No man is an iland

July 31, 2007

Just a quick pointer to an older post on sender names. The comments section has some recent lively debate on the subject. Check out comment 5, where Sean of EmailCenter reveals details of some intriguing sender line tests and results.

Perhaps we've underestimated the power of the sender line in our fascination with subject lines?

More on from lines

There's no denying that email is sometimes regarded as the runt of the online marketing litter. What Jeanne Jennings has called the "overlooked stepchild." According to fairytale and myth, the industry has two possible fates.

• Choose the right footwear and marry the prince, or
• develop a hunchback, skulk in dark corners and frighten old women with tales of purple pills and evil stock schemes.

Time will tell. But Kevin Hillstrom is proving a fairy godmother with his considered appreciation of the role email marketing plays in a multichannel environment.

His latest post examines a typical set of results for an email campaign. Unimpressive on the surface, a closer look reveals the value that email brings to the business.

That said, Kevin's premise is that the future value of email is not in mimicking the direct sales function of channels like the catalog, but in complementing business success as a whole through creative and intelligent relationship and brand building.

Fascinating stuff as always, even if I don't always understand the math.

More on statistics | Tags: email marketing metrics

A couple of articles for those new to the topics:

Dr. Ralph Wilson has 12 tips on how to grow your list. (Found via Tom at the Messaging Times.)

Quick note: tip 4 is to provide a sign-up incentive of value to your subscribers. Important to remember that the incentive should match the email list's theme, too.

Otherwise you end up with a lot of subscribers interested in the incentive, but not the subsequent emails. Is that bad? Yes, when they all start reporting you as spam.

Say your list is for men interested in building their own golf clubs...

Bad sign-up incentive: Free beer. Valued by a lot of men, but you'd soon end up with millions of names who are never going to respond to your emails. Expensive, ineffective.

Good sign-up incentive: Free 10-page download "A guide to golf grips." Valued by exactly the kind of people who you want on your email list. Cheap, effective.

Meanwhile, SubscriberMail's recent newsletter had an overview of the various factors that go into improving your open rates.

More on list building and statistics | Tags: email open rates, email lists

Here's a nice tip if you oblige people to confirm their subscription by clicking on a link in a confirmation email...

After signing-up to a new account at the Plaxo online address book service, I saw the following confirmation web page:



Not only do they warn me that the confirmation email is on its way and requires action on my part, but they show me a picture of the email that's coming. Which makes it all the more likely that I'll recognize it for what it is and take that next step.

Of course the irony is that my email software has images turned off by default. So the email that turned up didn't look like the picture...but given the importance of recognition in driving response, the email preview seems like a great idea.

More on list building | Tags: email marketing, confirmation emails

July 30, 2007

The market researchers at Gartner reckon mobile email is poised to leave the offices of senior executives and become a mass phenomenon with consumers, too.

A recent press release notes that less than 2% of all email accounts are currently accessed using a mobile device.

But this will change, say the clever Gartner folk, who predict that 350 million business and consumer users will have access to wireless email by 2010 (over ten times the current level.)

They cite a number of reasons, but it all boils down to a blurring of lines between consumer and business uses, and the fact that ever-more people like to have a cool gadget in their pocket.

So if you're a B2C marketer and were quietly ignoring all the mobile email issues discussed of late (e.g. this post, this one and this one)...well, sorry.

More on mobile email | Tags: mobile email, wireless email, consumer email trends

Any industry growing up fast is bound to have a few scuffles and disagreements. And that's a good thing. It shows people are committed. And progress and focus comes out of debate. For example, the last few days saw...

• Al DiGuido question whether advocate organizations are investing their efforts in the right direction
• Jeanniey Mullen disagreeing with his sentiments
• And David Baker taking on an intermediary role

Since we're on the subject, I've seen a few comments recently bemoaning the repetitive nature of the basic advice given out by leading blogs, media sites and other information sources.

Problem is...that's what people still need. It's great and important that the "thought leaders" are pushing the frontiers back with new ideas and clever tactics. But most people are nowhere near reaching the level where they can benefit.

Case in point...six years on and by far the most popular article or blog post at the Email Marketing Reports website is still "An introduction to email marketing."

One of those bits of repeated advice is always to segment your audience so you can send more relevant emails to them.

The audience for email marketing advice and info is as diverse as any email list.

So there's room and a need for a lot of different approaches, voices and areas of focus. And a lot of us are still trying to find our own approach, voice and area of focus in this ever-changing and new line of work.

So we can all look forward to a few more scuffles, more shoving and even the occasional bout of fisticuffs in the future, too. All a sign of healthy progress I think.

Tags: email marketing

July 27, 2007

...I have never checked email while in the bathroom or driving. Many have, though, according to a large survey of US email habits by AOL.

Of those with portable devices, 53% have checked email in the bathroom...

