We exist in a best-practices driven industry. Email marketing has many variables and it's a constantly changing landscape with ISPs and regulations changing rules on us on a consistent basis. We crave the tried-and-true rule, the best practice known to deliver the best result, the sure thing.

We have plenty to learn and use, to be sure! Search for "email marketing best practices" in Google, and you’ll find far more than you could ever digest among the search results.

Best practices for using social tools in email, however, are yet to be clearly defined. In fact, given the pace of change in social media, with constant Facebook updates and new technologies like Google+, these so-called best practices might forever elude us.

Those proven techniques we can turn to with confidence, however, are common sense and come from the email marketing world. Today I offer you four common-sense tips for using social tools that will help you maximize your results: 1) Offer great content. 2) Be very, very clear. 3) Test everything. 4) Go both ways.

Offer Great Content

No matter how much the email marketing industry changes, this common-sense tip will always be. And when you're seeking sharing to social, your content has to be so great that people want to and willingly share it. That idea isn't new. We've strived for "share worthy" content in the past. We had another name for it was all, because what we want back then was a forward. Now we want a share. Great content leads to greater use of your social media links by your subscribers who want to tell their network about your email.

Be Very, Very Clear

When you include social media buttons, be sure to ask for the action you want and let the person know why they should click. A plain, standalone Facebook button will garner only so many clicks compared to a Facebook button with words that ask for action and offer a benefit: "Like us on Facebook for fabulous fan pricing." Everybody knows what a Facebook button is, but not why they should click on it. Ditto for Twitter, LinkedIn and any other social media buttons.

In addition, words help you to be clear on the purpose of a button. A button for sharing is not the same as a button for liking, after all.  

Also be sure to put the buttons where they make the most sense...for your subscribers. Figure out when/where in your email your subscribers are ready to take action. This you might only be able to determine by testing, which takes us to...

Test Everything

Is there a magic spot for your "like" button that will generate the highest number of new Facebook fans? Probably. Can I tell you where that is within your email? No. As far as best practices on technical details when using social media tools, these can only be determined by you. If I could sit here and tell you placing the Facebook icon in the lower right corner will drive the most "likes" on your Facebook wall, I would. But I can't. It all depends. Testing is the only way to optimize placement of social media tools like a Facebook button for your particular business and audience. In fact, testing is the only way to optimize every aspect of your social media tools, from where you put the links to which links you offer. So test. Everything.

Go Both Ways

Yes, using email to drive subscribers to your social media sites or to share is smart marketing. Also be sure your email to social works as your social to email, as well. Your social sites can promote your email subscriptions and offer email signup forms.

And One Last Note...

Even when integrated as part of your marketing matrix and going both ways, email and social differ. And taking a customer relationship into the social realm can certainly alter customer expectations. Once you’ve crossed the social media line, you might need to revisit the tone and personality of your email communications. You've taken the relationship to a new level of intimacy via social channels, and using a corporate or more formal tone in your email marketing might run counter to the warm fuzzies a subscriber now feels for you.

Following these four tips should help you determine your own best practices for using social tools in email...meaning those practices which work best for you and your goals.


- Marco Marini
CEO
ClickMail Marketing

1. Address the needs to “get started” by helping marketers understand the initial steps that might lead to integrated marketing leveraging an existing email channel.
2. Utilize email marketing best practices to help inform what we decide to provide to the community.
3. Look at simple tools that are easy to apply rather than just focus on deep insights or case studies that are interesting but don’t inform clear action for marketers.

• Focus on nuts & bolts…how to get started…benchmarks…how to get it done.
• Provide metrics for how to measure success and case studies on how it has been successful.
• How to get it done easily.  Much of the material out there is intimidating on getting the resources (people, money) to get going.
• Create a checklist to help people know they are addressing the right issues - a Cross-Channel Maturity Audit
• Help people learn how to unify a single communication piece & communicate it across multiple channels.  Keep in mind how a message differs for different channels.
• Help people test.  How to choose the right channels.  How to choose the right campaigns for testing cross-channel integration.
• Focus on how to best combine traditional and new marketing channels (e.g. email marketing and social media, blogging and events)
• Since we are doing this for email marketers, maybe we should investigate whether one channel (e.g. email marketing) should be the hub of your cross-channel marketing strategy.

1. Online Privacy Protection Bill:  A “Discussion Draft” of a bill to require notice and consent to any individual PRIOR to collecting or using personal information was released in early May in the US House of Representatives from Representatives Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Cliff Stearns (R-FL).  Industry and consumer groups alike are not happy with the draft, including the DMA.  Although it may seem at first that the so-called Boucher Bill was just about online behavioral advertising conducted by large marketers; it turns out that it’s very broad and far-reaching on privacy and data security.  During the webinar, Jerry Cerasale, VP, Government Relations for the DMA, gave a very good overview of coverage, exceptions and terms of notice.  Basically, it impacts nearly all kinds of “first party” senders as well as any other company that has access to that data as a “third party.”  It proposes coverage of an extensive list of “unique and persistent” personal data on consumers.
   
   “One potentially bad impact this could have on the email industry concerns the scope of covered data, including email address, IP address, and other unique, persistent identifiers,” says panelist Tom Bartel, CIPP, VP, Receiver Services at Return Path.  “If the exceptions for transactional and operational purposes and for service providers are not effective and clear, this bill could interfere with many industry collaborations.  This includes IP-based reputation systems – data that determines if email messages reach the inbox or not.  It may also impact the operation of Feedback Loops provided to email senders by mailbox providers like Yahoo! and Hotmail.  These feedback loops are a key component in how the industry keeps bad actors out of the email ecosystem."
   
