eec Platinum Sponsor, StrongMail, today released the the results of its “2012 Marketing Trends” survey which provides unique insight into how businesses plan to budget and prioritize marketing dollars in the New Year.  Conducted in November 2011, 938 business leaders participated in the global survey.
 
Survey Highlights

• 92% plan to increase or maintain marketing spend in 2012
• 60% plan to increase email marketing budget; 54% social media; 37% mobile/search (tied)
• 45% cite data integration as primary email marketing challenge in 2012; 43% lack of resources/staff; 40% content management
• 48% cite increasing subscriber engagement as top 2012 email marketing initiative; 44% improving segmentation/targeting; 32% growing opt-in email list
• 68% plan to integrate email marketing with social media; 45% with mobile; 17% with search

Marketing Budgets Remain Healthy; Email and Social Media Attract Increased Investment
Email marketing (60%) and social media (54%) were cited as the top two areas for increased marketing spend. According to the survey, 51% of businesses plan to increase their marketing budgets in 2011, and another 41% plan to maintain current levels.  Only 8% of respondents plan to decrease marketing budgets, which is a slight increase over the 7% reported in last year's survey. Other areas of increased spend included mobile and search, which are tied at 37%. Direct mail (28%) and tradeshows (23%) are top targets for decreased spend.
 
Subscriber Engagement is Top Email Marketing Priority; Data Integration is Top Challenge
The top email marketing initiatives for 2012 are increasing subscriber engagement (48%), improving segmentation and targeting (44%) and growing opt-in email lists (32%). Data integration is key to achieving these top priorities, but it is also identified as the primary email marketing challenge in 2012 (45%), followed by lack of resources (43%) and content management (40%). These opposing data points represent an opportunity for email service providers to fill the gap with relevant services.
 
Marketers Focus on Integrating Email Marketing and Social Media
More than two-thirds of business plan to integrate social media and email 2012, versus 44% for mobile and email. The strong ties between email marketing and social media are also emphasized by the 47% of businesses that plan to increase investment in using email to drive growth in their social media channels, such as corporate Facebook and Twitter pages.  The next popular areas of investment are batch promotional (44%) and newsletter (39%) programs, followed by real-time lifecycle marketing programs (35%), with an emphasis on winback (68%) and welcome (59%) programs.
 
Marketers Unclear on Value of Mobile Marketing
More than a third of businesses plan to increase their investment in mobile marketing programs such as mobile apps (30%) and SMS alerts (20%), but there is a lack of consensus on the primaryvalue of this emerging channel.  Building customer and loyalty (35%) was identified as the top benefit, followed by expanded reach (29%) and awareness building (28%). However, this is offset by a similar percentage still trying to figure it out (24%) and a smaller percentage citing no value at all (7%).
 
"While email marketing leads the pack in terms of increased of investment in 2012, the data also reveals that marketers need to overcome key challenges around data integration and resource constraints," said Christopher Marriott, vice president of agency services at StrongMail. "Whether managing and optimizing existing email marketing programs or enabling integration with social media and mobile, there is a real opportunity for full-service email marketing providers like StrongMail to help companies get the most out of their interactive marketing investments in 2012."
 
Survey Data
Full survey data is available at: www.strongmail.com/2012marketsurvey

Wow, that hour went fast!  The estimable Shaun Brown, partner, nNovation LLP, a law firm based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, spoke about the new Canadian privacy legislation – referred to as Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL – an acronym that many speak like the word “castle”) – that has many email marketers confused on compliance requirements and timing.  Listen to the November 10th webinar (and we highly recommend it) for free here.

Brown compared CASL to something many of us already know – the U.S. CAN-SPAM law of 2003.   Bottom line:  In many areas – permission, notice, coverage and risk – CASL is much broader.

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

Compliance with the anti-spam aspects of CASL encompasses three broad categories:

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

CASL was created with both public and private enforcement opportunity.  The Canadian Radio & Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is charged with enforcement.  This is a civil enforcement agency, there are no criminal provisions.  There is a private right of action available to any individual impacted.

Right now, the law is not in force.  It was passed in December 2010 and regulations were published for comments this past summer. The Government is still working through those comments (there were many!).  No timetable is published for a second set of regulations; however Brown expects something by early 2012.   The government is also setting up a Spam Reporting Center, which will be a website to gather evidence and monitor trends as well as provide consumer education.


In preparation for enforcement, Brown recommends three primary areas for marketers and senders:

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

As with any legislation, the devil is in the details.  The Email Experience Council recommends that you have legal counsel review the law and determine the next best steps for your organization. In the webinar, Brown gave his thoughts on some key business issues and applications:

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

Many thanks to Shaun Brown and nNovation LLP for an excellent presentation and generous review of so many audience questions. nNovation LLP is a pre-eminent Canadian law firm that advises companies, industry associations and other private and public sector parties in their business relationships and practices, and in connection with a broad range of Canadian regulatory regimes. With several years of experience both in the public and private sectors, Shaun’s practice focuses on emarketing, ecommerce, privacy, and access to information.   

Thanks also to the eec's Deliverability & Compliance Roundtable, led by Matt Rausenberger of Return Path and Dennis Dayman of Eloqua, for sponsoring and organizing this event.

If you are not an Email Experience Council member, please join us for free access to these kinds of event and resources.  If you are a member and would like to join one of our member Roundtables (committees), please email Ali.


- Stephanie Miller
eec Co-Chair

The eec hosted a webinar this month highlighting the role of video in email.  Luke Glasner of Red Pill Email moderated and Justin Foster of LiveClicker and Rory Carlyle of Carlyle, Inc. contributed to the panel discussion.  The audience was engaged throughout as we learned about video email best practices, case studies, and technical requirements to achieve strong deliverability with video in email.  Download the webinar recording.

