chuck hester - email marketing - icontact

Best Practices for Customer

Acquisition and Retention Using

Email MarketingREAL ESTATE MARKETING

& TECHNOLOGY ACADEMY

April 28, 2010

Chuck Hester, APR

iContact Corporation

Chuck Hester, APR

• Communications Director, iContact

• Joined iContact’s in 2006 – Employee #27

• 30 years experience in marketing, branding

and public relations

• Traditional PR guy turned social media

expert

• LinkedIn Power User with over 10,000 first

level connections

• National speaker and Author on Social Media

iContact Corporation: Our Story

• Email Marketing Software for Small/Mid Sized

businesses, associations and non-profits

• Founded in 2003

• 190 employees

• 63,000 customers

The Team

6

We sent 6.1 billion

emails in 2009

Up from 2.9 billion

emails in 2008

0

100,000,000

200,000,000

300,000,000

400,000,000

500,000,000

600,000,000

700,000,000

Total Emails

Small Biz

Mid-Market

Agency

#1 Objective of Email Marketing is?

A: Acquisition

#1 Objective of Email Marketing is?

B: Retention

Email Marketing Best Practices

• Connect with your recipient. No matter how timely or

interesting your message may be. It must connect with

the reader.


• Inform and link. Provide information and tools that will

help them do their jobs better and give you an

authoritative voice as an expert.


• It is not all about you. Your newsletters should contain

roughly 80% industry information and 20% details on

your new customers, products, or news.


• Personalize. Use a personal email address, or at least

one that conveys an appropriate sense of placement.

Avoid “sales@” or other generic email addresses.


Personalize!Welcome to The Team (contact first name)!

I'm amazed at the strong positive reaction I've received for xxx concept. So

many people have called, emailed and joined xxx online that it's clear I'm not

the only one feeling frustrated out there in the sales profession.

Welcome to xxx’s first email newsletter, listing the most popular recent

articles and offering links to resources for sales professionals. Please contact

me with your questions, suggestions and feedback. We're figuring this one

out as we go along kids!

All the best,

Email Marketing Elements to Test

• Message Content

• Creative

• Frequency

• List Segmentation


Message• Know what you want to say

• Make sure the wording matches the goals of the

send.

• Compare the wording of different messages to

determine which is most likely to be read by

your audience.


Creative• Choose the correct combination of colors and

templates.

• Try to envision what a customer wants to see or

will respond to best.

• Fall message = Fall colors


Frequency• Consistency of contact is vital to the relationship

• Survey customers to determine an appropriate

level of contact

• Once you’ve established a schedule, stick to it!


List Segmentation• Use split testing to test creative and content.

• Determine which pieces your customers prefer.

• Continue your campaigns with best practice

according to customers’ behavior patterns.

Email Marketing Tips & Tricks


• Ensure all email recipients are opt-in or double opt-in.

This requires the recipient to ACTIVELY subscribe


ALWAYS provide an unsubscribe link.


Keep Email Short. 5-10 lines of text per paragraph.


Consider using a P.S. Readers may skim email but read

the P.S. Repeat an offer or incentive in that section.


Consider using a P.S. Readers may skim email but read

the P.S. Repeat an offer or incentive in that section.

As a member of xxx, you're eligible to a half-price initial consultation.

Normally $x for a two-hour meeting or phone consultation, I'll speak with

you about the challenges you're facing growing your sales for just $x.


Add personality to your emails.

Email Don’ts

Don’t:

• Send test messages to your entire mailing list.

• Send multiple test messages to your entire mailing list.

• Send test messages with unprofessional text.

• Send out untargeted “spam” mailings.

• Send broken HTML links.

Email Don’ts

Don’t:

• Send large media pieces that take a long time to

download or view.

• Send out HTML mailings as text mailings.

• Send mailings to unsubscribed recipients

Email Marketing Do’s

Best Times:

• 11AM through 3PM for businesses

• 5 PM through 8PM for consumer

Best Days:

• Tuesday through Thursday for businesses

• Friday through Sunday for consumer recipients


Frequency:

• Once a month is usually best. Time sensitive

offers may require more frequent mailings.

Variations:

• Sending up to three variations of the same offer

is a good way to improve response rates. But no

more than three attempts is suggested.


Prime the Pump:

• Get the recipient ready to receive sales offers

beforehand.

• Build credibility and then go for the sale.

Follow Up:

• A timely follow-up message sent one to two

weeks after an initial offer can improve the

response rate of that initial offer.

Contact Information

Chuck Hester, [email protected]

(919) 459-1451

www.iContact.com/media

Linkedin:

www.Linkedin.com/ChuckHester

Twitter:

@iContactCorp

@ChuckHester

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.icontact.com/media

http://www.linkedin.com/ChuckHester

chuck hester - email marketing - icontact

Real Estate