Sometimes it sounds very "broken-recordish."

Send timely, targeted, relevant emails to subscribers who have asked for them.

It's my go-to message - my mantra of sorts - when it comes to email marketing. It's one of those things I recommend printing out and pasting to your desk. It's a phrase you should repeat when you're getting ready to hit the send button on that next email marketing campaign. It's the question to ask your team all of the time, but especially if you see your metrics on the fritz (declining open and/or click through rates, increasing complaints, poor deliverability, etc).

What Poor (Or No) Segmentation Looks Like

On December 20, 2009, I received these 3 emails within a 33-minute span (6:09AM, 6:29AM, and 6:42AM).

1. Inbox View: Before even opening the emails, what do you notice about them? Pretty easy one, right? While the from names are all different, the subject lines are identical. As it turns out, Multichannel Merchant, DIRECT, and Chief Marketer are all divisions of Penton Media (see email footer).

Why this matters: I feel like I just got spammed. Why? Penton Media just asked (errr...told) me 3 times to fill out their survey. Poor brand impression not only from Penton, but also from the 3 divisions who sent me that survey. I deleted all three.

2. Opened View: You'll quickly see if you open all three emails (see Multichannel Merchant below) that, with the exception of the header image, a few words here and there, and the signatures, the email copy is identical.

Why this matters: Again, I've just been sent the same survey 3 times. The response rates on surveys already tend to be low. Sending it to me 3 times under 3 different from names does not increase my chances of completing.

So, who cares?

4 Reasons Why Email Segmentation Matters

I'm an email snob. It's easy for me to sit up in my ivory email tower and tell everyone what they are doing wrong. I can't argue that fact. But I do think segmentation matters - not only for me, but for the average email consumer as well. Here's why:

1. Reduces inbox clutter: Assuming the emails were the same, would you rather receive 3 or just 1?

2. Increases relevancy: The more relevant an email, the more likely I am to take action (open, click, convert)

3. Earns trust: If I believe that you - the email marketer - have my best interests in mind, I'll trust you more. More trust ultimately leads to more action (see #2).

4. Gain credibility: Good segmentation proves to me that you know what you are doing. It shows that you are not blasting off emails. Instead, you are putting thought behind each send.

Segmentation is not hard. Time to add it to your email marketing new year's resolution list.

*After a conversation over IM with Andrew Kordek, it was pointed out that this post is lacking in concrete examples (case studies) of "segmentation success stories." If you have some, please share in the comments below as I'd like to do a follow up post.

DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory

Have we all become puppets? Being an email marketer, I realize the question itself is not overly popular – but it is something many of us struggle with. As owners of the email programs, many marketers I speak with express the acknowledgement of needing to send fewer, more valuable email communications; however, that admission is always said with the anticipation of the "but." And a big "but" it is! "BUT, my executive team (business owners, advertisers, take your pick) insist that we send more email, against our recommendation."

This statement, while expected, never ceases to amaze me. Have we really become an industry of puppets? Are experts no longer hired for their expertise and knowledge to create, drive and manage the best email program a brand can hope for?  Have we been forced in to a "yes-man" role? Ugh. I don't like the sound of that at all. Can't we just find a way to co-exist – a little compromise here and there? As we move in to 2010, I share with you my Email Hopes for the New Year:

• Mastery of the Basics
  There are so many things we could talk about here, but we really need to take a step away from the new and shiny email "toys" and really get good at the basics. If you have a 7% open rate, I don't think that plugging a video in to your email campaign is going to help. Clearly – you need to think about why you only have a 7% open rate and what you can fix about your email approach or strategy to improve. Poor program performance isn't going to make anyone happy – not you, not your boss, not your advertisers, and certainly not your customers.
  
• Send Less, More Relevant Email
  Achieving relevance is often a daunting conversation for marketers because it means having to dig deep in to data, that you may or may not be able to access. Are the days of asking customers what they want really gone? Do we have to rely on behavioral data to get relevant? Sure, it is definitely the "holy grail" dream, but it you can't get your hands on that information then why not just ask. Some of the most successful program optimization efforts I have seen with clients are those that asked some very specific questions around products/brands that were then applied to the email program. If you don't know, try asking – instead of guessing.
  
• Have a Real Email Plan
  Do you have a 2010 email calendar? If you said yes –you are in the minority. Just like other marketing efforts, you should have a 2010 email calendar denoting messages you intend to communicate with your customer-base throughout the year. Even the best laid plans have to be revised based on things happening in the market, but accounting for those outliers becomes more manageable when you have the other communications planned. If you do not have a 2010 plan, I beg you, at least make it your first quarter goal to build one. I promise that the work you do on the front-end will really help to drive the vision through the organization the rest of the year – at least it should.
  
