The email marketing landscape is always changing as marketers find new and savvy ways to boost engagement, increase conversions, and maximize their efforts. But, beyond the discussion of open rates, click-throughs, subject lines, A/B testing and deliverability is the issue of compliance.

In an overall sense, there are two rulebooks that email marketers follow:

• "Best Practices"... which are the processes we abide by because we know it treats our customer’s inbox as a special place and that’s a responsibility we take seriously.
• "Legal Compliance"... which are the specific and mandatory rules we follow because our actions are governed by law [....and because none of us would do well in prison! :) ]

Most marketers are familiar with the US CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. But, now Canada has their own proposed version of anti-spam legislation that in it’s current state goes much further than it’s US counterpart.

It’s important marketers are aware of the new proposed legislation so they can begin taking action well in advance to ensure they remain in full compliance. While there is still a lot of time to make sure your ducks are all in a row to appease CASL, it’s never too soon to get started.

This post will cover the main highlights of Canada’s proposed Anti-Spam Legislation. For a more in-depth summary, you can read my blog post titled “All About CASL (Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation) in Plain English”.

I’m Not In Canada, So Why Do I Care?

CASL isn’t just focused on Canadian email marketers, but rather extends its coverage to anyone who is emailing someone that will receive that message within Canada.

So, if you run an eCommerce store out of the USA, but you occasionally sell to people north of the border and have those folks on your mailing list, then CASL is in full force for you.

It’s not just those in North America that have to play under these new rules because the people behind CASL are hoping it’s reach will extend to marketers internationally who are contacting Canadians. In an interview, the CRTC’s chief compliance and enforcement officer, Andrea Rosen, said:

If the spammer is offshore, we have the ability under the law to co-operate with foreign governments, to share information and to bring proceedings together against individuals that are offshore.

There is an exemption written into CASL that if the sender does not know or could not expect to know that the receiver would be using a Canadian computer to access the email, then you’re off the hook. So, if your USA-based eCommerce store doesn’t ship to Canada and you have no Canadian’s on your mailing list, but someone has taken the trip to see the Jays play in Toronto and while there they get your email, you don’t have to panic.

Do keep in mind, however, that ignorance won’t be an excuse so even if you don’t think you have Canadian’s in your database, be sure to be on the lookout for that. At Elite Email, we have been prompting people to look at their geo-reports to get a sense of who is engaging with the email in Canada because it might be more than you think.

What are the key requirements of CASL?

The current proposed regulation is really long and if you care to see the whole thing in it’s entirety, you can click here.

For those that are too busy to read the whole law (...and that is probably ALL of us!) here are the primary requirements:

• You must have permission BEFORE sending an email.
• You must be able to prove that you have received clear consent (more on “consent” below)
• You cannot use false or misleading subject lines or sender names.
• You must have a working unsubscribe mechanisms where manual requests are processed within a 10 day window and any unsubscribe links are valid for at least 60 days after the send date.
• You cannot pre-check subscription boxes on firms. Valid consent must be an affirmative action.
• You must include a physical mailing address as well as an alternate way to reach you, which could take the form of an email address, phone number or link to contact form.
• You cannot confirm unsubscribes by sending a follow-up email.
• If an email is being sent “on behalf of” another organization, you must clearly identify both parties.
• If you are a charity, then you are included in CASL if you are selling or soliciting anything.

One key thing I want to highlight is the notion of subscribing to your mailing list as an affirmative action. I see a lot of signup forms where the box is pre-checked and you have to uncheck it to indicate you don’t want to signup for a mailing list. If your organization is doing this, then it’s one of the first things you should consider changing. It’s a quick change that will ensure all new subscriber acquisitions are valid under CASL.

Consent, Consent, and More Consent... It’s All About Consent!

While there are lots of different facets to CASL, if I had to boil it down to one thing, I’d say that the most critical factor is ensuring you have obtained consent properly. If you’ve done that, then you’re heading down a good path.

CASL currently outlines four different scenarios that would qualify as consent.

Consent Scenario #1: Implied Consent

This is the scenario that many people will already be familiar with as it’s the one that is based on an existing business or nonbusiness relationship between the recipient and sender. Essentially, if someone has bought something from your organization or entered into a contract with you then you have a “business relationship” with them. Whereas, if someone does volunteer work for you or becomes part of your organization, then you’ve got a “nonbusiness relationship” with them.

The critical part of this type of implied consent is the 2 year time limitation. From the moment someone purchases something from you, a 2 year window commences where you can email them and be in compliance with CASL without needing any other form of consent. On top of that, if that same person buys something from you again during that window, the clock resets and you get another full 2 years. However, as a general rule of thumb, at some point during that 2 year window, you would want (or need) to obtain explicit consent in order to keep emailing them after that window expires.

Consent Scenario #2: Explicit Consent

I suspect most email marketers are already actively engaged in this type of consent where the recipient gives you direct permission to send them emails. Most commonly you will have a signup form on your website that lets people join your mailing list. This direct type of consent is really at the core of CASL, which is why it’s important that you obtain good evidence to support your practices. Doing things like capturing the date stamp and IP address of a new subscriber when they join your list and then when they confirm their subscription (for double opt-in) will help ensure you’ve got a strong case should someone challenge if consent was obtained.

As I mentioned previously, make sure your signup forms require an affirmative action and not an opt-out action. So, if you’ve got a sneaky pre-checked box that auto-enrols people, you’re going to want to change that up ASAP because it won’t count in the eyes of CASL.

According to CASL, you can also get written or oral consent and while that is acceptable, it should be noted that these methods are far more difficult to prove. If you plan on using these tactics, make sure you’ve got a workflow that allows for the careful documentation of when, where and how consent was obtained.

Consent Scenario #3: Conspicuous Publication

This is a rather unique scenario that is very different than the two above. You can send someone an email if you obtained their email address and the following three criteria are also met:

(i) The email address is clearly published for viewing.
(ii) In the location where the email address is published, there is no specific statement saying that unsolicited emails are not allowed.
(iii) The email you’d be sending to that address is related to that person’s business or official role. [For example, you can email a university professor about a new book that is related to their field of expertise/interest, but you cannot email that same person trying to sell them concert tickets. It’s a bit tough to exactly draw the line on what is related and what is not, so we might see this further clarified CASL.]

