Groundhog Day for Email Marketers

For most people, the month of February brings thoughts of flowers and candy for Valentine's Day. For me, February reminds me of one of my favorite movies, "Groundhog Day," in which Bill Murray relives Groundhog Day over and over until he learns to recognize his faults. I think many email marketers are in the same situation; performing the same action over and over, but expecting different results each time. Some would even say this is the definition of insanity. Marketers wonder why response rates are dropping, but are blind to the fact that they are sending the same non-targeted, irrelevant messages over and over again. Of course subscribers are losing interest; you are conditioning them to expect the same redundant email every time.

One online retailer I know of has sent 13 consecutive weekly emails with the same subject line. Here's a hint: if I wasn't enticed the first time, the 13th time probably won't convince me. This retailer does themselves no favors in a cluttered inbox. We know that consumers often save an email to go back to later when they are ready to shop. Make it easy by using distinctive subject lines for each message. Create distinctive offers as well. Using math to trick your customer into thinking they are getting a deal may initially drive sales, but after a while they'll catch on. No matter how many ways you change the percentage off, or offer free shipping, if the end result is $24.99 every time, customers will eventually stop looking for that "special" offer.

Another way marketers train customers to ignore emails is by sending too often. Seeing that email in the inbox each morning becomes routine. In most instances, people actually may want to receive all of those daily deal emails, but just skim the subject lines each day until they see an offer or brand that they may want, while deleting the rest without opening, and this can influence spam filters. So why not just ask what they want and segment based on that information? A simple preference center can allow your customers to set products, categories, and brands they are interested in. Your customer may have bought that deal for 50 percent off bungee jumping today, but chances are they won't be interested in a buy-one-get-one-free deal on knitting classes tomorrow.

All of this boils down to engagement. ISPs are factoring engagement into the filtering process and marketers will need to test and refine their strategy to remain in the inbox. Regardless of your opinion on the matter, it's here, and it's not going anywhere. If you aren't testing, how can you know what it is that's driving your performance? I understand that developing a testing strategy can be time-consuming and a bit intimidating, but start small and ask for help. Your email service provider can help you develop and test programs that will ultimately give you actionable information. Just like in "Groundhog Day," it might take a while to find the right combination, but it's worth it.

 

Jay Brangiforte, senior deliverability operations manager,

e-Dialog

 

This article originally appeared on ClickZ. 

 

Marketing Wrap-up: Week of February 3, 2012

Welcome to the first week in February! Did you see your shadow yesterday? Let's get into the top stories this week. 

 

Of course, everyone is talking about Facebook filing for their IPO on Wednesday, seeking to raise $5 billion. Speculation is rampant about what this will mean for the company, for Mark Zuckerberg, for social media in general, for Facebook employees, etc. Mashable has thoughtfully pulled it all together for you on one handy page. Definitely worth a read.  

 

In email-related news this week, we saw the announcement of the Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance group, or DMARC. DMARC is made up of representatives from email service providers, financial services companies, social media companies, and email security firms, with the purpose of developing standards to reduce the threat of deceptive emails. You can read more at www.DMARC.org.

 

On the social media front, a company that is getting a lot of attention suddely is Pinterest. I've been using it for a little while, and as more brands get on board, it will be very interesting to see how it evolves. The infographic below shows how much traffic Pinterest is already driving for retailers. Some users are already saying allowing commercial entities to be on Pinterest ruins the site for them. We'll see how Pinterest manages the site in the future. 

 

 

Well, that's it for this week. As always, I'd love to hear your feedback on my picks and any stories you think are making waves in digital marketing.

 

Liz Lynch, senior marketing communications specialist,
e-Dialog, @eDialogLiz 

 

Email New Year's Resolution Check In!

It’s almost February, so time to do a quick gut check on your email New Year's resolutions! Wait, you didn’t set any? No worries, you can apply some common New Year's resolutions to your email program to yield significant results

. 

Resolution 1: Lose weight!

With customers being bombarded by email and other mediums, the sad truth is that as email marketers we often fail to trim the fat off our lists, so to speak. Ways to make sure you continue to send your relevant messages to only those customers that are actually engaged is by updating your preference center. Consider sending a re-engagement email driving customers to update their preferences. The inactives that don't respond may need to be kept off the main list after a specified period of inactivity. 

  

Do customers have a way of opting down from your program as opposed to out of it completely? Can your customers elect to communicate with your brand via other channels? Provide options for text messages and allow for direct links to your Facebook or Twitter accounts to keep them engaged if email isn't their preferred channel. 

Cleaning up your preference center is an easy and efficient way to optimize database health and provide users with additional ways to engage with your brand.

 

Resolution 2: Have more fun!

Have fun with your email program. Don't be afraid to shake things up. Are you sending the same emails as last year with no change to your content? If so, consider switching things up a little. Add a fun game, poll or a call to action to encourage engagement via your Facebook page. Not only will you learn some new things about your customers, you might make a new fan or two out of it.

 

Resolution 3: Make More Money

Nothing drives additional revenue like new customers, right? One easy way to acquire new customers is by making sure your website prominently displays the email enrollment option. That means having it on every page, not just the home page, because with many visitors arriving at your site via search, they may never see your home page. Already have that covered? Try adding a viral component to your emails encouraging customers to forward your great deals to their friends.

Taking the time to even try one of the 3 "resolutions" will have you well to making your "new and improved" 2012 email program a bit of a boost! And don't forget, you can try e-Dialog's Email Resolution Generator app to help you as well! 

 

Paola Cerda, e-Dialog

'Twas the Month Before Christmas: A Deliverability Tale

‘Twas the month before Christmas, when all through the land,

marketers were scheming to hit year-end plans.

