No man is an iland

August 28, 2008

Just a quick note that all the articles and posts I've encountered with advice on email marketing and social networks etc. are now collected in one spot here.

The collection will, of course, get updated as and when new insights cross my desktop.

For those (like me) with a natural reluctance to jump in headfirst to all these social tools, can I recommend this t-shirt.

Part 14 of an ongoing series...

[We're looking at the strategies and tactics that distinguish a smart email marketer from a bulk email marketer. See the New Email Marketing index page to access the rest of the series.]

It's hard to spend more than five minutes on a media website without discovering new concepts and tools for people and businesses to communicate with each other.

Facebook, MySpace, feeds, microblogging, IM, Twitter, Plurk, Plaxo, Ning...

Quick! Get a Facebook strategy in place if you want to avoid embarrassment at the big interweb party.

What's the new email marketer to do?

Flee? Rejoice? Both? Neither?

Despite want pundits might say and we might want, there are no simple answers to how email marketing should embrace (or not) social networks and other Web 2.0 developments.

But there are concepts and approaches that help us find the answers for our own unique situations...

1. All that glitters is not gold

Journalists focus on what's new, not necessarily what works. And a lot of "media" today is written by people with an agenda: vendors interested in spreading a story that fits nicely with the products and services they sell.

Don't jump into a new tool just because it makes you look good to your peers and a media who likes to talk about new things that might work, rather than old things that do work.

The new email marketers asks, "Will the tool help me reach and convert customers and prospects more effectively and efficiently than in the past?"

That's what counts. (Testing is allowed.)

2. You are not married to email

The new email marketer does not market using email. The new email marketer drives sales, opinion, web visits, downloads, registrations, ad views, ad sales, donations, or whatever else defines success for the organization. For which they happen to use email.

If there is a more effective way to use your marketing resources, then use it. As far as Web 2.0 goes, take Anna Billstrom's simple and sensible, yet often overlooked, advice:

"Find out where your customers are online and what social media they are using."

A message echoed in recent research by ESP ExactTarget on how to reach the right consumer.

3. Keep your head firmly out of the sand

A great advantage of email is its ubiquity. Everyone has an email address. It is the world's social network. Email is immortal.

But...

The fact that Facebook sends out alerts by email doesn't necessarily help my retail email strategy. A gripe I raised a year ago.

Yes, email survives. More email is sent. But that's not the critical point. What is critical is that the email audience and email user habits evolve, especially under the accelerating influence of Web 2.0 technologies.

So the new email marketer is flexible: revising strategies in the light of changes in audience composition and behavior. Seeking synergies. Looking for opportunities.

4. One thing has not changed

All these new tools and technologies, like email itself, are conduits for content. Not an end in themselves.

It is not enough to email. It is not enough to twitter. It is not enough to blog. It is not enough to have a Facebook page.

What you say, what you send, what you communicate still has to have value. In that sense nothing has changed since the day they printed the first newspaper.

Here's the new/old marketing mantra:

"Produce material people will be glad they saw or read."

Greg Cangialosi's agrees in his take on Marketing 2.0, where he says:

"...this isn't a game for being just the sizzle, you have to be the steak at the same time, almost all of the time."

5. Know your limitations

It's hard to be everywhere all the time. The growing fragmentation of communication channels causes us to spread our resources ever thinner. At the cost of the quality and value we need to communicate to make each channel work.

My feed reader is littered with the carcasses of bright new email marketing blogs that started well, slowed and died as soon as the novelty value wore off.

Only invest in channels used by your audience where you know you can provide that quality and value that earns you the necessary attention and response.

6. Web 2.0 is bottom-up

Anna Billstrom again in a comment on her own post:

"If more of our messaging could be transactional, more one-to-one conversation with the customer base (as a corporate or business entity) that's a good thing."

The growth of Web 2.0 both reflects and encourages the return to relationships that started this whole series off.

Web 2.0 is notification that we need to work against what Seth Godin calls the first law of mass media:

"Organizations will work tirelessly to de-personalize every communication medium they encounter."

Web 2.0 is a reminder that there is an empowered human at the other end of the message.

7. Same content? Unique content?

Each tool or channel has its own nuances. And the customers using your web feeds are likely different to those preferring email. Or Twitter. Or those reading your Facebook page.

This is where the real adventure starts. Can you, for instance, repurpose content from one tool or channel for the other? Both Chad White and Linda Bustos, for example, recently explored how customer reviews and email can complement each other.

Numerous other articles address promising ways to get email to benefit from and contribute to Web 2.0 tools and concepts.

But the top tactics will only emerge later, when you know exactly how people interact with your marketing messages. We know about multichannel shoppers. Do we now have ever-more multichannel communicators?

Email marketers are conscious of the dangers of email overload. Will there be issues of message duplication and overload if people "follow" you via email, Twitter, web feed and Facebook? Do the concepts of email fatigue transfer to a wider mix of communication tools and channels?

Web 2.0 is not a threat to the new email marketer. But it is a reminder that email marketing and email marketers need to evolve with email. To remain flexible and focused on producing value to those on the other end of the marketing message. Wherever they may be.

(Your thoughts and opinions are very welcome: this is largely unexplored territory, where theory still has the upper hand over experience.)

Tags: social media, social networks, facebook, myspace, twitter, blogging, email marketing, email strategy

August 27, 2008

We've all had emails that worked particularly well, drawing an unusually high response. Pity, then, we can't use that same email again and again.

Except we can...sort of. Here five ideas: let me know what you think.

Tactic 1: Wait and send again later

Your list is growing and new subscribers have never seen your previous emails. Which is a challenge and an opportunity (isn't everything?).

A challenge, because it means you have to prove yourself to each newcomer before they become loyal subscribers eager for the next email.

An opportunity, because you can treat them differently.

Consider sending newcomers a unique stream of emails just for them, and adding them later to your standard list database. You can reuse winning emails from the past as part of this welcome stream.

Tactic 2: Refer back in the next email

With a little care and intelligence, you can find ways to highlight the last email in your current one without compromising the main message, particularly in headers and footers or at appropriate points in the text/copy.

