Metadata Marketing
February 22nd, 2008 · Add Comment
As we do more and more things online, we leave more digital real-time data trails. Especially when we actively participate in generating content on various websites (writing blogs, participating on social networking sites, using online chat or VOIP, using GPS, scheduling meetings online), but also if we just passively post our personal profile on various websites. The data trails combined from various digital sources will create “massive universe of metadata” (see: Jan Chipchase, article in Harvard Business Magazine), which will have important privacy implications, but it will also present great opportunities for marketers. According to Jan Chipchase, for example, we will be able to figure our where the greatest concentration of our target demographics at any particular point of time is, and not only that, but also we can read their current emotions… so we can create and place our ads accordingly… Wow, this is great! No, wait, this is actually scary!? Waht do you think? Anyway, the trend is almost here… Click here to read the article in Harvard Business Review Magazine.
Scent Marketing!
January 24th, 2008 · Add Comment
(Article written for “Where is the Puck?” by Stephen Park and Stephanie Savage, 4th year students of School of Business at the Capilano College, Vancouver, BC, Canada)
Scent marketing is a subgenre of “sensory branding,” it’s using smell to attract consumers. Smell is one of the strongest senses, and it creates long lasting memories. It’s not solely used to sell houses and cars anymore, marketing teams are using it to sell everything from cell phones to air travel and other consumer products. Recent examples are the ‘Got Milk Campaign’, Sony, and Weeds Television series. The ‘Got milk campaign’ used bus shelters which had the scent of cookies along with a picture of cookies and the ‘got milk’ logo. Furthermore, Sony is selling new phones which come in a variety of colour and smells such as apple pie and vanilla.
The pros of scent marketing include originality, attention grabbing, and consumers remember it and talk about it. The cons include: ongoing expenses to upkeep scents, and identifying scents which are pleasing to the largest sample population.
We are currently fourth year business students from Capilano College. If Cap were to implement a scent marketing campaign for the college, it would be a smart idea for them to use the scent of pine because the College prides itself on its beautifully wooded campus.
There is a whole new world of advertising ready to be tapped, the opportunities are endless – it’s up to you. Learn more about scent advertising at:
http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/scentvertising-top-10-scent-marketing-campaigns
Stephen Park and Stephanie Savage
Marketing Research Trends
December 3rd, 2007 · Add Comment
In his recent presentation before Capilano College School of Business students (Vancouver, BC), John Jensen, VP Technology of GMI, one of the world’s leading online marketing research firms, identified a number of important marketing research related trends:
MACRO TRENDS (AFFECTING MARKETING RESEARCH)
a) From OFFLINE to ONLINE: More and more business done via the Net
b) From ON-SHORE to OFF-SHORE: Off shoring of fulfillment and production-oriented work
c)From DOMESTIC to GLOBAL: Use of panel-based research goes global
d)From DISTRIBUTED to CENTRALIZED: Mainstreaming of software as a hosted solution
INDUSTRY TRENDS
a) Consolidation of market research companies
b) Online research is mainstream
c) Research panels are coming to the fore
d) Enterprise research software is becoming a necessity
HOW ARE THESE TRENDS AFFECTING MARKETING RESEARCH BUSINESS?
a) Just collecting data online is not enough
b) Customers want
- More accurate results, faster and cheaper
- Integration with CRM, SFA, audience measurement, customer satisfaction, BI tools, etc
c) MR firms need to become technology-driven
***
Obviously people from GMI got it! No wonder, of the world’s 25 largest research firms, 21 use GMI market research software and services… GMI has experienced over 100% annual revenue growth for the last seven years…
4Ps of Marketing No Longer Enough!
November 8th, 2007 · Add Comment
I went to the Ikea store the other day. Time and again I am amazed with the way they do their business. No wonder they are one of the world’s most successful companies. No wonder their owner, Mr. Ingvar Kamprad, is ranked #4 on Forbes 400 list of billioners.
IKEA taught me something: Marketing is not just about 4Ps. One can have excellent and innovative Product, competitive Price, great Promotion and convenient Place, yet there is something more. This “something more” is actually the INTANGIBLE ingredient. You can’t copy it. You can’t manipulate it as easily as 4Ps. Yet, it is the heart and the soul of the business. It is called: EXPERIENCE.
IKEA experience is very, very unique. Here is a small sample of innovative things they do to create unique experience:
* Self-service: you are picking and carrying your own items - like in the grocery store!
* Furniture self-assembly
* Great kids playground
* Great restaurant in the middle of the store
* Pen and paper available everywhere to note your ideas while shopping
* The walking path from the entrance of the store to the exit
* The culture of humour (ads, funny names of products, etc.)
And so on and on…What an experience! Wow! I am starting to enjoy shopping… Oh, by the way, this same marketing instrument (”experience”) has its Internet equivalent. It is called website (or: user) experience and by many it is considered as the ultimate key to online success.
Online Marketing “Trends” to Ignore: Is Virtual World Marketing One of Them? Nope.
September 14th, 2007 · 1 Comment
Great article on Ad Age by Mark Simon about ten online marketing trends to IGNORE. Check them out here. Yes, I agree that we need to ignore some new “trends”. They are just fads and won’t prove the test of time. However, I would disagree with Mark regarding marketing potential of virtual world. Mark suggested to ignore anything that has to do anything with virtual worlds like Second Life. Well.. I think Mark is going to far with that one… Note that there is certain segment of population who LOVES virtual worlds. They likely share similar demographics and/or the same interests. Why not target them if our brands are for the same target market? After all, there are more than 9 million residents of Second Life and about US $ 1,000,000 is being traded every day. Marketing on virtual worlds has to be done intelligently though: it has to be better integrated into overall virtual world experience.
Google + YouTube + DoubleClick + Radio Ads = ?
April 16th, 2007 · Add Comment
If you thought the deal with YouTube (bil $1.6) was HUGE - then think again! Google just acquired Double Click - the leading online marketing agency for bil $ 3.1!
Read more:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070413/ap_on_hi_te/google_doubleclick
Apparently Google will now dominate the online marketing world… Even more
interestingly: Google recently launched RADIO ads in conjunction with
adwords!! Yes, you read it well: RADIO ads.
What is next for Google? Where is the marketing and media puck going? I will let you think about this…
Thursday, March 27, 2008
New trends in supply chain management due to internet
The traditional vision of Supply Chain management represents only one dimension of a business environment that is growing increasingly multidimensional. Modern day Supply Chain Management is the e-commerce of manufacturing. With the emergence of the Internet, customers seek out specific products they want at the prices they're willing to pay.
Modern supply chains focus on the customer. Manufacturers need to precisely gauge what a customer might want, how to package it and where to ship it. There is no such thing as one size fits all. When the customer wants a change, they need to be prepared to shift directions quickly. As a result, business and manufacturing processes need to be just as agile and scalable.
Manufacturers who do not adopt proven methods to succeed today may be out of business tomorrow. The Internet supply chain will be a means of communicating and doing business with suppliers and customers. Fractured, unpredictable supply chains have become less and less tolerable primarily because customers will not absorb the associated costs and long lead times.
It is important to bear in mind that your customer is just a mouse click away from your competitors. Enabled supply chains assist companies to optimize business processes both within and outside the four walls of the enterprise and to more efficiently deliver the new products customers want, when they want them and where they want them. Supply chain has been viewed as an inflexible series of events that somehow managed to get products out the door. It often involved questionable inventory forecasts, rigid manufacturing plans and hypothetical shipping schedules. The Internet has changed all that. It has transformed this old-fashioned process into something closer to an exact science.
An Internet-enabled supply chain helps companies, avoid costly disasters, reduce administrative overhead, reduce unnecessary inventory, decrease the number of hands that touch goods on their way to the end customer, eliminate obsolete business processes, reap cost-cutting and revenue-producing benefits, speed up production and responsiveness to consumers and garner higher profit margins on finished goods Effective integration of an Organizations supply chain can save millions, improve customer service and reduce inventories.
The key to getting optimum value out of automating your supply chain is to make sure you have your internal systems working well before you start extending them out over the Internet. One should envision the business as a whole including its current strategy and where it wants to go. Supply chain strategy is increasingly being integrated with overall corporate strategy. The cost of training people to use new software should not be underestimated. Sending information around the world takes lesser time than it takes to get into someone's mind.
Modern supply chains focus on the customer. Manufacturers need to precisely gauge what a customer might want, how to package it and where to ship it. There is no such thing as one size fits all. When the customer wants a change, they need to be prepared to shift directions quickly. As a result, business and manufacturing processes need to be just as agile and scalable.
Manufacturers who do not adopt proven methods to succeed today may be out of business tomorrow. The Internet supply chain will be a means of communicating and doing business with suppliers and customers. Fractured, unpredictable supply chains have become less and less tolerable primarily because customers will not absorb the associated costs and long lead times.
It is important to bear in mind that your customer is just a mouse click away from your competitors. Enabled supply chains assist companies to optimize business processes both within and outside the four walls of the enterprise and to more efficiently deliver the new products customers want, when they want them and where they want them. Supply chain has been viewed as an inflexible series of events that somehow managed to get products out the door. It often involved questionable inventory forecasts, rigid manufacturing plans and hypothetical shipping schedules. The Internet has changed all that. It has transformed this old-fashioned process into something closer to an exact science.
An Internet-enabled supply chain helps companies, avoid costly disasters, reduce administrative overhead, reduce unnecessary inventory, decrease the number of hands that touch goods on their way to the end customer, eliminate obsolete business processes, reap cost-cutting and revenue-producing benefits, speed up production and responsiveness to consumers and garner higher profit margins on finished goods Effective integration of an Organizations supply chain can save millions, improve customer service and reduce inventories.
The key to getting optimum value out of automating your supply chain is to make sure you have your internal systems working well before you start extending them out over the Internet. One should envision the business as a whole including its current strategy and where it wants to go. Supply chain strategy is increasingly being integrated with overall corporate strategy. The cost of training people to use new software should not be underestimated. Sending information around the world takes lesser time than it takes to get into someone's mind.
New Trends in Business
There are some recent trends in marketing and sales worth considering.
If I had to choose a new career it would be working in a government affiliated company helping to find clients for certain businesses or helping businesses target their markets better. Today it seems that this would be in the interest of provincial and even federal programs that businesses would be encouraged. One sure way would be in making sure that businesses would not fail because they did not find the right niche. Here is how I would go about finding that job.
New marketing graduates ought to go directly to the governmental agencies to see if there was a need for marketing personnel of the type I described. I would speak to the human resources person to see how realistic it is for them to acquire someone who helps generate business in the province. They might suggest that encouraged foreign invested businesses have to do with an optimum business flow and a low overhead. If the market is large enough there would be a greater need and a smaller market would mean that marketing requirements are smaller.
Today we allow diverse businesses to spring up, but perhaps there are going to be more government controls in the future or affiliated agencies that will police new entrepreneurs. The security business line would be lucrative since that still seems to be a buzz word even tough someone can still find his way into the cockpit of an airline by observing what combination codes are used by airline personnel. Buying and installing security cameras and stations is also a business in itself, so city officials will probably weight the fact of whether or not to install street cameras in certain shopping areas or not.
I see an increased incorporation of security measures not because security is a real issue today; it has always been an issue at least since the cold war days.
I would not be in favour of disallowing someone to open up a business because he did not pay a security tax when he does not need the surveillance. I see that more jobs are going to be home based as more shopping will be done on-line but this is not going to replace going to the store as many people will still like to touch the real product. There may be more companies like ebay which will list merchandise and allow entrepreneurs to showcase their work with a relatively low overhead since they would not have to responsible for store rentals, stocking spaces or having to deal with the security measures needed for a real location. If anything the storeowners could start out as minimally sized shops that would advertise the essential and then refer people to their websites for the bulk of their merchandise.
If I had to choose a new career it would be working in a government affiliated company helping to find clients for certain businesses or helping businesses target their markets better. Today it seems that this would be in the interest of provincial and even federal programs that businesses would be encouraged. One sure way would be in making sure that businesses would not fail because they did not find the right niche. Here is how I would go about finding that job.
New marketing graduates ought to go directly to the governmental agencies to see if there was a need for marketing personnel of the type I described. I would speak to the human resources person to see how realistic it is for them to acquire someone who helps generate business in the province. They might suggest that encouraged foreign invested businesses have to do with an optimum business flow and a low overhead. If the market is large enough there would be a greater need and a smaller market would mean that marketing requirements are smaller.
Today we allow diverse businesses to spring up, but perhaps there are going to be more government controls in the future or affiliated agencies that will police new entrepreneurs. The security business line would be lucrative since that still seems to be a buzz word even tough someone can still find his way into the cockpit of an airline by observing what combination codes are used by airline personnel. Buying and installing security cameras and stations is also a business in itself, so city officials will probably weight the fact of whether or not to install street cameras in certain shopping areas or not.
I see an increased incorporation of security measures not because security is a real issue today; it has always been an issue at least since the cold war days.
I would not be in favour of disallowing someone to open up a business because he did not pay a security tax when he does not need the surveillance. I see that more jobs are going to be home based as more shopping will be done on-line but this is not going to replace going to the store as many people will still like to touch the real product. There may be more companies like ebay which will list merchandise and allow entrepreneurs to showcase their work with a relatively low overhead since they would not have to responsible for store rentals, stocking spaces or having to deal with the security measures needed for a real location. If anything the storeowners could start out as minimally sized shops that would advertise the essential and then refer people to their websites for the bulk of their merchandise.
B2B Public Relations & Blogs: Policy, Resources, Process & Promotion
A recent survey of business reporters shows that over 80 percent say they use, or would use, blogs as a primary or secondary source of information for news stories. This is a pretty serious wakeup call for anyone doing B2B PR. If you don't already have a social media program in place, it's time to get started. But while the mechanics of launching a blog are straightforward, there are a number of questions to ask and strategic decisions you need to make in order to ensure a successful blog initiative.
Blogs have now become a regular part of the communications mix for both small businesses and major corporations. There's even a Blog Council that launched last week to promote best practices in corporate blogging. Charter members include AccuQuote, Cisco Systems, The Coca-Cola Company, Dell, Gemstar-TV Guide, General Motors, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP, and Wells Fargo.
Corporate blogs come in many different flavors and typically vary across a few dimensions: 1) the degree of legal / corp comm control, oversight, and review associated with the blog posts; and 2) the level of involvement from executives / employees. For example, will it focus on C-level communication, like GM's Fastlane, or will it aim for a broader set of employee perspectives like HP Blogs or Microsoft's Channel 9? Where you fall on these dimensions depends on your organization, culture, resources and commitment to the initiative.
At the most basic level, adding a blog to your website provides an outlet for distributing company news, but in a way that invites a two-way conversation and deepens community engagement with your brand. At a slightly broader level, the goals of corporate blogs can be to: 1) provide a new venue for participating in broader industry dialog and debate over key trends and innovations; 2) elevate the visibility of key executives and bolster their thought leadership position; and 3) encourage an authentic conversation with other "influentials" in the space about market developments.
The mechanics of launching a blog are straightforward and there are a number of on-demand services you can use to design and publish a blog in a very short amount of time (e.g., Typepad, Blogger). But each of these services comes with a wide array of community features you can turn on or off that dictate the extent to which you will enable public dialog and debate about your products and services. The options you choose will require different levels of involvement and attention across your organization. And here's where the heavy lifting comes in. The hardest part of launching a blog is setting policy, identifying resources, determining process and promotion.
I've put together a few notes based on questions I've received from Splintered Channels readers. The recommendations below are by no means comprehensive or exhaustive, but I think they provide some good questions you should ask yourself before you get started with a new blogging program.
Setting Policy
There are several questions you should ask yourself to help develop a set of policies for your blog initiative. And don't feel like you have to do all this on your own. The earlier you involve a broad set of stakeholders in this planning, the more successful you will be in mobilizing support for the initiative (e.g., HR, legal, corp comm, PR, product marketing).
Transparency & Disclaimers: Whether you have a single corporate blog or a series of employee blogs, whether the blog resides within a corporate website or as a stand alone experience with its own identity and domain, it's important that you be as upfront and transparent as possible with your readers. Make sure to develop a standard disclaimer you can display on your blog(s) which indicates the nature of the blog - namely, who is writing the blog, does it provide official corporate position, are comments moderated, do you allow trackbacks, will you publicly respond to comments?
Code of Conduct: Employee blogs will naturally include a blend of content with commentary and personal reflections, as well as industry observations and references to various corporate developments. Given the sensitivity associated with information available to employees and the viral nature of communication in the blogosphere, it's important to develop a simple code of conduct that employees agree to before blogging. This list is not exhaustive, but it should include at least the following: 1) avoid topics that might compromise trade secrets, intellectual property, management issues and lawsuits; 2) disclose conflicts of interest; 3) if blog posts include inaccuracies, corrections should be posted in amendments or new blog entries, instead of deleting prior comments, etc.; 4) cite appropriate references and provide links to sources; 5) monitor comments and trackbacks on a regular basis, respond and delete SPAM; 6) blogging should not interfere with other job responsibilities.
Rules of Engagement: Another important policy to settle on before launching a blog is how to engage with readers. There needs to be an upfront commitment to monitor reader comments and trackbacks. You will need to determine whether you will automatically accept and publish comments and trackbacks, or if you will review and approve each new submission before they included in your blog entries. Along with reviewing comments and blogger trackbacks, a policy needs to be established that makes readers aware that you reserve the right to not publish comments or accept comments based on the appropriateness of the content. These policies on comments, trackbacks and the right to refuse to publish comments that include inappropriate, profane or defamatory language, should be stated upfront along with any disclaimers.
Identify Resources
Launching and maintain a blog is no trivial undertaking. It requires a dedicated and ongoing resource commitment to develop a blogging program that can help achieve corporate communications objectives. The level of commitment will obviously depend on the type of blog you're launching and these map to your objectives. As described above, there are a number of different kinds of blogs you can launch - e.g., an outlet for distributing press announcements and corporate news, a way to open a new line of communication enabling key business leaders to participate in broader market dialog and debate, a means for the organization to be more responsive to customers, a way to nurture online communities and brand evangelists.
The type of blog initiative you undertake will determine the level of commitment and involvement required of various parts of a business organization. But regardless of the resources you tap for the blog initiative, it is absolutely essential that there is a lead advocate that can enlist support and command accountability associated with the tasks needed to launch and maintain a blog. It's also important that the advocate maintain a schedule for the delivery of blogging tasks.
If the blog is designed to be an additional distribution outlet for press announcements, the responsibilities of maintenance, review and comments should fall on the lap of the PR agency or corporate communications desk in charge of traditional media and analyst relations. If the blog is designed to be an outlet for executives to bolster their thought leadership position, it also helpful to involve your PR agency or corporate communications personnel, as well as get buy-in from the legal department - in some cases this may require a process that gives the legal team an opportunity to eyeball posts before they are published.
If your blogging initiative is focused on growing an online community of brand evangelists, it's a good idea to seek out individuals from product marketing and direct customer service who would be interested in participating. You should consider a process whereby individuals rotate through responsibilities for posting to the blog and responding to comments. Weekly or bi-weekly editorial meetings with employee blogers can be helpful to brainstorm ideas and identify who will be writing what for the week or month, depending on your schedule.
Again, these responsibilities should be executed with the oversight of an internal advocate, or lead, with a set timetable, expectations and accountability, typically originating from the marketing communications department.
Does having regimented resources and formalized process detract from the authenticity or the social, interactive nature of blogging? Not necessarily. Actually, being upfront about the "owners" - those responsibility for delivery and execution - and the resources, expectations and degree of interaction with your readers will all free you up to be a better blogger and help you achieve corporate communications objectives with this channel.
Determine Process
When identifying resources, you should go in with a set of expectations with regard to process. Process is determined in large part by the policies you settle on and the resources you identify. Once these steps are completed, ask yourself 1) who will be posting to the blog and when; 3) what kind of review will be required (if any) and how will the parties in charge of the oversight execute their responsibility; 4) who is the ultimate business owner for the initiative?
While this may seem an unnecessary amount of formalism for a social media initiative, settling on process before you get started will help ensure a much smoother launch for your new blog initiative. That said, it's also important to be flexible and adaptive, constantly striving to make improvements to become more responsive and efficient.
From an editorial perspective, corporate blogs generate three broad buckets of content: 1) news about the business; 2) reflections on broader industry trends and developments; 3) aggregated links / references from other industry sources, with some context and editorial perspectives. The best corporate and employee blogs maintain a fairly regular schedule. Blogs don't need to be updated every day or even every week to generate a significant following. But there should be a regular drumbeat of blog posts, whether that's weekly or monthly.
Nothing says the responsibilities associated with blogging need to originate from one or two individuals. Actually, the most successful blogs I have seen are actually the result of a distribution of labor. Sometimes the labor is divided up between research, writing, and posting. Other times, it's simply a matter of rotation among several individuals who have their pulse of developments within the company as well as a good sense for broader industry trends which provide for editorial context that make corporate news interesting and relevant to more people.
I have also found that the best corporate and employee blogs, which develop a following, tend to have personality. The editorial content doesn't have to be snarky or confrontational, but some voice, tone and style needs to shine through. I believe this needs to be part of the "process" you identify for your blog initiative because you can establish a rotation of formal business news, personal reflection, anecdotes and passing observations, which may or may not directly align with corporate communications objective, but nonetheless introduce readers to perspectives that make the dialog more human.
Promotion
When launching a new blog program, I recommend not focusing too much on "promotion" as much as on the quality of the content and developing a process that produces a regular rotation of new blog posts. Building a following and generating new traffic is a fairly organic process and it takes time. You should set expectations on the order of at least four to six months for generating traffic. That said, if you follow some basic guidelines, you will have a good shot at building a significant volume of new and return traffic.
If your blog is primarily designed to be an channel for communicating with businesses reporters, it should be prominently featured in the corporate news area of your website (the same survey referenced above also indicates that 74% of business reporters look to corporate websites for story ideas).
Reporters are also likely to enter your company's name into search engine queries. And, as you're well aware, your corporate website will not be the only hit in the search results page. You should make it a practice to check in on your website's search performance. Luckily, social media channels, like blogs, are fantastic optimizers when it comes to search engine results. They embody all the key characteristics that determine ranking in search results. 1) blog posts are saturated with relevant keywords, 2) they include links to and from relevant sources; and 3) blogs include frequently updated content.
When you think about promotional strategies, think about your audience in terms of niche communities (e.g., reporters, analysts, industry leaders, prospects and customers - even subsegments within your customer base). Think about the vernacular used by these communities - what's the language used to describe relevant products and services? These considerations should dictate the topics of your blog posts and the terms and phrases that make their way into your blog posts.
