No man is an iland

October 31, 2005

(Tactics) Successful E-Mail Tactics: Entrance and Exit Strategies
Jeanniey Mullen takes her concept of holistic email marketing another step further by combining it with an understanding of where people are in the email receipt and response cycle.

Which means simply remembering that when you send out email, some is going to people for the first time, some is going to long-time readers and some is going to people who never open, read or respond to your emails.

She suggests there are obvious relationship and response benefits to be gained from adjusting your messaging and segmentation to account for this, and explains some of the questions and issues involved.

October 28, 2005

(Misc) Should you use rented lists?
Denise Cox introduces the idea of renting email lists for acquisition purposes, describes some of the basic issues and problems involved, and points you to a couple of useful resources. A nice introduction if you're new to the topic.

Denise takes a pretty unbiased view, but the only articles I've seen recently that are decidedly positive about list rental are written by people with lists to rent or broker.

This contrasts with retention emails, where it's common to see favorable articles by marketers using email, and not selling related services.

Is that telling me something or am I just reading the wrong articles?

Short, but sweet, article from Robert Raines, the director of customer marketing at E-Loan, Inc.

He describes how they automate and test reminder emails to prospects who signed up for an account but didn't complete the mortgage application process.

His general tips on testing at the end of the article are worth reading in their own right.

As an aside, is doing the email marketing for a mortgage company just about the most challenging job you can get in the industry?

(State of industry) Does Size Matter for ESPs?
Rebecca Lieb reviews some of the takeovers that have characterized the email marketing industry in recent months.

Then she probes a couple of analysts to discover how this all fits in with choosing an email service provider.

While the premise behind many acquisitions has been to merge email marketing services with website analytical tools, it seems selling that integrated concept works better on paper than it will in practice.

(Case study) WGBH Radio
A look at this public radio's efforts to stimulate donations and renewals via email. It's interesting to see how CTR and conversion rates differ between segments and offers. And to see how the CTR and conversion patterns are not identical.

In other words, comparing offers based on CTR or conversion rate alone could lead to duff decisions - you have to look at the two together (and not forgetting the bottom line $ figures as well, which aren't mentioned in the article).

October 27, 2005

(Deliverability / surveys) Lyris Q3 2005 ISP Deliverability Report Card
This came out yesterday, with stats on how some big email address providers shape up in terms of delivering messages (including specifically to inboxes, rather than spam folders).

Things look pretty good overall, but the details reveal some providers who buck the relatively positive deliverability trend.

Both Hotmail and GMail, for example, increased the number of false positives (legitimate email wrongly sent to spam folders) in comparison to Q2.

Since Hotmail is one of the very biggest of all address providers, this is of concern, particularly for B2C emailers likely to have many Hotmail addresses on their house lists.

October 26, 2005

(Tactics) Why data integration is important
Just got a personalized broadcast email from a furniture store as a member of their loyalty club. A couple of problems with it...

First, it was nearly all images - broken images because of my email client settings. I had to click 12 times below the scroll button in my preview pane to see any meaningful text.

Second, it was offering us 25% off a new kitchen. Which is OK. Except we just bought one from them six months ago.

So now we're left wondering why they would think we'd need a new kitchen six months after buying one from them (we have kids, but they're not that destructive).

And we're a little irritated that the same product now costs considerably less.

All of which brand damage could have been saved through a bit of customer database integration (note - they don't just have an email for the subscription, but a postal address and name, too).

(State of industry) The View From The DMA Floor
David Baker reports from the DMA's big annual bash with some thoughts on the changing nature of the email marketing industry, both in terms of people selling related services and those using it to market their own services and products.

He's upbeat, and reading between the lines there's the suggestion that email marketing may finally be entering the mainstream.

October 25, 2005

(Misc) Email signature advice
Kathy Gulrich describes in detail how to make the most of your email signature for marketing purposes. It's most relevant to small business owners and consultants, but might spark a few useful ideas in others, too.

October 24, 2005

(Spam) Marketers claim to fight spam
It's worth reading the general media now and then to get a picture of the public view of issues within the email marketing industry.

This article in the San Francisco Chronicle looks at authentication and its likely impacts on spam. The underlying tenor of the piece is that authentication is largely a way to get more unwanted mail through to inboxes, rather than less.

It all relates back to how you define spam. The old adage was that spam is defined by the recipient and not by the DMA, however much the latter organization would wish it were so.