 

Their e-mails were designed in great detail and care,
in hopes that all of their customers soon would be there.

 

Mail the entire list. Mail them all!
Mail away! Mail away! Mail away all!"

 

The executives were nestled all snug in their beds, 
with visions of Q4 revenue dancing in their heads.

 

When back in the office arose such a clatter, 
that delivery support ran to see what was the matter?

 

Away to their reporting tools they flew like a flash, 
investigating each client’s mailing to look for the trash.

 

The data before them on the newly sent mail
gave all indications of why they did fail.

 

When what to their wondering eyes should appear,
but a slew of bounce codes that no one would endear.

 

Unknown User! Inactive Account! Mailbox Doesn’t Exist!
Blocks from the ISPs were hard to resist.

 

If only they’d listened and segmented their data.
Their mailing would have been delivered,
staying off of the ISP’s radar.

 

Relevance, hygiene, permission and more,
ultimately gets the campaign safely out the door.

 

Reach out to your clients now and give them a shout.
Make sure they understand what this is all about.

 

Eliminate unknown users, non-responders, and hard bounces alike, and watch delivery and response rates soar and spike.

 

It is important to take heed of this trustworthy advice,
because the ISPs know if you’re naughty or nice.

 

During this important mailing season we must get it right.
Happy Holidays to all, and to all a good-night!

 

 

Getting to the Point at Point of Sale

At this time of year, with consumers heading into the mall for some serious shopping, retailers are looking to capitalize on that warm body in-store by promoting their online programs and collecting email addresses at the register. This can be a good idea, if it is well-planned and well-executed. Handled the wrong way, it may not even be worth doing. You must keep in mind upfront costs, backend costs, and the true value of the resulting email address.

Retailers will often give an incentive on the spot to entice customers to provide an email address at checkout, like $5 off their purchase. This makes sense, since the $5 in this example to acquire a valid email address is a good value in the long run. But depending on how you actually collect that email address, you might be throwing $5 out the window. For instance, using a guest book where the shopper scrawls the email in the midst of their rush to complete the purchase and not hold up the line of people behind them is probably not the best approach. It leaves too much room for human error when the customer is filling out the form, or when it is entered into your CRM system at the end of the night - particularly since a lot of people's handwriting is less than legible these days. A better method is when the cashier enters the email directly into your POS system, confirming the address back to the consumer as they enter it.

Even better, think about how and when the incentive is delivered. To increase the chances of getting a valid email address, structure the program so that the incentive is delivered via email, to be used on the next visit. This is also a perfect opportunity to ask for a confirmed opt-in (i.e., "To get your coupon and to receive marketing messages click here"). While confirmed opt-in may sound scary, it validates the email address and interest of your customer to participate in your online marketing. More importantly, it effectively eliminates any possibility of hitting spam traps, which are often part of the backend costs of POS acquisition programs.

Building incentives for your customers is only half of the equation. How you motivate your employees is equally important. Don't build programs based on total number of email addresses collected each shift. Your employees can easily be tempted to make their quota by fabricating addresses, some of which might actually belong to a real person who will flag your email as spam, or have now been made into spam traps by an ISP. Employee incentives should only be based on the number of deliverable and confirmed email addresses collected.

Offering an incentive to customers or employees comes at a cost, which you can estimate up front based on your acquisition goals. But there are other costs to keep in mind. One is data auditing. You'll want to make sure you catch common errors in addresses like misspelled domains or missing dots in dotcom. An easy way to do this with online data collection is to add a real-time validator to your enrollment applications. This is easy to do and usually not very expensive. This will not only make corrections on they fly, but it can also be configured to catch your current customers who are already in your system.

Another hidden cost to consider is the time spent in the checkout process overall. Depending on how time-consuming it is to collect email addresses, it could mean fewer transactions per hour, and some shoppers might even abandon their purchase if the line doesn't move quickly enough. So be sure to train employees well, and perhaps set guidelines to keep the line moving.

Once the email address has been added to your database, the work is not done. Don't add these new addresses to your latest promotional message stream right away. It is important to nurture the new subscribers and keep them engaged past the holiday in order to make the acquisition efforts worthwhile. So make sure the first email you send delivers the incentive you promised, but also sells your email program. Outline that the reward they just received for signing up is only the first of many great things coming their way. If you can do that, hopefully that first point of sale won't be the last.

 

Rick Buck, vice president of Privacy and ISP relations, e-Dialog, @eDialogRick

 

This post was originally published by ClickZ.

 

Marketing Wrap-up: Week of November 18, 2011

As we end the last full week of work before Thanksgiving, here are a few newsworthy developments to keep the marketing juices flowing. 

 

From the UK DMA's blog comes an interesting post on the difference between frequency and cadence in email marketing. The two terms are often used to mean the same thing, but they are different. I haven't heard the concepts outlined this way before, so I'd be interested to hear if you think this is the right way to define the terms.

 

Maybe I'm a little biased, but I'm really excited about the new Facebook app PayPal has developed to let friends send money via Facebook. It's simply called Send Money, and that's exactly what you can do with it. You can send an eCard with the money, if it's a friend's birthday, for example, or just send money without an eCard. I think it will be interesting to see how this takes off over time. 

 

Over at ClickZ, Jeanne Jennings says blacklisting and filtering are legitimate marketers' best friends, even though they often complain about being blocked improperly. Symantec reports that 74% of email sent in September and October was spam, so imagine if that mail all got through to the inboxes of your subscribers. Talk about clutter! Are you thankful for the spam cops? 

