No man is an iland

July 31, 2006

It's one of those magical marketing moments. They're interested, they're engaged, they just signed up for your emails. And the first thing they get is your list welcome message.

So it needs to be good. And yet this wonderful opportunity is ignored by most marketers out there.

To help you change that, here are my nine tips for welcome message content.

Summary: If you're looking for a new UK-oriented ESP, then this 224 page guide saves you an awful lot of groundwork as you develop your shortlist. The detailed information on different services also helps when it comes to negotiating prices and features with your current or future service choice.

Details: The 224 page report begins with an overview of the industry in the UK and how email marketing ranks alongside other online marketing vehicles in terms of likely market size.

The overview also gathers opinion on how marketers are doing in terms of strategies and tactics, with pointers toward the practices that will likely determine success in the future.

And for those of you unconvinced, there's even a nice summary of the varied benefits email marketing brings your company.

Of course, if you're convinced of the value, you more than likely need a partner to take care of the technical side of things: maintaining your address list, physically sending out the emails, etc. etc.

That's where this report comes into its own.

It first outlines the different service models out there, and then offers (brief) advice on how to set about choosing the right model and service. However, it's not really a how-to guide; it won't take you through the nitty gritty of developing selection criteria etc. Instead, the meat of the report is in its very extensive service listings.

Each of 23 different companies (UK-based or with a significant UK presence) gets 6-10 pages of detail covering most or all of the below:

>> Basic information (contacts, company details, history etc.)
>> Clients and markets
>> Type of services and solutions offered (from a couple of dozen choices)
>> Ability to integrate with other technologies
>> Specific product details, including pricing information
>> Training and support services
>> Delivery records and capabilities
>> Presence and reputation
>> Case studies

Since this is a huge chunk of the information you need when comparing services, the report saves you an awful lot of work. With each listing so long, you can also get a feel for the culture of each service. That tells you who's likely to suit you best in terms of an enjoyable customer <-> service relationship.

If you're looking to commit some serious money to your email marketing endeavors, then the choice of service partner is critical. And getting this report becomes a no-brainer if you're UK-based. It pays for itself simply in terms of the research time you'll save.

Available from E-consultancy.com.

July 28, 2006

In the A to Z of email marketing, B is for bullet-points, blocking, blacklists and branding. The latter is the subject of this short article from Tricia Robinson.

She suggests a few approaches and tactics to improve the effect your emails have on the recipient's perception of your brand.

Apropos of nothing, the current ad on that page has a picture of the human digestive system, which apparently includes the lungs.

The auto-preview function in Outlook may have passed you by. It was certainly news to me. This MarketingSherpa article reveals what it is and why it may be one reason you aren't getting higher open rates.

Fortunately, the article also has some tips on how to get auto-preview to work in your favor, together with screenshots of appropriate email designs.

Just another issue to add to your email marketing concerns.

July 27, 2006

Following on from my warnings against assumed permission, let us turn our attention to another permission problem: stale permission.

This is when you start collecting email addresses in anticipation of sending out email. But for one reason or another you don't get round to starting your email marketing for several months.

The question is, do you still have permission to send marketing email to those addresses? Technically, you do. In a marketing sense, perhaps not. Because those who signed up months ago may have forgotten they did so, or moved on in terms of needs and interests. In such cases, they might see your missive as spam.

The folks at MailChimp have a rather nice take on this in a recent blog post, so I point you there for useful thoughts and ideas on how to treat and re-engage an old email list.

July 26, 2006

Vendor ReturnPath has been busy evaluating the reputation of IP addresses sending out email and come to some depressing conclusions.

Their reputation data (see their site for details) suggests that emails from less than 1% of those IP addresses monitored were likely to be delivered and almost 97% of IP addresses were likely to lead to blocked email (the rest falling somewhere inbetween).

That latter statistic makes the headline, but it's not time to panic. As this interview with Return Path's George Bilbrey shows, most commercial marketers are actually in or close to that top 1%.

So when they say 97% of (surveyed) IP addresses are worthy of blocking, they do not mean 97% of the IP addresses a reputable business would typically use are worthy of blocking.

In other words, those "bad" IP addresses generally belong to spammers, compromised PCs and others throwing email marketing caution to the wind.

Nevertheless, his comments do suggest that it's a fine line to walk when it comes to your sender reputation. And we know that the trend in the industry is definitely toward using reputation/certification (rather than email content) to determine whether an email should be delivered or not.

You'll find more information in the above article.

