by Gary Levitt
Nobody loves email marketing more than I do. But even I admit that within the grand taxonomy of consumer touchpoints, e-newsletters hold a sorry position.
They're the longwinded busybodies who never get invited to the cool parties. Porcelain-skinned print campaigns turn up their perky, sans-serif noses at e-newsletters' frumpy templates and canned copy. Super Bowl spots kick sand in e-newsletters' bespectacled faces.
Yet, these boxy embodiments of mediocrity move product and build loyalty. Marketing people are aware of this—they've proven it with charts and everything. You need an e-newsletter and you know it.
Before rolling up your sleeves, cranking up the REO Speedwagon, and cooking up some long-form creation-wizard-based love, please review the following six bromides from a recent how-to article phoned in by a reigning email-marketing magnate.
After each, I'll explain how to do the exact opposite so that you can avoid polluting the e-cosystem with mediocre e-newsletters.
1. Share expertise
Wrong—share ignorance. Consider the old Zen adage "the more I know, the less I know." It means the more expertise we have, the more we're dazzled by just how little we currently understand.
Pick something you're marvelously clueless about and confess the fact to your readers. They won't fault you for it—but they just might love you for it. As long as the topic you're "ignorant" about is something they didn't even know they were ignorant about until reading your enlightening e-newsletter.
2. Tell a success story
Wrong—tell a failure story. It humanizes your company and demonstrates your high standards. Example: a legendary 1960s ad for the Volkswagen Beetle showed just the car, with "Lemon" in bold type. The copy explained, "The chrome strip on the glove compartment was blemished and needs to be replaced."
While other car companies waxed self-congratulatory about success, Volkswagen cornered the market talking about failure. You can do the same with your e-newsletters—simply master the art of strategic self-criticism. It never fails.
3. Conduct a relevant interview
Wrong—conduct a gloriously irrelevant interview. Approaching a topic head-on can be a headache—especially if it's been done to death. Try a sideways approach. What can your design firm glean from interviewing a homeless man? How might a chat with a priest spice up your women's fashion newsletter? Why would a software developer pick a farmer's brain about emptying grain bins into semi trailers?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but I'm willing to read your e-newsletter to find out!
4. Take an in-depth look at a product or service you offer
Wrong—take an in-depth look at a product or service you refuse to offer. As the visionaries of 37signals say in Getting Real (sort of a Thomas Paine's Common Sense for the digital generation), "do less than your competitors in order to beat them."
Embrace l'esprit du moment by poking satirical fun at the superfluous features common to your industry. Waving the simplicity banner while it's still in vogue is smart—and your next e-newsletter is a smart place to wave it.
5. Springboard off of current events
Wrong—springboard off of that which is timeless. Your readers are suffering from information overload—spare them the latest trope on gas prices, politics and Paris Hilton. Realize that the guys reading your scrap metal e-newsletter probably don't give a rat's ass that it's Halloween.
And while you're at it, throw away the springboard. Relying on convoluted conversation-starters is a milquetoast way to win friends and influence people—both in life and in e-newsletters.
6. Ask your readers
Wrong—listen to readers. In the words of Louis Armstrong, "if you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know." Same wisdom applies to knowing the hearts of your readers. Get in sync with customers' needs by observing their riffs in natural online habitats built around your company. Replace pre-fab surveys with improvised forums. The intuition you gain will free you up to follow the inspiration of the moment and hit the high notes needed to create authentic brand loyalty.
* * *
Rebelling against clichés will keep your customers reading, and it'll keep you writing—without falling asleep. This matters. Readers can sense when you're just going through the motions. That can't be good for your brand, regardless of what the stats say.
So ask yourself: Am I excited about my e-newsletter? Does it express my voice and vision? Did I have fun creating it? If you have to ignore an army of email experts' advice (including mine) to get to where you can answer "yes" to those questions, so be it. That's called employing the virtues of e-newsletter disobedience.
Super Bowl commercials, watch out!
Showing posts with label email. Show all posts
Showing posts with label email. Show all posts
Friday, November 28, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Email Hygiene: Six Ways to Polish Your List
by Eric Groves
Fifty million people changed their email address last year. How many of those old addresses are on your email list right now?