Consent Scenario #4: Shared Email Address with the Sender

This is the “business card” or “networking” rule under CASL that lets you send someone an email if they willingly share their address with you. CASL doesn’t want to render the email address on a business card useless, so if someone shares their card with you and doesn’t say they do not want to be emailed, then you can email them and be in compliance. Be sure to document the how, when and where they shared their email address with you so you’ve got that on file in case you need supporting evidence. However, do keep in mind that if you want to start sending someone your monthly newsletter (and not just emailing them as a follow-up to a networking event) you should obtain consent using another method as well.

What Happens If I Break The Rules?

Shame on you! Now go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done!

But, on top of that shame, penalties for violating CASL can range from a maximum of $1 million for individuals and $10 million for companies.

It should be noted that anyone can bring this new law against a sender, it doesn’t have to just be the government or other legal agency against the sender. Of course, if someone goes down this path and it turns out they were wrong, then they are responsible to cover all court and legal fees.

Also, the reason I have been harping in the sections above about keeping evidence for how you obtained consent is because if you can show that you really made strong efforts to follow every aspects of the rulebook, then that will play a factor in any legal proceedings.

When Does All These New Rules Go Live?

There is still no specific date set so at this point everything is an estimate, although there have already been delays so further delays are not out of the question.

Based on the current flow of events, Industry Canada should have the regulations finalized by the middle of this year (2013). After that, there will be a one year grace period for everyone to digest these new rules and prepare for the coming changes, which will result in CASL going live some time in the middle of 2014.

That being said, there’s no need to wait until the final minutes to start ensuring your compliance with CASL. Although certain parts of the proposed legislation may change, the underlying concepts about the ways you can obtain consent probably won’t change much. So, take a good look at your database now and start to figure out who you may need to re-confirm and what evidence you’ve got to support that consent has been obtained properly (in the eyes of CASL). Review all of your signup and capture forms to make sure that it is an affirmative (and not opt-out) action that enrolls someone on your mailing list. Lastly, doing a periodic top to bottom review of your organization’s email practices can usually either confirm you’ve got your best foot forward and are ready for CASL or highlight areas that you need to improve upon... and there’s no time to take those steps like the present!

* Note: This article is intended to provide general comments about Canada’s new anti-spam legislation. It is not intended to be a comprehensive review nor is it intended to provide legal advice. Readers should not act on information in this article without first seeking advice from their lawyer.

Robert Burko is CEO of Elite Email, a leading email marketing solution and proud member of the Email Experience Council that has been helping businesses of all sizes harness the power of email for 10 years. Robert has been featured extensively in the media for his knowledge of email marketing, social media and digital trends. You can also find him on Google+.  

There is little doubt in my mind that email was the No.1 non-political contributor to Obama’s win in the 2012 US Presidential race.  75% of the $934 million raised by Obama was attributed to digital and nearly all of that $700 million was raised through email¹.  That fact alone is phenomenal.

But it’s not until you start to drill down into the data to find out why Obama’s email campaign was significantly more effective than Romney’s that the exciting insights start to appear.

Marketing pundits from all channels have offered their opinions. Just look at the word cloud based on the top 15 blogs about Obama’s email strategy - targeting, testing, creative, subject lines - everything but the two biggest contributing factors: list size and mailing frequency.

Why have these been missed? Because it is relatively easy to get a sense of a campaign’s creative, subject line strategy, frequency and, to some extent, personalization by simply subscribing to a list. What you can’t find out is how large that list is or how much segmentation is being done. That makes it almost impossible to know how many emails are actually being sent. Enter eDataSource …

Scratching below the surface with eDataSource

So, we recently took out a subscription to eDataSource and let our analytics team loose on their web-based tool that combines active monitoring of over 800,000 consumer inboxes with a library of millions of digital marketing messages from thousands of brands. This impressive breadth and depth of reporting gave us everything we needed to find out what really made Obama’s email strategy so effective.

First up was to prove my prediction back in October that Obama would win because he was sending significantly more email to more people. Using the Federal Election Commission, we were able to attribute all donations over $250 to each campaign for the 79 weeks running up to the election. We then plotted this against the corresponding weekly send volumes taken from eDataSource in graph 1.

 

Graph 1: Donations Received vs Emails Sent

The trend lines tell the story more succinctly than any blog: the more emails each campaign sent, the more donations each campaign received. If the purpose of each campaign was to generate revenue, then it was frequency and list size that had the biggest impact on performance.

What I couldn’t predict was what we found when we dug deeper into the data - the send volumes for each campaign had a striking correlation with the probability of each campaign winning based on the opinion polls …

Obama - the President who ignored open rates

On graph 2 below, we pulled the send volumes and open rates for both campaigns in the two month run-up to the election and compared these to Nate Silver’s Poll aggregator for the 2012 election. His algorithm has correctly predicted the winner of 99 out of 100 states in the last two elections, so it gave us a highly accurate winning probability at each point during the campaign.

Graph 2: Email send volumes vs Probability to Win (Romney volumes scaled up by x15)

As Obama ramps up his send volumes early in the race, his probability of winning increases. Romney also increases his frequency at a similar rate but, because his list size is 15 times smaller, his growth has little effect on the polls. List size matters.

When Obama reduces his send volumes by 38% his probability of winning drops by 42%. By contrast Romney’s campaign grows by 180% and his chances of winning increase by 160%.

In the final push, Romney reduces his send volumes and with it his probability of winning. But his open rates improve by an impressive 14%. Obama takes the opposite approach and aggressively increases his send volumes, which improves his probability of winning.

And Obama’s open rates? They plummet by 14% to a campaign low … and he wins the election.

Obama’s email strategy? Send more, raise more

Had Obama chased open rates would he have lost the election? Well, what we do know is the best way to achieve that goal, as shown by Romney, is to reduce send volumes. Of course, send volumes don’t win elections, donations do. So we set about finding a correlation between send volumes and donations to add weight to our theory.

Graph 3: Open Rates vs Volumes vs Probability to Win

 

Graph 3 plots annual donations against annual send volumes and open rates for the Obama campaign. The correlation between send volume and donations is undeniable – in fact, they are close to an exact match. The general trend is for a steady increase over the year until a drop off at election time.

