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In this Issue

RM Marketing Tips: Volume 14
More Effective Email Newsletter Results

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In Other News

Rich White: Lifetime Gifting Opportunities in 2011-12

Congress has reinstated the federal estate with a $5 million Basic Exclusion Amount and 35% maximum tax rate for a two-year period, 2011-12. Also, it has added a new Deceased Spousal Unused Exclusion (DSUE) that creates “portability” between spouses for any Basic Exclusion Amount not used on the first spouse’s death. These changes will allow estates of up to $5 million (for individuals) or up to $10 million (for married couples) to avoid federal estate taxes – but technically only for estates created before the law expires on 12/31/12.

Fortunately, clients don’t have to die so soon to benefit. They can take advantage of an expanded lifetime gift tax exemption of $5 million per person to make gifts now. Whatever part of this exemption they use will reduce the Basic Exclusion Amount available (at death) dollar-for-dollar. Any client who previously had exhausted the $1 million lifetime gift tax exemption will now receive another $4 million to use through 12/31/12.

Congratulations to Sharon Gaffney

On February 4, 2011, our social media strategist, Sharon Gaffney gave birth to Cecelia (Cece) Kemp Gaffney, born 2/4/11. Both mother and daughter are doing well.

RM eNews Archive

If you are interested in reading past issues of our marketing tips check out our archive.

Relax with Retirement Yenta

Robin's alter ego, the Retirement Yenta, posts non-financial retirement tips and other goodies on her blog www.retirementyenta.com. When you are looking to relax or for a laugh or two, stop by and sit a spell with our Yenta.

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RM Strategic Marketing provides creative market planning and communications to the financial services industry. We offer professional resources in business planning, target marketing, copywriting, graphic design, website development, and multimedia presentation services. Learn more.

Tuesday March 15, 2011

RM Marketing Tips: Volume 14

In this month's newsletter, our graphic and web designer, Andrew Boardman, gives us a great tip on improving the use of back-end analytics of any newsletter service.

In Other News, Rich White outlines some changes in the estate tax laws through 2012, and how you can benefit from these changes.

More Effective Email Newsletter Results

There are many tools and methodologies for testing the efficacy of an email newsletter campaign. For instance, all modern email newsletter applications will provide detailed results for your particular campaign and for your email campaigns over time. In these reports, you can gather fine-tuned data regarding open rates, click-throughs and interest levels in stories, articles, and products.

But one often-overlooked methodology is to create an A/B split. Using small variations within an email newsletter, you can quickly determine which elements of your content worked well - and which not so much. By creating different tones, formats, calls-to-action, or sets of images, new insights into client interest can be gained.

For instance, in Campaign A, your email subject line could be an overview of a key article within the newsletter: "Building new client relationships in a revitalized economy." In Campaign B, your email subject line could be a direct call-to-action: "Achieve 200% growth in 2011 by calling us."

Then, send Campaign A and Campaign B at the same time to a random sample of your email subscribers. Your email application should allow you to see those campaign results bundled together, so you can evaluate which campaign performed better.

Like all market testing, absolute results should not be done in isolation. We recommend a few A/B splits over time - and then share your data with your team!