No man is an iland

May 30, 2006

Melinda Krueger has a nice summary of four general mistakes email marketers make when designing emails.

This is not so much about the nitty gritty of font sizes and headline text. No, it's about attitudes and approaches, and how these can harm your success.

So read her wise words to learn about the consequences of envy, gluttony, pride and sloth.

P.S. We might want to stay clear of lust for that matter. Though I think the spammers have that one pretty well covered.

May 26, 2006

Nothing spectacularly new here, but it never hurts to remind yourself of some of the basic things that drive up open rates.

In the article by Karen J. Bannan, a couple of experts offer some brief advice on subject lines, relevancy, instilling urgency and recognising the importance of preview panes.

Vendor Lyris just posted this thoughtful article which reminds us of those marketing benefits of email that we tend to forget as they're not easily measurable.

Many of these benefits -- like long-term relationship building -- are worthy goals in their own right.

An important point is that intangible is not (unfortunately) the same as automatic. These benefits also depend on conducting best practices and taking the time and effort to craft relevant messages to the right people.

May 25, 2006

In their latest column, Kirill Popov and Loren McDonald turn their beady attention to your email template.

They present a set of steps to take in developing a new template that works well in terms of encouraging reader response and improving the likelihood your emails get delivered in the first place.

These steps include a host of practical tips and suggestions. It's another winning article deserving of your valuable time.

For many promotional emails, getting the click is only half the battle. Then it becomes a matter or turning the click into an action at your website.

The folk at MarketingExperiments.com just released a collection of new test results and insights into what elements of a landing page can help or hinder conversions.

There's a lot of material to work through, but their advice tends to be rooted in practical experience rather than speculation: so it's worth the read.

I despair, I really do. I thought we left the "it's OK to send unsolicited email as long as some people read it" argument behind in the 1990s. Apparently not, according to my interpretation of this article reporting on a survey of business people's email habits.

I give up trying to fight the permission fight. Everyone can send email about anything to whoever they want, whenever they want. Then we can all hold hands, eat cake and sing jolly songs as we flush email marketing right down the toilet.

May 24, 2006

Most event reports tend to focus on what one or another vendor had to say about email marketing, often with a slant to driving sales of a particular new product or service.

One of the exceptions is this article on an open discussion of email marketing at the iMedia Agency Summit.

Since it quotes a number of people doing email marketing on a daily basis, as opposed to commentators (like me!) or ESPs, it gives you some insight into how practitioners think about email marketing and what they see as important or good practice.

May 23, 2006

Or should that be the CRM hole?

David Baker is a clever chap and gives us another thoughtful article on email marketing in the wider company context.

His contention is essentially that we are still too focused on short-term email marketing issues. But the true benefits and long-term future of email marketing depend on tackling and solving a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff.

So while designing subject lines is fine, we need to find ways to properly integrate email into the physical and philosophical company system. Because it has so many roles to play in managing internal and customer relationships, and so many different parts of the company have a claim on its use.

In other words, we're not yet seeing the real scope of the wood for all the trees.

And here's another take on harnessing the magical powers of the subject line. This time from more of an e-newsletter perspective and with a bit more detail.

Given the conflicting advice you often read on this topic, it is important to distinguish between email promotions and email newsletters.

The former need subject lines that give people a more direct hint as to why they should open the email, for example by describing the offer contained within.

The latter need subject lines of a more reassuring, non-salesy branding nature, which don't necessarily have to give specifics.

Of course, nothing is set in stone. So at the risk of repeating myself, if they took a scan of your heart, they should find the words "test, test, test" emblazoned across it.

For those in a hurry and looking for quick tips, here are a few brief suggestions from Brandon Milford on how to boost open rates through judicious use of the "from" line, "subject" line and timing of your mailout.

The subject line advice is nearly opposite to that recommended in the article I posted about yesterday.

Which just goes to show how important it is to test and think for yourself.

Ostensibly about the ROI of getting Goodmail certification for your emails to AOL subscribers, this article by Spencer Kollas is really about tightening up your deliverability practices.

The more these practices conform to best standards, the more email gets delivered (obviously).

