We’ve been talking a lot about Email Marketing this month on the AlterSage blog. We’ve covered a diverse number of topics including Email Marketing mistakes to avoid, how to drive ROI from Email Marketing and how to stimulate customer engagement.

Now to round off this series of blog posts we thought it’d be a good idea to get back to basics and talk a little more generally about Email Marketing best practises and etiquette. Here are a few pointers:

• Always get permission. Permission-based email is the best way to drive proper engagement with your customers or potential customers through this channel. Sending unsolicited email can be regarded as spammy by recipients and can do serious damage to your brand’s credibility.




• Make it personal. A personalised greeting or subject line significantly boosts responses and open rates. Emails which contain these personalised elements are regarded as more credible by recipients. It’s possible to personalise emails using a database which contains entries for reader’s names.




• Keep it snappy. Your newsletter content should be scannable. Keep it short and sweet and make use of headings and bolding to create visually distinct areas on the mailer. Don’t email entire articles or stories – rather include an excerpt or teaser with a link to the full piece on your website.




• Make sure it looks good. Check that you’re email will pass spam tests and that it will render properly in your reader’s mail clients. Ensure that mailers are built in light-weight HTML without too many images – these slow down the email’s loading time and may be removed by some email clients.




• It’s all about timing. Test for the best time to send your email – and stick to it. A consistent delivery time or day can increase open-rates as readers are anticipating the email’s arrival and it’s less likely to be binned as spam.




• Let go. It’s important to include an unsubscribe link in all emails. This isn’t just a courtesy, it is mandatory on commercial emails. Allowing your readers to unsubscribe also enables you to keep a clean list of subscribers who want to receive correspondence from you. Similarly, if you find you’re getting several hard bounces from a certain email address, remove it to keep your database as clean as possible. Remember that while it’s great to grow your subscriber list, it’s important to realise that a smaller more targeted database is probably more useful than a large and unfocussed one.




• Run reports and analyse your results. As with all online marketing elements, Email Marketing is completely measurable. Ensure that you monitor the successes of each campaign and analyse the results to find areas where you could improve. Testing is an important part of getting it right.

Intrawest controls a number of resorts in North America. With its large portfolio, Intrawest has become the leader in experiential destination resorts in this region. The company started in 1976 as a residential and urban real estate firm and has evolved over the years include holiday resorts “where amazing experiences happen.”

Intrawest use Email Marketing tactics to stay in touch with clients during the off-season. According to Randy Cuff, Intrawest’s director of CRM and Email Marketing, their email marketing strategies “focus on promoting the resorts as four-season resorts.”

Intrawest is a good example of a brand that successfully integrates their Email Marketing and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. Below are a few of the things they focus on in order to create more value for clients through their email newsletters.

• Targeted newsletters are sent out to clients that are visiting any of the resorts within 14 days. The email focuses on reminding clients that they are almost on holiday and offers them links to activities in the resort that they can pre-book to make their stay more memorable.




• Email newsletters are personalised based on 750 different criteria. For instance, if a visitors lives in the area, they won’t need directions to the resort. In newsletters to local clients a link to the weather forecast is included to encourage them to plan a break-away weekend.




• Intrawest makes use of subtle cross-selling, for instance if a first-time visitor hasn’t booked a ski lesson yet they are encouraged to do so in their welcoming email and they have the option to rent their ski gear in advance.

Intrawest also found that when visitors only take one ski lesson they’re less likely to come back. Yet, if they participate in two lessons they’re more likely to become a skier for life. To encourage first-time skiers to come back for a second lesson, the ski instructor will take a photo of the skier during the first session and send it to the skier after the lesson with tips on how to improve as well as an invitation to book his / her next lesson.

Read the full Intrawest case study on ChiefMarketer.com.

Email Marketing is one of the most effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM) marketing tools and can be used very effectively to improve customer perception of, and engagement with, your brand. Wikipedia defines Customer Relationship Management as:

“a broadly recognized, widely-implemented strategy for managing and nurturing a company’s interactions with customers and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales related activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new customers, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former customers back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and customer service.”

Of course to be properly effective, a CRM strategy has to be implemented across the entire business – from marketing, to sales, to support – messages have to be consistent. When CRM is properly implemented and is running efficiently, it has been shown to boost revenue, improve the customer experience as well as streamline the productivity and processes of ‘customer-facing’ staff.

It’s widely recognised that one of the best CRM marketing channels is Email Marketing. This is largely due to the ease with which emails can be customised on a large scale. Essentially, this enables a business to tailor email content to suit the interests and needs of each of the contacts in their database. This is achieved though gathering certain demographic and personal interest data either though surveys or perhaps previous purchasing behaviour and then providing the customer with content that matches their preferences. This kind of marketing activity allows the marketing team to target the best and most qualified leads for the sales team – thus increasing conversions.

In practical terms, this means that Email Marketers should write different content for each segment of their database – depending on how they decide to carve them up.

As an example, if your business sells holidays in Africa, you could find out if your subscribers have a special interest in a specific destination or activity. If someone has said that they are interested in SCUBA diving, it makes sense to send them content and promotional offers related to diving or coastal destinations. By tailoring their experience in this way, you increase the likelihood of conversions and sales.

Such an interaction with your business gives the customer a sense of personal attention and value-added service. This improves their experience and perception of your brand as you’re not spamming them with irrelevant information. In addition, because you are eradicating the clutter, there’s increased probability that your subscribers will actually open and read the emails you are sending them. This creates greater brand awareness and is also bound to increase sales.

Emails can also be used very effectively as part of the transactional process. Sending emails to inform customers of the status of their order can reduce strain on customer care or support services. This proactive approach also helps to reassure customers that they made the right choice in purchasing from you, and that their goods are en route.

Have you considered how you could use Email Marketing to increase sales and leads for your business?