It's harder than ever to convince consumers and business professionals to part with their dollars and euros and yen—a global recession, tightening belts and everyone afraid of layoffs and the possibility of more bad news. The only number that hasn't gone down lately is our quarterly forecast number—and for many email marketers this is even increasing.

Now more than ever, we email marketers are being asked to deliver more than ever—higher revenue, larger subscriber files, more active lists and longer lifetime value. None of our bosses will invest in this channel or support our efforts unless we can prove that the channel deserves more resources and more careful segmentation and content strategy.

It's never been a better time to stand up for your subscribers. Advocate for them, because the only way to increase revenues from email marketing is to create great subscriber experiences. And that means email messages that are not just frequent, but relevant, timely and targeted.

There are two things to focus on now, in order to shape up your email program success for Q4 and 2009:

1. Improve relevancy in small steps. We all know about the behavior triggers that help make our programs more relevant. Basically, you change your contact strategy and cadence to send more email when subscribers are more inclined to buy. This is effective, but can require additional resources or technology. What to do if you don't have those resources or technology? A great way to improve your program without new technology or data integration is to think about a content strategy that improves the value of your email messages over time. Adding value to just some of your messages, even SOME of the time, will improve response to ALL your messages. So instead of just sending promotions over and over, replace some of them with messages that feel more custom, even if they are still sent to large segments of your file. Insert a few tips in your next promotion or business newsletter. Host a poll. Say "thank you" to everyone who bought this past quarter. Send a no-strings-attached whitepaper to everyone who visited the website last month. Encourage everyone who uses Product A to take a free trial of Product B. Help subscribers network with each other.

2. Reach the inbox. There is no better way to boost response and revenue than to make sure you reach the inbox consistently and avoid the junk folder or going missing altogether. Reaching the inbox is based on your sender reputation—the "score" that ISPs like Yahoo!, Hotmail and the others give to you. It's based on your practices, including the number of times subscribers complain about your email by clicking on the "Report Spam" button. First thing is to know your sender reputation by visiting www.senderscore.org or www.dnsstuff.com. Work with your email broadcast vendor, IT team or a deliverability expert to address the root causes of deliverability failure.

—Stephanie Miller of Return Path

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

Email Marketing Experts Available to Speak at Your Next Event

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

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

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

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

From Sept. 5-15, top designers swarmed New York to exhibit their 2009 spring styles. The models walked the runways in Bryant Park, but that wasn't the only place where the fashion was happening—email inboxes around the world were also getting some Fashion Week action. Here's how retailers promoted spring-facing fashions through email, via NYC:

Running Reports:
Berdorf Goodman stirred up excitement by running reports on "The Latest From the New York Spring Fashion Shows" in a siderail adjacent to their standard messaging, also linking to a couple of "featured designers" in each message. Their senior women's fashion director, Roopal Patel, made the rounds and reported her impressions. BG's fashion show focus alongside their usual ads sent a smart, strong message: "Read about what's hot, and get it here."

Fresh from the Runways:
BG went further than fashion week updates, pulling looks straight off the runway and emailing them out. They featured the usual designer imagery but with some extra backing: we KNOW this is hot right now…it just walked down a runway.

Video Archives:
Nordstrom ran similar reports, but also linked to a series of videos called "The Town Car Chronicles with Jeffrey Kalinsky." Fashion guru Kalinsky's enthusiastic commentary runs alongside clips of the runway shows, generating anticipation as he ponders what he'll buy for the store. Nordstrom's slick email companion to Fashion Week let subscribers feel like they were attending the events with an insider.

Watch it Live!:
Michael Kors invited his subscribers to tune into the Michael Kors website to watch a live broadcast of his runway show. Michael has become familiar and dear to many of us through his appearances on Project Runway. Fans of his collections felt excited and important to be members of his live audience.

Image Archives:
Michael also delivered an email linking to an online archive of photos from Fashion Week. What better way to prove that his styles are hot right now than to show them strutting the runways in all their glory?

Behind the Scenes:
Shopbop pulled their subscribers behind the scenes, presenting images and commentary from big names all around the event. Shopbop promised to deliver the scoop on the "trends and chicest styles," rousing anticipation for spring pieces and convincingly portraying themselves as the go-to fashion authority.