 

Well, those are my top reads for this week. As always, let me know what you're reading and what you think of my picks. 

 

Liz Lynch, senior marketing communications associate

e-Dialog, @eDialogLiz

Marketing Wrap-Up: Week of October 21, 2011

Welcome to this week's serving of need-to-know marketing news!

 

On the email front, a new blog has launched, called MainSleaze. It aims to call out mainstream ESPs who have clients sending spam. It's gotten some attention from deliverability experts at several large ESPs, who say they will investigate reports of spam coming from their servers. 

 

Today on MediaPost, there was an article with lots of stats about mobile commerce and the inevitable convergence of mobile and local. It mentions some mind-blowing info eBay released during their earnings call: "eBay Mobile GMV expects to reach nearly $5 billion in revenue for 2011, more than double from last year. The company's mobile apps have been downloaded more than 50 million times. Today, consumers make three purchases per second on eBay Mobile applications."

 

Over on ClickZ, Simms Jenkins has a thoughtful article on the recent sale of Borders' email subscriber list to Barnes and Noble, asking if permission should be able to be purchased as an asset, the way this list was. And while the purchase price puts the acquisition cost per address at just .29, is that the true cost, since many (including me) will opt-out of being transferred in the first place, and those who miss the communication telling them how to do that may mark the Barnes and Noble email as spam? What do you think?

 

Google accidentally gave a sneak preview of their updated Gmail interface by posting a video on YouTube. The company saiys the redesign will make a cleaner, more intuitive and simple interface. You can check out the video on Mashable.

 

And finally, a new study shows that consumers who follow a brand on Twitter are 50% more likely to make a purchase and 60% more likely to recommend that brand to their firends. More good news for marketers, once a person follows a brand, they are not likely to unfollow.

 

Those are my top five stories for this week. I hope you found them informative and interesting. What stories did I miss? Let me know what you really liked this week.

 

Liz Lynch, senior marketing communications associate, e-Dialog, @eDialogLiz 

 

What Haunts Email Marketers

There are many urban legends and superstitions related to email deliverability, primarily from the early days of the industry. Lots of best practices and never-ever's that float around and get shared on discussion boards and at trade shows. In honor of Halloween, here are a few of the misconceptions still haunting email marketers that I think it's time to debunk.

The misconception that I hear the most is about subject lines. The biggest one is that there are certain words or characters that will flag your email as spam and no one will ever see your email again. Words like" free," a dollar sign, using all capital letters, or lots of exclamation points. Or even words like "lose weight" or "Xanax." Now, if you're Weight Watchers, or Pfizer, the manufacturer of Xanax, you're probably going to be using those supposed "spam triggers." In today's deliverability climate, whether or not messages get delivered is based more on overall IP reputation than specific words in the emails themselves. The only thing you need to worry about when crafting a subject line is whether or not it will motivate the recipient to open the email. Of course, it never hurts to do some A/B split testing to see which subject lines work better, and whether using a dollar sign leads to more opens than a percentage off message. And to be sure that your creative or content won't cause trouble, run it through one of the many spam assessment tools before sending your campaign.

Obviously, list building is a priority for all email marketers, and figuring out how to grow a list, usually quickly, has lead to some questionable practices. One that just won't die is trading your email list with another business. This one probably comes from the direct mail world, where it's common practice to buy access to a mailing list of a company similar to yours and mailing to it. In email, this doesn't fly. While it is technically legal under CAN-SPAM, it is likely your spam complaints will spike because people getting your email don't know why you are speaking to them. Instead, think about reciprocal marketing. Share space in your email with another marketer and ask them to do the same. You'll both get exposure to new customers and the opportunity to grow your list.

On the surface, it makes sense that consumers are more welcoming to emails at certain times of day or on particular days of the week. There's been research done, looking at the metrics to find out when the most opens and clicks happen, but I don't think it's something you can pin your program's success on. It's a moving target. It varies from person to person, and can depend a lot on where the person is and what they're doing. Focus instead on sending relevant messages and people will open them.

Finally, as we move full steam ahead into the holiday season, email marketers continue to think that mailing to inactive subscribers will somehow wake them up just in time to contribute to the bottom line. In fact, if they haven't opened an email from you in the last nine months, they probably won't start now. You've missed your chance to reengage. It's painful, but use your energy to create compelling messages for your active subscribers and you'll get more bang for your buck.

 

Rick Buck, VP, deliverability and ISP relations, e-Dialog, @eDialogRick

 

This article was originally published by ClickZ. 

 

Marketing Wrap-up: Week of September 30, 2011

Do you ever just stop and take a moment to look at what is going on in the digital marketing industry?

 

The industry moves fast and with most of us working at least 40 hour weeks, heads down, we fail to take note of all the current happenings. Whether you own an agency, manage campaigns or study the industry, you need to be in the know.

So, stop and have a read of a collection of links that we think are the hot topics of the week. Hey, if you can’t stop, at least take a glance and pick a few that stand out to you.  

Here is e-Dialog’s Top 10 list of links, buzz and reads for this week.

Here it goes: 

1. 1. According to ClickZ and recent conference agendas, mobile is still a big topic of discussion. The Mobile Evolution of Email goes through some statistics as to why this is.
    
2. 2. Ten top tips for brands creating tablet content from The Wall, explores the forecasted increase in tablet penetration and why it is important for brands to get on the band wagon.

1. 3. Tesco mixes augmented reality into Price Drop push – as well as a two-week TV campaign, out of home advertising, digital activity, a national press takeover and week-long radio activity - talk about multi-channel marketing!
    