   Both Representatives Boucher and Stearns have indicated a willingness to work with industry and have requested comments on the bill, due by June 4th.  Cerasale said the DMA will be commenting.
    
2. Expansion of FTC Powers: Congress is also considering significantly expanding the powers of the FTC as part of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (HR 4173).  There is not a corresponding bill in the Senate, although Cerasale said in the webinar that one may be introduced later this year. 
   
   Part of the proposed regulation would give the FTC “unbridled authority” to create rules around “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” for many industry sectors.  Cerasale expressed concern about this, and said that more checks and balances are needed.  It is also unclear how this expansion will impact emerging technologies like social or mobile, he said.
   
   Another part of the proposed bill increases the FTC’s enforcement powers to seek civil penalties.  “That may be helpful in catching spammers and other abusers of email marketing,” said Rick Buck, CIPP and VP, ISP Relations and Privacy at e-Dialog.  “Marketers who feel they are exempt from prosecution because they are legal under CAN-SPAM may be following the letter of the law, but not the spirit.  I encourage everyone to go beyond the legal requirements and aim to provide email experiences that are welcome and engaging to subscribers.”
   
   The FTC’s Greisman said only that, “We welcome any support from Congress that helps the agency be more effective and efficient.”  There are some “tools that we lack which Congress may grant us the power to use,” she said.
   
   A third element to this proposed legislation is on responsibility/liability of the delivery provider (broadcast vendor, ESP, MTA Vendor) if their clients do not follow CAN-SPAM or other regulations.  “This aiding and abetting aspect is very concerning,” said webinar panelist, Dennis Dayman, VP, Privacy & Online Security at Eloqua.  “Blurring the lines between purveyor and sender may place an undue penalty on others in the ‘chain of responsibility’ for all brands involved in online advertising or other online acquisition efforts, like third party email senders and publishers,” Dayman said.

Greisman also reported in the webinar that there is no significant update on the behavioral targeting protection guidelines that the FTC has had out for comment for over a year. “Nothing will happen without input from industry,” she said.  Since the mandate from the FTC has been, “self regulate or else,” the webinar panelists Buck, Bartel and Dayman had a number of suggestions for marketers to follow best practices, including:

1. Ensure transparency in disclosure and notice of permission and use of data.
2. Be very clear about opt out vs. opt in.  CAN-SPAM requires only an opt-out, but that is the “bare minimum,” Buck advises.
3. Update your Privacy Policy and provide prominent links.
4. Audit your data usage practices.
5. Be clear on use of data in all web forms and at the point of collection/sign up.

Marketers and everyone in the email industry can support the FTC, Greisman said.  She suggests:

1. File a complaint.  When those complaints are also referred by the DMA, they are particularly helpful, Greisman said.
2. Make sure your opt out mechanisms are working.  (e-Dialog’s Buck recommends checking this at least annually, and preferably monthly.)
3. Be clear about the sender and the advertiser relationships.  (Return Path’s Bartel recommends first party senders consider “framing” the content from third parties or advertisers and clearly distinguish between editorial (original content) and advertising.)
4. Keep data clean, particularly around new sources.  (Eloqua’s Dayman also recommends care around affiliates’ use of data.)

The legislative update webinar was sponsored by Eloqua, e-Dialog and Return Path, with technology sponsor GoToWebinar.  The recording of the full event is free for eec members.  More details on these and other legislative issues important to digital and direct marketers is in the DMA’s quarterly government affairs newsletter, Politically Direct.

- Stephanie Miller
Return Path & eec

Are you struggling to increase your in-house email list in order to extend your marketing reach? There is a growing percentage of the online population that does not sign up for emails or newsletters. Instead they get their information predominately through social networking sites and portals. To reach them, one has to get to them either through their contacts, the groups they belong to, or those they follow. But email can be the vehicle to do just that.

Email can enable and even encourage content to be shared with social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. This then allows for an extended reach to those people who haven't opted in to receive emails from you. Plus the marketer retains some control over what specifically can be shared. For example, it might be a video, particular imagery, or a special offer. You as the marketer get to decide.

In addition to getting your content exposed to a much broader audience, sharing email content gives those doing the sharing the opportunity to add value to their respective networks. This is a huge motivator for many social networkers because it puts them in the role of trusted advisor. (Consider how often a tweet from someone in your network is simply a retweet.) This also allows a marketer to enable their audiences to evangelize on your behalf. 

This opportunity to reach the previously unreachable, and to simultaneously empower your audience to demonstrate value to their network, can lead to very high conversion rates, especially if your goal is to not only reach new prospects but also to add new subscribers to your in-house list.

The latest statistics indicate that the number of people seeing content increases approximately 24% with social networking/email integration compared to relying on email alone. That's a massive increase for virtually no cost. FTF (forward to a friend) has been considered an email best practice for years, and it's one marketers should keep doing. But social forwarding features blow it away when you look at the extended reach enabled by social networking vs. FTF email.

