The eec Email Design Roundtable recently spent some time discussing an industry hot topic: the integration of email marketing and social networking.

Social networking generally makes its way into email in two primary ways:
(1) Through appeals in email for subscribers to join an existing social network.
and
(2) "Share with Your Network" (SWYN) invitations for subscribers to share email content with their networks. While these are each fairly simple, there are important creative and strategic considerations that contribute to email success, as well as innovative ways to bring user-generated content (UGC) into email.

Each Design Roundtable member offered fresh insights and ideas to the evolving body of best practices around social optimization in email. Below is a summary of key points from the conversation:

Michael Kelly, Director of Business Development at ClickMail, recently presented at the Silverpop Summit. His presentation on email marketing metrics that matter was so well received, I thought it fitting to recap it here.

Titled "Proving Your Worth with Metrics," Michael's presentation was partly drawn from MarketingSherpa's 2009 Best Practices in Email Marketing Handbook which Michael played a part in pulling together. Get Michael's presentation for a preview of some of the compelling stats and numbers.

Michael covered why to measure, what to measure, and the challenges of measuring, among other topics, including what to do with that data once you have it, and new tools for compiling and learning from that data in real-time.

But why is measuring your data so difficult? Lots of reasons, including conflicting metrics and not knowing what to measure. In the email marketing industry, we suffer from conflicting metrics because there are so many things to measure. We measure how many mailed, delivered, opened, clicked through on and more. The lack of consistency in calculating key performance metrics makes it impossible to establish industry benchmarks or to effectively compare results.

Sometimes we forget that email marketing is about more than just clicks. Email can achieve numerous significant goals beyond a sale. The purpose of email marketing is to trigger an action, not only to get a click. That action might be a forward to a friend, signing up, a visit to a brick-and-mortar store, attending an event, or simply being more aware of a brand.

And knowing all those actions are possible reactions to your email makes measuring even more of a challenge!

Again, we're back to metrics. Remember, if you can't measure it, you can't improve it.

Real danger lurks in not measuring the right factors or not measuring accurately. You could suffer lost revenue. You might not know which messages are working. And your sales team won't know what to focus on. On the other hand, there are huge advantages to knowing your numbers so you can:

During the eec List Growth & Engagement Roundtable meeting this week, several DMA/eec members had a fascinating conversation about how to define consumer intent under CAN-SPAM as it relates to opt out for third party messages. The rules amended to CAN-SPAM which went into effect in July of 2008 say that there only needs to be one opt-out per message, and provides some guidance on the definition of the "sender" and "primary sender."

"Listen" in with me….

Arend Henderson of Q Interactive, an online consumer site that has a very large email list rental business: It's about the permission grant. If the message is from PublisherA, and the Friendly from is the publisher, along with the message header and footer – and significantly, the permission grant is with the publisher; but then the full message promotes AdvertiserB, then the opt out under CAN-SPAM should be from the sender and list owner, who is PublisherA.

Stephanie Miller (me) of Return Path, an email deliverability and performance company: The panel of privacy experts who spoke at the recent eec/DMA webinar with the FTC interpret the legislation that the opt out should be provided by the advertiser.

Arend: We interpret this as a protection of the consumer interest. We, the publisher, own the list, we own the relationship, and we care about those relationships. We believe that the opt out should be from the publisher, not the advertiser. It's our job to send subscribers messages.

Kim Santos, Reader's Digest: I feel the opposite. The opt-out has to be on the side of the advertiser. In list rental, where the advertiser is the sole focus of the message, that is what drives the unsubscribe request. If I'm a consumer, then I don't want the AdvertiserB advertisement. The subscriber wants out of the AdvertiserB messages. If the opt out is only with PublisherA, then AdvertiserB could just go rent another list from another publisher. It's a penalty for those subscribers who are on a lot of lists.

Arend: We feel strongly that the message is not from AdvertiserB. The permission grant is with us, the publisher.

Luke Glasner of Rodman Publishing: If you want to opt-out from AdvertiserB, you should be able to opt-out of those specific messages of the advertiser from PublisherA. The publisher like Rodman provides the opt out and we offer to manage the suppression file for advertisers who rent from us multiple times. Also for first time users we request suppression files - and we don't charge extra for them. Personally, I don't think list renters should charge to run a suppression file - since the person that benefits the most from reducing spam complaints is the list owner, even more so than the consumer of that email. It's not about protecting consumers from AdvertiserB in other areas of the Internet. If I walk around and see an AdvertiserB billboard, does that violate the opt-out? Does my email opt-out mean that I won't ever see an ad on the street or on TV or on a website?

Kim: No of course not, but there is so much transparency in email than in other channels. You can't suppress ads in those other channels, but in email you can. I as a publisher and someone who cares about my subscribers have a responsibility to protect my consumer. So I make sure that if you don't want to see AdvertiserB ads, you won't see them from me, ever.

Luke: I can only be responsible for my email program, not actions of every person that engages in online advertising. I do feel we have a duty to respect our readers and to give them control over their inbox. It is up the subscriber to tell me how much they want to engage with me. And it is up to me to respect their wishes. I think that email is privilege granted to senders by their subscribes not a right. Based on my experience I think that most consumers would agree with that.

Kim: What about when there are two opt-outs? One each for the advertiser and for the publisher? We often see that, and sometimes offer it.

Arend: Consumers don't think in our terms, they don't know why there are two opt-outs. They don't know who is "sender" under the law. This is why we never let the advertiser put AdvertiserB in the friendly from line. The messages come from Q Interactive, which is the brand you know and gave a permission grant to.