(I see a market opportunity here. I'm thinking bathroom tissue holder that doubles as an email client. With an integrated printer. So you know what you can do with any spam you get.)

...and 37% while driving (!)

In among the "humor," there are some serious insights here.

For example, the survey makes it clear (surprise!) that those with mobile or wireless email are checking email more often and spread out through the day (and night.)

The suggestion is that your "best time to send" may shift around as more and more people gravitate to portable devices with email capability.

Another example... 60% admit to checking their "personal email at work an average of three times a day." More evidence that you can't assume strict segmentation of user behavior between B2B and B2C email. Not everyone reads personal mail at home. Not everyone reads business mail at work.

Anyway, I'm off for a long weekend. And yes, I'm one of the 40% who say email access is "very" or "somewhat" important when planning a vacation.

Tags: email marketing, consumer email, aol, email trends

July 26, 2007

Des Cahill has an article on deliverability that doesn't repeat the best practice advice that litters the web (and is still largely ignored by most senders of email.)

Instead, it's a nice overview of the main players in the email game, reviewing the roles played by ISPs, standards groups, consumers, senders, anti-spam groups and reputation/delivery services.

Two key statements hidden in there:

1. The good news is that inboxes now generally have less spam in them. The bad news is that spam levels are at an all-time high

The anti-spam vendors never cease to peddle the spam is growing line. Sent spam may be growing, but not necessarily delivered spam.

2. Unfortunately, there are still many, many legitimate businesses that don't understand that in today's world, sending volume email is a privilege, not a right

Most writers in this field (me included) fall into the trap of writing for the minority of clued up and corporate marketers. Des reminds us that the vast majority of marketers and businesses do not understand the nuances and needs of email marketing.

More on deliverability | Tags: email marketing, email deliverability

You know a topic is coming of age when MarketingSherpa get their teeth into it. This special report has a heap of advice on how to tackle the problems associated with mobile email users, specifically those using a Blackberry.

Covering both design and strategy, a lot of the advice hangs on knowing who exactly among your readership is using a Blackberry.

That might be your first task; to find out if you have any such users in your audience. Which is easier said than done.

Then there are two further problems...

The Blackberry may be the dominant device at the moment. But there are dozens of others looking to become the next Blackberry. This is a very dynamic market. With a whopping big hole in terms of mobile email display standards.

And if you want to send emails optimized for the Blackberry user, then you need to define a Blackberry user. How? Is it someone who always checks email first on the Blackberry? What if they only use mobile email out of office hours? Do you send them email optimized for the mobile experience or the PC/laptop experience?

There is still much to figure out here. I wish I had more answers.

The Sherpa report also has useful links to Blackberry simulators and other resources.

More on mobile email design | Tags: email marketing, mobile email, wireless email, blackberry

Chad White just released another "state of the industry" report on the subscription practices of leading retailers.

The report covers common practices, best practices (not necessarily the same) and emerging practices. More details here.

The executive summary is available at the above link and has some surprises. For example, Chad notes that "Not even 7% of retailers give subscribers any kind of idea how many emails to expect."

That's shocking. All those people expecting less than they then get are prime candidates for whacking the "this is spam" button.

Equally, less than 50% address privacy concerns at sign-up. How many subscribers are not handing over their email address because of a lack of assurance on privacy issues?

(See Best practices for sign-up forms for suggestions on what elements are crucial.)

As always, interesting insight from the Emperor of etail email.

More on building your list | Tags: email marketing, email acquisition, online retail

Recent times have seen the email industry shaking an exasperated fist after another round of trash talking from the Facebook/MySpace/IM/chat (insert as appropriate) crowd.

Here a few recent posts and articles defending the medium's future, for those still following the debate...

• Email defines, not defies, innovation
• Email is part of Web 2.0
• Email and Web 2.0
• Email is soooo 2005
• Email is the digital glue

See also this earlier post (and the reader comment.)

Tags: the future of email, email marketing

July 25, 2007

Bryan Eisenberg just published an article on writing subject lines. Bryan and his colleagues are conversion and copywriting geniuses, so it's always worth reading their material.

It's great stuff, but his comment on from lines seems worthy of further analysis. Bryan writes:

...personalize the sender (you), too. How often do you see an email from "Company XYZ," and -- since you aren't ready to buy -- you just hit delete? However, that same message from "Fred Doolittle" makes it seem like it might be worthwhile reading.

I'd suggest it's more complicated than that.

First, if the recipient is discarding email just on seeing your company name, then you have worse problems than deciding what to put in your from line. Even if the recipient isn't ready to buy.

You should have built enough of a brand or email history to leave people at least curious as to what the email might contain. And the point does not apply, of course, to emails not designed to generate an immediate sale (such as most email newsletters.)

The decision to open an email is based on various factors but a real big one is recognition. Do they recognize the sender and/or email? And are the associations with that sender/email positive enough to elicit that open?

So ensuring that recognition is critical.