But more interestingly – and this may surprise some people – the relationship between open rates and donations is an inverse one! Or, to put it another way, the higher the open rate, the lower the number of donations.

Why?

Because, broadly speaking, there is an inverse relationship between send volumes and open rates. The more email you send, the lower your open rate is likely to be. But if doubling your send volume only results in a 15% fall in your open rates, then you will be significantly better off.

So why is revenue so closely linked to send volumes? Because people cannot engage with an email they do not receive. Replace the word ‘email’ with ‘opportunity to donate’, and “an extra email send to 1 million people” becomes, “let’s send another 1 million opportunities to donate”.

While relevance, engagement, creative, subject lines, testing and targeting all played a part in Obama’s success, they pale into insignificance when compared to the impact of reach, frequency and list size. And best of all? With email, you can optimize all of these at near-zero marginal cost.

But does it work in retail? Hell yeah!

Obama’s campaign is one of the few examples of a noted sender admitting that increasing frequency works. The data backs it up, too. But does it work outside of the rarefied world of political fundraising? The answer is “hell yeah!”

With the help of EDS Analyst, you too can find out if you are being out-mailed by your competitors. If the answer is “yes”, then they are probably out-selling you as well – and we shall be digging down into the data for that particular topic in the coming months. Keep your eyes peeled.

If you’d like to know more about how we use EDS Analyst to optimize email strategy, then get in touch.  And if you want to replicate Obama’s success for your own email program, then feel free to use these strategy ideas from this post from our blog: FIVE reasons why open reach will revolutionize your email marketing.

 

Dela Quist

CEO, Alchemy Worx

www.alchemyworx.com

1. Joshua Green, The Science Behind Those Obama Campaign E-Mails, 29 November 2012, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-29/the-science-behind-those-obama-campaign-e-mails

eMarketer’s recently published report, “Email Marketing Benchmarks: Key Data, Trends and Metrics,” concludes that email is still one of the most effective marketing tools, despite all the other channels now competing for the attention of consumers.

The report cites three trends:

1. The increasing use of mobile devices for checking email
2. The use of personalized and triggered emails
3. The use of “Big Data” for creating more targeted email marketing

Most interesting to me were the finding applicable to B2B marketers, particularly in regards to mobile and triggered emails.

In the past, those of us who write about email marketing separated out B2C and B2B issues because they differed. One would typically read an email marketing newsletter or post assuming it addressed B2C only unless stated otherwise. Any advice specific to B2B email marketing would be labeled as such. In our own email marketing blog, we strived to ensure we were offering enough B2B specific content.

These days, many of the challenges apply across the board. This makes sense because businesses are consumers too—real people, whether at home or at work. As consumers’ behaviors and expectations change, so do those of the buyers behind a business. If you’re a consumer who signed up to receive emails from Land’s End because you like their clothing, and you’re also a systems analyst responsible for recommending a new ERP platform for your company, your consumer experiences and preferences would naturally affect your expectations.

Look at the B2B adaption of social media for marketing purposes. If we were so good at keeping our personal/consumer and professional/work mindsets separate, businesses probably wouldn’t have ventured into the social media arena. However, people are people, and as our behaviors and expectations change in one part of our lives (the personal part), that can’t help but affect the other (the professional part).

Having said that, some aspects of B2B email marketing still require a different approach, as this report makes clear, especially in the case of mobile and automated email marketing.

What B2B marketers need to know about mobile email
Obviously, mobile usage continues to grow at a rapid pace. We can see evidence of this everyday both at work and at home, but research also proves it to be true. The eMarketer report states direct digital marketing solutions provider Knotice found in the last quarter of 2010, only 13.36% of communications were opened on mobile devices, but by the second half of 2011 that number had climbed to 27.39%. Now, according to this report, more than one third of emails are opened on a mobile device. According to a BlueHornet study, about two-thirds of US email users had used their mobile device to sort through email before reading it on the desktop.

However, there’s another caveat to this: an open doesn’t guarantee a click, whether it’s an open on a smartphone or a desktop. Although email open rates have gone up, click-through rates (CTRs) have gone down and now average below 5%, according to research from Epsilon and the Email Experience Council (EEC). This decline in open rates might be the result of the increasing the number of emails hitting inboxes. Mobile design has an effect on CTR, too. The BlueHornet study pointed out that 69.7% who received a non-optimized mobile email deleted it.

What B2B marketers need to know about automated email
Despite the overall decline in CTRs, one type of email continues to do well, generating noticeably higher than average click throughs: automated emails (also known as triggered emails). According to the eMarketer report, triggered emails generated a click-through rate of 10.4% (more than twice the average) in the first quarter of 2012. Some businesses have seen conversion rates as high as 50% with these automated messages.

That’s a very compelling argument for making automated emails part of your mix, especially as a B2B marketer today. Research cited in the report indicates the number of B2B emails will increase significantly. “Email research firm The Radicati Group estimates the total number of business emails sent and received daily worldwide will climb from 89 billion in 2012 to 143.8 billion in 2016.”

As a result, B2B marketers will see a lot more competition in the inbox. That’s on top of the competition from other channels—work-related and not. Keep in mind that just because someone is at work or at a desk, that doesn’t mean they aren’t still distracted by attention grabbers like Facebook and Pinterest. And that distraction can happen on any screen too, be it a desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone.

The best email marketing continues to evolve and change, whether we’re entrenched in B2C or B2B or both. Take note of the trends called out in reports such as this one. Be relevant and test religiously, whether your audience is at home or on the job.

Marco Marini, CEO
ClickMail Marketing

 

Thoughts from the first meeting of the Cross-Channel Integration Roundtable
co-chaired by Jeff Chamberlain of Aprimo and David Hibbs of Responsys.

The charter of the Roundtable is to explore cross-channel integration to provide education and/or information that would help eec members and the larger email marketing community in pursuing this goal.  Here are the themes to what we are trying to accomplish:

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.

Our initial group (still welcoming new members) had a discussion on cross-channel integration. I’ll introduce the team through the discussion summary.  eec Vice Chair Stephanie Miller of Aprimo kicked off the call and started us down the road to group discussion.

