The Email Experience Council is pleased to announce that pen tablet manufacturer Wacom and eROI are the winners of this year’s Email Performance Award, which recognizes an organization that has created an email marketing campaign that demonstrates the full power of the channel.

Working with eROI, Wacom created an email campaign that ran for 12 consecutive days, with each day highlighting a different month of calendar artwork created by up-and-coming artists who used Wacom products. The emails invited Wacom’s more than 270,000 subscribers to download the calendar as well as upload their own art to Wacom’s site, where the community could vote on their favorite. The winning artist would receive a Cintiq 12WX tablet. During the first six days of the campaign, more than 33,000 new visitors went to Wacom’s site. Visitors spent more than three minutes on the site and uploaded more than 1,300 works of art.

The other 2008 award finalists were Accor, AOL, Genentech, and REI.

For more details on Wacom’s award-winning campaign—and those of the four other finalists—visit the eec’s Email Performance Awards page.

Congratulations again to Wacom and eROI.

—Jeanniey Mullen and the eec team

Michael Della Penna’s debut Email Experience Blog post on The Customer Experience inspired me step through the looking glass and reflect on the positive experiences I’ve had as an email subscriber. My deep thoughts: the Sephora Beauty Insider email program has beauty and brains! How do they capture my clicks? By treating me like a VIP. It’s easy as 1-2-3…

(1) Roll out the red carpet. Want me to join your made-over email program? Send me a gold-lettered invitation. I feel special when Sephora welcomes me—“the beauty elite”—“behind beauty’s velvet rope.”
-->See the email invitation

(2) Give me some swag. If I take the time to give an exclusive interview, I want something exclusive, too. Sephora makes it worth my breath with the promise of super swag—exclusive freebies and insider-only offers, personalized tips and product picks, plus a birthday gift.
-->Check out the preferences page

(3) Send me roses. If I say red roses, don’t send white carnations! Sephora delivers roses: messages that clearly leverage the data I provide. I say I like the Bare Escentuals brand; they offer free Bare Escentuals lip polish. I say I have combination skin; they promote a revival treatment.
-->View an exclusive offer email
-->View a personalized offer email

Only, I don’t know why on earth I would ever have gotten an email about acne products. I swear—I’ve never had a pimple in my life! Ha.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon
of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

What is the status of the FTC’s CAN-SPAM rulemaking and is the agency going to reduce the opt-out timeframe?

It’s already been more than two-and-a-half years since the FTC issued its discretionary CAN-SPAM Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in which the agency proposed, among other things, to reduce marketers’ allowable opt-out processing timeframe from 10 to three business days.

At last summer’s DMA Email Policy Summit, FTC Spam Coordinator Sana Chriss told attendees that “a team is in place,” and the FTC was working on finalizing its rules. However, at the same time Chriss noted that, because the rulemaking is discretionary, it’s up to the agency as to if and when final CAN-SPAM rules are issued at all, and if so what they’d ultimately say.

So will the opt-out timeframe be reduced? Nothing can be said for certain, but it is encouraging that Chriss acknowledged at that meeting that the vast majority of the 151 organizations who submitted comments to the agency in response to its NPRM described operational challenges that would make it overly burdensome to comply with a 3-day opt-out. You can review those comments for yourself here.

Another positive development has been the agency’s December 2007 report to Congress on the current state of the spam problem. In its “Next Steps” section, the document made no reference to reducing the opt-out timeframe, instead looking to technological developments like email authentication, collaborative government-industry initiatives and consumer education programs as more promising anti-spam measures.

So what should marketers do?

● Stay “in-the-know.” Keep in mind that the opt-out period still could be reduced, and closely follow developments on the Hill as relates to any changes to CAN-SPAM. One way to make sure you’re not out in the cold when it comes to knowing what to comply with and how to do so is by participating in the eec’s Advocacy Roundtable! Members can sign up today by shooting an email to Ali Swerdlow at ali@emailexperience.org. Not an eec member yet? Ali can help you with that too!

● Make opting-out fast and simple. Some very reputable marketers have some very legitimate reasons for needing a full 10 business days to process opt-outs, and it’s essential that we preserve the status quo in that regard. That said, for the sake of maintaining positive customer relationships and improving deliverability, we always recommend processing opt-outs as fast as possible. Making the process shorter for your company will also put you on solid footing in the event that the FTC does eventually decide to reduce the opt-out timeframe.

