On Tuesday 22nd November the DMA held its final breakfast seminar in the Email Customer Lifecycle Series, this time focussing on Win-Back. With over 80 delegates the seminar hosted keynotes from sponsors eDialog and a casestudy from Screwfix, as well as presentations from Tim Watson, Gianfranco Cuzziol and James Beauchamp.

Customer Win-Back – Protecting and Reviving Customer Engagement – Jill Brittlebank, Director of Strategic Services.

Approximately ¾ of your emails are going unread and communications through multiple channels are increasing, so how important is email really? In a survey to marketers by eDialog it was found that email ranked second (by 1%) to SEO as an excellent channel for ROI. Email has been consistently the top or second top channel for ROI since 2008. If ¾ of your emails are going unread, how do you define an inactive customer in a multi channel world and what role does email have in the purchase lifecycle of a customer.

Quick takeaways:-

• Once you understand the role of email in the purchase funnel for your customer segments, then you can improve the content of the emails you send to become more effective.
• Someone who is actively opening & clicking, even though not purchasing in the last year should be seen as active.
• The four types of Win-Back scenarios

o Reactivating inactive subscribers
o Reactivating lapsed purchasers
o Dealing with unsubscribes
o Dealing with invalid emails

• Prevention is better than cure – keep it relevant
• The 6 factors of relevance

o Segmentation
o Personalisation
o Lifecycle management
o Contact Management
o Interactivity
o Testing and Measurement

• Remember that if email isn’t the channel of choice give the customer another choice of channel
• Remember the ROI – it might be time for goodbye!

Re-lighting the flame – Tim Watson, Emailvision

The objectives of a win back program are to increase revenue, avoid deliverability issues and gain insight for causes for disengagement.
Key takeaways:-

• Identify your in-actives, learn how to separate the in-active and valuable from the truly inactive
• Remember that users don’t always respond with a click. Research from the DMA Email Tracking Study 2011 shows that many people actually go to the company’s website outside of the email.
• The time period of an inactive depends on your business
• A win back strategy can include the following steps

o Phase 1 – Insight survey
o Phase 2a – Win back
o Phase 2b – Win back follow up

• If the message isn’t working then change it! Use incentives, but don’t oversell

Keeping the flame burning – Email strategies to present losing a customer – Gianfranco Cuzziol

There are 3 key areas in keeping the email flame alive, they are sign-up, relevance and unsubscribe.

Key takeaways:-

• The sign up is very important at the start of your relationship with the consumer. Manage expectations, say thank you and make the process simple.
• Relevance is key in keeping the relationship burning.
• Define inactive. Were they ever active? Did they come from a competition? Did they ever get your emails? Check your inbox placement
• Remember nothing lasts forever – think about the natural lifecycle of your consumer
• Content and context are key
• Audit what device your customers are viewing your emails on, optimise your HTML accordingly
• Understand why the customer will unsubscribe, ask for feedback, offer to change frequency, offer another channel

Tested email strategies to win-back. The simple bare necessities – Susan Young, Screwfix
The four key areas for Screwfix win back strategies are Definition – Timescale – Relevancy – Messaging.
Key take aways

• Identify what defines a non active
• Define timescales – when is the right time to speak to your inactives
• How will you be relevant to all your inactives? Use geo targeting to enhance relevancy
• What messaging will you use – “We are sorry…” “What did we do to upset you..” “We’ve changed..”
• Start with the basics:-

o Segment your database into active & inactive
o Test timescales – 9mnths vs 12mnths etc
o Test relevancy/incentives
o Test messaging
o Test subject lines!

Win-back Campaign Examples – James Beauchamp, eDialog

James highlighted win back campaign examples from various brands including TJ-Maxx, Confused.com, British Airways and Dell.
Key take aways:-

• Who are our target audience?
• What is the desired response?
• What do we know about our in-actives?
• What else can we learn?
• What is in it for our subscribers?
• What happens after win-back?