• Make Your Email Social
  While socialized email was a new topic for email marketers in 2009 – it is definitely something you need to pay attention to and determine how it may enhance your email programs and brand as you move into 2010. It isn't going anywhere, so you should start considering ways to test and integrate it with your email marketing efforts. Just like anything else, social components have a place in your email communications and don't necessarily have to be leveraged in every communication – but determining how it could benefit your business and your email program in the coming year is definitely something to be mindful of.

As you all enter in the holiday-state-of-mind, be ready to enter Email 2010 head on. Stand your ground, sell the email vision/strategy through the organization, be ready to compromise a little (but don't give up) and most of all, have a real plan. The best way to be the expert within your organization and to get the attention and support of your decision-makers is to paint the picture – long-term considerations and all.

Happy Holidays everyone! Go get 'em!

- Kara Trivunovic
Sr. Director of Strategic Services
StrongMail

If you attended this week's Email Nirvana Webinar, you heard eec member Loren McDonald and founder Jeanniey Mullen give quite a presentation. It was so captivating that they almost didn't have time for questions. But they wanted to make sure everyone's concerns and questions were heard and so they agreed to answer some of the most frequently asked questions right here on the eec blog! More questions and answers can be reviewed on the Silverpop and OMS blogs as well. We will add the links soon.

Now, on to the questions...

How many words do you recommend for effective subject lines? I would think it would be 7 or less - any suggestions?

This is a great question, and one that can't really be answered easily. The real answer is, it depends on what the message is that you are trying to convey. Key points to remember when determining subject lines are: 1) Don't be cute- while you know what is inside the email and why your subject line might be a pun on the contents, no one else has opened it yet. They wont get the joke. The more direct the better.  2) Get to the point. Whether 7 words or 11, covey the main reason why you want people to open your email to avoid disappointment when they actually do. 3) There is no need to put your company name in the SL unless it is not in the from address. They just saw the email was from XYZ. They don't need to see that in the SL too. Start with these points, and test your way into improvements. Also- check out the eec whitepaper room for more subject line specific research and case studies.
 

What do you do if your emails are only relevant for a certain amount of time?

I love this question. Actually… emails never die. You might have seen this on TV in Law and Order, or some other crime show. You know, the part where the crime lab takes a computer that was on fire and somehow is able to restore emails? Well, believe it or not, the same is true for marketing emails. We have done studies at the eec where people show they will store an email from a brand that interests them for up to 2 years. The messages specific relevancy by that point has come and gone, but the brand impact is everlasting.  If your emails are only relevant for a short time you have one of two options: 1- add value added help links that make the content evergreen and give someone a reason to save your emails for years, or 2- test swapping out the non-relevant images behind the scenes and create and email that updates it's own content whenever opened, every so often.
 

Tips for B2B?

Anything you heard or saw in the webinar is true for B2B as well. B2B readers are also customers dealing with the same overloading email boxes, priority pressures and need to feel special that we all do in our personal lives. Start with a great B2C concept and email the eec for help if you need to/want to adjust for B2B.


What is the importance of the metrics particularly if you are emailing from a non-profit?

Metrics are important for any industry or vertical when it comes to email. They enable to you to, at the very least, set a benchmark for how your effort compare to other entities. One key measurement I enjoy reviewing is the click to open rate (what percentage of people who open your email click on the link). This lets you gauge how well your segmentation and targeting strategy are working. If less than 25% of these who open click, you are not reaching an engaged audience. Every year, the eec gathers a volunteer team of the best minds in email to help a npf improve their email. You can read the case studies right here on the eec site.

 
Are subscribers likely to fill out a form with all of those questions? How do you entice them to do so without making them skeptical about why you want the information?
 
This is always a tough question to answer because it is a business decision. Shorter forms get more completes, but lower quality. Longer forms drive more serious traffic. MotleyFool is one company who manages long forms very well. They incent people part way through. Ex Give us your email and name and get our email newsletter. When you do they say "thanks, now give us your mailing address and we will also send you a free whitepaper…. This happens many times until you unknowingly and happily have given every piece of personal information you have in small bits in return for value added products. Definitely worth a test.

In what we believe to be the first collection of bounce codes in one public location, the Get Satisfaction site is now the official home to the eec's Deliverability Roundtable bounce string project.  It is the culmination of many months worth of effort from industry veterans with experience in email deliverability and the technical aspects of sending and receiving email.  We decided to place it here since the site allows for dynamic updates as codes change in time and also provides a forum in which users can discuss deliverability issues and receive insight from folks in the industry. 

