- Case studies showing how credit unions across the country are educating members using the email channel
- 5 tips to grow your email list that you probably haven’t considered
- The unseen risks of email marketing
- Practical CU email marketing best practices using analysis from millions of email sends
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Email Marketing : Reaching Your Credit Union Members Effectively
1. Reaching Your Members Effectively with Email Brian Bierbaum, Vice President of Interactive Services Brian Haugen, Interactive Marketing Strategist The Webinar Will Be Starting Shortly… Have a question? We’ll be checking the Questions Log!
2. The Study : Email Behavior Patterns in the Financial Services Industry E-Alerts E-Publication Offers Statement Notifications Priorityresults.com
11. Risk - Burning out your members and your email lists Priorityresults.com
12. Risk - Getting branded as a spammer Image credit: blogs.indium.com/blog/btob-marcom Key Finding: The small list sizes generate higher unique click rates, as opposed to large list sizes. Priorityresults.com
14. Risk - Experiencing Delivery Issues “$144 million dollars in email marketing spending in 2014 to be wasted on messages that never get delivered, marketers have to get serious about the costly consequences of poor delivery.” - Forrester Research More than 80% of delivery problems are caused by reputation. - Return Path Priorityresults.com
15. RISK – BREAKING THE LAW Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) - SEC 17a-4 and NASD 3010 http://www.diigo.com/09cuf Can-Spam Act http://www.diigo.com/08ysj Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) –Safeguards Rule http://www.diigo.com/09cuc Priorityresults.com
16. RISK – BREAKING THE LAW As a general rule, just don’t deceive people. Can-Spam Act http://www.diigo.com/08ysj Penalties of up to $16,000. Priorityresults.com
17. RISK – BREAKING THE LAW Use a secured FTP site or API. Encrypt your data. Never email your lists. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) –Safeguards Rule http://www.diigo.com/09cuc Priorityresults.com
18. RISK – BREAKING THE LAW Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) - SEC 17a-4 and NASD 3010 http://www.diigo.com/09cuf Includes advertisements and sales scripts. Only applies to brokers and dealers. Priorityresults.com
19. SMS EMAIL OPT-IN USING DISPLAYS AT YOUR BRANCHES Screen 1 Did you know… Save $1,100 per year when you bring your lunch to work or school instead of eating out (220 days x $5 = $1,100) Screen 2 Interested in more savings tips? Opt-in to our free email newsletter. Simply Text News "Youremail@email.com" to the short code 12345. “One benefit of SMS is you can place your mobile CTA’s in offline channels, in this case store signage. The response rate would’ve been much lower without the direct call-to-action that SMS provides” - Jeff Haddox , Pier 1 Priorityresults.com
21. Opt-in Checkbox Bartering Car Dealership Web Site Interested in learning more about auto financing from Credit Union X? Your Web Site Interested in learning more about autos in your area from Dealer Y? Priorityresults.com
24. It all comes back to Content Swap with targeted content Priorityresults.com
25. Questions? The presentation and highlights of the email study are available for download on our blog. priorityresults.com/blog Brian Haugen www.linkedin.com/in/haugenbrian Twitter: @haugenbrian bhaugen@priorityresults.com 952.852.1167 Brian Bierbaum www.linkedin.com/in/brianbierbaum Twitter: @BrianBierbaum bbierbaum@priorityresults.com 952.920.9909 Priorityresults.com
Notas do Editor
Welcome to Reaching Your Members…Introduce UsThank the AZCULFeel free to interrupt, ask questions via the questions feature, start discussions.Question list:How is an A/B test conducted?What was the process for your research? How do you know your stats are valid? What should our CU be focusing our content on? What happens when someone opts out? Is it bad to have people opting out? How do I really build my email list? What are the best practices? How effective have these optin tips been for your clients?I’m currently using Constant Contact. Is my sending IP address authenticated? How do I know?Are there any other list building tips you could share?Is there a way to segment my email list so they can get more relevant content? Our list doesn’t have many attributes attached to each subscriber.
Today we are going tofocus mostlycase studies to illustrate email best practices we have found over the years and end with some of unknown risks of email and a few practical email list building tips you probably have not consideredPast 9 years Priority has been testing and implementing email campaigns for the financial services industrygoal was to study readership patterns and click rates to create best practices for email marketers. The analysis was both quantitative, focusing on open rate and click through rate percentages, and qualitative, focusing on the layout and aesthetics.We reviewed four styles of email communications:E-Publication/Newsletters: educational contentE-Alerts: important, time-sensitive newsStatements: transaction informationOffers: promotions or discountsBefore Brian Haugen get’s us started…
They say that great salespeople provide what you want before asking for what they want. Even if your offer IS WHAT THEY WANT, don’t assume that’s the case for 100% of your subscribers. This isn’t an A/B test, but in general… study found that…Newsletters with promotional content receive higher clicks than outright promotional emails. (31)This case:Click rate: 2.1% vs. 4.6% (only counting promotional clicks)Publications typically have the highest open, click, and clicker rates of the four primary publication types. (16-17)
Not every email you send needs to have a call to action. Focus on education and providing value in every email you send.If you need to promote a product or service, consider doing it subtly in an article.Don’t be overly promotional
Could test putting hot topics as feature or lower – see which version reaches your goals better.