The typical social networker has approximately 160 connections. When they share something in their network, the message they are sharing is exposed to their whole network. Compare that quantity to the person who forwards an email using FTF: Typically 1 in 1,000 email recipients actually forwards via FTF, and of those that do, the vast majority forward to 3 people or less. And hardly any of them subscribe as the result of getting the forward. It's easy to see that when you provide interesting, valuable and relevant content into a socially networked environment (i.e. content people will want to share), some of the new people you've just reached will sign up with your company directly for future news or shareworthy information.

When you add social networking integration via a tool like Share-to-Social or Social Forward, be sure to provide instructions to your audience about how to share specific offers or content, and help them understand why they should. Language such as "Click the Facebook icon to the right to share these recipes with your network" tells the user the action to take (click to share) and implies the benefit (you'll delight your friends).

All of this, however, is predicated on having information worth sharing. Your content has to have value. It must be relevant, interesting and appealing. Period.

The organic list growth opportunity is staggering too, as the latest research from MarketingSherpa and authors David Daniels and Jeanniey Mullen* show that the typical lifetime value of a new email address is between $120 and $180 each! Growing your list by just 100 recipients would play out to something like a $15,000 lift to the bottom line. Cha-ching.

Email marketing still offers the highest ROI. Imagine what you can achieve when you multiply its reach by integrating social networking features into your email campaigns!

*In their book, Email Marketing: An Hour a Day

- Marco Marini
CEO
ClickMail Marketing

This week Facebook will begin giving marketers the ability to collect email address from users of our Facebook applications.  This is welcome news and opens up a world of possibilities for creating integrated programs that leverage the strengths of each channel to drive business objectives and richer customer experiences.  Currently, applications communicate with users through Facebook notifications - a constrained inbox with few opportunities for meaningful direct communications and limited opportunities for monetization.  After Wednesday, marketers will have the ability to make email permission optional, or a mandatory requirement of an application, and may no longer post notifications from applications.  This development opens up an exciting new way for Facebook marketers to interact with and ultimately monetize social audiences.  

An example of the optional prompt:


 

And mandatory:


Facbook will be supporting this change by encouraging users to share their email addresses with applications, and will be posting dialog boxes like the one below on every canvas page a user visits for their first three sessions.


 

On the Developer wiki, Facebook clearly articulates the policies senders must adhere to:

Draft Policies

a. You must not give or sell users' email addresses to any third party or affiliate.
b. You must comply with the provisions of the Federal Trade Commission's CAN-SPAM Act and all other applicable spam laws (e.g., provide a visible and operable unsubscribe mechanism and honor opt-out requests within 10 days).
c. You must explain clearly to users, in a privacy policy or elsewhere in a conspicuous place, how you will use their email addresses.
d. Emails you send must clearly indicate that they are from you and must not appear to be from Facebook or anyone else. For example, you must not include Facebook logos or brand assets in your emails, and you must not mention Facebook in the subject line, "from" line, or body header.
e. All emails to users must originate from the same domain, and you must provide us with the name of that domain in the Facebook Developer application used to manage your application.

As we kick off 2010, it's hard to argue that the most exciting force in the email marketing space is the rapid adoption of social networks and the opportunities that exist for those who are able to develop truly integrated programs.  Much has been written in this blog about social media, and though virtually everyone is excited by the possibilities, most of us are still in the relatively early phases of determining the best strategies and tactics for our programs.  Few in the space can point to quantifiable success stories.  This development gives social marketers a powerful, proven tool for engaging and monetizing audiences, and I look forward to seeing how we capitalize on the opportunity.

Read more on the Facebook Developer Wiki and please comment below or reach out to me directly to continue the conversation - 2010 is going to be a big one for email [the original and largest social network].

- Nicholas Einstein
Director of Strategic & Analytic Services
Datran Media

The internet was designed to be a free exchange of information wherein anyone, upon a loose framework mainly having to do with networking and rendering capabilities, could join, share and digest what they wanted. Email was developed as a predecessor to the internet.  Again, one in which, as long as you had the most basic SMTP compliancy between networks, messages would be handed off between point A to B.

Today, email has turned into a monumentally powerful marketing tool and communication channel that still rivals the internet and other upcoming social networks, regardless of which side of the "email is dying" debate you fall under. With email marketing, forward to a friend, sharing links, email filters and forwarders, along with major ISPs providing outsourcing solutions (like Google Apps), the audit trail of an email is sometimes all but impossible to decipher without CSI level forensic header analysis.

But, you don't care about all this.


What should you care about?

When you place an order to have something delivered with the USPS, UPS or FedEx, that item almost never leaves that company's chain of custody.  Meaning, if you dropped it off with FedEx, the recipient will most likely receive it with FedEx.  Again, there are exceptions, but the vast majority of the time this is the rule.  When you send an email out, though, it may be going to a Yahoo! domain address, then forwarded on to a Gmail domain address and finally rendered in Outlook 2007.  What can you do to ensure that your mail has the highest rate of making it to its final destination regardless of the cyber hops in the middle?

1. Ask your recipient up front if their email address is still, indeed, the right one to be using. I check over 8 different email accounts on a normal day, and with inbox email aggregators with dynamic collection addresses (such as OtherInbox), I probably have several hundred email addresses (with OtherInBox I can use disposable email addresses) that will get to me somehow.  However, the email address to sign up with your service when I was a fresh college grad and using my Alumni account may no longer be at the top of my list.  So, I appreciate it when companies I do business with ask me if that's still the one I should have on my account.  If it is, I click through on a prompt when I login.  If not, it takes 2 seconds to change.  I don't get asked this every time I login, but perhaps, every 6 months or so to ensure the email address is fresh.  Guess what?  My Alumni account is forwarded to my Yahoo! account.  So, I changed it to have my Yahoo! account receive the email directly (and thus avoid any errant filtering on the part of my school).