The innovative inclusion of media, expert advice and informative articles made the Fashion Week emails an interesting study in fresh, exciting ways to deliver an exclusive experience to inboxes everywhere.

—Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison of Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

By the mere fact that we are reading this blog, we are exempted from being considered mainstream email users. What do typical users actually do and what do we take away from their experience? This summer I had the unique privilege of having my parents stay with me for an extended period of time. I found their computer behavior interesting and I'd like to share it with you.

Within an hour of arriving from their 20-hour Oklahoma-to-Virginia drive, my father found his way to the centrally located computer in the kitchen and asked about using it to check something on the web. I created an account and he proceeded to review electric knife sharpeners. He didn't spend long at the keyboard but returned numerous times to look at different sites to do his research for the best value. While checking his email, he found an advertisement from Target that prompted him to visit their website and ultimately purchased what I would consider to be an expensive knife sharpener.

While watching a home improvement show he noticed the host using a garden chemical that promised to aerate and loosen compact soil. The television was paused as he went to the computer to research the name and claims of this interesting new product. Days later we received two gallons and I must say that my yard hasn't looked this nice in quite some time.

Several days passed and I noticed he was looking at sport utility vehicles on the web. He determined the value of his trade-in and compared every conceivable option on every conceivable model. It took him a week or so but he narrowed his search to one particular make and model and sent an email to a dealer in the metro area. I frankly didn't take his efforts seriously but low and behold I was asked if I would take him to Gaithersburg, Md., to see a Mr. Singh about a vehicle he intended to buy. He's now driving a new 2008 Acura MDX that not only listens, it talks back.

The list of purchased items goes on and not everything was purchased on the web. Some purchases were merely influenced by what he saw and read, then he purchased locally. I found this pattern of researching his wants and turning them into needs interesting but more interesting was how he integrated technology into the process of everyday purchases. I started thinking about how much of this was actually resulting from email and began to look over his shoulder (a pet peeve of his so I didn't make it obvious nor do it for long). I watched as he opened his inbox, and first opened his CertifiedEmail (good dad!). A quick read through these messages yielded some deleted messages but some that were kept as unopened so he could return to them. Next he went after the remainder of his inbox. He opened one message questioned the legitimacy of it and turned to me for advice. A few clicks later and I confirmed it was a virus. The message was deleted and it put him on high alert. Remaining messages where he didn't recognize the sender were deleted without being opened. Messages where he recognized the sender but the subject alluded to being a funny joke or testimonial were marked as read but never opened. Once he reached the end of the list he moved to the spam folder. I hope none of my messages ever arrive in his spam folder because I learned that they not only will be deleted but it will make any of my future messages suspect as well. He quickly blasted through the messages recognizing senders as spammers and deleting the messages.

My parents leave for home tomorrow and I'll miss them until they return this winter. They have always proven to be an inspiration and taught me more than I could have ever expected. This time I even got an education on the very subject matter for which I would have considered myself an expert. At the end of the day, my expert opinion is based upon teaching I received from people that once asked me how to turn on the computer.

—Charles Stiles of Goodmail Systems

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks AOL for keeping our jobs easy….

—DJ Waldow of Bronto Software

Last week was hot when considering email's vitality as a communication channel, and its role as a messaging platform in our rapidly changing, web 2.0 world…

It all started with a live Habeas Huddle webinar (now on-demand), entitled "How to Use Blogging and Email to Create Leads and Delight Customers." I was joined by some familiar experts including: Chris Baggott from Compendium Blogware, Chad White from the Email Experience Council, and Des Cahill from Habeas. We had hundreds of attendees and almost as many questions, and it became clear to me how email and Web 2.0 channels are working extremely well together—individually and through innovative integration—to better serve consumer and business interests and needs. The webinar provides a great 60 minutes of discussion including orientation around the issues, best practices, tips and highlights from a new consumer study.