We’d like to hear your thoughts on this subject. How would a reduced opt-out timeframe impact your company and/or clients? Also, has the lack of decisive clarity on additional outstanding CAN-SPAM issues such as “forward to a friend” and “multiple sender” campaigns been an impediment to your marketing efforts? Let us know by commenting below or emailing the Advocacy Roundtable at advocacy@emailexperience.org.

—eec Advocacy Roundtable co-chairs Jordan Cohen of Epsilon and Robb Walters of Costco

-->Read other issues of the The Email Advocate.

When the DMA’s email marketing council merged with the Email Experience Council last year, we maintained the eec name in large part because many of us believe the consumer experience would increasingly take center stage in differentiating email marketers. We also fundamentally believe that if marketers focus on building an exceptional email experience they will not only develop deeper, strong relationships, but they would sell more—further accelerating the enormous ROI attributed to email. Our hope is that this council continues to provide our members with the tools and guidance needed to build exceptional email marketing programs. That guidance—which includes all our research, best practices, educational events, advocacy and the sharing of ideas—has no doubt been helpful to many of us and has often positively impacted our email efforts. However, we still have much to do, particularly as it relates to being able to learn from each other and showcase great email marketing practices that drive results.

That is why I would like to start the New Year off with a new series for this blog entitled “You’ve Got Email.” Each month, You’ve Got Email will highlight great email marketing programs from the consumer’s perspective. I’ll dissect best-in-class email practices ranging from exceptional preference center practices to compelling win-back marketing programs taken from a review of real email messages sent from hundreds of brands. I’ll show the good, the bad and the ugly in hopes of inspiring you to do better. Best of all, because I am an independent consultant right now and don’t need to worry about alienating a client or potential prospect, I’ll be refreshingly honest in the hopes of pushing many of you to do better.

To be clear, I completely understand that many of you reading this still face some very significant data and operational challenges that prevent you from doing the kind of email you would love to do. However, in my experience, very few marketers have taken the necessary steps to bring about the changes needed within their own organizations to evolve their email communications. How many of you have really spent the time building a customer-centric marketing strategy, or leveraged cross-functional customer-facing teams to inform your email marketing strategies or tactics? Or even audited your existing company-wide email marketing initiatives? Be honest—you haven’t—because if you had, we would be seeing a lot more great email marketing. So let’s make this year the year we leave the excuses in the office and focus less on spam and deliverability and more on the customer. Because when you build a great email customer experience that is timely, relevant, wanted and valued, those old issues almost fix themselves.

Finally, I want this blog and column to be interactive, so send me your questions, challenges and even marketing programs you admire or want evaluated. In February we’ll focus on building great email preference pages. Till next time,

—Michael Della Penna

Every week the EEC adds new content to its Whitepaper Room. Here are the latest additions:

2008 Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study
Opt-out Methods, Alternatives, Barriers & Other Process Elements Used by Top Online Retailers

*Have a whitepaper you’d like to contribute? Email it to whitepapers@emailexperience.org.

While major online retailers do a great job of honoring unsubscribe requests quickly, there’s plenty of room for their opt-out processes to improve—most notably in the areas of providing subscribers with alternatives to opting out and of lowering barriers to opting out. For instance, only 66% of retailers use their opt-out processes to engage subscribers in order to address the issue causing them to want to opt out—and few do more than a superficial job of it. When looking at opt-out barriers, only 9% of major online retailers employ a one-click unsubscribe process, while another 35% easily could, but don’t.

Those are a couple of the key findings of Email Experience Council’s first annual Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study, which looked at the opt-out practices of 94 major online retailers. The study looks at trends in the opt-out process itself, including the alternatives to opting out, opt-out methods and friction in the unsubscribe process; and examines the honoring of opt-out requests, including CAN-SPAM compliance.

“Email is a relationship channel, and opting out of the relationship is just another step in the lifecycle,” says Kara Trivunovic, director of strategic services at Premiere Global Services Inc., the sponsor of this study. “Ignore it at your own peril.”

