Email Marketing Basics for Subscription Content

There’s a lot of tips out there about email and content marketing, but what if your product is content? In this in-depth How-To, we

There’s a lot of tips out there about email and content marketing, but what if your product is content? In this in-depth How-To, we highlight email marketing best practices for online publishers and other subscription sites that make their money through their premium content. Discover benchmark statistics, the virtues of in-house and third-party lists, great subject line keywords, and how you can best adhere to CAN-SPAM laws. Plus, we list 15 best practices you should observe and 6 advanced steps for the seasoned email marketer. Finally, we offer 16 creative samples to steal from and inspire your next email campaign!

Table of Contents

Email Benchmarks

Two Types of Emails

Subject Line Importance & Benchmarks

Strategic Considerations

#1. Free vs. Paid Content

#2. In-House vs. Third-Party Lists

#3. Segmentation

15 Best Practices for Email Marketing

6 Advanced Steps

16 Creative Samples

Email Benchmarks

Despite all the hoopla about social media, native advertising, and behavioral targeting, email marketing remains the preferred method for discovery and brand engagement for most consumers and businesses, according to a recent study by the Economist Intelligence Unit and Lyris. In fact, for an initial introduction to a product, 37% of consumers preferred email, while only 21% preferred social media and blogs, 16% preferred postal mail, and 33% preferred personal referrals. That’s right, email is beating out word-of-mouth!

According to the DMA (and this may surprise you), email brought in $40.56 for every dollar spent on it in 2011–far beyond online display ads, mobile, search, or catalogs. And its impact is expected to grow to an estimated $82.2 billion in product sales by 2016.

Sites selling subscriptions to information and content are particularly reliant on email marketing, with newsletters often being the best driver of site traffic and conversion for many subscription sites. In fact, email marketing beat out SEO and SEM!

The average email deliverability rate for all businesses is 87%, according to the DMA, but business and consumer publishing companies usually achieve deliverability rates around 95% and 99%, respectively, according to a recent report by Epsilon, a marketing services firm. The Epsilon report also reported open rates around 17% for business publishers and 22% for consumer publishers. The average click-through rate was 4.5%. Interestingly, the average click-to-open rate for business publishers was 13.4% while the same metric for consumer publishers was 33%. (This is likely because the study examined email delivered in the fourth quarter — October through December — when consumer purchasing is high and business transactions are low.)

Our 2013 Online Subscription Benchmark Report found that open rates were higher among paying subscribers than free users. In addition, B2B sites tended to get higher open rates among free users than B2C sites among free users, but B2C sites had a higher average among paying subscribers. Specifically, the median open rate among paying subscribers was between 20% and 30% for B2B sites, but 30% to 40% for B2C and hybrid (B2B and B2C) sites.

The Epsilon report also found that triggered emails (auto-responders, or emails triggered after an event, like an abandoned shopping cart) had a 70.5% higher open rate than business-as-usual emails. And overall, marketing emails always got fewer opens than other types of correspondence.

Two Types of Emails

There are two main types of emails — transactional (or relational) and commercial (or marketing).

Transactional or relational messages convey information related to normal business activities, such as receipt of purchase, notification of updates, etc. Most of them are pushed out to readers by editorial discretion, but alerts (which are quite popular) are usually set according to an email recipient’s preference.

Commercial/marketing messages are looking to make a sale of some type.

Technically, only commercial/marketing messages are required to adhere to CAN-SPAM laws, including the requirement for easy unsubscribe. Transactional messages are not. However, opt-in newsletters are a bit of a grey area because no money has changed hands, so there’s no transaction in the legal sense. So make sure to include unsubscribe links in your opt-in newsletters.

Transactional and marketing messages are also combined for other purposes. An example might be a welcome email that delivers a username and password to a free registered used (transactional) but also mentions a limited-time upsell to a subscription plan (commercial). (See Ancestry.com’s Welcome Email, which includes a free trial offer.)