Aside from promoting your blog through your corporate website and through search engines, the single best way to gain readers is to participate and engage in a dialog with other bloggers, news sites, and online communities that are similarly focused on your industry and relevant market trends. Specifically, develop a "blog roll," a list of favorite blogs and sites that your read on a regular basis. But don't just read these blogs. You need to post comments to these sites with perspective and context that brings value and insights to the online community that has grown around these outlets. Feel free to reference your blog in these comments, but avoid blatant self promotion. Keep your eye on the ball and make sure you're focused on the conversation and broader market dialog. Are you adding something valuable to the conversation?
If you decide to base a blog on a post or news item you have read at another site, sometimes you can take advantage of a trackback, which is a feature of blogs that enables you to add a link to your blog from a post on another site you're referencing. Again, use the feature judiciously and make sure you're adding something to the conversation and bringing something to the table for the online community.
When members of various niche communities read the comments to blog posts that you have submitted, or when they follow a trackback from a popular blog back to a post you have added to your blog, you will begin to generate traffic. If your blog has high-quality, relevant content, you will generate return readers - readers who may also submit comments to your blog posts or trackbacks to your blog based on their reactions to your commentary and perspectives.
Eric Schwartzman, of Schwartzman & Associates, says that everything you need to know about blogging etiquette you learned in preschool. And I completely agree. If you want people to play nice with you, you need to play nice with them. Again, the best way to generate readers for your own blog is to read other blogs, contribute, engage, and interact with the online community.
You can also take advantage of blog search engines, like Technorati (and notification services like Pingomatic), as well as social bookmarks, like del.icio.us, to flag your content for relevant communities. And it's also critical you make it easy for people to subscribe to your blog's RSS feed using built in features of your blog platform (e.g., Typepad) or services like Feedburner. But these are all really secondary to the primary and most effective promotional tool at your disposal - participation and engagement in the online community.
If you're going to put all this up front work into your new blog initiative, you'll obviously want people to read it, especially the business reporters you're targeting to get the word out about your products and services. Blogs are all about authenticity and dialog. The social media landscape, however, necessitates a strategic perspective. For marketing professionals new to blogging, I hope some of these notes are helpful as you embark on new social media programs.
Blogs have now become a regular part of the communications mix for both small businesses and major corporations. There's even a Blog Council that launched last week to promote best practices in corporate blogging. Charter members include AccuQuote, Cisco Systems, The Coca-Cola Company, Dell, Gemstar-TV Guide, General Motors, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP, and Wells Fargo.
Corporate blogs come in many different flavors and typically vary across a few dimensions: 1) the degree of legal / corp comm control, oversight, and review associated with the blog posts; and 2) the level of involvement from executives / employees. For example, will it focus on C-level communication, like GM's Fastlane, or will it aim for a broader set of employee perspectives like HP Blogs or Microsoft's Channel 9? Where you fall on these dimensions depends on your organization, culture, resources and commitment to the initiative.
At the most basic level, adding a blog to your website provides an outlet for distributing company news, but in a way that invites a two-way conversation and deepens community engagement with your brand. At a slightly broader level, the goals of corporate blogs can be to: 1) provide a new venue for participating in broader industry dialog and debate over key trends and innovations; 2) elevate the visibility of key executives and bolster their thought leadership position; and 3) encourage an authentic conversation with other "influentials" in the space about market developments.
The mechanics of launching a blog are straightforward and there are a number of on-demand services you can use to design and publish a blog in a very short amount of time (e.g., Typepad, Blogger). But each of these services comes with a wide array of community features you can turn on or off that dictate the extent to which you will enable public dialog and debate about your products and services. The options you choose will require different levels of involvement and attention across your organization. And here's where the heavy lifting comes in. The hardest part of launching a blog is setting policy, identifying resources, determining process and promotion.
I've put together a few notes based on questions I've received from Splintered Channels readers. The recommendations below are by no means comprehensive or exhaustive, but I think they provide some good questions you should ask yourself before you get started with a new blogging program.
Setting Policy
There are several questions you should ask yourself to help develop a set of policies for your blog initiative. And don't feel like you have to do all this on your own. The earlier you involve a broad set of stakeholders in this planning, the more successful you will be in mobilizing support for the initiative (e.g., HR, legal, corp comm, PR, product marketing).
Transparency & Disclaimers: Whether you have a single corporate blog or a series of employee blogs, whether the blog resides within a corporate website or as a stand alone experience with its own identity and domain, it's important that you be as upfront and transparent as possible with your readers. Make sure to develop a standard disclaimer you can display on your blog(s) which indicates the nature of the blog - namely, who is writing the blog, does it provide official corporate position, are comments moderated, do you allow trackbacks, will you publicly respond to comments?
Code of Conduct: Employee blogs will naturally include a blend of content with commentary and personal reflections, as well as industry observations and references to various corporate developments. Given the sensitivity associated with information available to employees and the viral nature of communication in the blogosphere, it's important to develop a simple code of conduct that employees agree to before blogging. This list is not exhaustive, but it should include at least the following: 1) avoid topics that might compromise trade secrets, intellectual property, management issues and lawsuits; 2) disclose conflicts of interest; 3) if blog posts include inaccuracies, corrections should be posted in amendments or new blog entries, instead of deleting prior comments, etc.; 4) cite appropriate references and provide links to sources; 5) monitor comments and trackbacks on a regular basis, respond and delete SPAM; 6) blogging should not interfere with other job responsibilities.
Rules of Engagement: Another important policy to settle on before launching a blog is how to engage with readers. There needs to be an upfront commitment to monitor reader comments and trackbacks. You will need to determine whether you will automatically accept and publish comments and trackbacks, or if you will review and approve each new submission before they included in your blog entries. Along with reviewing comments and blogger trackbacks, a policy needs to be established that makes readers aware that you reserve the right to not publish comments or accept comments based on the appropriateness of the content. These policies on comments, trackbacks and the right to refuse to publish comments that include inappropriate, profane or defamatory language, should be stated upfront along with any disclaimers.
Identify Resources
Launching and maintain a blog is no trivial undertaking. It requires a dedicated and ongoing resource commitment to develop a blogging program that can help achieve corporate communications objectives. The level of commitment will obviously depend on the type of blog you're launching and these map to your objectives. As described above, there are a number of different kinds of blogs you can launch - e.g., an outlet for distributing press announcements and corporate news, a way to open a new line of communication enabling key business leaders to participate in broader market dialog and debate, a means for the organization to be more responsive to customers, a way to nurture online communities and brand evangelists.
The type of blog initiative you undertake will determine the level of commitment and involvement required of various parts of a business organization. But regardless of the resources you tap for the blog initiative, it is absolutely essential that there is a lead advocate that can enlist support and command accountability associated with the tasks needed to launch and maintain a blog. It's also important that the advocate maintain a schedule for the delivery of blogging tasks.
If the blog is designed to be an additional distribution outlet for press announcements, the responsibilities of maintenance, review and comments should fall on the lap of the PR agency or corporate communications desk in charge of traditional media and analyst relations. If the blog is designed to be an outlet for executives to bolster their thought leadership position, it also helpful to involve your PR agency or corporate communications personnel, as well as get buy-in from the legal department - in some cases this may require a process that gives the legal team an opportunity to eyeball posts before they are published.
If your blogging initiative is focused on growing an online community of brand evangelists, it's a good idea to seek out individuals from product marketing and direct customer service who would be interested in participating. You should consider a process whereby individuals rotate through responsibilities for posting to the blog and responding to comments. Weekly or bi-weekly editorial meetings with employee blogers can be helpful to brainstorm ideas and identify who will be writing what for the week or month, depending on your schedule.
Again, these responsibilities should be executed with the oversight of an internal advocate, or lead, with a set timetable, expectations and accountability, typically originating from the marketing communications department.
Does having regimented resources and formalized process detract from the authenticity or the social, interactive nature of blogging? Not necessarily. Actually, being upfront about the "owners" - those responsibility for delivery and execution - and the resources, expectations and degree of interaction with your readers will all free you up to be a better blogger and help you achieve corporate communications objectives with this channel.
Determine Process
When identifying resources, you should go in with a set of expectations with regard to process. Process is determined in large part by the policies you settle on and the resources you identify. Once these steps are completed, ask yourself 1) who will be posting to the blog and when; 3) what kind of review will be required (if any) and how will the parties in charge of the oversight execute their responsibility; 4) who is the ultimate business owner for the initiative?
While this may seem an unnecessary amount of formalism for a social media initiative, settling on process before you get started will help ensure a much smoother launch for your new blog initiative. That said, it's also important to be flexible and adaptive, constantly striving to make improvements to become more responsive and efficient.
From an editorial perspective, corporate blogs generate three broad buckets of content: 1) news about the business; 2) reflections on broader industry trends and developments; 3) aggregated links / references from other industry sources, with some context and editorial perspectives. The best corporate and employee blogs maintain a fairly regular schedule. Blogs don't need to be updated every day or even every week to generate a significant following. But there should be a regular drumbeat of blog posts, whether that's weekly or monthly.
Nothing says the responsibilities associated with blogging need to originate from one or two individuals. Actually, the most successful blogs I have seen are actually the result of a distribution of labor. Sometimes the labor is divided up between research, writing, and posting. Other times, it's simply a matter of rotation among several individuals who have their pulse of developments within the company as well as a good sense for broader industry trends which provide for editorial context that make corporate news interesting and relevant to more people.
I have also found that the best corporate and employee blogs, which develop a following, tend to have personality. The editorial content doesn't have to be snarky or confrontational, but some voice, tone and style needs to shine through. I believe this needs to be part of the "process" you identify for your blog initiative because you can establish a rotation of formal business news, personal reflection, anecdotes and passing observations, which may or may not directly align with corporate communications objective, but nonetheless introduce readers to perspectives that make the dialog more human.
Promotion
When launching a new blog program, I recommend not focusing too much on "promotion" as much as on the quality of the content and developing a process that produces a regular rotation of new blog posts. Building a following and generating new traffic is a fairly organic process and it takes time. You should set expectations on the order of at least four to six months for generating traffic. That said, if you follow some basic guidelines, you will have a good shot at building a significant volume of new and return traffic.
If your blog is primarily designed to be an channel for communicating with businesses reporters, it should be prominently featured in the corporate news area of your website (the same survey referenced above also indicates that 74% of business reporters look to corporate websites for story ideas).
Reporters are also likely to enter your company's name into search engine queries. And, as you're well aware, your corporate website will not be the only hit in the search results page. You should make it a practice to check in on your website's search performance. Luckily, social media channels, like blogs, are fantastic optimizers when it comes to search engine results. They embody all the key characteristics that determine ranking in search results. 1) blog posts are saturated with relevant keywords, 2) they include links to and from relevant sources; and 3) blogs include frequently updated content.
When you think about promotional strategies, think about your audience in terms of niche communities (e.g., reporters, analysts, industry leaders, prospects and customers - even subsegments within your customer base). Think about the vernacular used by these communities - what's the language used to describe relevant products and services? These considerations should dictate the topics of your blog posts and the terms and phrases that make their way into your blog posts.
Aside from promoting your blog through your corporate website and through search engines, the single best way to gain readers is to participate and engage in a dialog with other bloggers, news sites, and online communities that are similarly focused on your industry and relevant market trends. Specifically, develop a "blog roll," a list of favorite blogs and sites that your read on a regular basis. But don't just read these blogs. You need to post comments to these sites with perspective and context that brings value and insights to the online community that has grown around these outlets. Feel free to reference your blog in these comments, but avoid blatant self promotion. Keep your eye on the ball and make sure you're focused on the conversation and broader market dialog. Are you adding something valuable to the conversation?
If you decide to base a blog on a post or news item you have read at another site, sometimes you can take advantage of a trackback, which is a feature of blogs that enables you to add a link to your blog from a post on another site you're referencing. Again, use the feature judiciously and make sure you're adding something to the conversation and bringing something to the table for the online community.
When members of various niche communities read the comments to blog posts that you have submitted, or when they follow a trackback from a popular blog back to a post you have added to your blog, you will begin to generate traffic. If your blog has high-quality, relevant content, you will generate return readers - readers who may also submit comments to your blog posts or trackbacks to your blog based on their reactions to your commentary and perspectives.
Eric Schwartzman, of Schwartzman & Associates, says that everything you need to know about blogging etiquette you learned in preschool. And I completely agree. If you want people to play nice with you, you need to play nice with them. Again, the best way to generate readers for your own blog is to read other blogs, contribute, engage, and interact with the online community.
You can also take advantage of blog search engines, like Technorati (and notification services like Pingomatic), as well as social bookmarks, like del.icio.us, to flag your content for relevant communities. And it's also critical you make it easy for people to subscribe to your blog's RSS feed using built in features of your blog platform (e.g., Typepad) or services like Feedburner. But these are all really secondary to the primary and most effective promotional tool at your disposal - participation and engagement in the online community.
If you're going to put all this up front work into your new blog initiative, you'll obviously want people to read it, especially the business reporters you're targeting to get the word out about your products and services. Blogs are all about authenticity and dialog. The social media landscape, however, necessitates a strategic perspective. For marketing professionals new to blogging, I hope some of these notes are helpful as you embark on new social media programs.
Top Ten Trends in Marketing Innovation
I’ve put together the 10 key trends I see for 2007 in Marketing Innovation. None of these are new, except for Net Promoter Scores which have only been around for a few years.
And, OK, I have to admit that some of these might end up being more wishful thinking then actual trends, but I get the disctinctive feeling many marketers are actually starting to wake up.
Authenticity
Authenticity, honesty, ‘realness’ should have been at the top of this list for the past 10 years – but it seems as if it is actually breaking through now. Too many great examples of how companies enhanced their image and standing with either the general public or a relevant group of advocates have emanated recently – Scobleizer has probably generated billions worth of goodwill for Microsoft, Direct2Dell executives ‘fessing up to making mistakes has taken the air out of the whole DellHell movement, and many a politician has recently saved himself by coming out straight away with the ‘oh man, I’m just human, please forgive me’ or ‘yup, I’m gay, so what’ approach.
Also the negative examples still abound, and this time around they are starting to hurt. We wont mention names *coughEdelmancough* *coughwalmartcough*
Net Promoter Scores
Sell your shares in market research agencies – their extensive research methods will go the way of the dinosaurs. Turns out, it all comes down to one question: "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend brand/product X to someone else?" As the results of this research can be directly tied to revenue growth, instead of intangible (and not-boardroom safe) fuzzies like brand recognition, watch the corporate world being taken by storm by NPS, following the likes of GE and Philips.
And isn’t it great that the interruption during dinner time will only last 10 seconds instead of 10 minutes?
Buzztracking
What’s being said about me? Why is nobody talking about me? These are becoming core issues for every company. With the advent of ever better tracking tools for online conversations, it’s becoming indispensable to listen into those conversations, be it to monitor bad things happening out there so you can jump in and call corporate 911, or to find out that nobody really cares about you (which is actually even worse).
Time to go look at those Net Promoter Scores...
From segmentation to insights
‘Hey Cathy, I know you have a long distance relationship and are working only part-time to care for your newborn baby (which by the way has done it for your disposable income, for good), but I will still treat you the same as two years ago, when you were a job-starting, free-spending party animal. After all, you are still a 25-29 year old highly educated urban single female, aren’t you?’
‘Nuff said.
Green
It may be a cynical choice by many companies, but green awareness is the trend-du-jour. If even WalMart is starting to promote eco-friendliness, where will it stop? As there is a lot of revenue waiting in this market – be it from selling eco-friendly goods at marked-up margins, or actually providing eco-technology, this one won't go away.
Personally I don’t care if they move into this market for cynical reasons, it’s the end result that counts.
Grey
Marketers the world over are waking up to the fact that the older demographic is a major opportunity – and needs to be addressed in a different way then the 18-34 year olds. Mind you, different doesn’t mean being patronizing and playing on old age. We’re talking people who went to Woodstock and did all kinds of naughty things in their youth – don’t talk to them as if they are senile.
Maybe the fact that many advertising and marketing executives are Boomers themselves will help here :)
Co-creation
The lazy developers dream – let your customers come up with your products for you. The power of harnessing your customers’ insights is amazing. Once again you are connecting directly to the insights, wishes and beliefs of your customers, ensuring that you will hit a home-run with the rest of the world too.
And the funny thing is – they will do it for free, and even shout it out at the world for you, ‘hey, I helped develop the next Lego Robots, and man, they are cool’.
Experimentational budgets
Following the leaders like Unilever, P&G and Heineken, marketers realize that they will have to set a portion of their marketing budgets aside for well structured experiments. Developments in the digital domain are so fast and furious it’s not always possible to wait for full understanding. By experimenting in a controlled way companies can get insights at very attractive cost – and sometimes even strike gold.
You may not get 24 million viewing minutes for your Ronaldinho fake video on Youtube, but 10.000 views with your target of influencers might be worth just as much, especially if it only costs you 5.000 to do something for them.
The Return of the Soap
As the consumers aversion to traditional 30” spots is starting to hurt, TV channels and advertisers alike have to look for different models. Product placement and branded entertainment are starting to take up a serious position in their portfolios. A major advantage is that the convergence of TV and online is almost built into this model, as there are far less objections to the re-distribution of branded content throughout the internet then with traditional advertising-funded models.
Whether through podcasts, on-demand TV, the fact that the good guys always use Macs or by putting your music up on MySpace, you can be a star outside the networks, or together with them.
More CGA
Not only developers have their lazy-dream, marketers too: Consumer Generated Advertising. Let your customers not only be your Promoters, but actually make your advertising for you. As this advertising will always be based on what they REALLY love about you, it’s sure to strike home with other consumers.
Giving your advocates the tools to tell your story for you is one of the most effective and cost-efficient ways to enhance your position in the market. It’s also scary as hell, but don’t worry – the simple fact that you show the guts to even let your detractors pipe up like Chevy Tahoe did, will create a lot of goodwill.
Oh, and don’t be silly like FedEx or Apple and try to sue your evangelists.
Trend 11:
No more top ten lists :)
So, let me know, what do you think? Did I miss out on something? What won't fly in 2007? Which ones will still be on the list for 2008? And most importantly - I'm hesitant to put a ranking on. I'd rather hear from you what you think will be the Nrs 1 to 10. Let’s discuss.
Addendum: Stampeding
I will address this issue in a separate article soon, but I can't help feeling some despair at seeing how each new communication vehicle is being trampled by hordes of barbarians trying to compensate for their loss of GRP's, and sometimes destroyed in the process. And my feeling is it will only get worse in the next year. So let's call it a trend...
I guess, if there is a way to miss the point, marketers will find it.
Tags:
* authenticity
* budget
* customer insights
* evangelism
* innovation
* marketing
* NPS
* Stefan Kolle
And, OK, I have to admit that some of these might end up being more wishful thinking then actual trends, but I get the disctinctive feeling many marketers are actually starting to wake up.
Authenticity
Authenticity, honesty, ‘realness’ should have been at the top of this list for the past 10 years – but it seems as if it is actually breaking through now. Too many great examples of how companies enhanced their image and standing with either the general public or a relevant group of advocates have emanated recently – Scobleizer has probably generated billions worth of goodwill for Microsoft, Direct2Dell executives ‘fessing up to making mistakes has taken the air out of the whole DellHell movement, and many a politician has recently saved himself by coming out straight away with the ‘oh man, I’m just human, please forgive me’ or ‘yup, I’m gay, so what’ approach.
Also the negative examples still abound, and this time around they are starting to hurt. We wont mention names *coughEdelmancough* *coughwalmartcough*
Net Promoter Scores
Sell your shares in market research agencies – their extensive research methods will go the way of the dinosaurs. Turns out, it all comes down to one question: "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend brand/product X to someone else?" As the results of this research can be directly tied to revenue growth, instead of intangible (and not-boardroom safe) fuzzies like brand recognition, watch the corporate world being taken by storm by NPS, following the likes of GE and Philips.
And isn’t it great that the interruption during dinner time will only last 10 seconds instead of 10 minutes?
Buzztracking
What’s being said about me? Why is nobody talking about me? These are becoming core issues for every company. With the advent of ever better tracking tools for online conversations, it’s becoming indispensable to listen into those conversations, be it to monitor bad things happening out there so you can jump in and call corporate 911, or to find out that nobody really cares about you (which is actually even worse).
Time to go look at those Net Promoter Scores...
From segmentation to insights
‘Hey Cathy, I know you have a long distance relationship and are working only part-time to care for your newborn baby (which by the way has done it for your disposable income, for good), but I will still treat you the same as two years ago, when you were a job-starting, free-spending party animal. After all, you are still a 25-29 year old highly educated urban single female, aren’t you?’
‘Nuff said.
Green
It may be a cynical choice by many companies, but green awareness is the trend-du-jour. If even WalMart is starting to promote eco-friendliness, where will it stop? As there is a lot of revenue waiting in this market – be it from selling eco-friendly goods at marked-up margins, or actually providing eco-technology, this one won't go away.
Personally I don’t care if they move into this market for cynical reasons, it’s the end result that counts.
Grey
Marketers the world over are waking up to the fact that the older demographic is a major opportunity – and needs to be addressed in a different way then the 18-34 year olds. Mind you, different doesn’t mean being patronizing and playing on old age. We’re talking people who went to Woodstock and did all kinds of naughty things in their youth – don’t talk to them as if they are senile.
Maybe the fact that many advertising and marketing executives are Boomers themselves will help here :)
Co-creation
The lazy developers dream – let your customers come up with your products for you. The power of harnessing your customers’ insights is amazing. Once again you are connecting directly to the insights, wishes and beliefs of your customers, ensuring that you will hit a home-run with the rest of the world too.
And the funny thing is – they will do it for free, and even shout it out at the world for you, ‘hey, I helped develop the next Lego Robots, and man, they are cool’.
Experimentational budgets
Following the leaders like Unilever, P&G and Heineken, marketers realize that they will have to set a portion of their marketing budgets aside for well structured experiments. Developments in the digital domain are so fast and furious it’s not always possible to wait for full understanding. By experimenting in a controlled way companies can get insights at very attractive cost – and sometimes even strike gold.
You may not get 24 million viewing minutes for your Ronaldinho fake video on Youtube, but 10.000 views with your target of influencers might be worth just as much, especially if it only costs you 5.000 to do something for them.
The Return of the Soap
As the consumers aversion to traditional 30” spots is starting to hurt, TV channels and advertisers alike have to look for different models. Product placement and branded entertainment are starting to take up a serious position in their portfolios. A major advantage is that the convergence of TV and online is almost built into this model, as there are far less objections to the re-distribution of branded content throughout the internet then with traditional advertising-funded models.