Here you have a choice. The sender could be the brand name, publication name, product name, service name, the business name or a real name.

In most cases, the first five are the ones most likely to be recognized. Not the real name. Email from strangers carries the scent of spam.

Now, Bryan's point about the personal connection is important. So how do you use a real name as the sender and get round the recognition problem?

If you're lucky, there may be a real name that works in terms of recognition.

It could be a brand-related personality, whether real or invented. So an NBA team could send email from the head coach.

Or it could be a contact within the business. Newsletters to B2B customers could come from their personal sales rep.

Where there's no recognized real name to use, you can also introduce one. Welcome messages and sign-up copy can prepare the recipient for the name...here's an example.

So far, so good. But let's take it a level further. If you use a real name, it has to make some kind of intrinsic sense to the recipient. Otherwise you set up an uncomfortable disconnect.

The contents need to match the sender.

If the sender is a brand name or business name, you have more or less carte blanche in terms of plausible content. If the sender is a real name, suggesting a personal connection, then there needs to be something human within the email, too.

An editorial note, a line of introduction. Anything that does not break the spell.

A single image of a product offer with a "buy now" link does not fit with a "personal" sender line.

So real names in the from line are great. Provided they are recognized and provided this is reflected in the email itself.

Let's remember, also, that from lines are not seen in isolation. Sure, some people make the "delete or open?" decision based mainly on the from line. But some do so using the subject line. And others take their cue from the combination of the two.

So the responsibility for ensuring recognition can be shared. If your subject line begins with the brand name, then you can more easily put an "unfamiliar" real name in the from line than if the subject line was not branded.

You will have to test some alternative subject/sender lines to find out the combination that works best for your audience. The results may be surprising.

In essence, this combination of subject and from line has to achieve three things...

• It must let people recognize who the email is coming from
• It must give them a reason to open
• And it must match the contents of that email

If you have a powerful brand, promise or email history, recognition alone can drive the open. For the rest of us, it's the combination of recognition and good subject line copy that is needed.

More on writing subject lines | Tags: email marketing, subject lines, from lines, email copywriting

RSS and email are now best of friends and a lot of content gets repurposed between the two (feed content going into email, e-newsletter content republished as a web feed.)

It may be the same content, but its presentation and how people read it differs considerably between the two media. So sending material out via both involves a little more thought than just cutting and pasting or using automated tools.

Douglas Karr, for example, picks out a few important differences that might give you pause for thought.

More on RSS and email | Tags: RSS, email marketing, web feeds

July 24, 2007

Melinda Krueger suggests how to help transactional emails make a better connection to the recipient in this article.

In my experience, order confirmations, account messages and similar could step up four levels...

First, most need a basic design overhaul. Not necessarily in terms of a fancy HTML redesign. But certainly in terms of ensuring the clarity of the message. (No long, unwieldy paragraphs, for example.)

Second, the design and text need to match the other emails the customer gets and what they see at the website. All the things that go under phrases like "seamless brand experience."

Third, the tone needs to change to connect better to the reader. Too many transactional emails read like they were written by a machine or the intern in the IT department.

Fourth, add in the marketing elements. "Since you bought Product A, you might like Product B." Buy a book from Amazon or a song from iTunes and you'll see longstanding examples of this in practice.

For more ideas on transactional emails, check out these articles.

Tags: transactional emails

David Baker's latest article does its usual job. Taking a concept we all thought we understood, then shaking it around a bit so we realize how much we still have to learn. This time it's testing.

David's point is that conventional testing simply looks for one-off incremental changes that lead to improvements in specific results. (Try different subject lines, use the best to get a sales increase.)

He suggests you can gain so much more by using testing to get a deeper understanding of the whole email marketing framework that you're dealing with.

Which means your testing regime should help you learn more about the different audiences that make up your readership. And more about the right way to use that knowledge when building and executing your marketing efforts.

More on testing | Tags: email marketing, testing emails

July 23, 2007

Darren Fell pokes a stick or two at the ESP market (which he's part of) in a two-part article on those factors that impact delivery.

Part 1 touches on the reputation of the sender's IP address and the importance of clean coding. Part 2 goes on to discuss the role of trust, timing, data and unsubscribe practices, and creative.

Part 2 is particularly interesting, since Darren highlights some common problems with many "from" lines and suggests some additions to the top of your email which might provoke a little debate.

One of those additions is the so-called permission reminder (telling people where they signed up and using which address). There's more on that somewhat divisive topic here.

More on deliverability | Tags: email deliverability, permission reminders, whitelisting

July 20, 2007

A couple of posts ago we saw how Yahoo and AOL implied that they view spam as any email people don't want. The lesson: one-time permission isn't enough. Your sender reputation - your ability to get emails delivered - depends on keeping that permission. By sending relevant, useful emails.

Others picked up the conversation, which goes back to an earlier debate about the value of permission in a world driven by reputation.