Challenge #1 – What is Cross-Channel Integration??

Jeff Chamberlain of Aprimo suggested that cross-channel integration spoke to presenting a marketing message via multiple communication channels to address the different needs driven by preference, buying cycle stage, etc.

Sheryl Biesman of Pharmavite pointed out the channel also refers to distribution from a CPG perspective so we need to be clear about integrating communication channels or distribution channels.

Dwight Sholes of Sholes LLC offered the perspective to focus on direct channels (those designed to directly influence action or response such as email marketing or direct mail as opposed to awareness like print ads or signage).  We accepted the fact that there is a large definition of cross-channel integration and that we would narrow down our target as we come up with different projects…which led to some discussion/brainstorming on possible projects we could do to pursue our charge as a group (trumpets blaring charge heard in the distance…). 

Here is a sampling of the ideas discussed:

• 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.

This would force us to think through the aspects of cross-channel marketing and define some logical next steps.  It could be a good way to gather status and thoughts from others.  Let's do it!

And so there you are…our first challenge…define the aspects of a Cross-Channel Maturity Audit.  We’ll dive in at our next meeting in November.

Intrigued and want to join us?  Contact Ali at the eec.


- Jeff Chamberlain, Cross-Channel Integration Roundtable co-chair
VP, B2B Solutions Marketing
Aprimo

Two weeks ago, Ben & Jerry’s announced they were “giving up” on email marketing in favor of social media. Note: Later that day, the @cherrygarcia Twitter account reported that this was a UK-only change.

Update: Our friends over at The eMail Guide took the time to email the PR folks at Ben & Jerry’s. Here’s what their PR Director, Sean Greenwood, had to say – personally, I don’t think it changes the story dramatically.

As you can imagine, the email marketing industry was up in arms. There was a collective “Noooooooooo” followed by “Are they kidding?” The Inbox Insiders – an email marketing list created by Bill McCloskey that boasts some of the sharpest marketers from many of the largest brands in the world as well as a host of vendor side (email service provider) folks – decided to weigh in. Here is what a few of them had to say…

    21st century brands need to ‘behave’, not just tell stories, as behavior is tangible and real, and empowers Consumers to shape their own brand experience. That shaping is what drives advocacy and rampant love of the brand. Ben & Jerry’s clearly has heard what their customers want, and currently do not want, and are behaving accordingly. Sweet, creamy customer-centricity!

Andy Goldman*
SVP, Strategy & Integration
RAPP

————-

    The same discussion now about social vs email took place decades ago regarding radio vs newspapers and TV vs radio. History repeats itself. Of course some social evangelists and fan boys/girls will hoot about this vindicating social as better than any other medium, but comments such this are not motivated by any kind of insight. At this point they are driven by wishful thinking and personal agendas. In other words, this recurring discussion is more political than practical. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter are proprietary platforms controlled entirely by their owners, while email is a standard supported globally and that sets it apart.

Jim Ducharme
Editor
The eMail Guide

————-

    While Ben & Jerry’s UK marketing department is listening to their customers, which is always applauded, this is shortsighted from a business perspective. Email and social media are significantly more powerful when used together versus independently. Further, with email marketing, you own your email list, whereas Facebook and Twitter followers are owned by those respective properties. Rather than replacing email with social media altogether, Ben & Jerry’s should focus on improving the value of their email programs for their subscribers by integrating social elements and exclusive offers (e.g. use a 24 hr. “flash” discount to drive traffic into retail stores or use email to launch a social word of mouth campaign.)

Kristin Hersant*
Director, Corporate Marketing
StrongMail

————-

    Facebook and Twitter may be working well for them now, but will that hold true into next year? The year after? Five years from now? And if they disband their email program now and decide they need it later, how easy will it be to resuscitate those email relationships? I’m not anti-social media. It’s just that I’ve been on panels where the topic is “Email is Dead, Long Live X” where X = RSS/Blogs/MySpace, etc. And none of them have actually, to date, replaced email.

Jeanne S. Jennings
Consultant, Email Marketing Strategy
JeanneJennings.com, Inc.

————-

    The “inbox” – defined as a destination for content from both people we know and brands we like – has fragmented.  It’s online, on my device, in Facebook and Twitter and at a business address.  Great email marketing has always been about great content, and that is more true today as email marketers compete for budgets and customer attention with social, mobile and even offline marketing.  Why keep your investment in email?  Frankly, the question must be, How can we best utilize email to connect with customers and prospects in ways that help achieve our business KPIs?

    If you can’t come up with a strong strategy to answer, then you are either missing a big opportunity or won’t find ROI in the channel.

Stephanie Miller*
VP, Global Market Development
Return Path

————-

    Ben & Jerry’s made a bold move and now they are getting the media benefit of that decision. In the short run, I think they will benefit from this move. However, in the long run, they have made a decision that abandons a lot of paying customers that may have wanted to hear from them, but don’t actively engage in social media. In our research on how consumers engage brands through Email, Facebook and Twitter we see consumers layering these activities to get closer to brands. Consumers don’t operate in silos and marketers shouldn’t either.

Morgan Stewart*
Director, Research and Strategy
ExactTarget

————-

    Part of me has to think (hope?) that Ben & Jerry’s UK has run the numbers and determined that forgoing email marketing in favor of social media is the best option for them. I don’t understand why they’d abandon email marketing altogether. Why not give their subscribers a choice?

DJ Waldow*
Director of Community
Blue Sky Factory

————-

    Such a shame that brands can’t think “one to one” in the digital age and have to kiss goodbye to a fantastic relationship-building channel.  The skills needed to make a success of social media are not that different to email marketing, so I fear that B&J may be running away from email to an equally unforgiving world of Facebook and Twitter.  Lucky for them that the ice cream’s so good.

David Hughes
Founder
The Email Academy, Ltd

————-

    Most CPG brands struggle to create robust CRM programs with very tiny budgets. It sounds as though B&Js has simply made a budget-related decision to move to the least expensive channel available so they can reach out more often to their customers.  Email will still have a place in their communications arsenal despite the announcement – after all, how do all their Facebook fans know when they have a message from B&Js? Email. Of course, it’s an email that doesn’t cost B&Js anything to send – though it goes to a much smaller audience than they could likely send to directly.