Top 10 takeaways from video email webinar:

1.  Video is a growing trend that email marketers need to pay attention to.  Video viewing time increased 26% year-over-year in the USA from August 2010 to August 2011.  180 million people, or 86% of the US Internet audience, viewed online video in August of 2011, according to comScore.  Marketers are taking notice, with video ad spend projected to increase 22% from 2011 to 2012 (eMarketer).  An August 2011 report by Forrester Research showed online video was perceived as the channel most poised to increase in effectiveness over the next three years by interactive marketers, behind only mobile marketing and created social media.

2.  Using video for video's sake is not a good enough reason to use video with email.  Marketers need to decide whether the application of video creates additional value for subscribers before deciding to employ this tactic.  Simply using video because it is "cool" is not a good enough reason; marketers need to first consider whether the storytelling power of video can be used to more effectively entertain, engage, or excite subscribers, build trust, stir the imagination, or persuade the subscriber to take an action vs. other techniques.

3.  Video is proven to be an effective tactic to boost email campaign performance, but only when best practices are applied.  Simply using the word "video" in the subject line of email has been demonstrated to help achieve increases in open rates of up to 20% vs. an identical message body without the word "video" in the subject line.  Video in email examples illustrated a 200% increase in CTR in a controlled A/B split in one example, 67% higher CTR v. average campaigns in another.  Still, if best practices are not used, video can annoy subscribers, distance marketers from subscribers, and even drive up negative metrics like unsubscribe rates.

4.  Video does not alter the fundamental rules of smart email email marketing. Relevance still rules.  Marketers need to think about who to engage with video; use of past clickthrough data, web analytics data, or customer demographic data are all possible sources of valuable targeting information.  Knowing which subscribers have watched video in the past can be especially helpful when developing segments for video email.

5.  Video production does not need to be difficult or expensive; marketers can make it so.  There are several techniques that can be used to minimize the amount of time required to generate videos for campaigns, such as: 1) use existing content developed in-house or by partners (just make sure you have permission) 2) If your brand is tolerant, carefully assess the production values you really need to accomplish the goal of the campaign.  It is possible to create HD video content in-house, with a full camera setup and set, for $4,000 - $5,000.  Hiring a professional or an agency is also an option, but many marketers make the mistake of thinking that video has to be expensive, when in reality video is only expensive when the marketer's production requirements make it so.

6.  Choosing which technique to use for leveraging video "in" email is a creative and cost decision.  Period.  There are benefits and drawbacks of each method of including video in email.  Concerns over deliverability, campaign send speed, or mail client support should not dictate the decision of "in" or "with" because technologies exist in the market to detect what email client a subscriber is using, and then automatically serve a compatible version of the video asset, animated .GIF video, or still image directly in the email based on what the mail client supports.  If a marketer has a creative aversion to using any of these creative treatments, it is easy to exclude the use of that treatment without having to cut the list.  Further, deliverability concerns can be alleviated simply by employing best practices in coding email messages.

7.  If using video in email, internal education is key.  Not all mail clients support full video in email, including Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010.  If you use one of these programs at your place of work, consider setting internal expectations so that stakeholders know what to expect.  While video in email support is not yet consistent across mail clients, as of June 2011 an "average" B2C marketer could expect to deliver "full" video in email to approximately 37% of the list, animated .GIF video to 50% of the list, and static image to 13% of the list.  Your results will vary based on your list's composition.

8.  Email marketers need to treat video as more than a "one off" experiment.  Since we belong to a metrics-focused industry, many email marketers choose to "one off" test video in email to see if it "works."  This is a terrible mistake because it does not allow the marketer to understand what about the video is driving results.  There are many different types of video content; some videos will work better than others.  Therefore, it is important when testing video to at minimum test over a series of campaigns (I recommend at least 3).  Only by looking at video in the context of several campaigns will marketers begin to discover what works and doesn't work for the brand.

9.  Know the lead times involved.  Most email marketers have not used video with email before.  If it's your first time, consider planning the video a full two months prior to the campaign launch.  Since video requires different techniques and tools to create and encode, try to give yourself a buffer and a Plan B far in advance.  If you already have access to video content, plan on adding an additional three to four hours per campaign for any testing or troubleshooting.

10.  Follow best practices.  Among them: 1) set the subscriber's expectation for video by calling the video out in the subject line (this is especially important for animated .GIF videos, which auto-play)  2) Use a "play" button in the video "player" to signal the subscriber can play the video.  3) Highlight in the email what "happens" when the video is clicked.  Because watching a video requires the subscriber to invest his scarce time, it is important to communicate the value you are promising up-front to prevent disappointment 4) Serve a "right click to play" message as the first frame of the video for Hotmail users (because player controls aren't supported yet in Hotmail) 5) Keep animated .GIF videos to 30 seconds or less.  Since animated .GIF videos don't support sound, they are most effective as "teaser" content.

BONUS TAKEAWAY:  Be clear with your campaign goals up front and do not over-hype or over-promise results.  Video email is still new and best practices are still emerging.  In my experience, the marketers that have gone on to be most successful with video email are those who took the time to learn about video in email, took the time to educate their managers and peers, and treated video email as an "experiment."  If you promise the moon, you'd at least better be able to jump off the ground.

Today the Email Experience Council and Epsilon released the Q1 2011 North America Email Trends and Benchmarks Results, which show a 4.2 percent increase in open rates over Q1 2010 and a 39.2 percent increase in average volume per client from Q1 2010.

The quarterly analysis is compiled from 7.1 billion emails sent by Epsilon in January, February, and March 2011, across multiple industries and approximately 140 participating clients.  The analysis combines data from both of Epsilon’s proprietary platforms, DREAM and DREAMmail.

Read the press release.

Download the free report.