Why is this useful?
The most common form of communication for an ISP to communicate with a sender on a one-to-one ratio is a bounce message.  If an email is successfully handed off to an ISP, a success bounce is issued (250 ok).  However, if the message is not successfully handed off, an ISP will usually put pertinent information into a bounce message letting you know what the issue is and, in an ideal setting, what you need to do to avoid that bounce in the future.  The more failure bounces you collect, the less mail is getting through to your recipients.  If you're concerned about the highest level of delivery penetration, you'll review the bounce codes to spot trending and actionable items you can do to get your mail through to an ISP.  That's where this site comes into play.  We've amassed a list of the following ISPs that have standard bounce codes you should be aware of.  If you see a bounce from one of them, you should check the Get Satisfaction site to see if more information is available. 

• Hotmail/Live
• Comcast
• ATT/BellSouth/SBC
• Yahoo
• AOL

Who should use it?
Anyone who has a responsibility around message delivery, most likely your IT or development team, will want to take a look at this.  Bounce messages are collected at the email server level so, unless your email application allows easy access to data in a useable format, you'll need to have someone review the bounce messages at the server level to see the actual ISP message. 

How do I use it?
Let's say you send out a mailing today.  After watching the initial delivery numbers, you see that Yahoo has taken a dip in delivery (meaning there's a delta between the delivery numbers you're seeing and what you usually expect).  Either by using the ESP's delivery tools or by having someone on your team provide the information, you discover there's an accumulation of the following bounce strings queuing up on your outbound email server. 

"451 Resources temporarily not available - Please try again later [#4.16.5]" 

You then go to the new bounce site and search for this string.  You should find the following match: 

"What does bounce code 451 Resources temporarily not available - Please try again later [#4.16.5] from Yahoo mean?" (check it out). 

After you click on the link, you see that this is a bounce message Yahoo! will serve up if their servers are over capacity and are pushing back on mail to allow them to catch up.  This is not a sender related bounce but rather a Yahoo! infrastructure one – all you can do is retry the message later and hope Yahoo! has some available cycles at that time (which you should be doing on most soft bounces anyway). 

See?  It's that easy.  And in most cases there's a link to the ISP's postmaster page which will provide further information on what to do or context around why you're receiving this bounce. 

How can you help?
There is no uniform standard amongst ISPs mandating that certain bounces be stated a certain way.  As such, you see a huge variety of bounce messages and what information an ISP will provide.  Also, as ISPs deem necessary, bounce codes change over time making existing ones outdated and adding new ones.  Please help the email community stay on top of the changes by contributing to the GetSatisfaction bounce project site when you see new bounce codes that aren't listed or know one that's already listed has changed.  By making this an industry effort, we can ensure all of us are up with the latest news.  Feel free to ask questions on the site as well.  We have a few deliverability folks monitoring it.

Who put this together?
The following folks were involved with this project and we extend our gratitude!

• Joshua Baer - Founder & CEO - OtherInbox/Chief Evangelist - Datran Media
• Dennis Dayman, VP, Privacy, Eloqua
• Michelle Eichner, VP, Pivotal Veracity and Co-Chair, Deliverability Roundtable
• Stephanie Miller - VP, Global Market Development - Return Path
• Jack Sinclair - Co-Founder, COO & CFO - Return Path and Co-Chair, Deliverability Roundtable
• Chris Wheeler - Director of Deliverability - Bronto Software
• and other members of the eec Deliverability Roundtable

- Chris Wheeler, Director, Deliverability, Bronto Software and Member, eec Deliverability Roundtable

If you have ever dealt with onboarding at an ESP, you probably know one of the main topics of discussion around scalability and reputation is whether to go with dedicated or shared (pooled) IPs.  Are you ready to "drive solo" with a dedicated IP, or do you stick with the "carpool," an IP pool.  It can be daunting and sometimes a bit ambiguous as to which model fits your needs best.  With that in mind, here are the top 5 factors you need to keep in mind when determining which path to go down.

1. How much mail are you planning to send?
The way email is relayed from sender to receiver is fundamentally based on the IPs (or network fingerprints) involved in the handoff.  The more IPs you have, the more inroads you can create with getting mail delivered to an ISP (such as Yahoo!, Gmail, etc.).  Many ISPs have hard requirements around how many messages will be allowed through and how many active IPs you can use at one time.  If you're looking at sending more than 20,000 per week, you should see if having your own IPs to send through will give you the scalability needed to match that.  However, if you're not going to be sending at least that much, you might have more horsepower than you need which is where a pooled group of IPs helps – it spreads the load like peanut butter over the different IPs from the grouped senders.