And since your results and reputation will then improve by themselves, it may be that you no longer need to get certified; the incremental benefits may not be big enough to outweigh the additional associated costs.

If you still decide to go ahead with certification, your improved deliverability practices should help you qualify.

Anyway, Kollas covers open relays, blacklists, spam traps, list hygiene, authentication and ISP relationships.

May 22, 2006

The Eurovision Song Contest is a huge televised song competition in Europe. It enjoys a celebrated cult status thanks to its extraordinary inanity, inadvertent humor and political voting.

Traditionally, contestants combine bland pop with elements of national tradition. They sing about love, sparkly moons and similar. And the watching public determines the winner. Past victors include Celine Dion and Abba.

The winner this year was Lordi, a Finnish heavy metal group dressed like extras from Lord of the Rings. The song "Hard Rock Hallelujah" advises us to prepare for the "Arockalypse" and the "day of Rockoning."

As one paper put it, "Hell really has frozen over."

What has this got to do with email marketing?

1. When everyone is doing the same thing, doing something different can catch the imagination of your audience
2. Being different is not enough, there must still be substance behind it. Lordi's song actually contains a good tune.
3. Think twice before jumping the bandwagon. If a dozen heavy metal bands enter next year, the winner will probably be a sylph-like French chanteuse singing about teenage love.
4. Whatever we think we might know about our audience's preferences, they still have the capacity to surprise us. Never stop learning.

It's rock and roll.

A few quick reminders from Tricia Robinson on the general things that need to go in your emails other than your content. Which includes such things as administrative links and branding elements.

Not a bad checklist, but you'll need to do research elsewhere to understand the whys and hows in more detail.

One small issue - the article recommends using a button for your opt-out. Be careful there: images are often blocked from displaying, but you still need the opt-out link to show up (use image alt text or stick with plain text).

This article has some fairly generic, but punchy, advice on where email marketing efforts typically go wrong. And there's no harm in rechecking your own efforts against their suggestions.

My only issue with the article is that it really is *very* generic.

Their header advice, for example, is fine, but a touch inflexible. Their allegedly inappropriate "News From SmallBiz Consultants" subject line might be perfectly suited to a particular newsletter approach and audience...as always, consider everything in the context of your own email needs and target readership.

May 19, 2006

As an addendum to my recent interview on e-newsletters with Michael Katz, I was fascinated by his most recent article on how to respond to negative feedback.

I strongly suspect you haven't thought about this in quite the way Michael suggests. His advice is a pointed reminder that pleasing all the people all the time is neither possible nor desirable, at least from a newsletter/marketing perspective.

Given how tricky it can be getting decent responses from an audience in your own region, pity the global marketer who has to manage campaigns to dozens of different countries.

One such marketer is Sony Ericsson's Agnes Gawel. In this interview-based article, she outlines her approach to the whole issue of tailoring campaigns to countries and cultures.

She has thoughts on what you need to localize (and what you don't need to worry about), dealing with legal issues, general rules for keeping responses up, and specific tips for particular countries.

May 18, 2006

Simms Jenkins offers up a considered look at the whys and whats of email marketing metrics.

The article outlines the variety of different metrics you need to look for, but also explains the usefulness of each metric and how each can be used to refine your efforts.

What's nice is that Simms points out a few of the more obscurer metrics that can also provide intriguing insights into such things as the best way to structure your emails.

eROI just presented their latest quarterly email marketing statistics covering Q1 2006.

The results reveal which days produce the best open and click rates, with these results broken down by list size, too.

The results?

Seems weekends and Tuesdays do well. But two points to note are that the best day to send is a moving target and depends on the type of email and list you're working with.

So -- as the authors point out -- general stats are interesting in terms of trend following, but you need to work out the best day for your list yourself.

Other results from the survey suggest open rates and clicks have rebounded from a dip in Q4 2005. Which is always good to hear.

Visit the link above for more detail in the press release.

Here's an example of how email marketing doesn't need to drive online sales to be successful.

The article looks at how an offline-only retailer uses email to build out a loyalty program and generate sales at its stores.

Among the details, various screenshots of the different campaign mails and welcome messages used in their program.

