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SAMPLE:
Email
Marketing
Best Practice Guide

Published March 2014 Econsultancy London Econsultancy New York

Wells Point 350 7th Avenue, Suite 307
79 Wells Street New York, NY 10001
London W1T 3QN United States
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be United Kingdom
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, Telephone:
electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording Telephone: +1 212 971 0630
or any information storage and retrieval system, without +44 207 269 1450
prior permission in writing from the publisher.
http://econsultancy.com
Copyright Econsultancy.com Ltd 2014 help@econsultancy.com
Contents
1. Introduction to Our Guides ............................................. 5
1.1. About Econsultancy .................................................................... 6
1.2. About the lead author.................................................................. 7
1.3. Expert reviewers .......................................................................... 8

2. How is This Guide Structured? ....................................... 9

2.1. Email marketing effectiveness factors ........................................ 9
2.2. Email marketing efficiency factors ........................................... 10
2.3. Features of this guide ................................................................. 12

3. Introduction: Smarter Email Marketing ....................... 13

3.1. Email: the unsung hero of digital marketing ............................ 13
3.2. Strategic benefits of email marketing ........................................14
3.3. Email marketing challenges .......................................................16
3.4. Email marketing options ............................................................19

4. Effectiveness 1: Aims and Goal Setting ......................... 22

4.1. Measuring email campaign effectiveness ................................. 23
4.1.1. Activity and engagement goals .............................................. 27
4.1.2. Value goals ............................................................................. 29
4.1.3. Benchmarking capabilities .................................................... 29
4.1.4. Auditing and benchmarking email programme
effectiveness ........................................................................... 31

5. Effectiveness 2: Segmentation and Targeting ............... 33

5.1. Layering segmentation approaches .......................................... 40

6. Effectiveness 3: Communications Strategy ................... 41

6.1. Event triggers and automation .................................................. 51
6.2. Social media integration ........................................................... 57
6.3. Newsletter communications strategy ........................................61
6.4. Managing the emotionally unsubscribed................................ 66

7. Effectiveness 4: Creative and Copywriting .................... 69

7.1. Copywriting for email................................................................ 69
7.2. Email layout and creative .......................................................... 82

8. Effectiveness 5: Testing and Optimisation .................... 95

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9. Efficiency 1: List Quality .............................................. 105
10. Efficiency 2: Legal Compliance Privacy and Data
Protection Law .............................................................. 113
11. Efficiency 3: Email Deliverability ................................. 119
11.1. Spam filter checks based on email characteristics ................. 120
11.2. Spam filter checks based on sender reputation ...................... 121
11.3. Best practice in email deliverability management ..................124
11.4. The issue of Graymail .............................................................133

12. Efficiency 4: Email Templates and Renderability ........137

12.1. Design and rendering for mobile ............................................ 160
12.2. Responsive email design ..........................................................162

13. Appendix ...................................................................... 165

13.1. Glossary .................................................................................... 165
13.2. Email marketing creative best practice checklist ....................170
13.3. Model for evaluating email marketing capability ................... 172
13.4. Diagnostic questions used to assess email marketing
capabilities ................................................................................ 174
13.5. Email marketing resources ...................................................... 177

Email Marketing Best Practice Guide Page 4

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and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright Econsultancy.com Ltd 2014
1. Introduction to Our Guides
Econsultancys Best Practice Guides help organisations improve their results from digital
marketing through improved planning and execution.

They have been developed to be the definitive source for best practice on a range of online
marketing topics and aim to explain best practice for successfully implementing established
digital marketing techniques across organisations of all sizes from micro-businesses to
enterprises.

When writing these guides, we work with respected industry thought leaders and seasoned
practitioners to contribute cutting-edge content and the latest learning. These are the people who
live and breathe the subject and are genuinely passionate about sharing their experience and
knowledge. You will find a list of the expert reviewers and contributors in the appendices.

In particular, the reports are developed to aid the following people:

Digital marketing professionals. Individuals in digital marketing teams who are actively
involved in improving results from online marketing activities.
Specialists. Those involved with specific digital channels such as email marketing who need
to understand more about integration with other digital marketing activities.
Managers of digital marketing. Those in a team responsible for planning and controlling
digital marketing.
Marketing managers and team members. Anyone responsible for traditional marketing
who wants to understand the issues involved with successful planning, implementation and
integration of digital marketing activities.

