Inventing Must-Read Content For B-to-B Newsletters Interview with Robin Anna Pernice of JPMorgan



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Inventing Must-Read Content For B-to-B Newsletters Interview with Robin Anna Pernice of JPMorgan
By Christopher Knight

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In preparation for attending MarketingSherpa's 3rd annual Email Summit in Miami, I interviewed Robin Anna Pernice, VP of Product Segment Marketing at JPMorgan who will be speaking about how to invent must-read content for B-to-B Newsletters.

1) Can you give us a brief overview as to how JPMorgan uses email newsletters to build relationships and increase sales?

To educate their clients about their products and services (tax laws, 1031 LKE (Like Kind Exchange)).
Build a community from existing clients & prospective new clients.
Brand-building for their products.
Industry thought-leadership.
Lead generation for their sales team.

2) How specifically do you collect competitive research before or during any email newsletter campaign?

They monitor hot topics of the industry by subscribing to various competitive eNewsletters, subscribing to various RSS feeds to their key competitors and industry associations, attending regional industry conferences, seminars, events and regional meetings.

3) What process do you use to select editorial content? Source of your email newsletter content? Do you invent/create it in-house or outsource?

Editorial content is sourced internally from in-house legal counsel, our product management team, and sales executives. In addition, they involve their sales people to solicit industry experts (who could be either a prospect or client in some cases) to contribute an article that adds credibility for both parties.

Content produced is often a compilation or summary to help their members save time when interpreting mountains of legal documents. Legal data can be boring to read, but there is great value in providing cliff notes.

Recently their content has been about how to manage the credit crunch, educational tools, calculators, and networking opportunities for their members to connect with each other.

4) What makes content "must read" by your readership?

It's highly relevant to the industry and Robin's team is able to distill legal data into an easy-to-read summary of the basics. Their recipients seek to be educated about the ever-changing tax laws.

5) How do you know when your content strikes a nerve, makes an emotional impact or is genuinely "captivating" with your readership?

Robin said,

"We did a lot of research upfront to identify what content would be most relevant to their business. Our goal was to figure out what the other newsletters were not providing them and how we could fill the void by providing content that helps them understand the benefits of a Like-Kind Exchange."

It's not about the pretty design, but rather it's about the content you want to deliver. When CTR (Click Through Rate) and incoming sales leads or dialogue is high, they know their content formula is working.

6) What are your top 3 email list building strategies that have worked the best?

First, they accept new email list members by having an online registration form as their primary new member acquisition strategy.

Second, they send out highly-target direct mail packages and feature print & online advertising in niche trade newsletters, etc. that includes an offer for a *1031 Guide for Practitioners* which helps to build their email list membership.

Thirdly, they have had success with client and prospect sales calls efforts requesting permission to be added to their email newsletter list.

7) Do you do email list segmentation within your email newsletter and if so, what do you segment by and why?

JPMorgan segments by 5 types:

Top Tier clients & prospects
Law firms & Accounting firms
Commercial real estate brokers & Attorney's
Trade associations & industry conferences
Prior Marketing Initiatives which include: Direct Mail, Print & Online Advertising, conferences & industry events, proprietary events, email Marketing campaigns.

The list segmentations allowed them to better analyze each segment of their target audience to determine patterns of behavior which will assist them in future development of segment-driven, personalized and customized email newsletters for 2008-2009. For example, the overall click through rates for the Trade Association lists were consistently very high as well as the glossary and educational tools including the calculators.

The Top Tier clients and Law Firm segments rated very high in the "forward to a colleague" among other areas.

8) Which tactical strategies specifically have helped you increase your CTR?

By closely monitoring which sections of their email newsletter were achieving the most interest, they provided more of that type of content.

Based on the first newsletter results, they determined that there was a greater interest and need for the "Private Letter Rulings" Summaries which were part of the right navigational bar. In addition, the glossary achieved a very high CTR. As a result, they created a feature in the newsletter for the Private Letter Rulings and enhanced the glossary section to include additional LKE terms. These are just two of the enhancements made within the first few issues. The content continues to evolve based on the demands and needs of the audience.

9) How do you measure success for your B-2-B email newsletter deliveries/campaigns?

If it increases sales, that is the bottom line; but the relationship-building aspect is very important.

10) Does open rate matter? Do you only send in HTML or do you do TEXT as well? Do you do Multipart MIME or no?

Yes. They produce in both HTML and ASCII Text format.

11) Any other tips, strategies, tactics or suggestions that our email newsletter publishers should pay close attention to get the best ROI from their email newsletter campaigns?

Robin said,

"Delivering the right content to right people creates high response rates because it's totally relevant to their needs."

Some Top Email Newsletter/Marketing Tips:

Know your audience and understand what is most important to them.
Educate as much as you can.
Provided added value content and "freebies."
Engage your audience and allow them to send questions or provide topic suggestions for future newsletters.
The content should be always be interesting, engaging and add value so that the recipient refers other colleagues and associates.

Robin Anna Pernice spoke recently at MarketingSherpa's Email Summit in Miami.

This Ezine-Tip was submitted By Christopher Knight -- Email List Marketing Expert, author and entrepreneur. Get your weekly dose of Email newsletter publishing, marketing, promotion, management, email-etiquette, email usability and deliverability tips by joining the free Ezine-Tips newsletter: http://www.emailuniverse.com/subscribe/.

Ezine-Tips for February 20, 2008

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Inventing Must-Read Content For B-to-B Newsletters Interview with Robin Anna Pernice of JPMorganBy Christopher Knight