In summary when planning a winback/reengagement strategy it is important to remember a few key points:-

• Identify and define an inactive dependent on your business. Understand the natural churn of customers
• Define your goals
• Think about the nudge affect of your emails on the customer, some people don’t respond with a click
• Learn from those who are inactive and why they have become so. Use this information to drive further strategy
• Test different creatives/subject lines/offers/content
• Remember that the more relevant your emails are earlier in the lifecycle the less inactives you will have
• Define a strategy for those you have won back and those who have remained inactive

Today’s event was a great end to the Email Customer Lifecycle series for this year. Next year the DMA will be bringing you this great series of events again, kicking off in April with “List Growth”. Thank you to all those who have contributed over this year to bring us some great insights, research, top tips and case studies on developing and strengthening our email customer lifecycle journey strategies. We look forward to seeing you all again in the New Year.

There are plenty of useful resources out there for learning about email marketing and you can read them to your heart’s content but sometimes, there’s no better way to learn than to get out there and get your hands dirty.

But, rather than taking risks and pushing the envelope with your own monthly newsletter, which can be daunting and potentially disastrous, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a safe environment where you could throw ideas out there, learn from you peers and get insight from industry leaders on all your email woes?

Well, good news, dear reader – the DMA and IAB’s latest “Ready Steady Email” Event is coming up this December in London and provides all of the above. Held in central London, attendees from all industries are put into teams and compete against each other to create an exceptional campaign, with top digital marketing professionals on hand to provide insight, judge the entries and, ultimately, pick a winning team.

It’s all about a hands on experience – there are plenty of opportunities out there to sit and listen to people give you advice but Ready Steady Email is all about getting your hands stuck in with a morning of activity and interaction.

Sounds good right?

Head over to book your place and check out the details below for exact dates and location. Look forward to seeing you there and may the best email-marketer win!

WHEN?

Wednesday 14^th December, 08:45 – 13:00

WHERE?

IAB Offices, 14 Macklin St, London, WC2B 5NF

MORE INFO?

Send us an email or get in touch with Anna on 0207 050 6969 or anna@iabuk.net.

Join the DMA Email Marketing Council on November 22nd 2011, for the final breakfast seminar in our four-part Email Customer Lifecycle series at 15 Hatfields in London (map). In this series we have looked at list growth, conversion, retention and in this final seminar, sponsored by e-Dialog, we are concentrating on win-back.

Register Now

Learn from the experts

Speakers will show you how to create a one-off win-back campaign for your inactive subscribers as well as an ongoing reactivation programme to prevent inactive subscribers.

Brands, including Screwfix, who have done both of these successfully and will present how they did these in two exciting case studies.

e-Dialog, will start off the morning with keynote presentation looking at win-back campaigns.

You then need to chose from two sessions:

Re-lighting the flame, tested email strategies to win-back
Tim Watson, Operations Director, Emailvision

This session will define just what is meant by inactive before moving onto how to effectively message to someone who is ignoring you. Real world tested examples are used and you will gain lots of ideas for your own win-back strategy.

Or

Keeping the flame burning, email strategies to prevent losing a customer
Gianfranco Cuzziol, Head of eCRM, EHS 4D Digital

This session looks at how we might spot when a customer is becoming less engaged with you and how you might try and get them re-engaged with ideas for your own retention strategy.

The morning will finish with a panel debate on these topics between our experts. You will also have the opportunity to ask them questions and mingle with your peers over coffee and breakfast.

What people said from the last session:

“ I found the overall information very useful and now have some great ideas to use for clients. I also learnt more about the industry in general and just how important it is and the effort needed to succeed.”
James Lovell, Email Marketing Consultant, dotmailer

“Very well organised, and being able to choose which session you attended helped to tailor the morning to you interests.”
Caroline Hutton, Junior Account Manager, Eclipse Marketing Ltd

On Thursday 6th October, the DMA hosts an event to mark the release of the DMA’s Email Tracking Study which asks consumers their views on the emails marketers are sending them and more. It is an invaluable insight into the state of the email marketing channel and let me tell you, the results this year are both surprising and insightful.

One of the details that came out of the study was that there is an inner circle or Email VIP list that consumers have when it comes to marketing emails.  You can find out more about how to get into this inner circle from Dela Quist at Alchemy Worx and hear about all the rest of the findings from the study from Paul Seabrook, director at fast.MAP.