Then it was off on a redeye to Captiva Island, Fla., to the Email Insider Summit with a theme of "The Next Generation Inbox". This was my first EIS as an attendee, and I was on a mission to listen, contribute, network and have some fun in the sun. I got more than expected in terms of the experience, insight, relationship-building, and enjoyment. Yep, I came back looking like a lobster after a few hours of the beach, tennis and poolside conversations. On a more serious note, Habeas, along with its research partner Ipsos, announced the findings of a consumer study on May 21 that was timely and relevant for Email Insider Summit; it helped to set a positive tone among attendees—with new feedback from thousands of consumers regarding email, mobile and web 2.0 applications and concerns.

We're at an interesting stage where email and messaging continues to demonstrate its value, scalability and future uses. There are tremendous opportunities for businesses of all sizes to innovate and succeed with email and web 2.0 technologies and mindsets, if we respect consumer preferences and empowerment. Key to success is building and maintaining trust online by doing the right things.

—Erick Mott of Habeas

This column is a bit different than my typical column. I won't share email strategies, bulleted suggestions, or even cool examples. Instead, I'll give some much needed and well-deserved kudos to those professionals in the email industry who keep the business alive and kicking. Hopefully it will inspire you and make you smile.

I'm going date myself with the next sentence, but don't care. Do you remember the TV show "Romper Room" from the '70s? The show was filled with a lot of educational content and socialization skills all communicated through a friendly, fun and socially supportive environment. My favorite part came at the end when the host picked up the "magic mirror" and told TV land whom she saw having a great time along with the cast. As a loyal advocate, I always waited with baited breath knowing she was going to see me and say my name (although sadly she never did).

(You can watch it here. Go to 6:13 to see the magic mirror section.)

Many of the TV shows of the '70s were like that. They offered us safe and fun social settings where we could learn along with our peers, and not be afraid to make a mistake every once and awhile. Out of that culture and era, it grew a whole big batch of 30-somethings who now have important jobs and make big decisions every day.

In the hard cold world of business, where's the "Romper Room" for grown-ups? How do we keep growing and learning along with our peers? I think the email industry very well could be the "Romper Room" of our era. As I spend more time with the communities that exist around other industries such as search, mobile, social, online, high-tech, publishing, healthcare, etc., I have yet to find a community that's as warm and inviting as the email industry.

Over the past five years, I've watched this industry grow from a technically specific product-focused world into an industry of fabulous and intelligent people. Anyone who works in the email industry should be assured of one thing: You will not only learn your craft from experts, but this community will be there to support and guide you along the way. You are fortunate to be part of this experience.

People like Dylan Boyd, David Daniels, Loren McDonald, David Baker and Tamara Gielen are priceless. They tirelessly work to evangelize the successes and strengths of email.

People like Stephanie Miller, Chad White, Justin Foster, Ali Swerdlow, Mark Brownlow, Joel Book, Lauren Skena and DJ Waldow selflessly bend over backwards to help anyone who asks them for guidance, statistics or case studies, to ensure email marketing remains respected and credible.

People like David Atlas, Kay Cavender, Deirdre Baird, Lana McGilvray, Kath Pay, Des Cahill, Skip Fidura, Richard Gibson and Lisa Harmon push us to strive to reach the next level of excellence in everything we do with email.

And I would be remiss to leave out people like Matt Blumberg, Al DiGuido, Bill Nussey, Bill McCloskey and Rob Fitzgerald, who aren't satisfied with email being considered a siloed channel and have dedicated years and years to ensuring the level of respect and reach for the industry is broadened into the realm of "digital."

My list could go on for days. (Apologies to anyone not listed). If you haven't yet run into at least one of these industry icons (and Email Experience Council members), seek them out and introduce yourself to them—through Facebook or LinkedIn, at a conference, or on the streets of New York, Massachusetts or California. A quick chat, email or even cup of coffee with any of these people will broaden your outlook on email, challenge your thoughts (for the better) and leave you feeling excited, invigorated and proud to be a part of this very tightly woven and supportive community.

—Jeanniey Mullen of the eec

For the past four years, male modeling has had a shadow cast over it by one man and five syllables: Der-ek Zoo-land-er. Similarly, one technology and three syllables loom large in the world of email: vid-e-o.

