Many marketers simply send out a single email message to their contact list and hope for the best. But according to BtoB Online, the average open rate for marketing emails is 19.7%.  Would you like to reach more of the 80+% that didn't open your email?  Voodoo can easily help you do just that. 

Voodoo has a builti-in feature allowing you to copy the contacts that haven't opened your email into a list—either creating a new list or adding them to an existing list.  This means you can send a second email to these contacts, and increase your overall open rate percentage. 

Here's how easy it is...

Voodoo Feature #584 - Copy Contacts to a List for Remarketing

Both eVideo Launcher and Business Builder users can easily copy contacts that haven't opened an email into a list.

1)  Login to your Voodoo account

2)  Access My Reports

3)  Select the Campaign/Email you would like to send again to the unopeners  

4)  Click the Unopened statistic which will take you to all the subscribers who have not opened your email

5)  Click the Copy to Contact List button

6)  Select Existing Contact List or New Contact List.  When naming your new list be descriptive (i.e. Campaign Name - Unopened or Campaign Name - Round 1 Unopened)

7)  Click Ok and your contacts are now in the list.

Optimization Tip: Sending a second email to your contacts that haven't opened one of your emails gives you a perfect opportunity to do some optimization testing.  With the second email you can change the subject line or any of the content in your email to test if it increases your open and/or click rates.

Contact / Database Lists, eVideo Launcher, New Feature, Quick Add & Send, Business Builder copy contacts, remarketing

Voodoo tracks and stores Optouts (unsubscribes) automatically, so as long as you’re broadcasting your email campaigns from Voodoo, you never need to worry about this.  You don’t even have to update your records.

If you must synchronize Optouts between multiple email systems, you might occasionally want to export Optouts from Voodoo.

Here’s how (it's actually easier than it sounds):

In your Voodoo Campaign Manager:

•  Select Contact Lists

•  Click Manage Contacts for the list you want (probably your Master List, or perhaps a particular campaign list)

•  Click the "Optout" column header (probably twice) until all the contacts with Optouts checked appear at top of list

•  At bottom right of the resulting list, click Show # (and choose the closest option to the number of opt outs so all Optout contacts are visible)

•  At top left of list, click the selection box next to First Name.  This selects all of the visible contacts. 
  

•  Select or deselect contacts as needed so you have only Optout contacts selected.

•  Now choose Export selected contact(s) to Excel (option near bottom of page) and you’re done.
  

By the way, in the resulting Excel spreadsheet, you'll see the Optout column will have a TRUE label showing the contact has opted out.

Business Builder, Contact / Database Lists, New Feature export optouts

Voodoo has performed numerous strategic A/B/C tests to determine what Email Styles, and what type of embedded links produce the best results.

Even experienced marketers assume “text-only” emails will be perceived as boring and, therefore, less likely to generate click-throughs.  Voodoo statistics from hundreds of campaigns confirm the opposite is true.  The key is keeping text-based emails brief and authentically personal, so they don’t feel like a form email.  

We tested the following three Email Styles:

Personal Email—similar to a note you’d receive from a friend.  It contains a personal-sounding subject line, merged recipient first name, text-only content, with an overall casual tone.

Semi-Personal Email—like a note you’d receive from a friend, but with a bit more “professional” graphic content.  It contains a personal-sounding subject line, merged recipient first name, text with some HTML graphic content, with an overall casual tone.

Commercial Email—like most commercial emails you receive from established companies, with some added personalization.  It contains a promotional subject line, merged recipient first name, all HTML graphic content, with an overall promotional tone.

Are text links, video play buttons or product photos more likely to encourage click-throughs?  

Statistics: Click-Throughs by Email Type and Link Type

Personal Email

43%     Text link (within body copy)
31%     Video Play Button (showing frame from video)
26%     Product Photo only

Semi-Personal Email
39%     Text link
34%     Video Play Button
27%     Product Photo

Commercial Email
37%     Video Play Button
36%     Text link
27%     Product Photo

Comment: This appears to indicate that people respond most readily when the Style and type of link are consistent.  Text-based Personal Emails would normally and naturally include a text link, while HTML-heavy Commercial Emails are expected contain a video play graphic.  

Which type of email gets the best Deliverability and Response rates

(i.e., Opens and Click-throughs to watch related videos)?

Average Deliverability Rates* (as a percentage of total sends):
97%     Personal Email
93%     Semi-Personal Email
86%     Commercial Email

*This drop in deliverability is caused by the inclusion of additional “active” HTML content/links and promotional keywords.  ISP algorithms identify this content as typically “commercial,” and therefore likely to be spam or junk.

