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The IDM/Responsys Certificate in Email Marketing: Syllabus

The IDM/Responsys Certificate in Email Marketing provides a thorough understanding of email marketing principles and practice in a short space of time.

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Learning objectives
The Certificate will provide:

• An understanding of how to develop and manage effective, integrated email marketing programmes
• An appreciation of the significant email marketing technologies, platforms, services and providers
• An awareness of the legal constraints, relevant codes of practice and standards of best email marketing practice
• An understanding of how to measure, evaluate and improve email marketing performance

• Make the business case for email marketing programmes
• Define the resources required for email marketing programmes, including human and financial resources
• Optimise performance and results of email marketing programmes through maximising the relevance of their communications

Modules^*

Module 1: Understanding the dynamic email marketing landscape »
Module 2: Email marketing planning and strategy »
Module 3: Gathering and managing customer profile data »
Module 4: Email formats and deliverability »
Module 5: Email creativity and interactivity that gets response and builds brands »
Module 6: Managing email projects, services and suppliers »
Module 7: Email for prospect conversion (and customer acquisition) »
Module 8: Email for customer retention »
Module 9: Optimising email effectiveness »

Module 1: Understanding the dynamic email marketing landscape

• A brief history of email and email marketing
• The continued growth of online audiences and changing audience profiles
• Permission marketing and the legal boundaries of email marketing (Data Protection Act, Privacy in Electronic Communications Regulations, key codes of practice)
• The fundamental importance of customer information strategies and data registration
• Similarities and differences between consumer (B2C) and business (B2B) email communications
• Case histories: Deconstructing some recent email classics

Module 2: Email marketing planning and strategy

• Essential research and planning tools
• The email value proposition (EVP) and value exchange
• Setting SMART email marketing objectives for response and brand building
• Strategic fit of email in the modern, multi-channel marketing mix
• Why content dictates email strategy
• Integrating email with other digital and traditional media
• Using email to support direct mail and other offline communications
• Key tips for planning an integrated campaign
• Understanding ‘media multiplier’ effects and how to measure them

Module 3: Gathering and managing customer profile data

• Why data is the ‘key value variable’
• Building the ideal web registration process
• Generating website registrations and keeping them active
• Critical data management issues and how to overcome them
• Strategies for updating customer profiles and related data gathering techniques

Module 4: Email formats and deliverability

• Broadcast and format options: The latest developments
• Beating spam filters and overcoming other deliverability issues
• Avoiding ISP wrath: How ISP’s are changing the rules of the game
• Accreditation services and the significance of reputation and authentication management

Module 5: Email creativity and interactivity that gets response and builds brands

• Essential guidelines to ensure your email at least gets opened
• Writing and designing effective email communications for marketing
• Pros and cons of HTML vs. plain text: Why the debate goes on!
• Guidelines for effective use of images, graphics and basic animation media
• When and when not to use video streaming and other types of rich media
• Emerging email design and interactivity technologies: SOAP, AJAX, APIs, etc

Module 6: Managing email projects, services and suppliers

• A checklist of key stages and milestones in email campaign management
• Principles of project management for email marketing
• Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
• How the email services industry is organised in the UK, Europe and overseas: Types of supplier and services
• The importance of developing consistent content taxonomy and nomenclature
• Key email technologies: What these offer and how to organise them
• In-house vs outsourcing: Procuring the right email services and providers at the right price

Module 7: Email for prospect conversion (and customer acquisition)

• Boundaries of best practice in designing email marketing programmes for customer acquisition
• Email list sources: Renting compiled and subscriber lists, costs, churn and key considerations
• Anticipating response rates and other possible outcomes
• Establishing meaningful measures of performance
• Techniques for increasing acquisition response and conversion rates
• Leveraging the power of viral marketing

Module 8: Email for customer retention

• Why email is the ultimate tool for retaining and growing customer value
• Segmentation strategies for customer development and retention
• Devising a segmented contact strategy
• The importance of customer value and how to measure it online
• Effective use of event- and activity-triggered emails
• Understanding why product latency drives customer contact strategy
• Getting the most out of personalisation and conditional content
• Case histories: Best of breed newsletters, welcome emails, billing and reactivation emails

Module 9: Optimising email effectiveness

• Why testing is so important – and so easy – online
• Testing strategies to measure and maximise email marketing ROI
• What to test and what not to test: Finding the significant levers of improvement
• Key email metrics and results analysis from click through to conversion
• 3rd generation email marketing: Moving from permission marketing to precision marketing
• Case histories: Performance benchmarks from today’s best practice

*Draft syllabus: Final syllabus may be subject to alteration