Retouch Revisited
Posted by Bill Leming on March 11th, 2009
As times become more difficult for many businesses, we see more and more pressure on Marketing to maximize both revenues and efficiency. The days of Senior Management adhering to a “belief” that a particular marketing tactic was efficiently generating sales without “proof of life” are long gone. And while Email Marketing typically falls into the high efficiency/high revenue producing 2 x 2 quadrant, the fact that it has largely been relatively inexpensive has in part led to email marketing inertia and away from those segmentation, message optimization, file maintenance/hygiene and tactical best-practices we all know about but which few practice on a consistent basis day in, day out.
Compared to direct mail and telemarketing initiatives, email is so much less expensive that there is a tendency not to conserve but rather to “blast,” not to segment but rather to “spray and pray”, not to groom the list but rather to grow it at almost any cost. At least that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it despite at least one obvious flaw. If it’s so relatively inexpensive and so immediately quantifiable, why do so few of us utilize email re-touches as a means of driving revenue cost effectively with minimal downside risk?
More emarketers are realizing email render, click through and conversion rates for their retouches that are 50% of the initial communication and more often than not, 75% to 100% of the original email’s performance. The 50% re-mail response rate typically seen in direct mail 30 days after the initial mailing is consistently being outperformed by email re-touches. This may be the result of a far shorter response window inherent in the digital space versus the direct mail space.
But regardless of the reason, going back to the most-responsive segment or segments of the file after the initial deployment using the same, identical message with a revised and relevant subject line is easily testable, immediate and quantifiable. It will enable you to look at not only comparative response rates but also make sure you’re not creating a new problem (like increased unsubscribe rates, spam complaints, etc.)
Obviously you’ll want to limit the re-touch efforts to those within your most responsive and larger sub segments who have neither opened nor clicked on the initial message. Doing so will minimize risks of over mailing and help hedge the performance bet. As an additional precaution, testing this approach as well as several different subject lines with a smaller representative sample is strongly advised and should not be overlooked.
Next time you’re celebrating a great email success, consider how to immediately leverage that success and the knowledge you’ve just gained into even greater revenues at a projected yet reliable efficiency rate. Being perceived as an efficient profit center is always a good thing especially during tough times.
[...] weeks ago I posted a blog about specific retouch strategies and their potential effectiveness in driving revenues. Since [...]