Still maintaining the theme of the inner circle, the final session focuses on how Ticketmaster used email to enter the inner circle and establish itself as the market leader in online ticket purchasing.

You can find out more about the event on the DMA’s website by clicking here.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Sponsorship is a fantastic way for email marketers to stand out from their competitors. If done strategically, sponsorship can not only generate significant leads, but can also provide a platform to showcase expertise and present client testimonials. In such a small market, sponsorship can be one of the most cost-effective ways to differentiate an email service provider.

Sponsorship Options for Email Service Providers

There are a number of sponsorship opportunities for ESPs in a range of budgets. From large exhibitions such as Ad:Tech and Marketing Week’s Online Marketing Show to more intimate breakfast sessions with the DMA Email Marketing Council and online webinars, how can you be sure you are not only choosing the best sponsorship opportunity, but also making the most of it?

In order to help you leverage your potential opportunities, there are a few things to consider:

1. Do you even need to sponsor this event?

Sponsorship is a great way to access an audience and help build affiliation. However, there are other ways to do this through marketing and just simply by attending the event in question with a couple of good sales people who can work the room.

But if your competitors are also attending the same events, then sponsorship is a great way to stand out from the crowd.

Based on the audience you are targeting, options can include:

1. If the audience you are trying to reach is not familiar with your brand, I’d recommend exclusive sponsorship of the event ensuring that you also receive an opportunity to speak and present what you do best.
2. If you want to create loyalty with an audience who is familiar with you, then consider sponsoring an element of the event that you are trying to target and align new product launches.
3. To reposition your brand, look at alternative opportunities, such as sponsoring the photo booth or after party. This can help reposition an otherwise ‘dull’ brand as an engaging and approachable one.

2. How much?

Ensure you take into account everything that is required to make the most of any event that you sponsor. Your budget should not just include the cost of purchasing the sponsorship rights, but also any additional activation costs to make sure that your sponsorship is effective.

Activations can include:

- Prizes or promotions on the day
- Communications you want to send out to your current clients about your sponsorship
- Secondary leverage options such as posters to promote your sponsorship
- Follow up activity on those people you met through your sponsorship

3. Is your audience going to be there?

The best way to identify whether the audience you want to reach will be attending the event you wish to sponsor is to gather as much information about previous delegates. Although the lists won’t be identical, they should provide you with enough information on the level of delegate. Specifically ensure that the audience isn’t filled with organising staff and/or partners.

The second way to ensure that the audience you want to reach will be at the event is to invite them yourself. As a sponsor, you should ensure you receive a number of complimentary tickets to your sponsored event and co-ordinate those invitations with your sales team to set up an engagement programme. These invitations can also be used to further promote your sponsorship of the event helping to reinforce your affiliation with your current clients.

In some instances you can also request that the organiser invite specific brands you’d like to target – it never hurts to ask.

4. SHOUT about it

Sponsorship helps build fan loyalty with your brand and fans are people we all want on our side. If you aren’t telling people about your sponsorship then you aren’t getting the most out of the inherent rights that you’ve purchased – and best of all it doesn’t need to cost you a thing!

Depending on the sponsorship, it can and should be reflected in your client and prospect communications. These can include:

- Email signatures
- Social networks
- Blogs
- Email campaigns
- Promotions
- Your reception area
- Giveaways
- Website

5. Get them working for you!

Typically the event will have its own PR team who will be trying to promote the event you are sponsoring. Set up a meeting or at the very least send them your press kit so they can include your messaging whenever possible. Find out about their communication and marketing schedule and find ways of linking in with it. Typically providing a prize tends to lend itself well to being included with communications as the organisers also want to add value to their delegates.

Making sure that you really ‘work’ your sponsorship rights can add significant value over and above the rights that you’ve purchased with your sponsored event. Most of these tips can be done with little or no cost, but just make sure you have the resources to make your sponsorship truly work for you!

Last Tuesday the DMA Email Marketing Council held their third breakfast seminar in the popular four-part Customer Lifecycle series. The key topics were engagement and retention, with over 80 delegates the seminar programme hosted keynotes from sponsors Epsilon and case studies from Opodo and Hilton, as well as ‘How to’ presentations from Kath Pay and Riaz Kanani.