Increasingly one of the most important benchmarks for your unsubscribe process should be the single click of the “report spam” button. Some consumers already regularly use it to unsubscribe from email that they no longer want. So if your process becomes confusing or cumbersome, consumers know they have an easy-to-use fallback. That makes it more important than ever to have a frictionless opt-out process.

It also makes it more important to honor opt-out requests quickly, as delays increasingly look like failures. Thankfully, more than 86% of retailers honored opt-outs within 3 days, with most of them effective immediately, as evidenced by the number of emails received after opting out. Another 4% honored opt-outs within 7 days, and 3% more within 14 days. One percent took more than the CAN-SPAM-sanctioned 14 days to honor unsubscribes, and another 3% of retailers had their opt-out processes fail.

Other key findings from the study include:

• 73% of retailers sent no more emails after receiving an opt-out request.

• 16% of retailers give those trying to opt-out an opportunity to reduced the frequency at which they receive emails.

• 17% of retailers solicited feedback from those that had opted out

• 4% of retailers were in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 by either failing to honor opt-outs or taking longer than 10 business days to do so.

Get the Full Report
Visit the Whitepaper Room to download the full 30-page report, which is free for eec platinum members, available at a discount to eec gold and silver members, and available for $179 for non-members. Not a member? Learn more about becoming a member of the Email Experience Council.

And as part of a special promotion, attendees of the eec’s Email Evolution Conference can receive the study for free. Visit www.emailevolution.org for more information and to register.

With the ubiquity of image disabling, the escalation of mobile email viewing and the expectation that recipients will not scroll, email senders have been hot to hop on the preheader train. For those of you who haven’t yet left the station, the preheader is the usually small and subdued text blurb at the top of an email that includes some combination of the below:

(1) View with images prompt
(2) Add to address book prompt
(3) Content teaser snippet(s)

Preheaders are meant to inform a recipient of:
(1) Who an email is from
(2) What the email is about and what to do about it
(3) How to view it with images

Below, check out four preheaders pulled from the tops of emails I received last week from Aveda, Blue Nile, Pottery Barn Kids and Stride Rite. The examples are displayed in order of increasing complexity: Aveda’s preheader takes the most basic (and common) form, while Blue Nile, Pottery Barn Kids and Stride Rite get fancy, adding additional details and click-through opportunities. Stride Rite gets brownie points for linking to a landing page with “add to address book” instructions for major email providers, but in my opinion rides the preheader express one stop too far. Theirs is epic, pushing the email itself down 122 pixels.

I am absolutely a best practices advocate, but let’s test to determine whether we are on the right track or off the rails. How much preheader is enough?! If any of y’all have performance stats to share, I’m sure the eec community would be grateful.

I’d like to get on a train to Cabo San Lucas right about now.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon
of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

From: Aveda Online
Subject Line: Top tips for straight hair, plus Free styling brush
Date: Monday, Jan. 21, 2008

From: Blue Nile
Subject Line: Special Promotion for Blue Nile Customers
Date: Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2008

From: Pottery Barn Kids
Subject Line: Shop NEW nursery seating - over 50 designer fabrics!
Date: Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008

From: stride rite
Subject Line: New Arrivals, Baby and Cookie Magazine. Find out more...
Date: Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008

Waking up Tuesday morning to CNBC’s Becky Quick telling me the Dow Jones Futures were down almost 600 points after a surprise three-quarter point Fed rate cut really put a damper on my day. As I watched the real-time chart tick lower, my stomach started to knot leaving me in a dizzying stupor. It’s times like these that bring me back to my days as a small cap equities analyst where I would question CFOs about where they planned to cut and by how much. The first answer out of their mouths was almost always “non-revenue generating jobs,” such as customer and administrative support. The second most common answer is “advertising and marketing.” The second answer always baffled me especially from companies that aren’t leveraged. In a time of a recession, companies with access to capital have an unusual opportunity to take market share as they are able to sustain or increase their marketing budgets. Whenever a CFO with a decent to strong cash position told me that he or she was going to slash their marketing budget going into an economic downturn, I eventually sold the company’s stock and bought a competitor’s that kept theirs intact. This strategy worked well—especially in the services sectors.

