If the idea of starting an email marketing campaign overwhelms you, the authors of Email Marketing: An Hour a Day will introduce you to email marketing basics, demonstrate how to manage details and describe how you can track and measure results.

Foreword xv Introduction xvii Chapter 1 Understanding Email Marketing Today 1 How We Got Here 2 What Email Means to Your Audience 5 The Five Types of Email 6 Awareness 8 Consideration 9 Conversion 10 Product Usage 10 Loyalty 12 Understanding the Economic Impact of Email 14 Test Your Knowledge 15 Chapter 2 The Five Critical Elements of Every Email You Create 17 Creating Brand Impact 18 Determining How Much Brand Equity Your Emails Carry 19 Adding Intelligence to Your Design 22 Basic Elements of Intelligent Email 22 Using This Insight to Your Advantage 24 Driving the Purchase 26 Waging the War Against Email ADD 28 Beyond the Email Content: What You Need to Know 29 Creating Transactional/Service Messages 30 Adding Viral Marketing Elements 34 Two Ways to Define Success of Your Viral Marketing Efforts 35 Best Practices for Creating a Buzz Using Viral Efforts or Word of Mouth 36 Test Your Knowledge 37 Chapter 3 Getting Ready to Build Your Email Marketing Efforts 39 Aligning Your Strategy with Your Tools 40 Determining Your Tools: A Ten-Point Strategy 40 Evaluating Vendors 44 A Checklist to Maximize Your Vendor Selection Process 45 Organizational Readiness: Resources Required for Success 49 Budgeting for the Future 52 Justification: Selling Your Boss on the Return on Investing in Email 53 Test Your Knowledge 55 Chapter 4 What Happens Once You Send Your Email 57 Defining the Analytics Framework 58 Start with Your Email Marketing Plan, and Expand It to Include Your Company Growth Plan 59 What to Do If Something Goes Wrong 64 So, What Do You Do When It Happens to You? 67 Revisiting Your Budget 68 The Email Marketing Database and Future Multichannel Efforts 70 Phase 1: Awareness 71 Phase 2: Engagement 71 Phase 3: Consideration 71 Phase 4: The Buy 72 Making the Most of Your Email in a Multichannel Environment 72 What This Means When You Are Setting Up Your Initial Email Database 72 The Top Five Ways You Can Mess Things Up If You Are Not Really Careful 74 Test Your Knowledge 75 Chapter 5 Eight Key Drivers of Your Email Campaign 77 Key Driver 1: Email Address Acquisition 78 Your Website 78 Other Channels 82 Third-Party Sources 84 Welcome to the Campaign! 87 Key Driver 2: Creative/Copy 88 The From Line 89 Subject Lines 89 The Spam Check 90 The Width of Your Email Template 91 The Length of Your Email Template: Work Above the Fold 92 Email Creative Best Practices 92 Key Driver 3: Making the Data Work 93 Key Driver 4: Multichannel Integration 95 Key Driver 5: Technology (Delivery, Deployment, and Design) 96 Key Driver 6: Reporting/Analytics 98 Key Driver 7: Privacy/Governmental Control 100 State Registries 101 Privacy Policy Best Practices 101 Key Driver 8: Reactivation 104 Test Your Knowledge 105 Chapter 6 Preparing Your Email Marketing Strategy 107 Week 1: Preparing Your Resource Arsenal 108 Monday: Getting Smart (the Seven Essential Truths About Email Marketing) 109 Tuesday: Evaluating Tools and Resources 112 Wednesday: Budgeting 116 Thursday: Related Marketing Initiatives 119 Friday: Getting the Boss to Sign the Check 123 Week 2: Building the Blueprint for Success 124 Monday: Evaluating Your Current House File and File Size Needs 125 Tuesday: Creating the Acquisition Plans 126 Wednesday: Focusing on the Opt-in Process and Customer Preference Centers 128 Thursday: Reviewing the Opt-out Process 132 Friday: Making Sure Your Landing Pages Are a Good Place to Land 133 Week 3: Counting Down to “Go Time” 138 Monday: Mapping Out a Realistic Strategy 139 Tuesday: Defining Your Data Transfer Process 142 Wednesday: Making Sure Your Tracking Links Will Work 144 Thursday: Checking for the Deliverability Basics 147 Friday: Testing for Actionability 151 Week 4: Testing Your Way to the First Campaign 152 Monday: Choosing the Subject Line Strategy 152 Tuesday: Making Sure Your Content Can Be Seen 153 Wednesday: Ensuring Personalization Is Accurate 156 Thursday: Remembering That Emails Get Forwarded and Saved 158 Friday: Going Through the Success Checklist One More Time 159 Test Your Knowledge 159 Chapter 7 Month 2: Ensuring Success as You Launch Your Campaign 161 Week 1: Sending Your First Campaign 162 Monday: What to Do Once You Hit Send 162 Tuesday: Reading Reports 163 Wednesday: Managing Customer Service Replies 166 Thursday: Matching Your Response Rates to Your Forecast and Plan 167 Friday: Keeping Your Database Clean and Your Reputation Strong 169 Week 2: Creating a Plan to Optimize Your Results 171 Monday: What Your Reports Are Really Saying 171 Tuesday: Analyzing the Effectiveness of Your Creative 173 Wednesday: Pulling Together the Comprehensive Report 178 Thursday: Optimizing the Opt-in Points on Your Website 180 Friday: Creating Your Test 184 Week 3: Measuring Email’s Impact on Other Channels 187 Monday: Measuring the Role of Email in a Customer’s Purchase 188 Tuesday: Determining the Value of Your Email Addresses and Campaigns 193 