E-mail Campaigns: The Proof of Personalization
I have been managing some product e-mail campaigns for an organization for the past few years. Doing coast-to-coast campaigns to support the face-to-face efforts of their sales force. The company released 4 new products in March 2007. Their biggest sales cycle for these products is March-July. So, we did a series of campaigns in support of these products last spring. In March of this year, we did 4 separate campaigns, one for each product as product re-promotes. The campaigns in many ways were very similar in content this March as they were in March ‘07.
I recently finished reading a book by Chris Baggott called E-mail Marketing by the Numbers. Chris challenges us to personalize e-mail campaigns as much as possible, including the “From:” line. Last year I was sending the e-mail campaigns with the company name in the “From:” line. After Chris’s suggestion instead of sending one bulk e-mail on behalf of the company, I sent the four e-mails in seven separate batches for each. Each one was “From: The Local Sales Rep”. You see, the reps are having fairly regular face-to-face sales calls with the prospective clients so they know these people - they have built relationships. Yes, they know about the company, but they “know” their local rep.
Guess what happened? The four bulk campaigns sent in support of the four products in March 2007 had an “Open Rate” of about 30-35% (the % of people in the campaign who actually opened the e-mail and presumably read it once it arrived in their in-box). The four similar content campaigns sent in support of those same four products sent in March 2008 with the personalized “From” line averaged a 10% higher open rate, and a 10% higher click-through (people who clicked on a link in the e-mail campaign that went through to the company web site for more product information) rate! Doing it this way took a little more time and effort to send seven sub-campaigns on behalf of each sales rep to support the individual product, but the payback is well worth it if close to 50% of your e-mail lsit are actually reading your pitch!
Personalization works when people are connecting with people. Relationships matter and deliver results extending into e-mail campaigns.
Filed under: E-mail, Marketing, Networking | Tagged: Chris Baggott, customer relationships, e-mail marketing
Excellent results, congratulations!
Anyway, recently I read that the best combination, if you want to personalise your emails, is to use a personalised content without personalising the subject line.
Moreover, if you put more links to your post, you should get more clicks - which is obvious, and to see the results of a research done on this, visit: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006065
Hello Simona, thanks for the link to this study. It is indeed interesting. I agree that using personalized content is the way to go, and I would also agree that one should stay away from personalizing the subject line (keeping the recipients name out of it).
I can see where they are getting the idea (and stats) that the more links, the more opens. I guess my question is, what are your thoughts on the length of the e-mail (content) itself? I personally find that e-mails containing too much content frustrate me because I don’t have time to read that much content (even if it is a subject I am passionate about).
I believe in brevity. Keep the communication focused. The e-mail succeeds only if it drives people to your site…not if you frustrate people with too much content and as a result too many links.