Best Practices for Email

Email Deliverability: Times are a Changing

Here is an interesting read from an article recently published by Bill McClosky of Click Z.

You had better start paying attention to your reputations at specific ISPs - They control to large extent whether your email get's delivered or filtered.

Remember - 95% of deliverability and reputation issues stem from hygiene problems with the underlying list. To solve this: 
1) validate email addresses upon registration 
2) avoid promotional campaigns and incentives that encourage questionable email address submissions  
3)vet co-registration and other email acquisition campaigns used to build lists 

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re: Click Z    E-mail delivery. I don't think any subject other than spam elicits so much discussion, articles, blog posts, and conference topics. If you're going to make money using e-mail as a channel, you have to get your message in front of people. The reason so much attention is paid to deliverability is that it's a "solvable" problem.

There's a free solution: you can ensure you conform to best practices, do double opt-ins, be aggressive and compulsive about removing dead branches from your list, don't over mail, and get on white lists.

 You can pay for a solution: Return Path and Goodmail have programs and technologies to increase your placement in the inbox.

In fact, I've always felt that the topic of better e-mail creative is underrepresented at trade shows and conferences, perhaps because technology companies and their sponsorship dollars often influence (even subconsciously) the shows agendas. Actually, a show dedicated to B2B e-mail creative would probably be a huge hit.

But looking at deliverability, the times they are a changin', and the sand is beginning to shift a bit beneath the feet of those in charge of getting e-mails to the inbox, as Internet service providers (ISPs) begin to experiment and implement different methodologies and techniques to deliver the e-mail people want and block the e-mails they don't.

While ISPs use a number of devices to determine if an e-mail should be delivered or not, a big determining factor is the reputation of the IP address that is delivering the mail. This, of course, has some issues: to a certain degree it locks brands into a specific e-mail service provider (ESP) whose IP addresses they're using to deliver the mail. Even a well known brand can have difficulty delivering their e-mail from an IP address that has little or no reputation.

Which means that a brand that switches ESPs...well, that hard won IP reputation score doesn't travel with you.

It's like the old days with cell phones, where you couldn't take your number with you when you changed carriers. A brand is at ground zero again and has to "warm up" the new IP addresses with small mailings, which can mean a significant hit to bottom line revenue.

And this is why domain-based reputation has generated such interest. Recently, a number of articles have been written about ISPs moving towards a domain-based reputation scoring, based on conversations that Pivotal Veracity has been having with ISPs.

The good news is that brands (who have maintained good practices) will be able to take those good reputations with them, regardless of ESP, IP address, or whether they're sending via their in-house mailing system, their ESP, or through a third party. The bad news for those that were hoping to switch IP addresses to correct some bad practices is that your reputation might proceed you.

No one expects domain-based reputation scoring to be implemented immediately. For one, most ISPs aren't geared up to recognize the reputation scores from domains. It's coming though, according to some in the know.

But it doesn't end there. The talk is that consumer-based reputation is being considered. Meaning, that the action of the actual customer might someday determine if your e-mail is delivered or not. If the customer doesn't open the e-mail, doesn't click on the links, or moves it into the spam filter -- ultimately that consumer behavior might determine whether or not I see your campaign.

Which brings us full circle, back to creative. E-mailers just might have to make their e-mails more engaging, more interesting, and more targeted to keep me on their list. And that might not be a bad thing.

Ramp Up Your Holiday Emails

 Have you started planning your holiday season email campaigns yet? If not you better get started. Proper pre-planning helps to insure great results. Holiday emailing means more emails so you better make sure you are addressing the right segments in your lists with compelling messaging.

Here are a couple of ways segment your subscribers to help insure better results.

Segment by Subscriber Engagement. Segment your list to find subscribers groups who would respond to more messaging.  Divide your subscribers into three segment groups according to their activity on your list:

Actively engaged. These people are your best audience. They act on most of the messages you send: forwarding your newsletters, sharing your content on their social networks, clicking on your offers, and buying more often than other segments of your list.

Newbies. These people, although active when they first subscribe, tire quickly from excessive frequency or poor targeting. They might respond to every third or fourth e-mail if it catches their interest. Email subject lines and message content are critical.