Although most people do suffer from a recession, winners do emerge and I’m confident that email marketing could get a gold medal. During the 2001-2002 recession, email marketing was just on the cusp of becoming widely adopted but had yet to make the necessary penetration to become a formidable part of the promotional mix. Most notably, the cost per email hovered around $0.05, way below the cost of a direct mail piece yet still prohibitive for most companies to implement two or three times a week on a large scale. Fast forward to 2008, email marketing is now one of the least expensive marketing channels, and according to the DMA, a very high performer. Today, most email marketers are paying under a penny per email, but email marketing only claims a small part of the average marketing budget. Even though email marketing has become widespread, email marketers, on a larger scale, are still not leveraging the medium’s true potential such as advanced personalization, delivery monitoring and management, and integration with third-party systems.

This gap, coupled with a potential economic downturn, presents a unique opportunity for email marketers to lobby their CEOs and CFOs for a larger slice of their marketing budget. Email marketers have already proven that email marketing works well. Now is their opportunity to reclaim it as the most relevant push channel available and the biggest bang for the buck.

—Elie Ashery of Gold Lasso

-->Read other posts in The From Line Extended series.

Subscriber fatigue is real, and wrecking havoc with your response rates! This is the primary conclusion from our fourth annual Return Path Holiday Email Survey. Respondents told us that relevance is in their eyes, not the eyes of the marketer. More than half (56.4%) of respondents say they receive high volumes of “junk” from marketers—defined as “email from companies I know but that is just not interesting to me.” “Junk” is second only to “spam” (“email I never asked to receive”) which 65.7% of respondents say they receive in high volumes. One-third say that marketers email them more frequently than promised. Most of this email is simply deleted unread, but subscribers do not hesitate to complain about unwanted messages (reporting the email as spam).

Value—like beauty—is always subjective. Surely all marketer’s email programs will have bad hair days, but there is chance for deeper beauty yet. There are some proven strategies to improve the value of email programs:

● Many respondents say they determine the value of each email message by using the subject line (58.6%). Spending more time to create compelling subject lines and test them effectively could make a difference for many marketers.

● The subject line and from line, as well as a consistent schedule of mailing may help boost response. Most respondents simply delete messages they don’t recognize (52.3%) or that they feel come too frequently (29.1%). Knowing and trusting the sender is key to that “open or delete” decision.

● It was encouraging to see that slightly less than a third (30%) of subscribers say they only open messages from brands they know. This is likely from the increased education about phishing and spoofing and spam tactics. However, another 14.4$ said that regardless of brand, they only open if they requested the particular message type. With most subscribers claiming they get more email than they expected at sign up, marketers must be cautious when sharing internal files or adding new message streams to existing subscriptions.

Marketers have benefited from consumers’ love of email. But even email tolerant subscribers don’t consistently read email unless it offers real value—and most consumers have figured out how to block or ignore future emails they don’t want.

Look back at your own Q4 email program. What did you do to engage with subscribers, and create a more compelling experience that breaks through the clutter? The only way to improve revenue from this channel is to create great email experiences over and over again. That means "great" from the subscriber perspective—relevant, timely and at the proper frequency.

—Stephanie Miller of Return Path

The answer…
71% --> I can honor opt-outs within 3 business days.
14% --> I can honor opt-outs within 5 business days.
16% --> I require the full 10 business days allowed by CAN-SPAM.

Are you surprised by this collective wisdom? Share your thoughts below.

Also, visit the EEC homepage to answer the latest Two-Click Survey question:
Have you ever tested (with control groups) the impact of frequency on the success of your email program?

-->Read more Two-Click Survey Results

Along with the eec, the DMA, and the Online Marketing Summit, Bulldog Solutions last week hosted a live webinar called “Straight from the Source: Top Online and Email Marketing Trends for 2008.” The eec’s Jeanniey Mullen and Aaron Kahlow from the OMS put together a really insightful joint presentation highlighting key issues for 2008. I won’t rehash it, you can view a recording here.

Any interactive webinar, but especially one on such a broad topic, serves as a great data- and insight-collection tool. From audience questions and the responses to polls and surveys, we benefit from a peek into marketers’ big pain points. Along those lines, an interesting bit of data.