Those who thrive on statistics might want to peruse the latest Pheed Read from Pheedo.

It contains some benchmark metrics for RSS feeds, covering such things as...

>> CTR rates from different feed approaches and niches
>> Ad performance in relation to ad frequency and position
>> Market share for different feed aggregators and readers

...and other numbers of interest to those seeking to make marketing or ad capital out of their web feed efforts.

Apart from anything else, the very existence of this kind of report indicates how RSS is gaining a foothold in the marketing world.

May 17, 2006

One coming issue for email marketers is the prospect of many more business subscribers reading your emails on mobile devices. Which has big implications for email design and delivery.

This review from the UK gives an overview of how businesses feel about mobile email and how big it might become.

Background reading for those who like to keep aware of trends in the end-user space.

May 16, 2006

If you're lazy like me, you don't test. But it certainly means you're leaving opens, clicks and money on the table.

Testing is nature's way of telling us we don't have perfect intuition. What we think of as optimal usually, well, isn't. Our favorite subject lines, offers and copy aren't necessarily those that produce the best response.

If you were wondering what to test with regard to your outgoing emails (and how), then take a few ideas from this blog post by VerticalResponse's Janine Popick.

May 15, 2006

In this interview, Michael Katz reveals various insights into making a success of an e-newsletter.

His advice includes sage comments on such things as writing styles, the content:promotion split, sticking to schedules and the right flavor of ice cream to consume when celebrating great email marketing results.

This is the first of an occasional series of interviews here at Email Marketing Reports with those at the frontline of the email marketing business.

Nick Usborne is a wise fellow who's been writing online copy for longer than pretty well any of us. Here he offers some broad advice on how to improve the subject lines in your email campaigns.

Since the "right" subject line depends on a lot of other factors, few articles on the subject can go into any depth. Which reinforces the need to explore the alternatives for yourself by testing, as Nick himself advises.

It's a mixed bag when it comes to co-registration or the practice of putting opt-in forms to your lists on other peoples' sites (as a reciprocal arrangement or for a fee).

I've heard conflicting opinions on the practice. Some say it's a waste of time. Others say it's wonderful. Inevitably, then, success or failure depends on how you do it (doesn't it always?)

Partnering with a small network of quality, like-minded sites with complementary audiences is a different kettle of email to buying cheap opt-ins from some dodgy sweepstakes company.

This article from MarketingSherpa reports on their own co-registration efforts and has some handy tips on what you can do to ensure your co-reg efforts are one of the success stories.

May 12, 2006

This short report is actually a collection of insights from a recent "Selling subscriptions to Internet Content" summit hosted by MarketingSherpa.

But since their work is often about getting people to subscribe to things, a lot of what content marketers do has potential lessons for email marketing. Plus email is often a key part of their strategy anyway.

So work through the article for little insights on such topics as:

* positioning and design of sign-up forms
* list welcome messages
* call-to-action language to use for sign-ups
* email creative

May 11, 2006

The dynamic duo of deliverability (Kirill Popov and Loren McDonald) use this ClickZ article to explain the unpleasant implications of people hitting the "this is spam" button when they get your emails.

Even the most permission-based sign-up practices won't eliminate spam complaints entirely. Which is why they suggest a range of issues you might investigate if you are getting too many complaints.

The critical thing to note is that these issues are all about you, your emails and your systems. Because the underlying causes of complaints are often closer to home than we'd like to think.

May 10, 2006

According to the Radicati Group, there are now over 1.1 billion email users in the world, with nearly 1.4 billion active accounts.

The number of emails sent each day amounts to about 171 billion and around 121 billion of those are spam. Pity the poor analyst who had to count them.

So there are about 50 billion legitimate emails flying around each day. Now you see why it's important to deliver value to your subscribers, so you stand out from the other 49,999,999,999 emails.

(I checked the UN's latest estimates: in 2005, there were around 1.081 billion sheep in the world. So I can officially confirm the transition from the agricultural age to the communication age.)

According to this survey from vendor Silverpop, various companies intend trying list growth tactics that others report poor success with.