This division is even harder for subscription content sites to draw since their content is often the product sold, i.e. the premium content could be in the body of the email or an attached PDF. In this case, email is a delivery, not marketing, mechanism.

Subject Line Importance & Benchmarks

Your email subject line is your first impression to any client, every time, so it behooves you to make it good. It’s true that because subject line testing has been made easy through most email service providers (ESP), and that some people may test too much, but you can never focus too much on the quality of your subject line. A bad subject line is like wearing cut-off jeans to a job interview.

A good subject line should always be relevant and appropriate. “Free beer” will always get a lot of opens, but if you’re not offering free beer, then your click-thru rate will be low and your unsubscribes will be high. (CAN-SPAM laws also prohibit such misleading subject lines.)

It helps to know what subject line keywords can increase open-rates, but the problem with email benchmarks is that they’re a moving target; email recipients catch on to trends fast and tire of them, so what was effective one quarter may fall flat the next. For example, subject lines starting with “Re:” or “Fw:” now depress open rates and increase unsubscribes.

Nevertheless, we’ve collected the current best practices for subject line keywords from a report email service provider Adestra published, based on an analysis of 90,000 email clients (all with a minimum list size of 5,000) from its various clients.

Keywords That Increase Open Rates:

New (17% lift in open rates)
Sale (23%)
Alert (38%)
News (35%)
Video (18%)
Daily (28%)
Weekly (27%)
iPad (31%)
Subscription (5%)

Keywords That Increased Unsubscribes:

Exclusive (22% lift in unsubscribes)
Free delivery (82%)
Gift (21%)
Voucher (61%)
Register (27%)
Monthly (14%)
Re: (91%)
Fw: (135%)
Subscription (89%)

Note: “Subscription” was found to marginally increase open rates for B2B emails, but also increase unsubscribes. It depressed open rates and increased unsubscribes in B2C emails. Therefore, subscriptions marketers should try to avoid using the keyword “subscription” in any subject lines, but feel free to use the word in body copy.

In addition, the Adestra report listed effective and harmful keywords for emails selling B2B or B2C content:

Keywords That Increased Open Rates for Content Publishers:

Breaking
Alert
*|*|* (i.e., three headlines separated by pipe icon)
*,*,* (i.e., three headlines separated by commas; more popular for B2C sites)
Daily
Weekly
£ (one can assume a $ sign as well)

Keywords That Increased Unsubscribes for Content Publishers:

Issue
Newsletter
Monthly
Access (in the context of selling subscriptions)
Renew

Also, keep in mind that more and more emails are being read on mobile devices. Email marketing expert Jeanne Jennings recommends that you plant as many keywords as possible in the first 25 characters of a subject line, since that’s the average number of keywords seen on a mobile screen, and consider everything after that “icing.”

Strategic Considerations

#1. Free vs. Paid Content

The big question for subscription content publishers, especially those with freemium sites, is how much of an email should contain free content (or more commonly, links to free content) versus premium content links.

Publishers have two options:

Separate free and paid content email newsletters, marketing the first to prospects and subscribers, and the second solely to subscribers. Insider currently does this with a weekly email on Monday to members and people who have registered for email updates via Subscription Site Central, and a members-only email on Thursday.
Create a mixed newsletter, which highlights free and paid content. Jennings recommends at least half of any content email contain links to premium content, and each of those links should lead to a specific paywall summarizing the piece and offering a subscription plan, with a call-to-action button above the fold. Some newsletters highlight which content is free and which is paid with icons or different colored text. This likely decreases conversions but avoids duplicity. An alternative might be to mention in the summary copy that the paid content is “Members-Only,” but avoid drawing attention through colorful markers.

#2. In-House vs. Third-Party Lists

The second major concern among email marketers is whether to use an in-house or third-party list.

**In-house lists are always better than third-party lists, so use them whenever you can and guard them from being blacklisted or corrupted at all costs!