So when marketers talk of ensuring legitimate email gets through, a lot of non-marketers think of that as ensuring more unwanted mail gets through. The rights and wrongs of each opinion are important, but more important is dealing with how people think, even if they are wrong.

(List mgmt) Retention E-Mail: Persistence or Arrogance?
I've had a beer (see last post) so am now able to return to the world of email marketing with a less jaundiced eye, but probably a messed up liver. And plenty of good stuff awaited my return.

In this article, Jeanne Jennings explains why sometimes an email marketer needs to get a little buddhist and learn to let go. Unresponsive subscribers are depressing your metrics, costing you money and may turn you in as a spammer if they get fed up of your email.

October 21, 2005

(Editorial note) Bah humbug!
Irritated by the poor quality of the half-dozen articles I've just read with a view to mentioning them here, I'm declaring today an email marketing free zone at No man is an iland.

Recently, I've seen too many articles too short on useful or interesting information or opinion. Or too superficial. Or badly written. Or just intended to get a vendor's name out there. Or written solely to promote some business agenda of the author.

More disturbing, otherwise competent media outlets are publishing these articles. Not a great service to their readers.

I can't blame email marketing vendors for feeding lazy journalists biased articles for self-promotion purposes. I think it's called PR. But what happened to journalism standards?

Yes, I am a little depressed today. And just to be clear, no, I'm not saying all vendor articles are like that (see the archives for proof) and I'm happy to keep referencing the quality ones.

And don't get me started on your average journalist's inability to interpret statistics.

I need a beer.

October 20, 2005

(Deliverability) Six Steps for Email Optimization
Lyris's Wendy Roth outlines the steps to take to have an ISP lift any blocks they may have placed on email coming from you to their customers.

She goes into some detail, even providing a boiler plate email you might use to open communications with the contact at the ISP.

October 19, 2005

Shelley Lanman and Heather Mansfield provide a series of tips on what should (and should not) go in your subject lines, body copy, email design and footer. Not too detailed, but a handy reminder.

The article is part of the DMNews Essential Guide to Email Marketing and you'll hear more from that as the week progresses.

(List mgmt) How To Evaluate E-Mail Vendors
The nice thing about David Baker's articles is that he genuinely writes as a user of email-related services, rather than as someone trying to sell them (even though he does).

In this one, he outlines his approach to assessing and choosing email marketing vendors. And reading between the lines, he's not overwhelmingly happy with standards in the industry.

October 18, 2005

(E-newsletters) The Art and Science of E-Zines
An interview with BeTuitive's Todd Smart in which he outlines the business case for newsletters before exploring various key features of a successful email newsletter strategy: content, design, tracking, and format.

His comments on content, in particular, contain crucial insights for anybody publishing their own newsletter for customer retention purposes.

Repeat the mantra... "it's about them, not us."

An interview with Jupiter Research's David Daniels, where he looks at how email is shaping up as a marketing tool, how it compares to competitive channels, the evolution of the medium and its tactics, deliverability and the usual array of "where are we going, where have we been?" topics.

One quote made me laugh: "Several companies have put their e-mail opt-in form at the footer of every page of their Web site, and the growth of their lists has been tremendous"

I think that might have counted as insightful 5 years ago ;-) but it shows that even basic best practices are yet to be firmly established.

(RSS) How to Buy RSS Advertising - Part II: The Media Plan
Bill Flitter continues his look at RSS advertising by discussing some of the issues involved, notably ad formats, availability and reach, and the limitations currently imposed by the underdeveloped nature of the sector and technology.

(Strategy) Brand's Power in E-Mail
In recent weeks, Jeanniey Mullen's pursued the theme of holistic email marketing, where you see your emails as part of a wider (brand) whole. This means your email fulfills other roles beyond simply garnering another click or conversion.

In this article, she explores the idea of email as brand representative, and offers up a number of questions to ask yourself about your emails and their interaction with your brand.

October 17, 2005

(Case study) CDW Offers Something for Everybody
A look at the newsletter segmentation strategy of CDW, a technology solutions provider.

They divide their readership by organization type (with sub-categories), position in the purchase cycle and whether they're a new or loyal customer. All of which enables them to write editorial and content better targeted to readers.

October 14, 2005

(Format) Email and images
EmailSherpa combines its own insight and studies by vendors aweber and Silverpop to highlight the problem with getting images displayed in today's common email clients and web-based email services.