2. What is the deliverability impact?
Email deliverability, at least right now, is heavily weighted on IP reputation.  What does this mean?  Like a credit report, ISPs will determine what sort of mail they can expect from an IP based on the history of mail that's been coming from it.  If you have mail that is strong enough reputation wise, which includes low bounce rates and end recipient complaints, a dedicated IP might work.  You will only have to worry about your own mail's impact as opposed to allowing the possibility of other mail going out the same IPs impacting your delivery.  But, proceed at your own risk – when using a dedicated IP, you determine your own fate.  Pooled IP senders usually rise and fall with each other depending on the sum total of mail being sent out where one particular sender won't necessarily sway the pool as a whole.  This is why choosing an ESP that has good deliverability rates on a pool is of paramount importance – you'll be judged by your peers.  A bad reputation will cost you in the long run.

3. How is dedicated v. pooled different in implementation?
Typically, a new IP will be warmed up (or pulled from an already warm pool) and allocated to a sender on a dedicated system.  This means special attention should be given to initial sending and ISP feedback.  Dedicated IPs also require a bit of inflight tweaking as the ISPs learn what sort of mail will be delivered.  But, once this initial ramping has completed, you're free to do as you like as long as you don't violate any ESP best practices.  You also have more wiggle room for making your IP specific to you since you're the only one it's representing.  Pooled IPs generally don't require much technical implementation since the sending IPs are ready to go and have a critical mass of mail already being sent out.  However, the business investment with vetting and passing certain ESP requirements can be heavy since the new sender has to prove they won't do anything to risk the pool's reputation and thus the existing senders using it.

4. Does the cost make sense?
Dedicated IPs require more time, effort and maintenance to get everything setup.  They use their own bandwidth which subsequently means the cost isn't shared.  Most ESPs charge for this as a result.  Pooled IPs?  There's usually no cost associated above and beyond the normal sending charges.  This means money saved for smaller sender.

5. How much autonomy do I want?
This is a critical question for anyone sending email.  Do you care if your messages go out with custom or group headers?  Do you want to be able to send on your own schedule whenever you want (again, as long as you stay within the ESP's published best practices)?  How about not having to worry about what other senders in the same pool are doing?  With dedicated IPs, you get to be in control of a lot more of the decisions around how email is actually delivered.  Many clients don't care, though, as email is just a component of a much larger marketing strategy and as such, they don't have the resources or capitol to afford dedicated IPs.  In a pool, you're more heavily scrutinized depending on any hiccups along the way impacting the greater good.

There's a tendency for email marketers to see the issue as black or white wherein they fall into one or the other side with strong convictions.  It's not that simple and as email becomes more widely adopted as a marketing and end customer communication vehicle, taking into account the above points will help you achieve success no matter where you land.

- Chris Wheeler, Director of Deliverability, Bronto

Chris is leading the charge to ensure both Bronto's customers and staff are well-informed about email marketing practices and technology as well as being the face of Bronto deliverability externally.  Previously, he created the internal deliverability program at Amazon.com alongside program managing the operations of the email team and was at an ESP leading a team of deliverability consultants.  Besides being a frequent contributor on Deliverability.com, Chris is a part of many email industry forums, both business and technical.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I've been hearing a lot of questions surrounding the best application of social media to the marketing mix, but one that has been slightly overlooked and under-discussed is who should really own it within an organization. And until you can figure that out, it is really difficult to hold any one internal resource responsible for devising a solid and actionable social plan.

To that end, StrongMail Systems recently conducted a survey to see how marketers were approaching the social space and who planned to own the channel. More than 500 marketers responded, and the results validated our suspicions. Social media is emerging as a direct marketing channel, and marketers are planning significant investment in email marketing and social media programs in the second half of 2009.

One thing the survey clearly conveyed is that ownership of social media within the various facets of marketing is still up for grabs, with 29% of respondents stating that responsibility is owned by multiple departments. But for 36% of the respondents, social is owned by the direct marketing organization, which allows for significant alignment with email marketing efforts. Social media was initially seen as a terrific vehicle for public relations, but surprisingly only 9% of respondents reported PR organizations owning the social media channel, which suggests that marketing teams value social media more for its demand generation potential than awareness building. A paltry 5% have a dedicated social media department.

Other notable facts from the survey include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Adam Covati, Bronto Software

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

Following the eec announcement of the Render Rate, some have asked why? Who cares? And what makes the Render Rate better than the other proposed metric—Action Rate—or vice versa?

As outlined in the previous post, How Opens Are Tracked and Reported, there are a large number of scenarios where an open might be tracked. At the most basic level, there are two methods of tracking opens:

1) A unique tracking image inserted into the email was loaded: confirming that the images in the email were rendered.

2) A link in the email was clicked: since obviously a link cannot be clicked if the email was not opened, this method allows us to track some of the people missed by the first method.
Render Rate is calculated using only the first method, while Action Rate is calculated by combining the unique results of both methods.