2. 4. Return Path’s recent research shows inbox placement rates drop 3.5% over 18 months in the UK.
    
3. 5. An opinion piece from Gigaom about the evolution of mobile: Mobile payments won’t sell itself, it requires added value. Also on this topic, Dave Chaffey at Smart Insights gives us a short update on Google’s Wallet launch.
   
   
4. 6. ClickZ tells us how email works… if you didn’t know already. A strong focus on bounces, it’s worth a read.
    
5. 7. Marketing Profs are always full of good insights, this time they are teaching us a lesson, or four. How communities are changing marketing (and four community-building lessons)
   
   
6. 8. Mashable looks into how Facebook Timeline might radically change the look of brand pages. Also read the link within this article: what Facebook’s changes mean for marketers. Double whammy.
    
7. 9. Can you imagine your desk without a desktop computer? And instead of a computer, all you have is a mobile phone where everything you need to fulfill your working day resides. Well it’s coming and ClickZ tell us to get over it. How rude.
    
8. 10. There must be something in the water, everyone is talking about mobile email this week (more than usual) and MarketingSherpa is no exception: Mobile email marketing: 5 tactics to engage and convert smartphone users.

10.5. Utilizing video in marketing: the first ever scavenger hunt to hit YouTube comes from Zyrtec. Play the game to win a Samsung Galaxy Tab.

 

Now that didn’t take so long, did it?  Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments below.

Have a great weekend and we'll see you next week.

Millie Bartlett, Marketing Intern, e-Dialog

 

 

 

Marketing Wrap-up: Week of September 23, 2011

Welcome to the first installment of our new feature, the Marketing Wrap-up! Each Friday, we'll bring you the top stories of the week that impact digital marketers.

 

Obviously, the number one story of this week is Facebook's new layout and the features they announced Thursday at the F8 developer's conference. The biggest change is that profiles will now be timelines, allowing users to share their lives on Facebook, as a kind of digital scrapbook. Additionally, they are opening up the Open Graph technology to allow developers to create buttons for things other than "like," such as "read," or "watched." There was a lot of talk about frictionless apps and real-time serendipity....which sound cool, but I'm not sure I want to give apps permission to post as much as they want, when they want instead of approving posts.

Check out Facebook's info on the new timeline and sign up to be one of the first to get it. 



 

From Digital Marketing International comes a commentary on Forrester's recent report on European email attitudes. 

Forrester’s recent report on consumer attitudes to email showed a trend across Europe for declining consumer attention and increasing likelihood to delete.  Although the reasons often vary by country (particularly around attitudes to privacy), the overall picture is pretty consistent and amply reflects the need for an improvement in relevance as marketers seek to adapt this most established of digital channels to a changing landscape.

 

And finally, ReturnPath has released their latest global deliverability report that shows almost one fifth of email marketing messages are failing to make it to the inbox. I think the key findings are these:

Many senders are still resistant to implementing the best practices that make email deliverability more likely and more consistent. We still see programs with high frequency, low valueand lack of segmentation. Research done by Return Path Professional Services shows high percentages of top brands missing basic best practices like welcome messages, efficient opt-out procedures and appropriate permission levels, which all can strengthen email deliverability.

 

 

What's your take on these stories? What was your top story this week? Do you think Google+ opening to everyone is news? I would love to hear about it!

 

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

Liz Lynch, senior marketing communications associate, e-Dialog

Holiday Preparedness: Four Ways to Be Sure Your Messages Make It to the Inbox

The lazy days of summer are behind us, and before we know it, we will be knee-deep in the holiday season. Hopefully, you've already developed your messaging strategy and schedule for Q4, but don't forget about steps you need to take to ensure those messages actually make it to consumers' inboxes. Just as you clean house for visiting relatives and decorate to get into the holiday spirit, do some housekeeping in your email database.

Your main objective should be to start the holiday season with the cleanest list possible. There are several ways to do this. First, take a look at your inactive subscribers. Target those who were at one time valuable to you and send them a reengagement message. Remember, it's OK to incent them with a little brand love if they confirm their opt-in status. Another segment to consider is the group of people that were active last December, but then went dark. They are likely to be your holiday deal hunters and shoppers. Send a message to them letting them know you are about to start your holiday messaging and ask them to reconfirm whether or not they want to hear from you again this year. Be specific and point out the benefits of your email program, like Black Friday previews or free shipping offers.

Second, be transparent about frequency changes. It's not uncommon for once-a-week mailers to become daily mailers during the holiday season. Consumers (and ISPs) are generally forgiving about increased frequency during the holidays, but if possible, offer subscribers options. Ask them to update their frequency preferences, and offer daily or weekly emails. Also, update your unsubscribe page with options for frequency. Letting recipients choose a decreased frequency rather than unsubscribing all together has been a very successful tactic. Plus, it can keep your spam complaints down. Another creative way to increase frequency while keeping engagement high is to develop a triggered series, based on something like the 12 days of Christmas, or top 10 trendy gifts.

Third, remove or correct erroneous data from your list. This is the right time of the year to put your list through a hygiene service to remove typos and known traps, or to correct syntax errors and other troublesome data on your list. Many retailers, for example, rely on POS to generate new email addresses. There will be an enormous uptick in store traffic and new email addresses over the next few weeks. These names are more susceptible to typos or related errors, which potentially translate to hard bounces, spam traps, or complaints. New names collected manually at the register or electronically online can also be made hygienic in real- or right-time to ensure their legitimacy and deliverability. Programs like these are typically cost effective and easy to do.