Whether through podcasts, on-demand TV, the fact that the good guys always use Macs or by putting your music up on MySpace, you can be a star outside the networks, or together with them.
More CGA
Not only developers have their lazy-dream, marketers too: Consumer Generated Advertising. Let your customers not only be your Promoters, but actually make your advertising for you. As this advertising will always be based on what they REALLY love about you, it’s sure to strike home with other consumers.
Giving your advocates the tools to tell your story for you is one of the most effective and cost-efficient ways to enhance your position in the market. It’s also scary as hell, but don’t worry – the simple fact that you show the guts to even let your detractors pipe up like Chevy Tahoe did, will create a lot of goodwill.
Oh, and don’t be silly like FedEx or Apple and try to sue your evangelists.
Trend 11:
No more top ten lists :)
So, let me know, what do you think? Did I miss out on something? What won't fly in 2007? Which ones will still be on the list for 2008? And most importantly - I'm hesitant to put a ranking on. I'd rather hear from you what you think will be the Nrs 1 to 10. Let’s discuss.
Addendum: Stampeding
I will address this issue in a separate article soon, but I can't help feeling some despair at seeing how each new communication vehicle is being trampled by hordes of barbarians trying to compensate for their loss of GRP's, and sometimes destroyed in the process. And my feeling is it will only get worse in the next year. So let's call it a trend...
I guess, if there is a way to miss the point, marketers will find it.
Tags:
* authenticity
* budget
* customer insights
* evangelism
* innovation
* marketing
* NPS
* Stefan Kolle
Email Marketing
1.Plan & Strategize
a.Mobile Email Marketing Tips
The future of email marketing is here, and it's in your customers' hands.
Email marketing on mobile phones has been hovering like either fate or opportunity, depending on how you view it. Maybe you've embraced it already, because your customers are a mobile bunch. Or, maybe you think it's something you'll think about tomorrow, like Scarlett O'Hara.
Just a few years ago, the mobile Web was something that only the folks out on the bleeding edge of technology had to deal with. The iPhone, introduced in 2007, and other breeds of smart phones, have now put the Web squarely in millions of people's hands.
According to the Pew Internet Project, "58% of adult Americans have used a cell phone or personal digital assistant to do at least one of ten mobile non-voice data activities, such as texting, emailing, taking a picture, looking for maps or directions, or recording video."
Mobile's biggest challenge will be in forcing you to cross the final frontier in your email-marketing program to make it completely customer-centric. We talk a lot about customer-centricity, of designing campaigns and messages to make them as close as possible to what the customers want to receive, when, in which format and on what platform. Maybe you read all that and thought, "Yeah, yeah, sounds good ... but I'm still going to send all my email in HTML because it lets me run a big pretty product picture."
It's time to face the music.
Are Your Customers Going Mobile?
First, find out, if you can, how many of your regular readers read your email on their cell phones or portable devices.
Create a text version of your HTML message and place it on a page at your Web site. Then, put a link to this version at the top of an email message, next to the link to your Web version. Count the number of clicks the link draws in the first three or four times you send it out. If fewer than 2% of your subscribers click on it, you don't need to drop everything just yet.
If it's more than 10%, however, it's time to roll up your sleeves.
What Makes Mobile Different?
1. The platform
Obviously, the platform is different. Instead of a screen that measures 13 to 21 inches on the diagonal, you have maybe 2 to 4 inches. And you thought the preview pane was restrictive?
2. Content rendering
Mobile devices vary wildly in how they render content. Even the recent news that BlackBerry software will be updated to show HTML content won't mean an immediate revolution. Text usually renders well on most devices, but you'll want to rethink even your text messages to optimize them for the smaller screen.
3. Uses
Your readers might not be living their lives through their mobiles just yet, but they most likely use their phones to triage their inboxes when they're away from their keyboards.
"Triage" here means they are reading their email on their cell phones while they're waiting for a flight, taking the commuter train to work or going home, sitting at a child's soccer game, or stuck in traffic. They scan through the inbox quickly, seeing which emails to open right away, which to ditch and which to save for later use at home or in the office.
Optimize Messages for Mobile Readers
The good news is that if you optimized your HTML messages to compensate for blocked images and the preview pane, both of which are default settings for most desktop and Web email clients, your messages will show up better on most mobile platforms.
However, you should take a couple of extra steps to make messages even more mobile-friendly:
1. Reformat text
You should always offer a text option as an alternative to HTML for all readers. You can send this version to your mobile readers, but you might also have to reformat it to make it show up better on the smaller screen.
Most text messages have 60 to 80 characters per line. Mobile platforms will show 20 to 40 characters in 12 to 15 lines per screen, depending on screen width and type style.
Desktop-friendly line lengths can create long paragraphs in the mobile reader. If you use typographic devices as copy separators that also run 60 characters, for example, you'll give up four to five lines on the screen for something that adds no value.
2. Rethink tracking URLs
Same goes for URLs. Tracking URLs can also consume four to five lines per screen. If you can, use a simpler URL even if it means sacrificing some tracking ability. These long URLs can result from automatically reformatting HTML copy into text, so your text version may need some hand-tweaking in order to render better on all platforms.
3. Be brief.
Message size must come down whether you send in text or HTML. Messages over a certain size -- even as small as 12KB -- risk being cut off halfway through. In many clients, your reader can opt to click a button that will call up the rest of the message, but do you want to throw up that obstacle?
Personally, I hate it when I open a message and find "message truncated" right at the top. I need more to make me want to click the button that will deliver the rest of the message.
Another message I get that frustrates me to no end is "This message contains a rich-text HTML portion. Consult your mail client's documentation for information on how to view it." Uh, I don't think so. Delete! That means it won't be there when I get to my desk.
Also, rethink the content itself. Long sentences in long paragraphs force more and more scrolling. This also can be a barrier to conversion or another source of frustration for readers.
4. Validate your Web site, too.
Is your Web site mobile-friendly too? Probably not, if you haven't had it redesigned specifically for mobile applications. If you have to send readers to your Web site to get the most value from your email marketing, better make sure it will also render on their devices. You can check it easily by using a new validator developed by the World Wide Web Consortium: http://validator.w3.org/mobile/.
Final Thoughts On Mobile-Friendly Emails
* Include a mobile option on your subscription or registration page. Track how many users check this option.
* Add a mobile reference to your online-version link in your message copy.
* "Above the fold" becomes even more crucial on the mobile screen. If you must keep boilerplate elements such as an admin center at the bottom, link to it near the top so that readers will know they need to click to download it.
* Keep your message short, and give readers a reason to save it for later to view in their desktop clients.
* Test before sending. You should be doing this anyway, but mobile adds another platform to the mix. Don't assume that because it looks good on your BlackBerry or iPhone, it will show up that way on all Web-enabled phones. Make sure it looks good on the cruddiest phone in the office, too.
b.Your 10-Point Quality-Control Checklist
Why is sending an email message like launching the Space Shuttle?
Because you have to perform a thorough checklist to make sure all systems are go before you can hit "send."
A successful email launch has a lot of moving parts, and they all need to work together correctly. An effective quality-control checklist will help you spot and correct problems before they can wreak havoc on your list, your deliverability, your reputation and your bottom line.
Running through a checklist could have prevented many of the "oopsies" that email blogger Chad White highlights on his Retail Email blog's annual Oopsy Hall of Fame. Trust me, you don't want to be an inductee in this hall of shame.
Just a few of the blunders that saw daylight because nobody was checking:
* misspelled subject lines
* test messages sent to the whole list
* the wrong image used
* images missing or broken even with images enabled
* coding errors that wipe out all text and images
Sure, it's every email sender's nightmare to launch a bug-filled campaign where everyone will see your mistakes. But, if you exercise strict quality control all along the production line, you'll reduce your potential exposure and send campaigns with confidence, even the last-minute ones.
The 10-Point Checklist:
1. I am sending to the correct list.
You might think this would rate as "duh," but there are actually a lot of ways you can go wrong with this, even if you have only one mailing list that you never segment in any way. We all know people who have accidentally sent live email to their do-not-email database of unsubscribed addresses.
More commonly, this happens when you send a test or targeted message to your entire list. Click carefully! When you send duplicate or irrelevant messages, you increase the chance that you'll irritate recipients into reporting you as spam or disengaging from you.
2. I proofread all the text in Notepad before having it coded for my HTML messages.
One of the ways proofreading works is if you look at it in a different medium. Once it's in HTML, text or graphic elements in the message body can trick your brain into overlooking typos, especially if you've been working on the copy for a long time.
If you created your text copy in Word or other formatted word-processing programs, paste it into Notepad or other plain-text programs and eyeball it again, or read it backwards to take the words out of context. This can make misspellings pop. Don't rely on your spell-checker to catch usage errors (to-two-too, your-you're, there-their).
3. I verified that the offer or other purpose for sending the message is the correct one.
Once again, this should be a given, but mistakes happen. Always check first by clicking through on your test messages and verify your destination is correct.
4. I included an unsubscribe link and street address as required by CAN-SPAM. (Or, I included all the elements my country's commercial-email regulations require.)
For U.S. email senders, the law specifically requires adding an unsubscribe link and your company postal address. If you have redesigned your template or switched to a new one, you should double-check to make sure these crucial elements are there and easy to find.
5. These identifying elements are present and accounted for:
-- The subject line is filled in with text that accurately represents the email message content. We aren't even talking about branding the subject line or making it compelling and concise. Don't overlook it as you build your message in your list software, and don't leave any placeholder text like "subject line to come" in it.
-- The "from" line shows my company or brand name, not an email address. You want the mail to stand as a reliable presence in the inbox. An email address is not as reliable as a company name or brand.
-- Any dates, especially copyright, reflect the correct year. This is important, especially if you work far ahead and often overlooked in January when the year changes. Having the wrong date makes you look amateurish, and amateurish mistakes look spammy.
-- My company contact information, including name, street address, telephone numbers, Web site and email address for questions or concerns. If you want your customers to feel more confident about interacting with you, give them many ways to contact you.
6. I clicked every link and link-connected image to make they all work and checked to make sure each image has an alt tag describing the content.
This is a simple troubleshooter, but it seems to get overlooked frequently, judging from all the broken links we see. Broken links mean recipients can't act on your email even if they wanted to and actually makes your entire message useless.
The alt tag is important because it gives you another way to deliver information when your readers have disabled images. The alt tag can either describe the image or house a call to action.
7. I previewed the message in my preview pane and with images disabled, in different browsers and on different computer platforms.
Your list software should allow you to test-send your message before launching it to your list. Do this every time, even if you're sending a message using a template that has been thoroughly debugged.
Read it on different platforms – PC, Mac, mobile – and in different browsers, mainly Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari (for Mac users), with the preview pane enabled and images disabled. Now you see your email as your subscribers do. If it isn't pretty, go back to the drawing board.
8. I proofread my text message and included the link to my message on the Web.
Repeat Step 2 with the copy in your text message (not formatted in HTML or using pictures or other images). The text message has re-emerged in importance for mobile readers whose devices don't read HTML. Also make sure the Web link is present and working for mobile readers who can decode HTML or for subscribers whose alternative or nonstandard browsers don't render HTML well.
9. I had one other person look it over before I hit "send."
Here you ask someone who was not involved in creating the message to give it a once-over before a launch. You want a fresh pair of eyes and a brain that hasn't looked at the same mistake 10 times without seeing it.
10. I tested my body copy and HTML coding with a delivery monitoring tool to make sure it doesn't trigger spam filters.
You should always ask someone to look over your message before you send it, but a fresh pair of eyes doesn't always know what will trigger an ISP or email-server's spam filters. A third-party delivery monitoring service, such as Email Advisor http://www.lyris.com/products/emailadvisor/ stays tuned to the most up-to-date filter quirks can reveal potential problems before you commit yourself.
A service like this can spot filter triggers in content or formatting, show you whether your email is more likely to get blocked outright, to get filtered to the junk file or be delivered straight to the inbox or check to see if you landed on a blacklist.
Yes, it adds another step to the message launch, but the few minutes it takes to check your message can save you thousands, and your reputation, down the line.
Okay, you've gone through your checklist. Look it over one time; then, hit "send" with confidence.
And If You Mess Up Anyway?
Nobody's perfect. If you're lucky, you've committed just a small sin and caught it early enough to stop the send before the message goes out to your entire list.
Even the pros can mess up. Read what happened when we goofed on a survey invitation in this short article from our Resource Center, "Ugh. Learn From Our Recent Email Mistakes"
c.Unsubscribing in 2007: Marketers Can Get More Out of Goodbye
Here's what our survey of unsubscribe policies and practices among email marketers turned up in 2007:
The good news is that almost all are complying with best practices about giving customers the opportunity to unsubscribe from their mailings, making it easy to find and use the unsubscribe link and honoring that unsubscribe relatively expeditiously.
However, marketers can do so much more to learn about their customers from the unsubscribe process and to offer alternatives that would retain them as customers somewhere within their databases.
Why scrutinize unsubscribe practices? Because providing a method for subscribers to leave your mailing list is a crucial component of email marketing, contrary to almost any other form of marketing and advertising.
* Consumers who don't trust your unsubscribe process are more likely to report you to their ISPs as a spammer.
* The unsubscribe process itself is a rich vein of information about how your subscribers are thinking, how they see your company and what they want from you.
* Having a workable, trustworthy unsubscribe process can even retain a customer for you if you give them other options.
So, when done correctly, unsubscribing can actually benefit your email program.
In this article, I will list four of the major findings, analyze what they mean to you as an email sender and recommend how you can improve your own unsubscribe program and boost your email marketing program performance overall.
If you'd like to see the full report, follow this link to register for a PDF copy of all findings, charts and recommendations. See the end of this article for details on when and how this survey was conducted.
The Unsubscribe Picture 2007: Compliance and Opportunity
Finding 1: 96% of marketers include an unsubscribe link in their promotional emails but fail to include it in other critical contact points including welcome emails, transactional and customer support messages or autoresponders.
Question: Which of your email messages on this list includes a method for subscribers to request removal?
Method for Subscribers
Do Do Not Don't Know Don't Send One
Welcome Emails 63.20% 15.70% 3.50% 17.60%
Marketing Promotional Emails 96.00% 1.00% 0.50% 2.50%
Customer Service Emails 45.20% 30.90% 10.60% 13.30%
Auto Responders 40.10% 29.00% 9.00% 21.90%
Transactional Emails 31.00% 37.80% 10.60% 20.60%
Analysis: Marketers are, for the most part, including unsubscribe instructions in all promotional emails. However, they're missing the opportunity to build customer trust and allow them to control their inboxes by adding the unsubscribe to other critical customer contact points.
Key to this is the welcome message, normally sent out as soon as the subscriber confirms the request. Why would you give your newest subscribers the option to jump off the wagon right away? Because people do sometimes subscribe by mistake. (You can alleviate this by not using prechecked boxes on your registration form, by the way.)
When you don't provide an unsubscribe method in that welcome email, you force recipients to receive more email from you. That increases the risk that they'll click the spam button, since they don't want to hear from you, and they may not trust you to honor the unsubscribe request.
(Are you among the 9% to 10% who don't know if your nonpromotional emails do or don't carry this information? Better find out fast!)
Recommendation: Provide unsubscribe information in every email sent to subscribers or customers.
Finding 2: More than three-quarters of marketers use an easy unsubscribe method, such as a one-click unsubscribe link or reply to the email message, and another 25% let subscribers access a profile-update page without having to log in first.
Question: For marketing email messages, which of the following methods do you use for enabling subscribers to request removal from future mailings? (Check all that apply)
Method for Subscribers
Response Percent
1-click URL for instant removal 53.33%
Reply with unsubscribe request in subject line 28.64%
URL to profile update without required log-in 24.94%
Send email request to a custom address for removal 17.28%
URL to log into account profile and changes preferences (requires password) 16.79%
URL to pre-populated form with additional survey questions 5.19%
URL to pre-populated form that requires confirmation 1.98%
No option provided 1.23%
URL to form that requires the address be entered 0.99%
Other (please specify) 2.72%
Analysis: Easy unsubscribing is paramount here, because it will encourage more subscribers to use it rather than click a spam button or just ignore your messages. However, that also limits the options, both yours and your subscribers.
An unsubscribe isn't always about saying goodbye. Maybe the subscriber's needs or interests change, or he wants to update an address, or hear from you more or less often. This is where profile pages can help you reduce unsubscribes and give users a more valuable experience.
Marketers, however, aren't using this option as much as they might. The survey found only 25% give subscribers this option. Another 16.8% do direct traffic to the profile page but require a password or other log-in method. This defeats the purpose in some cases because people often forget passwords. So, they'll either have to request a reminder or generate a new one. That adds at least another step to the process and boosts the chance they'll just give up and spam-button your email out of frustration.
Recommendation: Use a two-step process. Click One takes the user to a profile page that loads with their data populated in all the fields. Click Two confirms the removal request or changes in the profile. Also, provide other opportunities to request removal, including contact information for a Web form or customer-support contacts if the profile page doesn't work.
Finding 3: Over half of marketers acknowledge the unsubscribe on the landing page, while less than a third send an email confirmation. Eleven percent of marketers either don't acknowledge the unsubscribe or provide language they will continue to mail to the address until the 10-day CAN-SPAM window closes.
Question: Which of these actions do you take once the subscriber has asked to be removed?
Actions
Response Percent
Acknowledge unsubscribe on landing page 54.37%
Send an email confirmation that the address has been removed 28.17%
Immediate removal from list - automated 5.68%
No confirmation, just end messaging 3.06%
Record unsubscribe but continue to email until legally permitted 10 days has expired 2.40%
None of the above 1.31%
Send postal notice of removal 1.09%
Send postal mail incentive to update profile and re-subscribe 0.66%
Phone notification 0.44%
Other (please specify) 2.84%
Analysis: Acknowledging the unsubscribe helps to build trust in your email program because it tells the subscriber immediately that the request was successful. It also gives you an opportunity to maintain a relationship with that subscriber, because you can offer other ways to get information, such as changing frequency, format or content. Even if the subscriber does intend to leave your program, a graceful goodbye, with thanks for their previous patronage, can strengthen that relationship.
Recommendation: Acknowledge the unsubscribe immediately in the same medium that was used to request removal: confirm on the landing page when the request comes via clicking a link, and email the confirmation when the user uses an auto-reply unsubscribe or sends in a personal request.
Finding 4: Fewer than 20% of marketers use the unsubscribe confirmation to remind subscribers about other communication options or seek valuable exit information.
Question: If your email unsubscribe process links to a Web page, does the landing page contain any of the following?
Actions
Response Percent
Statement confirming the unsubscribe request 42.60%
Goodbye message 18.49%
No link to Web page 11.25%
Customer service phone number 6.27%
Incentive to update profile and re-subscribe 5.31%
Survey to understand reasons for unsubscribing and gather suggestions to improve future programs 4.98%
Simple feedback form for customer comments 4.82%
Reminder of other messaging channels (RSS, direct mail, catalog) 3.70%
List types of communications opted-in for 0.32%
Other (please specify) 2.25%
Analysis: Along the same lines as Finding 3, marketers are not using the unsubscribe to offer recipients other options for receiving information or explaining why they unsubscribed.
The unsubscribe doesn't have to be a final farewell, but marketers too often treat it that way, given the nearly half who use the message format merely to confirm the unsubscribe. Less than 20% include any kind of goodbye message, and fewer than 1 in 10 includes any kind of outreach, including a customer-service phone number, an incentive to resubscribe or update a profile, offer an exit survey to learn the reasons for unsubscribing or offer suggestions, or remind the subscriber of other channels, such as RSS feeds or direct mail.
Recommendation: Always acknowledge the unsubscribe with a personal message thanking the subscriber for his patronage, offering other options for receiving message and an opportunity to explain the request and providing contact information including phone numbers and links to your Web site.
Other findings and recommendations:
1. Test your subscribe and unsubscribe process at least once a month to make sure it works. We found almost half never test their unsubscribe method once they set it up, while less than 1 in 4 test after they get a complaint that it's not working. Because almost 60% of marketers rely on their email software to manage the process, it's easy to forget about checking until it's too late.
2. Honor unsubscribe requests received through other channels. We found 44% of marketers empower their customer-support centers, such as phone support, to manually remove addresses. However, given that only 16% include a customer-service phone number in their unsubscribe process, this forces your subscriber to hunt down your contact info at your Web site and adds another barrier to successful unsubscribing.
3. Construct an unsubscribe page, or add options to your current profile page, that give multiple unsubscribe options. These can include a global unsubscribe from all of your mailings or the option to leave just one or two. Again, this can allow a subscriber to make a clean break without the risk that subsequent mailings could trigger a spam block, or help retain subscribers who want something different without having to leave the store.
Survey Background and Methodology
Unsubscribing has evolved from the early days when marketers pulled every stunt in the book to keep subscribers from leaving. Not only did that tactic backfire, it brought on the curse of the "report spam" button. That in turn led marketers to the other extreme, the "no-questions-asked" policy that freed subscribers with one click but broke the connection with subscribers.
The unsubscribe process, then, has to serve multiple needs. It has to be legally sound, trusted by recipients and deliver value to the company. We at Lyris intended this survey to measure how well marketers are meeting all of these challenges by assessing their practices, attitudes and experiences.
More than 400 email professionals responded to our invitation to fill out the survey in fall 2007. Follow this link to download your personal copy of the full report with charts, statistics, analysis and recommended best practices.
If you were one of our survey participants, we thank you for sharing your practices, attitudes and experiences. I will follow up on several of these issues in my regular ClickZ Delivery column and future Intevation Reports.
For a collection of more than 150 articles on email marketing best practices, as well as tools and statistics, please visit our Resource Center
c.10 Quick Fixes to Optimize Holiday E-Marketing
Now that Halloween is in the rearview mirror, the holiday email-marketing season is about to shift into overdrive. This isn't the time to reinvent your entire marketing program, but a quick fix here and there could help you raise your engagement, deliverability or results a few percentage points without forcing you to tear your whole program apart.
Use this list either to identify areas to tweak or adjust without a major investment in time or money, or to check your own performance before crunch time.
1. State your name.
Your company or brand name should appear in the "from," or sender, line, not a person's name or email address. Your readers use the from line as one clue about whether they recognize or trust the sender. So, unless you're Martha Stewart or Donald Trump or Queen Elizabeth, use the identity your readers will be most likely to recognize – your brand name.