Gretchen Scheiman
Partner, Associate Director, CRM
OgilvyOne worldwide

————-

    I applaud Ben & Jerry’s for getting customer feedback before making a very strategic decision. However, I think the mistake is that they abanonded email rather than letting customers choose their preferred communication channel. After all, this is a company that offers 108 flavors. Since many customers prefer chocolate to vanilla, are they going to eliminate vanilla now too?

Simms Jenkins
CEO
BrightWave Marketing & EmailStatCenter.com

————-

    Email is a core driver of many successful social marketing programs.  I’m just not sure if anyone has articulated this to Ben & Jerry’s or showed them an effective way to integrate email & social into an effective program.

Chris Baggott*
CEO/Co-founder
Compendium

————-

    Their decision certainly seems shortsighted. Are they completely overlooking email as a coupon distribution channel? If their subscribers were getting high-value coupons exclusive to being on the list, maybe they’d have liked the program more.  Although B&J doesn’t have quite the same distribution model as ColdStone Creamery, they could take a few lessons from their competitors in the retail ice cream space (I’m thinking of Rita’s Ice too).

Karen Talavera*
Email & Digital Marketing Coaching, Training & Strategy
Synchronicity Marketing

————-

    Each year Ben & Jerry’s kills 8 to 12 ice cream flavors. In 2010, at least in the UK, it looks like Email Marketing has gone to the ice cream Flavour Graveyard just like Peanut Butter & Jelly did more than a decade ago. But Ben & Jerry’s decision in the UK to pull back on Email Marketing and focus on new marketing flavors like Social Media speaks to their unique customers and marketing approach, not to any decline in email marketing’s popularity and effectiveness. After all, while Cherry Garcia is Ben & Jerry’s top seller, vanilla is still the most popular ice cream flavor in the world.

Loren McDonald*
VP, Industry Relations
Silverpop

————-

    Totally abandoning email in favor of social is short sighted and antithetical to Ben & Jerry’s efforts, since email marketing can be and is one of the most powerful drivers of social media participation. A survey conducted by Harris Interactive last year found that 96% of Americans were willing to provide companies with their email addresses in order to receive offers and discounts, compared to just 12% that were willing to provide their social media “digits” to do the same (e.g., their Facebook handle). Smart marketers are using email as the gateway to social — acquiring customers’ email addresses first, and then directing them down the funnel towards social media channels.

Jordan Cohen
VP, Business Development
Pontiflex

————-

Where do you stand? What is your take. Good (strategic) decision by Ben & Jerry’s or just plain madness?


- DJ Waldow
Director of Community
Blue Sky Factory

Read the original post.


*eec Member

This special edition blog post is by eec Consumer Education Roundtable member Mindy Dolan, Director of Marketing for TailoredMail.

It's probably fair to say that most of us who are members of the DMA's Email Experience Council are passionate about email marketing in some sense or another. Sometimes we're so passionate about it that we assume everyone else in the world knows what we're talking about when we say the words "email client", "spam" or "phishing". But what if you asked your parents, grandparents or friend what those words meant? What do you think they'd say?

The eec Consumer Education Roundtable wanted to know just that in order to make sure we were speaking the right language when developing a new website to help consumers become more aware of email's do's and don'ts.

Working with Roundtable chairs Jason Baer of Convince & Convert and DJ Waldow of Blue Sky Factory, Roundtable member Stephanie Miller of Return Path put together a quick survey asking questions about email clients, spam and phishing. Roundtable members sent it to friends, family and Facebook/Twitter followers specifically looking for people OUTSIDE the email industry. More than 65 people took the survey.

What we found is that in general, people are catching on to email and the lingo used. They knew the harder terms like phishing, but no surprise, they don't think like marketers! When we asked the question, "What name or phrase do you use to describe the type of company that provides you an email address? Note that we aren't looking for the name of the company like Yahoo! or Cox, but the "category or type" of company that this represents." we got a mixed response. Most people outside of the email industry really don't know the definition of an email service provider or an email client. They just think of the company that provides them with an email address as Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, etc. There were some in the bunch who recognized it as an email service provider, but this helped us realize that when we are referring to an "email client" or an "email service provider", we need to be very clear and give examples of what we're talking about (i.e. Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo!, etc).

And when asked how they defined spam, a whopping 76% of the participants responded saying, "Any email I didn't ask for, even if it's from a brand I know." So what do you think they do with that email once they see it in their inbox? Participants could choose multiple answers, and 71% of the participants said they'd delete an email they don't want, 39.3% said they'd mark it as spam or junk, and another 39.3% said they'd unsubscribe.

So what does this tell us? Our perception of what consumers know and don't know about email helps prove the need for an educational website that's written by email experts, but speaks to consumers in their language. Good thing we are building one!

How do we get this message out to consumers once the website is live? That's where our eec followers like you come in. We're looking for you to help us spread the message. Once the website is ready, we'll send you a link to the site, and ask you to add this to your email marketing messages, websites, and anywhere else you think consumers would be able to find it. In the meantime, if you would like to help us build the site, we can still use writers, editors and user experience support.

Help us get the word out and educate consumers about email! Contact Ali to join this Roundtable.

Though growing your email database takes time and effort, when done correctly, it will house your most qualified and responsive leads. A well structured email database will enable you to boost sales with more targeted messages and offers, extend the lifecycle of any campaign and increase customer retention with regular and relevant communications.

Consider the following techniques to acquire new leads and grow your email list with success:

1. Who is your ideal lead and how do you reach them? Create a profile for your best customer(s). This should include things such as age, gender, hobbies, job function, how they shop (online or at stores), where they shop, what they read, what websites they visit, etc. Depending on the product or service you are marketing, some of the above will be more relevant than others. For example, if you are marketing a clothing line, job function will be less relevant than where and how they shop, where as if you are marketing a trade publication, job function and industry will be extremely important.

2. Analyze your competition. Take some time to find out what your competitors are doing to build their email lists. Start off by going to their websites. Then do a web search on your competition as well as relevant key words, and take note of any banners / CPC ads that appear. Be sure to click through to check out what their landing pages look like and what type of information they are choosing to capture. If they have an e-newsletter, sign up for it. This is an easy way to start receiving their email campaigns. All of these steps will help you find out what type of promotions they are running, any marketing alliances they have formed, and how they are positioning their product or service.

