It is important to build towards mutual results, so we need common, standardized metrics. In my earlier post called “Email marketing, are we even talking the same language” I talked about multidisciplinary teams and benchmarking, but what other reasons are there that make an initiative like SAME a necessity?

The need for a common statistics is nothing new.

To illustrate this and keep things light, some biblical references. Do you know the stroy of Babel? According to this history, and long before there was google translate, people used to talk the same language all over the world. It was great. While having this common language (but not yet insight, regrettably), they were able to build a tower that reached to the heavens. What to do to stop them?

The only way to stop them from doing amazing things WAS to rob them of their common language, therefore being divided because they couldn’t understand each other anymore.

The word Babel actually means “confused”, one of the first online translators was called babelfish. (and yes there was even an oscar winning movie with Brad Pitt in 2006 called Babel). There are some lessons to be learned here, one of which is that once you have a common language you are able to achieve more, without it can become a confused chaos.

Using multiple ESPs

Maybe we don’t realize but there are plenty of marketers who work with multiple e-mail, CRM, lead gen, CMS and other marketing automation systems at the same time. Singling out ESPs this might already be more than one. Sometimes 5, 6 or even more email marketing systems are used on agency side and multiple on client side. Can you imagine! We see what the problem is there.

A common language is needed in and metrics and reporting is the place to start with. But even if you aren’t using multiple ESPs at the same time, there are still needs for common language in regards to the long term. One of them being customer insights and migration.

Common language in ESP migration

One third of ESP clients migrate from one system to another per year. And how can we compare with the old metrics if we don’t have the same (standardized) reports. Although ESP migration doesn’t always have to be a big headache, it often is a hefty undertaking.

Migration is very hefty, especially when you are seriously sending email and it is not the kind of thing you wake up wanting to do. Only to see the deliverability part done in email service migration right takes 7 or more steps.

Behavioral data doesn't have to get lost

You don’t want to destroy or leave behind the behavioral data and aggregated insights you have been building over the last period, just because of incompatible statistics. This is where the use of standardized metrics comes into the picture again, making sure your reference reports from previous year(s) keep their value.

When it concerns using multiple marketing automation systems, either at the same time or sequentially, standards can make the marketers’ life all that easier.

By Jordie van Rijn, an independent email marketing consultant, specializing in smart email marketing, event-driven campaigns and is the founder of emailvendorselection.com a platform for selecting the best email tools.
 

If your direct email marketing program is intended to drive traffic to a landing page or website, chances are you have abandonment issues. Not because you’re doing anything inherently wrong, mind you. It’s just the nature of the online world. Some people will show up at your website and simply not buy. Even the best email marketing will have people abandon their shopping after following through on a call to action. In fact, 88% of online shoppers abandon, according to a 2009 Forrester Research estimate.

It might be the prospect lands at a page then clicks away without buying (called up funnel abandonment) or it might be the prospect goes as far as starting to buy from you--or register with you--then clicks away (called down funnel abandonment).

Either way, they’re clicking away. And every click on the Back button is a lost revenue opportunity for you.

Is that it? Are you done? Must you stand idly by and let them go? Not if you use a strategic email abandonment campaign to re-engage those who clicked away.

At ClickMail Marketing, we’ve been partnering with Smarter Remarketer, helping clients use re-engagement campaigns that kick in when a prospect abandons a landing page or website. During that time, we’ve realized there are two vital reasons for implementing an abandonment campaign: relevance and ROI.

1. Relevance: Emails that follow up on a specific prospect action, such as clicking through to a landing page or adding an item to a shopping cart, are by default highly relevant to that prospect. We can’t know the reason for not following through and purchasing. For all we know, the cart was abandoned because company showed up unexpectedly or the boss called the prospect into her office. It might not be a decision not to buy. It might be real life got in the way. So imagine the relevancy of an email sent to a prospect who was that close to purchasing? The email could remind them of the selected items or even offer a discount if purchase is made within a certain time.
2. Return on Investment: The same logic we apply to factoring the real cost of email deliverability issues applies when computing the real cost of losing a customer because they’ve abandoned your website. Simply look at your abandonment rate and multiply that by your average sales amount to get an idea of the money you’ve left on the table. Chances are, you’ll see a potential ROI that makes the time and cost of implementing an abandonment campaign make both dollars and sense.