Luke: I will tell you what consumers do when they see two unsubscribe links. They go to the top of the message and click the Report Spam button. They won't bother to figure it out. It's not worth it to us as a list owner to work with advertisers who drive a lot of unsubscribe requests or complaints (when someone clicks the Report Spam button).

Arend: We agree. We do not work with those kinds of advertisers at all or at least for very long.

Luke: And the other side is true as well. Sometimes, the person who is sending this message and the sales person at the list owner have different agendas. If you are a buyer, be sure that the list owner can actually do what they promise.

Kim: We view this as a partnership. We want our advertisers to succeed. We had to put in an actual, official corporate marketing role so that we have an ombudsman around this area. That has helped to eliminate confusion.

Stephanie: How do you handle newsletters with multiple ads?

Kim: We treat these differently than full page email broadcasts. In this case, the opt-out is with Reader's Digest, the sender.

Arend: We do the same thing.

Luke: We also follow the same for our newsletters. An email newsletter's purpose is to provide (hopefully) engaging content to the reader. We support the newsletter financially by selling ad space so we can continue to provide our readers with newsletters.

- Stephanie Miller, Return Path

It's spring! Everything around us is green and fresh…why not our email photography treatments? This week, we took a look at how brands have been discovering new ways to treat imagery in email, ranging from simple to strange.

Spicing up silos. Products silos are so effective that they're fairly prevalent, but that's no reason for bland designs. Check out these brands' sweet silo treatments:

• Piperlime's propping grounds their silo products while adding interest. What could look fresher than daisies?

• Sephora's props help products pop on an otherwise stark background. They break the grid and add sensual context to products with benefits are tough to convey visually.

• Barneys New York makes their silos stand out against a black background with a jagged, artsy cut.

Thinking outside the grid. While sometimes the straight and simple product grid is the best option, it's worth looking at how some brands have stirred up their gridding for a fresher look.

• Restoration Hardware's clean design shows products framing body copy. It's still a grid, but it offers an alternative to a hero with products gridded beneath.

• Urban Outfitters' checkerboard collage of lifestyle shots features products and art imagery. The individual products don't stand out the way they would in a conventional grid, but they create a strong impression of what the brand offers for spring.

• Boden's use of product silos laid out on a mat-like background image shows a unique alternative to boxes. The inclusion of environmental shots in each section adds even more interest to what could have easily been laid out as a long, less interesting grid.

Why choose? Fun image combos. By incorporating more than one form of imagery, designs take on an artistic look that can suit unique themes.

• Betsey Johnson's cartoon illustrations always complement their images and make the photography seem more interesting.

• Fossil's combination of environmental photography, illustration and a product silo makes this seem like a page out of a scrapbook, suiting the style of the bag and the theme of "reclaiming pastimes."

• Coach uses a silo shot right alongside an environmental shot of the same product. The contrast is visual interesting, and allows Coach to position the product both aspirationally and with functional details.

Set for success with inset images. Including smaller, inset photos over larger imagery is a sleek, simple way to add interest to designs.

• Macy's inset photos set over an environmental shot add product imagery without disrupting the design's windswept desert theme.

• Anthropologie insets a small image of a model over a larger photo of the same model in the same set. The photography is conventional but this treatment makes it seem fresh.

• Fossil includes small close-ups of the models' hands over the larger environmental shot. This makes particular sense for Fossil as it allows them to highlight their watches while still using rich environmental photography.

Poppin' play with color. Brighter spring and summer color palettes (in both products and design) offer an opportunity to have more fun with color.

• Nordstrom uses bright background colors behind their models to make the vibrant clothing stand out even more.

• Shopbop's mix of color and black-and-white photography creates a somewhat jarring contrast and adds an edgy flare to their design.

• Free People's use of a similarly-staged photo with four different-colored pairs of shorts is fun and playful – perfect for spring.

Other creative trends. Freshening up image treatments means taking risks, trying unique approaches and sometimes even getting a little strange….

• Neiman Marcus tries something fun and funky by showing faded version of their model behind the clear hero image. You get the sense that she's actually spinning, per the headline.

• Barneys New York adds intrigue by playing with the orientation of their images in an inventive way.

• Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman all demonstrate the recent trend of incorporating snapshots into designs. (This must work; Lisa bought the "Taylor Momsen" look dress straight from the email!)

In many cases, the image makes the email. This spring, we challenge you to take risks and try photography treatments that will set your email apart in the inbox.

Getting Fresh this Spring,

Alex Madison and Lisa Harmon, Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Email marketers are always on the lookout for the next best thing. We always want to be recognized as "thinking outside the box." This kind of entrepreneurial spirit is what we're all about as we go off into the digital world. Some recent studies have suggested that around 95% of all email is really SPAM. At first glance, this can be a pretty scary number to us as senders. The reality is that this is a great opportunity for email marketers to take control of an opportunity. This means that you only have to compete with the 5% of messages that are legitimate. How do we take advantage of the lack of effective email marketing? I suggest we get back to basics and explore a different way of thinking about email marketing. Are you ready for a mind-twisting thought? Thinking "inside the box" is the new "thinking outside the box."

What exactly do I mean by this statement? I want each of you to take an honest and simple look at your email programs. First, ask yourself some foundational questions:
What am I trying to accomplish with email?
Who is my audience?
Why do my customers sign-up for email?
If I was a customer, what would be my expectation of the email I was going to receive?
Do I educate my customers on the benefits of my email program?
Do I have a frequency plan?
Are my messages relevant to each recipient?
Do I have a goal in mind each time I send an email?
What is my bounce rate?
What is my complaint rate?
Do I historically track my stats for comparison?
Am I testing with regularity?