Inactives. These people have stopped responding to your e-mails for one reason or another, but haven't bothered to unsubscribe.

Develop frequency strategies that reflect activity level:

Actively engaged are least likely to complain about frequency increases. Reward these most valuable customers for their loyalty and activity with special offers and incentives not available to other segments. Monitor this group for "subscriber fatigue" metrics (complaints, unsubscribes, reduced activity, etc.). These are the customers you must not lose.

Newbie subscribers might respond better to short-term opt-in programs that offer highly focused content, such as a deal of the day or gift suggestion offers. Promote these in your regular e-mails. State the terms clearly: starting and ending dates, frequency, content, and the ability to opt out at will.

Inactives lower your list ROI and waste e-mail resources. Shift the focus of e-mails targeted to this segment from holiday offers and incentives to "win back" incentives that can return them to active status or help them exit your list without generating spam complaints.

Additional Takeaways

Abandoned shopping cart campaigns. The subscriber exits your site without buying the items he placed in a shopping cart. This generates an e-mail gently reminding the customer to come back and buy the items. You might also promote items in the registered user's wish list. If a user has placed an item in the wish list and left it there for several weeks, consider dedicating an e-mail highlighting this item.

Review transactional messages.Your transactional messages may hold opportunities to increase cross-promotion and up-selling and drive traffic back to your site. Design the message to add a promotional feature below or to the side of the main message that can boost holiday traffic.

Upgrade your subscription forms. Frequency and permission go hand in hand when developing your mailing strategy. Your opt-in form must give subscribers clear choices to give them control and to help you collect the information you need to build relevancy and to create segments to control frequency.

 

Social Forwarding Helps Emails Go Viral

Marketers today want their marketing e-mail messages to reach as many eyeballs as possible. Taking advantage of subscribers’ natural desire to share info about a great deal  or new program with their friends is one way to do just that.

The majority of email service providors now provide dedicated links that allow e-mail subscribers to  “forward to a friend” (FTAF) or “share with your network” (SWYN)( Social Forward). These are two ways marketers can help their messages go viral. Though social networking is hipper than old-fashioned e-mail forwarding, marketers are much more likely to provide a “forward” link (48%, including those who provide both links) than easy sharing capability (13%, including those who provide both links), according to data from Smith-Harmon.

Only a few online retailers used both types of links in their e-mail campaigns, and nearly one-half did not offer any link at all for passing on messages.

Links to share content with a social network can potentially give messages much more exposure. After all, such e-mails are shared with the subscriber’s entire social network, rather than just a few friends chosen specifically for the purpose.

Smith-Harmon found that among those retailers that did provide social network sharing links, Facebook was the clear favorite. Every campaign studied that had a SWYN capability had a link to Facebook. Twitter came in second, at 67%, while only 44% of sharing-capable e-mails linked to MySpace.

Online retailers also directed subscribers to share offers via social bookmarking sites and social shopping sites.

“Despite FTAF’s incumbent position, I expect SWYN adoption to overtake FTAF usage over the next 24 months as more marketers and consumers become familiar with it,” wrote Chad White, author of the “FTAF vs. SWYN: The State of Email Sharing” report, on MediaPost. “Also, just as FTAF has to compete with the ‘forward’ button in every email client, I expect that we’ll see SWYN links built into email clients in the future.”

Listed below is how Exact Target's Social Forward Feature works in their messaging:

ET's Social Forward is comprised of the following three parts:

• ShareThis Integration. Our integration with ShareThis makes it easy for  subscribers to share content to over 20 online networks and communities while providing you the metrics you need to create a strategy around your social content. Identify top networks, content, and subscribers for sharing and quantify the results of your strategy.
• Direct to Social. The Direct to Social capability is a simple way for your subscribers to share content with the click of a button. Allow your subscribers to share content directly to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and many other online communities.
• Forward to a Friend. Allow your subscribers to share your message directly with their friends via email. Forward to a Friend enables subscribers to include a personal note about your message and send it on to their friends via email. You'll be able to track how many times your message was forwarded and how many new subscribers you've gained as a result.