There are plenty of stats to pique your interest.

Basically, if you're going to use images in your emails, then you need to ensure that any really important information (such as a link or key copy) can still be seen if images don't make it through and/or add a note at the top of the email saying something like "If you can't read this email, then see it online" and link to a web version.

(Deliverability) Ensuring delivery to broadband addresses
Michael Della Penna of Epsilon has a few quick suggestions on dealing with the growing number of email addresses going through broadband cable and DSL services.

Nothing too detailed, but it never hurts to get a few reminders, some of which apply equally well to deliverability issues for any email address.

(Tactics) What you can learn from consumer marketers
Karen J. Bannan suggests B2B email marketers might want to look over the shoulders of their B2C colleagues to pick up some useful tips and tactics for their own campaigns.

She then picks the brains of a couple of vendors to get some examples concerning integration, targeting, tone and content.

October 13, 2005

(Basics) Push-Pull
Bill McCloskey explains why email is perhaps the only viable kind of online marketing for most small and medium-sized businesses. Reading between the lines you can also get some insight into the style of voice that makes a good e-newsletter.

And he has a related investment tip, too...

October 12, 2005

(Tactics) Nice event-triggered email
Tonight, Austria (where I live) play Northern Ireland at soccer in a world cup qualifying match.

A few moments ago, at about the time I'd start thinking about the evening meal, in popped an email from the Japanese restaurant home delivery service I use, offering a "today only" soccer special on sushi and beer for delivery just before the game starts.

Nice!

Mind you, they're lucky that I happen to be a big soccer fan, otherwise the mail wouldn't resonate quite so well or might even backfire on them (they have no customer data that could identify a "soccer" segment but perhaps they filtered by gender!).

But it's an idea that might encourage a few lightbulbs to go off in email marketing heads?

It's just unfortunate that I already have a table booked down an Irish bar for the England game taking place the same time.

(Deliverability) How much difference does your email service provider make?
Two valuable blog postings popped up online recently. The first from Justin Foster, who ploughs into deliverability claims by various vendors and explains why he thinks they're misleading.

The second is a considered response to that post by Matt Blumberg, partly confirming, partly rebutting the arguments used.

The main thing is that reading through both of these long posts will give you plenty of useful insights into the complexities, semantics and realities of dealing with deliverability issues.

You'll also be better prepared when it comes to selecting a vendor, interpreting your own metrics and understanding the role of vendor and client in email marketing success.

Karl Popper said that progress is only possible through critical and intense debate. He made the comments in the context of science, but these two posts prove the concept applies equally elsewhere.

(List mgmt) Three Things You Should Achieve with a Thank You Email
Nick Usborne suggests, erm, three things you should achieve with your...well, you can read I guess.

His point is that when people take some kind of action that triggers an email confirmation, they are in a receptive frame of mind for further marketing from you; whether simply reinforcing the relationship with a personable "thank you" or upselling.

This all goes back to seeing every email as an opportunity and part of the total experience the recipient has in their interaction with you or your organization.

(State of industry) David vs. Goliath: An Email Marketing Story
If you want a dose of reality, read this article on email marketing and hotels. It has some interesting information about how chains are using the medium.

More importantly, it gives you insight into some of the educational issues the industry faces. The author equates, for example, "open rates" with "success rates." And there's a lack of clarity about "opt-in" and "opt-out."

The marketing media tends to focus on best practices and top tier email marketing. Dig a little -- or just sign up to a few lists and watch your inbox -- and you'll see that many (most?) companies still have a long way to go to reach that level.

October 11, 2005

(Metrics) Between "Bounced" and "Delivered"
Jeanne Jennings discusses a growing hole in typical email marketing metrics reports, namely the oft-held assumption that...

(the number of emails sent)
minus
(the number that bounce back as undeliverable)
equals
(the number delivered)

This doesn't account for the emails rerouted to spam folders or blocked without a bounce, for example. A number that can be quite high.

It's only a problem if people aren't aware of that missing number, so don't account for it when analysing the metrics. But Jeanne's fair argument is that describing the "sent minus bounce" figure as your "delivery rate" (or similar) does tend to encourage complacency. And she calls for suggested alternative labels...

October 10, 2005

(Format) The Challenges of HTML Email
A fascinating thread at one of the top webmaster forums, featuring various tips, tricks and advice on using HTML/CSS in outgoing email.