Example: My August 11th newsletter included a link that proved unusually popular with readers...to a blog post listing HTML email design resources.

So I followed up in the next newsletter with a companion post for plain text email design, with this teaser:

"Last issue's popular list of top HTML email design resources gets a sibling. See this post for a list of online articles, tools and templates to help with the design of your plain text emails."

The reason this works is because the mention is inoffensive to anyone who saw the previous issue. And it's new for the many people who are reading the current issue but missed the last one.

"Many" people? Yes: check your statistics.

The average open rate over the last four issues of the newsletter is 35%. But the percentage of the list who "opened" at least one of those issues is around 60%.

The implication is that there's an ebb and flow: people don't catch every email, they miss out on some.

The result of the subtle second mention?

21% more newsletter clicks to the HTML email design article. (Some of whom will also be people who did see the last issue but for whatever reason didn't click the link first time around: no time, browsed past it, etc.)

Tactic 3: Resend the email to non-responders

There's a school of thought that says you can take exactly the same email and send it again to those people who didn't see it the first time, as indicated by a lack of a registered open.

I've seen case studies citing strong incremental revenues as a result of this technique. But there are problems which are often overlooked in all the excitement of new sales.

These problems arise because a lack of an open does not imply the recipient missed the first email. Thanks to image blocking and the way opens are measured, many will have seen it...but chosen not to read or respond.

So at least some recipients will see the email twice, which will raise eyebrows. And some of those didn't "open" the first because they didn't want it or weren't interested.

Getting a second copy could drive them to hit that "report spam" button. This double send problem is one of the hidden costs of lazy email marketing.

A subtler alternative is to use a modified version of the email to resend to "non-responders". One that avoids some of the problems with sending duplicate emails.

Fresh subject line, different creative, acknowledgment of the previous send: "Final chance to take advantage of..." etc. It's a better approach, but needs careful application. Anybody able to cite their own experiences?

Yet another alternative is to redefine "non-responders." For example, what about sending a follow-up campaign to those who click but don't buy / download / register?

Tactic 4: Learn and apply

This is the obvious, but forgotten one.

The task flow "send - track - measure" is missing two further components: "analyze" and "apply". Emails that pull an unusually high response offer clues to effective tactics and topics for the future. So you repeat the model, not the email.

Normally it's hard to pinpoint one element that is clearly responsible for an email's success (unless you do rigorous tests). But draw out the most likely candidates and experiment with them in future emails. Is it your offer? The link positions? The color of the "more info" button? The subject line approach?

Don't forget to look for explanations outside of the actual email itself, too. Maybe it wasn't something you did after all.

Tactic 5: Adapt to other channels

We too often think of email as its own isolated marketing channel with no relevance to other sales and promotional efforts.

But winning emails can find use outside of email. Eh?

An offer thats works in email can be considered for a direct mail piece or store promotion. A subject line that works might prove effective as a headline for your PPC search ads. A winning button color might have value on the website, etc.

And it works in reverse, too. Winning PPC headlines used as subject lines. Successful website offers sent out via email etc.

Of course, be aware that different channels reach different audiences with different responses.

And there's a whole other debate about whether such things as offers should be coordinated across channels anyway. The alleged synergy of the multichannel approach (a topic for another day!)

Any other suggestions on reusing successful emails?

Tags: email resends, email marketing, open rates

August 26, 2008

Those with a B2B email list can tiptoe quietly past all the challenges associated with sending email to the big consumer webmail sites, particularly Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo.

Or can they?

I just checked the distribution of domains on my own B2B list. The big three account for almost 25% of the database:

Gmail: 11.9%
WLH: 4.6%
Yahoo: 7.9%

These free email address services have long shed their rough and ready image and now offer users powerful tools and advanced features.

Combined with their portability (the email address isn't zapped when you move jobs), it's no surprise to find business folk using them to get commercial email from informational websites and vendors.

So have you checked your list recently for webmail addresses?

[Update: Al Iverson offers an eyebrow-raising reminder that Yahoo alone is the machine behind thousands of innocent-looking domains that don't have the letters y-a-h-o-o in them. So your webmail percentage may be much higher than you think.]

The marketing challenges are mostly about deliverability and rendering. These resource guides may help:

Windows Live Hotmail
Yahoo! Mail
Gmail

Tags: webmail, email deliverability, windows live hotmail, yahoo mail, gmail

August 25, 2008

Return Path's purchase of competitor Habeas means the merger of two of the largest deliverability services in the world. Is this good for email marketers?

General opinion in the industry seems to be yes, not least due to the positive impression people have of Return Path as a company (an impression I share).

But any concentration in a marketplace raises questions. Matt Blumberg, Return Path's CEO and Chairman, was kind enough to take time out to answer them for me.

Q. The sender side of the email world seems happy with the move. Have you had any reaction from the receiver side of the industry to the purchase?

Blumberg: The reactions have been very positive. Our largest receiver partners (both Return Path's and Habeas's) are excited that we can bring more senders through our rigorous process and "to the table" with them.

Q. With the Habeas SafeList and your own Sender Score Certified whitelist set to remain separate, can we expect a package discount for those companies who choose to use both?

Blumberg: We haven't finalized go-forward pricing strategies yet, and the two companies have historically priced services very differently, and in different bundles with other services we each offer like the monitoring tool and consulting. That said, of course our objective is going to be to gain as much client adoption of all our tools and services as possible.

Q. Is there a danger that the credibility of the SafeList might be compromised if it's seen as a poor sibling to Sender Score Certified?

Blumberg: I'm not sure anyone sees it that way. The two lists have different distribution to receivers and different qualification criteria to gain accreditation.

Q. Goodmail Systems is perhaps the closest to you in terms of email certification. CEO Peter Horan implied possible future agreements between Goodmail and Gmail / Microsoft / international ISPs. Is there room for both Sender Score Certified and Goodmail to run concurrently at the same ISPs?