Key features of our guides:

Comprehensive. They cover all aspects needed for success in one place as well as
referencing other in-depth sources across different portals, forums, blogs, whitepapers and
books.
Accessible. Content is segmented to help readers navigate and assimilate relevant content.
In-depth. Topics are covered in sufficient depth to successfully implement suggestions.
Practical. They explain how to implement techniques and provide key success factors that
can be applied straightaway.
Improvement-focused. Our guides explain current strategies, tell you how to refine them
and will then help you implement an improved approach.
Cutting edge. The latest best practice advice is incorporated and potential areas of focus for
the future are highlighted.

Econsultancys Best Practice Guides are updated on a regular basis, so the information contained
within is recent and valid at the time of publication.

Send any questions or comments to Linus Gregoriadis, Econsultancys Research Director

(linus.gregoriadis@econsultancy.com). We welcome feedback.

Email Marketing Best Practice Guide Page 5

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1.1. About Econsultancy
Econsultancys mission is to help its customers achieve excellence in digital business, marketing
and ecommerce through research, training and events.

Founded in 1999, Econsultancy has offices in New York, London and Singapore.

Econsultancy is used by over 600,000 professionals every month. Subscribers get access to
research, market data, best practice guides, case studies and elearning all focused on helping
individuals and enterprises get better at digital.

The subscription is supported by digital transformation services including digital capability

programmes, training courses, skills assessments and audits. We train and develop thousands of
professionals each year as well as running events and networking that bring the Econsultancy
community together around the world.

Subscribe to Econsultancy today to accelerate your journey to digital excellence.

Call us to find out more:

New York: +1 212 971 0630

London: +44 207 269 1450
Singapore: +65 6809 2088

Other related Econsultancy content

60+ amazing email marketing best practice tips, stats, blog posts and more
http://econsultancy.com/blog/63233-60-amazing-email-marketing-best-practice-tips-stats-blog-posts-and-
more

Seven super exciting predictions for boring old email marketing in 2014
http://econsultancy.com/blog/64180-seven-super-exciting-predictions-for-boring-old-email-marketing-in-2014

Email Marketing Industry Census

http://econsultancy.com/reports/email-census

Email Marketing Platforms Buyers Guide

http://econsultancy.com/reports/email-marketing-buyers-guide

Customer Relationship Management in the Social Age: A Best Practice Guide

http://econsultancy.com/reports/customer-relationship-management-in-the-social-age-a-best-practice-guide

Email Marketing Digital Marketing Template Files

http://econsultancy.com/reports/email-marketing-digital-marketing-template-files

Marketing Automation Best Practices

http://econsultancy.com/reports/marketing-automation-best-practices

Marketing Automation Buyers Guide

http://econsultancy.com/reports/marketing-automation-buyers-guide

Marketing Automation Trends Briefing: Digital Cream London 2013

http://econsultancy.com/reports/marketing-automation-trends-briefing-digital-cream-london-2013

Email Marketing Best Practice Guide Page 6

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1.2. About the lead author
Dave Littlechild, DL Consulting

Dave has been at the cutting edge of email marketing for the
past decade. With a proactive involvement over the years in
email platform development, Dave helps inspire email
marketers in succeeding in their goals, reducing costs and
developing enormous growth in ROI.

A founder member of Adestra in 2004, for seven years Dave

played a pivotal role in the growth from startup to one of the
UKs leading email service providers.

He has worked as a trainer for the Institute of Direct Marketing in the UK and as email trainer
and consultant for Econsultancy in the US.

Dave is currently President and Managing Consultant for DL Consulting in New York, where he
works with clients on both a tactical and strategic level.

He possesses an in-depth understanding of practical application of email marketing tools and

other digital technologies along with an intrinsic drive to improve data management, which has
helped his clients to dramatically increase revenues and reduce costs.

Contact details:
consulting@davelittlechild.com
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/davelittlechild
http://twitter.com/davelittlechild

Email Marketing Best Practice Guide Page 7

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1.3. Expert reviewers
Dave compiled this report with the aid of an expert team of contributors and reviewers ranging
from clients, agencies, consultants and email service providers to ensure the recommendations
reflect current best practice.

Dave and the Econsultancy team are very grateful to the reviewers for their expertise and time in
helping to shape and improve this guide.

