DEM Campaigns are pure power for your business. We can reach millions of people at once.
If you are an entrepreneur, and you want to grow your Business, it is not important that you know what methodologies and strategies should be used to properly implement a Direct Email Marketing Campaign.
We know perfectly well that you are focused on your business. Being an entrepreneur means running your business, taking into consideration an incredible number of aspects, information and data. It means, first and foremost, managing people.
For this reason, it is our job to develop the entire strategy, which respects budgets and marketing, communication, and business goals you have indicated. In this way, you can focus on expanding your business.
Thanks to DEM Campaigns we can:
If you would like to learn more about some topics related to Direct Email Marketing, you will find a brief guide below.
Direct Email Marketing and Newsletters, basically, use the same communication tool: email.
The difference lies in the type of user we target. Newsletters are sent to one’s Database, while Direct Email marketing targets users we do not know.
This type of campaign, is carried out through specialized companies that have built profiled user databases over the years.
Basically, we do not use our own contact records, but those provided by third parties.
Very important aspect, the users who are part of these large databases have consented to receive advertising emails.
An aspect not to be overlooked, given the regulations in place, relating to Privacy and SPAM (unauthorized advertising emails).
A DEM campaign is based on some basic principles, which are analyzed and developed in the implementation phase of the marketing and communication strategy.
Let us look in detail at the different elements that constitute the Campaign.
Generally, the objective of a DEM is purely commercial. So it is a true marketing objective.
Marketing Objectives
Communication Goals
DEMs are also often used to achieve Communication goals:
Although it seems trivial, goal setting is an extremely complex and strategic issue.
And it must take into consideration all the elements that constitute the Campaign itself.
Having ascertained that DEMs are mainly used for commercial purposes, let’s look in detail at how to concretely define the objective of the Campaign.
If you want to sell a product, or a service, it is essential to define the sales strategy, which can be through:
E-commerce
It is definitely the best performing solution.
If the advertising message conveyed through Direct Email Marketing Campaign is effective, thanks to e-commerce it turns, immediately, into sales.
So we generate online business for our business immediately.
Website
If we are not equipped with an e-commerce, the advice is to integrate in the presentation page of our product, a button for immediate purchase.
For example, we can create it very quickly with Paypal.
Compared to e-commerce, it is a less performing, but still effective solution.
If we do not include a button for quick purchase, our Direct Email Marketing Campaign may be less effective.
It depends on the message we convey in the DEM.
It is crucial to keep in mind that an advertising message creates, in the user, expectations.
Therefore, if the user cannot buy the product right away, it is not recommended to use messages such as “Buy now and you will benefit from 30% discount.”
Basically, the user can only ask for information (phone, email or form), or request a visit from a salesperson (see next point).
Coupon
To be presented in a store, business, shopping mall, etc.
This type of strategy, is still used by shopping malls today, through newsletters and promotional catalogs.
Done through DEM, it has a much lower contact cost.
The key element is to set up the Campaign in such a way that it is measurable.
That is, how much business have I generated with coupons?
Sales network
This is most likely one of the most difficult goals to achieve.
People do not like to be contacted by salespeople. They don’t want to be subjected to the sale.
In order to convince the user to leave their data, the Company must have a very good reputation, and it must make the campaign attractive through a crazy sales pitch.
It basically expresses territoriality.
Where do we want to send our advertising communication?
Companies providing the DEM mailing service, have huge databases consisting of millions of users who have been profiled over the years.
The better the profiling, the higher the cost of sending the DEM. But the greater is also the transformation coefficient. That is, the Business generated.
Where to send our email advertising, depends on the territory in which we operate: local, regional, national.
Clearly, the greater the territory we target, the greater the numbers of users we can contact.
Often, when we are asked for Direct Email Marketing strategies, the company is fascinated by large numbers. “I want to send to the whole region, even if we operate only in Milan, at the limit we gear up.”
We do not recommend this type of approach.
Generating spotty sales throughout the region forces the salesperson to make dozens of quotes or visits, to serve customers who are beyond our reach.
Ideally, we should go spotty.
In this way, I saturate the market near my location, and subsequently attack neighboring areas, minimizing unnecessary travel costs.