Definitely. We are both going to be running at Yahoo! shortly. ISPs want credible, high quality mailers to have multiple paths to the inbox.

Q. Although you've commented that Return Path can't be described as a monopoly, it does now occupy a very strong position in the deliverability world. Some people might be a little unnerved at that much "infrastructural influence" being in the hands of a single private entity. Any comments on that?

Most ISPs do offer their own whitelists. Goodmail (massively venture backed) and ISIPP (small, scrappy, well-connected) are still in the marketplace. I'd guess that ISPs are unlikely to accept 20 whitelists, but I'd also guess they don't just want to accept one.

In addition, the major factors in inbox placement are not whitelists (either those run by the ISPs or third parties) but rather the reputation systems that are run by both ISPs and third parties like Ironport, Secure Computing, Barracuda, Commtouch, Cloudmark and others.

Thanks Matt!

More on email certification | Tags: return path, habeas, matt blumberg, email deliverability

August 22, 2008

"The important thing is not to stop questioning." said Einstein. He also said, "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." Presumably he was referring to open rates.

Like any aspect of life and business, email marketing often falls back on truisms and assumptions. And part of what makes a great marketer is a willingness to keep on examining those assumptions.

Stefan Pollard recently wrote a wry article pointing out the dangers in taking your email marketing lead from alleged role models in the online world. They're not necessarily doing it right, either.

Copying without critical assessment is inadvisable.

First, because you might be copying from a bad email marketer, as Stefan explains.

Second, because they might know something you don't.

For example, you might wonder why a top retailer keeps sending you image-rich emails with little concern for how they render when images are blocked.

It might not be because they are design challenged, but because they know you opened your last four emails from them. So they can be pretty sure you'll be seeing those images.

Third, you might be in a test sample. The one that got the losing design / offer.

(One well-known website optimization site actually used to warn visitors not to copy their design, because what the visitor currently sees might just be an experiment for research purposes.)

I thought this was about Barack Obama and list building?

Yep.

The Obama campaign gets a lot of legitimate praise for their use of email and Web 2.0 marketing techniques in building support, communication programs and donations.

Most recently, this praise has concerned the "Be the First to Know" push, which invites people to sign-up for an email or text so they'll hear the name of his running mate before the formal public announcement.

Sundeep Kapur notes the value inherent in "elevating" the email channel like this. And Stephanie Miller explains the importance of giving subscribers something unique which makes them feel valued.

A useful model and concept to apply to your own efforts: can you offer something unique and special to email subscribers to encourage people to sign-up in the first place or become more loyal?

But...

It's not all perfect. The sign-up copy you see at the site focuses entirely on the "Be the First to Know" concept. So it's not clear exactly what you are signing up for. When you don't set expectations, people invent their own.

Which makes it harder for you to meet those expectations.

My assumption when I signed up, for example, was that I'd get a welcome message with some indication of when to expect an announcement and then the actual email itself some time after that.

I got no welcome message. I did get an email last night...an invite from a Jon Carson to attend a Convention Watch Party in my area. (Update: ...and another two emails today, neither of which mention anything to do with the choice of running mate).

Now it's not a big deal. Many of you will think that the whole point of the subscription push was to build a list you can market too.

Yes, but there are problems.

First, I had very high expectations of that email (I thought I was going to find out the name of the running mate). So the generic message was a letdown.

Second, it's a disconnect between what many subscribers likely expect when they sign up and what they get. Not a disconnect for everybody or perhaps even for the majority. But a proportion of new subscribers only wanted and only expected that VP announcement. Not the other stuff. How do they react?

Setting the right expectations and then meeting them is important to establishing a smooth transition from prospect to loyal reader.

The Obama campaign may feel the likely huge number of additional subscribers justifies being a touch vague about the nature of the sign-up. But if a large enough minority are disappointed, how does that impact your brand? How many people already unsubscribed or hit the "report spam" button?

What do you think?

Tags: list building, barack obama, email marketing

I came back from holiday to find several gracious email marketing bloggers had listed this site as one of their favorites in the Blog Olympics: humble thanks to Tamara, DJ, denise (with a d), Kath, Laura, Dylan, Lisa, Anna, Chad and Greg. I draw my inspiration from you and all the other great resources out there.

According to the Olympic rules, a list of my top 7+ favorite blogs should now follow. Rules are like email marketing best practices: good to have, but important to challenge now and then.

So instead of pointing to my favorites (which are already listed elsewhere, anyway), here are seven (ish) email marketing related blogs you may not yet have taken to heart:

Tales from the Marketing Execution Suite
A brand new blog from email service provider Silverpop. Given the list of intended contributors, particularly the ever-wise Loren McDonald, it is certain to be worth reading.

The MineThatData blog
Database marketing and multichannel forensics? Holy off-topic batman! Not so. Kevin is another stalwart battling the misunderstandings and costly errors associated with, for example, poor data analysis. Many lessons (both direct and indirect) for email marketers.

Dilbert
Be honest, you'd rather read this.

The Email Research Center
Morgan posts very infrequently over at ExactTarget. But when he does, his advice is always extremely astute and unburdened by the myths and collective blindness many of us suffer from.

Deliverability.com / Box of Meat
The deliverability world already has a few great blogs and these relatively new ones stand shoulder to shoulder with those. Both are also irreverent enough to tweak the nose of the email marketing mutual love-in that happens a lot with all online communities.

Design Gallery
The Campaign Monitor blog is well known in email marketing (design) circles, but did you know they also have a feed for their design showcase? It pings you when a new design gets added.

Seth Godin's Blog
Nearly every post makes you think. And if you read enough of them it changes how you think. In a way that reflects the new power of the consumer. Which is itself reflected in the new power of the subscriber. So, yes, it's an email marketing blog.

It's good to be back.

Tags: email marketing blogs, blog olympics

August 19, 2008

Part 13 of an ongoing series...

(We're looking at the strategies and tactics that distinguish a smart email marketer from a bulk email marketer. See the New Email Marketing index page to access the rest of the series.)