In addition to the immediate benefits of higher ROI, consider the longer term benefits of brand and customer relations, plus having a bona fide reason to send that prospect an email. And not just any email, but a very targeted and relevant email, one very likely to get opened, which in turn will help your email deliverability by showing the ISP a high level of engagement.

Getting started
Due to the importance of adding a re-engagement element to your email marketing program, you want to be sure you’re using the best email service provider you can, one that maximizes deliverability and helps automate or simplify abandonment and other triggered emails. Make sure your current vendor (or any ESP you are considering) has a proven record of actual, real life successes too. Ask about measuring and tracking results, and how the vendor will be held accountable for helping you to implement such a campaign. You can learn more about abandonment emails and get advice on choosing a vendor here.

There’s more to reaching out to abandoners than a simple, “Hey, what happened?” email. Adding an abandonment and reengagement email program into your mix makes sense, not only because abandonment emails are perfectly relevant, but because they make an essential tool for ROI, thanks to their ability to reclaim what would have been a lost sale.

Marco Marini, CEO
ClickMail Marketing

• Scope:  CASL covers not just anti-spam, but also anti-malware, anti-hacking, and through related amendments to other legislation, control of content and misleading information, as well as privacy of personally identifiable information (PII) (harvesting, dictionary attacks).
• Application/Jurisdiction:  CASL covers any message sent from or accessed by a computer in Canada (regardless of where the sender is located).  We are talking about all electronic messaging – email, instant messaging, SMS, social – plus anything new that comes along.  (Fax and voice are covered by Canadian do no call regulations.)
  1. Note that there is no minimum number of messages. So sending one message is enough to put you under jurisdiction of the law.
• Coverage:  CASL applies to commercial activity, defined pretty broadly.  For example, Brown said in the webinar, if you are promoting a person who normally promotes a product or service or business opportunity -  even if you are not specifically promoting that product, service or business opportunity in the message -  then your message is covered.  
  1. Note also that any message sent to seek consent is considered commercial – so you can’t send a request for consent. There are no exceptions for research studies, for example. “This will have to play out in the courts in deciding what is ‘commercial,’” Brown said.  “I would not be surprised if this was challenged.” As the law is enforced, Brown says, we will have more guidance on what is considered “commercial” under the Act.

1. Prior consent – defined as either express or implied.  Both are acceptable for all situations and of equal value.  (Implied does expire, though.)
   
   a.    Express: Must include clear notice and the provision of a set of prescribed info from subscribers when providing consent.   The owner or any authorized user of the email address must give the consent.
   b.    Implied:  The Act deems implied consent when there is an existing business relationship (e.g.: a customer who has purchased in the past two years, or if there is a contract or a subscription which has been active in the past two years.)
   c.    Once consent is implied (e.g.: a purchase), you generally have two years to send messages in compliance (or obtain an express opt in).  An express consent never expires, and is valid until the individual withdrawals consent.
2. Information
   
   a.    Must include contact information for the sender and the subscriber.  It is not clear in the law what this must include.
   b.    Regulations are expected to define this further.
3. Unsubscribe
   
   a.    An unsubscribe opportunity must be provided in all messaging and be available for  60 days post delivery.
   b.    Unsubscribe requests must have no cost, and use the same means by which the message was sent (unless impractical), either via replyto: or a link.
   c.    Must be processed “without delay” (and within 10 days) with no messages sent after the request.  This aspect may also be defined further with regulation.  “Senders must be able to demonstrate that you put forth a best effort to act on unsubscribe requests quickly, with the intent to stop messages,” Brown advises.