So much for that. Here's what Google just said in an official Gmail blog post on spam reports:

Sometimes people are afraid to report a message because they aren't sure if it is "really" spam or not. Our opinion is that if you didn't ask for it and you don't want it, it's spam to you, and it should be reported.

Not as harsh as the AOL/Yahoo comments, but again a reminder that you can cry all you like about opt-ins and legal compliance, but it won't mean anything if users report you (quite rightly from the user perspective) as spam.

As if that wasn't enough to edge us out of the comfort zone, there's a new wave of "is email dying?" articles around. The premise being that social networking sites and the communication habits of younger generations will see email fade in importance.

Many refute that prediction (see, for example, posts yesterday from Josh Nason or eROI's Dylan), and with some justification.

But we can be certain that as people face more choice in how they communicate, your emails come under increasing pressure to be heard.

The competition for attention is not just from other businesses in your field, it's from every email in the inbox, and from every other way people are trying to reach your prospect or customer.

So we have a double warning. ISPs and webmail services telling us to be relevant. And new technologies telling us to be relevant...or be ignored.

Now add in the fact that relevancy comes through targeting and targeting need not be difficult.

Result: no more excuses folks. The pressure is on!

P.S. Since we're on the subject, here are three new articles on targeting and segmentation: First Arthur Middleton Hughes and then Stefan Pollard explain how segmentation works and suggest how you can use it in your email marketing. And Spencer Kollas explains what personalization means.

Tags: email marketing, segmentation, permission

As the number of mobile email users rises, so does the number of articles on how this impacts email marketing and email design.

Just in the last couple of days we've had the big study from ExactTarget, Anne Holland worried and Julian Scott today with four tips on how to tackle the mobile community through email.

The problem for us non-experts is that not everyone agrees on the best way forward...strategy and design-wise. There are two competing viewpoints:

• Treat mobile email users as a separate audience with dedicated campaigns, strategies, design and copywriting
• Accept that mobile users will actually save your emails for later for viewing on a PC or laptop. So don't treat them too differently, because "designed-for-mobile" emails look pathetic on a PC

Best practices are slowly emerging through (as always) a hybrid approach: make some concessions to mobile email users, but still expect them to view most of your emails on a big screen.

But the experts are still feeling their way toward the best solutions to mobile design and content issues.

Part of the problem is that we don't have a good grasp of where mobile email use is headed. That's because there's still a lot of change ahead in terms of:

• Mobile devices: is mobile email a non-issue when PDAs and smartphones get as good as the iPhone at handling HTML email?
• Users: what happens when more consumers and non-professionals start to get into mobile email?
• The supporting technologies: uptake of mobile email depends on how easy and cheap it is to get the service.
• User habits: how will these change as people mature in their use of mobile email?

I'm "watching this space," and to help, I've set up two new categories of article links for you, covering mobile email user trends and mobile email design issues. There's plenty more to come on this topic...

Tags: mobile email, wireless email, email marketing

Spam and delivery problems still dominate our thoughts. But email design put a hand up in 2007 and said, "hey folks, we have issues here, too." And a big issue is the growing prevalence of webmail services and desktop email software that block images in emails from displaying.

Many experts have written on this topic, so (as of today) it qualifies for its own article category. See here for links to over a dozen articles on how to design for image suppression and how to help get your images displayed.

Tags: image blocking, image suppression, email design

If phrases like "perceived value differential" don't have you rushing to the coffee machine, there is much to be gained from a read through MarketingExperiments look at landing page incentives.

The concepts are applicable to email (in fact, email offers and sign-up incentives feature prominently in the article.) What you get is:

• an illustration of how much difference incentives can make to conversions
• an explanation of how to calculate which incentives work best (it's not just a question of conversion rate)
• a brief discussion about choosing the right incentive in the first place

Don't be intimidated by the textbook tone: there are easy-to-grasp, practical concepts hiding behind some complicated-sounding names.

More on growing your list | Tags: incentives, list building

July 19, 2007

Those with eyes firmly attached to crystal balls have ruminated recently on the likely future of email marketing. But all is well in the present, and certainly as far as B2B marketers in the UK are concerned.

A recent survey by Newsweaver and B2B Marketing Magazine of 170 marketers revealed 87% considered email critical, important or very important to their B2B marketing strategy.

The above link has full details about why they email and who they email to, but let me focus on one question asking about the biggest B2B email marketing challenges.

The top three answers were:

• The rise in spam undermining the medium (26.67%)
• Spam filters blocking marketing messages (21.67%)
• Inbox overload due to too much email (16.67%)

Take spam away and you have no overload, no undermined medium and no need for such brutal filters.

In other words, it is clear that email marketing's biggest challenges would fall away if there was no spam. Not that that's going to happen soon. But it's important to remember that marketers and anti-spammers share common goals as we all club together to find spam solutions that work for everyone.

