Emailmovers in the news – Database Marketing

This month Jamie Gledhill, MD at Emailmovers was asked for advice on the following issue discussed in Database Marketing magazine:

“With email marketing continuing to grow rapidly, delivering the very best possible email is the only sure way to stand out from the crowd. Just as in direct mail, testing multiple versions is the way to optimise – and to avoid wasting budget on mailers that are fundamentally flawed. We took advice from the UK’s top ESPs on the methods and software features that will maximise email response and income.”

The article in Database Marketing magazine quoted Jamie
Database Marketing| Testing key to integrating email marketing | Friday 17th February 2012

“Business purchases are generally higher value and the buying cycle is far longer, tends to involve more than one person and often requires extensive research on the part of the purchaser. “There are a whole load of factors that can skew the testing process,” says Jamie Gledhill, Managing Director and founder of Emailmovers. “You shouldn’t expect them to bite immediately, it’s a different emotional process.”

According to Gledhill, testing a series of emails is essential to see which ones – or which combinations – tease response from different business buyers. “We use plain text mailers to test before we considering sending HTML and use an autoresponder system that allows immediate feedback from the email rather than trying to force them to click through to a site or fill in a form.”

As well as the number of contacts needed, the creative and proposition are still primary concerns. For example, using a subject line of “Are you sick of late payers?” rather than “Are you owed money?” may well work better when offering factoring services. “You may need to ask in three different ways before they will respond at all,” he says. “The smallest change in the copy can still make a big difference and b2b doesn’t respond as well to HTML as it does to text these days.”