These questions are the basic building blocks for any successful email program. These are also questions whose answers can pretty easily be pushed aside to be answered another day. Revenue pressures, the need to increase engagement and subscribers, perceived deliverability issues, and executive pressures are all factors that can cause us to get off track from time to time. A common misconception goes something like this. I send to 10,000 addresses today and sell 100 widgets. If I send to 20,000 addresses tomorrow, I will sell 200 widgets. This type of flawed logic gets us away from our basic questions and mission. Email marketing is about the recipient, not the sender. If you build a relationship with the recipient and give them something of value, the relationship will pay dividends.

When we hear about the "end" of email as a medium, it is that 95% of unwanted email that drives the perception. Now more than ever, it is time to focus on what your customers and prospects want to see. Bring your thinking back into the box of good marketing plans and communications, and see your results soar.

- Kevin Senne, Premiere Global Services

More marketers have been including games in their email this season, trying to distract us into playing when we all need to be in Q4 work-mode. The game-playing happens, truth be told, and it can be a good thing. With so many retailers trying to reach shoppers through the same marketing channels daily, the games "pop," functioning as fun ways to inspire clickthroughs.

While I appreciate the festivity, there's a danger that games might draw subscribers in just enough to play and then let them slip away without further engagement. A lack of clear call-to-action and a weak connection between the games and the brands could end up offering subscribers an enjoyable activity without yielding benefits for marketers.

"Gaming" marketers might consider these five ideas for optimizing the play:

1) Include a strong call-to-action. Make sure that the marketing purpose of your game isn't lost; prominently feature a CTA (or multiple CTAs) to get game players back into shopping. Make sure it's simultaneously integrated with the game experience and attention-grabbing.

2) Plan a series of games. Consider creating a multi-part game that is marketed through a series of emails, keeping subscribers engaged and anticipating next steps.

3) Send follow-up messages. After playtime is over, send a follow-up email that reminds subscribers of the fun they had and that invites them to play again, and/or announces the game winner.

4) Incentivize the playing. Offering a discount or free gift to people who play the games will encourage them to shop and take advantage of their reward.

5) Incorporate product into the games. Design games that complement your brand in an obvious way so that there is a smooth transition between playing the game and moving toward shopping.

Let's take a look at how some retailers "game" this holiday:

• TopShop invites subscribers to play in a Christmas fairytale land, where a few easy clicks and drags can spin a carousel until it transforms into a beautiful girl. Players in Australia and some European countries can win prizes, but all subscribers can play. While the game is fun and engaging, I'm concerned that its calls-to-actions are too weak to be effective: only small text links along the bottom of the page ask players to forward the game to a friend and to shop at TopShop.com. Subscribers from eligible countries are enticed into shopping with a discount offer, but subscribers from other places aren't drawn to TopShop.com as strongly as they could be.

• ElfYourself by OfficeMax is back again this year—elfier than ever, as the email says. (I just got "Elfed" by my dad this morning!) This popular holiday game lets subscribers upload photos and see themselves virtually transformed into dancing elves, which can be forwarded far and wide—kind of like spreading holiday cheer—to friends who can then "Elf" themselves, too. Widely popular, OfficeMax's sponsorship of the game must reap some holiday rewards for them, but subscribers are brought back to the OfficeMax site only if they click on the "Brought to you by: OfficeMax" sign. Those who do are rewarded by an "Elfed" OfficeMax landing page, which allows subscribers to shop around in an elfy environs.

• Sephora wins the relevance award this season for its own ElfYourself-inspired game called the Sephora Mistletoe Makeover. Players can upload photos and see themselves dolled up in four fabulously festive looks—Smokey Sugar Plum, Merry Berry, Santa's Little Temptress and O, Tannen-Babe—and then send out emails of their holiday selves to friends.

The whole experience engages customers in a way that's clearly connected to the brand, incorporating Sephora's product offering (makeup) into the fun. When a subscriber creates a card to send to a friend, she or he is offered free eyelashes or mini-lipstick with a purchase: a "wink" or a "kiss." After the transformation, the player can click on a link to "Get this look," and Sephora shows just the makeup needed for a real-life mistletoe makeover. The game further entices players to go back into shopping with a free-gift offer and an immediate reminder email about the offer. Try it out—the link to the game is at the bottom of the email.

We all love a good game. (When was the last time you played "Monopoly"? We brought it out recently and had a blast.) Subscribers' positive experiences with games should effectively strengthen their relationships with the brands that send them. The best games provide a smooth and compelling transition from playtime into shoptime; shoppers feel even more jazzed for holiday gift shopping after being playfully put into the spirit of the season.

Have fun!
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison of Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

You've swept your customers off their feet with a dazzling email creative and message. To help you give them somewhere equally stunning to land, we at the eec Email Design Roundtable have added a Landing Page Checklist to our Email Checklist Series. With so many details to think about, our checklist offers a collection of ideas that you can easily apply to your program.

Landing pages should feel like a continuation of the positive experience initiated by your email so that the motions from opening the message to clicking through to responding to the call-to-action (CTA) feel like one fluid movement. Brush up on your landing page best practices to increase conversion:

● Audience and Goal. Thinking about your intended audience and the actions you want to inspire were your primary foci in creating your email, and they're also the core of the landing page. Construct your landing page to propel your audience toward1s the next step. Anthropologie landing pages like this one often add an extra step between the message and the product pages, but their whimsically artsy landing pages are on-brand and engaging to their particular audience.

● Design. To facilitate the unity of the experience, the creative elements must stay consistent with the email—use similar graphics, text and imagery. Keep your designs quite simple—consider losing the navigation and extra links that will distract from the primary message. Use images if they can earn their keep by relating specifically to your offer—steer clear of distracting, generic imagery. This Horchow message shows a nice progression from email to landing page design. The landing page picks up the basic creative elements of the email but shows larger and more compelling imagery and CTAs to move the viewer to the next step.