2. State your business.
The other tip readers look for when deciding whether to open your email is what you say in the subject line. You'll find plenty of advice on how to write irresistible subject lines in our online Resource Center, but here's one quick tip and a pointer to an online subject-line tool.
The tip: Put the most important information in the first 28 characters of the subject line. That's how much space (or how little, depending on how you look at it) you have to get your message across in the typical email client's subject line. Putting your company or brand name in the sender line frees up space for the heart of your message.
The tool: See what several major email clients do to your subject line with our free subject-line rendering tool (works in Internet Explorer only). Access it here.
More subject-line advice: Click this link to access a list of articles with tips and advice to help you fine-tune your subject lines.
3. Check your inventory.
Does your regular email message contain these essential ingredients? Five are must-haves; three are nice-to-haves that are worth the time it takes to include:
Must Have:
* Link to the full email on your Web site. Make sure this link goes directly to the page that displays the email. And, restate your brand name in the line. It could be the only thing your reader sees in the message if he reads it on a mobile device or in the preview pane. Mention the offer too, if you have room.
* Working unsubscribe link and directions prominently displayed. This is the law for U.S. email marketers, and in most companies that regulate commercial email.
* Your company name, address and contact info, including telephone, email and Web contact-page link.
* The email address used to send the message, useful if the recipient wants to unsubscribe or tracks messages by address.
* Your company or brand name prominently displayed.
Nice to Have:
* Subscription instructions for readers who had your message forwarded to them and enjoy it so much they want a copy for themselves.
* Link to other offers/stories or past offers/stories still in effect or to related information on your site. Take advantage of last month's edition to fill out this month’s.
* All contact and subscriber information grouped in an administration center, placed near the bottom of the message body and promoted with a link near the top.
4. See the big picture? Dump it.
Does your email message look exactly like a print ad, with gorgeous color and all the message information contained within it? Your HTML designer is probably in love with it, but the half or more of your readers who block images from downloading automatically will never see it. Instead, all they'll see is a big white nothing.
Instead, break your message into more manageable chunks, replacing one large image with smaller pictures, and place the most important information in text boxes that will show up whether or not the pictures do. Also, use alt tags to describe what’s in the picture or to restate the offer or the action you want readers to take. These will often display if the pictures don't.
5. Proof, proof, proof.
Nothing makes you look like a spammer and less than professional than spelling or coding mistakes. You probably won't misspell your company or brand name; instead, mistakes usually happen in the body copy where you aren't paying close attention and more often than not in the actual links you want your readers to use.
Always have a second pair of eyes review your copy. Run your copy past the person in your office who drives everyone crazy with her obsessive attention to detail. You'll make her day and probably catch a stupid mistake.
Then, click each and every link in the copy, from the link to the Web version of your email message to the unsubscribe link to every product link in it. Yes, it is tedious, but you'll irritate your readers and lose sales if even an incidental link leads only to a 404 Page Not Found. Don't trust past performance, either; links break over time, pages get moved, servers go down. Test every link.
6. Run that offer up the flagpole and see who salutes.
This involves three phases: being clear about the value proposition, seeing what your competition is selling at the same time, and trying out your message on a sample of your readers before you commit to it.
Can your reader tell exactly what you're offering just by glancing at the subject line or the message copy, especially if images are blocked? The subject line and message headline should state that clearly.
Also, consider what it is that you want to be known for. Everybody is offering free shipping this year; what will distinguish you?
If you're not sure what the competition is doing, subscribe to the email programs of your major competitors, or at least the leaders in your market. You could also use EmailDataSource.com to see what promotions or incentives they're offering and how they compare to yours.
Pressed for time? Monitor the competition in Chad White's Retail Email blog: http://retailemail.blogspot.com/. He tracks subject lines, offers, trends and other big-picture ideas of major retailers, primarily US-based.
For the scoop on what will be promoted in brick and mortar stores this season, check the Web site for Black Friday Ads. BFAds posts bootleg or advance copies of retailer newspaper ads for Black Friday, the Friday after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday that traditionally kicks off the holiday shopping season. To the chagrin of many major retailers, the site scans the ads and catalogs the promotions. Read the blog here: http://bfads.net/ or subscribe to its email list.
Once you have figured out your offer and created the messages, test them on a sample of your readership. Create at least two versions, but test only one aspect so that you know which factor lifts or depresses response. Typical test factors are the offer (free shipping versus a price discount versus buy one get one free, for example), the subject line, the copy arrangement, or image choice.
7. Synch the landing page.
Where does the link in your email message send the clicker? It should go to a landing page that closely reflects the message itself, with the same product, value proposition, copy and offer. Never make people hunt for what they need.
8. Segment to boost relevance.
If you aren't already using customer or subscriber data to create relevant sublists and target messages to them, it might be too late to start now, unless you have a database whiz who is just itching to help you create meaningful niches. However, you can create segments just by dividing the clickers from the nonclickers, and, if you send HTML email, the openers from the nonopeners. Then, come up with tasty incentives to get them to respond.
9. Fast-track your newcomers.
You should end up with new subscribers if you promote your email program diligently on your Web site. (Quick tip: put a link to your registration page on every page of your site.) Don't let their enthusiasm fade once they buy and leave your site.
Do you have these important new subscriber functions in place?
* Instant subscription confirmation request, whether they sign up at your Web site or through an affiliate site.
* Immediate welcome email, confirming what mailing lists they signed up for, how often and in which format, along with information on how to use your Web site, links to relevant pages at your Web site (home page, contact or customer-support links and phone numbers if available), link to your privacy policy, invitation to create a more detailed profile if you offer it, links to current offers and links to any products or downloads they qualify for by subscribing.
10. Jump on spam complaints.
As email frequency goes up, whether you send more often or your subscribers just get overwhelmed with seasonal email, you can expect complaints to go up, whether they go directly to you or indirectly from ISPs through their feedback loops.
You can minimize this increase by throttling your frequency, resisting the temptation – or the command from the higher-ups – to send more often. But also, read your delivery logs more carefully to spot problems as they occur, and monitor ISP feedback loops to remove complainers immediately, before you email them again.
Again, these are quick fixes that you should be able to implement without a major investment in time or labor. The most important thing you can do, however, is to keep your eye on the ball all the way through the holiday season, noting what works and what doesn't, and cataloguing improvements you can investigate when the smoke clears in January or February.
d.10 Ways to Engage Newsletter Readers
In our email-saturated environment, your subscribers will lose interest fast in your email messages if the only message they get from your newsletter is “Buy me!” That’s what all the other commercial email, spam and permission alike, is saying as it clutters up the inbox.
“Come join us” invites your most enthusiastic shoppers to become a part of a wider group of experts, willing to share information, tips, and advice, maybe even to brag about how they use your products.
A newsletter that gives its subscribers many ways to interact with you and the product is one that they will anticipate and welcome. By extension, they’ll find more value in it, spend more time reading it and ultimately buy more from you through it.
Look at your newsletter, and count up the ways your readers can interact with you. And, don’t count your unsubscribe link. Instead, look for any way that you offer readers to get involved with the newsletter, your products or your company. If you found only one, or even none, then check out these strategies below for ideas on how to add more ways for your readers to interact with your emails.
10 Strategies to Build Reader Engagement
Great emails find a balance among interactive content, entertainment value and purchase behavior. However, not every email message needs to follow this content-heavy format, nor does every reader seek it out.
Still, you should strive to add a little value to each email you send, whether it’s your regular customer newsletter, a one-off sales announcement, company news, or transactional emails such as subscription, registration and order confirmations or updates.
1. Add more channels to collect feedback.
You should already have at least one Web link and an email contact address in every email you send (along with someone on your end monitoring those locations in order to reply in one business day or less), as well as postal and telephone data. But, the more, the better.
Some creative avenues for feedback:
* Short surveys: One-question pop quizzes relating to your product or market niche rather than statistically valid queries. Intro the quiz in the newsletter, then link to the actual quiz on your site. Use a quiz module that shows a running vote total.
Perennially good topics: Ask how to improve the newsletter or Web site; solicit new product ideas; ask how a product solved a problem or improved the user’s life. Publish good replies in the next issue.
* Spotlight a useful or noteworthy question or comment chosen from your feedback. Offer a small prize appropriate to your product line or publication for the question that gets picked.
2. Tell your story.
Everyone likes to peek behind the curtain to see how the company works and who the people are behind the email addresses or the telephone voice. Add a little storytelling to your newsletter as appropriate.
* The company picture: Launch new products, announce news or highlight email-only peeks into company operations, especially fun facts, history, personnel changes and the like.
* Employee spotlight: Introduce employees who are either on the hotseat all the time, such as a customer-service rep or product manager, or those who work far from the bright lights but have relevant comments, such as a tip for negotiating your Web site or their favorite products.
3. Give your newsletter a personality.
This isn’t the same as personalization, where you mail-merge your subscriber’s name into the subject line or Dear Whoever line in the message body.
If your newsletter were a person, would it be male or female, shy or smart-alecky, a serious authority or the fun guy at the desk next to you who’s always working an angle? It should reflect either your customer base as it is or as it would like to be.
Once you know that, you can adopt a distinctive tone and personality that guides your copywriting and topic selections. This is mainly a newsletter initiative, although you can continue it in broad terms through all of your email.
4. Add customer reviews or publish the best recommendations.
This one can be tricky, because you risk customers filing negative comments along with the glowing ones. To counter that, pick the most useful of your good comments and feature them in a product spotlight, on your site and in your emails. Publish and promote the link to your review site to encourage readers to file their own comments.
5. Get blogging!
Got a blog? Link to it. Also, create a blog just for your customers and subscribers, and publish a good comment in the newsletter.
Avoid the gushy posts; they’ll sound phony. Instead, choose anecdotes or comments that highlight problem-solving or premium quality or praises an employee. If one post generates a lot of good comments (no flame wars!), publish those to keep the conversation going.
6. Create mini-sites around specific topics or seasons, and populate them with reader-generated content. Be clear that the content comes from readers. Highlight the link to the form or email address where readers can send their content. Possible topics:
* Readers’ pictures showing how they use your products or adopted your content for their own use.
* Seasonal recipes and anecdotes.
* Their favorite products.
* Feedback on these and other topics.
7. Add video content to your Web site and link to it from your newsletter. Also, patrol video-sharing sites like YouTube and promote any that relate. Promote the link and provide detailed instructions on how to upload content.
8. Add a small bit of editorial content to your commercial email messages (not transactional emails).
This could be the reader-generated content we saw earlier in this article, or something you write to bring the company closer to your subscribers, such as an editor’s note, inspirational quote or reader comment.
But, proceed carefully. If your sales messages previously have taken the hard-sell route, introduce the content gradually and watch your feedback addresses and delivery reports to see if people love or hate your new approach. After all, you may be taking a much different course from what your readers want.
9. Give away a prize in each issue and then spotlight the winner.
And not just any prize either, but something you know your readership would want, either tied to your regular promotion, a new product introduction, a paid download, a subscription or the like. So, no free iPods unless your newsletter caters to Mac fanatics, and then make it an upgraded version.
Don’t stop there. Feature the winner in your next newsletter to double the exposure and interest for the winner. Don’t just run the name but include a fact, tip, quote or similar item to promote your newsletter’s value.
10. Post job openings.
Are you a Fortune 500 company? One of the fastest-growing companies in your area? Is business booming and product flying off the shelves? Every company needs product advocates, particularly employees who use the products and services, and can evangelize effectively.
Four Caveats
As important as it is to build value by making your readers active participants, you do need to watch out for four big traps:
* Keep it relevant.
Anything you add must relate to your business, goals or newsletter topic. Don’t just stick in a joke of the day or a trivia fact to fill space. Also, remember what your message is supposed to do. If your standard email message is a deal of the day, or you send three times a week or more often, keep the content short. On the other hand, if you contact subscribers weekly or less often, your added content might well give your newsletter more shelf life.
* Keep it short.
Remember, even your best customers might be pressed for time. Add in content gradually, and survey readers to see how your enhanced version is going over. If you aren’t seeing upticks in the metrics you most want to improve, hold off and reassess.
* Once you change your format, commit to it.
Adding editorial content and features to a sales message will require time and money, two resources that often are in short supply for email marketers. The time comes in researching, writing and producing the additional newsletter copy. The money comes in paying that person or staff people.
A well-known retailer used to publish a stellar consumer newsletter for its direct line of outdoor gear, business-casual clothing and sportswear. One outstanding feature was a story that didn’t always push products but told stories on topics subscribers might be interested in or capitalized on the company’s rural Wisconsin location and sensibility. It also individualized each message with offers tied to buying history.
But the focus shifted during corporate restructuring. The writer who produced the content was let go, and content reduced to product promotions. Although it’s still nicely done, it has lost the features that made it a must-read.
* Do readers want it as much as you do?
Test and retest before you launch a major change. Survey a sample of your newsletter base for reactions and suggestions.
Then, when you go live with your new format, scrutinize your feedback emails and watch your delivery reports, in case you start generating more spam complaints and unsubscribes. Don’t pull back immediately, but listen carefully to what your readers will tell you.
Changing your newsletter format can be tricky, and it will require a greater time and money commitment. But if you keep the content relevant and include readers at every turn, you will most likely deliver messages with greater value for them. That, in turn, can help you recover your costs with more sales and lower address turnover.
e.3 Tips to Build Word of Mouth
In any marketing medium, referrals are your best source for business growth and vitality. One person who spreads the good word about you to their friends and family does an agency's worth of your advertising, marketing and public relations. When your "talker" is a solid-gold trusted source, you can see why you need to do everything you can to encourage your readers to talk about you.
Traditional and direct marketers know the value of good word-of-mouth. When e-marketing through Web sites and email took off, word of mouth became reinvented as "viral marketing." Same idea, but the electronic nature of the medium means it needs to be approached from a different angle.
Email and Viral: A Natural Fit
Just about every desktop and Web email client has a forwarding button built into it. You can take advantage of that, and of the natural human desire to pass on information, if you develop a good "forward to a friend” program that makes it easy and safe for people to share your material.
With all the benefits forward-to-a-friend offers for email marketers, and relatively low risk, I'm amazed to see how few marketers use it, and use it well. A study EmailLabs did last year found forwarding was one of the business-builders marketers were least likely to include in their messages.
At the same time, however, be careful how you do it. As good and trustworthy as it is when used correctly, "forward to a friend" can come back to bite you if you set it up wrong or misuse the personal information shared with you.
'F2F:' Three Ways to Get It Right
A good viral-marketing program has three essential qualities: It's simple to do, it's trustworthy and it benefits both the talker and the "talkee.” Here are strategies that can either help you launch your program or elevate it out of the doldrums to become an essential business-builder for you.
1. It's simple to do. Sure, you can hope that your readers will forward your fabulous messages on their own, but it's better for you that they use your data-capture page to send the information. That way, it's easier for you to track forwards. You also know the forwarded content will arrive and render pretty much as you intend it. And, you can send a special version of your newsletter or sales offer that speaks directly to the new recipient.
Every bulk email message you send should have a link to the page on your Web site where you collect the data you need to process the forward. Obviously, transactional and subscriber-only messages would not merit encouragement to forward, but any other messages should.
Not only should you include a link to your data-capture page, you need to draw attention to it. Okay, maybe not with blinking animations but surely with a clear direction ("Share this information with a friend who appreciates a good bargain” for example).
You can use an image that links to your data-capture page, such as a button or tab with the desired action listed on it ("Forward to a friend here”), but make sure you include a descriptive alt tag that will be visible in case the friend has images disabled. You likely won't be included on their contact list, so your chances of having images disabled on the first pass is pretty high.
2. It's trustworthy. People are skittish enough about getting email they didn't request. You might see the data you collect from your readers as a vein of priceless information to mine as you wish, but in reality, it is only on loan for a one-time use. Abuse that trust, and you will not only alienate your potential new customers, you could lose the ones who trusted you with the information, and you could end up being roasted in public as a spammer.
Make sure your privacy policy states clearly what you will or will not do with the forwarding information your readers give you. The safest policy, and the one that third-party reputation certifiers look for, is not to reuse the information for any purpose unless you collect a subscription request.
Next, state your policy succinctly on the data-capture page to reassure your readers that they don't need to fear that you'll abuse the data. Then, create a special edition of the forwarded message that includes a reassurance to the recipients that their names and email addresses were used only to send the information at their friends' request, and that they will receive no other mailings from you unless they subscribe.
Finally, and this might be the hardest part, stick to that policy.
3. It creates a benefit for you. Ideally, everyone should benefit from the forward, but I'll focus on you and how you can get the most out of the forward without abusing the information you were given.
Most obviously, you should capture a conversion from the forward, however you define it: a sale, a download, a contest entry. At the very least, you should hope recipients sign up on their own for your mailing list or to get more information.
That's why it's so important to have a subscription link, or several, on your newsletters and landing pages throughout your site. When you assure the recipients they won't receive more messages from you unless they request them, follow that with a clearly labeled button or link to your subscription or registration page.
Don't wait too long to send out the forward. Your list-management software should send these out automatically, as soon as it gets the information.
CAN-SPAM Implications
The U.S. law regulating commercial email prohibits deceptive sender or "from” lines, especially if they're used to conceal the true sender.
Your heart might be in the right place if you put the forwarding friend's name or email address in the sender line to make the email look more legitimate or trustworthy. However, the email is launched from your database. You are the legal sender, not the friend, and using the friend's name instead of your own could be seen as deceptive or concealing the true sender.
This isn't a problem if you create an inbox presence that announces clearly that you are sending the email at their friend's request. The easiest way to accomplish this is to put your company,
brand, product or newsletter name in the sender, or "from” line, and the friend's name in the subject line.
Example:
Sender line: XYZ Company. Subject line: Your friend Jane Doe wants you to read this.
Make sure the friend's name shows up early in the subject line so that it doesn't get cut off in the inbox.
What if the friend's name is already on your do-not-email list? Don't honor the forwarding request. Instead, set your list software to generate a message to the referring noting that you can't email that address and instead to forward the original message using their email client's forwarding button.
The Down Side of F2F
For all of its obvious benefits, forward-to-a-friend has a serious down side, resulting from failing to use it properly. Watch out for these potential traps:
1. Abusing the data you collect.
You might give yourself permission to use any data your readers give you, either on themselves or on the friends they forward information to, in any way you please, but it will come back to haunt you:
* Your readers will hate you and will tell their friends why.
Here's the other side of the word-of-mouth coin. Abuse your readers' trust in any way, and they will tell their friends. The conventional wisdom is that bad word of mouth travels faster and farther than good word of mouth by a factor of 10. That's truer than ever in this world where people with an ax to grind will do it in public.
Vonage, the voice-over-Internet-protocol service provider, learned this recently when Andy Sernovitz, one of the leading proponents of online word-of-mouth, complained in his popular blog that his referrals were being spammed with messages that went way beyond the original request.
Sernovitz complained publicly, people listened to him, picked up his complaint and reposted it throughout the blogosphere. That resulted in a severe public roasting for Vonage, already deluged with bad publicity for service failures.
2. Failure to optimize your data collection:
You might miss out on an essential, low-cost and high-trust way to build your business and keep subscriptions growing if you don't take these basic steps: urge readers to forward your material, make it easy for their friends to sign up and then follow up with a great welcome program for the new additions to your list.
F2F: Terrific Up Side; But Mind the Down Side
An interesting sideline in this controversy outlines why you must be completely transparent when communicating with the people whose data your readers have turned over to you:
In the comments on Sernovitz's blog posting where he detailed his complaint against Vonage, responses took a surprising turn. Most of the commenters said Sernovitz was guilty himself of spamming his friends by turning over their data to the company without his permission. Understandably, many people will use their own email client's forward feature rather than any forms you provide, but you'll still need to include those subscription links in either case.
Don't let the down side of forward to a friend frighten you away from using this powerful tool to build your business. Just resist any urge to use the data you collect for anything but sending out the requested information.
More information is available in these articles, available in our Resource Center
* 11 Tips to Make Your Email Messages Meaningful and Relevant
* The Ten Most-Ignored Best Practices
* 13 Quick Tips for Creating a Successful eNewsletter
* FTC Actions Target Opt-Out Compliance, Phony Forwarding
f.Three Strategies to Find the Right Frequency
What happened the last time you scored an email marketing home run? Maybe you tripled your open or conversion rate, or boosted the average order by 20%. What was the most likely response from your boss?
“Great! Let’s send it out again!”
It’s classic front-office thinking: A little is good, so a lot is even better. Unfortunately not, especially for email marketing. The research shows that over-mailing a list leads to apathy, unsubscribes or even spam reports.
Hitting the right frequency is a little bit art, a little bit science, and a whole lot of listening to and respecting the needs and wishes of your recipients.
But, it’s also a balancing act. On one hand, you don’t want to turn off your recipients by emailing too frequently. On the other, you need a permission grant that allows you to contact recipients between scheduled mailings without appearing to violate the original agreement.
In this article, I’ll lay out some of the principles that make email frequency a thornier issue than in traditional direct marketing and show you how to work out your own frequency equation.
Understand Who Controls Frequency (Hint: Not You)
Both email and postal direct marketers run the risk of alienating recipients by contacting them too frequently, leading to a condition called “list fatigue.”
But only in email marketing can list fatigue have a direct impact on the ability to get messages delivered.
After all, the Post Office is not going to penalize a catalog merchant if it sends a different book out every other day. (They’d love it, in fact.) Nobody but the local paper recycler will notice if catalogs or solo offers from a postal direct merchant get tossed before they ever make it into the house.
Not so for email marketers, and not so in a big way!
Research over the years is painting a clear picture of an email user who has become savvy at sorting the good email from the junk, at knowing what they want from email and how to deal with senders who don’t respect their inboxes.
* A holiday follow-up survey of email recipients in 2006 found 43.5% said they got much more holiday-shopping email than they anticipated. Over two-thirds said they deleted the unexpected email without opening, while a third reported the senders as spam to their ISPs, either in addition to deleting the messages or instead of deleting.
* A study we conducted with Lucid Marketing on email attitudes among mothers found these women had clear expectations about email frequency. Just over half preferred weekly or biweekly mailings, while a third wanted to be contacted monthly. Only 1 in 25 wanted daily mailings.
* A recent Pew Internet and American Society found that while Americans are generally less bothered by junk email than they used to be, they also are more actively to combat it, by deleting email or using spam filters provided by their companies, ISPs or email clients and others of their own design.
Still think you’re the one who sets the frequency schedule?
Choose Your Own Frequency
Frequency isn’t just a function of how often you want or need to send your messages. It must incorporate how often your recipients want to hear from you. Both are valid needs; how you balance them will determine whether your email program succeeds or flops.
