Are people are clicking through in your e-mails but not buying? There’s a simple solution: Mail them again, according to Reggie Brady, president of Reggie Brady Marketing Solutions.
Take the Greenbrier Hotel, of White Sulphur Spings, WV. It sent an e-mail to guests offering a $100 discount during the holiday season, and drew a clickthrough rate of 14.6%.
But there was one problem: Not everyone who clicked through booked a room, Brady said during a session at the Direct Marketing Association’s List Vision 2006 in New York.
The reason: “There was a lot of copy in it,” Brady said. “It offered the discount, but you had to read to find it.”
The Greenbrier waited three weeks, then did a second mailing to people who had clicked through but failed to book. It offered them a similar deal, but with a stronger presentation, Brady continued.
Like an old-fashioned print mailer, the e-mail highlighted its discount offer in a sort of online Johnson Box near the top. “Enjoy a free $100 gift card to spend in our bustling concourse of over 30 shops and boutiques when you book your December to Remember package,” it said.
As with the first mailing, recipients were told they could enjoy fine cuisine, live entertainment, classic Christmas movies and hot chocolate and cookies by the fireplace.
The e-mail went to less than 1,000 people, proving that the “segments don’t have to be large,” according to Brady.
The result? Within 48 hours, the Greenbrier had drawn bookings for 125 room nights worth a total of $75,000, Brady said. She called it “a perfect way of using that one-two punch.”
Want another one-two punch? Use e-mail to alert your customers to a paper direct mailing that is about to hit.
Orvis does this with e-mails stating, “Your sale catalog is on the way!” And Sharper Image offers sneak previews via e-mail.
“Your sneak preview of the new Sharper Image ‘Father’s Day 2006’ catalog features a fantastic free gift with any $75 purchase — and free shipping, too,” the firm said in a recent e-mail.
Brady added that magazines use e-mail to pre-announce their new issues. Time sends a weekly e-zine called Time Ahead.
Speaking of Time, Brady praised the magazine’s parent company for its preference centers. She recently went to the Entertainment Weekly preference center to update her e-mail address, and received an additional screen.
“We know you also subscribe to some other Time Warner publications,” it said, according to Brady. “Can we share the updated change with our other units?”
Brady remarked that this was “pretty savvy. It shows you how well they’ve integrated their business units as a company.”
Yet another e-mail tip was offered by panel moderator Lou Mastria, chief privacy officer and vice president of public affairs for NextAction.
He urged listeners to leverage their product-level transaction data to personalize landing pages for e-mail recipients.
Edmund Scientific did that, and improved its average order value by more than 130% and its revenue per e-mail by 270%, Mastria said.
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