You already know the importance of a permission-based email list. You even practice list segmentation to improve the relevance of the emails you send to your customers and prospects.
But how much time do you devote to cleaning your email list? If your email hygiene is lax, you're greatly limiting the success of your campaigns.
An up-to-date, clean email list can have a big impact on your delivery, open, and click-through rates, not to mention your ongoing compliance with CAN-SPAM laws.
Permission is perishable. Just because you received permission to send emails to a prospect three or six months ago doesn't mean they're still interested—especially if you're an infrequent emailer.
Act quickly when you receive permission to ensure that your email recipients remember you and your service. The older your list, the more likely it needs a checkup.
Has it been a while since your last cleaning? Follow these six steps to polish up your email list:
1. Analyze bounce-backs
After every email campaign you send, analyze the bounce-backs you receive. Identify the different reasons for the bounce to determine next steps (Was your email was blocked? Is the recipient is no longer at that address?). Remove hard bounces from your list. This is also a great way to identify and correct obvious typos in your list (e.g., ".con" instead of ".com").
2. Manage your unsubscribe requests
If you use an email marketing service with automatic unsubscribe, this step is handled for you. If not, you must do this yourself—and not only because you want to maintain a clean list: It's required by law.
3. Monitor your "reply to" address
Many recipients are fearful of using the unsubscribe function as it has been used by spammers as a way of verifying an address rather than as a legitimate unsubscribe. So, be aware of unsubscribe requests coming to your "reply to" address and permanently remove those unsubscribers' addresses.
4. Examine your open and click-through rates
You may think your email list is pretty clean, but look closer. Have your open rates decreased over the past six months or year? Are your click-throughs on the decline?
Over time, people can lose interest in a specific product or service, or they might move or change jobs and no longer require your service, but they haven't taken the step to unsubscribe. These subscribers may meet the requirements of permission-based email, but in reality they're just clogging up your list.
If you cannot re-engage them, it's best to simply remove them and move on.
5. Re-engage inactive list members
Segment your members who haven't opened your emails for the past six months and create some special communications just for them with the goal of getting them to re-engage and open your emails. If that doesn't work, remove them.
Clearly, they aren't interested; and your time is better spent communicating with people who are interested.
6. Rebuild your list the right way
As you weed out the bad emails and unsubscribes, you'll of course want to rebuild your list with new, interested subscribers. It's imperative to grow your list the right way, with permission-based emails.
Make it easy for interested parties to opt in wherever they come in contact with you, your brand, or service—such as on your Web site, in your email signature, at your physical store, etc. It's also a great idea to give them options for the types of communications they want to receive from you (e.g., newsletters, promotions, coupons) and how often (e.g., weekly, monthly).
* * *
If you haven't cleaned up your list in a while, the first time will be a little challenging; but afterward, cleaning your email list should be a simple matter of maintenance. Set aside some time following each campaign or just once a month to analyze your unsubscribes, open rates, bounce-backs, etc., and toss the bad emails out.
Your sparkling clean email list may shrink a bit, but it will outperform your big, old, messy list any day.
Eric Groves is senior vice-president, worldwide strategy & market development, at Constant Contact
Fifty million people changed their email address last year. How many of those old addresses are on your email list right now?
You already know the importance of a permission-based email list. You even practice list segmentation to improve the relevance of the emails you send to your customers and prospects.
But how much time do you devote to cleaning your email list? If your email hygiene is lax, you're greatly limiting the success of your campaigns.
An up-to-date, clean email list can have a big impact on your delivery, open, and click-through rates, not to mention your ongoing compliance with CAN-SPAM laws.
Permission is perishable. Just because you received permission to send emails to a prospect three or six months ago doesn't mean they're still interested—especially if you're an infrequent emailer.
Act quickly when you receive permission to ensure that your email recipients remember you and your service. The older your list, the more likely it needs a checkup.