1. Check your lists. Do you have consent – and evidence of consent?  The burden is on the sender to prove consent.
2. Check location of subscribers where possible.  The law doesn’t care what the domain of the address is, or if the sender has a clue where the recipient is.  If the message is received on a computer in Canada then it applies.  If a sender does make an attempt to gather this data, This may be a factor in exercising the due diligence defense, where no one can be charged if they have shown due diligence to comply.  “Be sure you have a business objective in NOT complying with the Canadian legislation,” Brown says.  Note that reconfirmation of some permission grants may be necessary.
3. Watch for regulations re: content of messages. The regulations will clarify the information required when obtaining consent as well as when sending a message.

• Liability of service providers.  Telecom/ISPs are generally going to be exempt from liability under the anti-spam provisions where they merely provide the telecommunications service allowing the message to be delivered. However, it’s not clear if this applies to email delivery service providers.  “If you are merely providing a ‘do it yourself’ service and the customer manages the list and the unsubscribe, then it may be that the delivery provider is covered under the Telco exemption,” Brown says.  “This may be different if you offer a full service offering.”
• Ownership of the message, for example, placing ads in an editorial newsletter or providing the name of the email delivery vendor in the message itself is not directly addressed in the law.  “In my view it doesn’t make sense from any perspective to say that the ESP is sending on your behalf, for example identifying the ESP in the message,” Brown says.  There were a number of comments on this as the regulations were reviewed this past summer, and Brown hopes that some clarity will be offered in future revisions.
  1. This brings out the question of where an agency or service provider is vulnerable by trusting their client.  If the agency or ESP sends unsubscribe data to the sender, is the agency responsible if the client doesn’t take action?  “The law is broad, so if you are aiding or causing company to avoid compliance, then you are potentially responsible.  The way to manage risks like this is to inform your customers of their obligations, make sure you have the appropriate language in your agreements, and ensure the relationship agreements are clear who is taking responsibility for managing unsubscribes requests,” Brown advises.
• Transactional messages.  The legislation does not refer to “transactional” messages.   The law does cover some types of messages that could be considered transactional (e.g.: service notices or warranty information).    The law states that these types of messages require an opt out.  “This somewhat confuses the issue, by listing out messages that, in many cases, are likely not commercial electronic messages and therefore not covered by the Act to begin with,” Brown explained.
•   Point of Sale.  What if you ask verbally for consent at the POS?  Brown says that the original draft regulations from the summer declare that consent must besought in writing only.    However, this may be removed based on the amount of comments against it. “I would like to think that if you are entering this into a system form, and there is a date stamp, that this would meet the evidentiary burden under CASL,” he says.
  
  1. There is no legal requirement to send a follow up message, but “It’s always good idea to remind people of their subscription and why they have provided consent.  It’s more of a relationship issue than a compliance issue,” Brown says.
•  Is list rental dead?   A properly compiled permission based list is quite valuable, and the law does not forbid the rental of them.  “It’s not dead, but CASL places a higher onus on list owners and senders to make sure it’s done properly,” Brown says.
  1. The act of appending is not covered under CASL. It is likely covered under privacy laws, particularly if you are making changes to PII footprint without consent.  There may be some situations where appending data is allowed under CASL.   If you have a business relationship – e.g. purchases in the past year – then this append may be in compliance with the CASL legislation.
• Mobile Access.  No one anticipates that certain one-off situations will be covered under CASL (e.g.: a US citizen goes to a coffee shop in Toronto and checks his Gmail account).  Brown expects that the government also did not intend to the law to apply to Blackberry users worldwide when accessing email (e.g., through RIM servers located in Canada).   “I think the intention is not to apply the legislation so broadly,” he said.  It’s not clear how data centers for companies that are not Canadian based will be treated – although Brown expects that they will need to comply just as if the entire company was based in Canada. Messages sent from those centers will be “Canadian” under this law.

