is very high
The Local sends have twice the average click through despite the fact that all the required info for shows is provided in the email itself - people must be clicking through for pure interest and involvement

This is engagement with the tribe in action. I didn't ask Lori Lee to put a dollar value on this but if I were so forward I expect that these emails play a major part in filling her events.

As I expected, Lori Lee's read and click stats are way above the averages. The reasons for this are simple and already covered above but I will make them clear again here:

People subscribe to the newsletter for no other reason than they want to be involved in the lifestyle and products (events) on offer - no pressure or tricks
Newsletters are regular and consistent
Newsletters are always about the subject and inclusive - never top-down
Products are on offer but it is up to the user to choose them if they like - no pressure is applied
Passion and enthusiasm draw us in and keep us part of the lifestyle
While a user may not want to buy this time, the newsletter is always welcome for the idea that it may contain something that the user values

Read one of the
Robot Roundup
newsletters
here

If you step outside if this formula then you will start to fail. While it may seem tempting to try to manipulate your users to your own ends of more email addresses and more forced sales then you will have crossed the line from valued input to spam. No one wants spam. Everyone wants to be part of something that makes their life better.

Email marketing and newsletters are really as simple as that. Earn the interest, get permission and then send exactly what the readers will value week after week.