Ask yourself this question: Do you send each email message because you have something new, urgent, timely or relevant to tell your recipients, or because you have to meet a publishing schedule?
Look around at your competition, too. I’m not telling you to slavishly follow the group; instead, you might be able to discern a trend that gives you a starting point to set your frequency ranges.
Now you’re ready to look at the factors that can help you set useful frequency parameters:
* Feedback. Are you paying attention to what your readers are telling you when they unsubscribe? (And yes, you should be asking this of each departing reader. For every 10 who will ignore an exit interview, one will respond with valuable comments.) They might be saying you send too much email, or too many irrelevant messages. Watch every mailbox associated with sending your messages, or comments people send by replying to your message.
* Market conditions. If you are a retailer, catalog merchant or other consumer marketer whose products are tied to the season, you will likely find yourself tempted to send more heavily during your busiest season. Or, you are in a business with a lot of flux -- floral, tourism, short-term discount shopping. These lend themselves to bulletin-style messages and justify more frequent contacts. But that can also backfire if you underestimate how often you want to send messages. It can be just as bad to contact your audience too infrequently as to mail too often.
* Preference center. This is where you test out your theories about frequency and see how your readers respond. Here you can give readers choices about how often they want to receive messages and what content they want. In general, the more relevant the messages you send, the more you can increase your email frequency. This will not work if your email marketing software doesn’t allow you to target mailings down to such a granular level. In that case, create different lists, maybe a general newsletter sent out weekly, biweekly or monthly, and a topic-specific bulletin sent out as needed. Promote each on the opt-in section of your preference section, and be sure to make it clear that each list has a different frequency.
* High-volume numbers. Special conditions exist for high-volume mailing lists, which by their very nature dictate that you send either daily or up to 5 times a week. Be very clear how many email messages recipients can expect. And, do what you can to collect information ahead of time so that your mailings can be as targeted and relevant as possible. Even though you make it clear that recipients can expect at least one email a day, it will look like overkill if what you send out is irrelevant to most of your list. If you find results are fading fast on your high-volume list, consider refining your parameters for it or adding a digest.
Respect Your Subscribers’ Choices
This is where the rubber hits the road for your readers. What do you do if you find an unbeatable bargain you just know your deal-of-the-week subscribers will fall all over, the day after you send your regular newsletter? Or if your sales manager needs to goose the monthly totals and urges you to send another mailing?
You need to keep your promise to your subscribers. Most of them might forgive one or two extra mailings, but you don’t know where the tipping point is that drives them to unsubscribe or report your email as spam. Instead of sneaking in another mailing, refine your list description that specifies a general number but allows you to reserve the right to send relevant messages between regular scheduled mailings. Specify a range of mailings in a given time rather than a specific number, but be as realistic in your expectations as you can.
Last Word: Beware of Under-mailing, Too
Most of the talk about frequency warns marketers against sending too frequently, but it’s also possible to send too infrequently to your list. You face different risks, but the end result can be the same. If you go for long periods of time without sending any messages, and then pop up with regular blasts around a holiday or other theme event, you may once again trigger unsubscribes or spam reports. Try not to let more than a month go by without contacting subscribers, either with regular content relevant to the list or with administrative requests, such as an invitation to fill out or update your preferences.
Resources:
More information to help you figure out and refine your frequency is available in our Resource Center. Start with these articles:
* Strategies for Expanding Your Email Programs
* How to Calculate the Potential Impact of Increased Email Frequency
* Calculating the Cost of Increased E-Mail Frequency, Part 2
* Your 10-point Email Check-Up Plan
* Six Steps to a Happier Holiday Season
* How to Grow Your Opt-In List: The Ultimate Guide
* Email Admin Center - The New Standard in Email Messages
g.Strategies for Expanding Your Email Programs
In order to survive, any business needs to expand and diversify. In email marketing, increasing the frequency of your mailings can be a tricky proposition, especially if you start peppering your subscriber with more messages on different topics than they opted in for at the start.
You're probably thinking, "What's the big deal here?" You already have permission to mail to your current subscribers. So what's the harm in increasing frequency by adding a newsletter, sales flyer or new-product info? After all, you need to expand your program if you want to build your business, and you know these people already want to hear from you.
It's not that simple, though.
Welcome to the place where the rock of your email program goals meets the hard place of subscriber expectations and preferences. The typical email marketing program has a built-in tension: You need to get as much use out of your subscriber database as possible in order to get the most return on member acquisition costs. But you risk irritating your current subscribers, who didn't necessarily sign up for your new information, and prompting a flood of unsubscribes or spam complaints or just indifference.
Your subscribers’ permission is the most valuable asset that you have – and the easiest to abuse. Remember these three principles when you think about increasing how frequently you email your list with new message categories:
1. "Interest" and "permission" are not interchangeable.
Sure, you have no better audience to market your new email messages than the database of people who gave you permission to email them. That doesn't automatically mean that they want to receive anything else from you for which they didn't specifically sign up. Never assume you have permission to email them anything they didn't request.
2. Each message must deliver high value.
If you merely want to increase frequency, rather than introduce a new product or email message, do you have enough content to make each message valuable to subscribers? Moving from a bi-weekly to a weekly message means you will need to have twice as much content so that subscribers don't assume they're receiving duplicate mailings several times a week.
3. Subscribers still retain the control.
Relevance is the holy grail of targeted marketing. If you can't send out highly targeted mailings because you don't have the database capability to segment your list, you can make up for it somewhat by adding more specialized email publications to your current offerings.
What you can't do is impose your will on subscribers. You can lead them to your new content by making it as enticing as possible, but you shouldn't send it to them without permission first.
The trick is to introduce your expanded marketing program to your current customers in such a way that you don't violate their expectations or your original permission grant and respect their interests.
The Right or Wrong Way?
Here are two real-life examples where online companies expanded their email product offerings. One is the wrong way; the other is the right way. Can you tell which is which?
Example A: Floral Retailer
An online floral retailer issues a weekly sales newsletter promoting special values on cut flowers and arrangements, as well as one-off sales flyers near seasonal events and special occasions. After the company acquires a mail-order gourmet food business, it begins sending out a separate weekly sales newsletter to its floral database but under the new business' brand name.
Example B: Cable-TV network
This entertainment company specializing in food and lifestyle shows publishes a weekly email newsletter promoting show content, hosts and special guests. When the Christmas/holiday baking season approaches, the newsletter includes a special promotion urging subscribers to sign up separately for a 12-day series sharing one cookie recipe each day. This secondary mailing ceases after the 12th recipe is sent out.
Why is B a great example of adding new content and increasing frequency the right way while A comes close to spamming its own subscribers?
1. It promoted the new offering in existing newsletter space, whereas the floral retailer simply began mailing the new newsletter to its existing database and assumed permission and interest.
2. It left the opt-in decision up to the individual subscriber. The floral retailer forced subscribers who didn't request the additional email and who didn't want it to unsubscribe. Although the floral retailer followed the letter of the CAN-SPAM law, it forced uninterested recipients to opt out. The cable-TV network example gave their readers the choice up-front, and delivered the new content only to those who requested it.
3. The cookie series was relevant to the original newsletter's content.
Flowers and gourmet food might occupy the same general niche in the consumable-product department, but they don't have that direct tie-in or association that you have between general food news and specific cookie recipes. Don’t assume that consumers will be interested in a related area – ask and give them the option to opt in.
Strategies for Increasing Subscriber Contacts
As these examples show, there are right and wrong ways to expand your email program. Consider these strategies when developing your game-plan:
1. Calculate the cost of increased frequency
Technically, we should file this discussion under "increasing frequency," because at the heart of it, that's what you'll be doing. You might think each kind of email message belongs in a different category but your subscribers might not distinguish between a regular weekly newsletter and an on-the-fly solo offer. To your subscribers, each email you send comes from you, regarding of the category. If you are simply sending them more email, it may be more than they wanted or requested at sign-up.
You can find more strategies and recommendations, as well as several formulas that can help you assess whether you would gain enough in sales, registrations or other relevant metrics to cover the costs of more frequent mailings, in Loren McDonald’s "Calculating the Cost of Increased E-Mail Frequency," parts one and two.
2. Promote from within first.
You can safely upsell existing subscribers using three message channels already open to you. The fourth is a little trickier but can pay off if you do it right.
1. Regularly scheduled mailings
When you need to upsell your current subscribers, always start by promoting the message category in emails they already receive. In the cable-TV network example above, the limited-run newsletter was advertised within the existing newsletter, where subscribers were given a separate link to sign up.
2. Transactional messages
Many marketers fail to mine gold from transactional messages, which come as close to guaranteed opens as you'll get in email. If buyers fail to sign up for your email program during the buying process, take advantage of the transactional email you send out to confirm the purchase to promote your newsletter.
3. Welcome emails
Because new subscribers are usually the most enthusiastic, you should capitalize on eagerness to read your content by listing in your welcome letter other email offerings that may not have been chosen at sign-up. Keep it brief by focusing on the benefit, and link directly to the subscriber's preference page where they can edit their sign-up choices.
4. One-off sample issues
This is where upselling can get tricky. Any food marketer will tell you that sampling a new product in the supermarket is the best way to drive sales. Email is different, though. If you think sending a sample issue will get you the most attention, go for it. But, follow these guidelines to avoid even a whiff of in-house spamming:
* Test the sample first on a relevant segment of your list, such as recent buyers, new subscribers, or subscribers who have not responded to mailings in a certain time period.
* State clearly near the top that the mailing is a sample only and that subscribers will continue to receive it only if they sign up for it, and link to the preference page.
Final Thoughts
To grow your business or your email program – and to appeal to as many subscribers across the spectrum as possible – you'll need to branch out and diversify your email holdings. You'll find your greatest success when you let subscribers retain control over their inboxes and promote the mailings using the channel for which you already have permission.
2.Build & Manage Lists
a.How to Grow Your Opt-In List: The Ultimate Guide
Building a high-quality, robust and responsive mailing list is hard work. It takes more than just slapping a few hundred or thousand email addresses into your database and then blasting out offers. If that was all you had to do, everybody would have one.
Truth is, acquiring addresses is just part of the process. You must also recognize that you have a relationship with the person behind each of your addresses. When you manage that relationship well, that address will become a more valuable part of your list, strengthening it in the process.
Email-list building is a lot like dating and marriage. If you start off wrong, you could kill any chance for a rewarding relationship between you and the subscribers. On the other hand, if you prove yourself worthy to your list, you could look forward to many happy years together.
Effective email list-building has three key components:
1. Where and how you acquire the addresses
2. How you welcome each new subscriber
3. How you manage the relationship after the opt-in
Each component needs to be managed correctly in order to increase both the subscriber's value to your business and your email program and your value to your subscriber.
Where and How to Acquire Addresses
Believe it or not, this is actually the easiest part of email list building. Although there are many tips and strategies for list building, there's really just one overarching principle:
Never add an address to your database unless you have the owner's explicit permission to do so.
This is the fundamental rule of permission email marketing. Violate it and you risk violating the U.S. CAN-SPAM law regulating commercial email, a host of proven email-marketing best practices, and perhaps most importantly, your customer's trust. Without that, your database will eventually become nothing but a graveyard of dead addresses.
Here is a sample list of strategies for collecting addresses, both online and offline:
Online:
* Provide the opportunity to sign up for your emails by posting a link to your registration page at every place where you meet your customers: for example,,on every page of your Web site, and in each transactional or customer-support email.
* Use paid search to reach higher positions in the search engines and post the link to your sign-up page prominently on the landing page.
* Investigate alliances with similar or complementary businesses in which you promote your partner's program to your list, and vice versa.
* Offer a relevant incentive, such as an email-only discount, free shipping, link to white papers or reports.
* If you rent a mailing list to solicit business or subscriptions, make sure the email comes from the list owner and only goes to recipients that are clearly marked OK for receiving third-party emails.
Offline:
* Ask for email addresses from everyone who visits your business, on-site and at trade shows; instruct telephone sales and customer-support workers to ask for addresses where appropriate.
* Publish the link and a short benefit statement in all printed material: on bags, flyers, store signs, customer-feedback forms and satisfaction surveys;,in ads and catalogs; provide registration blanks through the store.
How You Welcome Each New Subscriber
Remember the days when email was so fresh and new that you opened every single message you got just to see what was in it? No, neither do we. You have to work hard to persuade subscribers that they can trust your email messages and will find it worth their time to open them.
The welcome actually begins right at your Web site's registration or preference page, where you explain your content, frequency, benefits and the like so that subscribers know what they can expect from you. A good welcome program has these elements:
* An easy-to-navigate email opt-in page that asks for just enough information to get the relationship going without asking for too much. Four fields are enough to start: email address, first name, last name and format preference (HTML or text). Below this, add optional forms to solicit clearly relevant details: frequency, demographics, interests or preferences.
* A thank-you page that loads immediately afterwards. This confirms both the information the subscriber just handed over and any steps needed to complete the opt-in such as replying to a confirmation email, thanks for the opt-in, repeats or expands on the benefits of subscribing and provides a link to a more detailed preference page.
* Optional but recommended: A confirmation email that validates the address' accuracy, links to the preferences page, repeats or expands on the benefits of subscribing and can also provide a first welcome to the program if you do not send any other email messages until the first regular mailing.
* A welcome package (labeled as such in the subject line) that repeats the subscriber's opt-in data, provides more detail on subscription benefits, links to the preference page to encourage more detailed information, and can also include a sample or current newsletter or offer, any special subscriber-only offers or reports and any email incentives the subscriber could have used to sign up. Never send an incentive until you have gotten the email address confirmed via the confirmation email.
How You Manage the Relationship After Opt-In
Okay, now you have the address. You might think your work here is done, but it's really just beginning.
What you do with the address will in large part determine whether your subscriber sticks with you over the long haul, opens and responds to your email messages and updates their information with you as the relationship evolves.
And you have to manage that intimate relationship correctly.
* Honor your subscriber's preferences, especially if you want to expand your email program beyond what your subscribers agreed to when they opted in, including increasing frequency, changing the content, renting the list or participating in co-registration with a third partner or other major changes. Permission is not transferable.
* Watch your list statistics carefully to look for trends in bounces, unsubscribes and inactivity, especially as you expand your program and add new lists or subdivided your master list into stand-alone segments.
* Stay in touch by occasionally emailing special offers or other material, or survey or preferences-update invitations.
* Combat list stagnation by periodically segmenting for inactivity within a certain period. For example, look for people who have not opened or clicked on your emails for three months after opt-in. Send a message acknowledging the inactivity and an offer either to come back and renew or to unsubscribe from the list.
* Perform list hygiene regularly to weed out invalid addresses and those that have not responded even to follow-up or query email messages in a set time.
Get the Guide
As you can see, building your list takes time and energy. But it's worth it, because a robust, healthy and growing mailing list really is the essential building block for an email-marketing program that delivers the ROI you need.
The list presented here just scratches the surface. For more details on these and more tips, strategies and advice, get our new guide, "How to Grow Your Opt-In List"
More Resources:
• Permission Email Marketing: “Permission” is Not Optional
• 28 Ways to Build Permission-Based Email Lists
• Trim the Certain Deadwood from Your Email List
• Optimizing Email Opt-In Pages
• Combat List Inactivity by Older Opt-Ins
b.6 Ways to Improve Your Email List
Email deliverability begins and ends with the quality of your list. ISPs are on the lookout for signs that your list is not so good - namely, too many bounces from outdated addresses and spam complaints from wary recipients. Both of these red flags are avoidable - if you follow permission-marketing best practices.
c.Permission Email Marketing: "Permission" is Not Optional
At a recent online marketing conference, I taught a 4-hour introductory session on best practices in email marketing. But my carefully structured agenda got shredded when about half of the participants and I spent 30 minutes discussing -- make that "arguing about" – whether you need to get permission first before you start emailing offers or newsletters.
You know where I stand on that issue. Permission is basic equipment, not an optional extra. Ten years after email marketing proved its commercial viability, it has become standard practice for legitimate email marketers because it is a key component for optimizing deliverability, return on investment and recipient trust.
So, I was a bit stunned by the pushback from these marketers on an issue which, for me, hasn't been an issue for years. Although I emerged a little battered from the session, it was a strong reminder that thousands of marketers still haven't climbed aboard the permission-email-marketing train.
Permission Email Marketing: The Challenge
I can understand why some session attendees resisted the idea that they need to get permission first. Many were new to email marketing but worked with other channels -- print, radio, TV or direct mail – that don't demand that you get permission first.
But email is different. It's a personal medium, like the telephone. Well, telemarketing wore out its welcome with a vast number of Americans, and unsolicited email has, too.
I can also understand the marketers' concerns. They're getting OK results (or so they think) right now when they send out a general email blast to a list cobbled together from customers, trade shows, demo requestors, white paper downloaders, etc. But excuse me! If getting mediocre results is good enough for you – then you can stop reading right now.
On second thought, stick around. You're exactly the person who needs to see why it pays to get permission.
Here's my elevator speech: When you market to people who have told you expressly that they want to hear from you, you can expect to see these results:
1. Better response rates
2. Increased trust and brand affinity
3. Better deliverability
Yes, it takes time and money to build a permission-based house list and create targeted, relevant offers and messages. Yes, your list will be smaller than if it was an unsolicited email list. When your sales manager or CEO is in your face demanding cash-money results right now, "permission" can be a tough concept to sell.
But email marketing isn’t about list size or smacking recipients with email after email. It is about getting great results and building relationships. Quite simply, permission gets better results and is the only way to build email relationships with customers and subscribers.
Some marketers think their “non-permission” programs are working just fine. One workshop participant argued that opt-out was getting good results, but when I pressed him, he didn't know what kind of open, click or conversion rates his program was pulling. I’m sure his company was getting some responses and maybe they were thrilled. But the point is I bet the results could be 5 times better using a permission-based approach.
What is Permission?
"Permission," at its most basic, is the user's consent to receive emails from you. But there's a lot more to it.
Permission breaks down into "expressed" versus "implied" consent. Expressed permission comes from the user himself, when he checks a box requesting your emails on a site-registration form or point-of-purchase postcard, agrees in person or sends in an email request.
"Implied" permission is not actively given but is a by-product of another action, such as not removing the checkmark from a prechecked email-permission box on a site registration form, or clicking the "agree" radio button on an end-users agreement that lists receipt of email as a condition of using the site.
As far as I'm concerned, expressed permission is the only acceptable version. Implied permission is just another name for opt-out.
The 2003 U.S. law regulating commercial email, popularly called CAN-SPAM, permits opt-out marketing but with a couple of conditions: All commercial emails must have a working unsubscribe function. Plus, emails sent to recipients who didn't give you "affirmative consent" must include language that the message is "a promotional email" within the message.
But CAN-SPAM just establishes legal criteria for email marketing. It doesn't promote best practices, and "best practices" means opt-in only.
"Opt-in" is another name for permission email marketing, but even that has two levels:
*
"Single opt-in": The recipient gets added automatically to a list after completing a Web opt-in form, sending in a postcard, emailing a request, etc.
*
"Double opt-in" or "confirmed opt-in": The recipient requests a subscription, which generates an automated email message to which he must reply or click a link to confirm the subscription and be added to the list.
Overcoming Objections to Permission Email Marketing
Evidence has shown that permission-based email lists deliver better results and generate fewer unsubscribes, spam complaints and blocks:
1.
Marketers who get into the game using opt-out strategies and then switch to strictly opt-in, using either house or rental lists made up of opt-in addresses, have reported seeing click rates jump from the 0.5%-3% range to 5%, 10% or even higher.
2.
Findings from IMT Strategies (2001) reveal the importance of permission-based over unsolicited emails. Seventy-six percent of consumers will delete an unsolicited email without even reading it, compared to 2% for a permission email. Conversely, only 5% of consumers are eager or curious to read an unsolicited email as opposed to 61% with permission email.
Permission and Unsolicited Emails
Permission Unsolicited
Curious to read it 48% 16%
Eager to read it 13% 4.0%
Indifferent 30% 3.0%
Open it "Somewhat annoyed 7.0% 76%
Delete it without reading it 2.0% 1.0%
Source: IMT Strategies 2001
3.
A Harris Poll in 2003, taken just before CAN-SPAM was ratified, found 79% of Americans were "somewhat annoyed" to "very annoyed" by unsolicited email, even if it wasn't the typical spam. That annoyance transfers to your product or brand. Can you afford to irritate that many potential new customers?
4.
Email recipients say they open emails from those they recognize and trust and delete unopened email from unknown or suspicious-looking senders. In a Forrester study, the two main reasons participants said they opened commercial emails were because they recognized the sender as a company they signed up with (40%) and because they recognized the sender's name (52%).
5.
A Quris study in 2003 found that subscribers who demand high levels of permission and privacy are more likely to open and act on those permission-based emails.
6.
Although the actual rate varies from sender to sender and list type (B-to-B, B-to-C), click-through rates on opt-out email lists hover in the 1% to 5% rate, while CTRs on house lists can be 10 to 20 percentage points higher.
7.
An AOL User Behavior study from 2004 showed email newsletters that used double opt-in had a lower unsubscribe rate -- an average 7.6% -- compared with single opt-in messages, which had an average 22.2% unsubscribe.
8.
The AOL study didn't include opt-out email, but a related study found AOL users were more likely to report unsolicited email as spam. When AOL 8.0 introduced the "Report as Spam" in the inbox, the percentage of email reported as spam jumped from 25% to 50%. In another study, 71.3% of email users whose email clients offered a spam-reporting button said they used it because they thought it would stop all unwanted email.
Non-Permission Email's Two Secret Traps
1.
When you send out email blasts to an opt-out audience, you might waste half or more of your spend by sending to email addresses that don't exist anymore or block your messages.
Address churn on a typical email list is 20% to 30% a year on average. So, if a list is two years old, more than half of the addresses likely have gone bad. If you're not the one who collected the addresses, you have no connection with the address owners, and they have no motivation to keep you up to date.
2.
Opt-out can get you blacklisted, which means you waste even more money on undeliverable addresses.
Spam-reporting services often create specific email addresses and add them to mailing lists just to see who grabs them up and spams them. Then, they report those email senders to blacklists or file spam complaints.
You know that low-cost mailing list you just rented? It's probably riddled with spam traps. If you get reported often enough, or if you generate enough spam complaints or bad addresses, ISPs and email providers will block everything coming from your email address, IP address, or domain or company name.
Why Permission Email Marketing Makes Sense
Surveys and statistics aside, permission-based email marketing just makes more sense, both for customer relations and your marketing budget.