Advantages of Render Rate

Render Rate has the advantage over Action Rate in two ways:

1) Pre-conversion testing: At the end of the day, most marketers want to look at conversion of some sort. Even so, evaluation of pre-conversion dynamics can be helpful in optimizing a program. Because Render Rate measures only one thing, it is better suited for testing in pre-conversion testing scenarios. If we want to look at the ability of a subject line to get people to look at the email, The Render Rate only measures that one thing. If we use Action Rate to evaluate subject lines we are actually testing two different things: 1) which subject line got more people to view the email with images, and 2) which subject line got more people who didn't view the email with images to click. Since Action Rate would evaluate success based on two different criterions, it is difficult to determine what the subject line actually does best. A better approach is to use Render Rate to answer the question, "Which subject line got more people to look at my email?" and use Click Through Rate to answer the question, "Which subject line gets more people to click on a link?"

One could take subject line testing a step further by analyzing the results in two stages – first look at which subject line had better reach, and then we can look at which subject line eventually drove more people to the landing page. Then we would optimize the landing page to further increase conversions (e.g. sales) in its own tests. In theory, optimizing each step in the process will increase overall conversions, but there are exceptions, so a final test using conversions from emails delivered is recommended.

Render Rate also improves testing of creative elements in email because it limits both the control and the test groups to only a version of the email where we could be sure that images were seen by all subjects in both groups. When addressing the question, "Which creative is most effective at getting people to click?" conduct the test based on the people who we know saw the creative (as measured by renders) and then look at that segment to determine which creative version got the higher percentage of people to click through. This type of evaluation is impossible using Action Rate since by definition, anyone who clicked also opened, which inaccurately implies 100% effectiveness of the creative.

Limiting to the render rate only means that both the control and the test group see the same thing. Some examples of tests – types of imagery used in pictures, call to action placement (preview pane or below), button vs. text links. This can be particularly important to those that write emails that have few links in them (or even just one) – where the placement of that link, whether it be a feedback method or the call to action itself moves based on image rendering.

2) Ad impressions: Many advertisers sell display advertising in email. Render Rate provides accurate measures for how many of those ads were displayed. Since it limits the value of the metric to specifically image based opens (renders) it gives us the true number of total impressions using the total emails rendered. Keep in mind, for image-based advertisers, there is no value of an email for which no images are rendered—Action Rate would provide an artificially inflated view of performance. We could also use the Render Rate to determine reach and frequency in a specific email. Here the unique number of email renders is the reach and the total number is the frequency. When combined with monetization via ad revenue we can construct a traditional direct marketing RFM model.

Of course, Render Rate has its challenges, which is why a second metric has also been proposed.

Advantages of Action Rate

Action Rate has the advantage over Render Rate in two ways:

1) Less Inaccurate Measure of "Opens": Render Rate underreports the number of people who seemingly looked at your email more than Action Rate. However, Action Rate still underreports this number. In reality, no reliable method for determining how many subscribers actually looked at your email exists. Both proposed metrics are estimates. Both are low estimates. Action Rate is simply a slightly closer estimate of the number of people who presumably looked at your email.

Under reporting is one of the primary reasons the eec Measurement Accuracy Roundtable recommends a move away from the term Open Rate. Unfortunately, this term has left many marketers with an incorrect understanding of what the metric provides. Worse still, "Open Rates" are calculated different ways by different ESPs—thus the need for standardization.

2) Text-based advertising: Again using the publishing realm as a basis of example, publishers often need to provide reports on text-based advertising. For this purpose, Action Rate is a better standard metric for the reasons listed in the prior section. The Action Rate, which reports, "opens" based on either the rendering of a tracking pixel or a user action (i.e. a click) we can better judge the true number of ad impressions based on action rate. Currently, to our knowledge there is no other industry metric that is defined and standardized that accomplishes this goal.

Use Both to Gain Additional Insights

Finally, using both the Render Rate and the Action Rate together we can learn more about our subscribers and the ways they use emails. For example if you see a regular reader appearing in the list of subscribers that typically views emails with images on and then suddenly drops off the list of those that fit the render rate definition and starts showing up on the action rate only, this may indicate that the subscriber has begun reading their emails with a mobile device. It may also be that they have not added you to their white list, or another set of circumstances may have occurred. The point here, is that using them both we can identify little differences in subscriber behavior that may alert us that it would be worth it to request more feedback from that reader or set off a trigger email to them.

The members of the Measurement Accuracy Roundtable think that if you do adopt our proposed metrics – whether via your ESP or in your own email deployment and reporting in-house system that you will find the Render Rate, the Action Rate and their associated metrics to be superior to current methods—which are inconsistent and sometimes misleading. For those of you that are already defining your open metrics using the Render and Action Rates we congratulate you on being ahead of the times and welcome your support on this initiative and help to spread the metrics throughout the industry so that all email marketers and our stakeholders can have clearer understanding on how our programs work and their effectiveness.