At the beginning of the webinar, we asked the audience to identify the single area of online marketing on which they wanted more insight. The results show demand for email marketing guidance (no surprise there) and various levels of demand for insight into other areas.

We asked the same question at the end of the webinar. After hearing Jeanniey’s drilldown into key email marketing issues and Aaron’s coverage of the other five choices, the audience began to lean toward information on Analytics and Customer Experience. (Close to 200 attendees responded to the first poll, and about 140 to the second poll.)

Did Aaron open a can of worms with his focus on the need for an Analytics strategy to match business metrics? Did his insightful example of a less-than-stellar British Airways website experience send chills down marketers’ spines? (Actually, on that second one, I’m pretty sure the answer is, “yes.”) View it for yourself and post your comments here.

—Amy Bills of Bulldog Solutions

Today the Email Experience Council announced the five finalists for its first annual Email Performance Award, which recognizes an organization that has created an email marketing campaign that demonstrates the full power of the channel. The winner of the Email Performance Award, which will be selected by the eec's members, will be presented during the Email Evolution Conference, which will be held February 12-13 at the Sheraton Hotel & Marina in San Diego.

In alphabetical order, the five finalists for the Email Performance Award are: Accor, AOL, Genentech, REI and Wacom.

For more details on each of them, including copies of their nomination forms and supporting materials, visit the eec’s Email Performance Awards page. Congratulations to all the finalists.

Every week the EEC adds new content to its Whitepaper Room. Here are the latest additions:

Chad White: Holiday Retail Email Volume Soars
Frequency trends from the 2007 holiday season

*Have a whitepaper you’d like to contribute? Email it to whitepapers@emailexperience.org.

Anyone who thinks the messaging systems in social networking sites will completely replace general consumer email is an idiot, plain and simple. Analysts, pseudo-journalists and bloggers have recently been spewing some cockamamie notion that consumers will dump their inboxes in favor of communicating through the likes of Facebook and MySpace precluding email marketers from reaching their customers. All these morons have to do is interview any 12-year-old to learn that the underpinnings of communicating through MySpace are driven by email. Want to open a Facebook account? Oh, wait! You need an email address. You might be thinking why I care so much about what this small spec in the blogosphere says? The answer is simple. I’m protecting your email marketing budget and your job. Sometimes the press likes to run with whacky predictions without doing adequate fact checking and the last thing I want is for your CEO to read some half-baked article written by a college intern about how the whole world is going to ditch their email accounts for social networking.

In fact, I predict just the opposite will happen in 2008. Social networking websites will open their networks to become the new inbox providers of choice for ages 25 and younger. Instead of trying to fight your way into the inboxes of Yahoo and Hotmail users, MySpace and Facebook will become the new gatekeepers of younger generations. The reason why I’m so confident in my prediction is the simple fact that email is a daily time consuming ritual that can’t be ignored by online advertisers. And as social networking sites gain a larger share of advertising budgets, they will need to guarantee visitor time. Therefore email will have to be included in social networking’s repertoire of services cannibalizing market share from AOL, Yahoo and the rest of the old guard.

The argument to counter my prediction is that younger and even some older generations are spending less time in their inbox and instead are using social networking sites and SMS to communicate with friends and family. While I agree with most of this sentiment, it’s a far cry from the doom and gloom coming from the anti-email establishment, especially since social networking message systems and general email will become synonymous as MySpace and Facebook race to increase ad revenue. Don’t get me wrong, eventually email marketers will have to contend with sharing some of their budget with similar mediums such as SMS. But don’t let your CEO become enamored by some pie in the sky notion of a digital fantasy land.

—Elie Ashery of Gold Lasso

From the end of November through the start of January, I received 16 holiday cards from retailers in my email inbox. That’s more than double the number I received from friends and family in my snail mailbox! I suppose that’s what happens when you spend more time interacting with retail brands than you do with human beings. :)

Of the messages I received:
• 13.5% featured a Thanksgiving message
• 25% included generic season’s greetings
• 25% included direct references to Christmas
• 62.5% featured a New Year’s message
• 37.5% sweetened the greeting with a sale promotion

Ralph Lauren wins the “Most Frequent” award, sending three separate messages for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, while Harry & David takes the “Most Original” title for their highly entertaining placement of pears. I hope the Harry & David creative inspires more retailers to think of ways to interpret holiday greetings in a way that’s both unique and authentic to their brand in 2008.