3. Reach your best customer. Once you've created your customer profile(s) and finished your competitive analysis, you are ready to develop your list growth strategy. Your strategy can include initiatives such as: banner ads on websites that your target audience visits, a PPC campaign, direct mail or email campaigns to magazine subscriber opt-in lists, etc. You can also approach other products or service providers for co-promotions or mutually beneficial partnerships. Starting an e-newsletter or a blog for your company are great ways to grow your list as long as your content is desirable. The lifecycle of any campaign can be extended with behavior-based trigger emails.

4. Your offer is everything! Unless your offer is relevant to the recipient, they will not respond to your campaign. Your offer will need to prompt the recipient to make a purchase or willingly give you their information in exchange for something they want. For instance, you might send an email introducing your company to a magazine subscriber opt-in list that you know your target audience reads. By including a free downloadable premium such as an industry salary guide, a list of the hottest bars in town, or a best practices whitepaper – what ever might be most relevant to your target audience – recipients will need to provide their email address and demographic information in order to download the premium. Once you've captured their information and they've opted-in to your database, you will be able to communicate with that lead on an ongoing basis.

5. Your offer is almost everything! Unless the recipients receive your email, they cannot receive your offer. Therefore, be sure to comply with email marketing best practices: include a physical mailing address, an opt-out link and a subject line that reflects the content in your email. Also, when writing your email, try to stay away from words that are flagged by spam filters.

6. Create a landing page. It is extremely important to guide the campaign recipient through the entire process. By creating a landing page on your website that mirrors your campaign's message / offer, you will encourage the recipient to fill out the form with the ultimate goal of opting-in to your list.

7. Use a lead capture form. Your landing page can either link to a lead capture form or you can embed the form in the landing page itself.
a. Since people are more prone to filling out a short form than a long and drawn out questionnaire, limit the amount of information you are asking them to provide in exchange for their premium. Besides the basic name and email address, think of including one or two other demographic questions. These questions should be well thought out to provide you with information you can leverage for future email campaigns.
b. In addition to the demographic questions, your form should include a check box giving people the option to opt-in to your mailing list and receive information about your company and future promotions. According to the CAN-SPAM Act, if people do not explicitly say that they would like to receive emails from you in the future, it is unlawful to send them commercial marketing emails.
c. If you do not currently have a way to capture leads, an easy way to do this is through your email service provider. Most ESPs will provide you with both the lead capture form and a database to house the acquired leads. They will also manage your opt-outs for you.

8. Track your efforts. If you track your list building efforts, you will be able to pinpoint which initiatives are working the best and focus more of your energy on those. You might decide that others aren't worth your time. Easy ways to track your initiatives are:
a. Web Analytics: sign up for a free Google Analytics account. This will enable you to track how many people are visiting each page on your site and which campaign they are coming from.
b. In your lead capture form, include one question asking people how they heard about you with a drop down menu where customers can select from a list of your current list building initiatives.
c. Landing Pages: create a separate landing page for each marketing initiative so you can track page visits to these dedicated pages through your web analytics account.
d. Dedicated 800 numbers: there are services that will provide you with a range of 800 numbers that redirect to your main phone number. Including a dedicated 800 number on each landing page will enable you to associate each call with a specific campaign.

Remember, even if you are accurately targeting your best customer, your campaign will only be a success if you get them to act on your offer and opt-in to your database. Be sure to spend enough time tailoring your message and the offer to the people who will be receiving your campaign.

- Yael K. Penn, Founder and Principal, Imagine 360 Marketing

EROI has built a mobile RSS reader that's preloaded with feeds from all the best email marketing blogs, including this one—and they're giving it away to all comers. Learn more about the app and request the download link here.

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

Before DMA07, we solicited questions from our members and subscribers, promising to post them in our booth at the show and recruit email experts in attendance to answer those questions. We got some great questions and tons of great answers:

1. How important is it for email creative to match the same look and feel as the order page/landing page?

Marc Pitre, Wampower.com: It's critical to keep the branding consistent between emails and landing pages. Both the creative and the message itself must be consistent to be impactful to the end viewer. It's too easy to dilute your message, so keep it consistent.

Andrew Osterday, Premiere Global Services: Landing pages are often ignored or an afterthought, but can have a strong impact on conversion. The flow from email to landing page should be seamless in both messaging and look and feel. Consider custom landing pages rather than linking to the site.

Stephanie Miller, Return Path: Very. Especially in promotional messages and prospecting. Be sure that the offer in the email is front and center—don't make me scroll. Using a custom landing page can improve conversion rates up to 50%. Definitely worth the investment in optimizing landing pages—they are the fulfillment of the promise created in your email message and it should be a seamless experience.

Michael Fishers, Alterian: It is very important—lack of matching in look and feel produces confusion, feels uncoordinated and impacts response accordingly.

Joel Book, ExactTarget: Providing creative continuity between the email and the associated landing page is vital for driving response and conversion. According to Forrester Research, "92% of business decision-makers go online to research products and services before buying offline." By using email to deliver relevant offers to customers, marketers are accelerating the buying process. The key is to make it easy for the customer to buy—having consistent look and feel for email and landing page achieves this objective.

2. Do the same elements found in traditional printed letters (salutation, closing, signature, p.s.) work for emails?

Melinda Krueger, Krueger Direct: Yes, to the extent that they reflect a personal, one-to-one approach to communication. Corporate "billboards" are easy to ignore; personal correspondence is not. Consider the "voice" and use the personal pronoun!

Elie Ashery, Gold Lasso: Yes, depending on personalized and relevant the message is. Personalization doesn't necessarily mean name, but rather actual content.

3. What do you consider best practice when it comes to accessing and changing email preferences? On one hand, it has to be easy for subscribers to go and edit their subscriptions. On the other hand, no one else than the subscriber should have access to change the subscriber's information. Do you recommend a login, a verification email with required action before changes take effect, a notification email notifying the subscriber that changes have been made, etc…?