Loyalty – In the ‘Anywhere Economy’, Phil Singh, Vice President of Sales, Epsilon

Phil’s presentation defined loyalty, the challenges facing marketers and data strategies to help drive loyalty. Research from Forrester shows 57% of adults buy online with a 9% increase YOY. This figure looks set to grow in Europe with online buyers spending 8% more YOY which in turn increases online sales by 18%. This proves it’s time for marketers to harness the power of loyalty in the customer lifecycle.

Top 3 takeaways:

1. Listen to the customer throughout the lifecycle, identify the individual and build an institutional memory of the customer

2. Engage the customer by knowing what to say – messaging varies by individual so this is where data becomes critical

3. Measure, learn and repeat because ROI matters!

How to Session- Newsletters, Kath Pay, Plan to Engage

Kath looked into the importance of newsletters and what to get right when planning your newsletter campaigns. The first step is to define key goals and objectives. Then focus on contact and list growth strategies, design and writing skills and finally how you can use segmentation and triggered messages to ensure your newsletter is delivered at the right time with the right message. Kath also reminded delegates about the importance of testing as JupiterResearch reports 68% increase in ROI is achieved by testers vs. non-testers.

“Email newsletters are probably the single highest action to improve online presence” Jakob Nielsen

Top 3 takeaways:

1. Have a strategy for your newsletter programme

2. Little tweaks can make a big difference to your objectives

3. Measure the appropriate metric and continue learning and optimising.

How to session – Creating Loyalty Programmes, Riaz Kanani, Marketing Director, Alchemy Worx

Riaz set the scene with some interesting statistics from IGD such as; 60+% of consumers think that they will be worse off in the next 12 months and 71% of marketing directors understand the importance of loyalty schemes since the credit crisis started. Now is the time to engage consumers and the choices are endless. From weekly newsletters or milestone triggers such as birthday, renewals, points total to behaviour triggered messages such as purchase, reviews, and website/store visit emails.

‘The only way you create true loyalty is by your behaviour over time – do you in a transparent, reliable way, create benefits for people?’ Sir Terry Leahy, former Chief-Executive of Tesco plc .

Top 3 takeaways:

1. Clearly identify programme benefits and key pieces of (accurate) data and email touch points

2. Track your key success metrics and use market research

3. Leverage all channels to both drive interaction and engagement but also to learn more and improve.

Opodo Ltd Newsletter Case study, Oliver Beckett, Web Editor

Oliver Beckett talked about Opodo’s strategy, how they test, what works and what doesn’t. At Opodo their strategy is simple. Their aim is to make content relevant, timely and increase number of engaged subscribers. From a welcome email, to pre-departure, birthday, lapsed subscriber, or the weekly newsletter email they are in constant contact with their customers and are sending relevant content.

Top 3 takeaways:

1. Testing: Test 5 different subject lines and allow plenty of time before checking results

2. Personalisation: Address the customer by name and include other details such as flight information. Taking personalisation too far can be too much effort for a small audience.

3. Re engaged: Lapsed subscribers can be re-engaged, ask how what they want to hear from you and listen to what they want. By sending fewer emails that are more interesting you can help to re–engage your customers.

Creating Loyalty Programmes Hilton Hotels Case study, Phil Singh, Vice President of Sales, Epsilon

Phil presented an Epsilon client case study to show how Hilton Hotels benefited from a strong loyalty programme. It’s important to understand the members and their preferences to deliver direct and personalised communications by creating a 360° automated communications platform. The results were impressive, driving individual brand experiences to 25 million Honours members globally. New member activation communication open rates averaged over 34% vs. the promotional average of 22%
$8.5 billion in incremental revenue over 12 years.

Top 3 takeaways:

1. Consumer experience map, target, connect, engage and bond with the customer

2. Focus on new member activation

3. Automatically sense customer needs and respond to them with automated messaging.

The day concluded with a panel discussion where delegates were given the chance to ask the speakers more in-depth questions. Richard Gibson, Chair of the Email Marketing Council concluded the event. The DMA hopes that everyone who attended found the seminar invaluable and if you were unable to attend, don’t forget to register for the Email Customer Lifecycle: Win Back seminar on 22nd November 2011. It’s set to be a sell out!