The expert reviewers were:

Gretchen Schieman, Managing Director, L5 Direct

Mia Papanicolaou, COO, Striata
Jordie van Rijn, Email Marketing Consultant, EmailMonday
Justine Jordan, Marketing Director, Litmus
Randy Levy, Director of Business Development, eDataSource
Damian Alexeev, Email Campaign Manager, Adorama
Karen Talavera, President, Synchronicity Marketing
Peter Girard, Corporate Communications, Return Path
Tink Taylor, Founder and COO, dotMailer
Tim Watson, Founder and Consultant, Zettasphere
Mark Power, CEO and Founder, Concep

Email Marketing Best Practice Guide Page 8

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and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright Econsultancy.com Ltd 2014
2. How is This Guide Structured?
Weve created this guide so you can use it to either review your existing email strategy or to help
create a comprehensive email marketing strategy from scratch.

Weve also included a multitude of practical tips you can apply to individual campaigns to help
maximise results.

Importantly, weve structured this guide to cover all aspects of email marketing necessary to
maximise effectiveness. So rather than purely focusing on creative as many books do, well discuss
approaches to segmentation, targeting, communications strategy and testing which are
ultimately much more important to a successful campaign.

There are nine key aspects of an organisations email marketing capability implementation that
must be managed for a successful project.

These cover both effectiveness and efficiency factors.

2.1. Email marketing effectiveness factors

Much that is written about improving results from email marketing tends to focus on a limited
number of efficiency factors; often creative and copywriting take top priority. Whilst discussion
around template design, layout and the position of the calls to action and subject lines are
important, this misses the bigger picture, which is relevance and context does the right message
arrive to the right person at the right time?

Figure 1 provides a summary of the main effectiveness and efficiency factors for email marketing
that well cover in this guide.

The effectiveness factors control the relevance of a message:

1. Effectiveness 1: Aims and goal setting

As with all marketing activities, we can only really improve if we compare results from our
email activity with our intended goals. Through this approach we can identify areas where we
are underperforming and try to improve them.
2. Effectiveness 2: Segmentation and targeting
The most important section, as your approach to segmentation and targeting is key to
delivering relevant, contextual messages.
3. Effectiveness 3: Communications strategy
Your email communications strategy defines how a series of communications are delivered
and integrated with other relevant media. Selecting the right context and timing for
messaging throughout a customers lifecycle in conjunction with targeting is a key aspect of
email marketing. Many are still not exploiting this fully. An important part of your email
communications strategy is how to combine email with other media such as social media,
direct mail or phone contacts.

Email Marketing Best Practice Guide Page 9

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and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright Econsultancy.com Ltd 2014
 4. Effectiveness 4: Creative and copywriting
Email is a unique channel in that the majority of subscribers that do engage tend to act
immediately on first viewing of an email. So creative copywriting and effective layout is vital
in order to encourage action upon first view. Well review examples across different sectors
showing how to achieve or increase engagement.
5. Effectiveness 5: Testing and optimisation

Test, learn and refine. The flexibility and immediacy of email, as with other digital channels,
enables us to put together a testing and optimisation programme which can cover many
variables. Well explain how to implement this.

2.2. Email marketing efficiency factors

Efficiency factors are the hygiene factors needed to make email campaigns and newsletters work
well. Improving capabilities for each of these will help improve results.

1. Efficiency 1: List quality

List quality is one of the most important factors to consider. Without this, delivering targeted,
relevant messages is a challenge. Well look at how to maximise growth through acquisition
whilst assessing and improving quality and hygiene.
2. Efficiency 2: Legal compliance
You need to understand the latest and relevant laws in the countries you operate in to get the
best from email marketing. Many companies restrict their activities through poor
understanding of the law.
3. Efficiency 3: Email deliverability
Deliverability is one of the big challenges email marketers face today. Consistently getting
emails to the inbox across various Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and through spam filters
takes a balance of technical setup, good data practices and relevance. Well look at how to
avoid major pitfalls, how to minimise false positives (mistakenly having your email labelled
as spam), and touch on new filtering in some of the major ISPs such as Gmails priority inbox
and handling of graymail (emails legitimately opted into but no longer wanted as frequently).
4. Efficiency 4: Email templates and renderability
Email visual design and technical coding in HTML is different to that of print or web and
getting it right from both sides is vital to an email displaying well in the inbox. It can also
affect deliverability. In addition to the multitude of email clients and webmails that are
constantly evolving in the way they display HTML content, today we have the addition of a
range of mobile devices and platforms to consider. Well look at key issues from both a layout
and technical perspective to help combat this.