This aspect is also part of the Focusing strategy.
This is the most important aspect. Who are we addressing? Who is the target audience of our marketing campaign?
Having a clear understanding of who our target Buyer Persona is is a key element in the implementation of a good strategy.
Targets generally fall into two major groups: individuals and businesses.
In the case of sending abusiness email to an individual, we are talking about B2C, that is, Business to Consumer.
Instead, in the case of communication to a company, business, professional, etc., we speak of B2B, i.e., Business to Business.
The communication strategy is totally different whether we are addressing an individual, or a business.
The Tone of Voice
In the marketing world, the different way of communicating with different buyer personas is called tone of voice.
And this clearly also depends on the type of product or service we are advertising, and how profiled the user we are targeting is.
Generally, communication to individuals (B2C) is more crisp, direct, and relies heavily on the business proposition: the discount.
Communication to businesses (B2B) is generally more professional.
The business aspect is important, but equally important are: credibility, experience, know-how, service, etc.
If I am buying a new piece of equipment for my workshop, or a piece of equipment for my medical center, I want to make sure that it always works, and that the service is effective and timely.
It is clearly one of the most important aspects of the Direct Email Marketing Campaign.
It depends on the goals we set, the market and target audience we want to address.
These are all elements that we need to take into consideration, in order to develop the right message.
If my campaign aims to sell products through an e-commerce, it will have a totally different communication style, promotion and strategy, compared to a campaign that aims to install water purifiers in apartments.
Whatever the Campaign, we can develop the strategy using 5 basic elements.
The promotional message must express extremely clearly, what the user should do once he or she receives the advertising email:
These are just a few examples.
Haven’t you ever gotten an advertisement and wondered , “Okay, but now what should I do?”
This is a typical example of an unclear “call to action.”
The call to action can generate different behaviors, depending on what the strategy determines: transient, nontransient.
If the advertising email is not transitive, it means that the whole strategy is contained in the email itself:
Call us. Several times in the email, prominently displayed, is the phone number to contact. If we receive the DEM on a smartphone, we simply click the number to initiate the call.
Write to us. Like the previous point, the email entered is clickable.
Download coupon. There are one or more buttons in the advertising communication that allow the coupon to be downloaded.
Book a visit from our salesman. The form is already contained in the advertising communication. Simply fill in the fields and press submit.
If our Direct Email Marketing Strategy involves transitive communication, it means that the user will be “taken somewhere else.”
That is, when he clicks a button, he will arrive at an external entity. Generally this is a website, or a landing page.
Landing page is definitely better performing.
Landing pages, or landing pages, are a kind of mini-sites, made to express the maximum value of our advertising campaign.
The user must find in a clear and direct way all those elements that express:
Like any Marketing and Communication strategy, in the case of Direct Email Marketing it is essential to prepare the strategy in such a way that each of its individual steps can be measured.
We cannot exclusively take into account products sold, inquiries, visits from our salespeople, etc.
For example, if the Campaign aims to generate contacts(lead generation), these contacts can be used as new subscribers to our newsletter, and be used for further advertising campaigns.
What can or should we measure in a campaign?
Average opening rate (open rate)
It expresses the total number of opens, divided by the total number of recipients, epitomized by the number of emails returned to the sender (bounces).
Rate of unique openings
Corresponds to the absolute number of recipients who opened the email. Expresses the effectiveness index of the email subject line.
Click-through rate (click-through rate or CTR)
It is the total number of clicks on the links in the email, divided by the number of emails delivered. It expresses the effectiveness rate of our communication.
Click-to-open rate (click-to-open rate, CTOR)
This is definitely an important value, as it expresses the ratio of unique clicks to the number of unique opens.
Bounce rate (bounce rate)
Indicates the percentage of email addresses that returned an error following a send. In the case of services provided by third parties, this value is biased toward zero.
Breakdown by device
It lets us know whether the user has opened our email on desktop, smartphone or tablet. It is a strategic piece of information to take into account for subsequent sendings.
Conversion rate (conversion rate)
Metric that measures how effective the message is, in relation to our intended goal. It expresses the ratio between the number of users who completed the action and the Emails delivered.