The trend for several years now has been away from building and toward outsourcing, yet some organizations still think building an in-house email marketing solution is the way to go. The market offers numerous ways to build your own in-house solution. But what's the real cost?

Some organizations have so much IT talent that they think they can build their own email marketing system. A perceived cost savings typically drives this decision. Would they consider building their own print shop? Probably not. It's a matter of sticking with your core business vs. being your own vendor.
 
There are so many possibilities for email platforms these days. ESPs have been around for over a decade. They are a tried-and-true way to go as the "buy" option for companies preferring to outsource the infrastructure. If an ESP isn’t for you and your organization plans to build, I offer some factors to consider to help you determine the real cost.
 
There's a real cost to building that must be considered. It's a capital expense vs. an operations expense. But building comes with operational expenses too…and the cost of not having certain competitive capabilities.

"Building" can mean a variety of approaches to your email marketing system. It might mean you're buying a server from StrongMail or using an online solution like Amazon Cloud. It can also mean you’re building from scratch. There are sending solutions where sending is hosted but you still have to do the front end. No matter the route you go, if you build, you will have to manage the hosting, maintenance, firewall, integration and more. Much more. When you “buy,” you’re outsourcing the infrastructure and getting invaluable additional benefits as well, including deliverability, currency and relevance-enabling tools.
 
Deliverability
Deliverability is critical. It directly impacts your email marketing ROI. If an email isn't delivered, you have zero potential for an impression or sale. In fact, you don't even get to work a little brand awareness in there. An undelivered email might as well not exist. When you buy—meaning outsource—your email solution, you get a team of postmasters who will keep your email deliverability rate up. When you’re doing this in-house and you run into an email delivery problem, you’ll either have to  hire a consultant to help or be willing to dedicate your IT team’s time to figuring out the problem – which is not easy to say the least.

Currency
Plus there's staying current. ESPs are constantly evolving, continually adding new features to keep up with email deliverability requirements and consumer expectations. If you build your own, you are essentially freezing yourself in time. For some organizations, the incremental cost for email goes away. But you still have IT costs. It's a business decision and there are tax implications as you consider capital vs. operating expenses.
 
Relevance
To compete in the inbox in 2011, you must have relevance-enabled tools. Those tools used to cost thousands of dollars. Today they cost hundreds...when you outsource. Relevance-enabled technologies include trigger-based and event-driven emails, lifecycle and drip campaigns, and dynamic content. You can build out these capabilities, but the undertaking is massive. And massive means pricey because you're talking payroll costs and lost opportunities while you wait for your solution to be built and deployed.
 
Top-tier ESPs have this relevance-enabling technology built in to their platforms. That means "buying" instead of "building" lets you take advantage of these competitive advantages from day one.
 
Relevance also requires website analytics resulting from a recipient interacting with an email. Many web analytics platforms can track this at a macro-level, but the real value comes when the data is tied to a specific email address. If you don't have the tight integration required to give you insight from web analytics, or integration with your CRM system, you won't be able to do truly relevant, targeted email marketing.
 
How long will it take to build and deploy?
If your IT department says it will take six months to build, plan on 12 to 18 months before you're fully functional with all the features you want. Can you wait a year and a half for a good email marketing system? While your competition is emailing your target market, you won’t be…or at least you won’t be at the level of effectiveness you want, meaning your competition will likely win out.
 
Don't forget the payroll costs
Consider the staff time and associated payroll costs. If you're going to build and maintain in-house, you’ll need at least two staff people trained so you'll always have someone on hand if problems arise. In addition to the IT aspects of building and maintaining an email solution, at least one of your employees must have expertise in email areas like privacy, working with ISPs, deliverability issues, protecting your online sending reputation, being CAN-SPAM compliant and more. If you plan to design your own emails or use rich media email, you’ll also need someone who is an expert and who will take into account rendering issues in different email clients and on handheld devices too. That’s three staff people. What does that add up to when you add in all the benefits, taxes and other costs of adding a body to your payroll?
 
Unless you are sending hundreds of millions of emails monthly, outsourcing is cheaper...and safer. Building might look cheaper at the outset, but the cost is going to be higher than you anticipate. If email isn't core to your business, outsource. If it is core to your business, absolutely critical, maybe build. Maybe. But consider every single cost.


- Marco Marini
CEO
ClickMail Marketing

Sometimes you need a stat for a presentation, whitepaper, article or blog post.  EmailStatCenter.com has tons of email marketing stats.  Here are some recent ones you can use as long as you provide appropriate attribution.

62% of email traffic share to landing pages comes from Yahoo! Mail, while Gmail provides just 4% of referrals.
- Chitika Insights (2011)

US adult internet users subscribe to an average of almost three daily or weekly shopping emails or newsletters.
- Yahoo! Mail and Ipsos OTX MediaCT, "Consumer Pulse" (2011)

Q4 2010 open rates (22.1%) saw little change over the two-year period, increasing 5% from the same time two years ago.
- Epsilon and eec "Q4 2010 Email Trends and Benchmarks" (2011)

Email has been used by nearly 90% of consumers since 2005.
- MarketingProfs, "2010 Digital Marketing Fact Book"

ClickMail Marketing 

Email marketing, like any career, is likely to include working and collaborating with people who are not in the same physical office.   If you are the remote person, you probably have concerns about keeping in touch with others on the marketing team or in your department, and if you are managing people who are remote, you have to pay special attention to keeping them in touch with the rest of the group.

In an eec Member Initiatives Advisory Committee meeting on the Career Paths project last month, we discussed the impact of this dispersed workforce, and how it affects an email marketing team.