Why throw money at people who have no demonstrated interest in your products or services? The little you earn from the few who will open an unsolicited email because they're interested in your product (about 11% in the Forrester study quoted above) will be offset by the diminishing returns you'll face as more ISPs block your emails.
EmailLabs is firmly committed to promoting permission email-marketing practices not just with its own clients but in the industry in general. Opt-in methods, practices and tactics make up a large part of the inventory in our online Resource Center.
We invite you to visit our library of archived articles that provide answers on such touchy topics as getting permission from trade show booth visitors, keeping addresses fresh on your list, managing opt-in and opt-out procedures and other issues that touch on permission and its relationship to deliverability, ROI and customer relations.
Here's a sample to get you started:
* Optimizing Email Opt-In Pages
* "What is the average click-through rate for email newsletters?" (EmailLabs' FAQ)
* 28 Ways to Build Permission-Based Email Lists
a.Mobile Email Marketing Tips
The future of email marketing is here, and it's in your customers' hands.
Email marketing on mobile phones has been hovering like either fate or opportunity, depending on how you view it. Maybe you've embraced it already, because your customers are a mobile bunch. Or, maybe you think it's something you'll think about tomorrow, like Scarlett O'Hara.
Just a few years ago, the mobile Web was something that only the folks out on the bleeding edge of technology had to deal with. The iPhone, introduced in 2007, and other breeds of smart phones, have now put the Web squarely in millions of people's hands.
According to the Pew Internet Project, "58% of adult Americans have used a cell phone or personal digital assistant to do at least one of ten mobile non-voice data activities, such as texting, emailing, taking a picture, looking for maps or directions, or recording video."
Mobile's biggest challenge will be in forcing you to cross the final frontier in your email-marketing program to make it completely customer-centric. We talk a lot about customer-centricity, of designing campaigns and messages to make them as close as possible to what the customers want to receive, when, in which format and on what platform. Maybe you read all that and thought, "Yeah, yeah, sounds good ... but I'm still going to send all my email in HTML because it lets me run a big pretty product picture."
It's time to face the music.
Are Your Customers Going Mobile?
First, find out, if you can, how many of your regular readers read your email on their cell phones or portable devices.
Create a text version of your HTML message and place it on a page at your Web site. Then, put a link to this version at the top of an email message, next to the link to your Web version. Count the number of clicks the link draws in the first three or four times you send it out. If fewer than 2% of your subscribers click on it, you don't need to drop everything just yet.
If it's more than 10%, however, it's time to roll up your sleeves.
What Makes Mobile Different?
1. The platform
Obviously, the platform is different. Instead of a screen that measures 13 to 21 inches on the diagonal, you have maybe 2 to 4 inches. And you thought the preview pane was restrictive?
2. Content rendering
Mobile devices vary wildly in how they render content. Even the recent news that BlackBerry software will be updated to show HTML content won't mean an immediate revolution. Text usually renders well on most devices, but you'll want to rethink even your text messages to optimize them for the smaller screen.
3. Uses
Your readers might not be living their lives through their mobiles just yet, but they most likely use their phones to triage their inboxes when they're away from their keyboards.
"Triage" here means they are reading their email on their cell phones while they're waiting for a flight, taking the commuter train to work or going home, sitting at a child's soccer game, or stuck in traffic. They scan through the inbox quickly, seeing which emails to open right away, which to ditch and which to save for later use at home or in the office.
Optimize Messages for Mobile Readers
The good news is that if you optimized your HTML messages to compensate for blocked images and the preview pane, both of which are default settings for most desktop and Web email clients, your messages will show up better on most mobile platforms.
However, you should take a couple of extra steps to make messages even more mobile-friendly:
1. Reformat text
You should always offer a text option as an alternative to HTML for all readers. You can send this version to your mobile readers, but you might also have to reformat it to make it show up better on the smaller screen.
Most text messages have 60 to 80 characters per line. Mobile platforms will show 20 to 40 characters in 12 to 15 lines per screen, depending on screen width and type style.
Desktop-friendly line lengths can create long paragraphs in the mobile reader. If you use typographic devices as copy separators that also run 60 characters, for example, you'll give up four to five lines on the screen for something that adds no value.
2. Rethink tracking URLs
Same goes for URLs. Tracking URLs can also consume four to five lines per screen. If you can, use a simpler URL even if it means sacrificing some tracking ability. These long URLs can result from automatically reformatting HTML copy into text, so your text version may need some hand-tweaking in order to render better on all platforms.
3. Be brief.
Message size must come down whether you send in text or HTML. Messages over a certain size -- even as small as 12KB -- risk being cut off halfway through. In many clients, your reader can opt to click a button that will call up the rest of the message, but do you want to throw up that obstacle?
Personally, I hate it when I open a message and find "message truncated" right at the top. I need more to make me want to click the button that will deliver the rest of the message.
Another message I get that frustrates me to no end is "This message contains a rich-text HTML portion. Consult your mail client's documentation for information on how to view it." Uh, I don't think so. Delete! That means it won't be there when I get to my desk.
Also, rethink the content itself. Long sentences in long paragraphs force more and more scrolling. This also can be a barrier to conversion or another source of frustration for readers.
4. Validate your Web site, too.
Is your Web site mobile-friendly too? Probably not, if you haven't had it redesigned specifically for mobile applications. If you have to send readers to your Web site to get the most value from your email marketing, better make sure it will also render on their devices. You can check it easily by using a new validator developed by the World Wide Web Consortium: http://validator.w3.org/mobile/.
Final Thoughts On Mobile-Friendly Emails
* Include a mobile option on your subscription or registration page. Track how many users check this option.
* Add a mobile reference to your online-version link in your message copy.
* "Above the fold" becomes even more crucial on the mobile screen. If you must keep boilerplate elements such as an admin center at the bottom, link to it near the top so that readers will know they need to click to download it.
* Keep your message short, and give readers a reason to save it for later to view in their desktop clients.
* Test before sending. You should be doing this anyway, but mobile adds another platform to the mix. Don't assume that because it looks good on your BlackBerry or iPhone, it will show up that way on all Web-enabled phones. Make sure it looks good on the cruddiest phone in the office, too.
b.Your 10-Point Quality-Control Checklist
Why is sending an email message like launching the Space Shuttle?
Because you have to perform a thorough checklist to make sure all systems are go before you can hit "send."
A successful email launch has a lot of moving parts, and they all need to work together correctly. An effective quality-control checklist will help you spot and correct problems before they can wreak havoc on your list, your deliverability, your reputation and your bottom line.
Running through a checklist could have prevented many of the "oopsies" that email blogger Chad White highlights on his Retail Email blog's annual Oopsy Hall of Fame. Trust me, you don't want to be an inductee in this hall of shame.
Just a few of the blunders that saw daylight because nobody was checking:
* misspelled subject lines
* test messages sent to the whole list
* the wrong image used
* images missing or broken even with images enabled
* coding errors that wipe out all text and images
Sure, it's every email sender's nightmare to launch a bug-filled campaign where everyone will see your mistakes. But, if you exercise strict quality control all along the production line, you'll reduce your potential exposure and send campaigns with confidence, even the last-minute ones.
The 10-Point Checklist:
1. I am sending to the correct list.
You might think this would rate as "duh," but there are actually a lot of ways you can go wrong with this, even if you have only one mailing list that you never segment in any way. We all know people who have accidentally sent live email to their do-not-email database of unsubscribed addresses.
More commonly, this happens when you send a test or targeted message to your entire list. Click carefully! When you send duplicate or irrelevant messages, you increase the chance that you'll irritate recipients into reporting you as spam or disengaging from you.
2. I proofread all the text in Notepad before having it coded for my HTML messages.
One of the ways proofreading works is if you look at it in a different medium. Once it's in HTML, text or graphic elements in the message body can trick your brain into overlooking typos, especially if you've been working on the copy for a long time.
If you created your text copy in Word or other formatted word-processing programs, paste it into Notepad or other plain-text programs and eyeball it again, or read it backwards to take the words out of context. This can make misspellings pop. Don't rely on your spell-checker to catch usage errors (to-two-too, your-you're, there-their).
3. I verified that the offer or other purpose for sending the message is the correct one.
Once again, this should be a given, but mistakes happen. Always check first by clicking through on your test messages and verify your destination is correct.
4. I included an unsubscribe link and street address as required by CAN-SPAM. (Or, I included all the elements my country's commercial-email regulations require.)
For U.S. email senders, the law specifically requires adding an unsubscribe link and your company postal address. If you have redesigned your template or switched to a new one, you should double-check to make sure these crucial elements are there and easy to find.
5. These identifying elements are present and accounted for:
-- The subject line is filled in with text that accurately represents the email message content. We aren't even talking about branding the subject line or making it compelling and concise. Don't overlook it as you build your message in your list software, and don't leave any placeholder text like "subject line to come" in it.
-- The "from" line shows my company or brand name, not an email address. You want the mail to stand as a reliable presence in the inbox. An email address is not as reliable as a company name or brand.
-- Any dates, especially copyright, reflect the correct year. This is important, especially if you work far ahead and often overlooked in January when the year changes. Having the wrong date makes you look amateurish, and amateurish mistakes look spammy.
-- My company contact information, including name, street address, telephone numbers, Web site and email address for questions or concerns. If you want your customers to feel more confident about interacting with you, give them many ways to contact you.
6. I clicked every link and link-connected image to make they all work and checked to make sure each image has an alt tag describing the content.
This is a simple troubleshooter, but it seems to get overlooked frequently, judging from all the broken links we see. Broken links mean recipients can't act on your email even if they wanted to and actually makes your entire message useless.
The alt tag is important because it gives you another way to deliver information when your readers have disabled images. The alt tag can either describe the image or house a call to action.
7. I previewed the message in my preview pane and with images disabled, in different browsers and on different computer platforms.
Your list software should allow you to test-send your message before launching it to your list. Do this every time, even if you're sending a message using a template that has been thoroughly debugged.
Read it on different platforms – PC, Mac, mobile – and in different browsers, mainly Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari (for Mac users), with the preview pane enabled and images disabled. Now you see your email as your subscribers do. If it isn't pretty, go back to the drawing board.
8. I proofread my text message and included the link to my message on the Web.
Repeat Step 2 with the copy in your text message (not formatted in HTML or using pictures or other images). The text message has re-emerged in importance for mobile readers whose devices don't read HTML. Also make sure the Web link is present and working for mobile readers who can decode HTML or for subscribers whose alternative or nonstandard browsers don't render HTML well.
9. I had one other person look it over before I hit "send."
Here you ask someone who was not involved in creating the message to give it a once-over before a launch. You want a fresh pair of eyes and a brain that hasn't looked at the same mistake 10 times without seeing it.
10. I tested my body copy and HTML coding with a delivery monitoring tool to make sure it doesn't trigger spam filters.
You should always ask someone to look over your message before you send it, but a fresh pair of eyes doesn't always know what will trigger an ISP or email-server's spam filters. A third-party delivery monitoring service, such as Email Advisor http://www.lyris.com/products/emailadvisor/ stays tuned to the most up-to-date filter quirks can reveal potential problems before you commit yourself.
A service like this can spot filter triggers in content or formatting, show you whether your email is more likely to get blocked outright, to get filtered to the junk file or be delivered straight to the inbox or check to see if you landed on a blacklist.
Yes, it adds another step to the message launch, but the few minutes it takes to check your message can save you thousands, and your reputation, down the line.
Okay, you've gone through your checklist. Look it over one time; then, hit "send" with confidence.
And If You Mess Up Anyway?
Nobody's perfect. If you're lucky, you've committed just a small sin and caught it early enough to stop the send before the message goes out to your entire list.
Even the pros can mess up. Read what happened when we goofed on a survey invitation in this short article from our Resource Center, "Ugh. Learn From Our Recent Email Mistakes"
c.Unsubscribing in 2007: Marketers Can Get More Out of Goodbye
Here's what our survey of unsubscribe policies and practices among email marketers turned up in 2007:
The good news is that almost all are complying with best practices about giving customers the opportunity to unsubscribe from their mailings, making it easy to find and use the unsubscribe link and honoring that unsubscribe relatively expeditiously.
However, marketers can do so much more to learn about their customers from the unsubscribe process and to offer alternatives that would retain them as customers somewhere within their databases.
Why scrutinize unsubscribe practices? Because providing a method for subscribers to leave your mailing list is a crucial component of email marketing, contrary to almost any other form of marketing and advertising.
* Consumers who don't trust your unsubscribe process are more likely to report you to their ISPs as a spammer.
* The unsubscribe process itself is a rich vein of information about how your subscribers are thinking, how they see your company and what they want from you.
* Having a workable, trustworthy unsubscribe process can even retain a customer for you if you give them other options.
So, when done correctly, unsubscribing can actually benefit your email program.
In this article, I will list four of the major findings, analyze what they mean to you as an email sender and recommend how you can improve your own unsubscribe program and boost your email marketing program performance overall.
If you'd like to see the full report, follow this link to register for a PDF copy of all findings, charts and recommendations. See the end of this article for details on when and how this survey was conducted.
The Unsubscribe Picture 2007: Compliance and Opportunity
Finding 1: 96% of marketers include an unsubscribe link in their promotional emails but fail to include it in other critical contact points including welcome emails, transactional and customer support messages or autoresponders.
Question: Which of your email messages on this list includes a method for subscribers to request removal?
Method for Subscribers
Do Do Not Don't Know Don't Send One
Welcome Emails 63.20% 15.70% 3.50% 17.60%
Marketing Promotional Emails 96.00% 1.00% 0.50% 2.50%
Customer Service Emails 45.20% 30.90% 10.60% 13.30%
Auto Responders 40.10% 29.00% 9.00% 21.90%
Transactional Emails 31.00% 37.80% 10.60% 20.60%
Analysis: Marketers are, for the most part, including unsubscribe instructions in all promotional emails. However, they're missing the opportunity to build customer trust and allow them to control their inboxes by adding the unsubscribe to other critical customer contact points.
Key to this is the welcome message, normally sent out as soon as the subscriber confirms the request. Why would you give your newest subscribers the option to jump off the wagon right away? Because people do sometimes subscribe by mistake. (You can alleviate this by not using prechecked boxes on your registration form, by the way.)
When you don't provide an unsubscribe method in that welcome email, you force recipients to receive more email from you. That increases the risk that they'll click the spam button, since they don't want to hear from you, and they may not trust you to honor the unsubscribe request.
(Are you among the 9% to 10% who don't know if your nonpromotional emails do or don't carry this information? Better find out fast!)
Recommendation: Provide unsubscribe information in every email sent to subscribers or customers.
Finding 2: More than three-quarters of marketers use an easy unsubscribe method, such as a one-click unsubscribe link or reply to the email message, and another 25% let subscribers access a profile-update page without having to log in first.
Question: For marketing email messages, which of the following methods do you use for enabling subscribers to request removal from future mailings? (Check all that apply)
Method for Subscribers
Response Percent
1-click URL for instant removal 53.33%
Reply with unsubscribe request in subject line 28.64%
URL to profile update without required log-in 24.94%
Send email request to a custom address for removal 17.28%
URL to log into account profile and changes preferences (requires password) 16.79%
URL to pre-populated form with additional survey questions 5.19%
URL to pre-populated form that requires confirmation 1.98%
No option provided 1.23%
URL to form that requires the address be entered 0.99%
Other (please specify) 2.72%
Analysis: Easy unsubscribing is paramount here, because it will encourage more subscribers to use it rather than click a spam button or just ignore your messages. However, that also limits the options, both yours and your subscribers.
An unsubscribe isn't always about saying goodbye. Maybe the subscriber's needs or interests change, or he wants to update an address, or hear from you more or less often. This is where profile pages can help you reduce unsubscribes and give users a more valuable experience.
Marketers, however, aren't using this option as much as they might. The survey found only 25% give subscribers this option. Another 16.8% do direct traffic to the profile page but require a password or other log-in method. This defeats the purpose in some cases because people often forget passwords. So, they'll either have to request a reminder or generate a new one. That adds at least another step to the process and boosts the chance they'll just give up and spam-button your email out of frustration.
Recommendation: Use a two-step process. Click One takes the user to a profile page that loads with their data populated in all the fields. Click Two confirms the removal request or changes in the profile. Also, provide other opportunities to request removal, including contact information for a Web form or customer-support contacts if the profile page doesn't work.
Finding 3: Over half of marketers acknowledge the unsubscribe on the landing page, while less than a third send an email confirmation. Eleven percent of marketers either don't acknowledge the unsubscribe or provide language they will continue to mail to the address until the 10-day CAN-SPAM window closes.
Question: Which of these actions do you take once the subscriber has asked to be removed?
Actions
Response Percent
Acknowledge unsubscribe on landing page 54.37%
Send an email confirmation that the address has been removed 28.17%
Immediate removal from list - automated 5.68%
No confirmation, just end messaging 3.06%
Record unsubscribe but continue to email until legally permitted 10 days has expired 2.40%
None of the above 1.31%
Send postal notice of removal 1.09%
Send postal mail incentive to update profile and re-subscribe 0.66%
Phone notification 0.44%
Other (please specify) 2.84%
Analysis: Acknowledging the unsubscribe helps to build trust in your email program because it tells the subscriber immediately that the request was successful. It also gives you an opportunity to maintain a relationship with that subscriber, because you can offer other ways to get information, such as changing frequency, format or content. Even if the subscriber does intend to leave your program, a graceful goodbye, with thanks for their previous patronage, can strengthen that relationship.
Recommendation: Acknowledge the unsubscribe immediately in the same medium that was used to request removal: confirm on the landing page when the request comes via clicking a link, and email the confirmation when the user uses an auto-reply unsubscribe or sends in a personal request.
Finding 4: Fewer than 20% of marketers use the unsubscribe confirmation to remind subscribers about other communication options or seek valuable exit information.
Question: If your email unsubscribe process links to a Web page, does the landing page contain any of the following?
Actions
Response Percent
Statement confirming the unsubscribe request 42.60%
Goodbye message 18.49%
No link to Web page 11.25%
Customer service phone number 6.27%
Incentive to update profile and re-subscribe 5.31%
Survey to understand reasons for unsubscribing and gather suggestions to improve future programs 4.98%
Simple feedback form for customer comments 4.82%
Reminder of other messaging channels (RSS, direct mail, catalog) 3.70%
List types of communications opted-in for 0.32%
Other (please specify) 2.25%
Analysis: Along the same lines as Finding 3, marketers are not using the unsubscribe to offer recipients other options for receiving information or explaining why they unsubscribed.
The unsubscribe doesn't have to be a final farewell, but marketers too often treat it that way, given the nearly half who use the message format merely to confirm the unsubscribe. Less than 20% include any kind of goodbye message, and fewer than 1 in 10 includes any kind of outreach, including a customer-service phone number, an incentive to resubscribe or update a profile, offer an exit survey to learn the reasons for unsubscribing or offer suggestions, or remind the subscriber of other channels, such as RSS feeds or direct mail.
Recommendation: Always acknowledge the unsubscribe with a personal message thanking the subscriber for his patronage, offering other options for receiving message and an opportunity to explain the request and providing contact information including phone numbers and links to your Web site.
Other findings and recommendations:
1. Test your subscribe and unsubscribe process at least once a month to make sure it works. We found almost half never test their unsubscribe method once they set it up, while less than 1 in 4 test after they get a complaint that it's not working. Because almost 60% of marketers rely on their email software to manage the process, it's easy to forget about checking until it's too late.
2. Honor unsubscribe requests received through other channels. We found 44% of marketers empower their customer-support centers, such as phone support, to manually remove addresses. However, given that only 16% include a customer-service phone number in their unsubscribe process, this forces your subscriber to hunt down your contact info at your Web site and adds another barrier to successful unsubscribing.
3. Construct an unsubscribe page, or add options to your current profile page, that give multiple unsubscribe options. These can include a global unsubscribe from all of your mailings or the option to leave just one or two. Again, this can allow a subscriber to make a clean break without the risk that subsequent mailings could trigger a spam block, or help retain subscribers who want something different without having to leave the store.
Survey Background and Methodology
Unsubscribing has evolved from the early days when marketers pulled every stunt in the book to keep subscribers from leaving. Not only did that tactic backfire, it brought on the curse of the "report spam" button. That in turn led marketers to the other extreme, the "no-questions-asked" policy that freed subscribers with one click but broke the connection with subscribers.
The unsubscribe process, then, has to serve multiple needs. It has to be legally sound, trusted by recipients and deliver value to the company. We at Lyris intended this survey to measure how well marketers are meeting all of these challenges by assessing their practices, attitudes and experiences.
More than 400 email professionals responded to our invitation to fill out the survey in fall 2007. Follow this link to download your personal copy of the full report with charts, statistics, analysis and recommended best practices.
If you were one of our survey participants, we thank you for sharing your practices, attitudes and experiences. I will follow up on several of these issues in my regular ClickZ Delivery column and future Intevation Reports.
For a collection of more than 150 articles on email marketing best practices, as well as tools and statistics, please visit our Resource Center
c.10 Quick Fixes to Optimize Holiday E-Marketing
Now that Halloween is in the rearview mirror, the holiday email-marketing season is about to shift into overdrive. This isn't the time to reinvent your entire marketing program, but a quick fix here and there could help you raise your engagement, deliverability or results a few percentage points without forcing you to tear your whole program apart.
Use this list either to identify areas to tweak or adjust without a major investment in time or money, or to check your own performance before crunch time.
1. State your name.
Your company or brand name should appear in the "from," or sender, line, not a person's name or email address. Your readers use the from line as one clue about whether they recognize or trust the sender. So, unless you're Martha Stewart or Donald Trump or Queen Elizabeth, use the identity your readers will be most likely to recognize – your brand name.
2. State your business.
The other tip readers look for when deciding whether to open your email is what you say in the subject line. You'll find plenty of advice on how to write irresistible subject lines in our online Resource Center, but here's one quick tip and a pointer to an online subject-line tool.
The tip: Put the most important information in the first 28 characters of the subject line. That's how much space (or how little, depending on how you look at it) you have to get your message across in the typical email client's subject line. Putting your company or brand name in the sender line frees up space for the heart of your message.
The tool: See what several major email clients do to your subject line with our free subject-line rendering tool (works in Internet Explorer only). Access it here.
More subject-line advice: Click this link to access a list of articles with tips and advice to help you fine-tune your subject lines.
3. Check your inventory.
Does your regular email message contain these essential ingredients? Five are must-haves; three are nice-to-haves that are worth the time it takes to include:
Must Have:
* Link to the full email on your Web site. Make sure this link goes directly to the page that displays the email. And, restate your brand name in the line. It could be the only thing your reader sees in the message if he reads it on a mobile device or in the preview pane. Mention the offer too, if you have room.