● Main Copy. Best practice is to use a white background behind text. Keep your copy brief, and start it off by stating the benefits of the offer concisely and in manner consistent with the email copy. This Land of Nod landing page repeats the headline from the (very cute!) email but includes more detailed information about the features. It often works well to use bullet points and a large font for readability, listing the benefits in order of value. Every word should work toward getting the visitor to act.

● Forms. If you need to gather customer information with forms, hold interest by keeping them short and sweet. Ask only for the most necessary information, clearly indicate required fields and pre-populate those fields whenever possible. Include all forms and CTAs necessary for conversion on the landing page. Which brings us to the big whammy…

● Call-to-Action. Your landing page's great love, its reason for existing: the big CTA. But don't stop at one: repeat your CTA multiple times to maximize clicks. The initial CTA should live right after the summary of the offer details and needs to fall above the fold. The CTA copy must be direct and obvious and pack a punch that inspires action. Be careful not to drive your sale to soon—let the CTA match the subscriber's place in the decision-making process. If you're a retailer, consider using an "Add to Cart" button as opposed to something like a "Buy Now" button, as Crate & Barrel does in this focused landing page from this message.

● Other Tips. It may also be a good idea to create multiple landing pages so that they can get as specific as possible to different customer segments. Keep your landing pages live for longer than you'd expect. You don't want people who read their messages later than the rest of the crew to be sent flying with nowhere to touch down and act.

A solid landing page that attends to best practices offers customers a memorably smooth experience with your brand while effectively increasing conversion. For even more tips and tricks, check out the new addition to the eec Email Checklist Series.

Comment below to tell us about some of your own smooth and rocky landings.

–eec Email Design Roundtable co-chairs Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon and Megan Walsh of Williams-Sonoma

With pink emails filling our inboxes throughout Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the merits of cause-related marketing have come more prominently onto the Smith-Harmon radar. We wondered how well it really works, and MediaPost came through for us by publishing an article on this very topic. MediaPost reports that cause-related marketing can generate double-digit sales gains for brands—woah! No wonder so many companies jump on the pinkwagon in October. Not only do the companies get the satisfaction of contributing to important research; their customers also get to feel good about shopping.

Not surprisingly, there are complicating factors to consider. Paul Jones, president of Alden Keene & Associates, explores such factors on his blog about cause-related marketing. On the issue of transparency, Jones argues that "cause-related marketing trades on trust." Customers are more likely to trust in the sincerity of brands that are upfront about where money goes and how much money is going there.

An article by Steven Van Yoder also makes the point that the marketing focus should never be lost in the cause. Cause-related marketing is sustainable only if it yields mutual benefits for the charitable organization and the brand supporting it.

We looked at examples of how brands have used email to approach cause-related marketing for several important issues. Here's what we found:

● Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Judging by this month's inbox, pink is the new black. Among many others, Lucy encouraged subscribers to "Shop for a Cause," White House Black Market invited subscribers to "Give Hope," and Sephora asked subscribers to "get gorgeous while giving back." In each of these cases, the brands advertised products and donated a portion of their proceeds or advertised a window of time during which they would donate a portion of total sales.

Betty Crocker's message was a bit different, encouraging subscribers to celebrate women's health by making pink (Betty Crocker) cake and announcing General Mills' donation, which was not tied to sales of certain items. They also invited dialogue on PinkTogether.com, where cancer survivors can share stories.

● Women's Cancer Research: Saks Fifth Avenue also supported women's cancer research, but they stepped away from all of the pink of the month and partnered with Key to the Cure to donate funds to the Entertainment Industry Foundation's Women's Cancer Research Fund. At first this struck me as a little odd (was it just so that they could feature stars like Gwenyth Paltrow in their ads?), but with deeper thought it's clear how Saks' approach was on-brand, speaking to their audience of high-end fashion connoisseurs. Oscar de la Renta designed the pricey Key to the Cure t-shirt this year, and Mercedes Benz partners with the organization as well.

● St. Jude Children's Research Hospital: The Williams-Sonoma Inc. brands included banners in their emails last holiday season advertising their fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and they then sent out a thank-you e-card announcing the results of the fundraiser. Gymboree also supports St. Jude, but the link to the fundraiser in their email is tiny and very subtle. I wonder how results differ between this understated approach and the more prominent Williams-Sonoma Inc. treatment.

● The Global Fund (to help women and children with AIDS in Africa): This Gap email is almost wholly devoted to the Gap(Product)Red effort to benefit the Global Fund, featuring a special limited time promotion. The subject line: "Can the Shirt off Your Back change the world?" speaks to the headline: "This One Can." This message barely mentions regular Gap items, but because Gap has established (Product)Red as such a prominent element of the brand, the focused approach doesn't seem to detract from Gap marketing, and even solidifies Gap's charitable image.

● Musicians on Call: Boomingdale's "Charity is Chic" message looks pretty much like any other sale email. The headline is cause-oriented but vague, and only in fairly small print does the copy inform the subscriber of where their money is going. I wonder whether it's effective for Bloomingdale's to downplay the charity in their creative.

With the high sales increases reported from cause-related marketing, it's worth considering what could happen if brands began using it more frequently—monthly or quarterly, maybe, instead of at just one or two key points throughout the year. In addition to driving huge sales, brands could all do a lot of good. We're interested to hear what others have tried and discovered in cause-related marketing.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison of Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Inbox advertising has long been considered an effective direct marketing vehicle. Sending relevant offers to receptive segments has been a recipe for success since the channel emerged. Most emarketers also realize that indiscriminately blasting potentially non-relevant messaging to large segments can negatively impact list size, deliverability and ultimately, brand equity. Fewer marketers, however, fully realize the tremendous role email advertising can play in positively stewarding a brand—driving brand awareness and brand favorability.