-->Click here to view the holiday card collection PDF

Enjoy!
Lisa Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Every week the EEC adds new content to its Whitepaper Room. Here are the latest additions:

Chad White: Retail Email Year-End Trends for 2007 Email volume, frequency & holiday trends among the top online retailers during 2007

*Have a whitepaper you’d like to contribute? Email it to whitepapers@emailexperience.org.

This past holiday season, our email inboxes weathered flurries of free shipping and gusts of gift cards. (I’m still digging out from under it all!) A few retailers produced gift card promotions that transcended the torrent by employing clever creative devices to effectively pop their perks.

ANIMATION & PERSONALIZATION
With an intelligent application of animation, at a glance, Borders communicates the opportunity to personalize their gift cards with your own photos. Click here to view the animation in this email.
Link to http://ebm.cheetahmail.com/c/tag/hBHTAf3AQfEXsBkZV41BC9Jxb80/doc.html

From: Borders Rewards
Subject Line: The Perfect Gift -- With a Personal Touch
Date: Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007

SIMPLE & EASY
Meanwhile, fredflare.com features a simple order form screenshot to quickly enroll clickers in what appears to be an incredibly easy gift certificate order process.

From: fredflare.com
Subject Line: super last minute gift idea...
Date: Friday, Dec. 21, 2007

HUMOR & INGENUITY
And Timbuk2 wraps ingenuity in humor for an unexpected inbox gift: their step-by-step instructions show last-minute shoppers how to deliver a unique, printable “Oragami-ish Gift Certificate.”

From: Timbuk2
Subject Line: Instant Timbuk2 gift for slackers
Date: Friday, Dec. 21, 2007

In 2008, particularly during high-volume seasonal windows when so many retailers send similar messages, let’s resolve to use smart creative to help our communications stand out from the crowd.

Here’s to a super New Year,
Lisa Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

We asked the Voices of Email to look into their crystal balls and foretell what 2008 had in store for the email marketing industry. Here are their predictions:

Stephanie Miller of Return Path:
#1 - Email Marketers, if you want to keep your job, segment your file. I was hoping that last year would be the year that we’d see more targeted, tailored, relevant campaigns and less batch and blast. Not sure that happened, although I was half right in that we certainly saw MORE segmentation and targeting than in 2006.

Why will email marketers lose their job if they don’t do it now? Because the email channel is more expensive than ever, and there are too many risks to brand and customer satisfaction and loyalty. Unhappy email subscribers—all that dead wood on your file—is not just a missed opportunity, it’s a liability. Engaging with those folks is going to take more time and effort in creative and list hygiene and segmentation than ever before. To get those budgets, the email marketer has to prove the channel. To prove the channel, the email messages have to be a lot more relevant. To be relevant, they must be segmented. Thankfully, the technology and best practices are already in place and proven. We just need to set our minds to it.

#2 - The Data Capture form goes multichannel. We’ll see more and more email marketers open up their data capture form to include permission to contact via SMS and mobile marketing. Building up the database with these contact touch points will be increasingly important as more marketers start to test the efficacy of those channels.

#3 - Transactions will become touchpoints sometimes too hot to handle. More email marketers are going to push the envelope on turning transactional messages into marketing opportunities. The receivers and FTC will get stricter on standards, potentially causing trouble for some senders. With the need to dynamically create, message and track these messages, ESPs will aggressively go after the transactional email market to build their base and capture higher share of wallet.

Chip House of ExactTarget: Increasing focus on subscriber engagement. When emphasizing the importance of list hygiene, David Daniels of Jupiter Research often compares mailing the portion of your list that hasn’t opened or clicked on your emails in several months to “flying an advertisement over a ghost town.” Many marketers are realizing the benefits to their success potential via email by truly understanding which segments of their list are responding, and which aren’t. The non-responsive segments drag down your deliverability and ROI, and waste your time. This is something that I like to call the “ignore rate.” Marketers that ignore the needs of their subscribers, send irrelevant communications, or make other blunders leading to dissatisfied subscribers, drive a higher ignore rate.