Fourth, ask active subscribers to update their shopping preferences. A lot can change in a year. Maybe grandma has moved from Boston to Miami and no longer needs those emails about the best down comforters. A child who wanted nothing but Spiderman gear last Christmas may have switched his loyalty to Superman. Ask your customers if they would prefer a mobile version of your email. This year, smartphones will be a key tool in holiday shopping, and being able to access your deal or coupon via email will make things easier for shoppers.

Rejuvenating lost email addresses, correcting bad addresses, and knowing your customers' preferences can really boost revenue in a major way. It's time to clean the house for the holidays and, throw away the five-year-old fruit cakes while you're at it.

 

Rick Buck, vice president, deliverability and ISP relations, e-Dialog

 

This article was originally published by ClickZ. 

 

Privacy vs. Profit: The Emerging Privacy Economy

It wasn't that long ago that the proprietor of the local general store provided personalized service to his customers by interacting with them and knowing their needs. He could do this because he was part of the community. He heard about their lives because he chatted with them and with their neighbors. He got to do this because he had their trust and in turn took care of their needs. What he didn't do was follow them around from store to store peeking in the windows to see what else they were doing. For modern marketers, this practice is becoming an integral part of their communication strategy.

Technology makes it easy for us to track consumers online in order to make more relevant offers or to cleverly nudge them to complete a purchase they abandoned on another web page. However, there is a fine line between sending targeted offers and just plain creeping people out.

Few consumers realize the places they visit on the web can remember what items they looked at on their site, the search terms they used to find the item, and what items they compared it to. Fewer still know that via cookies, marketers can track all the sites they visit, and serve up ads to them across the web, based on browsing activity. So how do you use data in a way that helps bring the customer back but doesn't come across like a George Orwell book?

For me, there are a few key guidelines:

1. Be transparent. Recent data breaches have brought privacy concerns to front of mind for many. Don't put the burden on the user to investigate how their data is used. Tell users what information you are collecting and how you are collecting it. Disclose that you work with third-party vendors if applicable. Use language the average person can understand, not legalese.
2. 
   
3. Provide options. Don't be afraid to give users control over how much personal information they share. Provide options for them to manage that information and explain how you use and share the data you collect.
4. 
   
5. Show the value to the consumer. Don't make it all about you. Show how you can provide a better, more personalized experience through behavioral targeting. When faced with the prospect of totally irrelevant advertising, most people feel sharing some personal information is a fair trade.
6. 
   

Paradoxically, it seems the answer to how to handle the role of technology in monitoring online behavior may be more technology. Start-ups like Personal and Singly aim to let Internet users aggregate and control what specific data is shared and what isn't. While these companies may never gain wide visibility, the very fact of their existence should act as advance warning to smart marketers. Those that can show honesty and transparency and build trust with their customers now will come out ahead in the evolving "privacy economy."

 

Rick Buck, e-Dialog

 

This article was originally published by ClickZ.

Is Your Email Address Worth an Invite to Spotify?

Our UK counterparts have been enjoying it for a while now, but the Spotify music service has finally launched in the US.  With the launch, early invites are being given out by marketers in exchange for an email address, like this offer from Coke. Click the image to view the full offer.

Generally when promotions like these happen, the user experience can go one of two ways.

 

Some people will avoid giving up the email adress entirely because they think they’ll get tons of third party email and it’s not clear what giving up their email address really means.  How respectful will that company will be with their email address?  To this type of user, the value of the invite does not offset the hassle of having their inbox flooded with mail they never wanted to begin with. The reverse may also happen, a user signs up immediately, without reading the unnecessarily long terms.  A  few days later, they begin to receive all the messages they ‘signed up’ for and begin regretting their decision. 

 

Kudos to Coke and Spotify for not burying the terms of the offer in 10 pages of white copy that 99% of us will never read. They have clearly laid out what the user can expect, i. e. messages from Coke, and messages from Spotify, that’s it. 

 

I highly suggest embracing this straightforward approach on signup pages. Be honest about what people are really signing up for.  By not burying it, or adding countless pre-checked boxes, your customers will appreciate it, new users will be more apt to sign up, (with their real address) and it will result in more long-term success for both that campaign and more importantly, future ones.

 

Now if you still don’t trust them and want to see if they hold true to their promise, give a tagged email address (if your email provider supports it) and see what they really do with it. :-)

 

<youremail>+spotify@gmail.com

 

http://www.spotify.com/us/coca-cola/

 

Jay Brangiforte, senior deliverability operations manager, e-Dialog

Like Weather in New England: New Rules of Digital Communications

There's no denying that 2011 has brought us some of the wildest weather on record for many regions in the U.S., and we're only half way through the year with hurricane season just getting started. But I'm from New England, where "weather prediction" is a laughable oxymoron, much to the chagrin of our meteorologists, so we're accustomed to just going with the flow. Mark Twain captured this sentiment best when he said, "If you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes."

The same can be said for the rules and regulations of digital communications - like the weather in New England, change is the only constant, so how can marketers keep up, stay on the right side of the law, and make sure their marketing messages get delivered. Unfortunately, shrugging your shoulders in resignation and just going with the flow, like how many New Englanders handle the weather, won't cut it. You have to constantly stay abreast of the new rules and regulations of digital communications, not only for the U.S, but across the globe.

Permission, Disclosure, and Choice - Close to a Silver Bullet

The good news is that there's a fairly straightforward and common sense approach to managing the complexity of the digital communications legal landscape: put yourself in your customer's shoes. Like you, most consumers welcome timely, relevant marketing messages they've opted in to receiving from their favorite brands. Anything short of that is at best perceived as a nuisance and in many cases considered spam. Achieving a high degree of marketing relevance will put you well on the road to ensuring compliance with even the most stringent of digital marketing regulations from any region across the globe. Getting there means taking a close look at your marketing practices for permission, disclosure, and choice.