Tags: b2b email marketing, email marketing UK, spam

Nobody should be ashamed about an obsession with clickthrough rates. Or that nervous tick that develops when you see a copy of Outlook 2007.

Now you can wear your work with pride, thanks to the folks over at Campaign Monitor. They just started selling t-shirts featuring a couple of humorous email marketing motifs.

You'll excuse my rare endorsement of a commercial product. It's just I have a particular fondness for the most popular design ;-).

Coming next: handbags for email marketers. Only about 30% of them ever open.

If you use tables for multi-column layouts in your emails, then Mark Wyner has some details on how column widths are handled when you have padding, nested tables etc.

As with much HTML, email clients (like Outlook) and webmail services don't treat tables like the more robust and reliable web browsers. So planning widths down to the pixel is a tricky business. Mark has the lowdown.

And Ken Magill explains the background to the saga of image suppression. He looks at the pros and cons of certification (to get round image blocks) and gets advice from Matt Blumberg on how other elements of your email program can compensate for the blocked images problem.

More on HTML email design | Tags: email design, html email, image blocking, image suppression

This blog post from Eyetools is a little self-serving, but makes a point. They have a heatmap showing where people focus when looking at one of Circuit City's promotional emails.

Click on the image there for a larger screenshot with comments on which key messaging elements people do not see.

It's quite an eyeopener. If nothing else, it demonstrates the role design and copywriting play in guiding the viewer through (or not) an email.

There are several such heatmaps in Sherpa's email marketing benchmark guide (but that costs money.)

More on design | Tags: email design, heatmaps, eyetools

July 18, 2007

I was intrigued by a couple of quotes from the folk in charge of keeping inboxes free of unwanted email.

Note I didn't say free of spam. Because if you listen to what Yahoo, AOL and others say, it's clear that they see their job as keeping out exactly that...unwanted email (classic spam is just one example.)

Treat that as a warning. If your email is to get delivered, then it must do more than just satisfy the traditional criteria for a legitimate marketing email (an opt-in, legal compliance etc.)

Instead, you have to work hard to ensure the recipients keep wanting to get your email.

Which sounds obvious.

Until you take a step back and ask yourself how many of your email marketing decisions are determined by your needs, rather than those of the recipients. (The ideal scenario, of course, is to find the right email content, offers and strategy that satisfy both.)

Here are those quotes:

It is really about what the consumer wants. Even if they asked to receive the e-mail, if they do not find value in it, then it is not a good e-mail. We want to make sure that our customers are happy. Charles Stiles, AOL

Operationally we define spam as whatever consumers don't want in their inbox. Miles Libbey, Yahoo!

The US Federal Trade Commission (the people behind Can-Spam legislation) held a two-day Spam Summit last week, featuring various luminaries from the Internet and marketing world.

You can watch recordings of the event or read the transcripts here.

The last meeting set the scene for significant legislative changes and industry initiatives of relevance to marketers.

This one seemed to pass by with nary a whisper. It seems marketers, legislators and ISPs are all pulling on more or less the same string when it comes to tackling the scourge of spam. This is a welcome trend. (Even though some are pulling harder than others.)

Whatever. Here some reports on what went on...

Barry Leiba also blogged on what he saw on day 1 and day 2.

Quinn Jalli talks about his participation and argues that ISPs should start blocking any email that isn't properly authenticated. It's a strong stance, but makes sense from an "amputate the leg to save the life" perspective.

In his inimitable style, Ken Magill laments the lack of conflict among participants, with even the DMA appearing reasonable.

And he comments on how anti-spam ire is directed at the spammers now, rather than marketers in general (few people made the distinction before.)

Finally, Neil Schwartzman offers a commentary that bemoans the lack of participation by the anti-spam community and reminds us all that email was not built as a vehicle for commercial messaging. (It always pays to keep in mind why people actually use email.)

More on anti-spam laws | Tags: ftc spam summit, anti-spam, spam, federal trade commission

Recently, there was plenty of debate on the use of text links and button links in emails. Which worked better?

A new case study comes at the problem from another angle.

Does it help to add a search button to your email? And what about putting an "add to cart" button below product promotions (so people can buy instantly rather than click through to a product page)?

Both seemed to work for Powell's Books. MarketingSherpa has the details and screenshots.

More case studies | Tags: email design, call to action, buy buttons, search buttons

Most of the webinars/seminars I put on the event list are for those with previous experience. So I thought it pertinent to point out some specifically designed for newcomers to the field.

1. Vendor AWeber have weekly webinars on introductory topics, including...

• How to get started
• Create and send effective email newsletters
• Get more subscribers with optimized opt-in forms

2. Vendor ConstantContact has several live webinars each week, including...

• Demos of their email marketing and survey service
• Segmenting your list
• Building better lists
• Subject line design
• Planning email marketing...and more

3. The DMA in the USA runs an "Introduction to email marketing" seminar around the country.

If you know of any similar "live" resources for fresh faced email marketers, let me know...