* Working unsubscribe link and directions prominently displayed. This is the law for U.S. email marketers, and in most companies that regulate commercial email.
* Your company name, address and contact info, including telephone, email and Web contact-page link.
* The email address used to send the message, useful if the recipient wants to unsubscribe or tracks messages by address.
* Your company or brand name prominently displayed.
Nice to Have:
* Subscription instructions for readers who had your message forwarded to them and enjoy it so much they want a copy for themselves.
* Link to other offers/stories or past offers/stories still in effect or to related information on your site. Take advantage of last month's edition to fill out this month’s.
* All contact and subscriber information grouped in an administration center, placed near the bottom of the message body and promoted with a link near the top.
4. See the big picture? Dump it.
Does your email message look exactly like a print ad, with gorgeous color and all the message information contained within it? Your HTML designer is probably in love with it, but the half or more of your readers who block images from downloading automatically will never see it. Instead, all they'll see is a big white nothing.
Instead, break your message into more manageable chunks, replacing one large image with smaller pictures, and place the most important information in text boxes that will show up whether or not the pictures do. Also, use alt tags to describe what’s in the picture or to restate the offer or the action you want readers to take. These will often display if the pictures don't.
5. Proof, proof, proof.
Nothing makes you look like a spammer and less than professional than spelling or coding mistakes. You probably won't misspell your company or brand name; instead, mistakes usually happen in the body copy where you aren't paying close attention and more often than not in the actual links you want your readers to use.
Always have a second pair of eyes review your copy. Run your copy past the person in your office who drives everyone crazy with her obsessive attention to detail. You'll make her day and probably catch a stupid mistake.
Then, click each and every link in the copy, from the link to the Web version of your email message to the unsubscribe link to every product link in it. Yes, it is tedious, but you'll irritate your readers and lose sales if even an incidental link leads only to a 404 Page Not Found. Don't trust past performance, either; links break over time, pages get moved, servers go down. Test every link.
6. Run that offer up the flagpole and see who salutes.
This involves three phases: being clear about the value proposition, seeing what your competition is selling at the same time, and trying out your message on a sample of your readers before you commit to it.
Can your reader tell exactly what you're offering just by glancing at the subject line or the message copy, especially if images are blocked? The subject line and message headline should state that clearly.
Also, consider what it is that you want to be known for. Everybody is offering free shipping this year; what will distinguish you?
If you're not sure what the competition is doing, subscribe to the email programs of your major competitors, or at least the leaders in your market. You could also use EmailDataSource.com to see what promotions or incentives they're offering and how they compare to yours.
Pressed for time? Monitor the competition in Chad White's Retail Email blog: http://retailemail.blogspot.com/. He tracks subject lines, offers, trends and other big-picture ideas of major retailers, primarily US-based.
For the scoop on what will be promoted in brick and mortar stores this season, check the Web site for Black Friday Ads. BFAds posts bootleg or advance copies of retailer newspaper ads for Black Friday, the Friday after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday that traditionally kicks off the holiday shopping season. To the chagrin of many major retailers, the site scans the ads and catalogs the promotions. Read the blog here: http://bfads.net/ or subscribe to its email list.
Once you have figured out your offer and created the messages, test them on a sample of your readership. Create at least two versions, but test only one aspect so that you know which factor lifts or depresses response. Typical test factors are the offer (free shipping versus a price discount versus buy one get one free, for example), the subject line, the copy arrangement, or image choice.
7. Synch the landing page.
Where does the link in your email message send the clicker? It should go to a landing page that closely reflects the message itself, with the same product, value proposition, copy and offer. Never make people hunt for what they need.
8. Segment to boost relevance.
If you aren't already using customer or subscriber data to create relevant sublists and target messages to them, it might be too late to start now, unless you have a database whiz who is just itching to help you create meaningful niches. However, you can create segments just by dividing the clickers from the nonclickers, and, if you send HTML email, the openers from the nonopeners. Then, come up with tasty incentives to get them to respond.
9. Fast-track your newcomers.
You should end up with new subscribers if you promote your email program diligently on your Web site. (Quick tip: put a link to your registration page on every page of your site.) Don't let their enthusiasm fade once they buy and leave your site.
Do you have these important new subscriber functions in place?
* Instant subscription confirmation request, whether they sign up at your Web site or through an affiliate site.
* Immediate welcome email, confirming what mailing lists they signed up for, how often and in which format, along with information on how to use your Web site, links to relevant pages at your Web site (home page, contact or customer-support links and phone numbers if available), link to your privacy policy, invitation to create a more detailed profile if you offer it, links to current offers and links to any products or downloads they qualify for by subscribing.
10. Jump on spam complaints.
As email frequency goes up, whether you send more often or your subscribers just get overwhelmed with seasonal email, you can expect complaints to go up, whether they go directly to you or indirectly from ISPs through their feedback loops.
You can minimize this increase by throttling your frequency, resisting the temptation – or the command from the higher-ups – to send more often. But also, read your delivery logs more carefully to spot problems as they occur, and monitor ISP feedback loops to remove complainers immediately, before you email them again.
Again, these are quick fixes that you should be able to implement without a major investment in time or labor. The most important thing you can do, however, is to keep your eye on the ball all the way through the holiday season, noting what works and what doesn't, and cataloguing improvements you can investigate when the smoke clears in January or February.
d.10 Ways to Engage Newsletter Readers
In our email-saturated environment, your subscribers will lose interest fast in your email messages if the only message they get from your newsletter is “Buy me!” That’s what all the other commercial email, spam and permission alike, is saying as it clutters up the inbox.
“Come join us” invites your most enthusiastic shoppers to become a part of a wider group of experts, willing to share information, tips, and advice, maybe even to brag about how they use your products.
A newsletter that gives its subscribers many ways to interact with you and the product is one that they will anticipate and welcome. By extension, they’ll find more value in it, spend more time reading it and ultimately buy more from you through it.
Look at your newsletter, and count up the ways your readers can interact with you. And, don’t count your unsubscribe link. Instead, look for any way that you offer readers to get involved with the newsletter, your products or your company. If you found only one, or even none, then check out these strategies below for ideas on how to add more ways for your readers to interact with your emails.
10 Strategies to Build Reader Engagement
Great emails find a balance among interactive content, entertainment value and purchase behavior. However, not every email message needs to follow this content-heavy format, nor does every reader seek it out.
Still, you should strive to add a little value to each email you send, whether it’s your regular customer newsletter, a one-off sales announcement, company news, or transactional emails such as subscription, registration and order confirmations or updates.
1. Add more channels to collect feedback.
You should already have at least one Web link and an email contact address in every email you send (along with someone on your end monitoring those locations in order to reply in one business day or less), as well as postal and telephone data. But, the more, the better.
Some creative avenues for feedback:
* Short surveys: One-question pop quizzes relating to your product or market niche rather than statistically valid queries. Intro the quiz in the newsletter, then link to the actual quiz on your site. Use a quiz module that shows a running vote total.
Perennially good topics: Ask how to improve the newsletter or Web site; solicit new product ideas; ask how a product solved a problem or improved the user’s life. Publish good replies in the next issue.
* Spotlight a useful or noteworthy question or comment chosen from your feedback. Offer a small prize appropriate to your product line or publication for the question that gets picked.
2. Tell your story.
Everyone likes to peek behind the curtain to see how the company works and who the people are behind the email addresses or the telephone voice. Add a little storytelling to your newsletter as appropriate.
* The company picture: Launch new products, announce news or highlight email-only peeks into company operations, especially fun facts, history, personnel changes and the like.
* Employee spotlight: Introduce employees who are either on the hotseat all the time, such as a customer-service rep or product manager, or those who work far from the bright lights but have relevant comments, such as a tip for negotiating your Web site or their favorite products.
3. Give your newsletter a personality.
This isn’t the same as personalization, where you mail-merge your subscriber’s name into the subject line or Dear Whoever line in the message body.
If your newsletter were a person, would it be male or female, shy or smart-alecky, a serious authority or the fun guy at the desk next to you who’s always working an angle? It should reflect either your customer base as it is or as it would like to be.
Once you know that, you can adopt a distinctive tone and personality that guides your copywriting and topic selections. This is mainly a newsletter initiative, although you can continue it in broad terms through all of your email.
4. Add customer reviews or publish the best recommendations.
This one can be tricky, because you risk customers filing negative comments along with the glowing ones. To counter that, pick the most useful of your good comments and feature them in a product spotlight, on your site and in your emails. Publish and promote the link to your review site to encourage readers to file their own comments.
5. Get blogging!
Got a blog? Link to it. Also, create a blog just for your customers and subscribers, and publish a good comment in the newsletter.
Avoid the gushy posts; they’ll sound phony. Instead, choose anecdotes or comments that highlight problem-solving or premium quality or praises an employee. If one post generates a lot of good comments (no flame wars!), publish those to keep the conversation going.
6. Create mini-sites around specific topics or seasons, and populate them with reader-generated content. Be clear that the content comes from readers. Highlight the link to the form or email address where readers can send their content. Possible topics:
* Readers’ pictures showing how they use your products or adopted your content for their own use.
* Seasonal recipes and anecdotes.
* Their favorite products.
* Feedback on these and other topics.
7. Add video content to your Web site and link to it from your newsletter. Also, patrol video-sharing sites like YouTube and promote any that relate. Promote the link and provide detailed instructions on how to upload content.
8. Add a small bit of editorial content to your commercial email messages (not transactional emails).
This could be the reader-generated content we saw earlier in this article, or something you write to bring the company closer to your subscribers, such as an editor’s note, inspirational quote or reader comment.
But, proceed carefully. If your sales messages previously have taken the hard-sell route, introduce the content gradually and watch your feedback addresses and delivery reports to see if people love or hate your new approach. After all, you may be taking a much different course from what your readers want.
9. Give away a prize in each issue and then spotlight the winner.
And not just any prize either, but something you know your readership would want, either tied to your regular promotion, a new product introduction, a paid download, a subscription or the like. So, no free iPods unless your newsletter caters to Mac fanatics, and then make it an upgraded version.
Don’t stop there. Feature the winner in your next newsletter to double the exposure and interest for the winner. Don’t just run the name but include a fact, tip, quote or similar item to promote your newsletter’s value.
10. Post job openings.
Are you a Fortune 500 company? One of the fastest-growing companies in your area? Is business booming and product flying off the shelves? Every company needs product advocates, particularly employees who use the products and services, and can evangelize effectively.
Four Caveats
As important as it is to build value by making your readers active participants, you do need to watch out for four big traps:
* Keep it relevant.
Anything you add must relate to your business, goals or newsletter topic. Don’t just stick in a joke of the day or a trivia fact to fill space. Also, remember what your message is supposed to do. If your standard email message is a deal of the day, or you send three times a week or more often, keep the content short. On the other hand, if you contact subscribers weekly or less often, your added content might well give your newsletter more shelf life.
* Keep it short.
Remember, even your best customers might be pressed for time. Add in content gradually, and survey readers to see how your enhanced version is going over. If you aren’t seeing upticks in the metrics you most want to improve, hold off and reassess.
* Once you change your format, commit to it.
Adding editorial content and features to a sales message will require time and money, two resources that often are in short supply for email marketers. The time comes in researching, writing and producing the additional newsletter copy. The money comes in paying that person or staff people.
A well-known retailer used to publish a stellar consumer newsletter for its direct line of outdoor gear, business-casual clothing and sportswear. One outstanding feature was a story that didn’t always push products but told stories on topics subscribers might be interested in or capitalized on the company’s rural Wisconsin location and sensibility. It also individualized each message with offers tied to buying history.
But the focus shifted during corporate restructuring. The writer who produced the content was let go, and content reduced to product promotions. Although it’s still nicely done, it has lost the features that made it a must-read.
* Do readers want it as much as you do?
Test and retest before you launch a major change. Survey a sample of your newsletter base for reactions and suggestions.
Then, when you go live with your new format, scrutinize your feedback emails and watch your delivery reports, in case you start generating more spam complaints and unsubscribes. Don’t pull back immediately, but listen carefully to what your readers will tell you.
Changing your newsletter format can be tricky, and it will require a greater time and money commitment. But if you keep the content relevant and include readers at every turn, you will most likely deliver messages with greater value for them. That, in turn, can help you recover your costs with more sales and lower address turnover.
e.3 Tips to Build Word of Mouth
In any marketing medium, referrals are your best source for business growth and vitality. One person who spreads the good word about you to their friends and family does an agency's worth of your advertising, marketing and public relations. When your "talker" is a solid-gold trusted source, you can see why you need to do everything you can to encourage your readers to talk about you.
Traditional and direct marketers know the value of good word-of-mouth. When e-marketing through Web sites and email took off, word of mouth became reinvented as "viral marketing." Same idea, but the electronic nature of the medium means it needs to be approached from a different angle.
Email and Viral: A Natural Fit
Just about every desktop and Web email client has a forwarding button built into it. You can take advantage of that, and of the natural human desire to pass on information, if you develop a good "forward to a friend” program that makes it easy and safe for people to share your material.
With all the benefits forward-to-a-friend offers for email marketers, and relatively low risk, I'm amazed to see how few marketers use it, and use it well. A study EmailLabs did last year found forwarding was one of the business-builders marketers were least likely to include in their messages.
At the same time, however, be careful how you do it. As good and trustworthy as it is when used correctly, "forward to a friend" can come back to bite you if you set it up wrong or misuse the personal information shared with you.
'F2F:' Three Ways to Get It Right
A good viral-marketing program has three essential qualities: It's simple to do, it's trustworthy and it benefits both the talker and the "talkee.” Here are strategies that can either help you launch your program or elevate it out of the doldrums to become an essential business-builder for you.
1. It's simple to do. Sure, you can hope that your readers will forward your fabulous messages on their own, but it's better for you that they use your data-capture page to send the information. That way, it's easier for you to track forwards. You also know the forwarded content will arrive and render pretty much as you intend it. And, you can send a special version of your newsletter or sales offer that speaks directly to the new recipient.
Every bulk email message you send should have a link to the page on your Web site where you collect the data you need to process the forward. Obviously, transactional and subscriber-only messages would not merit encouragement to forward, but any other messages should.
Not only should you include a link to your data-capture page, you need to draw attention to it. Okay, maybe not with blinking animations but surely with a clear direction ("Share this information with a friend who appreciates a good bargain” for example).
You can use an image that links to your data-capture page, such as a button or tab with the desired action listed on it ("Forward to a friend here”), but make sure you include a descriptive alt tag that will be visible in case the friend has images disabled. You likely won't be included on their contact list, so your chances of having images disabled on the first pass is pretty high.
2. It's trustworthy. People are skittish enough about getting email they didn't request. You might see the data you collect from your readers as a vein of priceless information to mine as you wish, but in reality, it is only on loan for a one-time use. Abuse that trust, and you will not only alienate your potential new customers, you could lose the ones who trusted you with the information, and you could end up being roasted in public as a spammer.
Make sure your privacy policy states clearly what you will or will not do with the forwarding information your readers give you. The safest policy, and the one that third-party reputation certifiers look for, is not to reuse the information for any purpose unless you collect a subscription request.
Next, state your policy succinctly on the data-capture page to reassure your readers that they don't need to fear that you'll abuse the data. Then, create a special edition of the forwarded message that includes a reassurance to the recipients that their names and email addresses were used only to send the information at their friends' request, and that they will receive no other mailings from you unless they subscribe.
Finally, and this might be the hardest part, stick to that policy.
3. It creates a benefit for you. Ideally, everyone should benefit from the forward, but I'll focus on you and how you can get the most out of the forward without abusing the information you were given.
Most obviously, you should capture a conversion from the forward, however you define it: a sale, a download, a contest entry. At the very least, you should hope recipients sign up on their own for your mailing list or to get more information.
That's why it's so important to have a subscription link, or several, on your newsletters and landing pages throughout your site. When you assure the recipients they won't receive more messages from you unless they request them, follow that with a clearly labeled button or link to your subscription or registration page.
Don't wait too long to send out the forward. Your list-management software should send these out automatically, as soon as it gets the information.
CAN-SPAM Implications
The U.S. law regulating commercial email prohibits deceptive sender or "from” lines, especially if they're used to conceal the true sender.
Your heart might be in the right place if you put the forwarding friend's name or email address in the sender line to make the email look more legitimate or trustworthy. However, the email is launched from your database. You are the legal sender, not the friend, and using the friend's name instead of your own could be seen as deceptive or concealing the true sender.
This isn't a problem if you create an inbox presence that announces clearly that you are sending the email at their friend's request. The easiest way to accomplish this is to put your company,
brand, product or newsletter name in the sender, or "from” line, and the friend's name in the subject line.
Example:
Sender line: XYZ Company. Subject line: Your friend Jane Doe wants you to read this.
Make sure the friend's name shows up early in the subject line so that it doesn't get cut off in the inbox.
What if the friend's name is already on your do-not-email list? Don't honor the forwarding request. Instead, set your list software to generate a message to the referring noting that you can't email that address and instead to forward the original message using their email client's forwarding button.
The Down Side of F2F
For all of its obvious benefits, forward-to-a-friend has a serious down side, resulting from failing to use it properly. Watch out for these potential traps:
1. Abusing the data you collect.
You might give yourself permission to use any data your readers give you, either on themselves or on the friends they forward information to, in any way you please, but it will come back to haunt you:
* Your readers will hate you and will tell their friends why.
Here's the other side of the word-of-mouth coin. Abuse your readers' trust in any way, and they will tell their friends. The conventional wisdom is that bad word of mouth travels faster and farther than good word of mouth by a factor of 10. That's truer than ever in this world where people with an ax to grind will do it in public.
Vonage, the voice-over-Internet-protocol service provider, learned this recently when Andy Sernovitz, one of the leading proponents of online word-of-mouth, complained in his popular blog that his referrals were being spammed with messages that went way beyond the original request.
Sernovitz complained publicly, people listened to him, picked up his complaint and reposted it throughout the blogosphere. That resulted in a severe public roasting for Vonage, already deluged with bad publicity for service failures.
2. Failure to optimize your data collection:
You might miss out on an essential, low-cost and high-trust way to build your business and keep subscriptions growing if you don't take these basic steps: urge readers to forward your material, make it easy for their friends to sign up and then follow up with a great welcome program for the new additions to your list.
F2F: Terrific Up Side; But Mind the Down Side
An interesting sideline in this controversy outlines why you must be completely transparent when communicating with the people whose data your readers have turned over to you:
In the comments on Sernovitz's blog posting where he detailed his complaint against Vonage, responses took a surprising turn. Most of the commenters said Sernovitz was guilty himself of spamming his friends by turning over their data to the company without his permission. Understandably, many people will use their own email client's forward feature rather than any forms you provide, but you'll still need to include those subscription links in either case.
Don't let the down side of forward to a friend frighten you away from using this powerful tool to build your business. Just resist any urge to use the data you collect for anything but sending out the requested information.
More information is available in these articles, available in our Resource Center
* 11 Tips to Make Your Email Messages Meaningful and Relevant
* The Ten Most-Ignored Best Practices
* 13 Quick Tips for Creating a Successful eNewsletter
* FTC Actions Target Opt-Out Compliance, Phony Forwarding
f.Three Strategies to Find the Right Frequency
What happened the last time you scored an email marketing home run? Maybe you tripled your open or conversion rate, or boosted the average order by 20%. What was the most likely response from your boss?
“Great! Let’s send it out again!”
It’s classic front-office thinking: A little is good, so a lot is even better. Unfortunately not, especially for email marketing. The research shows that over-mailing a list leads to apathy, unsubscribes or even spam reports.
Hitting the right frequency is a little bit art, a little bit science, and a whole lot of listening to and respecting the needs and wishes of your recipients.
But, it’s also a balancing act. On one hand, you don’t want to turn off your recipients by emailing too frequently. On the other, you need a permission grant that allows you to contact recipients between scheduled mailings without appearing to violate the original agreement.
In this article, I’ll lay out some of the principles that make email frequency a thornier issue than in traditional direct marketing and show you how to work out your own frequency equation.
Understand Who Controls Frequency (Hint: Not You)
Both email and postal direct marketers run the risk of alienating recipients by contacting them too frequently, leading to a condition called “list fatigue.”
But only in email marketing can list fatigue have a direct impact on the ability to get messages delivered.
After all, the Post Office is not going to penalize a catalog merchant if it sends a different book out every other day. (They’d love it, in fact.) Nobody but the local paper recycler will notice if catalogs or solo offers from a postal direct merchant get tossed before they ever make it into the house.
Not so for email marketers, and not so in a big way!
Research over the years is painting a clear picture of an email user who has become savvy at sorting the good email from the junk, at knowing what they want from email and how to deal with senders who don’t respect their inboxes.
* A holiday follow-up survey of email recipients in 2006 found 43.5% said they got much more holiday-shopping email than they anticipated. Over two-thirds said they deleted the unexpected email without opening, while a third reported the senders as spam to their ISPs, either in addition to deleting the messages or instead of deleting.
* A study we conducted with Lucid Marketing on email attitudes among mothers found these women had clear expectations about email frequency. Just over half preferred weekly or biweekly mailings, while a third wanted to be contacted monthly. Only 1 in 25 wanted daily mailings.
* A recent Pew Internet and American Society found that while Americans are generally less bothered by junk email than they used to be, they also are more actively to combat it, by deleting email or using spam filters provided by their companies, ISPs or email clients and others of their own design.
Still think you’re the one who sets the frequency schedule?
Choose Your Own Frequency
Frequency isn’t just a function of how often you want or need to send your messages. It must incorporate how often your recipients want to hear from you. Both are valid needs; how you balance them will determine whether your email program succeeds or flops.
Ask yourself this question: Do you send each email message because you have something new, urgent, timely or relevant to tell your recipients, or because you have to meet a publishing schedule?
Look around at your competition, too. I’m not telling you to slavishly follow the group; instead, you might be able to discern a trend that gives you a starting point to set your frequency ranges.
Now you’re ready to look at the factors that can help you set useful frequency parameters:
* Feedback. Are you paying attention to what your readers are telling you when they unsubscribe? (And yes, you should be asking this of each departing reader. For every 10 who will ignore an exit interview, one will respond with valuable comments.) They might be saying you send too much email, or too many irrelevant messages. Watch every mailbox associated with sending your messages, or comments people send by replying to your message.