In the case of permission, make sure you take a clear and transparent opt-in approach for all of your marketing channels, including email, SMS, text, social marketing, and tracking. You must also ensure that any and all third-party marketing partners and affiliates follow these same across-the-board opt-in policies.

You also need transparent disclosure when gathering consumer data for your opt-in marketing programs. Make sure consumers clearly understand the following:

• ~ What information is being collected
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• ~ How the information will be used
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• ~ How and with whom the information will be shared
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Finally, give consumers control by empowering them to make their own choices about the use and collection of their personal profile information. Marketers can also provide consumers with tools to access, view, and correct inaccurate profile data. You should always give them the option to delete some aspects of their profile or to opt out at any time by deleting their profile altogether.

Are these approaches the silver bullet to achieving full compliance? Unfortunately, the rules, regulations, and legislative initiatives are changing all of the time, not only in the U.S., but in every region and in many different countries, so there is no silver bullet. But, sticking to strict opt-in and transparency will put you on the white hat side of best practices digital marketing nearly 100 percent of the time. The rest of it is keeping up with the fine print. In my next column, I will take a closer look at each region and some of the specific regulations in progress, first starting with the U.S. and followed by Canada, the European Union (EU), and Asia Pacific (APAC).

 

Rick Buck, vice president, privacy and ISP relations, e-Dialog

 

This post was originally published on ClickZ.com.

Spring Cleaning: The Top 10 Deliverability Misconceptions

As I think back on my many years working in the direct marketing industry, I am reminded of the French proverb, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Here's why. While the medium has seen a tremendous shift to online, the message from many marketers is still the same: I need to grow my list and I need to mail everything to all people on it. Well ladies and gentlemen, get the kids, wake the dog, it's time to do some spring cleaning and wipe away the top 10 deliverability misconceptions direct marketers seem to consistently have.

1. 1. The bigger I can get my list, the more money I will make from it. A large list might make you feel better, but unless all of the people on it want to be there, the size of your list could actually be losing you money. First, you are paying to send information to people who don't respond to it. Second, removing these people will change your denominator and your mailings will actually be more profitable. Lastly and most importantly, the old and unresponsive names on your list are turning into spam trap complaints, ruining your IP reputation and degrading your delivery and deliverability potential.
2. 
   
3. 2. When consumers click the "report as spam" button it's OK to continue sending them marketing email. People primarily click this button because they don't see the value of your email. Some people also still believe this is the only way to safely unsubscribe. Continuing to mail to them is counterproductive. You need to unsubscribe people who complain about your mail. In fact, some ISPs will penalize you for not doing so.
4. 
   
5. 3. Subscribers read and understand your privacy policy. When was the last time you read a privacy policy or EULA (end-user license agreement)? Burying the fine print about what and how you will use personally identifiable information (PII) in a privacy policy is a waste of the paper it's printed on. People want to know what the rules are and what they will get in return for giving you their information. Make it very easy for this to be communicated. Think about adopting a privacy-by-design mentality for your company. A good place to start is with a very simplified and straightforward privacy policy clearly posted near all data collection points.
6. 
   
7. 4. I need to have 100 percent delivery and deliverability rate 100 percent of the time. For the most part, this is simply unattainable all the time. Surprisingly, you - not the ISP - have complete control over this metric. If you keep your lists extremely clean and your customers are actively engaged with your email program, you will have a great IP reputation and outstanding delivery rates and inbox presence.
8. 
   
9. 5. Doesn't the ISP know how much money we spend in advertising dollars? Why are they blocking my mail? Clearly there is a separation of church and state here. Try as you may, your account person at your favorite ISP will have no influence getting you unblocked. No matter how much money you spend with them, you are getting blocked because you probably mailed something you shouldn't have (a bad list, mismatched content, your opt-outs thinking they will opt in again, etc.)
10. 
    
11. 6. ISPs should care that my email gets through because we are a known brand. While this may seem redundant to No. 5 above, it is worth separating out. Honestly, ISPs don't care if you are the Girl Scouts or an adult video company. If the people on your list have asked to be there and are interacting with your mail, it will get delivered.
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13. 7. All of my customers want to hear from me all the time even if they never open or click on my mail. This one's easy if you put yourself in their shoes. At some point, don't you want the guy at your door to stop trying to sell you encyclopedias when you never answer your door?
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15. 8. I can pass this message off as transactional, so I can mail all of my customers who have unsubscribed. In the U.S., sending transactional messages containing content that you need to tell people (order/shipping confirmations, order status updates, warrantee, or legal notices) does not require suppressing opt-outs. Further, including commercial content in transactional messages can be done and is often very effective. But for example, messages that are sent to remind people that they forgot to buy something are most likely considered commercial and need to have opt-outs suppressed. Pretending this is transactional content will potentially raise enough complaints to instigate deliverability or even legal issues.
16. 
    
17. 9. Just because it's legal, it's OK to do it. It's not illegal to color your hair neon rainbow colors. But it's probably not a good idea to go to a job interview with it (unless it's to a neon hair color salon). The same holds true for your marketing offers. Treat your customers with respect and tell them targeted and intelligent things. They will reward you with their continued business.
18. 
    
19. 10. I got a CD for $50 with a list of 100 million double opt-in names. I am going to make so much money from this. By now, most people know better, but there are still a few hold-outs that think buying a list from an unconfirmed source is a good idea. If it sounds too good to be true…it probably is. 
20. 
    