Tags: email marketing for beginners

July 17, 2007

If you're doing email business in Asia, a few new and proposed laws are worth keeping note of...

The Japanese authorities are gearing up to revise their anti-spam law.

The current law is pretty weak, allowing unsolicited email provided the email is labeled correctly and the content satisfies certain criteria. The new proposals look like they would ban unsolicited emails, presumably meaning a switch to opt-in requirements.

Singapore enacted the Spam Control Act in June. For relevant links, look to the legislation box at the Singapore Spam Control Resource Centre.

A quick read of the Act suggests it's not dissimilar to the USA's Can-Spam legislation, since it requires opt-out only. Unsolicited bulk email should carry the ADV tag in the subject line.

Hong Kong also put out their Unsolicited Electronic Messaging Ordinance in June. A second part follows towards the end of the year. Again, it takes an opt-out approach. More details from the Office of the Telecommunications Authority.

More on spam laws | Tags: anti spam laws, email laws

Gratifying to see Melinda Krueger writing today about negative preferences. If you're letting people choose what content they get from you, you probably let them tick a box or three to express their preferences at sign-up.

Another approach is to send people particular kinds of content, and give them the opportunity to tell you which types they don't want.

I discussed this reverse targeting technique and its many advantages back in April. See the Elegant ways to avoid unsubscribes post.

More on targeting and segmentation | Tags: email marketing, email segmentation

July 16, 2007

Anna Billstrom has two nice posts on the topic of image blocking.

The first has screenshots of ten marketing emails with images switched off, together with Anna's comments on how well they coped with this image suppression. Includes good design and copywriting strategies for coping with the problem.

The second post contains more specific comments on the prevalence of blocked images, how you can deal with the issue and how you can estimate whether your marketing emails are affected.

More on design issues | Tags: image suppression, image blocking, email design

Jeanne Jennings highlights the best things to test when it comes to email marketing. More importantly, she actually suggests how you might change elements like the offer and from line, in case you're lacking your own creative inspiration.

Read the advice in combination with her first article on the topic, and note this earlier warning about how long you should wait before declaring a mailout a success or failure.

More on testing | Tags: testing emails

"If you only send me email to get into my wallet without caring who I am, then you are no better than a pickpocket"

Harsh? Maybe, but that quote comes from a consumer. She was talking about spammers, but the rationale behind it applies equally to legitimate marketing emails.

There's a reason experts bang on about targeting, relevancy, relationships, and permission...

If you're concerned about the wider role of email in your business, then Kevin Hillstrom is a great source of information.

Not just because he comments regularly on multichannel issues, but because he takes a remarkably objective approach which can see him challenge myths and taboo topics the rest of us avoid.

In this post, he looks at the position of email marketing in a multichannel retail environment and assesses how it might change in the future.

It's a challenge of sorts. Kevin's implication is that we get too tied up in the specialist and technical language of email marketing. And are still too focused on trying to use direct sales as email's justification.

Instead he suggests it's incumbent on those working with email to work against being (or being seen as) a standalone channel, and to see the medium as a facilitator for sales through all sorts of channels.

Email as a relationship builder as much as a direct response vehicle. More details here.

More on email strategy | Tags: email marketing, multichannel marketing

July 13, 2007

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) just released a document which tries to put up some signposts in the maze of email marketing metrics.

It's not trying to standardize how various statistics like clickthrough or delivery rates are measured. Instead, it's a reasoned attempt to clarify the terminology used...what do we call the key numbers that reflect the performance of your email efforts? And how are these numbers typically calculated?

There are other initiatives underway to bring more standards to email marketing, so it remains to be seen where this contribution will fit in. The authors make the reasonable claim that this might be considered the first step in a gradual evolution toward more transparency in the industry.

You can get a feel for the problems involved from this new article by Dave Lewis. He talks us through the phenomenon of "silent deletes" where ISPs and corporations quietly take your incoming email and divert it to a big black hole. No delivery. No bounce.

More on statistics | Tags: email marketing metrics, email marketing statistics

Hold on the guffaws. A survey of 164 IT executives by CIO Insight found 7% of the companies using a free webmail service as their corporate email system.

And we're not talking small businesses. None of these execs were at companies doing less than $5 million in annual sales, and roughly a third were doing over $1 billion a year.

The survey authors think 7% is low. But 7% is still a lot of inboxes. B2B email marketers might want to look beyond Outlook in terms of where their emails are getting displayed.

More webmail statistics | Tags: b2b email marketing, webmail, corporate email

July 12, 2007

Some of the best marketing emails take holidays and special occasions as their theme. And I don't just mean the pre-Christmas promotional extravaganza that fills our inboxes to bursting each December.

Janine Popick had some advice on this topic last year. But if you're struggling to find a suitable holiday or seasonal event to build a campaign around, AWeber have some suggested resources. These include their own free holiday marketing calendar file which you can integrate with popular calendar tools (like Google's.)