Loren McDonald, J.L. Halsey: The simplest means is to include a link in the subscriber's email so that only they can click through to the preference center/update profile page. For sites that link registration (e.g., an ecommerce site), you can link the two processes. A notification email that confirms the changes is always a good idea.

Jeanniey Mullen, Email Experience Council and OgilvyOne: The preference center is a critical element of a successful email program. It can increase the life and engagement of your consumer. Keeping access to preference centers secure is critical but so is keeping access simple. Most companies offer encoded links to preference centers that allow you to bypass the logon elements. If you are using a secure center, password retrieval features are key.

Joel Book, ExactTarget: The key to using a preference center to gather customer needs and interests is to ask for only that data which is needed to deliver relevant and timely information through email. It is critical that you explain why you are asking for this information, how it will be used, and how the customer can update his/her profile. Remember, you are building trust.

Melinda Krueger, Krueger Direct: Consider a 1-2 punch. First capture the impulse to subscribe, then, as an optional second step, ask for more information. Consider offering an incentive (tied closely to your email value proposition) and explain that you are asking to avoid sending irrelevant emails.

4. Is there a proven happy medium between images and text in an email? Do too many or not enough images reduce response?

Elie Ashery, Gold Lasso: Email marketers today need to design their emails with the assumption that their recipients' have their email clients set with the images turned off. This means that the recipients should be understand the gist of the message without its images. Images should be used to enhance text, not replace it.

Chad White, Email Experience Council: The "happy medium" is per industry and depends on both your content and the reader in which the person will be viewing the email. For example, a B2B email that's likely to be read on a Blackberry should be all or mostly text. But retail emails where product images are so vital should be mostly HTML.

5. How can you tell if an email is being read in a preview pane only then deleted?

David Daniels, JupiterResearch: If someone clicks in a preview pane, can you hear them? It is all about behavior. If there are no clicks, there's no engagement, so attempt tactics for reactivation (survey, sweepstakes, etc.). The only real way to determine if an email has been read is by clicks.

Stephanie Miller, Return Path: Great question! Technically, there is probably not a way to get 100% pure data unless you put a "pixel" that is triggered by the scroll. However, you could track performance by proxy in one of two ways: (1) by putting a "morse type" link at the top (visible even when images are suppressed) that promotes the offer and "opens" the email, or (2) by analyzing clicks on text links below the fold which are not visible when images are suppressed. Frankly, I'm not sure why this measure is valuable if your preview pane is optimized, it will drive engagement, not a deletion.

Loren McDonald, J.L. Halsey: Open rates are tacked via a tracking 1-pixel image. So if images are enabled and a reader "views" the email (whether it is opened or not) it will count as an open. If images are blocked and the email is viewed in the preview pane (or fully opened), it will not count as an open. As a result, click-through rates are a much better gauge of email activity.

6. Can a newsletter sell or is it better for branding?

Jordan Ayan, SubscriberMail: Email marketing is about building relationships. If you approach it as a sales medium, you are looking at it from the wrong perspective. Can you sell with email? Absolutely, but for long-term success, you have to focus on delivering relevant content that highlights your brand and keeps recipients wanting more. Then they will give you permission to sell them electronically.

Kara Trivunovic, Premiere Global Services: A newsletter can sell if it is done right. The newsletter should be editorial in nature, with a majority of the content being relevant, value-add information. If sales copy is going to be included, it should be done as a soft sell, wrapped in editorial when possible.

Stephanie Miller, Return Path: Yes! Optimize to do both: (1) Educate customers about the full benefits of the products. (2) Engage subscribers to interact with your company, website, sales team, blog etc. (3) Lead prospects down the sales cycle by educating and asking questions.

7. Is it practical/realistic to budget for file growth from viral marketing? Can we count this as a tactic, or is it just "either."

Michael Salin, M.J. Salin & Associates: Yes! Emerging marketing genre are heavily based in viral practices…word of mouth, social networking. You should test and quantify viral programs – consumer talking to a consumer is the highest/strongest marketing communiqué. Quantify the send and free creative is a way to promote the idea.

Chad White, Email Experience Council: You can definitely budget for viral growth. In general, you can expect pass-along rates of 1%-2%, but it depends on the prominence of your send-to-a-friend links and how often you encourage readers to forward your emails. For instance, some retailers have "friends and family" event emails where part of the messaging encourages recipients to forward the discount offer to others. Doing emails like that will boost your pass-along rate.

8. If no legitimate ESP will allow the use of purchased lists in their system, how do data brokers and email appenders who focus on this market stay in business?

Craig Swerdloff, Postmaster Direct: Our experience has been that top-tier ESPs will send for lists that offer list rental, assuming certain requirements are met. They include explicit permission from recipients, proper list hygiene, good reputation scores, and compliant/unknown user rates within allowable thresholds.

Stephanie Miller, Return Path: The owner of the data sends the message on your behalf—so the initial mailing is from the data source inviting the subscriber to opt-in for email from you. Many marketers who send mail in-house, use internal append very successfully. There are best practices to ensuring your sender reputation is protected.

Loren McDonald, J.L. Halsey: List brokers manage the email databases for companies whose list members have agreed to receive third-party offers. The emails are sent "from" the list owner to the list member. Once the subscriber opts in to specific a marketer's program, they have given permission to the marketer. At that point, ESPs will allow the company to send to the subscriber.

9. What is the single most popular offer that drives people to register and share their information? We are desperately trying to collect emails from our customers and it's been very challenging.

Stephanie Miller, Return Path: As is true in all direct marketing, offer something perceived value for free. But the question should really be around how you can construct a powerful email experience that will entice and engage your prospects. While many will sign up for something that is free, your response and ROI will only come when the email program itself has consistent value.

10. What is the right frequency for retail email programs? It seems like many retailers are at 2x+ per week. Does not mailing at that frequency hurt my chances?

Austin Bliss, FreshAddress: Unfortunately, there is no "right" frequency. You should send on a schedule that provides value to your recipients—e.g. if you have daily sales, you can send daily. But if you have nothing to say 2 times a week, you shouldn't mail at that rate because you will have incurred complaints/unsubscribes.