What has ethics got to do with email marketing?*

Now there's a topic that can rapidly descend into pretentious nonsense. But bear with me: there are only so many times you can write about image blocking and subject lines.

Smart email marketing is de facto ethical email marketing.

Ignoring personal beliefs for the moment, let's look at that idea from a business perspective.

The practical argument

If we look back through this New Email Marketing series, there's a common theme: respect the relationship, accept accountability, shift the focus back to the subscriber.

Is that not ethical behavior?

In the past, technical aspects determined whether your email got through to recipients. Literally, by passing content filters, and psychologically, through their very presence in a virgin, largely unexploited inbox.

This is no longer the case.

Increasingly, both your ability to get email delivered and the recipient's willingness to engage with, respond to and be influenced by your messages depend on the "non-technical" aspects of your emails.

Trust, reputation, value, quality, relevance, respect, permission practices, dialog. Do you deserve a place in the inbox? Do you deserve attention?

All these qualities reflect or represent ethical email marketing. And it's these qualities that drive response and thus success.

Response also feedbacks to deliverability. Recipient reactions to your email determine whether or not those who process incoming email see your messages as wanted or unwanted (where unwanted = spam = rejected).

So there are clear practical advantages to ethical email marketing.

The broader argument

We all know people who cut a few ethical corners and make more sales as a result. The danger with email is that short-term gains often come at long-term expense. Both to individual success and at an industry level.

A pre-checked "subscribe me to your emails" box on your order form gets more opt-ins than the unchecked equivalent. But at what cost?

We see above that the trend in email marketing (and marketing in general) is to reward ethical behavior. A few extra sales today come at the expense of delivery, reputation and response problems down the road.

And that in an industry that can ill afford it.

For many outside the marketing world, email marketing is synonymous with spam. Just read some of the comments in this New York times blog post. Spam is what Simms Jenkins calls "the cloud that always hovers above what we do for a living."

As a result, there are plenty of people waiting for any excuse to make life harder for email marketers. Few people will complain if there is less commercial email out there.

So if legitimate email marketing wants respect, if it wants acceptance, if it wants longevity, if it wants success, then it needs to draw a clear line between itself and spam. Each time we cut one of those ethical corners, we give succor to those who don't see that line.

As our Greek friend Aristotle said:

"In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities."

Part 14 coming soon...

*In some parts of Florida that's a rhetorical question.

Tags: email marketing ethics, spam, marketing ethics

August 18, 2008

Kevin Hillstrom's keynote speech to the Shop.org Annual Summit asks challenging questions of online retailers.

He asks, for example, how a retailer would cope if a number of things they take for granted were no longer available. Thought provoking with a capital T.

And it got me thinking...how about some "what if?" questions for email marketers...

• What would you do if the cost of sending email quadrupled?
• What would you do if your website went offline for a week? Or a month?
• What would you do if your current email service provider closed down with no warning?
• What would you do if someone stole your email list and sold it to a spammer?
• What would you do if phishers targeted your brand or business?
• What would you do if new privacy laws banned tracking pixels and tracking links in emails?
• What would you do if your competitors trebled their investment in email marketing?

All these things are very, very unlikely. But still: do you know what you'd do?

Tags: email marketing

August 14, 2008

If you're tracking open rates, you know there are many factors that might cause the dip or peak observed in your last campaign.

One factor you might not consider is the campaign you sent out before the last one.

Eh?

We tend to assume the success of an individual email is due to something associated with that email: the subject line, the day it was sent, the offer, the creative etc.

But people's willingness to "engage" with your email is in part determined by their previous experiences with your emails. Or put simply...if your last email was a real humdinger, they're more likely to look out for your next one. And if your last email was rubbish, they're less likely to bother with the next one.

What does this mean in practice?

1. It's obviously good reason to keep pushing for quality in all that you do. One bad email reduces the audience for the next email, which makes it harder for that new email to reverse the trend.

2. It reinforces the need to think of emails as a continuous series of interactions and impressions. You are both the sum of all your emails and also only as good as the last one. (Very Zen.)

3. Try and build anticipation to overcome any dip in interest caused by a blip in content. For example, informational newsletters can use articles one-by-one from a series, or give sneak previews of highlights from the next issue. Retailers might consider pre-announcements of forthcoming sales or their own themed series.

Seen any good examples of emails that build anticipation for future messages?

More on email open rates | Tags: email marketing, open rates

August 13, 2008

Just a reminder of a couple of good opportunities which crossed my inbox in the Internet Cafe today:

MarketingSherpa are having a store-wide 30%-off sale on their handbooks and benchmark guides. The sale ends August 15th at 8pm EDT. Of particular interest for email marketers:

• 2008 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide
• 2008 Landing Page Handbook
• B-to-B Lead Generation Handbook

And Simms Jenkins is offering readers (that's you) a special 25% discount on his "Truth About Email Marketing" book, plus free shipping (US only). Purchase the book through the FT Press store and enter the discount code Emailmark07 during the checkout process.

After publishing a list of top resources on HTML email design, it's only fair to turn attention to the text-only format.

After all, everyone advises sending both HTML and plain text versions of your emails, and people might actually get to see the latter. Not to mention that the text format still dominates transactional email (order confirmations etc.). And some audiences simply prefer text email to its HTML sibling.

But...

...there are more resources showing you how to ride an elephant than how to design or format plain text emails. That's not a joke: try a Google search.

Come on design community: turn your creative skills to text!

Articles

Craft a compelling text message: Broad advice on how to approach the design and layout of text-only messages.

Outlook 2007 and text: Describes the little idiosyncrasies of Outlook when displaying text-only email, plus offers solutions.

Key to a good header: advice on designing plain-text headers that communicate key information quickly.

The text email format: My own advice on how to ensure your text-only emails display as intended. From 2001, when HTML email was a niche and measuring open rates was considered cutting edge.

Why bother?: Buried in this article on format preferences are eight tips on creating plain text emails.

Plain-text versions: This article about raising open rates also has tips on designing and formatting text-only mails.