That knowledge in itself isn't particularly helpful. After all, just because others have not done so well with a tactic doesn't mean the same fate will apply to you.

But what is helpful is the analysis that accompanies the survey results, where Silverpop's Elaine O'Gorman explains some of the criteria that determine whether a particular tactic will likely work.

In the above press release, she comments on viral marketing, cross-promotion and email appending.

Jordan Ayan makes the case for ensuring landing pages (the web pages people reach when they click on the links in your email) get the attention they deserve when it comes to your email campaigns.

His article also includes ten tips for landing page design and evaluation.

Landing page improvements might be an easier way to improve email marketing success than struggling to grab another percentage point or two on your delivery rate.

May 09, 2006

A big wave of thanks to Nick Usborne at MarketingExperiments.com for this blog post pointing us to a Whitelisting Instruction Generator.

Inviting your subscribers to whitelist your emails is a good idea, but hard to make work. Because most people haven't a clue what whitelisting is. Or how you do it.

On top of that, each email client or spam filter requires different whitelisting instructions. Nick's suggested tool goes some way to solving that problem.

May 08, 2006

Gail Goodman ruminates on the importance of trust in customer relationships, and then outlines how to build or destroy said trust through your email marketing.

Essentially, it contains a few reminders of what you might call the etiquette of email marketing.

After surviving an earlier round of 'email marketing is dead' cries, it seems continuing angst about deliverability and the rise of RSS means marketers are in need of more reassurance about email as a marketing tool.

Fact is the arguments haven't changed and real-world results continue to demonstrate the value of email marketing.

But those in need of more reassurance can read Wendy Roth's riposte to four email marketing fears, addressing the 'threats' of authentication, RSS, spam and certification.

May 05, 2006

As mobile communications continues to soar, a growing number of business folk use their handhelds for processing email.

That has obvious implications for email design, since what works nicely on a large PC screen...well...doesn't on a tiny handheld screen.

Chris Baggott has some quick advice on designing for handhelds, covering coding, wording and layout.

Since there look to be some key differences to standard design, it's also worth mentioning the importance of isolating handhelds users as a segment (if possible) so they get handheld-specific content, and you don't have to sacrifice usability for the PC/Mac folk.

May 04, 2006

Interesting research results from the folks at Return Path.

They discovered that subject lines of 49 characters or less produced clickthrough rates 75% higher than those with 50 or more characters.

Since CTR was measured as a percentage of sends, perhaps that was due to higher opens? Not so...

The equivalent jump in open rates was 12.5%. A good jump, but not enough to explain the impressive CTR boost from shorter subject lines.

Tami Forman, Director of Strategic Services at Return Path, told me...

"We, too, were surprised that the length of the subject line had a greater impact on the CTR than on the opens. What this suggests to us is that small increases in opens can lead to exponentially bigger gains in clicks."

"Also, subject lines do affect click rates: we see this in testing all the time. One theory we have is that shorter (and thus, more focused) subject lines are better at driving readers toward action."

Tami cautions marketers to test for themselves, though, noting that "There are plenty of 30-character subject lines that bomb."

"We think this research is best used as a guideline. It gives marketers a starting point. From there, they need to test and optimize the exact words that will resonate best with their audience."

If you sell something online, this might boost your conversions. Consider it for landing pages for your email promotions, too.

A while back I did a couple of case studies on the value of posting a security logo on your website. Not just any old logo, but a date-stamped logo indicating the site is hacker proof. Yesterday I saw another case study on the topic.

Sample results...

Simply posting this logo where people could see it lifted conversions:

* by 8.83% for Petco.com
* by 40% for Binoculars.com
* by 13% for CDConnection.com

The owner of Binoculars.com told me he used to downplay the number because he didn't think anyone would believe him.

You'll find all three case studies in the library at MarketingSherpa.com.

I should note that on e-commerce forums I've seen similar conversion rate increases posted, but also several sites that stated it made no difference to their rates. So you would need to test for yourself.

Several companies now seem to offer this "feel good about the transaction" service (note: you have to earn the logo by passing regular security checks on your server). The one you see most often is Hacker-Safe by ScanAlert.