Angela Baldonero, VP, People of Return Path, reviewed four broad trends for career development among the diaspora:

1. Technology keeps us connected, and enables a broad dispersion of the workforce.  However, it also causes some practical issues. For example, we have an employee in Berlin reporting to a manager in California. It raises the question:  Is Skype enough?
2. Social interaction is good for the business.  Bringing on people in new geographies can be challenging for on-boarding as well as collaboration.  It's harder for new people to be remote.  However, people who have already built relationships in a core office and then move away can be successful in a remote environment.
3. Dispersion affects the talent development lifecycle.  For example, the key needs of top talent are relationships and recognition and it's hard for people to build relationships if they are not there.  Lots of good work happens when you are in the same room – including discussing the creative for the email campaign while you look over my shoulder, or brainstorming subject lines by the coffee machine.   Plus, it's hard to "make your mark" if you do not have access to casual interaction, and the only time you "see" colleagues is in formal business meeting situations.
4. It is easy to confuse connections with relationships.  It's easy to have connections. It's harder to build relationships.  However, it's relationships that drive recruitment as well as career advancement. Geography supports or inhibits relationship depth and meaning.

 

As the group discussed these ideas, we realized that these are challenges for workforce, but also for proving the value of email marketing within the organization.  We can't earn the respect we need for resources and a seat at the table just from the numbers; the relationships matter, too.

Other impact areas:

• Geographic dispersion and even business unit silos within the same geography also affect the collaboration and governance of different brand/business unit email programs.
• Participation in eec meetings is a way for geographically or functionally isolated professionals to network and be educated. It's also always helpful to hear that other marketers have the same challenges!
• Remote employees don't have access to impromptu conversations which can help your career and move your projects forward.  Baldonero quoted, "A lot of work gets done when you talk about nothing."  Relationships are not built just talking about business and trust is built when you know the whole person.  If you just talk business, you may actually have less trust, because you only know one aspect of that person.
• Sometimes there is a perception that if you are working at home you are not working as hard.  Jennifer Carmichael of Tenet Healthcare noted, "Some remote employees work harder or longer hours because they're 'always on.'"
• Relationships drive loyalty and the extra effort needed to get something done.  If I need help with a project or getting something run up the flagpole, it's a lot more successful to stand in that person's office, than to IM them.

 

In all this, we discussed that building relationships is a shared responsibility.  If you work remotely, you need to make time for making these connections since they don't happen organically. This is both the responsibility of the individual and the organization.  If a business hires people remotely for email marketing or any task, there needs to be a commitment to support this relationship building.

Some ways to build your own long distance relationships or help make it easier for remote employees to engage:

1. Stay an extra day when you do visit the office. Make time for coffee and hello's.
2. Corporate social networks can help facilitate information across offices.
3. Seek out similarities – find the connections outside the office with your colleagues. This might mean taking a bit of extra time on the phone or in an email to get to know the person.
4. Managers can facilitate team building prior to the business meetings. Build time into the weekly phone calls or hold quarterly in-person meetings that have time for socializing.   "This is a great idea that I can implement tomorrow," Carmichael said.
5. Conferences like the Email Evolution Conference are a good way to meet new people.   However, we are all busy; we have to make time for establishing these connections.  Nancy Atwood of Anchor Computer said, "In some ways, we are victims of technology – we can work all the time and we are always connected. So the "doing the work" is taking priority over "building a network."  We invest our time in replying electronically rather than establishing a personal connection."
6. Corporate HR or someone needs to accept some level of administrative support and education, as well as the remote employees themselves.  Be proactive. If no one is reaching out to you, reach out to your manager or the HR team, Baldonero recommends.
7. Working long distance is a reality for most email vendor/marketer relationships. Many of these same principles apply to good account management and client service. "Think of your colleagues as clients, and that might change the way you relate to them," Atwood said.

 

Lastly, we discussed some things that the DMA/eec can be doing to help facilitate career growth and help us all build these relationships internally and around the industry:

1. A member directory of names, company, industry, geography. Restricted access and "no sales calls."
2. Local events for members to meet and network and learn from each other. Perhaps in cooperation with local DMA groups.
3. Ensure there are strong networking opportunities prior to and during the main DMA conferences.

What are you doing to build relationships with remote colleagues, clients and employees?  What else would you like the DMA/eec to do to help the industry? Please leave your comments below or email Stephanie Miller at the Member Initiatives Advisory Committee.

 

 

While each B2B marketer must consider its unique situation – products, purchasers, sales cycle, etc. – there is ample evidence of a shift from traditional media to digital tactics to facilitate growth for business marketers.  In fact, there are, in my analysis, seven trends in B2B marketing strategies and spending starting with …

1. The Internet has become the premier resource of information amongst C-Suite executives with search engine first for information. 
2. Digital marketing – in its myriad forms – along with email marketing, form an important part of B2B marketing outreach to generate leads and facilitate sales growth.  
3. Online social networking is emerging as an important tool in business-to-business marketing.  
4. Usage of blogs, microblogs, and RSS Feeds – currently segregated by generation – may eventually become essential contact points in maintaining B2B brands. 
5. Mobile marketing or the “mobile web” seems to be in its genesis amongst B2B marketers. 
6. B2B branding is growing in importance and directly correlated with increases in top-line revenue and market cap. 
7. Accountability is predominant – from analytics and front-end campaign tracking to back-end lead nurturing.
    

Choosing a top tier email service provider (ESP) can be tough. With so many ESPs to choose from, each with their strengths, it can be challenging to make head-to-head comparisons.

That's why last year we published a seminal whitepaper on how to rate ESPs, to help email marketers make an ESP choice based on the factors most important to their own organization and their unique requirements…not on any one ESP's selling points. The whitepaper was immediately popular. Apparently marketers were hungry for that kind of objective information.

This year we updated the whitepaper and turned it into an annual guide, to stay current with the ever-changing world of email and ESPs. This new free, vendor-neutral guide to ESPs offers an unbiased yet exhaustive list of criteria complete with explanations about the significance of each factor.