Comment: Personal Email is the clear winner here, as “lighter” HTML content is more ISP-friendly and likely to make it all the way to the in-box of the recipient.

Average Open Rates (as a percentage of total sends):
27%     Personal Email
23%     Semi-Personal Email*
8%       Commercial Email**

*The drop for Semi-Personal Email is directly attributable to the drop in deliverability rates, as the tested subject lines were identical to their Personal Email counterparts
**The Commercial Email drop is much larger than the drop in deliverability rates and therefore indicates a greater skepticism and lack of response to email which is perceived as promotional, even when coming from an approved sender

Average Click-Through Rates (as a percentage of total opens):
11%     Personal Email
9%       Semi-Personal Email
2%       Commercial Email

Voodoo’s Conclusion:  Keep it Personal!

Our statistics make it clear that the most effective way to communicate is the one that feels the most personal, i.e., a Personal Email with a Text Link to your video.  The Personal Email produces the highest Deliverability, Open and Click-Through rates.  What’s more, using this style of email, using a simple Text Link to your video is likely to produce 12% higher click-through than the next-best option. 

Business Builder, Email Templates & Image Library, eVideo Launcher, Tracking Statistics email statistics, benchmarks, kpi, testing, results

Do your contact lists often contain more than 1,000 opt-in recipients? 

Follow these tips to avoid headaches and maximize results!

Voodoo is a departure from most other commercial email broadcasting services—and the differences offer superior, True Personalization™ of your outgoing campaigns.

We don’t brand your “From” address with our company name, the way other large email services do. (They do this primarily for their own protection, with the convenient advantage that it puts their company name in the address line of every outgoing email from every one of their customers—it’s great advertising for them!)  

Using Sender Policy Framework and other advanced techniques, Voodoo sends your campaigns from the actual email address entered on your account’s Personal Settings page.  Your Voodoo emails are really from YOU, and that’s all your prospects and customers see.  

Why is True Personalization important?

It’s a key reason why Voodoo campaigns generate measurably higher response and click-through rates. For individual accounts, if contacts have already approved you as a sender, they don’t have to re-approve messages you send from Voodoo.  

  
Are their any challenges to this approach?
Only one—it prevents Voodoo from automatically scrubbing your lists of undeliverables— the ones you send to dead mailboxes or where the filters simply won’t let anything through. With Voodoo, undeliverables get returned to YOU, not us.  (We cannot and do not intercept emails being returned to you for obvious reasons.)

Handling Large-Scale Broadcasts

To avoid potential floods to your personal email in-box, we recommend that you set up a unique email address/account specifically for larger Voodoo campaigns. Set up a smart folder in Outlook (or other email client) to capture these undeliverables. It’s usually as easy as creating a simple multi-criteria rules, as shown below:

Once your campaign has been sent for at least a week, you are welcome to provide these returned emails to Voodoo for parsing and scrubbing. NOTE: This is usually only necessary on the first couple of broadcasts.  Yes, it adds a manual step, but the True Personalization of outgoing campaigns is worth it!

Business Builder, Contact / Database Lists, Deliverability, eVideo Launcher, Quick Tip Undeliverable, Undeliverables

Want to get even greater results from your Voodoo account? 

We all have witnessed the massive growth of social media.  Has your business taken the plunge?  Social media can be a cost-effective way to promote and grow your business.  But creating content to "feed the beast" of social networks can be overwhelming and time consuming. 

Voodoo's mission is to help our customers accomplish more with less effort. This Voodoo feature helps you do that by leveraging Voodoo in your social media feeds. 
 
You can post a link to any video in your Video Library on LinkedIn, Facebook, twitter and more. You can promote your business and get your content noticed.  With the new paid "boosting" options on Facebook and Linkedin, you can pay a little to escalate how often and where your special posts appear.

Just before I wrote this, I easily posted a status update to my LinkedIn account, then tweeted the same post within a few moments.  Both posts link directly to one of the videos in my Voodoo account.  

 
Bonus: Want to track how many people watch each video you post on each social networking service?  Just send yourself a Voodoo campaign and create your post using the video link it generates.


Voodoo Feature #502 - How to Post Trackable, Personalized Videos on Your Social Media Accounts

Business Builder Users:

Build Campaigns, Business Builder, eVideo Launcher, Quick Tip, Video Library & Trackable Links Social Media