Top tweets:

@katebarrett Listen, recognise, engage individually with targeting, interact consistently, measure, learn &repeat. Do it on the customers terms. #dmaemc

@AmeliaBingham Thank you @kathpay @RichardGibson @riazkanani Phil Singh Oliver Beckett for offering all your insight this morning and @EpsilonUK! #dmaemc

@kathpay Opodo always test 5 different subject lines before sending. They always use click rate to determine success. #dmaemc

@kathpay: Opodo’s weekly newsletter is their most important email they send out. Surveyed their customers for the redesign of the newsletter #dmaemc

Join us on September 20th, 2011 8:30  – 11.30am, for the third Breakfast Seminar in our four-part Lifecycle series, where we’re looking at List Growth, Conversion, Retention and Win-Back.

Retention: Creating great conversations and winning loyalty

Discover the best techniques for building loyal customers and increasing engagement with your database at this event, sponsored by email marketing experts Epsilon.

Experts will show you how leveraging triggered campaigns and testing can deliver both greater immediate results and longer term success. You will also find out about the latest Inbox Challenges – focusing on 2 new trends for 2011 – ISP managing inbox placement based on engagement and integrating email and social media.  These two trends have a huge impact on your ability to engage with customers – and keep the dialogue.  Social media’s impact means that while email remains the most popular activity on the internet, customers are selecting how they want to receive their messages, and marketers need to adjust their communications taking this into consideration.

There are two streams to choose from, how to create engaging and winning newsletters that build relationships or an in-depth look at how to build an effective loyalty programmes.

Newsletter session

Newsletters can play an important role in developing the relationship between your brand and your subscriber. In this session you will learn how to plan an effective newsletter strategy including how to design and write for the best results.

Learn first hand from travel experts, Opodo as to what works well in their newsletter programme, as well as pick up tips galore on running a newsletter programme from Kath Pay of Plan to Engage.

Creating Loyalty session

When used effectively loyalty programmes can convert subscribers into loyal customers and advocates. In this session Riaz Kanani of Alchemy Worx, will look at what makes a great loyalty programme and inspire you with some great examples. Additionally, Phil Singh of Epsilon will take you through the Hilton Hhonors Loyalty Programme so you can pick up some great ideas!

The morning will finish with a panel debate on these topics between our experts. You will also have the opportunity to ask them questions and mingle with your peers over coffee and croissants!

Our Speakers Include…

Richard Gibson, Return Path

Kath Pay, Plan to Engage

Phil Singh, Epsilon

Oliver Beckett, Opodo Ltd

Riaz Kanani, Alchemy Worx

Find out more…..

What people said from the first session:

“An excellent event, very informative and a good range of speakers to impart knowledge, experience and strategy.”

“Excellent and topical event from the DMA with case studies and good ideas to take forward.”

Join us for the second Breakfast Seminar in our four-part Lifcycle series, where we’re looking at List Growth, Conversion, Retention and Win-Back.

Conversion: Create customers and advocates using email marketing

Discover the best techniques for creating advocates and customers at this event, sponsored by email marketing experts Silverpop.

Experts will show you how leveraging triggered campaigns and testing can deliver both greater immediate results and longer term success. You will also find out about upcoming trends in 2011, how to plan and conduct simple but effective tests, get inspiration from some fantastic triggered campaign examples and hear two recent case studies from Centre Parcs and MyVoucherCodes.

There are two sessions to choose from, how to best test your emails or an in-depth look at triggered campaigns.

Testing and optimisation session

Tim Watson of smartFOCUS will show you how to implement an easy and effective testing strategy and explain the latest approaches to creating emails that grab your attention and increase conversion. By the end of the session you will know what design components can bring in the best uplift in conversion when tested and optimised for some easy wins.

Triggered campaigns session

When used effectively, triggered campaigns can bring in considerably greater ROI than regular emails. In this session, Richard Evans of Silverpop will look at the four different types of triggered campaigns available – Pre-transaction; Purchase process; Post purchase; Relationship building –and will show you how you can include them within your email marketing programme.