2. Authenticate outbound email. Period. DKIM was designed not to break when making multiple hops in an email's path to the final destination.  Unfortunately SPF will because of the technical nature of email headers, but with DKIM enabled mail, if it comes through at Gmail verified and then is forwarded on to AOL, the DKIM signature stays intact and the message has a higher likelihood of being delivered.

3. Here's the bad part.  Just like you as a sender pushing mail out to a recipient, when email is forwarded to another domain by the recipient domain, the reputation and deliverability of that mail falls back on the ISP doing the forwarding.  For instance, I run my own domain hosted through Gmail.  When you send an email there, it gets forwarded to Yahoo! which is what I consider my central email nervous system.  But, sometimes, email from Gmail gets bulked at Yahoo! because of Gmail's reputation.  This means I don't get my mail.  What can you do about it?  Gently remind your subscribers to check their spam folders for mail that may have accidentally fallen prey to a filter somewhere.  In my case, I'll get email that randomly gets bulked (as opposed to breaking any obvious best sending practices) and have made it a habit to check my spam folder often.

4. Check your content in multiple web clients. Oftentimes, an email sent to a Comcast domain looks fantastic, but when forwarded to an AOL accounts, looks horrible.  Now, like in #3, a lot of this is out of your control if the actual content is changed en route by the ISP.  But, if you ensure that your content looks good in the different clients, you increase your chances that when an ISP doesn't reach in and play with the HTML when it's being forwarded along, it will look fine in the end email inbox.

5. Have unique identifiers in your unsubscribe links tying an email address back to a particular sender.  If I unsubscribe from my Yahoo! address on an email that was sent to me originally at a Gmail account but was forwarded on, you could end up shooting yourself in the proverbial foot.  I could have any wanted email to my Yahoo! account stop but the Gmail email continue.  Recipients will oftentimes setup multiple email addresses for one account, or across multiple accounts you as an ESP or single sender support, so directly tying that recipient's unsubscribed email address to their preferences (and not the one that happened to actually do the unsubscribing) is key.

This is pretty technical stuff, folks.  But, in order to stay on top of the original intent of email being free flowing and having as few barriers as possible, you must be cognizant of the challenges in your path.  Reach out to your technical team to ensure you've got these points covered.  And remember, an email address is easily disposable.  We, as marketers, tend to see them as having high stickiness.  But, recipients can come and go with fluidity and tracking them along the way with their permission (ultimately their keeping you informed of their moves) keeps you in touch with your customers.

Chris Wheeler
Director of Deliverability
Bronto Software
@ChrisAWheeler

Video in email. Not a week goes by without a webinar, blog or email newsletter mentioning the topic. But is video in email the real deal? Or is it still too early to start whipping out the camcorders and hiring scriptwriters?

To get a better handle on the topic, I turned to ClickMail Marketing's CTO, Cameron Kane, for some insight. Cameron is paying close attention to the video vibe and was deploying video for clients way before the hype. But whether or not video is ready for prime time is the topic I asked him to speak upon.

First off, Cameron says you need to be clear on your motivation. Video can be a good tool to engage prospects or re-engage existing customers. But make sure you'll use it that way. Ask yourself, "Will this really help me engage the customer or am I doing this because it's the next shiny new thing?"

Next, Cameron cautions being aware of the different ways to deliver video. Which method you choose depends in part on your audience and in part on how much success you want.

1. As a static image that clicks through to video on a landing page – This is an image with a Play arrow on it indicating it will start a video. The video starts playing upon the click through.
2. As an animated .gif that plays in the email – Cameron says this is a good way to go if you can get the point of your short video across without sound. "It should be used as more of a lure than the full-blown video," he says. But it will not play if images are suppressed. And it only shows the first frame in Microsoft Outlook 2007, so when you're creating it, you must make your first frame a static image with an arrow (as above) so the user can click through. For this reason, it's a bad choice if you're a B2B marketer as so many business people use Outlook.
3. As certified video that plays in the email with audio (AOL only) – Right now this applies only to AOL, although other ISPs are joining, like Comcast. "I think the expansion into ISPs needs to widen a tad before we can really speak to this," says Cameron. "The home run is if they can get Hotmail, Livemail and Gmail. Then video will be pervasive," he says. Certified video has just come onto the scene and it will be very interesting in watching this playout. The implications on this front go wide and far. I think the best has yet to come.
4. As embedded Flash video: "Very bad idea," says Cameron. "We could do this 5 years ago, but no longer."

Of the four choices above, Cameron recommends using the static image for a B2B audience. If the audience is B2C, he says, start with an animated .gif and do an A/B split test. If the animated .gif works, filter your AOL audience and if that audience is big enough and a lift in revenue would be significant, use the certified video for that segment. "I would see this option as the best for large retailers," he says. Although he also points out Goodmail hasn't done their homework yet on the effectiveness of video and whether or not there's a lift in ROI. "They don't have conclusive data as of yet on the lift a sender would receive if using video," he points out.