It's so impartial, it doesn't even mention a single ESP by name. Rather than focus on telling you what this or that ESP can or can't do, we've focused on your needs. We have 19 different things to consider when choosing an ESP based on what you need, not on what a particular ESP offers. It's unlike any other ESP selection guide you've seen and its based on our 10 years of reselling and implementing the industry's top-tier solutions.

To revise the whitepaper and make it new and improved as an annual guide, we:

• Re-evaluated all 20 factors in light of email marketing in 2010. Based on that assessment, we significantly beefed up the integration information throughout
• Removed four factors and added three:

1. Data management tools
2. Integration with add-on services
3. Social media integration

• Reorganized the factors alphabetically for better usability and objectivity

The guide now covers 19 of the most important considerations involved with ESP selection. For each of the factors, we've included details about why it matters and what to look for. The significance of each will vary from organization to organization. That's why we've also kept the scoring sheet that was included with the original whitepaper. It will help you compare ESPs based on what's important to your organization and your goals.

Publishing an updated ESP guide annually—rather than one whitepaper once—will enable us to keep the guide up-to-date with shifting trends and technologies, so no matter the year, you'll have a vendor-neutral guide to, well, guide you.

Your ESP choice is critical to your success. Choose wisely. Choose well. And choose to start your selection process with this guide in hand.

Download the 2010 guide to choosing a top tier ESP.


- Marco Marini
CEO
ClickMail Marketing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Marco Marini
CEO
ClickMail Marketing

More than ever, consumers are thinking about the necessity of their purchases before they part with their hard-earned dollars. Adding to the problem, 65% of Americans believe they are bombarded with too much advertising, according to the Art and Copy trailer.  This becomes a major issue for email marketers who are trying to walk the fine line between inundating the inbox and delivering timely messages.

So, how do you convert consumers from window shoppers to buyers when there are so many companies vying for their affections? Simply step out from behind the corporate curtain and create a connection that's rooted in authenticity. One way to do this is to put a face with the name.

As the fashion visionary and Creative Director at J.Crew, Jenna Lyons is the ideal voice for the brand. By devoting an entire email to Jenna's Picks and supporting the story in-store, in the catalog and online, J.Crew is inviting people into her office to see what inspires her. Adding the quote from Jenna is yet another way to personalize the content and up the authenticity.

The founders of Serena & Lily take this a step further by devoting two separate emails to their distinct styles: Serena Hearts and Lily Loves.  By incorporating a quote for each top pick, they create a conversation. Without the quotes, it would be a list of items without any personality. Of course, in both of these examples the assumption is that the quotes are real, and if they truly want to emanate authenticity then the words should be unedited, as though part of an interview or casual conversation.

Ann Taylor recently introduced their subscribers to Lisa, their new head designer, in a gorgeous email.  It includes a quote, a pic of Lisa, and swatches from her inspiration board. Unfortunately, the story ended there. Clicking on the CTA under Lisa's photo dropped you straight into the shop path. Building out an online landing page where people might be able to learn about Lisa's inspiration would have been a spot-on execution.

Catering to the true fashionista who scours the web looking for the latest trends, Tobi delivers all kinds of editorial extras into this email.  From taking subscribers behind the scenes at Velvet to strolling the San Francisco streets with their resident style scout, Tobi turns shopping into a full-on fashion experience. (On a best practices note, they fall short in some key areas, including SWYN and FTAF, which are major misses, especially when you consider the great content.)

At the other end of the authenticity spectrum, we have Old Navy's Super-modelquins campaign.  Basically, their public-facing spokesperson, who supposedly embodies the Old Navy brand, is actually...a mannequin. While they've done their best to create personalities around these characters and make them more "human", the fact remains that they are plastic, so this comes off as fake and, to be honest, a little creepy.

Without a doubt, Banana Republic has a lock on classic and affordable go-to-work styles. While their emails are always polished to perfection, they feel the same week after week, whether they're featuring white shirts or the must-haves for fall. They get points for creating cool extras, like the City Stories short film competition and the Mad Men walk-on competition, but lose points for never letting their customers into the design studio. What was it that inspired them to make the white shirt the big staple for fall? Wouldn't it be fun to know?

Knowing who you are as a company and inviting consumers to see the face behind the name will help you navigate away from the corporate speak and towards a more casual conversation. In other words, keep it real. No one wants to feel like they're buying something that's generic and mass produced. By giving them a story behind the product, you're creating a connection for your consumer to carry with them every time they button up that shirt, slip on those sandals, or wear those must-have jeans.

 

- Darrah MacLean & Lisa Harmon - Smith-Harmon

 

 

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

It's spring! Everything around us is green and fresh…why not our email photography treatments? This week, we took a look at how brands have been discovering new ways to treat imagery in email, ranging from simple to strange.

Spicing up silos. Products silos are so effective that they're fairly prevalent, but that's no reason for bland designs. Check out these brands' sweet silo treatments:

• Piperlime's propping grounds their silo products while adding interest. What could look fresher than daisies?

• Sephora's props help products pop on an otherwise stark background. They break the grid and add sensual context to products with benefits are tough to convey visually.

• Barneys New York makes their silos stand out against a black background with a jagged, artsy cut.

Thinking outside the grid. While sometimes the straight and simple product grid is the best option, it's worth looking at how some brands have stirred up their gridding for a fresher look.

• Restoration Hardware's clean design shows products framing body copy. It's still a grid, but it offers an alternative to a hero with products gridded beneath.

• Urban Outfitters' checkerboard collage of lifestyle shots features products and art imagery. The individual products don't stand out the way they would in a conventional grid, but they create a strong impression of what the brand offers for spring.

• Boden's use of product silos laid out on a mat-like background image shows a unique alternative to boxes. The inclusion of environmental shots in each section adds even more interest to what could have easily been laid out as a long, less interesting grid.