July 25, 2006

If you're considering finding another service to take care of hosting your email list and sending out your emails, then Melinda Krueger has some tips for you.

It's not a checklist as such (it's an article, not a book). But there are a few ideas on how to approach things from an organisational viewpoint. And she has some pointers on stuff to watch for above and beyond your defined set of current service feature needs.

If you are looking for a book, try this report from MarketingSherpa.

Assumed permission is a "grey" practice common among certain big companies and brands who think the normal rules of email marketing don't necessarily apply to them.

A few months ago I signed up to get a *specific* email newsletter from a "respected" media company. Today they sent me a different newsletter they publish...with the following message on top (I'm paraphrasing to protect the guilty):

"Since you subscribe to newsletter A, we figured you'd want to read Newsletter B, too. So we signed you up. If we're wrong, you can unsubscribe below"

I did not sign-up for this newsletter. The contents do not interest me. I really do not want yet more commercial email. So for me, it's spam. Perhaps not in the legal sense, but certainly in the marketing sense of the word.

There is a temptation to take an initial opt-in to something specific and assume that gives you permission to send the reader other material.

Although this breaks the rules of permission-based marketing, it's easy to convince yourself it's OK, because the recipient is bound to be interested in the new material, aren't they? So it's not really spam, is it?

But in my experience the assumption is often misplaced. People aren't that predictable.

So you may get away with it. If your assumptions hold, people might indeed welcome the new email. But more than likely your assumptions don't hold for everyone, possibly not even for the majority. And they might just react like me, and give you a big thumbs down in the image and reputation stakes.

It's a lazy way to expand your database. It certainly works for some, but it might just cost you more in the long run if you're concerned about image, reputation and the long-term viability of email marketing.

A better way, which is still a permission compromise (but one more people are likely to accept) is to send readers an example of the new newsletter, but require them to actively sign-up if they want to continue reading it.

(Update: Tom O'Leary of The Messaging Times comments on this issue and has an even more permission-friendly suggestion for how to get existing subscribers to opt-in to a new publication.)

A brief peek into the future over at Pocket-lint reveals a hi-tech device for your car that integrates with your handheld and reads out incoming emails while you're driving.

You probably thought reader attention spans were low now. Imagine how much attention your email will get if it's read while trying to find the right exit off spaghetti junction.

July 24, 2006

This case study demonstrates how one tool supplier used a marketing video to get credibility and thus meetings with prospects.

The video is not in the email itself (that doesn't work) but they used email to alert prospects to the online video.

If that approach piques your interest, the article has some useful tips for you, including the criteria the company used to pick someone to make the video.

Interpreting the statistics that fall out of your email marketing software or service is not always easy.

For example, I was pondering recently on the usefulness of one unloved campaign stat, namely the "unsubscribes" number. That's the number of people who cancelled their subscription following your latest email.

On the surface, unsubscribes are a rather unpleasant thing. Nobody likes rejection.

But it's actually more complicated than that. For example, if people don't like or want your emails, be happy that they made the effort to get off your list.

If they stayed on your list, they'd depress your results through their lack of response and could well end up reporting you as a spammer.

A sudden jump in unsubscribes is also a useful signal. It warns you something might be wrong.

Why the sudden jump? Did you give new sign-ups false expectations that left them disappointed when the email arrived? Is the quality of your content dropping? Did you mess up the new design?

But don't panic. Did you perhaps lose a few more subscribers because of changes that boosted response among those who remained on your list?

Maybe more targeted content better addressed the needs of your target readership and encouraged the hangers-on to leave en masse?

You're not trying to please everybody. You're not trying to build a "big" list. You're trying to build a quality list of those individuals most likely to do what you want them to do (buy, read, click, download, register, whatever).

So unsubscribes need a little bit more careful interpretation.

Now let's throw in some more layers of confusion...

Not all those unsubscribes are motivated by displeasure anyway. People change jobs, interests, and needs. They move on. All of which means they lose interest in your emails, but not through any fault of your own.

Nor should you get too complacent if nobody ever unsubscribes. Many people simply use the delete button, filter rules or "this is spam" icons to rid themselves of unwanted email.

In fact, if they do unsubscribe, isn't it nice that people trust you enough to submit an unsubscribe request? I exchanged emails with Wendy Roth of Lyris Technologies last week and she made this excellent point...

"In a way, unsubs are good things because they show the recipient may still value the relationship or trust you enough to honor the request."

We've trained people not to unsubscribe from spam because it alerts the spammer that your address is active. So getting an unsubscribe might well be considered a sign that you or your company is perceived as credible and trustworthy.