When do fewer emails mean higher ROI? When your emails are hyper-targeted and truly one-to-one. That doesn’t mean you need a huge team of people contacting customers one at a time, like the telemarketers of old.  It only requires you to tap into existing technology and know-how to make it happen.

I like to say “happy birthdays mean happy profits” because birthday emails are a perfect example of this concept. When someone subscribes to get your emails, you get their birth date along with the other data you gathered about them upon signup. That date goes into your system and on or near the customer’s birthday, depending on how you have it configured; an email is automatically triggered offering a birthday bonus of some kind, like a free ice cream cone if you work for a chain of sweet shops, or a free movie rental if you’re marketing your video stores.

These emails get a remarkably high response rate because they are so targeted…and therefore, welcome.

You’re not limited to birthday emails, however, nor are triggered emails only appropriate for B2C marketing. Triggered emails come in three types—recurring, transactional and threshold—and can be used in a variety of circumstances:

• A recurring email can be a birthday email like we’ve described above, or could happen a certain period after a purchase, to remind a customer that it’s time to renew
  
• A transactional email can be one email, like a follow up to a purchase or download, soliciting feedback, or even a drip campaign following a purchase, giving tips on how to use the product (and also up-selling)
  
• As a threshold email can occur when a customer’s behavior has gotten to a certain point, say if they’ve purchased three songs from one album, you offer a discount on the album

In the past, marketers resisted moving from batch-and-blast to this kind of targeted, triggered approach because the cost seemed prohibitive. Between building the API and the software to handle the emails the technological cost made any chance of an ROI a slim one. Today, however, all top-tier ESPs and many secondary ones offer triggered messaging capabilities. That means you can make your email marketing program even more relevant without increasing your staff or IT costs.

Before we dive into the benefits and how-to’s of triggered emails, let’s review the terminology:

• Triggered means triggered by an event: A trigger based message is one sent out in response to a certain action within an email or on a website
  
• Targeted means segmented, with dynamic content, so different recipients get different email content and even colors and graphics
• Drip marketing is a series of messages triggered by an event, such as a purchase or whitepaper download (also known as lifecycle messaging)

You’ll also need to define the event or events that trigger the website. The event might be a click on a website, time spent on a page with no shopping cart activity, a coupon download, or a link clicked in an email. Or, to return to our earlier example, it might be date driven like a birthday or anniversary.

One-to-one triggered emails have a much higher ROI so even though you’re sending out fewer emails, you’re making more money off the targeted ones. But what do you need to do to be set up for that kind of triggered email?

1.    An ESP or in-house solution that enables triggered messaging

2.    An API to automate the flow of data from your CRM or in-house database to your ESP or internal ESP

3.    A content library, so your system can take from it to place the appropriate message in each email

Also consider that these types of emails typically use a transactional delivery engine vs. a marketing delivery engine, i.e. point-to-point transmission vs. one-to-many broadcast.

The one caveat happens when you start to collect the data upon which to define your rules. Do not ask for too much. You can ask for up to four pieces of information upon sign up, but any more than that, and your abandonment rate will soar. Instead, be very clear what information you want to start out with and only ask for that (based on what you can really use). Then over time you can ask for more information, and append that information to that subscriber later.

The idea of this kind of targeted email marketing might be daunting, but it’s really not difficult given today’s technology and pre-existing services. As a result, your triggered email messaging can be as sophisticated as you want to make it, to get the most ROI from your highest value customers. For example, your system can score a customer based on behavior, such as purchasing a higher-priced item, and offer an exclusive and limited price on another item as a reward.

Marketers have to start automating their email campaigns based on customer behaviors, such as shopping cart abandonment. Companies who’ve done this have experienced higher click through rates and conversion rates, without increasing staff costs. Alternatively, automating email programs around customer behaviors with hyper-targeted messages will result in a higher email marketing ROI.

And it leads to a higher engagement index, which means more of your subscribers are engaging with your email, which in turn will give you a better standing in the eyes of the ISPs…which in turn will improve your email deliverability and get you into more inboxes…and so on and so on and so on.