Although it's still as good as technically impossible to embed actual videos into email messages with reliable success, linking out to hosted videos can have a positive impact on email performance. As a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, so must you become Derelicte! Just use these three hot tips:

(1) Reference Video in Your Subject Line.
Including the word "video" in your subject line can help inspire opens. Three examples:
● Saks Fifth Avenue, Feb. 4, 2008:
"Video Exclusive! Days 1 to 3 of Fashion Week"
● J.Crew, Feb. 13, 2008:
"The well-traveled tote (see video)"
● Ralph Lauren, Feb. 18, 2008:
"RLTV Presents: Cape Lodge, An RL Home Video"

(2) Use Strong Visual Cues to Indicate a Link to Video.
Recipients respond best to obvious treatments like play buttons, and frames that look like Windows Media or Quicktime video players. Of the group at right, the Williams-Sonoma Bananas Foster example is particularly strong, as it uses a combination of camera iconography, video player frame graphics and verbal indicators. (Don't you just love Bananas Foster? I wonder if there's a video on how to make an Orange Mocha Frappuccino®!?)

(3) Match Your Video Content to Your Message.
Yes, video's hotter than Hansel—but hotness doesn't hide irrelevance (at least not for long!) Video needs to support your ultimate goal, whether that's to build your brand or inspire a direct response. Two ways I've seen it used effectively in email:

To Demonstrate or Instruct
● REI's Winter Newsletter links to a series of Expert Advice videos on how to select ski and snowboard gear.
● Williams-Sonoma announced the launch of their new website (featuring video) with this email. The "Cooking Videos" callout links to a Bananas Foster recipe demonstration embedded within a French Skillet product page.

To Deliver a Cross-Channel Experience
● Saks recreates an in-store experience online with a holiday windows unveiling video.
● Free People brings us behind the scenes of their catalog shoot with this on-location video montage. Party at Hansel's house!

As we roll more video into our email programs, let's keep these wise words in mind:
"I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to video than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is." —Derek Zoolander

Please share your findings with the eec community! Post your comments below.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

P.S. Catch a glint of Blue Steel in this Luis Vuitton email and associated video.

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

I spent the second week of February in Palm Desert at the eTail conference and participated in a panel discussion focused on advanced segmentation strategies. Unlike in previous years, the team at eTail set up channel-specific tracks that preceded the usual conference—email and search each had their own rooms, and sizeable crowds looking to learn more from experts in the space.

The search room was especially well attended, with nearly double the number of conference goers as the email room. Now I have done some SEM work in my day, and have the utmost respect for search professionals and the business value they provide. But, as the recent Datran 2008 Marketing & Media Survey illustrates, email often delivers stronger ROI than search. In fact, 55.3% of the survey respondents expected email to outperform all other channels on the basis of return on investment in 2008. Additionally, when asked "which advertising media buys perform strongly for your company," 80% identified email as a strong performer, compared to 70% for paid search. For this reason, 82.4% of respondents said they will increase their use of email marketing in 2008.

Again, don't get me wrong here—I am a big search advocate (especially when it's well integrated with email and other channels), but why were so many more people at eTail interested in search than email?

The reason, I believe, is that most organizations are still missing the boat on resource allocation and shortchanging email. Though email is often more effective at delivering near-term ROI, search still gets a bigger share of budget. Many of the advanced segmentation strategies we discussed at eTail require relatively significant investments of time and resources, and while they deliver excellent returns, it seems as if many of the people I spoke with were facing major resource constraints that prevented them from taking their programs to the next level.

It is our responsibility as email professionals (and evangelists) to ensure that our organizations realize the tremendous value a sophisticated email program can deliver. We need to craft email marketing performance dashboards that are designed for executive consumption—they must be clear, succinct and engaging. We need to keep our managers up to date on developments in the space and the opportunities they present to our businesses. Share the results of the Datran 2008 survey with your senior management. Leverage stats from EmailStatCenter.com in your quest for more budget. And do not take "no" for an answer.

All that is easily said. But I am still feeling a little like Rodney Dangerfield. Will the facts alone earn email the respect (and budget) it so richly deserves? What do you think? What can we in the email world do to get the resources required to drive more sophisticated and profitable programs? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

—Nicholas Einstein of Datran Media

Is 'customer-centric' just a concept put into practice by the early adopters…or is there a point soon where we'll see quicker adoption of real data-driven 1:1 marketing?