Email Marketing Best Practice Guide Page 10

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Other related Econsultancy content
Five dating tips you can apply to your email marketing
https://econsultancy.com/blog/64270-five-dating-tips-you-can-apply-to-your-email-marketing

Five useful examples of effective email marketing campaigns

http://econsultancy.com/blog/62166-five-useful-examples-of-effective-email-marketing-campaigns

Why Manchester City's emails are premier league quality

http://econsultancy.com/blog/63300-why-manchester-city-s-emails-are-premier-league-quality

Personalised jewellery, personalised email: How Limoges raised revenue per email by 300%
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per-email-by-300

EasyJet email marketing flying high as Ryanair crash lands

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Email Marketing Best Practice Guide Page 11

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Figure 1: Summary of the main success factors for managing email marketing

Author: Dave Chaffey

Econsultancy 2009

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Econsultancy.com Ltd 2014
2.3. Features of this guide
Youll find these guidelines within the report. They are designed to summarise the main features
of an effective email communications strategy and to give you an easy way to benchmark your
internal (or agency) capability against others. The different features include:

A simple definition marked as bold.

A summary of best practice recommendations for you to check your existing or planned email
communications strategy.
Practical tips on email design and other aspects of email marketing.
Example screenshots of best practice email design.
Links to the best articles on each topic to save you the time in searching.
Key recommendations on approaches you should use and tips on email design and
persuasion.

Best Practice Recommendation: Example

Recommendation on email communications strategy.

Practical Tip: Example

Practical tips to improve the effectiveness of an email campaign.

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3. Introduction: Smarter Email Marketing
3.1. Email: the unsung hero of digital marketing
Email works. It did in the past, it does today and despite new and evolving challenges, its
influence will continue into the foreseeable future.

Email remains one of the most important tools in the digital marketers arsenal, and is still one of
the best ways for a company or brand to reach customers and prospects with relevant, timely
communications.

From our latest Email Marketing Industry Census1 it can be seen that marketers still rate email as
the best channel for return on investment after search engine optimisation, with 66% of
respondents rating email as excellent or good. Only 7% say that email ROI is poor, with a
further 27% describing it as average.

Figure 2: How do you rate the following channels in terms of return on

investment?

Source: Econsultancy / Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census

However, the number of respondents citing poor or average has

1 http://econsultancy.com/reports/email-census

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4. Effectiveness 1: Aims and Goal Setting
As with all marketing activities, we can only really improve if we compare results from our email
activity with our intended goals. Through this approach we can identify areas where we are
underperforming and try to improve them.

Before we can set goals for email marketing, we need to run through the main measures used to
evaluate it. If youre actively involved in email marketing then you may want to skip this section,
although we may have some measurement tips for you.

Key email activity 1: Measuring email marketing effectiveness

Tracking campaigns and the success of email programmes

What is it?
Using email marketing, web analytics and business reporting systems to assess the effectiveness
of email marketing activities.

Examples of best practice

These are the most important response measures that will be reported for an email campaign by
an email service provider.

Unfortunately, all email broadcasting systems use slightly different

Email Marketing Best Practice Guide Page 15

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5. Effectiveness 2: Segmentation and
Targeting
If you are still sending one-size-fits-all style communications, or as its termed in the industry,
batch and blast, you are failing to maximise email to its full extent. You are also likely failing to
achieve the level of response or success you could with a more targeted approach.

Today, recipients desire relevant content that feels like a one-to-one communication. This is as
per Drayton Birds maxim of sending communications that make people say How nice of them to
think of me followed by I want to find out more.

This is the opposite of SHOUTING offers at customers; which unfortunately is still how so many
companies and brands continue to conduct their email communications.

Key email activity 2: Segmentation and targeting

Selecting subscribers to target with specific treatments to increase
relevance

What is it?
Sending the right content to the right people at the right time.

Most companies will have many

Email Marketing Best Practice Guide Page 16

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6. Effectiveness 3: Communications
Strategy
There are still many companies whose approach to email communications is relatively ad-hoc.
Whilst its good to have flexibility in your programmes to be able to send certain topical emails,
having a good communication strategy is vital in order to achieve success and maximise
engagement, conversions and revenue.

From our Aims and Goal Setting section, you should now understand your recipients lifecycle,
and its important to put the communication strategy in place to tie this together.

Your communication strategy will define how a series of communications or campaigns are
delivered and where appropriate, integrated with other channels. Relevance, context and timing
for messages at various stages of your customers lifecycle (together with good segmentation and
targeting) are the key areas of focus.

