by Tim Watson May 22, 2020
One of the worst things you can do in tough times is stop marketing – don’t stop sending email. That’s true even if we had not hit a global pandemic.
Harvard Business School ran a yearlong project analyzing corporate performance from three previous recessions. Studying 4,700 public companies.
The project looked at data for each company for the three years before a recession, the three years after, and the recession years themselves.
There were big differences in company performance. [continue reading…]
by Tim Watson April 10, 2020
Over the years I’ve increased my skills continuously through reading and applying the knowledge. I thought it was time I shared the knowledge by sharing the books I recommend.
Why these books?
Simply put, they deliver the highest value. I can honestly say, putting the knowledge from these books into action has created a big impact. Saving countless hours of time and generating, directly and indirectly, £100K’s in value.
To help you pick I’ve grouped the books into three topics, leadership, marketing and business intelligence.
If you own a business or hold a leadership role, you’ll find someting of interest in leadership. Whather that’s being a more effective boss, building better teams or just getting what you want from the business.
Those with a marketing focus check the marketing books. These cover timeless principles that get you closer to your customers.
Finally, with more data than ever at our finger tips, skills to convert data into insight are valuable. If you enjoy digging into data these are for you.
[continue reading…]
by Tim Watson November 14, 2018
As a professional involved in email marketing, it is important to stay in touch with how your subscribers feel and use the email channel.
You hear claims from industry people of marketing and email overload, yet see people happily sign up for your list. And can report strong revenue from the email marketing channel.
As an email marketer spending hours working on email, it is easy to stop seeing email the way consumers see it.
Hence the Email Addiction report. [continue reading…]
by Tim Watson May 31, 2018
Whether you’re looking to improve an existing cart abandonment email or create your first, check these five strategy tips to get the fundamentals right. From cart abandonment subject lines to what you need to do for compliance with GDPR and abandonment emails.
1. Pep up your cart abandonment email subject lines
The importance of subject lines is no secret. They have the power to nudge people; even people who don’t open your email. Just seeing the right subject line can send someone back to your website or into your shop. [continue reading…]
by Tim Watson July 22, 2017
“What’s the best time to send email?” is one of the most popular email marketing questions. Should I send email Monday, or Tuesday? Should it be 11am or 4pm? I’ve reviewed several data studies to come up with the ultimate answer. It might surprise you.
Google trends for the phrase ‘email best time to send’ shows continuous growth.
And there is no shortage of advice. All it needs is some seriously big data and voilà, the question answered once and for all. Or not? [continue reading…]
by Tim Watson May 7, 2017
There is a problem with email automation that hits brands who have moved from a handful of simple triggers to advanced automation.
Simple automation can be very effective, so it’s natural to build many more automated emails to increase email performance.
It’s not uncommon for brands to now have several programs in place, such as this set of automation programs… [continue reading…]
by Tim Watson April 10, 2016
Can a focus group improve email marketing? After all email is rich in metrics already.
I talked to Gretchen Scheiman from L5 Direct and discovered that if you ask the right focus group questions the answer is a clear yes – there is a very good point to email focus group research. [continue reading…]
by Tim Watson September 7, 2015
How often should I send my email marketing campaigns, what’s the best practice for email frequency? It’s a common question and a very important one because email send frequency has a huge impact on overall performance.
The short answer is send 6.21 email campaigns per week, based on performance analysis of 199 million emails.
What’s more unless you’ve undertaken a review of email frequency as below you are almost certainly not contacting your subscribers with the right frequency. [continue reading…]
by Tim Watson August 26, 2015
Are you throwing away 10% of your revenue by doing what you’ve been told is the right thing with inactive subscribers?
That’s entirely possible if you follow widely held best practice. You know, those subscribers that haven’t opened any of your emails for over 3 months, you might as well stop emailing them?
After all, if you send say two emails a week, then after three months you’ve been ignored almost 30 times. You’re clearly not welcome?
The evidence is to the opposite, some of those subscribers who go through periods of not being interested in your offers can and do come back. In fact I commonly see over 10% of revenue comes from people who would have been considered inactive.
The chart below shows the response curve for the percentage of subscribers who opened by the date of last open. There are two key takeaways from the chart: [continue reading…]
by Tim Watson December 31, 2014
High open rates can make you feel good but you should be much more concerned about high click rates.
The reason? Simple, clicks translate more closely to real business objectives and revenue. In fact analysis of 196 campaigns showed [continue reading…]