You can grow an in-house list through a number of ways:

On-site email opt-in
Verbal or SMS opt-ins from clients/prospects
Keying in names from social media or other sources (i.e., attendee lists for conferences)

The best way to grow an in-house list through an on-site opt-in form. Jennings says most of her clients have opt-in conversion rates between 5% and 20% for on-site forms. Here are four best practices to follow when creating an email opt-in on-site:

The opt-in box should be in the upper right column of your homepage (you can also place one at the bottom of every free article). The box should stand out and have a form field with pale grey lettering that says “enter email address”. Prospects should not have to click to another page to enter their email.
Once they enter an email address, you can ask for additional information, such as title and interests, or even allow prospects to check which newsletters they may want to receive, assuming you offer more than one. But beware–for every additional piece of data, you increase the likelihood of form abandons.
Lightbox overlays can significantly increase email opt-ins, up to 1,000%, according to the DMA. (Example of a lightbox overlay below. Note that a darker background tends to increase opt-ins.) |image4|
Use a double opt-in feature. An AOL study found that email newsletters using “double opt-in” had a much lower average unsubscribe rate (7.6%) than “single opt-in” messages (22.2%).

Verbal opt-ins are pretty straightforward, especially if your employees are acting in good faith and you use a double opt-in feature that confirms the opt-in. You can also have prospects text their email address to you (this is great during events or for print materials).

Keying emails into email lists from social media or other sources is a bit trickier. You should only use this method if you feel your in-house list is inadequate or you’re looking for a wider reach.
One tactic is to key in emails you get from social media (LinkedIn and Twitter are particularly good for this.) Another might be to use the emails of conference attendees or member organizations.

But keying people in and delivering emails requires using a single opt-in feature. Your unsubscribe rate will be higher with these prospects, and you risk being marked as spam. Therefore, it’s better to create separate lists of “keyed-in” prospects. If your ESP lets you email multiple lists, you may decide not to email your opt-in list and your keyed-in list at the same time. Rather, create two identical email blasts and send them separately. And since each message that bounces or gets reported as spam counts against the reputation of the originating IP, you may want to send these separate blasts from two different IP addresses.

Third-party lists

Email list rental has not proven as successful a marketing tactic as direct mail list rental.

Therefore, if you want to use a third-party list, it’s best to have the list owner email your offer with your creative, rather than try to acquire names and email the list yourself. An email sent by the list owner is much more likely to penetrate recipients spam’s filters than one sent by you. Also, the list owner is also implicitly endorsing your product/content by sending the blast, which is always good for reputation-building.

Make sure the email blast links to a unique webpage on which you can collect analytics. The third-party should also provide you with email analytics.

If you decide to email on behalf of a third-party, you may want to place a disclaimer at the bottom of the email explaining how this “sponsored” email allows you to provide your free newsletter, content, etc. (See an example from WhichTestWon here). You can also offer advertising opportunities that are less likely to annoy your email recipients, such as letting third parties include a tweetable tip or collating multiple third party offers into a downloadable library.

#3. Segmentation

A few years ago, personalization was all the rage in email marketing. However, that trend has died down, with email recipients now hip to the automated nature of such messages.

However, segmentation still works well. Just like triggered and welcome messages get higher open rates than business-as-usual messages, so do emails segmented by customer behavior or interests.

There are various ways to segment an email list:

Based on reported customer interest (see our Case Study on Writer’s Market for a detailed example of this).
Based on customer behavior. For example, cart abandons can trigger a “save attempt” email campaign (See how Netflix does this.) Or previous buying history can trigger a special offer.
Based on email recipient behavior. For example, you can segment new subscribers from old subscribers, and create two different offers. Or you can create different offers for people who have clicked on an email in the past three months versus those who have not.

In addition, device detection, countdown clocks, and weather-driven offers all help present the most relevant content to recipients and increase open rates. Offer optimization (targeting consumers based on preferences or past behavior) also reduce unsubscribes by increasing relevance.