Rick Buck, vice president, ISP relations, e-Dialog

Note: this article was first published in ClickZ. 

Returns and Exchanges: Operation Domain-ation: A Call to Unsubscribe

As email marketers, we identify any wave of deliverability instability as an urgent call to examine list health. How old is our list? Do we have the safest opt-in practice? Are we segmenting? Are specific acquisition sources, aka “sweeps” tanking our performance? Are we over mailing? Why then are our subscribers hitting that devilish SPAM button?

More often than not, retailers pull the victim card and directly follow up with their Email Provider to sway the Postmaster to play nice. “Our email list is not contaminated… we have a double opt-in process, our buyers want to be on our list-they didn’t uncheck that pre-checked sign up box.” Oy, we’ve heard it all! And truthfully, your friendly email team empathizes; a dip in delivery will directly impact subscriber engagement, brand affinity and revenue potential. These are considerable losses, and you need to act now to mitigate issues down the line that will inevitably impact your bottom line. 

So what can you do before the “Post Bouncer” crosses your brand off the list? A call to unsubscribe!

As your email team constructs and deconstructs your reactivation strategy, you can start “operation domain-ation” with an executionally painless and impactful re-position of your unsubscribe link. Athletic retailer Lululemon recently launched this clean up approach. Check out their email header, and find an option to unsubscribe in a clear, clutter-free location in the upper right hand corner--prime real estate usually inhabited by a forward to a friend or “Share” link.   

Note: not buried in footer legal

    

This tactic is certainly not new, it's often suggested to “complaint-prone” retailers to help avoid SPAM feedback. Easier said than done? Still debating whether lost emails contribute to lost potential revenue? Remember-if bad emails cause spam trap complaints and blocks-the negative impact is inevitable.

Why not try this tactic for a 1-off campaign, for a week, or target a problematic segment?  Whichever one you choose, do your brand a favor and don’t hesitate. Present subscribers with an organic opportunity to fall off before they do so via feedback loop or undel bounce. It’s not hard saying goodbye to dead weight if the return is higher engagement, retention and profitability!

Plus… it’s a good way to stay on the “Guest List” and not have to pay your way in the backdoor!

 

Anna McCarthy, strategy specialist, client services, e-Dialog

 

Standing at the Edge of the Precipice of Consumer Trust

Over the past few months there have been a series of well-planned phishing attacks on our industry. The attacks have focused on assorted corners of our world: multiple email service providers (ESPs), a delivery assurance company, blue-chip brands, even a leading security/risk prevention company. The fact of the matter is that all businesses that collect, store, analyze, or send information are vulnerable. This, by the way, is not a new story; it's just currently getting some well-needed attention.

The first and obvious concern about the breaches is how much data was compromised and who now has access to it? Ultimately, this question will be answered and the respective damage control will ensue.

The bigger issue is well-beyond the unauthorized release of a large number of email addresses. We are standing at the edge of a precipice of consumer trust. If consumers don't believe they can trust you with their data, they won't give it to you.

The timing of these breaches in combination with a global call for better legislation or self-regulation about data privacy and data security raises the need for us to take a hard look at how we keep our clients' and their customers' personal and sometimes sensitive data secure.

We all know that it is impossible to be completely impenetrable. There are, however, many simple things that can be done to mitigate the risk of being comprised. Here are a few pointers to help protect your data:

• Perform an internal or independent third-party audit to identify where you are vulnerable
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• Audit user rights for employees and clients
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• Don't send usernames or password combinations via email
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• Don't store passwords in publically accessible areas: WIKIs, sticky-notes, or plain text files
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• Use encryption whenever transferring data over a public network
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• Make security awareness a critical part of your employee education program
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• Adopt a consumer education policy that includes a simplified privacy policy
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• Adhere to information security standards such as ISO 27001
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You should also be thinking about how you would actually handle a breach. Do you have a plan in place to handle events like this? Here are a few suggestions on how to be prepared to deal with a crisis.

• Establish a cross-functional security team that includes key members of the company
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• Define specific roles for management, IT, and client services
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• Have the ability to analyze and identify the cause of the breach
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• Contain the problem immediately
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• Have a communication plan for employees and customers
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• Reach out to the appropriate authorities (e.g., police, FBI)
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While the media frenzy around this subject has been sensationalized out of proportion, it has forced us to take a hard look at how we handle data security at our respective companies. The days of leaving your front door unlocked or your keys in the car at night are long behind us. It's finally time to dust off that punch-list of security fixes you've been meaning to get to for the past few years. We don't need new laws to tell us how to do this, just a little common sense. An ounce of prevention and preparedness will go a long way toward building trust with consumers and protecting the emerging online channel we rely on to do business.

 

Rick Buck, vice president of privacy and ISP relations, e-Dialog

 

This article originally appeared on www.ClickZ.com. 

 

What Recent Breaches Mean for Marketers, Even if Their Data Wasn't Compromised

The string of recent data breaches at Email Service Providers, and in particular the Epsilon breach, have brought to consumer attention what happens to personal information, like name and email address, once you hit submit. Some articles advise consumers to get off every list they possibly can and change their email address and password for every site. Obviously, this is unnecessary and if consumers follow this advice, the impact on brands’ email marketing effectiveness could be quite significant in a number of ways. So what can marketers do?

 

Build Trust With Subscribers

Consumers are already leery of giving out personal information, including their email address. Marketers will need to be even more transparent about what data they ask for, how that data is used, how it is stored, and for how long. Many complaints I saw on Twitter were from consumers asking why they received a notification about a data breach when they unsubscribed from emails more than a year ago. They also questioned why their data was shared with a third party. Be up front about the fact that you use outside vendors for your database, email or mobile marketing and outline how you ensure these vendors protect customer data. 