Wednesday: Increasing Email Sending Costs to Improve Top-Line Results 196 Thursday: Exploring Web Analytics and Email Integration 198 Friday: Finding and Targeting Your Advocates 202 Week 4: Promoting Your Email Results Within Your Organization 206 Monday: Affecting Email Used in Other Parts of Your Organization 206 Tuesday: Sharing Results with Your Online Peers 209 Wednesday: Sharing Results with Your Offline Peers 210 Thursday: Using Your Email Results for PR Purposes 211 Friday: Looking Ahead to Dynamic Content 213 Test Your Knowledge 214 Chapter 8 Month 3: Adding Bells and Whistles 215 Week 1: Using Email as a Feedback Tool 216 Monday: Leveraging Email Surveys 216 Tuesday: Designing an Email Survey 217 Wednesday: Polls in Emails 220 Thursday: Email Focus Groups 221 Friday: Email-Driven Testimonials 222 Week 2: Creating Video- and Audio-Enabled Emails 226 Monday: Deciding Whether Using Audio or Video Is Right for Your Emails 227 Tuesday: Building the Five Layered Emails 228 Wednesday: Making Your Video Email Viral 230 Thursday: Making Your Video Email an Integrated Part of a Larger Campaign 232 Friday: Allowing Your Reader to Create Their Own Video Email 233 Week 3: Creating Mobile Email 234 Monday: Why Your Email Needs to be Mobile 235 Tuesday: The Mobile Email Creative 236 Wednesday: How Many Readers in Your Database Are Reading “on the Run”? 239 Thursday: Defining Your Mobile Email Preference Center 240 Friday: Making Your Current Email Strategy Work in a Mobile World 241 Week 4: Creating Social Email 243 Monday: When Email Is Used on Social Networks 244 Tuesday: Response Guidelines for Social Email 245 Wednesday: Reviewing Results for Social Email 247 Thursday: Social Messaging: Thinking Inside the Box 249 Friday: Keeping the Use of Social Email in “Check” 251 Test Your Knowledge 252 Chapter 9 Getting Ready for Year 2 and Beyond 253 Iterative Financial Analysis: Analytics Over Time 254 A Top-Down View of Annual Performance 254 Analyzing Individual Subscriber Segment Performance 255 List Health 255 Financial Performance/Budget to Plan Performance 255 The Necessity of Rebudgeting 256 ESP Refresh: Evaluating Your ESP and Technology Partners 257 Assessing Future Trends 260 Journey On 261 Appendix A Vendor Resource List 263 Associations, Events, and Publications 264 Email Service Providers 264 Delivery Service Providers and Reputation and Accreditation Management Services 265 Market Research, Agencies, and Consultants 265 Technology Vendors 266 Web Analytics Vendors 266 Appendix B Email Checklists 267 Email Design 268 Content 268 Subject Line 268 Preheader/Header 268 Preview Pane 268 Message Construct 269 Recovery Module 269 Footer 269 Code QA Testing 269 Precheck HTML File 269 Precheck Text File 270 Conduct Rendering Testing 271 Glossary 273 Index 284

Create Relationships and Revenue with Winning Email Marketing Campaigns A Step-by-Step Guide Email delivers significant ROI, increases brand loyalty, and is one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal when used properly. Are you getting the most out of your current efforts? Are your campaigns profitable? Are you building brand equity? Are you integrating campaigns with other channels? Renowned email marketers Jeanniey Mullen and David L. Daniels offer a fresh, insightful look at modern email marketing in today's customer-centric marketplace. They'll alert you to the newest concepts, hottest trends, most budget-friendly tools, and best practices—while they help you build, deploy, and manage a smart, day-by-day plan for success. Leverage eight different ways to use email for better results Use website analytics to improve your email efforts Create multichannel marketing strategies from your email database Set up high-impact video- and audio-enabled emails Develop email strategies for mobile devices and social networks Track, measure, analyze, and report your results You'll also find: What not to do when you send an email Straightforward tools for adding email to your current marketing plan and getting budget approval Online resources, cheat sheets, a glossary, and much more Real-world "From the Trenches" case studies that illustrate successes to learn from and mistakes to avoid Praise for Email Marketing: An Hour a Day "You don't have to quit your day job to start or radically improve your email marketing program. Just set this book and a decent pen next to wherever you brew your coffee. You and your bottom line will be glad you did." —Tom Gerace, CEO and founder, Gather.com "Jeanniey and David have written a book in which the power of email marketing becomes simple to understand and easy to implement." —Dr. Ramesh A. Lakshmi-Ratan, Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Direct Marketing Association "Common wisdom advises that 'the money is in the list.' That is absolutely true if you provide the proper experience. This book gives you real-world advice on planning campaigns for maximum impact, how to measure and improve your campaign's effectiveness, and how to do it based on your budget and resources." —Bryan Eisenberg, New York Times author of Waiting For Your Cats to Bark