Thursday, December 18, 2008

Holiday Carol and Message for Email Marketers

Deck the inboxes with emails aplenty
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah….blah, blah, blah, blah
Think the incessant emails will make customers jolly?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah….blah, blah, blah, blah
Hawking clearance crap like staid apparel
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah
Why “Dear Valued Customer” instead of “Dear Bob or Carol”?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…..blah, blah, blah, BLAHHHHHHH!!

I'm having a little fun here, but seriously marketers ask yourselves the following questions next year when planning your Holiday campaigns:

- Is it really a good idea to send a campaign EVERY DAY for two weeks straight?
- Should we segment out those who are actually opening and taking action and focus on them?
- Is this the year to use true personalized content based on preferences or behavior history?
- What clever incentives can we offer to encourage recipient response?

Happy Holidays and New Year to All!

Friday, October 24, 2008

A Paradigm Shift for Retail Email?

Though I've lauded certain e-tailers like Barnes & Noble on this blog for some excellent campaign execution, it's still both frustrating and astonishing to see so many brands are not getting the message (no pun intended) that a lack of truly personalized email content is turning-off customers. However, I ran across a San Francisco-based firm (ShopItToMe.com) today that has implemented a customer-controlled approach that may start a trend in the way other e-commerce organizations communicate with their customers via email.

The beauty of this site is that not only do customers control the content they get, but they save money at the same time. When you start the profile building process, you define all of your apparel and designer preferences. For example, I may only want content relative to men's outerwear and athletic shoes in sizes XL and 12 respectively manufactured by Adidas and/or Nike that is currently on sale. Whatever your fancy, you are the Burger King as you "have it your way" when placing your email special order.

Once the profile definition is complete, ShopItToMe delivers the goods as the user gets his/her made to order email within a couple of minutes as seen below (note: click on the creative to enlarge):



Of course, I'm not privy to the level of effort required to pull this publishing model off, however it's got to be worth it given the well-documented disparity between the costs required to keep customers versus attracting new ones.

To conclude, I think this site is on to something great and I would highly recommend that the e-tail community to follow suit to help reverse the trend of lower response metrics (as cited in Epsilon's "Q1 2008 U.S. Email Trends and Benchmark Results" report) and, as noted above, increased customer apathy verging on scorn.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Political Campaigns: What Not to Do with Email

After watching the final Obama-McCain debate, I must admit that I was awakened from my political hibernation and I'm now looking forward to knowing who our next national figurehead will be. However, after checking my Hotmail inbox recently, it was like having an extra cold glass of water thrown in my face, reminding me of what I hate most about election season.

Is there a bigger turn-off than political email campaigns? Not only the is frequency completely annoying, but the relevance missed the bus to the town hall meeting, uh, about 6 months ago. Here's the typical structure you'll often see from both parties:

"Dear [Friend],

Did you know that [opponent] is a liar and unqualified to be [position pertaining to which the election is being held]? Nevertheless, we need your money to fight off their negative campaigning so please spare what you can by clicking on the following link:

[URL to donation system]

We'll see you at the polls and be sure to tell a friend about [candidate].

To unsubscribe, [click on the link that will lead you through a series of pages attempting to dissuade this decision]. What's the physical address of the sender? Ah, who cares- there's no time for that."

No personalization, no relevant content (how about an email highlighting issues I feel are important?) & no CAN-SPAM compliance. Donors are actually paying for this drivel.

Regardless of the way you may be leaning with your vote come November, please make sure NOT to follow the shoddy email practices used during the political season. If you do, you risk your customers not re-electing your brand.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

The Retailer Archetype: B&N

I ran across an excellent email this morning that I believe every retailer should emulate. Too often, retailers fall into the trap of trying to bombard the customer with a "look at all the cool stuff we have on sale" approach to the campaign creative. However, they fail to realize that many of the items presented have no relevance to me.

Therefore, if a retailer isn't going to go the extra mile to produce true one-to-one campaigns based on preference or purchase history data, the email example from Barnes & Noble below is the next best thing and its simplistic elegance is something to behold:



As interesting as "This week's featured novel by [insert author name here]" would be, a discount is always more profound in my opinion. This message makes it crystal clear what the offer is and folds in flexibility as the incentive may be used in-store or online. The graphics are not too busy and the terms and conditions are clearly noted. Though not shown via a screenshot, the use of alt text with the images is also very well done should they not load by default. The benefits of the offer still resonate based on the descriptions used.

It is rare for any retailer campaign to move me to action (except Nordstrom's around the Holidays when I'm in a bind), however this one prompted me to print the in-store coupon not too long after opening and I plan on buying something cool at my neighborhood location this weekend. Well done B&N!



Tuesday, October 7, 2008

CAN-SPAM: Useful or Histrionic?

Is it me or does the CAN-SPAM legislation (read about it at: http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.shtml) seem to be tossed about more frequently than Caesar salad or name-dropped more readily than Larry King disclosing his life-long friendship with [insert your favorite celebrity or sporting hero here]? Chances are if you go to any ESP Website or deliverability-oriented blog page, you'll see ample references made to it. Though any ethical member of the email marketing community wants to do his/her part to curtail Spam, I've never seen much empirical evidence as to the earth-shattering benefits derived from this legislation's existence. Blasphemy say you?