Sounds pretty happy to me!


- Marco Marini
CEO
ClickMail Marketing

As CEO of ClickMail Marketing, part of my job is keeping up with, and even ahead of, trends and changes in the email marketing industry. In a world like ours, technology and tastes can change in a flash, leaving the unsuspecting email marketer playing catch-up once he or she finally does catch on. Spotting email marketing trends becomes, therefore, less of a fun guessing game and more of a critical strategic process.

The common theme in 2010 as I see it is integration. To me, this indicates email's lasting power, as it becomes more and more entrenched in the marketing framework. No longer is email a standalone messaging medium or marketing tool. Now more than ever, email is becoming the backbone of marketing, enduring and evolving…and proving its worth one message at a time.

Below are the trends we at ClickMail Marketing see as the most important for this coming year. You won't find any rocket science-level complexity in this list, because by now you've at least been exposed to all of these trends even if you haven't yet acted on them. But this coming year will be the time to take the next step: start implementing now, or be left behind. Far behind. 

Integration with social networking sites and tools
Email still reigns supreme as a marketing tool, but to keep pace with the rapidly changing world of technology and cultural expectations, it must integrate with social networking tools. That's the only way you can hope to communicate with all audiences, as some stay with email for communication and others move to social media. Integration with social media extends your reach, as people share your content and therefore expand your exposure. (And sharing is what social media is all about, so make sure your content is worthy of sharing!)

Integration with add-on services like CertifiedEmail
Email is still the strongest messaging platform out there, despite cries of its demise. One characteristic that makes it so strong is the ubiquity of email. It is everywhere, truly. And as technologies are developed, it integrates more and more with add-on services, services like video in your email marketing and Goodmail's CertifiedEmail.

Integration with the new data management tools
Major ISPs are making decisions about which emails are spam based on if and how recipients interact with an email. That means their interaction is directly influencing your deliverability. You have to have the tools to manage your data to meet these new standards, tools that move you beyond open rates to data that really matters, like Pivotal Veracity's Mailbox IQ that helps you measure audience engagement. But these new tools must integrate with your existing email platform.

Speaking of trends and staying current with changes in the email marketing industry, stay tuned for our soon-to-be-released 2010 guide to choosing a top tier ESP.

Marco Marini
CEO
ClickMail Marketing

If you're still managing your own email marketing campaigns without any outsourced expertise, you might want to take a look at the benefits of outsourcing. Here are just a few of the many benefits of outsourcing for better managed email marketing:

• Increase your deliverability rate
• Improve your email design and email rendering
• Gain a deeper and more actionable understanding of your reporting and metrics · Protect your online sending reputation with expert advice
• Have more staff time for other initiatives
• Add the highest caliber email marketing expertise to your team without increasing your payroll
• Draw on more and broader email marketing experience with seasoned professionals guiding you
• Spend more time on strategy and planning, less on implementation
• Enjoy a solution that automatically scales with your growth
• Know you're working with the best email service provider for your business
• And ultimately, improve your email marketing ROI!

If you want to learn about better managed email marketing via outsourcing, reach out to ClickMail Marketing for more information.

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

Christine Borgia from AOL announced this week that the long-standing Report Card program has come to an end.  For those of us who have been in the email marketing world for any period of time, we know this marks the end of an era.  I go way back with AOL from my previous role running email operations at Travelocity.  I started back at the dawn of "email time" in 1999.  I had the privilege of sending AOL Travel email, in addition to my regular Travelocity mail.  This gave me some insider type access to the Postmaster Team at AOL.  I won't tell you that everything was always smooth.  In fact, I had a pretty rocky year, one that I've tried to delete from my memory banks.  Looking back, that was when the discipline of deliverability was born.  AOL was way ahead of the curve in the implementation of the Report Card program.  If you aren't familiar with the Report Card, here's a sample:

You are receiving this message via AOL's automated "Report Card" process because our available data indicate that in the last 24 hours your domain's mail stream has exceeded an inbox complaint rate of 0.30%.  This email is only an indication that your domain's mail stream has exceeded a pre-defined complaint threshold; it is not necessarily indicative of a spam problem. We send a report card to every domain that exceeds this threshold, regardless of what type of mail is sent. We hope that it may be useful to help identify potential issues. For additional information please visit our http://postmaster.info.aol.com Postmaster website, where one can find a more detailed explanation of how the Report Card system works, AOL's technical requirements for sending email to us, AOL's best practices guidelines for bulk-mailers, and more.