Chad White, Email Experience Council: There are lots of factors to consider here, including the frequency at which your products tend to be purchased, the content of your email (both promotional and service-oriented content), the length of your email, etc. For example, Blue Nile emails once a month, recognizing that jewelry is not a frequent purchase. Home Depot, on the other hand, sends once a week, targeting subscribers' weekend projects. And then there's Neiman Marcus, which emails 7+ times a week, engaging its fashion hungry subscribers with info on new products, store events, discounts and video and article content.

11. If you send five or more emails to the same recipient and they aren't opened, does your domain/IP get reclassified as spam by the ISP? This obviously isn't standard across all ISP's. If this is in practice by some, which ones are they?

Stephanie Miller, Return Path: List quality is definitely a factor in sender reputation. Having a large number of non-responders on your file could reduce your "score" among ISPs/receivers. ISPs generally don't publish the "rules" that they use, as publishing them would expose them to abuse by spammers.

HAVE SOME INSIGHT TO ADD? Please comment below, just be sure to include the number of the question that you're answering.

News last week that the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary's latest edition dropped hyphens from about 1,600 words provides further proof that the time has come for marketers, publishers and dictionaries to drop the hyphen from the word email.

Show your commitment to adopting the 21st century spelling of the word email by signing our 'Hyphens Equal Disrespect' petition. So far, more than 160 people, representing companies both large and small, have signed the petition, signaling that they would spell the word sans hyphen in their emails, press releases, whitepapers and other publications. If you'd like to add your name to the list of supporters, just click here, let us know your name and the company you represent, and we'll add your name (but not your email address) to the petition. As the number of signees grows, the EEC will use this list to convince publishers to change their spelling of the word.

Reacting to the news from the Shorter OED, Rob over at the Serial Comma blog has a great examination of the email vs. e-mail debate. He also quotes Angus Stevenson, editor of the Shorter OED, as commenting to the BBC that e-mail—with the hyphen—is 'starting to look like something your grandmother might write.'

We couldn't agree more. Spelling email with a hyphen is antiquated and adds extra length to the word without adding clarity. As we pointed out in our May 8 'Hyphens Equal Disrespect' Petition Update, the majority of references to email on the web are spelled without a hyphen, proving that people aren't confused by the word sans hyphen.

Help us honor email's evolution into a ubiquitous and rich form of communication and sever its connection to its less evolved text-only ancestors by dropping the hyphen. Sign the petition today!

—Chad White

Both SubscriberMail and Blue Sky Factory recently released lists of words that shouldn't be used in emails because they're likely to trigger spam filters. But I see some of these words—like "free" and "discount"—used routinely in the subject lines of commercial email that I receive. If I have a good reputation do I need to worry about content filters? Am I staying away from these words unnecessarily? —S.G.

The Voices of Email had this advice:

J.F. Sullivan: The answer should be no. If you have a good reputation then you do not need to worry about content filters. The actual answer is another question, as in it depends on two things: What's your definition of a good reputation, and which content filter are we talking about?

Everyone in the email marketing (and message security) ecosystem has a different view of what a good reputation actually means. For some it's as simple as making sure they are not on a blocklist; for others it may be that they are in compliance with a specific Sender Authentication implementation. In order to answer "yes" to the question, it may be more useful to provide a checklist summary of what a good reputation constitutes. So, if you can say "yes" to the following reputation aspects:

1. You have a good public reputation (not on blocklists, or have upset any ISPs).
2. You have good legislative adherence (e.g., CAN-SPAM compliance).
3. You have good infrastructure (e.g., DNS, MX records and the like).
4. You have good identity (e.g., you have a correctly configured SenderID record).
5. You have best practices (e.g., list scrubbing, opt-in, etc.).

…then yes, you do have a good reputation so you will not need to worry too much about content filters. And while your good reputation will work, say, 80% of the time, your actual delivery will still depend on the content filter you encounter to some degree. A subject of much longer blog entry for another day…

Rob Fitzgerald: You always need to be aware that filtering exists, but I don't think you need to be ruled by that existence either. It's interesting to lay out all the various releases, of all the various words that shouldn't be used within in an email, and see how incredibly long that list is. Sometimes it makes me wonder how you can actually put a string of sentences together without actually using any of them. Practically speaking, you have to use some words that may be "known" filter words. I don't think that should give you pause to run the campaign for fear of a lack of response. We've sent out many campaigns with the word "Free" on them that have performed very well.

I tend to look at it this way—it's all about moderation. Put together a creative with a lot of words that trigger filtering and it could be adversely affected. Give that same creative a diet, and keep some of those same words included, but not all of them, and I think you'll be OK.

Stephanie Miller: Despite the frequency that I receive this question, there is still no magical list of words to avoid, nor is the use of marketing terms like "free," "discount," "special offer" and "click here" an automatic block. Don't misunderstand. Those words can get you blocked. However, judicious, responsible and clear use of them usually won't.

Why? Because spam filters dynamically update to reflect current market conditions and spammer behavior. The only way to ensure your content does not depress inbox deliverability is to run every email through a series of popular message filters to determine your spam score before sending to your entire mailing list. You can do this through a service or on your own by setting up multiple accounts at different ISPs.

Here's how to optimize your message for response and deliverability: Write the copy as a marketer. Sell. Build the relationship. Clarify the offer. Make the call to action very clear. Then, test it. If you fail the spam filters, adjust it. Before you hit send, even if you pass the filter test, be sure to give your message AND subject line a "smell test." If your readers or subscribers will think it's spammy, so will the receivers. If you are using all capped, repetitive words that filters watch like "FREE SHIPPING THAT'S FREE" or using strange punctuation like ***NOW ON SALE***, then you are likely to be blocked.

Chad White: Inspired by this question, I did a little real world research and found that major online retailers have used many of the "dirty" words on SubscriberMail's list of words to avoid using in subject lines. How many have they used? They've used 27 of the 100 in the past two months alone. Some of the words—like "Free," "FREE," "Offer" and "Buy"—they used a LOT. So it's clearly possible to use these no-no words in subject lines under the right conditions. Based on that I'd say that you should explore using them but test to make sure your emails are getting through.

Have some good advice that we missed? Please add a comment and take part in the conversation.

Have a question for the Voices of Email? Email Chad your question at chad@emailexperience.org and we'll REPLY TO ALL by posting the answers so everyone can benefit.

–>Read other Reply to All posts