I must admit that as a novice email marketer I highly discounted email as a branding vehicle. In fact, I remember telling a colleague once that branding [through email] was just an excuse for not generating conversions. I have since learned that inbox advertising can be an excellent vehicle for driving brand equity and awareness, and believe that those of us who view the channel exclusively through the direct marketing lens, may be interested in the following.

In August, Datran Media and Dynamic Logic researched the impact of an eHarmony email campaign from a branding perspective. The study revealed that inbox advertising provides significant branding benefits:

• Inbox advertising made 37.7% of people aware of one of the tested eHarmony campaigns.
• Unaided brand awareness increased 11.5 percentage points.
• Brand favorability increased 7.3 percentage points.
• Brand awareness and favorability both improved when those researched were exposed to the campaign more than once.

I found the research quite interesting. To learn more, check out the Datran Media brand study here.

Have you done any research to test the impact of your campaigns on brand awareness and favorability? If so, please share.

—Nicholas Einstein of Datran Media

Please help us get the word out about the eec Speakers Bureau by including the following item in your next client newsletter or on your blog:

Email Marketing Experts Available to Speak at Your Next Event

Do you belong to an organization or group whose members could benefit from learning more about email marketing? Then please tell them that the Direct Marketing Association's Email Experience Council wants to help. The eec's Speakers Bureau has experts available across the U.S. and Canada who have committed themselves to helping email marketers maximize their return on investment and avoid pitfalls such as CAN-SPAM violations and being blacklisted. These industry veterans have waived all speakers' fees and can talk on a wide variety of topics, including…

● How Email Compliments Other Channels
● Obeying CAN-SPAM and Other Laws
● Getting and Maintaining Permission
● Ensuring Your Emails Are Delivered
● Growing a Large and Active List
● What to Send to Your Subscribers

To learn more and to request a speaker, please visit the eec's Speakers Bureau.

*Help us spread the word about this initiative by re-running this item in your client newsletter or on your blog. Thank you.

When consumers and business professionals worry about the economy, marketers find themselves squeezed. Such is the state of affairs these days as we head into the busy Q4/end of year/holiday season time.

Email can help if it's used effectively as part of a subscriber loyalty and relationship effort. Sending more of the same old batch-and-blast promotions will only flood the inbox, depress your deliverability, destroy your brand trust, and annoy good customers who are worried about their own bank accounts. Resist the urge to think of email as "free"—it's not free. It's cost-effective, certainly, but a mindset that characterizes the channel as free quickly leads to over-mailing. What you want is less email—but messages that are more effective because they are more relevant.

Who wants to be reminded to spend, spend, spend when we are worried about our financial health? Instead, take an active interest in helping your subscribers, and make sure your content and contact strategies are aligned with what the subscriber needs, not what you have to sell.

In a recession, your best buyers and loyal clients are even more important. When customers are easily distracted by lower prices or free add-ons at the competitor, it's even more important to make clear the benefits of staying with your brand. This does not mean offering more discounts, although that certainly can be an effective short-term strategy. Instead, expand your loyalty program and use email to provide both sizzle and steak. Replace just two of your generic, batch-and-blast messages this month with tailored messages around the benefits of sticking with your brand. Spend time on the subject lines and the copy (keep it brief) to make sure it resonates.

Then, deliver the benefits via email—a very efficient and effective way to connect. If you are ecommerce, add a Buying Guide or Gift Guide to the loyalty package. If you are B2B, invite your best customers to participate in online events and interactive networking—help them build their business and they will continue to support yours. Be sure to tap the next tier down of buyers and expand the reach of your program. Invite current members to bring a friend or colleague along, and reward them both.

Test these ideas with a control group this month. Segment a small portion of your file (maybe 5%) and send half as many promotional messages, but replace 25%-50% of them with relevant content, tips or interactive offers. See if revenue increases or decreases. Also watch deliverability, complaint rates and activity per subscriber. Let me know if you want help constructing the test and measuring results.

Use the results of all these ideas to make the case for stronger subscriber-centric approaches to email marketing. If email doesn't contribute more now, then we can't expect to remain at the center of the marketing mix, or budget.

—Stephanie Miller of Return Path

Sometimes people need a nudge to try something new, edgy or against the conventional wisdom. So here you go, we dare you—NO, we Double Dog Dare you—to consider this challenge from DJ Waldow of Bronto Software:

Add an unsubscribe link to the top of your emails where it's more easily seen. Why is it that the vast, vast majority of unsubscribe links reside (hide?) at the bottom of the email message? Is it because as consumers, we've been trained to scroll to the bottom of the email to unsubscribe? Or is it that as marketers we don't want to do anything to suggest that subscribers should opt-out? Consider the likely positive benefits of adding another unsubscribe option to the top of your emails: Would this give more people faith that the unsubscribe link would work and therefore reduce the number of spam complaints? While it would surely increase the number of unsubscribes, would you lose active subscribers? Your inactive subscriber are most likely to act on the new, more visible opt-out link, which would give you a more engaged subscriber base that's cheaper to mail and administer.

You may have a more specific business reason to make the unsubscribe link more prominent as well. For example, you may want to add the additional unsubscribe link if your spam complaints are too high, particularly if you have lots of younger subscribers (which tend use the "report spam" button to opt-out). Also, if you see your spam complaints rise after sweepstakes acquisition campaigns or during the holidays when you increase frequency, adding a more prominent opt-out link will likely reduce those complaints. I dare you to test this on a small portion of your list (and share your results).