* Market conditions. If you are a retailer, catalog merchant or other consumer marketer whose products are tied to the season, you will likely find yourself tempted to send more heavily during your busiest season. Or, you are in a business with a lot of flux -- floral, tourism, short-term discount shopping. These lend themselves to bulletin-style messages and justify more frequent contacts. But that can also backfire if you underestimate how often you want to send messages. It can be just as bad to contact your audience too infrequently as to mail too often.
* Preference center. This is where you test out your theories about frequency and see how your readers respond. Here you can give readers choices about how often they want to receive messages and what content they want. In general, the more relevant the messages you send, the more you can increase your email frequency. This will not work if your email marketing software doesn’t allow you to target mailings down to such a granular level. In that case, create different lists, maybe a general newsletter sent out weekly, biweekly or monthly, and a topic-specific bulletin sent out as needed. Promote each on the opt-in section of your preference section, and be sure to make it clear that each list has a different frequency.
* High-volume numbers. Special conditions exist for high-volume mailing lists, which by their very nature dictate that you send either daily or up to 5 times a week. Be very clear how many email messages recipients can expect. And, do what you can to collect information ahead of time so that your mailings can be as targeted and relevant as possible. Even though you make it clear that recipients can expect at least one email a day, it will look like overkill if what you send out is irrelevant to most of your list. If you find results are fading fast on your high-volume list, consider refining your parameters for it or adding a digest.
Respect Your Subscribers’ Choices
This is where the rubber hits the road for your readers. What do you do if you find an unbeatable bargain you just know your deal-of-the-week subscribers will fall all over, the day after you send your regular newsletter? Or if your sales manager needs to goose the monthly totals and urges you to send another mailing?
You need to keep your promise to your subscribers. Most of them might forgive one or two extra mailings, but you don’t know where the tipping point is that drives them to unsubscribe or report your email as spam. Instead of sneaking in another mailing, refine your list description that specifies a general number but allows you to reserve the right to send relevant messages between regular scheduled mailings. Specify a range of mailings in a given time rather than a specific number, but be as realistic in your expectations as you can.
Last Word: Beware of Under-mailing, Too
Most of the talk about frequency warns marketers against sending too frequently, but it’s also possible to send too infrequently to your list. You face different risks, but the end result can be the same. If you go for long periods of time without sending any messages, and then pop up with regular blasts around a holiday or other theme event, you may once again trigger unsubscribes or spam reports. Try not to let more than a month go by without contacting subscribers, either with regular content relevant to the list or with administrative requests, such as an invitation to fill out or update your preferences.
Resources:
More information to help you figure out and refine your frequency is available in our Resource Center. Start with these articles:
* Strategies for Expanding Your Email Programs
* How to Calculate the Potential Impact of Increased Email Frequency
* Calculating the Cost of Increased E-Mail Frequency, Part 2
* Your 10-point Email Check-Up Plan
* Six Steps to a Happier Holiday Season
* How to Grow Your Opt-In List: The Ultimate Guide
* Email Admin Center - The New Standard in Email Messages
g.Strategies for Expanding Your Email Programs
In order to survive, any business needs to expand and diversify. In email marketing, increasing the frequency of your mailings can be a tricky proposition, especially if you start peppering your subscriber with more messages on different topics than they opted in for at the start.
You're probably thinking, "What's the big deal here?" You already have permission to mail to your current subscribers. So what's the harm in increasing frequency by adding a newsletter, sales flyer or new-product info? After all, you need to expand your program if you want to build your business, and you know these people already want to hear from you.
It's not that simple, though.
Welcome to the place where the rock of your email program goals meets the hard place of subscriber expectations and preferences. The typical email marketing program has a built-in tension: You need to get as much use out of your subscriber database as possible in order to get the most return on member acquisition costs. But you risk irritating your current subscribers, who didn't necessarily sign up for your new information, and prompting a flood of unsubscribes or spam complaints or just indifference.
Your subscribers’ permission is the most valuable asset that you have – and the easiest to abuse. Remember these three principles when you think about increasing how frequently you email your list with new message categories:
1. "Interest" and "permission" are not interchangeable.
Sure, you have no better audience to market your new email messages than the database of people who gave you permission to email them. That doesn't automatically mean that they want to receive anything else from you for which they didn't specifically sign up. Never assume you have permission to email them anything they didn't request.
2. Each message must deliver high value.
If you merely want to increase frequency, rather than introduce a new product or email message, do you have enough content to make each message valuable to subscribers? Moving from a bi-weekly to a weekly message means you will need to have twice as much content so that subscribers don't assume they're receiving duplicate mailings several times a week.
3. Subscribers still retain the control.
Relevance is the holy grail of targeted marketing. If you can't send out highly targeted mailings because you don't have the database capability to segment your list, you can make up for it somewhat by adding more specialized email publications to your current offerings.
What you can't do is impose your will on subscribers. You can lead them to your new content by making it as enticing as possible, but you shouldn't send it to them without permission first.
The trick is to introduce your expanded marketing program to your current customers in such a way that you don't violate their expectations or your original permission grant and respect their interests.
The Right or Wrong Way?
Here are two real-life examples where online companies expanded their email product offerings. One is the wrong way; the other is the right way. Can you tell which is which?
Example A: Floral Retailer
An online floral retailer issues a weekly sales newsletter promoting special values on cut flowers and arrangements, as well as one-off sales flyers near seasonal events and special occasions. After the company acquires a mail-order gourmet food business, it begins sending out a separate weekly sales newsletter to its floral database but under the new business' brand name.
Example B: Cable-TV network
This entertainment company specializing in food and lifestyle shows publishes a weekly email newsletter promoting show content, hosts and special guests. When the Christmas/holiday baking season approaches, the newsletter includes a special promotion urging subscribers to sign up separately for a 12-day series sharing one cookie recipe each day. This secondary mailing ceases after the 12th recipe is sent out.
Why is B a great example of adding new content and increasing frequency the right way while A comes close to spamming its own subscribers?
1. It promoted the new offering in existing newsletter space, whereas the floral retailer simply began mailing the new newsletter to its existing database and assumed permission and interest.
2. It left the opt-in decision up to the individual subscriber. The floral retailer forced subscribers who didn't request the additional email and who didn't want it to unsubscribe. Although the floral retailer followed the letter of the CAN-SPAM law, it forced uninterested recipients to opt out. The cable-TV network example gave their readers the choice up-front, and delivered the new content only to those who requested it.
3. The cookie series was relevant to the original newsletter's content.
Flowers and gourmet food might occupy the same general niche in the consumable-product department, but they don't have that direct tie-in or association that you have between general food news and specific cookie recipes. Don’t assume that consumers will be interested in a related area – ask and give them the option to opt in.
Strategies for Increasing Subscriber Contacts
As these examples show, there are right and wrong ways to expand your email program. Consider these strategies when developing your game-plan:
1. Calculate the cost of increased frequency
Technically, we should file this discussion under "increasing frequency," because at the heart of it, that's what you'll be doing. You might think each kind of email message belongs in a different category but your subscribers might not distinguish between a regular weekly newsletter and an on-the-fly solo offer. To your subscribers, each email you send comes from you, regarding of the category. If you are simply sending them more email, it may be more than they wanted or requested at sign-up.
You can find more strategies and recommendations, as well as several formulas that can help you assess whether you would gain enough in sales, registrations or other relevant metrics to cover the costs of more frequent mailings, in Loren McDonald’s "Calculating the Cost of Increased E-Mail Frequency," parts one and two.
2. Promote from within first.
You can safely upsell existing subscribers using three message channels already open to you. The fourth is a little trickier but can pay off if you do it right.
1. Regularly scheduled mailings
When you need to upsell your current subscribers, always start by promoting the message category in emails they already receive. In the cable-TV network example above, the limited-run newsletter was advertised within the existing newsletter, where subscribers were given a separate link to sign up.
2. Transactional messages
Many marketers fail to mine gold from transactional messages, which come as close to guaranteed opens as you'll get in email. If buyers fail to sign up for your email program during the buying process, take advantage of the transactional email you send out to confirm the purchase to promote your newsletter.
3. Welcome emails
Because new subscribers are usually the most enthusiastic, you should capitalize on eagerness to read your content by listing in your welcome letter other email offerings that may not have been chosen at sign-up. Keep it brief by focusing on the benefit, and link directly to the subscriber's preference page where they can edit their sign-up choices.
4. One-off sample issues
This is where upselling can get tricky. Any food marketer will tell you that sampling a new product in the supermarket is the best way to drive sales. Email is different, though. If you think sending a sample issue will get you the most attention, go for it. But, follow these guidelines to avoid even a whiff of in-house spamming:
* Test the sample first on a relevant segment of your list, such as recent buyers, new subscribers, or subscribers who have not responded to mailings in a certain time period.
* State clearly near the top that the mailing is a sample only and that subscribers will continue to receive it only if they sign up for it, and link to the preference page.
Final Thoughts
To grow your business or your email program – and to appeal to as many subscribers across the spectrum as possible – you'll need to branch out and diversify your email holdings. You'll find your greatest success when you let subscribers retain control over their inboxes and promote the mailings using the channel for which you already have permission.
2.Build & Manage Lists
a.How to Grow Your Opt-In List: The Ultimate Guide
Building a high-quality, robust and responsive mailing list is hard work. It takes more than just slapping a few hundred or thousand email addresses into your database and then blasting out offers. If that was all you had to do, everybody would have one.
Truth is, acquiring addresses is just part of the process. You must also recognize that you have a relationship with the person behind each of your addresses. When you manage that relationship well, that address will become a more valuable part of your list, strengthening it in the process.
Email-list building is a lot like dating and marriage. If you start off wrong, you could kill any chance for a rewarding relationship between you and the subscribers. On the other hand, if you prove yourself worthy to your list, you could look forward to many happy years together.
Effective email list-building has three key components:
1. Where and how you acquire the addresses
2. How you welcome each new subscriber
3. How you manage the relationship after the opt-in
Each component needs to be managed correctly in order to increase both the subscriber's value to your business and your email program and your value to your subscriber.
Where and How to Acquire Addresses
Believe it or not, this is actually the easiest part of email list building. Although there are many tips and strategies for list building, there's really just one overarching principle:
Never add an address to your database unless you have the owner's explicit permission to do so.
This is the fundamental rule of permission email marketing. Violate it and you risk violating the U.S. CAN-SPAM law regulating commercial email, a host of proven email-marketing best practices, and perhaps most importantly, your customer's trust. Without that, your database will eventually become nothing but a graveyard of dead addresses.
Here is a sample list of strategies for collecting addresses, both online and offline:
Online:
* Provide the opportunity to sign up for your emails by posting a link to your registration page at every place where you meet your customers: for example,,on every page of your Web site, and in each transactional or customer-support email.
* Use paid search to reach higher positions in the search engines and post the link to your sign-up page prominently on the landing page.
* Investigate alliances with similar or complementary businesses in which you promote your partner's program to your list, and vice versa.
* Offer a relevant incentive, such as an email-only discount, free shipping, link to white papers or reports.
* If you rent a mailing list to solicit business or subscriptions, make sure the email comes from the list owner and only goes to recipients that are clearly marked OK for receiving third-party emails.
Offline:
* Ask for email addresses from everyone who visits your business, on-site and at trade shows; instruct telephone sales and customer-support workers to ask for addresses where appropriate.
* Publish the link and a short benefit statement in all printed material: on bags, flyers, store signs, customer-feedback forms and satisfaction surveys;,in ads and catalogs; provide registration blanks through the store.
How You Welcome Each New Subscriber
Remember the days when email was so fresh and new that you opened every single message you got just to see what was in it? No, neither do we. You have to work hard to persuade subscribers that they can trust your email messages and will find it worth their time to open them.
The welcome actually begins right at your Web site's registration or preference page, where you explain your content, frequency, benefits and the like so that subscribers know what they can expect from you. A good welcome program has these elements:
* An easy-to-navigate email opt-in page that asks for just enough information to get the relationship going without asking for too much. Four fields are enough to start: email address, first name, last name and format preference (HTML or text). Below this, add optional forms to solicit clearly relevant details: frequency, demographics, interests or preferences.
* A thank-you page that loads immediately afterwards. This confirms both the information the subscriber just handed over and any steps needed to complete the opt-in such as replying to a confirmation email, thanks for the opt-in, repeats or expands on the benefits of subscribing and provides a link to a more detailed preference page.
* Optional but recommended: A confirmation email that validates the address' accuracy, links to the preferences page, repeats or expands on the benefits of subscribing and can also provide a first welcome to the program if you do not send any other email messages until the first regular mailing.
* A welcome package (labeled as such in the subject line) that repeats the subscriber's opt-in data, provides more detail on subscription benefits, links to the preference page to encourage more detailed information, and can also include a sample or current newsletter or offer, any special subscriber-only offers or reports and any email incentives the subscriber could have used to sign up. Never send an incentive until you have gotten the email address confirmed via the confirmation email.
How You Manage the Relationship After Opt-In
Okay, now you have the address. You might think your work here is done, but it's really just beginning.
What you do with the address will in large part determine whether your subscriber sticks with you over the long haul, opens and responds to your email messages and updates their information with you as the relationship evolves.
And you have to manage that intimate relationship correctly.
* Honor your subscriber's preferences, especially if you want to expand your email program beyond what your subscribers agreed to when they opted in, including increasing frequency, changing the content, renting the list or participating in co-registration with a third partner or other major changes. Permission is not transferable.
* Watch your list statistics carefully to look for trends in bounces, unsubscribes and inactivity, especially as you expand your program and add new lists or subdivided your master list into stand-alone segments.
* Stay in touch by occasionally emailing special offers or other material, or survey or preferences-update invitations.
* Combat list stagnation by periodically segmenting for inactivity within a certain period. For example, look for people who have not opened or clicked on your emails for three months after opt-in. Send a message acknowledging the inactivity and an offer either to come back and renew or to unsubscribe from the list.
* Perform list hygiene regularly to weed out invalid addresses and those that have not responded even to follow-up or query email messages in a set time.
Get the Guide
As you can see, building your list takes time and energy. But it's worth it, because a robust, healthy and growing mailing list really is the essential building block for an email-marketing program that delivers the ROI you need.
The list presented here just scratches the surface. For more details on these and more tips, strategies and advice, get our new guide, "How to Grow Your Opt-In List"
More Resources:
• Permission Email Marketing: “Permission” is Not Optional
• 28 Ways to Build Permission-Based Email Lists
• Trim the Certain Deadwood from Your Email List
• Optimizing Email Opt-In Pages
• Combat List Inactivity by Older Opt-Ins
b.6 Ways to Improve Your Email List
Email deliverability begins and ends with the quality of your list. ISPs are on the lookout for signs that your list is not so good - namely, too many bounces from outdated addresses and spam complaints from wary recipients. Both of these red flags are avoidable - if you follow permission-marketing best practices.
c.Permission Email Marketing: "Permission" is Not Optional
At a recent online marketing conference, I taught a 4-hour introductory session on best practices in email marketing. But my carefully structured agenda got shredded when about half of the participants and I spent 30 minutes discussing -- make that "arguing about" – whether you need to get permission first before you start emailing offers or newsletters.
You know where I stand on that issue. Permission is basic equipment, not an optional extra. Ten years after email marketing proved its commercial viability, it has become standard practice for legitimate email marketers because it is a key component for optimizing deliverability, return on investment and recipient trust.
So, I was a bit stunned by the pushback from these marketers on an issue which, for me, hasn't been an issue for years. Although I emerged a little battered from the session, it was a strong reminder that thousands of marketers still haven't climbed aboard the permission-email-marketing train.
Permission Email Marketing: The Challenge
I can understand why some session attendees resisted the idea that they need to get permission first. Many were new to email marketing but worked with other channels -- print, radio, TV or direct mail – that don't demand that you get permission first.
But email is different. It's a personal medium, like the telephone. Well, telemarketing wore out its welcome with a vast number of Americans, and unsolicited email has, too.
I can also understand the marketers' concerns. They're getting OK results (or so they think) right now when they send out a general email blast to a list cobbled together from customers, trade shows, demo requestors, white paper downloaders, etc. But excuse me! If getting mediocre results is good enough for you – then you can stop reading right now.
On second thought, stick around. You're exactly the person who needs to see why it pays to get permission.
Here's my elevator speech: When you market to people who have told you expressly that they want to hear from you, you can expect to see these results:
1. Better response rates
2. Increased trust and brand affinity
3. Better deliverability
Yes, it takes time and money to build a permission-based house list and create targeted, relevant offers and messages. Yes, your list will be smaller than if it was an unsolicited email list. When your sales manager or CEO is in your face demanding cash-money results right now, "permission" can be a tough concept to sell.
But email marketing isn’t about list size or smacking recipients with email after email. It is about getting great results and building relationships. Quite simply, permission gets better results and is the only way to build email relationships with customers and subscribers.
Some marketers think their “non-permission” programs are working just fine. One workshop participant argued that opt-out was getting good results, but when I pressed him, he didn't know what kind of open, click or conversion rates his program was pulling. I’m sure his company was getting some responses and maybe they were thrilled. But the point is I bet the results could be 5 times better using a permission-based approach.
What is Permission?
"Permission," at its most basic, is the user's consent to receive emails from you. But there's a lot more to it.
Permission breaks down into "expressed" versus "implied" consent. Expressed permission comes from the user himself, when he checks a box requesting your emails on a site-registration form or point-of-purchase postcard, agrees in person or sends in an email request.
"Implied" permission is not actively given but is a by-product of another action, such as not removing the checkmark from a prechecked email-permission box on a site registration form, or clicking the "agree" radio button on an end-users agreement that lists receipt of email as a condition of using the site.
As far as I'm concerned, expressed permission is the only acceptable version. Implied permission is just another name for opt-out.
The 2003 U.S. law regulating commercial email, popularly called CAN-SPAM, permits opt-out marketing but with a couple of conditions: All commercial emails must have a working unsubscribe function. Plus, emails sent to recipients who didn't give you "affirmative consent" must include language that the message is "a promotional email" within the message.
But CAN-SPAM just establishes legal criteria for email marketing. It doesn't promote best practices, and "best practices" means opt-in only.
"Opt-in" is another name for permission email marketing, but even that has two levels:
*
"Single opt-in": The recipient gets added automatically to a list after completing a Web opt-in form, sending in a postcard, emailing a request, etc.
*
"Double opt-in" or "confirmed opt-in": The recipient requests a subscription, which generates an automated email message to which he must reply or click a link to confirm the subscription and be added to the list.
Overcoming Objections to Permission Email Marketing
Evidence has shown that permission-based email lists deliver better results and generate fewer unsubscribes, spam complaints and blocks:
1.
Marketers who get into the game using opt-out strategies and then switch to strictly opt-in, using either house or rental lists made up of opt-in addresses, have reported seeing click rates jump from the 0.5%-3% range to 5%, 10% or even higher.
2.
Findings from IMT Strategies (2001) reveal the importance of permission-based over unsolicited emails. Seventy-six percent of consumers will delete an unsolicited email without even reading it, compared to 2% for a permission email. Conversely, only 5% of consumers are eager or curious to read an unsolicited email as opposed to 61% with permission email.
Permission and Unsolicited Emails
Permission Unsolicited
Curious to read it 48% 16%
Eager to read it 13% 4.0%
Indifferent 30% 3.0%
Open it "Somewhat annoyed 7.0% 76%
Delete it without reading it 2.0% 1.0%
Source: IMT Strategies 2001
3.
A Harris Poll in 2003, taken just before CAN-SPAM was ratified, found 79% of Americans were "somewhat annoyed" to "very annoyed" by unsolicited email, even if it wasn't the typical spam. That annoyance transfers to your product or brand. Can you afford to irritate that many potential new customers?
4.
Email recipients say they open emails from those they recognize and trust and delete unopened email from unknown or suspicious-looking senders. In a Forrester study, the two main reasons participants said they opened commercial emails were because they recognized the sender as a company they signed up with (40%) and because they recognized the sender's name (52%).
5.
A Quris study in 2003 found that subscribers who demand high levels of permission and privacy are more likely to open and act on those permission-based emails.
6.
Although the actual rate varies from sender to sender and list type (B-to-B, B-to-C), click-through rates on opt-out email lists hover in the 1% to 5% rate, while CTRs on house lists can be 10 to 20 percentage points higher.
7.
An AOL User Behavior study from 2004 showed email newsletters that used double opt-in had a lower unsubscribe rate -- an average 7.6% -- compared with single opt-in messages, which had an average 22.2% unsubscribe.
8.
The AOL study didn't include opt-out email, but a related study found AOL users were more likely to report unsolicited email as spam. When AOL 8.0 introduced the "Report as Spam" in the inbox, the percentage of email reported as spam jumped from 25% to 50%. In another study, 71.3% of email users whose email clients offered a spam-reporting button said they used it because they thought it would stop all unwanted email.
Non-Permission Email's Two Secret Traps
1.
When you send out email blasts to an opt-out audience, you might waste half or more of your spend by sending to email addresses that don't exist anymore or block your messages.
Address churn on a typical email list is 20% to 30% a year on average. So, if a list is two years old, more than half of the addresses likely have gone bad. If you're not the one who collected the addresses, you have no connection with the address owners, and they have no motivation to keep you up to date.
2.
Opt-out can get you blacklisted, which means you waste even more money on undeliverable addresses.
Spam-reporting services often create specific email addresses and add them to mailing lists just to see who grabs them up and spams them. Then, they report those email senders to blacklists or file spam complaints.
You know that low-cost mailing list you just rented? It's probably riddled with spam traps. If you get reported often enough, or if you generate enough spam complaints or bad addresses, ISPs and email providers will block everything coming from your email address, IP address, or domain or company name.
Why Permission Email Marketing Makes Sense
Surveys and statistics aside, permission-based email marketing just makes more sense, both for customer relations and your marketing budget.
Why throw money at people who have no demonstrated interest in your products or services? The little you earn from the few who will open an unsolicited email because they're interested in your product (about 11% in the Forrester study quoted above) will be offset by the diminishing returns you'll face as more ISPs block your emails.
EmailLabs is firmly committed to promoting permission email-marketing practices not just with its own clients but in the industry in general. Opt-in methods, practices and tactics make up a large part of the inventory in our online Resource Center.
We invite you to visit our library of archived articles that provide answers on such touchy topics as getting permission from trade show booth visitors, keeping addresses fresh on your list, managing opt-in and opt-out procedures and other issues that touch on permission and its relationship to deliverability, ROI and customer relations.
Here's a sample to get you started:
* Optimizing Email Opt-In Pages
* "What is the average click-through rate for email newsletters?" (EmailLabs' FAQ)
* 28 Ways to Build Permission-Based Email Lists
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