Guide to effective email: More old advice, yet still largely relevant, on formatting considerations when using plain text only.

The how and why: explains why you need to use creative separators in your text emails.

Tools

NoteTabPro: My favorite text editor, which is used for plain text emails as well as coding the entire Email Marketing Reports site.

Text Formatter Plus
Software specifically designed for formatting text email newsletters.

Templates

Three plain text templates: Campaign Monitor share three text-only templates for short announcement, short newsletter and long newsletter formats.

As ever, your suggestions for other resources are most welcome - just comment.

More on email formats | Tags: email design, text email

August 12, 2008

The early bird catches the worm (but the second mouse gets the cheese). Those who plan ahead will benefit most from online sales in the Q4 2008 holiday shopping season.

This post will get regular updates to point you to the latest advice from around the web on holiday email marketing. So bookmark it for later.

Let us begin now, with nary a tinsel or reindeer in sight...

The Email Experience Council released the 43-page Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season with relevant benchmarks and advice.

Campaigner just launched the "100 days to grow your business" series of daily tips on how to optimize your email program for the coming critical sales season.

Tim Parry gets the experts at Epsilon to reveal insights from their Holiday Shopper analysis of the 2007 season, with many tips on planning and strategy.

Lisa Harmon has a few quick tips on how to take an original creative approach and avoid the holiday cliches. Which she follows up with some hints on actual content tactics.

Chris Marriott has thoughts on planning your holiday communications, with a strong emphasis on email.

Melinda Krueger presents her advice on holiday email strategy and what you can do NOW to ensure success later.

She follows this with a second article looking at the customer focus and the holiday campaign planning process.

The folks at Bronto discuss how if successful email marketing relies on trust, then making the most of holiday sales means establishing this trust in advance.

Let's not forget that this isn't the first year of e-commerce. Check the advice on offer to email marketers from previous years:

Holiday email marketing 2007, plus update.
Holiday email marketing 2006 and earlier

Tags: holiday email marketing, holiday marketing, Christmas marketing

August 11, 2008

Yes, those are my legs. I'm introducing my kids to marine wildlife and silica deposits until the 21st.

A few pre-scheduled posts will appear on email design, open rates, planning, the New Email Marketing and more in my absence, but this is a heads up that I may not respond to comments as quickly as usual.

Tags: lazy Europeans and their long vacations

August 08, 2008

Part 12 of an ongoing series...

(We're looking at the strategies and tactics that distinguish a smart email marketer from a bulk email marketer. See the New Email Marketing index page to access the rest of the series.)

The ancient Greeks had most aspects of life covered. Including email marketing*. In his seminal poem "Works and Days", Hesiod wrote:


The right message to the right person is only the right message to the right person if it arrives at the right time. So email marketing has always posed the million dollar question, "What is the right time to send my email?"

The result is hundreds of articles and blog posts on "the best time to send," "the best day to send" and the "best frequency for my emails."

The new email marketing asks the same question...but answers it differently. Not with a day of the week, or a time of the day, or a publication frequency, but with another question. A broader and more relevant one:


Once again, much of email marketing is about asking the right questions before looking for the answers.

When you ask this question, you immediately see how timing is tied up with other key elements of your strategy: what you send and who you target.

And since timing is so intimately connected with content and targeting, anything you do to improve the last two reduces the burden on the first.

Which means all the things associated with ensuring relevancy, whether through simple segmentation or more complex techniques.

Asking when the recipient is most likely to respond might still lead to an answer that is a day, time or publication schedule. But it also encourages you to develop a more detailed contact strategy and to explore new kinds of emails and targets.

After all, many advanced tactics used by emailers are simply reflections of this more mature approach to timing...

Consider lifecycles

Most commercial email involves regular promotions sent to a more or less targeted group of recipients...in the hope of serendipitously landing in front of at least some who are ready (right now!) to buy / download / read / donate.

The lifecycle approach recognizes that not everybody is at that action point. So we could send different content at different intervals, depending on exactly where these recipients are on, for example, the buying cycle. As Anna Billstrom notes...

"...lifecycle emails train a customer into becoming a better one, and they enhance the relationship between customer and company."

The challenge, of course, is defining those stages on the cycle, deciding what content and cadence fits each stage and defining the criteria you use to allocate subscribers to each stage.

Stephanie Miller, for example, suggests segmenting a list into new buyers, active buyers and lapsed buyers. John Arnold, for example, defines information, interest and incentive stages in the buying cycle and has tips on how to recognize when a subscriber enters each stage.

Consider triggers

Trigger emails are a beautiful implementation of the "when is the recipient most likely to respond to an email?" way of thinking. Sally Lowery defines a triggered email as:

"...one that is generated based on a meaningful change or event in a customer behavior or profile."

Welcome messages are a standard example (a response to a sign-up). Other examples would be an email sent out on a customer's birthday (example), post-purchase follow-up emails (example) or an email sent to a customer who viewed an item online, but never completed the transaction (example).

Trigger emails are direct response. Not in the sense that they necessarily seek a direct response from the recipient. But because the email itself is a direct response to an action or piece of data that tells us something useful about the recipient.

Stephanie Miller (again) writes:

"A purchase, an abandoned shopping cart, browsing on the site, a download, a call to customer service, a return, an upgrade, a contract renewal, a visit to account settings or a preference center...all these are key moments of truth in the marketer-customer relationship. Take advantage of them to send messages that speak to the status of the subscriber at that moment."

The challenge with trigger emails, of course, is setup and rule setting. What are the triggers and what is triggered? Sally Lowery and Jeff Hassemer both have pointers on where to start.

With trigger emails, timing is determined by the recipient's behavior or profile. And that in itself is a concept that can take you in (yet) another direction...

Consider letting recipients choose

The last part of this series defined new email marketing as giving choice and control back to subscribers.

This applies equally to timing. Why not let subscribers decide when and/or how often to get email when they sign-up? Though be aware that their stated preferences might not be the ones that bring you the most profit.