Tracking metrics provide the data you need to improve the results of your social networking strategy, as well as prove the effectiveness of your existing campaigns. With Social Forward,  subscribers now have the power to instantly share their brand experience with their entire social network-and you have the opportunity to become a trusted member of their online community. Powerful!!

6 New Trends to Watch in Email Marketing

1 Using SMS and Mobil marketing to grow Email lists

Consumers live on their mobile devices. More and more companies are using SMS as a way to make it easy for a consumer to opt into their email programs,  and send them special offers via phone or traditional email. Look for growth with restaurant and retail chains. SMS is much more effective and timely that the traditional, manual ways of collecting opt ins (response cards, fishbowl, etc.).

2 Leveraging Video in Email

Video embedded within email is a logical extension of Web 2.0. Today smart marketers are leveraging the power of video by using simple screen captures to drive the consumer to the video content on a web page. New technologies from LiveClicker and Goodmail offer other deployment methods where video can be viewed from within the actual email. LiveClicker uses animated GIFs to give the illusion of a video playing in email, whereas Goodmail actually streams live video into email at AOL inboxes.

3 Balancing Images and Text within the HTML Design

Today’s inbox challenge is that images don’t render by default across most email clients, even though tests have shown that images outperform plain text in driving response. Use a smart balance of text and images, and make sure to use alt tags and take advantage of the ability to put your key points in header copy.  The days of using one large image in an email are long gone.

4 Making Email Conversational

The proliferation of spam is causing consumers to become more and more desensitized to email marketing messages. By making the email interactive and conversational, marketers are able to rise above the noise and connect with their customers. Engage consumers and create dialogue is tantamount to successful programs.

5 Offering Exclusive Promotions

With so many different channels available for accessing information, consumers are easily distracted.  Email recipients need to find your content valuable if they’re going to pay attention and continue to subscribe. Exclusive content or offers that can’t be accessed anywhere else, increases the stickiness of your subscriber base and will drive up open and click-through rates.

6 Targeted Email Automation

The technology exists with most email platforms to start sending automated messaging, in addition to the ad hoc campaigns that most companies run. The key to successful automated emails are leveraging the customer data. (i.e., anniversary, renewal date, loyalty points, ) Sending automated targeted messages have much higher open rate than traditional transactional emails. Your customers need to know you are listening and responding to their preferences.

Combining Social Marketing and Email Successfully

Social Marketing is the new craze. Most of us are using Facebook or one of the many other social networks on the web.  Can social networks like Facebook help you with your email marketing? Yes.

Here are some ideas using Facebook

If a large portion of your subscriber list is already on Facebook, you can provide tools in your email campaigns to allow your readers to help share your content. This will give you the power to leverage your growing audience and gain much more visibility for your content or message.

This has the potential to lead to more subscribers and conversions as you share your content with your network of subscribers.

Share Links from Email to Facebook

To be able to share your content or message on Facebook, you need to use the share URL that Facebook has created. By doing this, it will create a preview of your content, which can then be posted to a Facebook profile or sent as a direct message.

The simplest way to give a subscriber the option to share your link is to add this code into your email.

Just replace URL with the link you want to share.

A lot of sites will also feature a Facebook button on their website or in their email to do the same thing. After you click on the link, it creates a preview with optional image selections from the page URL provided.

Once the link is posted to a reader’s profile, their wall is updated, which basically is telling their friends that they have read or feel the link is important.This not only shows up on the profile page, but also shows up in the news feed of their friends.

Showing up in multiple news feeds is when you start to leverage that user’s entire friend list. This process has the potential to move virally as people leave comments or share the item with their friends and family.

Ask Subscribers to Become Fans

This is where promoting your Facebook page in email starts to blur the line between email marketing and social networking. When someone visits oyur page and clicks on the “become a fan” link, they are essentially opting-in to Facebook’s version of email marketing, which Facebook calls “updates”.

When a user logs in to their Facebook account, they will be notified of any updates and directed to their Facebook inbox.

Just like in email marketing, users are given the ability to opt-out of these updates or report them as spam.

Following email marketing’s best practices on frequency apply here as well. Don’t over communicate because that will just end up labeling you as a spammer and people will start to opt-out from your updates.