Randy Levy of eDataSource has a good take on setting and improving your strategy. He
recommends:

A great way to improve your email programme is to

Further reading
Gmail offers unsubscribe link and the world of email marketing comes to an end
https://econsultancy.com/blog/64410-gmail-offers-unsubscribe-link-and-the-world-of-email-marketing-comes-
to-an-end

Email frequency: how much is too much?

http://econsultancy.com/blog/64165-email-frequency-how-much-is-too-much

Christmas email frequency: how to delight your subscribers

http://econsultancy.com/blog/63727-christmas-email-frequency-how-to-delight-your-subscribers

Why more emails at Christmas almost always means more money

http://econsultancy.com/blog/63747-why-more-emails-at-christmas-almost-always-means-more-money

30+ Christmas email marketing tips from the experts

http://econsultancy.com/blog/63714-30-christmas-email-marketing-tips-from-the-experts

For new markets, whens best to begin your email campaigns?

http://econsultancy.com/blog/64018-for-new-markets-when-s-best-to-begin-your-email-campaigns

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7. Effectiveness 4: Creative and
Copywriting
Email is a challenging channel in that the majority of subscribers act immediately on their first
viewing of an email, if they act at all. A small proportion of visitors may return to a message at a
later point. Blending creative copywriting to engage visitors the moment they review the email for
the first time is vital.

Practical Tip 1: Encourage readers to act immediately (or to return)

Use copywriting to create a sense of urgency and, where appropriate, use time-limited offers to encourage
visitors to act now.

7.1. Copywriting for email

In this section we start with an overview of copywriting best practice for email and then look
specifically at from names/addresses, subject lines and headlines.

Key email activity 3: Copywriting

Issues to consider in copywriting for email marketing

What is it?

In this section we will cover everything from functional attributes, style and tone of voice through
to how to make your emails more persuasive.

Best practice examples

This example from specialist digital copywriters Harvest Digital illustrates the conversational
style, which can work so well in email.

We have highlighted the use of

Further reading
10 things to avoid using in your email subject lines
http://econsultancy.com/blog/63816-10-things-to-avoid-using-in-your-email-subject-lines

152 killer keywords for email subject lines (and 137 crappy ones)
http://econsultancy.com/blog/63000-152-killer-keywords-for-email-subject-lines-and-137-crappy-ones

What you can learn from 1.159bn B2B subject lines

http://econsultancy.com/blog/11094-what-you-can-learn-from-1-159bn-b2b-subject-lines

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8. Effectiveness 5: Testing and
Optimisation
As with other aspects of digital marketing, one of the great benefits of emails is that we can test,
learn and refine relatively easily, in a short-ish timescale and at a fairly low cost. In this section,
we explain how to put together an email testing and optimisation programme.

Whilst the number of email marketers now undertaking testing is on the increase, our Email
Census shows that its still not as prevalent as perhaps it could (or should) be, with less than a
third of respondents saying that they test regularly. Advances in technology, particularly with
many ESPs, should mean that testing becomes more widespread, and with less drain on resource.

Best Practice Recommendation 1: Ensure sufficient resource allocated to

incorporate a test, review and learn approach into email marketing

Lets now review the different options for testing and improving email marketing.

Key email activity 4: Testing and optimisation

Testing different campaign elements to improve engagement and
response

What is it?

Testing different attributes of an email campaign or newsletter in a systematic way to determine

factors that improve campaign response. The purpose is to improve results in a second wave or
future campaign.

The two main types of testing that we will review are:

Email Marketing Best Practice Guide Page 19

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9. Efficiency 1: List Quality
From our Email Census, its clear that many are finding the biggest barrier to effective email
marketing to be list quality. This shows that improving the quality of your database is vital to
delivering targeted messages that perform well.

David Daniels from The Relevancy Group cites that nearly a third of emails go bad every year. He
goes on to highlight some challenges, in that at any time you have a number of addresses in your
list that are gold, others that are just dud and some that only behave how you want them to at a
particular time of year. The trick is to understand which are which and improve those that you
can.

In this section we review how you can assess and improve list quality and also maximise the
growth in email subscribers.

A good starting point when considering list quality is assessing the value of an email address.

Best Practice Recommendation 2: Involve users in sentiment testing, using focus

groups or surveys

Its true however that not all

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10. Efficiency 2: Legal Compliance Privacy
and Data Protection Law
You need to know the latest relevant laws inside out in the countries you operate in to get the best
from email marketing. Many companies restrict their activities through poor understanding of the
law, whilst others risk possible fines for not complying.