- Luke Glasner, Rodman Publishing & Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget

As the first quarter of the year recently ended, I would like to take this opportunity to discuss a question that I keep getting asked by current and prospective clients: "What is the industry average for delivery rates?" As much as I've talked about this with clients and in public forums, the question still comes up – and my answer is always the same: most marketers should not spend their time being concerned with industry averages for email delivery.

Here's the problem. When marketers focus on what others in the industry are achieving, they are spending less time focusing on their own programs. To me, it shouldn't matter what others are achieving; it matters what you're achieving.

If the industry is getting an 88% delivery rate, but you are getting a 90% delivery rate, does that mean that you should stop trying to improve it? Instead of sitting back and enjoying the fact that you are getting 2% more of your mail to your users, it would serve you better to try to increase that delivery rate by another couple of percentage points and increase your ROI.

Of course delivery rates aren't the only things marketers focus on; opens and clicks also get a lot of attention. The standardization of these numbers is important for the industry, and especially for senders — not only for properly evaluating the services of a prospective provider, but also for making sense of all the studies that discuss these numbers.

For example, say a company comes out with a study that finds that for industry "x", the average delivery rate is 85% and open rate is 5%. Without standardized metrics, how do we know if all of the companies that were surveyed actually determine their numbers the same way? What if the open rate for one company was determined by number of messages sent, while another was calculated by number of messages delivered? Depending on their independent delivery rates, this discrepancy could have a huge effect on the reported results.

As you look at all your numbers, remember that while it's good to know what others are doing, it's more important to track how you are doing and continue to improve — no matter what your numbers are.

Here's the other thing to remember when reviewing various reports, surveys and other data points that may or may not make you feel good about your programs: You can never control what someone else does; you only have control over your own actions. That means, as always, report on this information for your own company, or perhaps your own division. Then watch it, track it and use it.

Are you seeing the same thing with your clients? Let me know in the comments, along with any other feedback. Good luck and good sending.

- Spencer Kollas
Director of Delivery Services at StrongMail Systems

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

The eec blog post introducing the new "render rate" (by the Measurement Accuracy Roundtable) has drawn dozens and dozens of comments to date – from supportive to some that question the value of the standardization initiative.

There were also a number of comments and questions that indicate many people still don't understand what the open rate does and doesn't measure and how open rates are actually tracked. This blog post will be the first of a series from various members of the Measurement Accuracy Roundtable that address the comments and questions posted on the blog.

Before diving into a detailed explanation of how the open rate works and what it does and doesn't measure, I wanted to remind everyone of the core objective and purpose of this initiative.

The Measurement Accuracy Roundtable was formed with two primary purposes:
1) To ensure that email industry metrics that were widely adopted accurately measured what they were designed to measure;
and
2) That the metric was measured consistently by vendors and marketers. The intent was not to eliminate metrics or pose our opinion or preferences on email marketers.

With that background and reminder, let's dive into the basics of the open rate, which hopefully conveys why the eec took up the initiative to standardize this popular email metric…

How open rates are measured: Your email technology automatically inserts html code that references an invisible (often referred to as a "clear" or "1×1″) tracking image in your email, usually at the bottom of the email.

Like the other images in your HTML emails, they are actually hosted on a server, not embedded within the email. When a recipient opens the email, and images are not blocked, the image is called/pulled into the html message from the hosting server. As the image is pulled into the message, it is appended with a unique identifier that is associated to the receiving email address. That rendering of an image associated to an email address has been commonly referred to as an "open." Now, it gets more complicated.

When an "open" is counted: With the above definition in place, let's look at the scenarios in which an open is counted or reported:

At last week's Email Evolution Conference, the Great Email Debate sparked a ton of conversation.

We'd like everyone to have the opportunity to weigh-in on the three topics we established as best practices. This week, vote on the first topic, the opt-in box: checked or un-checked, and post your comments here.

Next week we'll tackle single opt-in or double opt-in and the following week we'll wrap up the debate with a question about keeping or deleting inactives.

Well, I hope so. It's about time an email event had some drama and excitement. I have been going to industry events for years now and they are all the same: some great speakers, some not so great speakers; lots of buffet food, box lunches and good ideas.

But this year, the Email Evolution Conference (EEC09) promises to be different; at least in one session: The Great Email Debate. In this session, rumor has it that six of your favorite digital celebrities including Greg Cangialosi, Dave Hendricks, Peter Horan, Bill McCloskey, Kara Trivunovic, and DJ Waldow, are splitting into two sides and creating a Family Feud-esque scenario like no other.