The morning will finish with a panel debate on these topics between our experts. You will also have the opportunity to ask them questions and mingle with your peers over coffee and croissants!

What people said from the first session:

“An excellent event, very informative and a good range of speakers to impart knowledge, experience and strategy.”

“Excellent and topical event from the DMA with case studies and good ideas to take forward.”
Date: Tuesday 12 July 2011
Time: 8.30am-11.30am
Venue: 15 15 Hatfields, Southwark, London SE1 8DJ
Cost:  DMA members: Free Non members: £25 (+VAT)

Agenda:

8.30am Registration & breakfast

9.00am Introduction from chair
Richard Gibson, Channel Relationship Manager UK, Return Path
@richardgibson   

9.05am Keynote speaker
Riaz Kanani, Marketing Director, Alchemy Worx
@riazkanani

9.35am Tips & Tricks
Testing & optimisation session: Tim Watson, Operations Director, smartFOCUS
@tawatson
Triggered campaigns session: Richard Evans, Director of Marketing, Silverpop
@rlevans

10.10am Tea & coffee

10.25am Case Studies
Testing & optimisation session: Centre Parcs. Larah Van Niekerk, ecircle
Triggered campaigns session: MyVoucherCodes, Richard Evans, Director of Marketing, Silverpop

10.55am 
Panel discussion
Richard Gibson, Channel Relationship Manager UK, Return Path
Riaz Kanani, Marketing Director, Alchemy Worx
Tim Watson, Operations Director, smartFOCUS
Richard Evans, Director of Marketing, Silverpop

11.25am Closing remarks from chair
Richard Gibson, Channel Relationship Manager UK, Return Path
11.30am End of session

Register here

Due to exceptionally good feedback in 2010, the Email Marketing Council decided to re-run the Email Customer Lifecycle series albeit with different speakers, case studies and content. So whilst the overall concept remains the same the content is completely different. In case you have never been to one of these events before the format is quite simple and always held in a morning with a great amount of content in around two and a half hours, allowing attendees to only be out of the office for a short period of time.

The first one of 2011 got off to an excellent start late last month on the topic of list growth or acquisition. The keynote speaker was Richard Evans of Silverpop set the scene for the morning: how do marketers grow their lists whilst balancing all of the internal stakeholder pressure and at the same time, where to most appropriately focus the efforts for the most reward. Several options were presented, along with case study data from leading brands across the morning and speakers included Susan Young of Screwfix, Richard Austin of Silverpop, Denise Cox of Newsweaver and Guy Hanson of dbg. I was impressed not only by the quality of the speakers and the content but the level of engagement and interaction from the audience who challenged the expert panel.

Feedback from the event was incredibly positive and if last year is anything to go by I expect to see many DMA members presenting, participating in case studies and attending the future events in this series. The next event in the Email Customer Lifecycle series will be on the topic of Conversion with two great case studies by MyVoucherCode and CentreParcs, and will take place on 12th July 2011, and is sponsored by Silverpop. Space is limited, so book now to ensure a place at this free event.

If you are interested in attending, or speaking at a future DMA event please contact Amelia Bingham at the DMA.

Join us on June 15th, 6-8pm for the next in our Whitepaper events.

At this evening event we are launching two new white papers by the DMA Email Marketing Council that will help you take your email marketing strategy to new heights, giving you valuable insights into how to test and segment your data.

Data Analysis and Segmentation White Paper takes you through the different stages of segmentation from setting your objectives to deciding on the right form of segmentation (eg profile, behavioural, lifestyle).

DMA Email Council member Simon Bowker from eCircle wrote the white paper which includes ideas for quick wins.

Split Testing White Paperis a comprehensive guide to split-testing (taking a campaign and sending different versions of the same email to different people). It provides marketers with all the basics to run a split-testing program.

Sponsored by The Database Group (dbg), the white paper is written by DMA Email Council members Tim Watson from smartFOCUS and Guy Hanson of dbg.

dbg will also demonstrate all these findings in a recent and exciting case study.

This event is not to be missed by anyone who wants to achieve better results and put their questions to the experts. It is also an opportunity to enjoy a summer’s evening with others in the industry.

To find out more, click here

To book, click here