Well give an overview of some of the legal requirements around privacy and data protection,
however ours and the authors disclaimer is that we are not (nor do we wish to become) lawyers.
This is based upon our reading of the law, and does not constitute legal advice. Rather, well break
the key points down into plain language.

Best Practice Recommendation 3: Comply with local consumer email privacy

laws

The main laws specifically related to email marketing are privacy and data protection related and
it is on these we focus in this section.

Key email activity 5: Managing privacy and data protection

Privacy and security are about protecting the users identity and
information online

What is it?

Fears over security and privacy

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11. Efficiency 3: Email Deliverability
According to email intelligence company Return Path, more than 20% of all commercial email
does not make it to the inbox. Thats the legitimate stuff, and thats a pretty high number.

The compilations from corporate inbound email management services such as MessageLabs show
that spam still fluctuates between 70% and 90% of all messages flying around cyberspace,
depending on the latest anti-spam initiatives or which prolific spammers have been arrested
recently.

Return Path explained once at a conference why the

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12. Efficiency 4: Email Templates and
Renderability
Getting your template design right is one of the most important areas of email marketing. Poorly
designed templates will either be ineffective at driving recipient response, can affect deliverability
or could increase unsubscribes.

Spammers are sloppy in both design and coding, meaning that in addition to delivery risks, if
your badly designed or coded email does make the inbox, theres a risk that recipients will still
consider your email to be spam if it doesnt display properly. At worse this leads to complaints,
whilst at best it gets deleted and not actioned.

The ever-increasing challenge here is with the enormous variety of email clients and mobile
devices and the way they choose to handle and display your email. This presents a challenge in
both displaying and not breaking, and displaying in a way that users are able to interact with your
emails.

Despite this, many email template designs fail. Theyre often created by designers experienced in
web or print, but they dont work well in the inbox. Some of the main reasons they fail include:

Main messages and message hierarchy unclear

Too much clutter reducing focus on offer
Call to action not prominent

Many of these problems can occur for

Best Practice Recommendation 4: Adopt a holistic approach to creating and

reviewing email template design

Email Marketing Best Practice Guide Page 23

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13. Appendix
13.1. Glossary
Bounce rate
See hard bounce and soft bounce. Note that in web analytics, bounce rate typically refers to
the percentage of people who visit a landing page, but do not visit a subsequent page.

Behavioural targeting
Email subscribers are sent specific messages dependent on previous actions such as opening or
clicking on an email, browsing a category on a website or, more generally, purchasing particular
products.

Blacklist (or blocklist)

Blacklists include two main types: broadcast server-based (DNSBLs) and

13.2. Email marketing creative best practice checklist

Email header check
Subject line. Does the subject line clearly state the offer or reason to open the email in five
to eight words? First word(s) most important. Dont repeat words already in from. Longer
may be better!
For newsletters. Is the main theme(s) or offer

Offers and messaging

Copy check

Dynamic content

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13.3. Model for evaluating email marketing capability
A. Goal setting and C. Segmentation, D. Email marketing
Email marketing B. Contact strategy and
evaluation for email targeting and integration and E. Test and learn
capability level policy
marketing personalisation governance
1. Limited relevance
Pray and Spray
CMM: Initial

2. Improving relevance
CMM: Managed

3. Segmented relevance
CMM: Defined

4. Contextual relevance
CMM: Quantitatively
managed

5. Optimised relevance
CMM: Optimizing

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Econsultancy.com Ltd 2014
13.4. Diagnostic questions used to assess email marketing
capabilities
Capability
Statements and questions about the management Capability
rating (Select
of email marketing in your organisation level criteria
Yes, No, N/A)
A. Goal setting and evaluation

Total (out of 100) 0.0

B. Contact strategy and policy

Total (out of 100) 0.0

C. Segmentation, targeting and personalisation

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 Capability
Statements and questions about the management Capability
rating (Select
of email marketing in your organisation level criteria
Yes, No, N/A)

Total (out of 100) 0.0

D. Email marketing integration and governance

Total (out of 100) 0.0

E. Test, learn including content and creative optimisation

Total (out of 100) 0.0

Email Marketing Best Practice Guide Page 27

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13.5. Email marketing resources
Trade associations and membership groups

Deliverability and reputation organisations

Publishers, research and media companies

Free email marketing info sources, blogs, advice and how-to

Above compiled courtesy of Karen Talavera at Synchronicity Marketing.

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage
and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright Econsultancy.com Ltd 2014