Anatomy of a Great Email + New Emotional Social Marketing Tool

Powered by Greeting Flix Emotional Marketing Tool Created by a long time client of mine, Chris Lombardo has an extraordinary way for a company to weave their key  advertising messages into memorable user-generated content - amplified with the element of personal photos. and packaged in a client branded microsite (check out the Gerber link here) A branded "Powered by Greeting Flix" microsite site allows visitors to quickly create highly-entertaining branded videos featuring their personal photos, which can be shared with friends & family, forwarded, posted to blogs, and accessed at any time for repeated distribution. Videos can include printable coupons, links to specific web pages, and additional advertising (if desired) on the "recipient view" page. Many large companies are looking at this flavor of technology to drive some of their social marketing initiatives - let me know if you have an interest! See's Candies May 2009 Email Review Here is company that takes stock in using the best practices in email marketing to create comelling and user friendly email campaigns. Let's take a closer look.  A: Notice how See's has added the main call to action in the header of their email (What the sale message is and a link). This is great, since so many people triage their emails on a PDAS and html might not display correctly. Plus, they have added the "view the message as web ink" and reminded the recipient again to add the from address to the safe sender list. B. Great use of personalization within the body of the email. It works nicely. However, as you can see my name is in all CAPS. They should rework their data from proper case within name fields. Go here to learn how to do that. Key "call to action" is above the fold (top 1/3 of email). Make sure you let your recipients see your main call to action at the top of your email not at the bottom -- they may not reach it if that is the case. Improvement Suggestion:  So many email browsers block images by default. Why take a chance that the recipient has not enabled images.  See's has not taken advantage of this and should use alt tags and text so the person can understand what the image represents if they cannot see it. C. Have multiple areas where a recipient can click to an action. Use both graphic as well as text links. When you review your tracking results you wil then be able see whay links were most effective. Many email solutions like ExactTarget have an overlay feature that let's you preview the email and visually see what links were click most often and by whom. D. Normally, companies offer an email signup page and/or website registration form to capture consumers' opt-ins, which are the most valuable commodities in the digital world - an opportunity to build a two way dialogue with your customer!  Consider having a link to your customer's preferences. Give them choice! E. I love the way See's gives the recipient a chance to view the sample comunication before they opt for it! How do they want to receive communications i.e. multiple platforms (email, mobile, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) Provide the ability to change preferences, formats, languages, etc. Let them choose frequency of updates Asking them their preferences as it relates to the products or services you offer  Let them choose types of communications and adjust as you go, as opposed to unsubscribing from all Provide a sneak peak of any offered communications Tell them how data will be treated and information on other privacy issues Explain how to remove oneself with ease from any or all communications ************

Using the Email Header to Highlight Your offer

The future is now with regard to email marketing's role as a key digital marketing choice for today's challenging economic times. A recent StrongMail study showed that more than half (51 percent) of the nearly 1,000 global business leaders polled plan to increase their marketing budgets in 2009 to focus on programs that yield a higher return on investment, such as email marketing and search. Let's take a look at a few key items to drive your response results immediately!

1. Use the Header copy to your advantage and highlight the offer.
2. Optimize for mobile viewers.
3. Use alt tags.
4. Preference Center is the new "go to" web page for your customers

An example by Harry & David using text copy above the graphic email banner to allow recipients to either view the email as a web page or on a mobile device. Plus they have also highlighted the key action and subject of the email. clicking in the mobile device provides a text email that is optimized for the small screen of PDAs.

So many email browsers block images by default. Why take a chance that the recipient has not enabled images. Use alt tags and text so the person can understand what the image represents.

Normally,  companies offer an email signup page and/or website registration form to capture consumers' opt-ins, which are the most valuable commodities in the digital world - an opportunity to build a two way dialogue with your customer!  Remember, these are customers and prospects raising their hands to say, "Yes, please market to me." E marketing can be the "connective glue" in your marketing programs. Consider:

• How do they want to receive communications i.e. multiple platforms (email, mobile, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
• Provide the ability to change preferences, formats, languages, etc.
• Let them choose frequency of updates
• Asking them their preferences as it relates to the products or services you offer 
• Let them choose types of communications and adjust as you go, as opposed to unsubscribing from all
• Provide a sneak peak of any offered communications
• Tell them how data will be treated and information on other privacy issues
• Explain how to remove oneself with ease from any or all communications

A great way to obtain this additional information is in the confirmation email, after they have initially said "yes" to communication. An immediate incentive or offer can help the customer go the extra mile to link to the customer profile page to fill out / update the other information.