I've always thought the elements described therein can be categorized to be common sense best practices more than anything. Let's take this opportunity to see what the important aspects under the kimono are if you will:

1) Prohibits the use of misleading subject lines. Not sure why you have to mandate a legitimate email marketer to do this. You mean I won't sell more porn by using "Information on New Joel Osteen Book" in my subject line?

2) Senders must use a physical address within the email body. Sounds quite straightforward, doesn't it? Your customer/recipient needs this context to feel more comfortable continuing the email conversation with you. In fact, why would you not want them to have that information if trying to engender trust in your brand/message?

3) Senders cannot use false headers in messages. Again, such a blatantly obvious mandate falling under the "Duh!" category. Thou shalt not spoof headers.

4) Specifies use of a clearly defined and expedient opt-out process. No "please allow 3-4 weeks for us to process your request" BS. The fact is that you shouldn't be doing any kind of email marketing if not employing this best practice. If you really love your customer/recipient, let them go.

I know there is other minutia included in CAN-SPAM for smarter people than I to bicker over, however let's be honest in stating that it's not really that important when compared to the four aforementioned items. Following them will give you all the compliance you'll ever need to have as things currently stand.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Goodmail from the User Perspective

I've found Goodmail is one of those companies/topics that tends to polarize marketers and technologists alike. In one camp, you have the "Apathetics" who don't feel enough information is available to draw any conclusions about the service or they're otherwise skeptical. They may believe that their current deliverability rates and sender reputation are "good enough" and that's it's not necessary to pay for having premium delivery status. In the other corner, you have the "Evangelists" who are constantly looking to push the envelope in terms of trying any perceived "latest-and-greatest" technology or service. In some cases, they are desperate to get into the inbox and are willing to try any mousetrap holding this promise. Regardless of what side of the argument you might fall, the one thing that hasn't been widely discussed is the Goodmail experience from the recipient perspective.

If you speak to anyone from Goodmail, one of the value propositions they'll mention is that messages signed with CertifiedEmail tokens stand out from other mail in the inbox. Here's what the recipient sees:





Note the blue envelope to the left of the From: name. I would have to agree with Goodmail on this point, though I'm not sure if this is in a positive or negative way. You'll also notice that Yahoo adds some explanatory verbiage if one clicks on a tokenized mailing. Though the recipient is invited to click through to get a more detailed description of what Goodmail is and why such messages are safer than other e-mail, I believe some recipients will actually be freaked out by the icon and will write the message off as just another elaborate phishing attempt made on securing some personal information.

However, as you also see at the bottom of the screenshot, a highly-viable benefit to the marketer is that images are enabled by default even if only viewing using the preview pane.

So, as new advancements like Goodmail continue to be made to help increase trust in the e-mail channel and improve overall deliverability (oh no, the "d" word again), you should also be mindful as to how your subscribers will react to these breakthroughs. Stay vigilant with your comparative testing processes and keep in tune with your audience as you introduce new technologies like Goodmail to your e-mail efforts.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Let's Laud Excellent Email Production Too

It seems lately that I've read a litany of blog postings railing on negative aspects of a particular e-mail campaign that the "critic" received. I'm definitely a big believer in looking at e-mail content with a critical eye, however I also understand that consistently knocking the ball out of the e-mail marketing park is easier said than done and I have a lot of respect for the staffers who perform what can often be described as a less than glamorous task. It's easy to be a backseat driver, but it's a bit more difficult sometimes to point out best practice aspects that other e-mailers should emulate.

Whether the campaign creative is perceived to be positive or negative, I feel it's necessary to analyze the steps the marketer/publisher took to connect the offer/content to the recipient. This usually starts at the moment the site browser clicks on the ubiquitous "sign-up to receive our email newsletter(s)/offer(s)" link.

To this end, I recently ran across the BBC site and was pleasantly surprised to see a publisher that gets how to properly execute an e-news program. I expected to see some generic page asking for an e-mail address, first name and possibly postal code as well. To the contrary, I saw the following sign-up form:

BBC Daily E-Mail Sign-Up


What makes this form effective?

1- The Subscriber is in Control

The BBC clearly understands that site visitors are going to have disparate information needs. As such, the form allows the user to control what content he or she will receive in their e-newsletter. Don't assume you know what someone will be interested in.

2- The Plain-Text Minority

Though today's e-mail clients can gracefully handle HTML content, you'd be surprised how many subscribers may prefer to receive plain-text emails. As such, smart email publishers tailor their campaigns so that both audiences can be satisfied. If you're using sending technology that doesn't allow you to execute a multipart-alternative campaign, what are you waiting for?

3- Recipient (not Sender) Delivery Control

Many e-mail campaign producers fret over the "right" time for dispatching an e-mail blast to achieve greatest response. Why leave it to chance? As is the case with the BBC, let the recipient control when they receive your e-mail.