Has it been a while since your last cleaning? Follow these six steps to polish up your email list:
1. Analyze bounce-backs
After every email campaign you send, analyze the bounce-backs you receive. Identify the different reasons for the bounce to determine next steps (Was your email was blocked? Is the recipient is no longer at that address?). Remove hard bounces from your list. This is also a great way to identify and correct obvious typos in your list (e.g., ".con" instead of ".com").
2. Manage your unsubscribe requests
If you use an email marketing service with automatic unsubscribe, this step is handled for you. If not, you must do this yourself—and not only because you want to maintain a clean list: It's required by law.
3. Monitor your "reply to" address
Many recipients are fearful of using the unsubscribe function as it has been used by spammers as a way of verifying an address rather than as a legitimate unsubscribe. So, be aware of unsubscribe requests coming to your "reply to" address and permanently remove those unsubscribers' addresses.
4. Examine your open and click-through rates
You may think your email list is pretty clean, but look closer. Have your open rates decreased over the past six months or year? Are your click-throughs on the decline?
Over time, people can lose interest in a specific product or service, or they might move or change jobs and no longer require your service, but they haven't taken the step to unsubscribe. These subscribers may meet the requirements of permission-based email, but in reality they're just clogging up your list.
If you cannot re-engage them, it's best to simply remove them and move on.
5. Re-engage inactive list members
Segment your members who haven't opened your emails for the past six months and create some special communications just for them with the goal of getting them to re-engage and open your emails. If that doesn't work, remove them.
Clearly, they aren't interested; and your time is better spent communicating with people who are interested.
6. Rebuild your list the right way
As you weed out the bad emails and unsubscribes, you'll of course want to rebuild your list with new, interested subscribers. It's imperative to grow your list the right way, with permission-based emails.
Make it easy for interested parties to opt in wherever they come in contact with you, your brand, or service—such as on your Web site, in your email signature, at your physical store, etc. It's also a great idea to give them options for the types of communications they want to receive from you (e.g., newsletters, promotions, coupons) and how often (e.g., weekly, monthly).
* * *
If you haven't cleaned up your list in a while, the first time will be a little challenging; but afterward, cleaning your email list should be a simple matter of maintenance. Set aside some time following each campaign or just once a month to analyze your unsubscribes, open rates, bounce-backs, etc., and toss the bad emails out.
Your sparkling clean email list may shrink a bit, but it will outperform your big, old, messy list any day.
Eric Groves is senior vice-president, worldwide strategy & market development, at Constant Contact
5 ways to increase deliverability
By Karen J. Bannan
Story posted: July 31, 2008 - 3:37 pm EDT
This week e-mail services company Return Path released its Q2 2008 Reputation Benchmark Report. The results highlight the fact that for many b-to-b marketers, deliverability may still be an issue. According to the report, e-mails sent from “legitimate” e-mail servers averaged a delivery rate of 56%; 20% were rejected and 8% went into some type of filter. The rest—16%—were bounces. In other words, almost half of the time, e-mail marketers’ messages aren’t getting through. There are ways to increase deliverability, though, according to George Bilbrey, Return Path’s general manager of delivery assurance. Here are five to consider:
1) Make sure your e-mail server—or your ESP’s—is configured correctly. If you maintain your own e-mail server, it’s crucial that it’s set up correctly. If not, Bilbrey said, you run the risk of being classified as an illegitimate server. This means making sure your reverse DNS settings—which map an IP address to a host name—are correct and use your domain name. “You don’t want to have a big string of numbers. You want it to say, ‘mail.domainname.com,’ ” he added.
2) Keep your unknown user rate down. When you send out an e-mail to someone who doesn’t exist, the ISP or server that’s handling that e-mail keeps track of that delivery attempt. Log too many of those attempts and you risk being placed on a black list or blocked at the server level. If that happens, none of your e-mails to that domain or ISP will get through. This can happen when e-mail recipients change jobs or don’t log in to their e-mail address frequently. Your best bet, Bilbrey said, is to check for unknown users after every mailing and remove them immediately. Your IT person or ESP should be able to provide you with a list of bounced e-mail addresses and help you remove them.