Why choose? Fun image combos. By incorporating more than one form of imagery, designs take on an artistic look that can suit unique themes.

• Betsey Johnson's cartoon illustrations always complement their images and make the photography seem more interesting.

• Fossil's combination of environmental photography, illustration and a product silo makes this seem like a page out of a scrapbook, suiting the style of the bag and the theme of "reclaiming pastimes."

• Coach uses a silo shot right alongside an environmental shot of the same product. The contrast is visual interesting, and allows Coach to position the product both aspirationally and with functional details.

Set for success with inset images. Including smaller, inset photos over larger imagery is a sleek, simple way to add interest to designs.

• Macy's inset photos set over an environmental shot add product imagery without disrupting the design's windswept desert theme.

• Anthropologie insets a small image of a model over a larger photo of the same model in the same set. The photography is conventional but this treatment makes it seem fresh.

• Fossil includes small close-ups of the models' hands over the larger environmental shot. This makes particular sense for Fossil as it allows them to highlight their watches while still using rich environmental photography.

Poppin' play with color. Brighter spring and summer color palettes (in both products and design) offer an opportunity to have more fun with color.

• Nordstrom uses bright background colors behind their models to make the vibrant clothing stand out even more.

• Shopbop's mix of color and black-and-white photography creates a somewhat jarring contrast and adds an edgy flare to their design.

• Free People's use of a similarly-staged photo with four different-colored pairs of shorts is fun and playful – perfect for spring.

Other creative trends. Freshening up image treatments means taking risks, trying unique approaches and sometimes even getting a little strange….

• Neiman Marcus tries something fun and funky by showing faded version of their model behind the clear hero image. You get the sense that she's actually spinning, per the headline.

• Barneys New York adds intrigue by playing with the orientation of their images in an inventive way.

• Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman all demonstrate the recent trend of incorporating snapshots into designs. (This must work; Lisa bought the "Taylor Momsen" look dress straight from the email!)

In many cases, the image makes the email. This spring, we challenge you to take risks and try photography treatments that will set your email apart in the inbox.

Getting Fresh this Spring,

Alex Madison and Lisa Harmon, Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

It's not surprising that a recent study of UK email subscribers finds that most email marketing is pretty terrible – it's irrelevant, untargeted and poorly timed. What the study really points out is that consumers notice.

Put out by Emailcenter, an ESP in the UK, the study polled British consumers about their inbox habits and preferences. The report (free registration required) is full of wonderful ideas to improve email marketing response and deliverability. One thing that struck me is the data to support what we know intuitively from our own inboxes: we all get a lot of email, and many marketers take a short term, aggressive approach to content and frequency. Luckily, all the factors that go into reversing this trend and improving both the subscriber experience and response rates for marketers are under the control of the marketer.

Almost 64% of the respondents in the Emailcenter survey say that only a quarter of the marketing messages they get are relevant to them. Just a half a percent of them said all of it was relevant. With targeting, segmentation and dynamic content technology integrated in most email broadcast vendors and all the in-house software solutions, there is no reason why email marketers have to compromise any longer.

Using segmentation helps solve another big challenge for email marketers: frequency. In the study, 62% said that high frequency is a factor in making them wish to stop marketing messages. More than half say they got more than expected at sign up – with 36% reporting they got "more" and 16% reporting "far more." We know from our Return Path data that high frequency and low relevance are key factors in complaints to the ISPs – which depress deliverability and lower response further. The Emailcenter report also has some good suggestions about educating executive management about the perils of overmailing.

Beyond too frequent messages, another 70% say that "no relevant products" was a factor in making them wish to stop receiving marketing messages. A sizeable minority, 43%, said that their requirements changed. Again, these are all factors that marketers control. Frequency is important not only because it encourages a "delete" (the rolled eyes of subscriber feedback), but it's also the most commonly cited reason for an unsubscribe request. And it's a big reason why subscribers click the "report spam" button, depressing inbox deliverability and lowering response rates across the entire file. A quick way to check if volume and high complaints are a concern for you is to check your sender reputation for free (free registration suggested for deeper data, but not required).

Subscribers aren't asking that much of marketers. Sixty-five percent said they signed up to get exclusive discounts. A full 75% of respondents said that "special offers" is a key factor in their response to a marketing message. Another 55% said "relevant products." My goodness! All we have to do to engage a majority of our subscribers is identify what products they are in market for and provide a compelling offer that makes them feel special and valued? Certainly that is within our grasp.

What happens when we push the limits? A full 75% of these respondents said they unsubscribe (this is much higher than the studies I've seen in the US, and more than twice that found in our US consumer study). Another 40% say they just delete – which is like an emotional unsubscribe and they are lost subscribers. Only 14% said they click the "report spam" button; again, significantly less than studies of US consumers – our own study last year showed 33% click the "report spam" button when messages are not relevant.

Keep in mind the key finding here: consumers notice what email marketers do. When we send something interesting and relevant at a good pace, they are happy to stay active with our programs. When we don't… well, then we've lost them, perhaps for good.

- Stephanie Miller, Return Path

Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and brands are already using email to ask us to be their Valentines. As you receive more Valentine's Day-themed email creatives and possibly work at adding Valentine touches to your own, we thought it would be fun to take a look back at the ways that retailers handled the holiday of hearts in 2008.

• Creative Approaches: to pink or not to pink
Valentine's Day-themed email creatives can come off as fun or overwhelming depending on your subscriber's moods and attitudes. We get pink and red and lace and a whole lot of hearts! Last year Costco sent out an email with their usual template, but used fun, bright pink as well as Valentine's Day-themed copy.