To sum up this post, though the final creative "product" is important and something about which to comment, we in the e-mail marketing community should also commend senders for extraordinary program execution. Make a commitment to follow the BBC archetype and respect your subscribers enough to let them control the e-mail conversation. In doing so, you're bound to see improved response metrics and skyrocketing brand affinity.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Reputation (or Lack Thereof) and Hotmail Rate Limiting

As I've disclosed before, I tend to spend a lot of time with companies discussing deliverability woes to certain ISPs. Today, I had the occasion to do the same with a pretty high profile sender whose test campaigns were being let's say "improperly manipulated" by the finicky Hotmail MX machines.

Per my last posting, I stated my opinion that most rate limiting is not due to not having the right technical specs the edge gateway is looking for, but rather it's a result of the system taking a cautious approach to mail coming in from an "unknown" sender. This case in question seems to confirm my supposition.

This mailer was sending a six-figure campaign from a fairly new IP address that definitely appeared to trip a rate limit. In fact, the logs indicated that Hotmail would only accept 5,000 messages one hour, do the same for the next hour, not accept ANY mail the next, and then would finally return a level 500 (permanent) error causing their MTA to bounce all remaining 20,000 messages or so from the queue. The one question our team had is that if the sender were to have self-rate limited the campaign, would Hotmail have let mail in the one hour where they blocked it altogether?

In any case, this might be a scenario where one can use empirical data to surmise the amount of mail a major ISP will let in without fully validating the "street cred" of the IP in question. If any marketers want to test this and get back to me with a report as to whether or not the same behavior occurs, please do!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Debunking Email Delivery Secret Sauce

Having spent much of the past four years in the Message Transfer Agent (MTA) space, I've consulted with countless companies who have been looking for an edge in achieving higher e-mail deliverability. If I only had a nickle for the number of times I've been asked about the "secret sauce" for getting into ISP in-boxes... Well, I must burst many a sender's bubble tonight. Feel the motion of my fingertips hitting the keys to scribe the following sequence: THERE IS NO SECRET DELIVERY SAUCE!

Why does this perception exist? Well, it was a notion introduced two-three years ago by an MTA (and now email marketing) firm that shall remain nameless designed to speak to customers' lack of deliverability fear and decreasing email return desperation. Of course, the firm just so happened to offer (what seemed to be a magical) supplemental update service where users would be blessed with guesstimated delivery technical parameters tantamount to knowing the "secret handshake" ISPs reserved for only the whitest of the whitelisted sender community. While there is certainly enough empirical evidence to conclude that a few ISPs do practice some form of inbound throttling, the fact is that you are less likely to encounter such road blocks if you have a well-established and overwhelmingly positive sender reputation. BTW, this affirmation does not extend to the army of rogue ISPs out there (providers like BobsISPRunOutofHisSpareBedroom.net or GordysRockyMountainConnectivity.net) who are goofy enough to take an "all commercial email is evil" approach by blocking any and everything coming in. Anyway, I always like to point people to the following article (penned by the omnipresent Mr. Magill) as it does an excellent job of articulating the elements to which top-shelf ISPs pay the most attention when making filtering decisions:

http://preview.directmag.com/magilla/e-mail-rep-magilla-061207/index.html

So there you go. For those of you out there who have been secretly planning to bribe Yahoo or Hotmail mail server engineers with a batch of your Grandma's State Fair winning chocolate chip cookies and a six-pack of Red Bull to obtain the "top secret delivery windows" when the server flood gates will be opened to the inbox promised land, I'm sorry to be the one telling you that there's no Santa Claus if you will. A much better use of time would be devising a long-term strategy for reducing Spam complaints and producing creative that actually reflects a recipient's stated content preferences or previous response patterns.

So the next time you order an email campaign, remember to hold the secret sauce.

No-Reply No No

It never ceases to amaze me how marketers think it's acceptable to use "no-reply" in either a From: line or as part of the Reply-to: address. The obvious issue is that if you look at email marketing as a true communication channel between the sender and the recipient, this is quite a rude stance to take. These days it's so hard to get people to pay attention to the offers and information they get through email anyway, so it seems crazy that a sender wouldn't want to openly accept return feedback.

The other issue that may not jump out to some marketers is that there are non-standards compliant corporate (and other) email systems that will route replies and/or bounces to the From: and not the Reply-to: address. As such, you're not only potentially alienating subscribers by (in their minds) not caring about what they think, but you could also be taking a deliverability hit because some bounces will not be handled properly.

If you are a marketer that would like to be accepting feedback but are not currently using technology sophisticated enough to enable this, there are vendors offering solutions to consider. For example, you might take a look at a system like ResponseMaster from Extreme Messaging (http://www.extreme-messaging.com). You can also find coding pros via sites like Elance.com to develop a custom solution on a project or hourly basis.

With apologies to Gandhi, your customer wants you to be the change they wish to see in how they interact with your company or organization. Therefore, make a commitment now to increase customer loyalty by accepting their feedback.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Congrats to EMC!

I'd like to congratulate Tamara and Matt of Email Marketer's Club (http://www.emailmarketersclub.com) for recently passing the 1500 member mark! I've been participating for the past few months and enjoy both the membership diversity and salient ideas presented.

I highly recommend that all serious email marketers join ASAP! You'll be glad you did.