Is it a data/data modeling issue? Is it an analytics issue? Is it a ROI issue? Is it a content issue? Is it due to internal resource constraints? Is it due to lack of subject matter expertise? —R.E.

The Voices of Email had this advice:

Tricia Robinson-Pridemore: Customer-centric messaging is the same "behavioral" "interactive" messaging paradigm we've been chatting about for years. It's being done by some F100 and Web 2.0 organizations. F100 companies are running it out of marketing and Web 2.0 companies manage it out of their technology/customer behavior/e-commerce groups. The two biggest reasons it isn't more widely adopted are data synchronization and strategy. Customer data is all over the place in organizations. Stored in multiple databases, e-commerce systems, web analytic systems, and *still* often in flat files (a.k.a. Excel spreadsheets). To make that data useful and in any way operational, email systems need to talk to that data where it resides or marketers must synchronize and consolidate that data.

The other current spoiler for customer-centric messaging is lack of strategy. In a recent JupiterResearch survey of email marketers, the number one most important challenge they cite when working with email is "defining an email strategy." If determining a strategy for email is tough for them imagine what making a real data-driven 1:1 marketing strategy is like? Although important, technology will only be as successful as your messaging strategy. Find the right partners who have creative, experienced experts to help build your messaging strategy and your technology implementation.

Chip House: I think we're seeing true customer-centric communications now. Just think about the real-time, transactional messages that are driven by customer actions (buying something, signing up for something, or going somewhere). Going deeper here includes email messages triggered by information captured via web analytics data, such as product category visited, or a shopping cart abandon. Certainly there are barriers to scaling this type of customer-centric communications into some organizations and business process, but if there is a reason we don't see broader adoption I believe it has to do more with the fact that it takes a concerted effort for marketers to actively leverage and integrate the available technologies and data to drive highly-relevant communications. In the end marketers need to spend more time with their database experts and focus on developing "one view" of the customer, and reacting to the customers' wants and needs and behaviors. Too many marketers resign themselves to sending another weekly email focused on the "specials" highlighted in the Sunday circular.

We could really write books around this topic, so I'll stop there. The answer is that in the world of technology, the CMO and the CIO have to start working closely together to leverage current technologies.

Chad White: In retail email marketing, I see a lot of broadcast emails. And to a certain extent that makes perfect sense—sales notifications, for instance. But there's plenty of room for a lot more tailored communications. Offering more niche newsletters is a huge step toward 1:1 marketing. Only 28% of major online retailers offer more than one newsletter, according to the 2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study. For example, Barnes & Noble offers 21 different email newsletters so people can get content and promotions about just the kinds of books and music they enjoy. Giving customers the ability to express their preferences is a relatively easy way to boost relevancy without diving into behavioral analytics, which may be beyond many retailers' current capabilities.

While expressed preferences can get you far, to get any closer to 1:1 marketing retailers will have to rethink what they consider to be their inventory. They need to move from a product-centric view, where goods are the inventory and retailing is about finding customers that want those goods, to a customer-centric view, where customers are the inventory and retailing is about supplying the goods that your individual customers want. To do that, retailers will need to consolidate all their far-flung customer data first.

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

Greg Cangialosi is an eec member and a widely recognized expert in the digital space. When I read his recent blog post I knew I had to blog about it too (and not just because he mentions me in the post). It is right on the money—and does a great job of articulating what many of us are thinking. Thanks, Greg, for keeping the conversation alive.

—Jeanniey Mullen

In last week's newsletter, Jeanniey confessed that she's no deployment expert: "I am notorious for sending emails with typos, links that don't work, image hosting paths that only work on my PC, messing up segments and more." She shared her favorite oopsy and said that the mistakes that she's made have all taught her phenomenal lessons. And then she asked if anyone had a "disastrous email story" to share—and many brave souls stepped forward to share their lesson-learned.

My two-cents on this is that mistakes in emails are difficult to avoid because of the complexity of the medium and volume involved. All you can do is try your best and learn from your mistakes—and the mistakes of others. That's why I started the Oopsy Hall of Fame (I'll be inducting the 2007 class in January). It allows marketers to see what kinds of mistakes are prevalent and try to avoid repeating them. It also touches on apologies—when they need to be made and when they don't. I also just recently did a post on apology emails after I heard David Baker say that apology emails have higher open rates than even welcome emails.