May 03, 2006

...as if you needed one. Anyway, Ken Magill reveals that Microsoft (Hotmail) has another criteria to use when ruminating over whether your email deserves to be delivered or not.

It seems they're monitoring abandoned email addresses. Continuing to send email to a dead (but not bouncing) address gets you a black mark.

So now there is even more reason to dump non-responding addresses. Check Magill's article for the details.

The fuss about Goodmail's certification program for AOL has died down a touch. But Brian Livingston has an overview for those looking for an update on how things are going, how the program works and what people are still concerned about.

The conclusion for the short term (from the perspective of a marketer) seems to be, as our old friend Shakey might have said, "Much ado about nothing."

There are many things that make you go "hmmmm." This article from Quinn Jalli is one of them.

Marketers understand the requirements of Can-Spam legislation based on the text of the law, plus various guidelines published intermittently by the FTC.

But the recent court cases brought by the FTC under Can-Spam include more insights into how that law is interpreted.

And these insights are likely to raise a few eyebrows. Quinn points out the relevance of the court cases to various email marketing practices, such as subject lines and opt-out wording.

And reveals that what you may have thought was a perfectly legitimate practice...well...isn't.

Especially if you use forward-to-a-friend facilities to spread the word. Take a look.

May 02, 2006

Loren McDonald takes a look at the kind of emails you can find coming back to the reply-to address you use in your outgoing email campaigns. Such as out-of-office replies, challenge-response emails and similar.

More importantly, he evaluates their relevance to your email marketing success and suggests how you might handle them.

The latest line of defence against spam is the idea of email reputations. ISPs and others use various criteria to build up a reputation for individual senders, and use this reputation to decide whether or not your email gets delivered or not.

This article over at CNET looks at how these reputations are built and destroyed, examining some of the criteria used and what you can do if you have a reputation problem (or want to know if you have one).

An implied message, since I'm in a philosophical mood, is Panta Rhei: everything changes. What Buddhists might call anicca or the impermanence of existence. Or to return to reality, a reminder that the deliverability landscape is ever-changing; so keep watching.

Carol Ellison taps some industry experts to come up with a handful of tips and best practices on building and using an email list.

There's an emphasis on strategic and relationship considerations, which often get ignored in the rush to get a click and sale.

And dig deeper into the article for one or two neat insights on design.

Getting emails delivered, read and acted on is a big challenge. But a bigger one is often getting adequate company support for your email initiatives in the first place.

Melinda Krueger passes on a few tips from Kevin Doohan of ConAgra Foods on how he gets brand managers to support the company's e-newsletter program.

It's all about politics, psychology, and positioning.

Kurt Indvik reports from ad:tech San Francisco with some advice on starting an email program and improving an existing one.

Among the generalities there are some specific tips on email design and the list welcome message. And two success stories to inspire you and motivate you to put the advice into practice.

May 01, 2006

This article is ostensibly about semantics and whether email marketing is an art or science.

But it morphs into a super overview of when and where forms and scripts in emails work.

What you have is a table of common ISPs, with an indication of whether form tags and scripts are delivered, displayed properly and function as intended at each one.

The results are harrowing if you're a fan of scripts in emails. But less disturbing if you want to use forms.

Email newsletters are long-term ventures. Their value is in building the customer relationship so you get the sale when the reader is ready to make that purchase choice.

A problem with that is how you measure success, since measuring relationship improvements isn't easy (ask any married couple).

One possibility is to gather feedback from your readers. Which is a pseudo- success metric and a benefit of newsletters in the first place.

How you go about getting this feedback is the subject of this article at B2BOnline.com, where Karen J. Bannan enlists the help of a couple of experts to make some practical suggestions.

If you're looking for ideas and inspiration as you ponder the turning of the clock, try this award's gallery at MarketingSherpa.com.

It's a list of 38 award winners in various email marketing categories. As well as examples of each winning email, there's an explanation of why they won, plus a copy of the information/pitch sent in by the submitters.

Which means you get insights into the purpose and thinking behind what you see on the screen. Winners were judged on campaign results as much as look, so this is real world stuff and not intellectual smugness.

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