15 Best Practices for Email Marketing

Create in-house lists based on double opt-in procedures whenever possible.
Use relevant keywords in subject lines.
In accordance with CAN-SPAM, make it easy for prospects to unsubscribe from any marketing or commercial emails, but still receive transactional/relational messages. Keep in mind that global unsubscribes are the default approach of many ESPs, and if someone unsubscribes, you can never contact them again. Instead, create an option for recipients to unsubscribe ONLY from marketing campaigns and/or one newsletter, but not all emails from the company.
Unlike direct mail, shorter copy usually works better. Every sentence should be compelling so that readers keep reading. Numbered lists help. So does a sense of urgency
Images (even a photo of a publisher or editor) also work better online than they have in direct mail, but they should be clickable. Also, include ALT tags for all images and a link to “view this email online.”
Make sure the hyperlink/Call-to-Action button is above the fold (i.e., within the first 5-10 lines of the email)
Make all emails with free content shareable, either by encouraging subscribers “forward to a friend” or including social media links.
Table of Contents are shown to improve performance, especially click-through rates, so include one with just headlines up top in multiple-story newsletters. Anchor links (which jump from the TOC to the article summary in the same newsletter) are not as effective, so it’s best to just link from the headline to your website.
For B2B content, it’s best to send emails during business hours. For B2C content, emails that are delivered between 8pm and midnight, or on Saturdays, have been shown to have higher open rates, but you’re going to want to test this.
If you have an international audience, segment delivery for time zone differences.
Welcome messages are mandatory! It’s when your subscriber is most excited about your product and most likely to open an email. Use them wisely. Communicate critical information (username and password), but also include some onboarding and retention tactics (a welcome video, first steps, etc.)
Follow CAN-SPAM laws. This includes telling recipients where you’re physical business location and how they can opt out of future messages from you.
Track valuable metrics. This should go beyond open and click-thru rates. Some good metrics are revenue per email sent and revenue per opened email (or non-bounced email).
If you’re not optimized for mobile, start getting ready. (Discover your options in our On-Demand Video on Mobile Email.)
If you have a large list with sleepers, send a special blast encouraging them to re-confirm their desire to be on your list. If they don’t do so, delete them. This gives you a cleaner list and a more representative open-rate/click-thru metric. It will also save you money if your ESP charges by volume.

6 Advanced Steps

As always, testing will inform and increase your performance for almost any online marketing technique, including email marketing. Most ESPs will let you test subject lines, and you should do that when appropriate. But here are some good ideas that are not yet established best practices that you may also want to test in your next campaign:

HTML vs. text-only emails. There’s never been a decisive test on which one is better; instead the test tends to depend on the audience, so you should definitely see if a text-only email will do better. Note: some publications have seen improvement with rudimentary fonts, like Courier. You can test for this, but I’d also recommend a more natural-looking only font for text-only emails, like Times New Roman or Verdana. The point is to make the email look personal and like a one-to-one communication; in this day and age, that’s better achieved through Times New Roman or Verdana than Courier (unless your audience is really old and remembers typewriters). (See an example of this using Arial font from PR News.)
Layouts. Test the number of columns, image position, and pre-header. Some tests have found that an S-curve layout (like that employed by our Acquisition Infographic) increase performance. See if this works with your audience.
Personalization. Even though I said this is going out of fashion, it may still work on your audience.
Content. You can test a lot here, from content-to-image ratio to button color and design to font size.
Sender name. While your branding should be consistent across all emails, you can test whether using a company name or an employee’s name gets more opens. However, CAN-SPAM laws prohibit misrepresentation.
Getting whitelisted. The standard protocol for getting whitelisted is to passively ask email recipients to add you to their address book and hope they do it. A more clever way to do this is to create a free offer for anyone who replies to your email with “yes” or some such short phrase. By replying, you’ll automatically be added to their address book and whitelisted.