This was really great stuff!  Imagine an ISP sending you an email each day warning you that you had slipped into the danger zone.  You didn't have to build any reports, aggregate any data, or haggle over "hanging spams!"  This kind of service just isn't around anymore, and I fear we took it for granted.  It means we're back to "new school" techniques with AOL.  Their feedback loop program is top-notch and has always been the leader in FBL technology.  (You are signed up and watching your FBL complaints/statistics…aren't you?  Of course you are, because we all know that complaints are the bellwether statistic for email marketers.)

Goodbye, AOL Report Card.  I will miss you.  Actually, I will miss those days from long ago when a day without a Report Card meant we had aced our promotion.  We were good enough, smart enough, and AOL liked us!!


- Kevin Senne, Director, Deliverability & Social Networking, Premiere Global Services, Inc.

So we are deep in a recession economy, marketing budgets and headcounts are being cut, yet we are seeing an increase in requests for the outsourcing of email production and campaigns. Why is this?

Well let's take a little time to explore the variables in play here.  As marketers turn to more cost effective channels, email is becoming more popular than ever – according to a recent Forrester study the number of marketing messages for the average email user is predicted to double by 2014.  This makes the email channel even more competitive and crowded, causing a dilution of open, click and conversion rates.

The only way to genuinely attract attention and boost performance is to send more relevant and personalized mails.  To experienced email marketers this will not be news, and it is common wisdom nowadays to absolutely progress beyond broadcast (or blast) mailing tactics to attain any kind of click thru and conversion response.

There are a number of campaign types that increase relevance beyond broadcast, such as 'life cycle', 'clickstream' and 'targeted'. JupiterResearch states that these types of campaigns are up to 18 times more profitable than broadcast.  Each of these types leverage known intelligence about the recipient, whether based on a user triggered event, online behavior, or persona driven.  BUT in order to actually create a highly relevant campaign, each mail needs to be customized to each identified audience segment and ideally personalized for each recipient - both of which increase the number of steps and effort in the overall process of producing a campaign from start to finish. 

You have a choice here: do you create individual email templates for each audience segment, or minimize the number of actual email templates and leverage conditional email content for a more dynamic 'data driven' approach.  More email templates means more production effort to create, optimize and test each and every template – whereas the data driven approach needs more advanced skills/technology to design and test more complex templates. 

Are we at a tipping point?  Has the amount of extra effort, technology and skills required to execute more advanced email campaigns pushed email campaign production to a point where outsourcing makes more strategic and tactical sense?  Perhaps.  Organizations need to be competitive and need to consider ways to execute these types of campaigns.  The tremendous ROI (as stated by Jupiter) more than outweighs the additional operating cost, so each and every marketing department who takes the email channel seriously will need to formulate a strategy here.

With headcounts diminishing, outsourcing is an obvious path forward.  Having a tried and tested production team getting your mails out of the door in good time, with great quality (...under SLA), allows you to not only benefit from advanced campaign performance, but to focus your time on higher value marketing initiatives!

- Andy McCartney, Vice President of Strategic & Account Services, Premiere Global Services

Andy runs a team of email marketing gurus and specialists who help clients of all shapes and sizes with their emarketing initiatives.  Advice and service engagements are delivered in areas such as strategy, campaign production, list health and deliverability.  Andy has over 20 years of experience in marketing and services with hi-tech companies, including 10 years in business intelligence and analytics and 12 years in interactive marketing leadership roles.