So unwanted and unloved they might be, but there's more to unsubscribes than a simple rejection notice.

David Baker makes the valid point that as email marketing gets more sophisticated, it's easier for mistakes to creep in.

While checking your emails and system isn't the most thrilling chore in the world, it's a vital one. And David has a few pointers on what you should be checking and why.

July 21, 2006

Among the great mysteries of life, like "How did the universe begin?", "Why are we all here?" and "Who ate all the socks?" is the issue of how often you should email your list.

For a few common sense ideas on answering that difficult-but-crucial question, try this article by Joe Colopy of Bronto.

Typically, articles addressing the big RSS versus email showdown take one side or another. Or feature folk just trying to push their own services and solutions on confused readers.

This piece from Lynn Russo has strong vendor input, but is a well-balanced look at how the two marketing tools shape up and ultimately complement each other.

If you're a sales assistant in a store, you don't talk to a new customer you've never seen before the same way you talk to one who comes in every week.

The idea of matching messages to where the customer is on the sales cycle needs no justification, but we're only implementing this slowly in email marketing.

In this article, Karen J. Bannan enlists the help of YesMail's Tim Price to suggest how you might approach a customer lifycycle email program.

It's Friday, so we can turn down the serious dial for a minute and cast our eyes over the Netherlands.

We regularly hear about how companies are letting standards slip in terms of responding adequately and quickly to email inquiries from customers and prospects.

According to the study reported here, Dutch local government isn't any better.

Over a third of municipalities never replied to an email inquiry, while only 35% answered it within one working day.

Keep hold of your phone: you will still need it.

July 20, 2006

Wendy Roth provides an introduction to some of the numbers you might measure to determine how your email marketing efforts are coming along.

She tackles seven metrics in brief, though there are some clever little insights tucked away in there, too.

I would treat the number of unsubscribes a little bit more skeptically than Wendy suggests. A lot of people these days do not bother to unsubscribe, even if they're disinterested in what you're sending and even if you make unsubscribing easy.

They use the "this is spam" button in their email client to ensure future emails go to the delete or spam folder without them seeing it. So the number of unsubscribes (and changes in that number) tend to under-represent people's true "dislike" of your missives.

Well now, if you really want to impress your colleagues around the lunch table, this is your chance...

According to this official report from the US Government, the Can-Spam Act of 2003 placed an additional burden on the public of 115,645,100 hours of paperwork during the 2005 Fiscal Year.

I wonder if that figure includes the number of hours of paperwork it took to produce that statistic?

Stephanie Miller offers up an eclectic collection of thoughts on testing in the context of email marketing.

She winds her way through various concepts, covering such ground as what to test, where to get inspiration, your attitude, and more.

July 19, 2006

I normally stay clear of press releases and other self-promotional material, but I'll make an exception for this one.

There are two particularly large unanswered questions concerning the whole issue of paying to have your marketing emails independently certified (see my article on email certification for background).

Does certification actually improve important numbers like response rates? And do these improvements outweigh the costs of certification?

According to this release from Goodmail Systems, the answer to the first question is "yes." At least for Time Consumer Marketing, who reveal the results of their tests using Goodmail's CertifiedEmail service.

That just leaves the second question...

(Update: By way of balance, here's a more cynical view of the Time results)

For those unfamiliar with the term CPA or Cost Per Action, it's where the advertiser pays a fee to whoever is displaying their advertisement only when someone viewing this advertisement undertakes some kind of action.

Example actions include a white paper download, newsletter sign-up or a product purchase.

There are lots of pros and cons to this approach, which is the basic model used by the multi-billion dollar affiliate marketing industry.

In email marketing, you can get affiliates or list owners to promote products or services on your behalf, and pay them on a CPA basis. A risk-free way of advertising you might think.

Not so.

Ken Magill explains why the CPA model encourages the people sending out the email to behave like spammers and how this can have disastrous consequences for your brand and the effectiveness of your own marketing emails.

July 18, 2006

Jeanne Jennings explains how you can use surveys to answer important questions about your address list or help solve various email marketing issues you might be facing.

Once she has you convinced of the benefits, she has a few tips on how to design a survey and get people to actually take the time to answer your questions.

July 17, 2006

Jack Aaronson appeals to marketers to inculcate their emails with more of their brand.

In doing so, he focuses on the issue of voice and language...and thus provides a persuasive brand-related argument for this idea of personality that folk like me harp on about as crucial to long-term email success (see, for example, this book chapter.)