If you use video in your email marketing, there are still email best practices to adhere to. Just because you're adapting a new approach and technology doesn't mean the old rules no longer apply. Things to keep in mind when using video in your email marketing include:

• You still have to be relevant and targeted
• It's still email. You're still trying to get the recipient to do something, to take some kind of action
• You still have to measure its impact
• You still have to test
• You have to consider bandwidth and rendering issues

Most of all, perhaps, and this is where the discussion about video in email gets fuzzy, you have to consider image blocking. A recent webinar on video in email hardly spent 10 seconds on the topic, but the reality is, if your recipients have images suppressed, it doesn't matter which method you choose to deliver your video in the email: They won't see it.

As Cameron says, "You have to get them to download images, then view the email and video, then click through. This is all before they hopefully convert. There's lots of room for drop out."

So maybe it's worth waiting a while before you "drop in" to the video in email camp.

- Marco Marini, CEO, ClickMail Marketing

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:

The email marketing industry has never had a consensus around metrics, something that contributes to its reputation as an immature marketing channel. When I heard about the Measurement and Accuracy Roundtable at the eec I was excited to join the metrics conversation and help contribute to solidifying some table-stakes metrics.

Less than a year later we've come up with a proposal - one that represents a large step forward for email marketers. However, it also means a good bit of work. Many email marketing service providers (ESPs), email marketing vendors and individual marketers now have to start considering some new numbers.

This proposal not only calls out where everyone should eventually be, it also provides consistent names for related metrics. For us at ESPs, it means that we can immediately make it clear to our clients where we stand.

A great approach is to embrace an "Educate, Enhance and Evolve" approach. What does that entail?

1. Educate your clients on where they currently stand
Is what you've been calling 'Opens' now defined as the Action Rate? If so, then let them know, that doesn't mean you need to change the name right away, but you should provide a tool tip or a more detailed description in your help guides. Also link to the new standards, or provide your own copy of them within your application. This will empower them to do more with their data.

2. Enhance your current reports with some of the new metrics
You may have been showing just one number, the one you thought best represented 'Opens'. But we've opened the door, there are a number of different metrics which each tell a different story. By providing more of this information you allow your clients to dig deeper into their statistics and gain a better understanding of their recipients. Of course with more information comes more questions; be sure to provide detailed information about how these numbers are calculated as well as why they are important.

3. Evolve from the days of 'Opens'
That's right, the goal here is to stop reporting 'Opens' at all. Do we expect the industry to forget about 'Open Rates' by tomorrow? No, but we do expect the experts to start moving away from it soon. When industry leading ESPs follow suit it will help to create momentum and drive the whole industry forward.

By defining and adhering to industry standards we are enabling all email marketers to converse with the confidence that they are comparing apples to apples. This is a big step in the move towards getting email marketing the respect it deserves as a mature marketing channel.

- Adam Covati, Bronto Software

One of my favorite quotes in the past few years is from David Daniels of Forrester Research who often says that "sending email to people that haven't opened or clicked in a year is like flying an airplane advertisement over a ghost town." Love it. That visual really brings the point home that mailing to seemingly unengaged subscribers is a waste of time, and often does more harm than good. I have always 100% agreed with it, however I now think it isn't always true. There may actually be life in parts of those seemingly deserted towns.

Let me start by saying that I still recommend all marketers regularly review engagement and modify content and/or frequency to those that haven't opened or clicked in 90 or 180 days. This is especially important for marketers that have deliverability problems, since many of them may improve their reputations and deliverability by cutting this dead weight. Unresponsive list segments, after all, are more likely to generate complaints or to contain spamtraps. In fact, earlier this year we were able to help a client get out of the bulk folder at Gmail by ceasing mailing any names that hadn't opened or clicked there in 90 days. Now, however, when I'm asked by a client if they should re-opt-in subscribers that haven't responded, opened or clicked for months, I'm forced to add the qualifier: "it depends."

Here's why it depends. There is growing evidence that many mailers have at least some subscribers that don't seemingly do anything, but they are valuable nonetheless. Here are a few camps to consider:

1. Hidden Segment #1: Subscribers that view and read emails with images off. There may be some email marketers that are in fact too good at rendering their email titles, main stories and calls-to-action in HTML text. I say "too good" since some (maybe lots) of their subscribers don't register as an open since they never enable images – yet they are actually engaged and reading the emails.

2. Hidden Segment #2: Mobile, invisible, but engaged. Mobile, email-enabled phones now represent a majority of some company's opt-in subscriber base. If they don't render images they won't render an open, but the recipient might be eating up the content day-in and day-out, and the marketer will never know.

3. Hidden Segment #3: Subscribers that never click, or shop online, but buy from your brick-n-mortar store. These actually could be some of your best customers, you just can't tell. Certainly there is life in this ghost town. Multichannel retailers should especially keep a watch out for these subscribers.

4. Hidden Segment #4: Fans that forward your email to friends, but don't use your forward-to-a-friend link. You can't track them since they are using the forwarding mechanism of their email tool, not your trackable link. Jeanniey Mullen's recent ClickZ article highlighted the story of Burntoast Marketing in Australia that had this problem. Some of their mailings to high-quality prospects had "…clicks come from other people both within and outside the same company who were not on the original mailing list."

The bottom line is if you're not looking at subscriber engagement, you are missing out on the ability to improve your deliverability, improve relevancy, and cut the unprofitable names from your list. However, beware of these hidden, engaged subscribers and develop strategies to make them visible.