Or why not let subscribers decide indirectly, through their previous interactions with your emails? Loren McDonald, for example, describes how mailing new messages to people based on the time of their last open boosted revenue by 52%.

Clearly, like good comedy, good email marketing is all about.

Timing.

Part 13 coming soon...

*It was, for example, Plato who introduced the idea of the preheader text, saying "The beginning is the most important part of the work."

Tags: email marketing strategy, trigger emails, lifecycle emails, best time to send email

August 07, 2008

There's something reassuring about watching your email list grow. Every new email address is a cause for celebration. Growth is good.

Most of the time. (But not all of the time.)

Because it's not just subscribers who might feel remorse after handing over their email address. Not every new email address is a welcome one for the list owner, either.

Spam traps are an obvious example, a topic already covered here.

As are addresses from people who never asked to be added to your list: they'll (rightly) shout spammer when they get your message.

But even a list built on an "opt-in" basis can end up with email addresses that cause real or opportunity costs to your business.

Let's talk about permission slaves, focus spreaders, bargain hunters and trigger chasers...

Permission slaves

Permission slaves are what you get when you lack emotional permission. You got some kind of opt-in, a sort of an opt-in...to something...and now it's yours to use and abuse. (And then lose.)

This is where you twist the meaning of "getting permission" to fit your list growth needs, with the result that people end up on your list who don't really want to be there. And that puts them on the slippery slope that ends in clicking the "report spam" button.

Permission slaves appear, for example, when you:

• ...take subscribers from one list and add them to another list you've decided is equally relevant to their interests. This kind of assumed permission suggests you're omnipotent in knowing what subscribers want. You aren't. It's not an opt-in.
• ...pre-check opt-in boxes or otherwise sign someone up because they didn't actively opt-out when given the opportunity. Not opting out is not the same as opting-in.
• ...buy an email list.
• ...assume getting business cards or an attendee list at a trade show means you got new subscribers. It doesn't.
• Hide the opt-in in the small print.

Don't do it. (The practices mentioned for avoiding subscriber's remorse will in turn help prevent permission slaves, too.)

Focus spreaders

We talk about relevancy a lot in email marketing. Delivering relevant messages to your email subscribers. But what about reverse relevancy: is the new subscriber relevant to you?

An unhealthy obsession with list size rather than list quality means some email programs are pitched to a wider audience than your well-defined target audience.

This leads to problems.

First, if you then produce content for your target audience only, everyone else can get turned off...spam reports are the logical consequence.

Second, if you then produce content for the wider audience, your target audience might get bored and move on. And you start to focus your email efforts and resources on the wrong people.

The best email programs have a perfect match between the subscriber list, the contents of the program and the needs of the sending organization. If you attract subscribers that do not match either the program's contents or your organization's needs, then the resulting imbalance hurts your bottom line.

Bargain hunters

In discussing audience development, Kevin Hillstrom cites the example of one email marketer who:

"...developed an audience that only responds to free shipping. He cannot get away from free shipping unless he develops a new audience."

Here we're getting into pricing strategies (not my field) but when the pressure's on, it's seductively easy to use email to send out a constant stream of discount offers, coupons and deals. Rather than more considered branding and promotional campaigns.

If that's a deliberate strategy, fine, but beware of cultivating an audience of bargain hunters unless you're sure that works best for your business.

Trigger chasers

Trigger emails in response to website behaviors (abandoned shopping carts, "browsed but didn't buy" etc.) hold much promise but...

This is the Internet. If you always send an emailed coupon the day after a checkout process is left uncompleted, people will place items in their cart and then wait 24 hours. And word will get round. If you use incentives to get people to complete a purchase process, test carefully to see their value.

Consider reminder emails that feature no coupon or deal. Retailers have reported success with cart abandonment emails that simply remind people they haven't bought a product yet.

Just as deals and coupons via email educate people to wait for deals and coupons before buying, so simplistic, incentive-based and regular rewards for website behaviors will encourage exactly those kinds of behaviors.

Any other unwelcome guests on an email list (and how do you avoid them)?

Tags: email marketing, list building, list growth, spam traps, permission marketing

August 06, 2008

I was lucky enough to have a small involvement in the Truth About Email Marketing book project, so was able to persuade author Simms Jenkins (pictured left) to talk with me about strategic problems for email marketers, quick fixes and the industry as a whole.

Simms is CEO of email marketing services firm, BrightWave Marketing, the brains behind EmailStatCenter.com and a columnist for iMediaConnection. He has a particularly strong understanding of organizational and strategic issues. So it pays to listen when he talks...

So, Simms, who should be reading your book?

I think the book will really appeal to a wide range of readers. Everyone from high level marketing professionals trying to get a better read on what makes a good email marketing program...to novices and small business owners...to email marketers in the trenches looking for additional insight (and maybe even validation for what they do!)

The great thing about the book is it can be used as a guidebook in building or improving your email program, or be read on the plane where the reader should come away better educated on how to improve their email efforts.

The title implies there are a lot of misconceptions around about email marketing. What do you feel are the most damaging?

I think there are two main misconceptions. The first one is the cloud that always hovers above what we do for a living: spam. So I really think that cannot be overlooked in addressing the email channel.

I try to clearly spell out what permission email marketing is all about, and this needs to be revisited by even the most experienced marketers. This may seem basic, but one of the biggest challenges is educating people about permission email marketing.

Whether it is educating our peers, our executives, or friends and family...we all have to continue to clarify that all good email marketing is connected to permission.

The second misconception is that email is easy.

Great email marketing campaigns require a lot of hard work, knowledge and strategy. Because of this perception, low distribution cost and (at times) email's strong success, many executives assume email should be easy to execute. We know that this is rarely the case and this perception does a disservice to all in the space.

The book begins with a focus on organizational and strategic elements. Is that something you feel deserves more attention?

Absolutely. Without the upfront planning and executive buy in, email marketing will never reach its potential. I think because of some of the aforementioned issues, email doesn't get the strategic attention it deserves in terms of, for example, budget and resources, proper measurement or the broader impact on the business.