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

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

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

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

- Kevin Senne, Premiere Global Services

Much has been written in the category of "the best" when it comes to email marketing. For example:

*Best day to send
*Best time to send
*Best subject line
*Best copy, design, call to action

Best. Best. Best. There certainly are email marketing best practices and guidelines to follow; however, "best" is often relative to your company's situation. It depends on your audience (subscribers, readers, lurkers), the industry you are in (b2b vs b2c, retail vs government, etc), and many many other factors. At the end of the day, what matters most is did the email campaign reach or exceed expectations? Did you achieve the open/click/conversion numbers you had intended?

Below is an example of an email I received recently from Egencia. (Egencia , formerly Expedia Corporate Travel, is the "fifth largest travel management company in the world." Bronto uses it to book corporate travel). Let's break it down into the "best" categories outlines above. How did they do?

1. Best day to send: The email was sent on Thursday. It was sent to my company email address, so sending during the middle of the week makes sense. If they had sent this email to me over the weekend, it may have been buried in my inbox until Monday morning.

2. Best time to send: I received the email at 11:02 PM. Many people are not awake at that time, and if they are, they're probably not checking their work email (well…wink, wink). However, based on the time sent, the email was near the top of my inbox on Friday morning. Also, sending during off-peak times *can* result in better deliverability.

3. Best subject line: Determining the best subject line can certainly be subjective. If possible, I'd recommend performing some form of A|B subject line test on every single email you send. Most email service providers (ESPs) offer this option. Take advantage of it. In this case, I thought the subject line was so-so. It certainly caught my attention as it was asking a seemingly personal question, "How are we doing?"; however, without sender recognition (I knew who Egencia was), I may have deemed this email spammy. Egencia could have offered some incentive for completing the survey and/or added a deadline or sense of urgency into the subject line. But…I opened it. So, the objective of the subject line was met - for me.

4. Best copy, design, call to action:

Copy: The copy here was short and to the point - exactly how it should have been. After all, the message is simple: Fill out the survey. Sometimes marketers clutter these emails with sales pitches, partner offers, and other items that distract from the intent of the email. I like Egencia's KISS approach.

Design: I am usually a big fan of an email that balances text and images; however, as mentioned above in the "copy" section, this email was intentionally image-light. They could have included a few images to spice up the email a bit, images that would have added and not detracted from the message. No harm either way.

Call to action: This is one area where I would've like to see a stronger call to action. "Just click this link to begin" followed by the full URL "http://expedia.qualtrics.com" is pretty weak. Give me reason, an incentive, to complete the survey. Just like they preach in sales training, WIIFM - "What's In It For Me?" Provide several options to get to the survey. Perhaps a bullet-proof button or a "Take Survey Now" link.

Overall, I really like this email from Egencia. I opened the email, clicked on the link, and even spent the 3 minutes to fill out the survey. Well done Expedia team.

What do you think? Would you have opened, clicked and/or completed the survey? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

- DJ Waldow, Director of Best Practices & Deliverability at Bronto

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

eec Reportlet: How to Revive a Stale Email List
And Why You Should Avoid 'Soft Touch' Cleaning Services

2008 Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season
Email Insights and Inspiration from Christmas Past to Plan Your Christmas Future

eROI: The Elements of Email Survey Results
eROI's latest survey finds that email marketers are missing some great opportunities to increase their deliverability, not to mention opens, clicks and conversions.

Email Marketing Best Practices: Inactive Subscribers – Re-Engage or Remove
If you aren't paying attention to the subscribers who ignore or delete your messages, you are missing out on a tremendous opportunity—and putting your good reputation at risk.

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

Late last year, Comcast blocked the IPs of one of Pivotal Veracity's clients, preventing them from being able to deliver any email. We contacted Comcast on behalf of the client to inquire why they were being blocked and learned that Comcast's filter (Brightmail) reported a significant portion of this client's mail as spam. We got Comcast to remove the block, but when the client mailed their entire house file again, they triggered Comcast's filters again. Pivotal Veracity again had the block lifted but, as you can imagine, something had to be done.