Our data showed… More opens on MondaySend-time optimization.
Need to unsubscribe them right away. “One click”.Is important, but a lot of emails don’t do this. Require login or try to sell you before unsubscribing.
Unsubs – Higher for E-Alerts and Offers.Means that your list is getting tired of your messaging or weren’t opted-in very well.Did you get good enough permission to email them? Branding…
Pause instead of leave completely. “take a break”FrequencyRelevance (in this case, affordable); for CUs, could be Auto Loans, Mortgages, Saving Money, etc…Change email address (also if you are opt-ing them in along with a general member sign-up, ask them if they want to provide a different address for the newsletter. Many people keep separate inboxes.Survey – why did you leave?
Can use your same design but segment list based on your demographic or psychographic data if available.
Before moving onto disscussing some of the risk of email marketing and optin tips do we have any questions?Aside from common risks, hitting the send button too quickly, sending to the wrong message to the wrong list, others?It is a privilege that your members have given you the opportunity to send them emails. Don’t overwhelm them. Can decrease their receptiveness to email and OTHER communication channels.- As an exercise, consider mapping out all the email touch points across your CU. Try to keep promotions to a minimum and keep your total email touchpoints per customer under 5/month.Consider implementing a communication preference center that allows members to choose the frequency they receive communications from your credit union.
This example turns out to be a simple fix. Simply make sure that you do not use IP addresses in your links and be sure to monitor the domains your linking to ensure they are not black listed.
When gathering your lists. Don’t purchase lists! Don’t scrape email addresses from the web! Make sure everyone is opting in to receive your emailsWhen sending. Use a dedicated ipaddess to separate your corporate email from your marketing and statements.Routinely clean your list.A small clean list off attentive, engaged subscribers is much more effectiveReview data for trends. Look for emails that routinely bounce, are inaccurate syntax, duplicate addresses, . There are tools available to help in this process if you have a large list such as Smart email Verifier that will actually to an SMTP verification to ensure the email exists.
Highly consider authenticating your domain- Review your list for hotmail, gmail, AOL, and other third-party emails providers. Sort your list by email provider today. If a significant % are from these providers authenticate your domain name. Not going into detail, However, we will provide some basic info sheet after the you can share with your IT departmentgood sending reputation - Your sending reputation is based on your history and volume of sends. Most do it yourself email providers pool you on ipadresses. If one person is spamming, your deliverability could be affected. We monitor all of our clients and the millions of messages that go out to ensure a solid sending reputation.In a nutshell, Authentication helps prove that you have the right to send email from your IP address. Deliverability rates could decrease without authentication, leading to lower open and click-through rates. Hotmail recently started requiring authentication; it is likely that other popular email providers will follow without advance notice.
These are legal issues. Not Marketing. Not IT. Check with your compliance team.
Can SpamThe law is basic. Penalties are harsh. Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000.
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) –Safeguards RuleNever email your lists to vendorUse a secured FTP site or API to transfer dataWhen practical, encrypt or password protect the data
Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) (note from Judy: now Financial Industry Regulatory Authority – FINRA)- SEC 17a-4 and NASD 3010 Common misconception: Does not include outbound marketing communications such as email. It does!You must archive messages and communications. INCLUDING ADVERTISEMENTS AND SALES SCRIPTS. - Only applies to brokers and dealersAnnotated Links highlight some of the more marketing focus sections of the laws.
Enough about the risks, let’s talk about overlooked opportunities to build your email lists.Tease them with a few educational tips Then offer the opt-inConsider tying to a sweepstakes to sweeten the deal. The real candy is the content.Fred HagermanVP Programming at American Marketing AssociationFirstmark Credit Union, San Antonio, TX March 2009 - 6,400 email addresses. January 2010 - 19,334 email addresses and growing. We expect to add 500+ this week. Branch incentives with email capture pads at the teller line. Email capture bugs on website, email, social media. Business cards from local chamber events & community activities. Publishing of email addresses as a Marketing KPI in all company reporting.
BBAlways Disclose you are opting in to another newsletter- Or - Have partner send the email on your behalf
Many providersExperian and other credit services may yield more accurate results They don’t send you a list of emails. Just send an email on your behalf with opportunity to opt-in
BB Imagine you’re sitting at a seminar and you hear the answers to a compelling trivia question that was in your email newsletter and the winner won a great prize? if you place a monthly trivia question in your e-publication and only give the answers at your seminars, it will help drive attendance and give people already at seminars a compelling and fun reason to sign up for the newsletter.The best trivia questions will educate everyone in the room Make sure to have a way to opt-in at the event
Content that educates, rather than promotes leads to higher open and click through rates AND is more effective at generating sales than strictly promotional contentMaintaining the relevance of your content to the individual is key to success. Action Items to Remember:Considering a communication preference center - Great way to make the frequency of your sends and the content itself more relevant to each member.Consider mapping out all the email touch points across your CU. Try to keep promotions to a minimum and keep your total email touchpoints per customer under 5/month.Sort your list by email provider today. If a significant % are from these providers authenticate your domain name.