First, rather than automatically re-opting in unengaged subscribers or discarding them from your list, try reducing frequency. A recent test of ours showed we were able to get 4 times the number of subscribers to reengage by reducing from weekly to monthly mailings when compared to sending a single re-optin campaign.

Second, entice your offline-only shoppers to use a coupon or other tracking code that will help them identify themselves.

Finally, provide a number of ways that recipients can share their emails with their friends – either standard viral links or via new technologies allowing sharing with social networks.

- Chip House, ExactTarget

As I rolled into work this morning, I logged into my Gmail account to see what random emails came in over the 6-hour window of time I was sleeping. Lo and behold….a message was sitting unread in my inbox.

The message was from "AIM Member Message" and had the subject line "What's New with AIM?" If I wasn't the type of person who opens every email (if only to critique them from a best practices standpoint), I would have "junked" this one immediately. Who is "AIM Member Message?" Why not "AIM" or "AOL Instant Messenger?" If you are going to have a terrible From name, at least wow me with the subject line, right? "What's New with AIM?" Boooooooring.

Two strikes for AOL before I even open the message. But, again, I open everything. Maybe they were banking on that fact. Maybe they didn't really spend any time thinking about the From name or subject line. Maybe they don't have a dedicated team of email marketers who are thinking about email as a strategic tool. Maybe it's a combination of all three or "none of the above." Who knows? Either way, it's not a great start.

Did I mention that I can't remember ever receiving an email from AOL (not in my Gmail account anyway)? So my next question (zinger) is how did they get my email address? Followed by…why the random, seemingly out-of-the-blue email? Oh right, they wanted to tell me "What's New with AIM." Too bad I don't care or more importantly, never asked to be emailed by AIM. Good thing they put the disclaimer in fine print in the footer.

Now…to the message. On first glance, a decent design for images off. Three text links—one "Find Out More!" followed by two "Start Now!" At least the valuable disclaimer/opt-out shows up with images off.

Moving onto the message with images on, I realize there are several key calls-to-action that are now viewable. So much for a nice design with images off. First off, apparently this is the AIM Newsletter. Who would've known? What *is* the AIM Newsletter anyway? A weekly message? Monthly communication? Whenever-they-feel-like-it email? Looks like they want me to download AIM. Funny thing is that I already have an AIM account. In fact, I've had one since AIM first launched sometime in the late 20th century. AOL collects a ton of data (I assume). Shouldn't they have already known that little tidbit? How about segmenting the list…targeting emails?

Continuing down below the fold, it looks like they want me to "start using [my] free AIM Mail Account." Again—been there, done that. My AOL username dates back to the dial-up days of 1995.

Finally, at the very bottom of the email—well below the fold—I get some neat new information: Mobile AIM! Yes. I can now access AIM on my mobile device. I guess it's about time to purchase that smart phone. I've been told they are pretty cool.

Unfortunately, I'm no longer shocked or surprised when a multi-billion dollar company does not understand the basics of email marketing. In the email ecosystem, industry experts often get dinged for hammering "email marketing 101." Marketers shout, "We get the fundamentals. Show us the new stuff!" But then…we get emails like the one from AOL/AIM/AIM Member Message.

Thanks AOL for keeping our jobs easy….

—DJ Waldow of Bronto Software

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.

I want to share something inspirational that's happening in the email industry (Oh, and you can learn some best practices too!). It's a recap of the Email Experience Council's current Nonprofit Project. The project originated as a manner to enable peers and competitors in the email marketing industry to put business aside and work as a team to create the best email efforts for a good cause.

In 2007, the eec selected the Women's Bean Project as their project focus. Stephanie Miller, from Return Path, volunteered countless hours to lead this initiative and its team on behalf of the eec. I spoke with Stephanie about this effort to get the inside scoop on the project:

WHO IS THE WOMEN'S BEAN PROJECT?
The Women's Bean Project (WBP) helps women break the cycle of poverty and unemployment by teaching workplace competencies for entry-level jobs through employment and by teaching job readiness skills in their gourmet food production business.

WHY WERE THEY A GOOD CANDIDATE?
The WBP was sending one-off donor and volunteer announcements from a database created in FileMaker.

The WBP came to the eec with the following needs and goals:

1. Efficiency: Communicate effectively and efficiently with donors, volunteers and buyers (online and offline).

2. Impact & Choice: Retain donors and buyers through a higher number of touch points—ensuring that each touch is meaningful but also reducing costs and the amount of staff time required for each. Also, allow each customer/donor to select the method of communication (online or offline) that works best for them.

3. Cost Savings: Continue to reach every customer, even as the number of buyers increases by 30% each year (raising the costs of printing and postage significantly).

4. Practicality: Launch and manage a program on a very small staff—literally one-quarter of one person was dedicated to email marketing for all three audiences (donors, buyers, volunteers).

HOW DID THE EEC VOLUNTEER TEAM LOOK?
It is a testament to the email industry and the eec membership that very quickly we had 15 talented professionals volunteer to help, and several vendors step forward and to provide tools and services free of charge. ExactTarget provided a free basic sending license and also graciously donated nearly 15 hours of support throughout the project. Return Path donated a free rendering and deliverability account. Other companies represented included Blackbaud, BlueHornet, Future Integrated Marketing, Industry Mailout, Leapfrog Enterprises, Merkle and Wolters Kluwer Financial Services.