A big part of the constant challenge we see for email marketers is that because of the nature of email campaigns (that next campaign is always around the corner), teams responsible for email often don't get the chance to set and measure goals, optimize campaigns and align best practices.

It isn't easy being an email marketer for sure. However, I encourage all email marketing pros to step back at least once a quarter to reevaluate their plans and make changes needed to improve. Or at the least test some new things.

When we talked a couple of years ago you noted, for example, how few companies set adequate goals for their program. You just mentioned goals again. So is this still a problem?

It sure is. Many companies continue to only measure their performance and impact in terms of opens and clicks. While these can be helpful, we see real benefits from setting goals beyond simple email responses: evaluating how email improves other areas like revenue, customer loyalty, frequency and conversions, to name a few.

For example, one client had doubts on whether or not email was a valid communication channel for them.

We helped develop a scorecard that framed their successes and opportunities, and tied in the overall value of these efforts in terms of revenue generated from email and other areas. These are numbers that CEOs and CFOs care about.

So they went from "should we kill our email program" to "our email program is worth X dollars for our company." That is pretty powerful.

Another strategic problem for email marketers is justifying further investment in what you said is perceived to be a "low cost" channel. Given that budgets are likely to get tighter, how DO you justify such investment?

I have been doing a lot of speaking on how and why email marketing works in a recession and that is certainly top of mind for all marketers, regardless of the direct impact this economy is having on their business.

Email distribution is low cost, but to manage a strategic email program that delivers relevant and unique messaging you have to invest in it. That can mean resources, vendors, testing etc.

One of email's most important strengths is the ability to measure the success (or failure) of such campaigns.

Forrester Research, for example, has some new information about how many marketers are investing more in targeted and measurable channels like interactive during this economic downturn. The ROI measurement is of course an important one in justifying a greater investment.

Another thought is...if you removed your email communications, what would it cost in alternative media/marketing to communicate with a captive audience like your email subscribers?

We also are seeing marketers realize that email is about more than driving revenue, leads and website traffic. It is a great cost reducer on things like employee communication, catalogs and other direct mail efforts. And it can drive your users to interact with other low cost media, like social networking.

One client, for instance, is considering moving their employee newsletter to email, which would result in substantial cost savings. So changing the mindset that email is just a transactional tool is key: email is a relationship builder that can accomplish many different goals.

Of course, if you don't properly measure and connect the dots on your email program, you will have a hard time justifying more resources, much less your own existence.

Are there any "quick wins" (i.e. easy to implement) in terms of improving your strategic and organizational approach to email marketing?

I will give you and your readers' three things that most companies can do that won't cost you much but will deliver a big impact:

1. Optimizing your creative to deal with the very real issue of image suppression is crucial. After all, if half of your audience has images turned off, you cannot risk them receiving an email with a red x and no messaging, branding or links.

2. Testing subject lines is something that gets overlooked by many, yet has a major impact on the response rates of your emails.

3. Using LinkedIn, Facebook and other social networks to grow your email database and provide an additional messaging vehicle is something we have seen done to great success with minimal resources required.

I have used this technique to build interest (and sales) for my book, so I see this as a great supplement to email, which of course is one of the central promotional strategies for marketing the book.

The book goes on to cover best practices in list building, content, targeting etc. Why is it that so many organizations fail to implement even the basics of successful email marketing?

I truly think it is because most email marketing teams are overtaxed and underappreciated. Therefore, they often have little time (and sadly incentive) to make the major strategic optimizations needed to continually enhance their email efforts. We have that validated on a daily basis when talking to the people responsible for their email marketing program.

How do you think industry blogs, sites and organizations can do a better job of promoting those best practices?

I think our industry does a fantastic job of proactively educating and evangelizing our craft. I have not seen many other industries where so many high-level, passionate and smart people spend a great deal of time on offering suggestions, trends and opinions for anyone to see.

The number of blogs and free resources out there can really be beneficial for email marketers. Finding the time to read them and adopt some of these findings can be difficult though. I know I rely on my peers and get some great ideas that we can test out for clients and cite in our presentations, speeches and research.

Thanks Simms!

[Simms is offering blog readers a special 25% discount on his book, plus free shipping (US only). Purchase the book through the FT Press store and enter the discount code Emailmark07 during the checkout process.]

More on strategy | Tags: email marketing strategy, Simms Jenkins, BrightWave Marketing, the Truth about Email Marketing

August 05, 2008

A recent post floated a few ideas on the criteria that might be used to define spam in the future. Criteria that consider how people interact with your emails.

If you rejected those concepts as the mad ramblings of a man who left his bag of reality on the bus...think again.

A couple of deliverability experts (example) have confirmed that webmail services are indeed taking a closer look at such "measures of email engagement" as a way of distinguishing between "good" and "bad" email.

But let's go straight to the source and take a closer look at public comments made by Yahoo! Mail's Anti-Spam Czar at a recent workshop (see here for access to the transcript).

1. Marking email in the junk folder as "not spam" gets noticed:

"The effect of clicking "not spam" on a message is that it sends a powerful signal to our systems that we've made a mistake. That's one of the best ways we can learn, both to ensure that we don't block messages from that sender in the future, and that our systems shouldn't block similar messages next time."

Would your readers bother to look for and then "unspam" your messages if they landed in the junk folder?

2. Adding the sender's email to their address book gets noticed:

"If you add a sender to your address book we'll try to ensure that those messages always go to your inbox."

If your users aren't email marketing experts, do you encourage them to add you to their address book?

3. Not paying attention to your email gets noticed:

"We recommend commercial e-mail senders ensure they're sending mail that Yahoo! Mail users want to receive. This means following recommended practices like confirming - and even periodically re-confirming - that users want to be on their mailing lists and proactively removing anyone who doesn't read their mail." (my emphasis)

Do you have a strategy in place for inactive addresses?

The underlying trend seems clear...

Sending valuable, quality, engaging email used to be seen as the way to improve email responses.

It still is.

But it's also becoming a precondition for getting your emails delivered in the first place.