We will finally see the mud flying as this group takes on tough questions like: Is it single opt-in or double? Do you remove inactives from your list? Do you precheck that box for opt-in?

I can't wait to see some candid conversations about topics that we all face every day. I will be moderating the session, but I will warn you, I am a hockey fan so seeing some blood or a good hip check as we address these issues won't make me sad.

This is only one of the many exciting sessions planned for EEC09.

If you are not yet registered for EEC09, you should be. Use discount code JAN09 and pay only $999* for the full conference (that includes one pre-conference workshop of your choice).

See you in a few weeks!
Jeanniey

*Only applies to new registrations.

Ever wondered what drives response – pictures or words? Red or blue? Flash or plain html? A great way to capitalize on the democratic medium of email is to put your burning questions, late night hunches, and out-of-the-box ideas to the test with an A/B split test! Allow your audience to vote with their clicks and get instant answers that can help drive stronger results!

Follow a few simple guidelines provided in the eec Email Design Roundtable's A/B Test Checklist and start testing your way to more engaging email program.

Let no area of your message be safe from scrutiny! The checklist provides test ideas that will help you optimize:

Subject Lines
Pre-Headers
Navigation
Layout
Copy/Messaging
Imagery
Calls-To-Action

According to the vast and varied experiences of our very own eec Email Design Roundtable, there are 3 golden rules to follow when executing a successful and insightful test:

Rule #1:
Focus on one key variable at a time. Note before you start the test what key metric you are looking to influence to declare a winner. Subject line testing is generally about getting people to open the email; calls to action are more about clicks and conversion.

There is one caveat to focused decision making in A/B test scenarios - while it is necessary and rewarding to get answers to your burning questions by tracking a measurable change in a single metric, it is important to realize that your fidgeting with things can cause unintended side-effects…

• When SL testing, you might focus on change in open rate in order to determine which worked better, but also consider post-open actions (did the subject line set the person up to convert in the email?).
• When image testing, keep an eye on your overall file size, does this negatively impact your deliverability?

At the end of the day, email is a direct response medium, so just be clear what you are trying to test/achieve, and make sure your positive results in one area aren't sabotaging another.

Rule #2:
You MUST use a random distribution for setting up your "A" and "B" audience groups. The sizes of the segments don't need to be the same if the key metric you are looking to influence is expressed as a "rate", but they do need to have the same general characteristics to be a fair test (don't test all buyers in the A group and all prospects in the B group).

In fact, if you can't decide between one hero image and another, do an initial AB split test with a small percentage of your audience on Monday, then send the winning creative to the remainder on Tuesday.

The initial test will give you enough of a sense of "what worked" to roll out the best variation to the remainder of your list. Be ready to act on what the data tells you – you might be surprised!

Rule #3:
Ron Blum of Upromise astutely points out that while the purpose of A/B testing is to find out what works - "don't assume what works today will work tomorrow…
tastes change, people get used to and fatigued by getting the same look-and-feel".

Continuous testing is the best recipe for continued success.

Advanced A/B Testing

If you are one of those highly-evolved, weekly A/B test prodigies and are looking for a new angle on ye old A/B test, try multi-variate testing on for size.

Not all customer / audience segments behave the same way. As your mailing strategy gets to be more complex, there is no reason to stop A/B testing. In fact, segmenting your audience allows you to exponentially increase the insights provided by your A/B testing!

Take this example from Williams-Sonoma:

In general, we find that including the price for a featured item on the hero image of an email drives clicks and conversions. However, when we recently tested the presence of price on an email that was segmented between customers who had a history of spending more than $100 per transaction vs customers who had a tendency to spend less than $100 per transaction, we found that low price customers were more likely to click when the price was NOT provided whereas the opposite was true for customers who had spent more than $100 with us.

Not only did this test help us drive response rate for all customers in the first test, this insight helped us develop a strategy around talking to our lower price customers that will continue into future campaigns.

In order to set this up correctly, just remember golden rule #2 and make sure you have a "control" group in both segments.

With these four segments:
Low Price A vs Low Price B
High Price A vs Low Price B

You can test A vs B in Low Price Segments and see if it's the same as A vs B in your High Price Segments.

Please join us in the pursuit of more perfect email by using our A/B Test Checklist, available in the eec's Whitepaper Room, and returning to post your results below!

Megan Walsh, Williams-Sonoma
eec Email Design Roundtable Co-Chair

The answer…
84% –> Organic – Capitalizing on sign-up opportunities across all of my channels
9% –> Acquisition – Growing by renting lists, using co-registration, etc.
6% –> Viral – Empowering subscribers to share my emails via forward to a friend, social networks, etc.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this unscientific survey.