WHAT WAS ACCOMPLISHED?
The team focused on six specific areas to create the program—content, design, infrastructure and list growth.

Content Strategy:
● Identified ways that email can support the WBP mission
● Developed a content strategy
● Debated and finalized permission standards (DOI)
● Developed a calendar for promotions around the holidays, including promoting some local events and fundraisers
● Advised on sending an email counterpart for the annual appeal to donors (direct mail)
● Promotional content recommendations: (1) special offers: 10% discount for National Soup Month; (2) developed concept, copy and photography for a Valentine's Day email that would have viral impact; and (3) developed a year's worth of promotional themes based on holidays in order to boost sales during non-peak months (e.g., soup sales in summer are very slow)
● Set up Google Analytics so WBP could measure success of the email program for driving sales and page views
● Helped train the WBP team to review campaign results with an eye toward optimization

Design:
● Developed wireframes for four types of emails
● Designed templates for newsletter, postcards, DOI/welcome and donor appeals
● Loaded the templates into ExactTarget and tested them
● Helped launch an inaugural issue—which included list hygiene and deliverability with an old file, as well as an opt-out strategy for the existing database

Infrastructure:
● Worked with the team to set up an ExactTarget account
● Upload the templates; Access the self-service training
● Testing and mailing
● Course Correction: Aligning with with Yahoo! Store and cleaning up templates

List Growth:
● Starting point: 75% valid records
● Developed organic, offline and viral list growth ideas
● Recommended ways to optimize data capture on the website
● Reviewed the subscription flow for permission clarity and growth optimization

Wireframe Sample:

HOW DID IT TURN OUT?
Here's a quick rundown of the results:

1. We launched a program! It is practical, earns results, garners the praise and kudos of subscribers, donors and the WBP Board of Directors and has legs—the WBP can continue this email program when the volunteer team disbands.

2. Subscribers love it! The inaugural issue of the newsletter generated:
● 32% open rates
● 15% clickthrough rate
● 3.1% bounce rate on new data (25% bounce rate on old list data)

3. Subscribers are great WBP customers! Page views from email subscribers are two times higher than other sources.

For more details on our work with the Women's Bean Project and past Nonprofit Projects, visit the Nonprofit Project page on the Email Experience Council's website.

—Jeanniey Mullen of the eec

In preparation for our upcoming website relaunch, we've been updating the content on our site and making some tweaks to our site functionality. As a consequence, you may have noticed our site behaving strangely recently, particularly the Whitepaper Room. Please accept our apologies and know that the Whitepaper Room is now back up and working properly.

Here are some of the improvements that we've made ahead of the launch of a totally new site in a few months:

● The eec's homepage now highlights posts from our two blogs, the Email Experience Blog and RetailEmail.Blogspot.

● Also on the homepage, we've added a See past survey results link under the current Two-Click Survey question so you can quickly find out how people voted on past questions.

● The Member Roundtables page has been totally reorganized and updated. You can now find information about the leadership, goals, initiatives and meeting times of all nine of our Roundtables, including our new Measurement Accuracy Roundtable. EEC members can contact Ali if they wish to join a Roundtable.

● In the right-hand column on the Member Roundtables page and throughout the Initiatives & Standards tab, you'll now find a "New from the Roundtables" list, which includes the latest blog posts, documents and initiatives to come out of the Roundtables. There are several great initiatives that will be released in the weeks ahead.

● The "Resources" tab has been updated so that it now includes links to the eec's Facebook group, the Email Experience Blog and RetailEmail.Blogspot.

● We've reorganized the Useful Tool & Links page, which has been greatly expanded. If you know of other emails marketing tools that should be added, let us know.

● The Email Performance Award page has been redone so that the information is better organized.

● We've revised the description on our eec Newsletter Archive page and on the newsletter sign-up form that runs along the top of every page on the eec site now links to the archive page so people can click through to see sample newsletters and more information before signing up.

We're working on updating a few other pages ahead of the relaunch this summer and, of course, have plans for several new pages of content as well. So stay tuned. And thanks again for your patience and understanding.

—Chad White of the eec

During the eec List Growth & Engagement Roundtable's most recent meeting, we discussed an email challenge common to members and email marketers everywhere: What do you do with subscribers who have not responded to your emails in six months or more?

Initially we had a good discussion over what really defines "active." Because of image caching by the ISPs and the reading of emails on mobile devices or text-only readers, it was decided that you can't only look at opens as an indicator of someone being engaged. The best definition was any person who opens, clicks or makes a purchase (any purchase from any channel) from your company.

Now that you have defined your active email base, it's time to start looking at the inactive subscribers. Some suggestions of what to look for when trying to determine why they are inactive were:

Deliverability issues. Are your emails not getting to people's inboxes? Do you have unknown IP issues that need to be addressed? One suggestion is to look at the domain counts for the inactive subscribers. If you look at the domain counts for your active vs. inactive subscribers to see if there is any clustering that could indicate delivery issues. For example, if your total database contains 30% AOL addresses, but your non-responder domains are 65% AOL, is that difference something that indicates email filtering at AOL may be an issue?

Mobile devices. This is probably more of an issue for B2B marketers, but are more of your subscribers reading emails on their mobile devices? One idea is to include something like "click here to read this on your mobile device" at the top of your message. That would link to a short 'mobile friendly' version of your email with short body text and links to pages with more details. You could then track clicks on that link so you know who your mobile readers are.