If you take up this dare, let us know how it went by commenting below. And if you have a Double Dog Dare for the eec community, let us know about that too.

–>See more Double Dog Dares.

I rented a car from Enterprise for the May 2008 Email Insider Summit on Captiva Island in Florida. Enterprise has been my vendor of choice for the past 5 years because of their incredible customer service and comparable prices. As far as I'm concerned they are ozone layers above the rest.

However, as an email marketing account manager at Bronto Software for the past 3 years, I've evolved into a consumer with a critical eye toward marketing—email marketing specifically. I think about email all the time and am always fascinated on how companies communicate and execute on their email marketing campaigns. Enterprise was now on the clock. So…sit back, buckle up, and read on to learn more about my Enterprise email experience.

Half asleep due to boredom, I muddled through the normal car rental stuff—license, car model/size, etc. Then, after I signed away my life (and declined the optional insurance) the Enterprise guy asked me for my email address. Suddenly, he had my full attention. Of course, I asked why he needed my email and what he would use if for. Very politely, Mr. Enterprise informed me that they send out occasional updates on Enterprise specials. Sign me up!

I was immediately impressed that not only did he overtly ask for my permission, the salesman also began to set some expectations (frequency). It would have been hard to set content expectations in that particular venue, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

When I arrived at my bed & breakfast on Captiva Island and found a wireless connection, I checked my Gmail for the Enterprise welcome message. D'oh. Strike one. No email from Mr. Enterprise. Good thing my expectations for welcome messages were pretty low. A recent study by Return Path showed the dismal results on welcome messages (60% of companies surveyed didn't bother to send one!).

The good news? The very next day, Enterprise sent me a confirmation email. Yay! The from name was "Enterprise Plus" (okay) and the subject line read "Activate your Enterprise Plus membership" (love)—clear and to the point. The message with images off was not so great, but that's a post for another day. Images on was pretty good, not great, but at least it gave me a few opportunities to activate my account. Not bad, Enterprise. My faith in their email marketing program was returning.

I figured I'd put them to the test…see what happened if I did *not* confirm by clicking "Activate Now." So I opened the email, but didn't confirm. In fact, I didn't even click on a link. Lo and behold, one week to the day later, Enterprise sent me another email. I know what you are thinking (and what I was hoping): A reminder to confirm my interest in their email marketing campaign. Nope. This one came from "Enterprise-Rent-A-Car" (makes sense) and the subject read "David, speed your way to savings from Enterprise" (okay), but the content (Enterprise Regular Email.jpg) had nothing to do with activating my account. It was just the normal Enterprise email. Actually, the call to action offered me at 15% discount on NASCAR.COM Superstore. Okay, I'll admit, I am going into year #2 in a Fantasy Nascar league, but come on Enterprise! You didn't really know that. Then…on June 10th, another Enterprise email. It was the exact same email - same subject line, same copy, same offer (Nascar.com), with a different From Name (Enterprise Plus). In case you forget, at this point, I have still not confirmed my opt-in.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. In order to grow your email marketing list, take advantage of all opportunities to ask future and current customers: Enterprise nailed this one.
2. Send a Welcome Message immediately (set proper expectations around content and frequency). Enterprise bombed this one.
3. If you are going to send a confirmation email, make sure you receive an opt-in BEFORE sending more email. Enterprise was so close, but missed it.

—DJ Waldow of Bronto Software

*Earlier this week, Enterprise sent me a reminder email about my reservation for my Connecticut trip. Hmmm.

A recent review of practices by top brand email marketers makes me think that there is something really wrong with our collective ability to follow best practices when it comes to creating compelling subscriber experience for new subscribers. Return Path just released the results of a study of 61 companies on this topic, and I tell you, the findings were pretty disappointing.

Below are some highlights from Great Email Experiences - Is Your Brand Relationship Worthy. I'd love your feedback. Does this synch with what you find in your own inbox? In your own marketing programs?

The biggest shocker for me is in the depth of the missed opportunity. Relatively simple and firmly proven best practices were NOT followed by some pretty large brands—Best Buy, Nike, Sony, and Disney, to name a few—all with smart email marketers in house. Does that suggest we have the wrong best practices? Or that sending relevant email really takes THAT much more work than just spitting out broadcasts? It shouldn't, right? Yet, maybe it is that much harder, which is why so few of us actually spend the time to do it well.

We were rather surprised by the findings:

1. A majority (60%) of the companies in our survey did not send a welcome message. Of the 40% that did send a welcome message, only 33% sent it within 24 hours. The remaining 7% took anywhere from two days to three weeks.

2. The shock of the missing welcome messages was compounded by the astonishing number of companies—30%!—who didn't send any email within a month of sign up. While the majority did start sending email soon after subscribe, engagement—which is key in the first 30-days—was lacking.

3. 70% of companies asked for a lot of data (name, address, birthday, and so on) at subscribe, and the bulk of them (75%) never used it. This "just in case" mentality is not a good experience for subscribers that are forced to complete long forms and preferences when the potential benefit is never realized.

4. Even across four very different industry verticals, the marketing offers (Free Shipping! Discount! Sweepstakes!) were surprisingly the same. Often these types of offer strategies are self-fulfilling and addictive. Why not use valuable content to drive readership and stand out from the crowd?

Look forward to your comments!

—Stephanie Miller of Return Path

I was inspired by ExactTarget's recently published whitepaper, Subscribers Rule. "Subscribers Rule" is—in ExactTarget's words—"acknowledgement that we, as marketers, bear a responsibility to deploy one-to-one marketing technologies in ways that put subscriber needs first."