Just as interesting...the comments from the other side of the fence. Advice, insight and some well-meant abuse from the guardians of corporate and other email systems.

The (possible) future of email marketing
With nothing to guide me but a cup of tea and a long, hard, not to say disconcerting look in the mirror, here are eight predictions for the future of email marketing.

Is there one? Yes, but not as we know it. The keywords are integration, customization, two-tier marketing and Germany 2008.

Frankly, I think we can expect more changes in the next couple of years than we've seen in the last two. Hold on to your marketing hats.

(RSS) Crossing into the mainstream
You might think "well they would say that wouldn't they?" about this .pdf report on RSS usage commissioned by Yahoo. But a really key finding is that just because people haven't heard of RSS doesn't mean they're not using it.

So while only 4% of respondents knowingly use RSS feeds, a whopping 27% use them unwittingly through personalized start pages at places like MSN.

So if you base your RSS strategy on current usage numbers, perhaps time to take another look.

October 06, 2005

(Copywriting) The Art of the Subject Line
An interview with the King of Online Kopywriting (my words), Nick Usborne, about the small but significant subject line.

He explains why many companies seem to neglect that little bit of email real estate, describes some of the basic mistakes that marketers make, offers some insight into what works, and reviews the kind of result improvements a subject line can bring.

October 05, 2005

(Layout / format) Why Text-Only E-Zines are Hot
Or rather might be hot under the right circumstances. The authors then describe what these circumstances are before throwing out a list of things to consider when designing with just text and white space to play with.

Even if HTML works better for you, it's always handy to have a text version of your mail available for those who, for whatever reason, don't like HTML emails (and there are many of them) or can't read them easily (think handheld devices etc.)

(RSS) RSS: What, Why & Where are the Ads?
Mario Sgambelluri gives an overview of this new medium for the benefit of advertisers.

He starts with a description of the RSS universe and then describes three broad ways you can place ads in feeds. A useful primer for those still finding their feet with this new alternative/complement to email.

(Tactics / list mgmt) Battling List Attrition
Melinda Krueger suggests that one way to keep a leaky bucket full is to plug the holes rather than just adding more water. Which means tackling the unresponsive addresses on your email list.

The proposed solutions she discusses include getting alternative email addresses when the main one dies on you (but without forgetting permission), reactivating the addresses that have gone to sleep and using recipient feedback to find out why list attrition might be occurring.

(List mgmt) There's a human behind every address
Sarah Eaton offers a timely reminder that your email newsletter goes out to real people and not to cells in a spreadsheet or entries in a database.

She emphasizes this point in relation to how you respond to the replies that come back, whether negative (e.g. complaints), neutral (e.g. out-of-office replies) or positive (e.g. requests for more information).

October 04, 2005

(Strategy / tactics) What Happens When You Remove the E-Mail Blinders?
Jeanniey Mullen reinforces an earlier plea to view your email marketing in its entirety - as all email sent by your company and as an integral part of your overall branding and marketing.

She does this by outlining some of the advantages such a holistic view can bring, citing concrete ROI increases through cross-channel integrated marketing and softer benefits that comes from taking a wider perspective.

(Strategy / tactics) Sorry we missed you
A thoughtful piece from David Baker on dealing with email recipients numbed and conditioned by too many promotions, too much promotional language and too many purchase incentives.

His suggested solutions revolve around mixing things up a little; finding the right blend of language, style, content, messaging and promotion to keep the customer or prospect relationship fresh and engaging.

He also cautions careful management of your list according to where you got your opt-ins from. Recipients will vary in their behavior or responsiveness according to whether you got the opt-in from a coupon site or through an in-store sign up.

(Tactics) A stealable idea for all marketers
A brief look at an email campaign and highly-effective landing page by Royal Caribbean.

There are one or two insights about what can work well, and a nice idea about using successful older campaigns as follow-up mails to new opt-ins.

Times change - my dad did a Photoshop course on the last cruise my parents took. And then emailed the results to me while still on board...

October 03, 2005

(Deliverability) A B-to-B delivery checklist
Ray Schultz paid close attention to a presentation by Silverpop's Elaine Gorman and reports the results.

What you get is an outline of numerous issues to consider when trying to boost the number of emails that make it past corporate and other filters.

You'll need to dig deeper elsewhere to find out how to address most of these issues. But it's another nice checklist covering everything from bounce management to reputation services.

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