In contrast, this Dean & Deluca message isn't dressed up with any pink or hearts, but it carries its Valentine's Day theme in its copy and the products it promotes ingredients for a special dinner for two, right down to L-O-V-E plates. Lacoste's mellow 2008 creative was somewhat refreshing in the sea of pink hearts flooding the inbox. The copy calls out Valentine's Day, but the red is made subtle with the blue background and the red and white striped shirt.

• The traditional, the expected, the tasty and pretty
Last year, as every year, many brands used Valentine's Day to feature sweets and jewelry. See Williams Sonoma's cute cookies and Saks Fifth Avenue's deadline on chocolate shipping, as well as Barney's New York subtle creative featuring their Corazon Necklace.

• Thinking outside the chocolate box
A few of last year's Valentine's Day marketing ideas stuck out amongst the traditions. Circuit City "deals of the day" built anticipation in the days leading up to Valentine's Day and engaged subscribers who might not otherwise think of Circuit City as a go-to brand for the holiday.

Red Envelope sent a special email promoting jewelry for her and for him, which was
interesting—we don't usually see "Shop Men's Jewelry" as a CTA! This was an unexpected spin on the classic marketing of women's-only jewelry.

• Shipping offers (and gentle prodding for procrastinators)
As the larger burden of Valentine's Day gifting traditionally falls upon men, the gift-buying game also becomes stereotypically (and statistically) a game played by procrastinators. Most of last year's Valentine's Day emails called out shipping deadlines and special offers. The emails became increasingly urgent as the holiday approached, as exemplified by this bright pink last-chance Dean & Deluca email and this Red Envelope one-day offer on the shipping cut-off date.

• Be Your Own Valentine
Some clothing retailers understood that their offerings weren't likely to be selected for gift-giving but still targeted their subscribers' love-leaning interests by encouraging self-gifting. Arden B's email played off Valentine's Day by reminding subscribers how much they love denim, and Seven for all Mankind encouraged subscribers to treat themselves in honor of Valentine's Day. Road Runner Sports invited their subscribers to use Valentine's Day as an opportunity to display their love for running.

On Feb 14, Hollister sent out an email marketing boys' clothes with a typical creative, but with the subject line "She won't be able to keep her hands off you," adding an on-brand touch of Valentine's Day.

• Prediction for Valentine's Day 2009: Love 2.0
Since last February, Marketers have gained a much firmer grasp on web 2.0 tactics like videos and microsites, and we expect to see some fun stuff emerge from these developments this year. For example, 1-800-Flowers included video proposals in last year's Valentine's Day emails, which may make a reappearance, and we may also see new versions of ideas that launched during the earlier winter holiday season, such as JC Penney's Beware of the Doghouse microsite.

For even more reflection on Valentines past, take a look at our old loves from 2007. Chad White's Season Finale: Valentine's Day 2008 on the Retail Email Blog also offers more insight into overall trends of Valentine's Day 2008 and shows some unique approaches taken by specific brands. We expect even more and better love to be spread throughout Valentine's Day 2009, so stay tuned to your inboxes.

XOXO,
Alex Madison, Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

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

eec Report: 2008 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study
Sign-Up Best Practices, Trends and Examples from the Top Online Retailers

Silverpop: SPAM: What Consumers Really Think
Survey finds growing anger; advice for avoiding recipients' wrath.

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

Sponsored by:

The Direct Marketing Association's Email Experience Council signed up to receive promotional emails from 120 of the top online retailers tracked via the Retail Email Blog. Findings indicate a trend toward richer subscription processes.

One highlight of the report shows that the percentage of retailers using only a one-click sign-up from homepage method to collect email addresses declined to 51% this year from 63% last year. That shift accompanied increases in the amount of data collected from new subscribers. Research also demonstrated that the number of retailers providing sample emails and allowing subscribers to choose email topic preferences was up.

"The old adage applies here—you never have a second chance to make a good first impression," says Dave Lewis, chief marketing officer of Message Systems. "Your opportunity is to convert a prospect's initial interest into a long-term, brand loyal relationship. Your challenge is not to 'kill' that interest (and the opportunity) with an intimidating or intrusive subscription process."

This year retailers are also putting more focus on list hygiene. Thirty-eight percent of retailers ask subscribers to confirm their email address by re-entering it, up from 27% last year. Also, 5% of retailers now use a confirmed (double) opt-in process, up from 3% last year, which also improves list quality.

Retailers are also taking greater advantage of their email sign-up process to promote other channels such as direct mail, blogs and RSS feeds. For the first time this year, research indicates that retailers are promoting SMS subscriptions, social networks and widgets along side or within their email programs. While the percentage of retailers promoting those new channels is currently small, it signals a new trend which is expected to grow significantly over the next year.

"Communication behaviors and preferences have changed," says Lewis. "Virtually all of us utilize multiple channels of communication, both online and offline. And how we want companies to communicate with us depends on the nature of the message, where we're at and our personal preferences. Yet, companies have badly lagged in their ability to deliver messages through our channels of choice. So I'm very pleased to see this trend developing, even if just in its infancy. It means we're moving beyond defining 'relevancy' just in terms of the content of the message. It means we're getting closer to realizing the direct marketing mantra of delivering the right message at the right time in the right place."

Other key findings from the study include:

● After falling from 27% in 2006 to 8% last year, the percentage of retailers using sign-up incentives rebounded to 13% this year, despite growing concerns about the quality of subscribers that are attracted by sweepstakes and other incentives.

● With recent evidence suggesting that putting privacy policies front and center during the subscription process actually reduce sign-ups, only 36% of retailers mentioned their privacy policy this year, down from 45% last year.

● Despite quicker subscription fulfillments overall, 29% of retailers took 15 days or longer to honor opt-ins or failed to honor them all together. That figure was the same as last year.

Get the Full Report
Visit the Whitepaper Room to download the full 39-page report, which is free for eec platinum members and available at a discount to eec gold and silver members. Not a member? Learn more about becoming a member of the Email Experience Council.