And since we're on the topic, the ever-busy Chad White has a new reportlet out with various charts covering the most popular days of the year for retailer emails.

You can read further insights on that topic in his related article at MediaPost.

More on timing and frequency | Tags: email marketing, holiday marketing

It's hard not to get swept up in the excitement of a truism or widespread best practice. Which it's why it's great to have columnists able to stand up and ruffle a few feathers.

Exhibit A is Derek Harding, who wonders how much success the much-applauded (also by me) initiative to develop standards for the numbers presented in campaign reports is likely to have.

Derek argues convincingly that some metrics simply can't be standardized and suggests practical necessity and commercial pragmatism may hinder progress anyway.

Exhibit B is copywriting legend Bob Bly, who takes a mild poke at purveyors of best practices in B2B email marketing.

He uses the example of "text versus HTML" to illustrate his point that there are no silver bullets in the email field. But he does think there are three practices that are undoubtedly healthy for your B2B emails, and reveals them to us.

More on statistics and copywriting | Tags: b2b email marketing, email marketing metrics

Good news and bad news drops out of a large study of mobile email use by ExactTarget.

If you're like me, you express the fervent hope that recipients are quite happy to wait until they're back at the PC before reading your marketing email.

That would take some pressure off the need to get emails to look halfway decent on a handheld device (a tricky task, as we'll see.)

Fortunately, the survey gives succor to our hopes. According to ExactTarget, mobile email users are indeed mainly scanning their mail for important one-to-one messages, and leaving the rest for later perusal on a desktop or laptop.

Very few mobile email users are actually clicking on links or making purchases through their Blackberry, Treo or cell phone. In fact, 46% of those surveyed had never, ever clicked on a link in an email displayed on their mobile device.

Of course, as the technology improves and unfamiliarity with mobile Internet use drops, you can expect more people to start interacting "properly" with their email. So there's no justification for putting your head in the sand.

The authors don't let us off the hook, either. They note that it's important to pique the interest of the mobile user, so that when they do go back to the home or office, they'll be more likely to take the time to check your message.

How do you do this?

(Now the "bad" news.) At the moment, there seem to be no meaningful standards out there regarding how an email is displayed on a mobile device.

The study authors say your safest bet, then, is to ensure the first few lines in the text part of your multipart mime email do the job of stimulating interest.

So it looks like it's time to pay more attention to the "lowly" text version of your message. (And it's another argument in favor of text-only messages for those enjoying a hefty HTML versus text debate.)

It's also important to note that if mobile email users are looking at your email when they return to the PC, then letting people choose "mobile/PDA" as a format choice when signing up to your emails could backfire.

Why?

Because, as the authors note, the fancy text/HTML emails may look bad on the mobile device, but people are likely reading them on a PC later anyway.

The "designed-for-mobile" messages might look good on the mobile device, but the reduced design functionality and messaging space mean it's hard to make an impact (might as well use SMS?)

And when the user returns to the PC, your message is, frankly, pretty drab when compared to the lovely design and copy of your PC-hugging competitors.

In more bad/good news, mobile email is spreading beyond its traditional domain of the affluent businessperson. As prices for devices drop and the technology matures, more and more "ordinary" people are joining the mobile email bandwagon. So B2C marketers beware.

What this basically means is that if mobile email isn't on your mind now, then it ought to be soon. The study's press release is a good introduction, but you can download the full 27 page report after the obligatory free registration.

The full results offer more data on user demographics (based on responses from just under 300 actual users of email and over 4000 mobile phone owners), attitudes, rendering issues and similar. With nine email design recommendations.

My favorite insight: 43% of mobile email users check their email when in bed. Which might explain the divorce rate.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on this new challenge for email marketing. I'd be interested, for example, to see if the reported mobile email user habits and attitudes differ depending on the wireless device used to access the email.

Will people still need or want to catch up on email on the PC if they're using a nice large-screen PDA, custom-designed for mobile email? As opposed to a tiny cell phone with mediocre email functionality?

Update: Anne Holland has a slightly alternative view over at David Baker's blog.

Tags: mobile email, wireless email, email design

July 11, 2007

1. From an email I got today:



It's a novel way of dealing with the information disclosure requirements of anti-spam legislation.

2. And another one (two) today:



I wonder if No.12 is to avoid sending the same email twice to your list?

3. The search engine I launched for trusted email marketing information does not list itself as a source of trusted information. (Remind me to fix that.)

4. The spellchecker in my copy of Word 2003 does not recognize the words blog or blogger. (How fast things change online.)

eROI just released their latest email marketing stats on opens and clicks by day of the week and time of day.

The specifics are in the report, which you can download here. The lessons that jumped out for me:

1. If you've tested or made assumptions about the best day to send, redo the test or revisit the assumptions on a regular basis to account for changes in user behavior.