I went for a jog yesterday in my "Subscribers Rule" t-shirt and contemplated great ways for marketers to begin empowering individual subscribers. My starting-point pick: the Communications Preferences Center. This is the landing page on your website that allows your subscribers to control what, when, and how you communicate with them.

FIVE WAYS TO MAKE YOUR COMMUNICATION PREFERENCE CENTER POP!:

(1) Let subscribers decide what information they want to offer.
Tommy Bahama asks only the most basic details upfront, then layers in the opportunity to identify optional detailed preferences. This allows subscribers to decide how much information they want to disclose—and how much time they want to invest in the sign-up process. Asking for too much upfront can result in a lost email address.

(2) Provide clear descriptions of your content options.
BabyCenter publishes a variety of personalized email newsletters. They make it easy for subscribers to choose which they'd like to recieve by posting descriptions and examples of each publication. Content selection happens at step three of their simple, three-step registration process. BabyCenter includes an explanation around each step to help subscribers understand how providing data is to their benefit.

(3) Allow subscribers to select their preferred message format.
As more subscribers view email on mobile devices, it becomes important to ask them how they prefer to receive their emails—in HTML or Text format. The New York Times follows a three-step registration process similar to BabyCenter's; however, because they reach out to more business customers using mobile devices, they include a format preference option. I like that they include a "What's this?" link to explain the difference between HTML and Text; it's silly to assume that the general public understands the difference.

(4) Give subscribers control over frequency.
While your biggest fans might want to hear from you every day, your sunny-day subscribers might prefer to receive email from you only once a month. If you have the capability to deliver on the promise, offer frequency as an option on your communication preferences page… and, as a way to retain over-mailed subscribers, on your opt-down page, like in this Saks example.

(5) Make the experience pleasant and easy.
I like Louis Vuitton's Communication Preferences Center for its transparency and conciseness. Options to subscibe, modify and unsubscribe appear within a left-land menu bar, and each page lives succinctly above the fold. As we'd hope for a luxury brand, the pages are well-produced and attractive; the newsletter sample screenshot is a nice touch.

Tommy Bahama also presents a well-branded experience, from the design to the copy. Rather than just picking up default verbiage, they make the text paradise-appropriate: "Tell us what inspires you, and we'll create an email experience that's as perfect as a well-planned vacation."

Paradise delivered!

As ever,
Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Type the phrase "centralizing email marketing" into a search engine and you'll be served up an impressive number of results (at this writing, about 247,000). And it's no wonder—email marketing continues to rank among the most popular tactics that marketers use to reach their audiences.

The arguments for centralizing are compelling: Managing emails through a single platform enables companies to not only more effectively manage their brand and good sender reputation, but it's also much easier to manage the frequency of communication—no one wants to frustrate their audience to the point of unsubscribing. Sounds like a no-brainer, right?

Not so fast. According to JupiterResearch, only 38% of companies have a single department handling email communication—while 24% have six or more. With all the benefits of centralizing email marketing, why aren't more companies taking this approach?

For some companies, it may come down to resources and priorities. For example, within very large organizations, email is used to communicate with many different audiences—employees, partners, end user customers, and prospects—among others. Each of these audiences has different expectations for how they should be communicated with and likely, a different group managing that communication stream.

Because email marketing was often developed as a grassroots effort within each group, it's not unusual for larger organizations to be actively using several different email platforms to manage their campaigns. In these instances, transitioning to a completely centralized approach requires almost Herculean effort.

However, in the absence of a completely centralized approach, there are still things you can do to streamline email communications and ensure a positive experience for your audience. Here are three specific tips that are reasonably quick and easy to implement:

1. Develop and share an email marketing calendar.

Wherever there's a risk of message crossover, establish a marketing calendar to track these campaigns and assign a calendar owner. Although the owner is ultimately responsible for keeping the calendar updated, all groups should participate in the calendar development and notify the owner if campaign dates shift.

My team uses a web-based calendar hosted on our intranet site; however, tools such as Google Calendar or even an Excel spreadsheet are simple, no/low-cost alternatives.

2. Ensure that all stakeholders are on all campaign seed lists.

Whether you're sending a campaign to a house or rented list, be sure and add the appropriate people to your seed lists. You may want to send test seeds to a smaller group for review and feedback, and then to a larger group for live campaign drops. This is additional insurance that everyone is aware of what messages are leaving the building.

3. Share examples of campaigns and results at cross-functional monthly or quarterly reviews.

At least once a quarter, get together and share examples of campaign creative and results. Even if you're mailing to completely different audiences, best practices are sure to emerge that you'll want to apply to your line of business.

If you work for a large organization, the idea of centralizing your email marketing may seem difficult, if not impossible. But by doing a little detective work and implementing some quick fixes that don't require a lot of administrative overhead, you can do a lot to improve the quality of your email communications and set yourself up for more formal centralization in the future.

—Cheryle Ross, the eCommerce Marketing Manager of Xerox Corp.

*Cheryle was invited to be a blogger for a day after sharing her thoughts in our Voices from the Email Evolution Conference post.

Hola! Bring out the mariachi band and the silver-studded suits—it's Cinco de Mayo! This year, General Mills celebrates with Cinco-themed Betty Crocker and Dinner Made Easy newsletters. I don't mention these just because I love a good margarita. (But if you're ever in Seattle, you must order a Suprema at ¡Cactus! Tell them I sent you.) And while I haven't been inspired to actually cook anything, the email marketers over at General Mills are doing a lot of things right. Learn from Betty: pick up these cinco tricks to go from email siesta to email fiesta!