Anyway, without further delay, here are the oopsies that our subscribers shared with us.

—Chad White

You are definitely not the only one! I have an arsenal of 'oops' but I'll share my favorite of all time. I was adding the physical mailing address and associated contact details to the bottom of an email for a B2B campaign. The phone number I needed to add was spelled out and as I was translating the letters to numbers by looking at my phone and using my keyboard (forgetting that the layout of the numbers are different) – I inadvertently transposed two numbers. The correct number would have pointed someone to a help desk for product support; the incorrect number pointed to a phone sex line. There were only a few reports of people actually calling that number. I believe one was a CEO.

Naturally, I learned from this and physically dial all of the phone numbers on anything I ever send out! (And I learned that phone sex lines are not limited to 900 numbers!)

—Amy Gabriel, BT

We develop our clients' newsletters on a development server and then switch them to the live server before deployment. We have individual user names and passwords for the development server. We once sent out a "live" deployment to our client's entire list from our development server, which means that everyone who received it would have been prompted for a user name and password before they could read the email! Oops!

—Jenni Fox, Miles Media Group

You are not the only one who sends email disasters! I work with volunteers and was sending an email to a large group to arrange a conference call, including several I had never worked with before. I listed the possible dates/times, including "am" and "pm" options. My email was set up to spell check before sending. I wasn't paying attention, and instead of clicking 'ignore all' on the am & pm options, clicked 'change all.' They were all changed to "Pam"—unfortunately, that's also my name! We've had a good laugh about "Pam time."

I frequently request bids from vendors via email. I usually copy and paste the details, and just change the greeting. One day a message to "Mike" began with "Hi Brian"—his main competitor!
Needless to say, I'm not responsible for hitting "send" on the real campaigns!

—Pamela Asfahani, Oncology Nursing Certification Corp.

I sent out a weekly article alert on a Monday not knowing that the URL structure for the articles linked from the email was going to change on Tuesday. The old URLs were not redirecting to the new URLs, so none of the links in the email worked. I now double check every link before the weekly alert goes out and make sure that there won't be any changes affecting those links taking place.

—Kari Rippetoe, GoWholesale

Well, I'm not sure it was a *disaster*, but it wasn't good. Within a regular monthly update we do on our virtual learning classes, we were also announcing our first digital download product created from one of our most popular teleclasses.

I had just started inserting links a bit differently than in the past. I had gotten out of the habit of checking every link because they had always worked, but when I added tracking codes to the 4 links in the email that had to do specifically with the new product, it broke them all - every single one.

For whatever reason, I thought to check them just *after* I hit the send button (of course). Another 20 minutes later and I had the links fixed and a new email sent out. I think everyone got the fixed-link email before they had a chance to find the broken links in the first. And, this email went to our most loyal customers, graduates of our programs, who tend to be very forgiving. But still. . .not my favorite moment!
—Sara Avery, Newfield Network Inc.

Your post about email goofs is timely. I wrote an email promotion yesterday [Oct. 24] in which I used my own experience being evacuated due to SD fires to promote a teleseminar about legal issues and how we can't be too prepared or cautious. Two people responded they thought it was a bit insensitive. Maybe the fires are too hot to talk about yet in a marketing context. So I blogged an apology.

—Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Love it! Struck a note in my world….. I'm also supposed to be an expert and every time I try to do tactical things, I screw up too…..

—David Baker, Avenue A | Razorfish

My worst flubs are pretty much the garden variety; once forgot to change the old link to a sale page (very woops), and a few typos…

I'm writing because I thought it was very ironic that the very first link after your article (the one to update my profile) didn't work! I was very entertained, nearly fell off my chair in fact.

Thanks for brightening my day
—Rachelle Johnson, iSpectrum Marketing

[Rachelle was one of three people to catch that intentional error. We like to keep you on your toes. ]

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.