Most sophisticated email marketers now closely track their open and click rates, and more are even tracking subscriber spam complaints by ISP. However, it is often what you don’t see that can be most harmful to your deliverability and campaign ROI. More marketers are beginning to see the benefits of closely analyzing the portion of their customer base that IS NOT paying attention. By doing so they can better reactivate them, opt them in again, or discard them—all to the benefit of their response rates and ROI.

2008 is about flying hundreds of planes, towing just the right message, over hundreds of small cities.

Amy Bills of Bulldog Solutions: I think we will see some shaking out in the use of social media for lead generation. Right now, a lot of companies are really struggling to understand what works and what can be integrated into their existing strategies. Is a blog, a podcast, RSS, an online community, a presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. going to be worth the effort and resources? How can you even measure their effect on your objectives? And of course, what works for one company is not going to be the same formula for another. Some have the impulse to try everything. Others want to bury their heads in the sand and deny the landscape is changing at all. A third group is experimenting and trying to be smart about making good choices, thinking about what their prospects will respond to and how to make social media enhance what they are already doing.

After Paul Dunay joined Bulldog in November for a webinar on making sense of social media for BtoB marketing, he made a comment that really stuck with me. “[The question isn’t] if social media is right for your company, but which social media is right for your company. And at this point in time and state of your company, you need to determine which social media is right for your company for next year. A year from now, the picture may look very different. And the answer to which social media is right for your company will be different for each company. My advice is look into next year with an eye toward experimenting with a few tactics to begin to get yourself and your team up to speed.”

So, I predict that more marketers will ease into that third group, and start to get smarter about social media. And by “smarter” I mean more creative and experienced about how to make tactics work and measure their results, and brave enough to admit when a particular tactic might not work.

Tricia Robinson of StrongMail Systems: The email space gets larger and faster daily. With this growth comes change, and I predict we’ll experience much change in 2008.

Automation Becomes The New Buzzword. We’ve lived through closing-the-loop, 1to1 digi-dialogues, and deliverability. Look for campaign automation to catch-on in 2008. We’re seeing more clients rapidly move in this direction. Those that already have are realizing the time/cost benefits of auto-generated programs.

The Final Sunset for the Old Homegrowns. The replacement of the original homegrown system has been a trend since 2006. However, this year we’ll see the last of the first homegrown systems built by Web 1.0 companies and those that thought “email is easy, we’ll make our own.” Some organizations will always custom-build, but most have done it on top of something more sophisticated than generic MTAs.

All Outbound Customer Email Includes Marketing. Even if it’s the inclusion of a logo, all outbound customer email (transactional, customer service, promotional, etc.) will include a touch of marketing. According to MarketingSherpa in mid-2007, 90% of email marketers planned to overhaul their transactional email in the next 12 months. Not sure if they will meet their own deadline by June, but look for an improvement in the look of all outbound email. I’m not crazy enough to predict the death of the text email, but maybe next year.

Still More Acquisitions. 2004-2006 were large vendor consolidation years in our space. I argue that 2007 was the year of the IPO. Now with more cash and CNBC viewers to consider, look for Constant Contact and ExactTarget to make purchases that round out their offerings or extend their reach into new markets.

Unlike many, I like change. It’s good to shake things up as long as the goal is always towards improvement. Happy New Year!

Chad White of the eec: 2008 will be the year that retailers and other B2C marketers increase the transparency of their email programs and relinquish more control to subscribers. In 2007 we saw more retailers allow potential subscribers to view a sample email before signing up. More also offered emails on different topics or allowed some level of content preference selection—which is key to elevating relevancy. Consumers are getting very used to having more control over how they’re marketed to, and email will be forced to fall in line over time. On the upside, giving consumers more control over content and frequency, and being more upfront about those aspects of their email programs, should generate more lifetime value from subscribers. Although eventually we’ll see this kind of control move to the front end, during 2008 we’ll start to see it more and more on the tail end of the relationship when subscribers are fed up and trying to opt out. Rather than lose subscribers, more marketers will give up control over frequency and other elements to boost retention.

During 2008 we’ll also see retailers pay more attention to content—product reviews, videos of product demonstrations and fashion shows, blogs, articles, podcasts, etc.—and do a better job of leveraging it in their email channels.