 

Keep a Close Eye On Your List

The average email marketer sees 30% of their list go inactive each year. It's likely this will increase in the short term as consumers abandon existing email accounts and perhaps create new ones. Most people have several accounts, and they could simply abandon one or two that they feel are the least secure. In addition, consumers may begin to think more seriously about disposable email aliases, like the ones offered by Hotmail. Hotmail users can set up five aliases that deliver to one inbox. When the user no longer wants to use the alias, they simply delete it. They don't even need to unsubscribe, so you as the marketer would have zero chance to re-engage with that subscriber. Given this, you may need to re-evaluate how you define an inactive subscriber, acting proactively to try and reinforce your commitment to customer satisfaction and data security. 

 

Make the Most of Your Preference Center

If you have an email preference center, you're ahead of the game, but you may want to make a few changes. For instance, be sure your preference center allows subscribers to change their email address. Otherwise, they may unsubscribe and not re-subscribe. And even if they do re-subscribe, you will have lost all the data associated with their previous email address. To you, it will be a new relationship, but the customer may wonder why you act like you don't know who they are, which will have a negative impact on overall customer experience and potentially your deliverability and bottom line.

 

Have you seen an impact on your list since the data breach? I'd love to hear your tactics for increasing subscriber confidence. Just leave a comment!

 

Liz Lynch, senior marketing communications associate, e-Dialog

 

Marketers - Don’t Wait, Self Regulate

This week Senators John Kerry and John McCain proposed legislation called the Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011.  The proposed legislation would impose new rules on companies that gather personal data.  Companies would be required to seek permission to gather and share consumer profile data.   The bipartisan legislation adopts many of the recommendations made by the Obama Administration last year for a “privacy bill of rights.”

 

At this stage it’s important to remember that this is proposed legislation and it’s far from a done deal. There are also at least two other bills in discussion calling for things like a do-not-track mechanism, and better disclosure to the consumer of what information is being collected about them, accessibility to that data, and the right to restrict or prevent the use of it.

 

On the self-regulation side, industry groups such as the DMA and IAB have offered the Advertising Option Icon program as a means for consumers to opt out of web tracking. Another group of online advertising companies wants to work with browsers to develop a technology solution to let consumers make choices about how they are being tracked online.

 

How all of this activity will actually play out is still unclear. Will the rules apply to first- or third-party tracking? Will they apply to cookies that are necessary to conduct business with your customer? Regardless, the solution is likely a combination of technology, self-regulation, and legislation. The common denominator between them lies in empowering individuals with the ability to opt out of being tracked as they travel along the Internet for their personal use.

 

What is becoming more apparent is that personal information belongs to the person. It is our privilege to know this information about our customers - not our right. Marketers need to embrace this paradigm shift. As an industry, we should be thinking about how to best leverage a do-not-track position rather than be afraid of it.

 

The more we know about our customers, the better we can accommodate their needs about the products and services we sell to them. Our customers want relevant information presented to them. In my opinion, they will likely allow you to track them to get this individually customized information. We just need to live up to our end of the bargain.

 

As an industry, we need to begin to adopt a new viewpoint about the data we collect and how it will be used, along with a new perspective on the do-not-track world we are about to work in. In a recent article on this subject, industry expert Ernan Ronan commented, "Instead of fighting Do-Not-Track efforts, companies should base more decisions on frequency of contact, contact preferences, and what content is being viewed."

 

I have often touted the benefits of presenting customers with a strong value proposition and allowing them to control their marketing preferences. They will tell you a lot about themselves if they believe it is worth the value of your proposition. In doing so, the playing field changes from "we'll track you if we can" to "yes, you can track me."

 

Rick Buck, vice president, privacy/ISP relations, e-Dialog

Why You Need to Take Action on DKIM

DKIM Whitelisting is the next generation of e-mail authentication technology and best practices. So, what does this mean for the average e-mail marketer?

If your brand uses ReturnPath's authentication services, then you will be required to implement DKIM Whitelisting by March 1, 2011 in order to stay certified. To quote a popular subject line, act now because time is running out! Otherwise, you may be invited to join the whitelisting program.

Think of a DKIM signature like a social security card. Though it does not guarantee improved deliverability, it will certainly help ISPs recognize your brand and validate your brand more quickly and efficiently at the "front door." The major ISPs have already implemented measures to look for DKIM signatures, including Yahoo! and Gmail, however ISPs are not requiring DKIM for inbox acceptance...yet.

Configuring DKIM signatures is simple. The process is very similar to the set up of new domain/DNS entries. Marketers (and their ESPs, if applicable) will have to create and register DKIM sub-domains under existing parent DNS domains.

DKIM signatures will have little effect on e-mail marketing production teams. The From Address will remain the same, and there will be no changes required of HTML/creative teams. The DKIM signature will be made available in the e-mail header, similar to how the DNS is accessible via the header today; however, it would not be shown in the e-mail content. This means that the average e-mail subscriber will never see, or even really know about, the DKIM signature.

Though it is not a required measure for most marketers (yet), we should all be knowledgable about the process and benefits of DKIM Whitelisting. This is a proactive measure that will allow your brand to be efficiently and effectively recognized by ISPs. These ISPs constantly assess and re-define their criteria for inbox acceptance, and DKIM Whitelisting allows us to stay one step ahead of the curve.

 

Have you implemented DKIM? I'd love to hear about it-just leave a comment.

 

Evan Duffy, program manager, e-Dialog