Based on what I saw at the ClickZ Specifics: Email Marketing conference yesterday, deliverability remains the hot topic. They had a packed session dedicated to the topic and it also came up during the closing 5 Experts/5 Minutes session, where five experts were given 60 seconds each to answer a question from the audience. Here is some of the wisdom that I jotted down:

Regarding first steps…
Stefan Pollard of EmailLabs said to start by knowing your metrics—your delivery rate, bounce management, spam complaints, etc. You can make improvements if you don't know where your program stands currently.

Deidre Baird of Pivotal Veracity said that you should get on ISPs' whitelists (which is free) and take advantage of spam compliant feedback loops.

Regarding list rental/buying…
Baird also said to avoid spamtraps by not buying lists and harvesting addresses from the web. Only use opt ins, she said.

Jordan Ayan of SubscriberMail said flatly, "Don't ever buy a list."

Rebecca Lieb of ClickZ said that they were very close to advising readers to never rent or buy lists, but that they hadn't quite reached that point yet.

Regarding offline sign-ups with incentives…
If you're offering incentives in order to collect email addresses offline, be sure to "deliver the incentive to the email address," said Austin Bliss of FreshAddress. The customer is more likely to give you their real address and to write legibly if the incentive is being delivered this way.

Lieb told a story of a major apparel retailer that gave in-store customers a 20% off coupon in exchange for their email address. Well, people wrote down bogus addresses in order to get the discount and those addresses lead to the retailer being blacklisted. Ouch!

Pollard recommended using double opt-in for offline sources of acquisition.

Regarding B2B filtering…
"B2B filtering is more whimsical than B2C," said Bliss.

Baird said that companies rely much more on spam lists like Spamhaus and SpamCop.

Regarding authentication…
People were universally proponents of authentication (DKIM and Sender ID), which makes it clear that you are who you say you are, thereby fighting spoofing. But they also all said that it currently doesn't lead to better deliverability, as very few ISPs give authentication serious weigh yet when deciding which emails to filter. However, some of the experts thought this would be given more weight in the future.

Regarding cleaning up old, dirty lists…
Pollard told marketers to look at the date of subscription—the older the date, the more likely you should just cut them. He also advised people to remove role addresses like sales@domain.com.

Al DiGuido of Zustek said you should cut people who haven't opened an email in the past 6-12 months.

But Ayan said not to assume that your emails are going unread because the subscriber could have images turned off. He said it's best if you send a series of emails asking if they want to continue receiving email.

—Chad White

We had a good debate yesterday about whether email could be helpful in a website customer-review strategy. Three guesses as to where my votes were: squarely with email as a powerful tool for both invitation, dissemination and recommendation.

Customer reviews on websites are hot—because they work. A recent survey by Bazaarvoice and Vizu Corp. shows that three out of four shoppers say that it is extremely or very important to read customer reviews before making a purchase, and they prefer peer reviews over expert reviews by a 6-to-1 margin.

(Note for our U.K. readers: Ratings and reviews by U.K. consumers were important for over 50% of online shoppers. In contrast to U.S. shoppers, privacy and security information took center stage when making a purchase by over one-third of U.K. shoppers rating this as the most important site feature.)

Email is the perfect medium for attracting and distributing this important content. Consider these opportunities for your own program:

- Use email to solicit customer reviews from recent customers. Trigger a feedback survey after select purchases, along with an appropriate upsell offer. For multiple-purchase buyers—who we assume are more loyal and engaged—make the request for a review more explicit.

- Use the content from customer reviews to convert prospects to buyers. Prospects are in greater need of validation for making a purchase, and if the Bazaarvoice survey has any sway, prospects prefer customer reviews six times over company promotions or marketing. Feature customer reviews in your welcome message as well as throughout the first five to six email touchpoints.

- Feature customer reviews in newsletters as a current and dynamic source of testimonials. Many marketers struggle to come up with relevant content (outside of pure promotions) for newsletters. Customer reviews are relevant, engaging and can be extremely good ways to provide product recommendations that don't feel like sales pitches. These are also a great way to continuously solicit more reviews. Everyone likes to see their name in "lights"—even if it's HTML.

- Highlight customer reviews as a secondary promotion in promotional emails. Make it a regular feature (monthly or quarterly) to highlight top selling items. Reviews promote your products without feeling like a promotion. Perfect balance for sales messages.