More on deliverability | Tags: yahoo mail, email deliverability, spam, anti-spam

August 04, 2008

One of the messages to come out of Return Path's recent Reputation Benchmark Report is that sending email to spam traps is bad news:

"We found a 20 point difference in delivery rates for IPs with just one spam trap hit."

That spam trap hit might be an indicator of other poor practices that are dragging delivery down. But we certainly know that emailing spam trap addresses is one criteria that ISPs use when deciding if your mail should be given harsh treatment.

No problem, I thought. Email addresses only get added to my list if the owner clicks on a confirmation link in an email sent out after they sign-up (i.e. closed-loop or double opt-in).

Spam traps can't click on links. So...no spam trap address goes on my list.

Hurrah!

But wait...

If I send a confirmation email to a spam trap address, doesn't that count as a spam trap hit, too?

Won't the ISP label me a spammer because I sent an email to that address? Even though I used a system specifically designed to prevent such addresses making it onto my list?

I asked Return Path's George Bilbrey, VP & GM Delivery Assurance Solutions, if he could clarify the situation. Here's what he told me...

"Spam trap hits do hurt deliverability. They are one of the major ways that ISPs and filtering companies detect spam and spammers.

"Most of the systems that use spam traps use a more nuanced approach than 'This IP address hit one spam trap, I'm going to block this IP.'

"Typically, spam trap hits are one of several factors considered and it requires more than one spam trap hit for there to be major deliverability issues. Unfortunately, some systems aren't that nuanced.

"As you noted, closed loop opt-in doesn't mitigate the risk of hitting spam traps with welcome/confirmation messages. There are some techniques that do mitigate the risk:

"1. Use a different mail server with a different IP for confirmation messages. There are two benefits from this approach.

"First, if you do hit spam traps, the damage is limited to your confirmation messages.

"Second, it is easier to make a case with an ISP/blacklist to take action if you run a closed loop opt-in service and that can show that a low(er) volume of only welcome messages come from that IP.

"2. Check the email addresses for obvious malicious entries. Scan for addresses with trap, honeypot, abuse, *master, and other keywords that might lead to trouble.

"3. Check for (and prohibit) mass additions of email addresses from a single IP. At Return Path, we have run various services over the years with email sign up forms. We have noted that when we see a mass submission of addresses from a single IP, that is usually followed by hitting a spam trap.

"Note that there are some cases where there are good reasons to see a lot of submissions for a single IP or a small range of IPs."

More on delivery reputation | Tags: email marketing, email deliverability, spam traps

August 01, 2008

...how would you define unwanted email...?

What would you consider a potential indicator of a "bad" sender? Not a traditional spammer, but a sender who simply isn't producing email that people want to receive?

How about:

• recipients never click on a link in the email
• emails are never moved to a folder or archived ("trash" or "junk" folders don't count)
• recipients delete the email
• the emails are never rescued or opened when delivered to the junk folder
• recipients never scroll down the email
• recipients don't forward the email
• recipients don't use the interface's print facility
• recipients over-use unsubscribe links
• recipients never unblock images or add sender to address list

I'd measure these behaviors, compare the results to those for other bulk senders and then stop delivering email from senders that fall into the bottom X%. Whether opt-in or not.

Now imagine an email future where all the above contributed to an individual spam score for each sender and for each recipient, allowing the webmail service to define "unwanted" at the individual inbox level...

This isn't just an intellectual exercise.

If you construct such a list, it will help you focus on producing emails that are wanted.

Equally, the history of deliverability tells us that the new spam isn't just email that stimulates a "report spam" response. It's email that fails to produce a positive action or which encourages a negative one.

I'd place good money on the above scenario becoming real: filtering or blocking of emails that fail to engage. Recipients already do this subconsciously.

(Deliverability gurus: please step in and tell us how much of this is already done or planned.)

Even if it remains theory, what would YOU put on that list? And how would you minimize your "spam" score?

Tags: email marketing, webmail, email deliverability, sender reputation

Today sees the official publication date for the Truth About Email Marketing book by Simms Jenkins. Watch out for an author interview in the next few days.

I'm often asked for recommendations on useful print books for both budding and existing email marketers. So here's the list I hand out...

(Disclaimer: Assume I have some kind of relationship with all of these. Either I worked in an editorial capacity on the book, know the author(s), or am affiliated in some way with the publisher/seller. Or all three.)

Particularly for beginners

Email marketing kit
I'm surprised this publication never got more attention from the industry. Jeanne Jennings did a super job of building a huge, high-quality print resource that covers just about every stage of your email marketing campaign: from planning and strategy through to analyzing results.

Perhaps the price (currently $197) put people off?
More info or read my review.

Email marketing for Dummies
You know email marketing has become accepted when it makes it to a Dummies book.

John Arnold lays out a basic primer for those new to the field. More info or read my interview with him.

For everyone

Truth about Email Marketing
The fact that the Financial Times Press is publishing this new book says a lot about how far the industry has come. Simms Jenkins covers the main issues that support successful email marketing strategy and execution.

Particularly valuable for those in larger corporate marketing departments, but it's for the rest of us, too. More info.

Email Marketing: an hour a day
I've not read this yet, as it doesn't appear until November. A little early for a recommendation, then? Possibly, but the authors (Jeanniey Mullen and David Daniels) are big names in the email marketing world, so it promises much. More info.


MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2008
Definitely not for beginners at the price. But an essential reference for pretty much everyone else. More info or read my review.

Sign me up!
Email marketing by the numbers
The complete guide to e-mail marketing
These are books I've not read, but deserve a place on the list for the positive reviews they've got at Amazon.

If truth be told, there aren't that many email marketing books out there. And a lot of them cover similar ground. There's certainly no value to buying all of the above. If you have the spare cash, get Jeanne's kit, as this has both the overview as well as details to guide you with implementation.

If you haven't, try Simms' book and any one of the others to ensure you have the topic more or less covered. Once you understand the principles and issues involved, you can then search online for the in-depth practical details or get appropriate vendor help.

Enjoy reading.

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