For example, weekends performed less well in Q2, 2007 than in the recent past. eROI suggest it's a seasonal change due to the better weather.

2. It's perhaps time to get a little bit more sophisticated about send times (notwithstanding limits imposed by bandwidth/volume constraints.)

We tend to default to sending all the emails out in one go. But what about the alternatives?

If you have a proven "best time for people to get your email" then stagger the send out by timezone (if you have appropriate information on your subscribers) so that people really do get it at that time.

Tests can be misleading here. Let's think of a list with subscribers in London, Los Angeles and Tokyo. If you send out all your emails at the same time, you can never hit the plum spots in all three cities.

Testing would likely show that the best time to send to the whole list in one go is a compromise: early afternoon in LA, late night in London, early morning in Tokyo.

Much better to send out your email in three batches: say when it's early afternoon in all three cities.

Even better, segment your list by timezone and then test each timezone for the best time to send. Working hours and email reading habits likely vary regionally.

Then how about personalizing the send time? Bill Nussey wrote about the success of this tactic a while back here.

What about sending email at the same time of day that the subscriber originally opted in?

Or sending email 10 minutes before the time of day they last opened an email from you? (And on the same day of the week.)

Not my original ideas: I know at least one ESP (Nussey's Silverpop) has the functionality to do the above. And I'm sure there are others.

Or how about linking sending times to some other subscriber behavior? A visit to an offline store? A call to customer service? A visit to the website (part of the premise behind trigger emails)?

Any ideas or comments on how else we might get a bit more clever with send times?

More on timing and frequency | Tags: best time of day to send email

A few tips, tricks and case studies that drifted lazily across my desktop this morning.

If you run webinars for clients and prospects, Karen Gedney has a few suggestions on the timing and content of the associated emails (follow-ups, reminders, confirmations etc.)

Dan Chapin has ideas on how wineries might move beyond the monthly email newsletter and drive more sales as a result. Plenty of thoughts equally applicable to other businesses.

He mentions discounted shipping (rather than discounted products), a topic also tackled today by MindComet and a few days ago by Chad White.

And MarketingSherpa has a case study of International Living, and how long email copy and a matching landing page produced solid sign-up rates to a new email newsletter they launched.

Enjoy.

Tags: email marketing, wine marketing, webinar marketing, list building

If you're driving sales with emails, you may want to wait a while longer before judging your campaign or test a success or failure. New research from ScanAlert suggests that the delay between a click to a landing page and a purchase is growing.

The research is reported by MarketingSherpa and Adotas. The authors found that the average time between the first visit to a website and the purchase is now 34 hours, 19 minutes (compared to 19 hours in 2005.)

Add that on to the time elapsed between the send and the click, and many of your sales may come in well over 2 days after the initial email goes out.

The research was not based on clicks from emails. I believe it stems mostly from visits driven by PPC search clicks. Visitors to search marketing landing pages may be more likely to wander off and comparison shop before purchasing.

So it may be that the click-to-purchase delay is less for emails than is generally the case with other landing pages. But still...food for thought.

More on landing pages | Tags: landing pages, scanalert, email conversions

July 10, 2007

A couple of interesting blog posts zipped through my RSS reader this morning. Both might serve as inspiration for your next email campaign.

Tim Brown writes that being average only takes you so far, implying that a lot of best practices bring small incremental improvements.

He suggests a little creative brainstorming might be in an order and has some ideas on how you can try different promotions and strategies to get out of an email marketing rut.

And Josh Nason puts himself in the shoes of the artists, organizers and sponsors of Live Earth and describes how they might have used email before, during and after the big event.

More strategy and tactics | Tags: email marketing strategy

Yesterday my family and I spent two hours with the top 20 employees of a large UK business. Each of those employees earns more in a week than I do in a year. And they were working hard.

Yet they took the time to greet us and make us feel welcome. They chatted with the kids, dug out a bunch of gifts, and posed patiently for numerous great photos.

And all this, even though our visit was unannounced and unexpected.

Needless to say, we came away with a great feeling about that business. For a brief moment there, we weren't a customer account number or a spreadsheet entry. We were special.

How hard do you try to make each individual customer feel special?

(A public thanks to the players and trainers of Newcastle Football Club. We were on a long weekend break in southern Austria and bumped into them at their "closed doors" summer training camp. Best day of my kids' lives.)

Just got the latest issue of Constant Contact's newsletter. There's a nice article on how you might survey your email list. Gail Goodman describes why you want to do this, suggests the kind of questions you might ask and explains how the answers can help you improve your results.

Constant Contact provide email marketing services for over 100,000 small businesses. And they just filed for an IPO. Thanks to Simms Jenkins of BrightWave Marketing for digging out the relevant SEC filing document.

If you're interested in the business workings of a large email service provider, it makes fascinating reading. As does the section on "risks" (pages 7-10). Simms lists the highlights in