- Use customer reviews as a trigger for lapsed buyers. Send a special email with customer reviews of targeted products. This new approach to the same promotional messages may break through the lethargy.

—Stephanie Miller

Today's media landscape is shifting so quickly, the previous revolutionaries are becoming the old guard. Here at Bulldog, we've been in a position to observe (and take advantage of) the shifting tides, as traditional media companies come to terms with the impact of online media, and online media companies, in turn, work to define themselves in the face of blogs and social networking.

Prospects are more in control of their experience than ever. And that makes driving a specific call to action such as registering for a lead-generation webinar more and more challenging. Email is still an incredibly strong vehicle for promotion—it's my go-to for promoting Bulldog's own lead-generation webinars and that's not going to change any time soon—but the proliferation of web 2.0 functionality has really changed the mix. The equation isn't an easy one to figure out. Where does our blog fit in? What about the 7+ million blogs out there in the blogosphere? How can we use LinkedIn to drive people into our pipeline? And perhaps most important of all, How do we apply measurement and benchmarking to this evolving space?

It's not just an academic discussion. As a marketer, I'm feeling this pain every day.

One terrific benefit of being Bulldog's field marketing manager (I mean, besides the discount Costco membership) is the ability to translate my own marketing pain directly into field marketing programs that help my fellow marketers address theirs. I'm excited about two webinars in the next few weeks in which social media experts tackle the questions I mentioned above.

With our partner Social Media Today, Bulldog is sponsoring The Art and Science of Forming Successful Online Communities, a panel on building online communities and transferring some of the lessons from the consumer world to B2B marketing. And BtoB Online has a webinar this week, Beyond the Mainstream: Reaching IT Pros Through Social Media, a live presentation that will help IT marketers take advantage of the changing environment.

—Amy Bills

My MediaPost article last week on why it's time to spell "email" without the hyphen created a huge surge of support for our Hyphens Equal Disrespect petition—and also prompted some interesting and amusing counterarguments.

More than 100 people, representing companies both large and small, 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.

In the article I argued that spelling "email" without the hyphen was not only easier and shorter, but more accurately reflected what email is today by severing its association with old fashioned mail. In response, one commenter accused the anti-hyphen crowd of being lazy—which is a great point. People are totally lazy. They crave shortcuts and simplicity. It's one of the key drivers—if not THE key driver—behind language evolution. So that's yet another reason to cast off the hyphen.

Another hyphenista said that without the hyphen "the first syllable begs to be pronounced as a schwa ('uh-mail') instead of an accented 'e.'" The English language is full of rule breakers, silent letters and other quirks that sometimes trip people up, but I can't say I've ever heard anyone mispronounce the word as "uh-mail"—or for that matter "em-ail." People are already extremely familiar with this sans hyphen spelling (as I'll prove in a minute).

This same person said: "Thankfully, 'e-mail' remains the correct spelling for no less an authority than The Chicago Manual of Style, The Associated Press Stylebook, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, The American Heritage College Dictionary, and Webster's New World College Dictionary, among others. It's also endorsed by such language experts as William Safire, Bill Walsh, John McIntyre and Barbara Wallraff. Shall I go on?" Sure, but it would be totally pointless. Language is not governed by autocratic "authorities" like these. It's created by the masses. Language evolution is democratic.

Roger Harris, of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, wrote in to cast his vote for democracy, saying that he supports the principle of common usage. He then decided to hold his own little election, "e-mail" versus "email," to see which spelling was more common. "Perhaps not coincidentally," he said, "we have a useful tool to determine such usage: search engines." The result from Google? Hyphenistas 1.96 billion. Anti-hyphenistas 2.01 billion.

"It seems the tide has turned," said Harris, "and, in support Chad's proposition, 'email' should become the preferred, and correct, usage."

I polled Yahoo and MSN today and found even more conclusive support: Yahoo preferred "email" 3.19 billion to 1.95 billion, while MSN preferred "email" 580 million to 170 million.

So there's already been a silent uprising in support of "email." Help us make a little noise and convince the "authorities" that hyphens are so 1990s by signing our petition.

—Chad White