We all know that America's economy is hurting and that a lot of people (even those who aren't personally feeling the crunch) are worried enough to slow down their virtual and in-store shopping trips. Retailers aren't lying down and waiting for the storm to pass, though. Let's take a look at some of the interesting marketing emails that have been delivered by retailers working to push through the slump.

Creative Sales. Many retailers have responded to slow spending by getting more inventive with their sale techniques and infusing great deals with a sense of urgency.

● Old Navy's "Early Columbus Day Sale," with its 1,492 items priced at $14.92 or less, takes the cake for creativity in the sale category. Who would think that Columbus Day could feel like cause for retail excitement? It's early and limited-time, so it feels urgent, too.

● Threadless also has a sweet deal with a deadline, selling Girl's Tees (usually $18) starting at just $12 until Oct 12. The urgency and the significant savings strengthen the sale.

● Moosejaw's sale email generates extra excitement with its exclusivity, sending each subscriber their very own secret code that yields one of (what we must assume is) a selection of discount offers.

● J. Crew and Horchow are just two of many retailers who have been pushing limited-time free shipping messages over the past couple weeks. J. Crew's include the cute seasonal touch of asking subscribers to enter code "ACORN" at checkout, and both Horchow and J. Crew have sent multiple reminder count-down emails.

Straight Talk. Some have opted to confront the economic downturn head-on by mentioning it and even joking about it.

● Restoration Hardware sent a one-day-only "spend $400, save $100" voucher with a bailout theme on October 2. They may have missed the mark—as a joke, it's a bit off-color and politically-slanted. They were using current events creatively, which can be clever, but they probably should have played with something less controversial and stressful for many subscribers.

● Overstock.com launched a new Real Estate service on October 2, which they introduced in a letter at the bottom of this email beforehand. In the introductory letter, they remind subscribers that Overstock.com is committed to helping subscribers save money, and the letter makes their new service seem on-brand and sincerely subscriber-focused.

● Splendora also takes a branded attitude towards the economic crisis that is gutsy and dismissive, urging subscribers to check out the upcoming trends that they'll be able to shop after this "little rough patch."

Spend and Save. In line with Restoration Hardware's discount approach (but without the bailout theme), Bloomingdales, Boden and Neiman Marcus, among others, offered limited-time, "Buy More, Save More," offers (as Bloomie's called theirs). These not only encourage higher spending; they also encourage spending NOW, before the offer expires. The messages warn subscribers that their offer isn't waiting for Wall Street to stop reeling, and neither should you.

Many retailers are feeling the squeeze, and we're sure to see more and more unique approaches to email as the situations unfold.

Still spending,
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison of Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

We had the pleasure of having two brilliant Brits join us as keynote speakers at our Connections '08 conference in Indianapolis last week. These included Nigel Travis, CEO of Papa John's and former president at Blockbuster, Inc., as well as Joseph Jaffe, author of Join the Conversation and frequent blogger at www.jaffejuice.com. Both energized the crowd of 1,100 and presented an inspirational vision for engaging customers in an ongoing dialog. This made me wonder: As more of the power shifts to the consumer, how many businesses could increase their bottom line by just by doing a better job of listening?

Papa John's has done a number of things to listen to their customers. For example, they saw more of their clients move toward web and SMS, so they acted quickly to offer both of those channels to their customers for ordering. Papa Johns has surpassed over $1 billion in web orders and more and more customers are ordering via SMS. That is a lesson in going to where your customers are, joining the dialog, and responding.

The opportunity for differentiation in pizza is bigger than you might think. Even though there are over 65,000 restaurants in the U.S., consumers average just 4 visits per year to a pizza restaurant. Loyalty is challenged by the sheer number of choices. Yet Papa John's recognizes that to differentiate themselves they have to engage their customers and join the conversation. What if they do a better job listening to their customers than Pizza Hut, Domino's or local chain down the street? Can they not only claim all 4 visits to their restaurant, but also make it such a frictionless order process, solid product and customer experience that they increase the visits to 6, or even 8 per year?

We launched Subscribers Rule! as the theme of our conference for this very reason. Consumers are empowered today more than ever. This power manifests itself in two key ways.

First, consumers are empowered by choice—what to buy, what to wear, how to communicate. Plus, competition has made these choices all "good enough" for most consumers, so it has become increasingly difficult for companies to differentiate themselves.

Second, consumers are empowered by technology—social networks, Twitter, blogs, Google groups, viral email, etc. and they can say what they want about you at any time they wish to do so. Monitoring the web through Google Alerts, for example, to see what humanity is saying about your company is now critical.

The combination of endless consumer choice and nearly boundless ability to spread a message has changed the game for marketers. The conversations are happening and it is up to marketers to join in or be overlooked for the brands that are engaging their customers on their turf.

As I reflect upon these trends as it applies to where many are morphing their email programs, it actually maps pretty well. The call toward triggered messaging relevant to a consumer's activity, or the need to deliver dynamic promotions based on product category searches speaks to the relevance that consumers not only want, but are in a position to demand.

As Joe Jaffe says in Join the Conversation: "Conversation…is a two-way dialog or a stream of messaging between two or more parties with like-minded or shared beliefs, wants, needs, passions, or interests. Conversation is not initiated by any one person, side, or organization. It is organic, nonlinear, unpredictable, and natural."

At our conference we had over 50 customers share stories on how they are using email to deepen the relationship with their customers, improve the dialog, optimize relevancy, and increase stickiness. Some customers are doing really incredible things with CRM integrations, or analytic system integrations to drive that relevancy, and scaling it. It is really fun to see technology and marketing action match up to what was once just theory. As these technologies and trends continue to evolve, the next year is going to be fun to watch and take part in!

— Chip House of ExactTarget