I argue for personality as something that distinguishes you from all that competition and gives readers something to connect with. Jack's argument is that this personality is a crucial part of maintaining your brand.

July 14, 2006

As it's Friday, you might appreciate something a little different. This article uses football as a metaphor for email marketing, drawing out six strategic lessons for email marketers from an understanding of the world's favorite sport.

It was written before France's Zidane headbutted an Italian in the World Cup final. So lesson number seven might be to keep your cool under pressure. Or you might destroy a decade's worth of brand building in about two seconds. (Though you can't deny it helped his brand awareness.)

S is for Segmentation in the big book of email marketing, but like many things in life and love it's easier said than done.

Bill Nussey offers up an introduction to the topic, clarifying what it means and why it's a good thing.

He also has a range of ideas on how you might divide up your list of email addresses to produce groups of individuals likely to respond similarly to particular emails.

And he highlights a couple of real world examples to prove his points.

Derek Harding is now 250 in email marketing years, meaning he's been around the business for a decade. Here he has a go at those (many) companies that ignore negative customer feedback or make it difficult to send it in.

He outlines the reasons why such feedback is useful intelligence and one more tool in the battle to get your emails delivered.

I find the "do not reply to this email" comment at the top of many automated emails particularly exasperating. You might as well write "Don't both us with your questions: we don't care about our customers" instead. There are better ways of saying the same thing, if you really must refuse email replies.

Jordan Ayan reminds us of the importance of the message sent to new readers confirming their subscription.

He has a few useful suggestions for the content and presentation of this message. To which I'd add one other thing, namely to offer a little pleasant surprise.

You can be innovative in terms of what that surprise is. Examples might be a coupon, a "best of past issues" or even just a bit of humor.

Anything to make a better connection with this new reader and leave them looking forward to their first "proper" email from you.

July 13, 2006

We're back from vacation so let's get the ball rolling with this self-penned article showing you where to find sources of email marketing metrics to use for planning, benchmarking etc.

As well as listing various places you can find useful numbers, the article has some advice on how to use them and what you might need to watch out for.

Now excuse me while I dig through a couple of thousand emails...

July 12, 2006

Goodness, some scary reading for anyone doing email marketing. Vendor EmailLabs drew up a list of best practices for marketing emails, focusing on the formal functional aspects of the email rather than content, writing style, design etc.

They then took a look at a lot of emails to see how marketers shaped up. The results are here.

The bad news: we could all do better.

The good news: the list of best practices is a super checklist to use for a review of your own basic email templates.

July 11, 2006

There was a time when putting a recipient's name in the email's subject line boosted response rates. But this piece by Ken Magill suggests it's no longer that simple.

Seems spammers cottoned on to the technique and spoiled it for the rest of us (not for the first time). Magill gets input from a couple of experts to suggest how subject line personalization can still work if done properly.

July 10, 2006

The humble subject line has been dissected and analysed to death by email marketers. And for good reason. It's still a big factor in determining whether someone opens your email.

Tricia Robinson adds another article to the subject line knowledge base, with a number of tips on how to write one that works.

July 07, 2006

OK, this is a power user, but one IT consultant and writer expresses his exasperation with the inability of many lists to offer a workable unsubscribe mechanism.

If you're doing any of the things he complains about, it's time to take a fresh look at your email system. Making it difficult for people to get off a list simply means your database is carrying a bunch of unresponsive individuals who are more than likely to report you as spam.

Gail Goodman of ConstantContact has 10 copywriting commandments for your marketing emails.

It's intended largely for those new to the topic area, offering a framework to get you started on the long and winding road to copywriting success.

She also has a couple of relevant book/website suggestions, too.

July 06, 2006

One small business expert describes how he decided to offer potential subscribers access to popular articles and presentations to reward them for signing up to his newsletter.

The before-and-after numbers suggest it works in terms of accelerating the growth of a list.

The concept of offering sign-up incentives is well-established and highly recommended.

The key is to ensure that the incentive matches the audience so only the right sort of people sign-up. Offer something that only your target readership would find valuable. It's about building a quality list of addresses, not a big list of addresses.

July 05, 2006

In their latest column, Messrs Popov and McDonald compile a collection of points, possibilities and polite suggestions for the way you use HTML to design your emails.

July 03, 2006

David Baker gives us a simple summary of the state of play with regard to embedding rich media presentations in your marketing emails.

He begins by summarising what rich media actually is (for those that don't know) and then comments on the basic ins, outs, pros and cons...so you understand what you need to think about before developing a rich media email marketing campaign.

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