(1) Make it easy.
Our subscribers are taking time from their busy lives to read our email messages. If we can find ways to save them time in return, they'll keep clicking.
(a) Both the Betty and Dinner newsletters embrace this philosophy, down to the nuts and bolts. Both the preheaders and the footers are clear, concise and easy-to-use.
(b) The Dinner newsletter employs graphical icons like arrows, recipe cards and stars to indicate different content types at a glance, eliminating the need to read. Betty frames coupon offers with dotted lines and a pair of scissors.
(c) Copy is customer-centric; even the name Dinner Made Easy carries a benefit. The Betty newsletter takes both hunger and time-starvation into consideration with the headline: "Ready in 30 minutes!"

(2) Ask questions.
As Dale Carnegie says, the most interesting conversationalists are generally those who let you do all the talking. The Dinner Newsletter commences with a conversation starter: "Want to start a taco night tradition?"

(3) Add depth of perspective.
(a) Betty includes customer quotes from both Jessica and Tweety, letting readers—rather than writers—own the content. (Tweety prefers her tacos with lean ground chuck.)
(b) Customer ratings are sprinkled throughout both newsletters. I particularly enjoy the spoon rating system in the Betty vehicle. Beef Tacos: 4.5 spoons! Very cute.
(c) Mexican Hot Chocolate cookies get a halo when cited as a favorite of celebrity blogger and food editor Andi Bidwell. Like LeVar Burton says, "You don't have to take my word for it."

(4) Make a game of it.
Betty drives clickthroughs and daily website traffic with a Great Grilling Giveaway.

(5) Put it to a vote!
(a) The Dinner newsletter engages readers with a poll—classic or crescent? I say classic! I adore churros; have you ever had them with vanilla ice cream? It's fantastic.
(b) At the end of the day, your subscribers are the ones who decide whether to open, whether to read…and whether to unsubscribe. How could you not ask them what they think of your newsletter? Both the Betty Crocker and Dinner Made Easy newsletters end with a request for feedback: "Help us improve our newsletter. How would you rate the usefulness of this email?" Overlaying answers with other performance metrics could yield interesting results. Plus, the placement of the request offers some insight into how many folks are actually scrolling down to the bottom of the message.

Speaking of which… How would you rate the usefulness (and/or the entertainment value) of this article? Do you have any favorite newsletters (or taco recipes) to share? Please post your comments below!

–> See the "Betty Crocker" Newsletter
–> See the "Dinner Made Easy" Newsletter

¡Salud!
—General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín
& Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

JupiterResearch reports that 62% of email campaigns are sent from more than one department in an organization. At its worst, 24% of emailers are sending from six or more departments. We know our internal email policies and procedures, but do our recipients and ISPs? To them, we're one company in the inbox. One organization communicating with them about promotions, order confirmations, passwords that need to be reset, and more. Likely, that email looks different and derives from a variety of different systems. We have no insight or management into how much email they get, what it looks like, and if content is integrated.

Email centralization is the answer. Coordination of every email stream makes a consistent communication in the inbox. By centralizing, we can manage email frequency by type of message, maintain consistent branding across messages, better understand domain deliverability, communicate with customers at their stage in the purchase cycle with our company, and much, much more.

Every day, I work with emailers looking to centralize their strategy and vendor relationships alike. Sometimes it's a long process of seeking for email programs and streams then getting multi-department buy-in. However, more often it's a relief to pass this task over to marketing. Marketing teams show revenue benefits of cross-sell in transactional messages and the cost reduction inherit with reducing multiple vendors. Overall, the recipient wins in a centralized strategy as we emailers move closer to the inherit benefits of one-to-one marketing.

—Tricia Robinson-Pridemore of StrongMail

At this morning's kick-off to the eec's first annual Email Evolution Conference, eec founder Jeanniey Mullen showed a number of "man on the street" interviews with "real people" talking about email.

It was amusing and insightful to hear people talk about their inboxes and how they must actively manage them (you can watch one of the videos here). Better, the comments completely synched with Return Path's Fourth Annual Holiday Email Survey, where subscribers told us that they mostly just delete unread most of what they get from marketers—defined as "junk from companies I know but is just not interesting to me."

What really struck me was the video participants' storytelling. They talked about email as a sort of stew—our marketing messages are mixed up in there with notes from grandma, various lovers and a three-year-old's parents and even one gentleman's new job announcement.

Subscribers know intellectually the difference between personal, transactional and marketing messages, but it's an emotional decision to open or delete when faced with inbox clutter. Subscribers view their inbox holistically—we are not only competing against others in our industry, and transactional messages for purchases and e-statements, but we are competing with grandma's message, too.

The classic example of defining your competitive marketplace by benefit and not by product is the statement that Amtrak is in the transportation business, not the train business. So too, we email marketers are not just in the retail or travel business, we are in the business of creating compelling and interesting subscriber experiences.

We can't forget that—and frankly, it's the secret to all e-marketing success. That is why it's so hard. This is especially true as we tackle challenges around mobile and SMS messaging. What the DMA is calling "The Digital Lifestyle" still translates to subscriber experiences. The word "subscriber" is important because it's about permission. The word "experience" is important because it's about a dialogue and interactivity. It's direct marketing, so it's about driving response through targeted and well-timed messaging. And it's marketing, so it's about serving customers and demonstrating brand value.

At the center is the subscriber. Wow her, and you win. Good for Jeanniey and the eec for launching today with an engaging, inventive and visual way of showing us that the subscriber is still in charge. I'm looking forward to a great conference where I'm sure to have dozens of valuable conversations about creating compelling subscriber experiences. Look forward to hearing from you as well. Just email anytime!

—Stephanie Miller of Return Path

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