The mailer's first tactic was to only email subscribers with any post-signup activity such as clicks or purchases regardless of how long ago. Unfortunately, this also resulted in Comcast blocking the mail. The implication: Just because someone was engaged at one time, does not mean they are still engaged and, as many folks do, they used the "report spam" button to get off the list.

After having their last three campaigns blocked, the mailer, rather desperate now, decided to test emailing only to Comcast addresses that had made a purchase—a dramatic measure but one with dramatic results. This strategy has consistently yielded 100% inbox delivery. In the case of this mailer, their older, inactive users were complaining which caused all emails to be blocked by Comcast. Emailing "less" was the difference between $0 and generating a return on investment from their Comcast subscribers, which are a significant portion of their file.

This real-world example is further proof that marketers need to actively manage their email lists to prevent them from going stale. To help you, the eec Deliverability & Rendering Roundtable has written "How to Revive a Stale Email List," a reportlet that lays out step-by-step how to salvage stale lists and actively prune lists before too many inactives build up. The reportlet, which is available in the eec's Whitepaper Room, also discusses why you should avoid "soft touch" services. Does anyone else have any stale list horror stories?

—eec Deliverability & Rendering Roundtable chair Michelle Eichner of Pivotal Veracity

Since this is my first post on the Email Experience Blog, I thought it might make sense to formally introduce myself to all the eec blog readers out there: I'm Spencer Kollas. I have been in the email marketing business for about 7 years and currently serve as the director of delivery services at StrongMail Systems. I started out as a sender/marketer before moving over to the formal email deliverability world. Today, I spend most of my time working with clients to improve their delivery rates, increase their revenue and help them get the most out of their email programs. But enough about me…let's get to the topic at hand—bounce management

I was reviewing some old files recently and I came across some information from March of 2007 when the eec came out with a research study on bounce management. This got me to thinking about how much has really changed since then. When looking at my daily work and interactions with clients, I am doubtful that it has changed all that much.

I still get questions all the time from clients asking what they should do about their bounces, how should they handle them, and what the difference is between hard and soft bounces. Given that response, I thought it might make sense to talk about this subject a bit. Plus, not only is it something near and dear to my heart, it's also a topic that can help those who still aren't sure what to do about bounce management.

In their report on bounce management, the eec highlighted three important reasons every marketer should have effective bounce management programs:

● Performance evaluation. Proper bounce management provides crucial data on your use of email and the ROI that comes from it. By keeping track of this information and applying it back to your conversion numbers, you can see how to improve your ROI.

● List management. Bounce data is key to keeping your list clean and to maintaining or restoring contact with customers. With proper bounce management you are able to remove the customers that are no longer actively using the email addresses you have on record.

● Practice improvement. Your email system should furnish detailed data for diagnosing issues with your marketing practices (data capture, targeting, etc.) and for taking the corrective actions that will ensure both a good reputation and better deliverability. Make sure to look at your data, as this will allow you to see if certain receivers are blocking your mail or whether any other possible issues are occurring.

Now, if you are working with an ESP that is worth anything, they should have a bounce management process already put in place to make sure that their clients are following best practices. However, if you are sending email in-house, or you just want to make sure that your ESP is following best practices, those are the three areas you need to focus on when asking questions.

So what makes up a good bounce management system? Here are some basics that all programs should include:

1. Capturing of all data streams.
2. Correctly interpreting data.
3. Organizing (standardizing) data.
4. Making data actionable.
5. Being continually updated.

With a bounce management system that meets these requirements, you'll be in a position to properly evaluate your performance, manage your list and improve your practices—all of which translate into better bottom-line results. So follow these simple rules and make sure that you have a system that meets your needs and both you and the ISPs will be happy. Good luck and good sending.

—Spencer Kollas of StrongMail Systems

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

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