STRATEGIES TO RE-ENGAGE INACTIVE SUBSCRIBERS:

Explore segmentation tactics. One-to-one communication and segmentation are so easy to do with email. It's highly recommended that you start categorizing your non-responders into various cells, and start testing different content and subject lines for each cell. When you identify a strategy that starts to show positive results (getting people engaged), use that strategy for the remainder of the cells.

Consider a survey. Inviting subscribers to participate in a survey can be an effective tool for re-activation programs. Ask your subscribers for information that can be helpful in providing them content and offers they will find valuable.

Get a new email address. Is the fact that the subscriber is not responding a sign that the email address is going to be invalid soon (abandoned email account)? Should you try to find a new email address for that subscriber? Over the last 6 to 8 months, there's been an increase in the number of customers that are submitting their "chronic non-responders" for email change of address and email update services. One reason for this trend is because of slowing list growth. As a marketer's growth rate of their opt-in house file slows down, the loss of emails due to bounces and non-responders start to really show their impact in terms of lost revenue. Therefore, finding a new email address for a non-responder has been a strategy that's being adopted by more companies.

Is there a risk if you continue to email non-responders? This question came up. The general consensus was that there probably is not a risk that the non-responder will press the automated complaint buttons or report you as spam. However, abandoned emails do sometimes get converted to "honeypots" or "spam traps" by the ISPs. The ISPs don't tell us good guys which addresses may have triggered a spam trap, so you don't know which ones to remove from your list. A suggestion on the call was to do a 1-year purge—anyone who hasn't shown any action (as defined above) could be suppressed from future campaigns.

This is only a summary of the conversations we had. We talked for about an hour and could have gone longer, so there was a lot of good information shared by everyone on the call, which included eec members DJ Waldow of Bronto Software, Luke Glasner of Robin Publishing, and Stephanie Miller of Return Path.

Join the conversation! Do you have any comments or advice to add regarding this challenge? Is there a list growth challenge that you'd like to see discussed at our next Roundtable meeting on April 9 at 1pm EST? If so, please comment below. Thanks.

—List Growth & Engagement Roundtable co-chairs Dan Babb of Walter Karl Interactive and Austin Bliss of FreshAddress

If you missed out on the Email Evolution Conference this year you're not completely out of luck because bloggers and reporters were all over it. In fact, during the Wednesday morning panel about email marketing bloggers, there were dozens of people that said they were blogging from the event—and a half-dozen that said they were blogging live during the session! Here's a list of posts and articles about the show to give you a little taste of what you missed (let us know if you know of others):

Email Experience Blog:
–>Voices from the Email Evolution Conference
–>Inbox Stew: Grandma, Goods, Compadres and Confirmation

RetailEmail.Blogspot:
–>Takeaways from the Email Evolution Conference

BeRelevant!:
–>Update from the Email Evolution Conference
–>Live Blogging from the Email Evolution Conference: Part 1 (LIVE BLOG)
–>EEC Conference: US Legislation and Beyond
–>Live Blogging from the Email Evolution Conference - Part 2 (LIVE BLOG)
–>Live Blogging from the Email Evolution Conference - Day 2 (LIVE BLOG)

The Email Wars:
–>Live EEC Keynote: Bloggers Unite: Passion, Power or People? (LIVE BLOG)
–>Knocked out by the eec

MediaPost:
–>Making Email, Web Analytics Play Nice: Testing Is Key
–>FTC: Data Security Is Top Concern
–>Bad Guys Make Emailing Harder
–>Email Undervalued, Works Best In Symphony With Other Tools
–>Daily Candy Founder Shares Special Sauce

BtoB Magazine:
–>Multichannel marketing highlighted at Email Evolution Conference

House of Email Marketing:
–>Reflecting on the EEC Conference: Relevance drives Deliverability and ROI

Email Insider Blog:
–>The DMA Gets It Right
–>Takeaways From The Email Evolution Conference

Return on Subscriber:
–>Dedicated IP or not a dedicated IP

Denise Cox's Blog:
–>How recipients and marketers are handling email (eec conference)
–>Some nuggets I picked up at email boot camp (eec event)

Bronto Blog:
–>Netflix Gets Email – Part 1
–>Netflix Gets Email – Part 2
–>Netflix Gets Email – Part 3

The Joeism Blog:
–>Kicking Off the Email Evolution Conference
–>Email Evolution Conference — Day 2
–>Last Day of Email Evolution Conference

Twitter streams:
–>Adam Covati

Constant Contact:
–>Insights from the Email Evolution Conference
–>From the EEC Conference: Email marketing blogs
–>From the EEC Conference: Getting inactive subscribers to engage
–>From the EEC Conference: Creating a VIP email program
–>From the EEC Conference: The DailyCandy story

Ezemail Blog
–>Email Evolution Conference Takeaways, San Diego, February 2008

Smith-Harmon EDM Review:
–>San Diego Zoo

Marketing with Technology and More:
–>Email Experience Conference Kicks Off
–>Good Quality permission and relevancy - data revealed
–>A No-Tan-Line Bikini and 70 Passionate Women

Strongmail's Email Marketing Insights:
–>LIVE from the Email Experience Conference!

Chris Baggott's Guide to Blogging:
–>Corporate Blogging Live From the Email Evolution Conference

Visitor Centric Marketing
–>Email Experience Evolution, 2/12/08

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