Are you surprised by the results? Share your comments below.

Also, visit the eec homepage to answer the latest Two-Click Survey question:
Are animated gifs effective in emails?

–>See more Two-Click Survey Results.

Are you happy with the structure and performance of your email program? If you wish you could just blow it up and start over, we dare you—no, we Double Dog Dare you—to consider this challenge from Loren McDonald, vice president of industry relations for Silverpop:

Start your email program over from scratch. Shut the door, turn off your phone, IM and Twitter, and get out a plain, old-fashioned sheet of paper or clean off the office whiteboard. Ask yourself these questions: What would I do differently if I could start our email program over? What am I doing purely out of habit or because everybody else is doing it? What do I wish I could do but I can't because I don't have the budget or backing from management?

As you stare at the blank page or whiteboard, ask yourself these questions:

● List growth: Are we focused on quantity rather than quality? Are we using questionable acquisition methods just to hit some arbitrary list-size targets? Are we still using pre-checked boxes and single opt-in because my boss couldn't care less about spam complaints, list hygiene and delivery rates?
● List churn and inactivity: Do we understand how active our database is? From one-third to three-quarters of our list is likely inactive; so, what are we doing to reactivate those subscribers that have tuned us out? What programs do we have to deliver greater value to our loyal customers? What can we do to minimize unsubscribes, spam complaints and bounces?
● Design and format: Are our image-heavy emails with lots of administrative information located above the fold still the right approach? Is it time to start from scratch and have an email-design professional create a template that renders well on mobile devices and in preview panes with blocked images? Should we redesign our masthead and navigation links to better correspond with the actions our subscribers want to take?
● Welcome program: Is it time to chuck the text-only confirmation email for a well-designed, multi-message welcome email program?
● Message types: We've been sending the same basic emails for the last two years—our "Weekly Specials" email and monthly "Close Outs." Should we blow this up and let subscribers select different categories and frequencies? Can we add a slew of new email types—birthday specials, reminders, surveys, refer-a-friend promotions, geographic-targeted messages, educational or tip-oriented emails, etc.? Can we wrestle the transactional emails away from IT and design them to cross-sell and up-sell?
● Batch-and-blast: Is it time to stop whining, "How can I move to a lifecycle-, behavior- or trigger-based approach when it's all I can do to get the weekly batch-and-blast emails out the door?" Could I swap one or two batch-and-blast emails a month so I can start testing some more targeted approaches?
● Metrics: Are we tracking the right performance metrics? Our open and click-through rates are doing well, but my boss doesn't seem to care and wonders why we spend so much time on email marketing. Is it time for me to tackle proving the contribution of email to lifetime customer value, cost savings and direct ROI?
● Incentives: Have we gotten hooked on incentives —free shipping and 10% off? Should we test some targeted emails sent only to people that clicked on specific links and use no or reduced incentives to see if we can improve our margins?
● Preference centers: Our unsubscribe page is so ugly and doesn't offer any alternatives. Can I get some design and Web resources to create a worldclass unsubscribe/preference page? Speaking of preference centers, can we continue without one?

If you take up this dare: Let us know by commenting below. Did you overhaul your email completely or just tweak it here and there? What's the first thing you would change about your program if you could? Finally: Which of these changes, if any, could you actually make in your present program? And if you have a Double Dog Dare for the eec community, let us know about that, too.

–>See more Double Dog Dares.

Are the basics of email marketing leaving you stumped? Don't know where to turn with your most pressing email marketing questions? The wait is now over! The Email Experience Council's Member Initiatives Advisory Committee has established a comprehensive list of Email Marketing Q&A's that will assist even the most seasoned email marketing veteran in answering some of the industry's most pressing questions.

Questions range on topics such as permission, deliverability, list rental, Can-Spam requirements, and engaging consumers. From questions such as "Can you give me a list of spammy words to avoid?" to "Do I need to get permission in order to send emails to customers?" there is something interesting for everyone.

Personally, my favorite QA is "Everyone on my list has opted in so why am I getting spam complaints?" The accompanying answer is a solid response to a question asked by many in the email world, but this issue will more than likely forever remain as one that we email marketers will continue to ask, study, and try to solve for ages to come.

By no means are the contributors to the Q&A lawyers or legal advisors but most have been in the trenches of email marketing for long enough to know the answers to the questions everyone wants to know but are too afraid to ask. In addition, many of the answers are accompanied by other valuable resources to further enhance your knowledge on particular subjects.

Not seeing your most burning questions on the list? Send them to us! We'll be continuing to post Q&A's periodically so email us your questions and check back later for the answers.

—eec Members Initiatives Advisory Committee chair Lauren Skena of Epsilon