Note, the nice use of tabs above for both updating preferences and changing your email by HP.

Can SPAM Refresher

In 2003 Congress passed the Can-Spam Act. This law is designed to help cut down on the volume of spam email through the US. Even if you're not based in the States, complying with the Can-Spam act will significantly improve your deliverability.

Can-Spam basically includes six major provisions. They are:
1.The email message must not have misleading header information.
2.The message must not have a misleading subject line.
3.The message must come from a functioning return email address.
4.Senders must remove all unsubscribe requests within 10 business days.
5.Commercial email must display the physical postal address of the sender.
6.Any unsolicited emails must clearly identify that it's an advertising message. The recipient must have the opportunity to decline further emails.

It's very important that every email you send contains an unsubscribe link. If someone requests to unsubscribe, the law states that you have ten business days to remove him. Your ESP, like Exact Target will process these opt-out requests for you. This ensures that you always comply with the Can-Spam regulations.

Email and Search Go Hand in Hand

Use your site's search function to help target messaging.

 If someone logs on and searches for a specific product, on your web site, you're missing out if you don't use that information to target your email messaging. Don't to be too obvious, but if a person  searches for a pair of shoes, you can send your regular e-mail message and end it with a message about  your shoe offers. Remember this is not rocket science – find a need and fill it – be targeted and customer centric in your approach.

Use e-mail to nurture paid search prospects.

 If you click on most paid search ads, you'll find plenty of product information, but what you may not find is an opt-in option. The average paid search conversion rate is 2% to 4%. Many companies are now using the paid search as a way to increase their prospect email lists.  If you're advertising  on Google AdWords, the value of e-mail becomes - What do we do with the other 96 or 98 people? It doesn't take away from the main conversion goal, but an e-mail opt-in can become a very strong secondary call to action.  If the person who clicked on your add opts in, your ROI goes up when—weeks or several months out—a few more of those people convert  to customers. Food fort hought.

10 Things Your CMO Needs to Know About Email NOW

In today’s economic environment this holiday season, it is likely that you are challenged to protect their email marketing budget.  To assist you in responding to this challenge, ExactTarget, one of the company ESPs I represent as a reseller in the Los Angeles area,  has developed an Executive Alert titled 10 Things Your C-Suite Must Know About Email Now.  There is great info in this piece! Here are some excerpts and a link to download the pdf of the document- super holiday reading!

 

The quick and easy read serves to bridge the gap between marketers and company leaders in the understanding of email marketing and highlights best practices for email marketing implementation, benefits, and pitfalls to avoid.

 

In the midst of a weakening global economy, many companies struggling to make the numbers are reverting to what they know: cost-cutting across the board and that includes marketing budgets. This document equips marketers with a list of 10 important email marketing best practices that they can easily share with their executive team to help them understand the critical role played by email in facilitating sales and maintaining strong customer relationships. Some of the email truths include:

  

−      Email is Everywhere

−      Email is Cost-Effective

−      Email is Profitable

−      Email Demands Permission

−      Email Demands Integration

−      Email is Personal

−      Email is Immediate

−      Email is Mobile

−      Email is Flexible

−      Email is Measurable

• The facts and statistics provided within the Executive Alert will give marketers the support they need when making the case for why it is critical to invest time, talent, and resources in email communication efforts.
• Some of the insights marketers can use to educate their executive team, include:

−      “Batch and blast” is not a strategy – it’s a recipe for subscriber revolt and delivery disaster.

−      Email is best used for customer retention and lead nurturing – other tactics such as search marketing are better for customer acquisition.

−      Email is not direct mail. The inbox is not the mailbox – it’s a far more personal space.

• Includes three “bonus” points which include:

−      Permission Email is Not Spam

−      Email is Social

−      Email is the Future

 

To download the entire document go here