3) Track your reputation. Companies such as Return Path track e-mail senders’ reputations based it on a variety of information such as inclusion on black lists, complaint rates and e-mail volume. Keeping track of your score will give you an idea of your deliverability rates because reputation scores tend to correlate with deliverability, Bilbrey said. “It’s definitely a case of the higher the score, the higher the deliverability,” he said. You don’t need to subscribe to a service to check on your reputation. Return Path provides a free service at senderscore.org, for example.
4) E-mail often. If you don’t e-mail your list often enough, e-mail addresses can become stale. This means you may end up with more undeliverable messages than you would like. In addition, even if your messages do get through, recipients may forget that they signed up for your messages and report you as a spammer. The fix, Bilbrey said, is to make sure you reach out to your list at least quarterly, although monthly is even better. “With triggered events, the condition that triggers an e-mail may never occur,” he said. “It’s good to send out quarterly messages to weed out bad addresses right away.”
5) Don’t get caught in a spam trap. ISPs and large domain holders may set up spam traps, placing e-mail addresses that don’t belong to anyone on their home page or around the Web to thwart those spammers engaged in e-mail harvesting. You can end up sending to one of these addresses if someone maliciously signs one of these addresses up for your list or if a legitimate e-mail address is entered incorrectly. You have two ways of preventing this problem, Bilbrey said. The first is to implement a double opt-in so you can verify every address before it goes on your list. The second is to e-mail double opt-in e-mail messages from a separate domain as well as a separate IP address. “If you do hit a spam trap and get on a black list, you can go to the ISP or the domain owner and say, ‘This is my confirmed opt-in welcome stream. I can’t control what people input. That’s why I have a double opt-in in place,’ ” he said. “The ISP sees you’re trying to do the right thing and, as long as you provide some evidence that that’s what you’re doing, you won’t have a problem getting off the black list and at the same time, the rest of your e-mail list is safe.”
Story posted: July 31, 2008 - 3:37 pm EDT
This week e-mail services company Return Path released its Q2 2008 Reputation Benchmark Report. The results highlight the fact that for many b-to-b marketers, deliverability may still be an issue. According to the report, e-mails sent from “legitimate” e-mail servers averaged a delivery rate of 56%; 20% were rejected and 8% went into some type of filter. The rest—16%—were bounces. In other words, almost half of the time, e-mail marketers’ messages aren’t getting through. There are ways to increase deliverability, though, according to George Bilbrey, Return Path’s general manager of delivery assurance. Here are five to consider:
1) Make sure your e-mail server—or your ESP’s—is configured correctly. If you maintain your own e-mail server, it’s crucial that it’s set up correctly. If not, Bilbrey said, you run the risk of being classified as an illegitimate server. This means making sure your reverse DNS settings—which map an IP address to a host name—are correct and use your domain name. “You don’t want to have a big string of numbers. You want it to say, ‘mail.domainname.com,’ ” he added.
2) Keep your unknown user rate down. When you send out an e-mail to someone who doesn’t exist, the ISP or server that’s handling that e-mail keeps track of that delivery attempt. Log too many of those attempts and you risk being placed on a black list or blocked at the server level. If that happens, none of your e-mails to that domain or ISP will get through. This can happen when e-mail recipients change jobs or don’t log in to their e-mail address frequently. Your best bet, Bilbrey said, is to check for unknown users after every mailing and remove them immediately. Your IT person or ESP should be able to provide you with a list of bounced e-mail addresses and help you remove them.
3) Track your reputation. Companies such as Return Path track e-mail senders’ reputations based it on a variety of information such as inclusion on black lists, complaint rates and e-mail volume. Keeping track of your score will give you an idea of your deliverability rates because reputation scores tend to correlate with deliverability, Bilbrey said. “It’s definitely a case of the higher the score, the higher the deliverability,” he said. You don’t need to subscribe to a service to check on your reputation. Return Path provides a free service at senderscore.org, for example.
4) E-mail often. If you don’t e-mail your list often enough, e-mail addresses can become stale. This means you may end up with more undeliverable messages than you would like. In addition, even if your messages do get through, recipients may forget that they signed up for your messages and report you as a spammer. The fix, Bilbrey said, is to make sure you reach out to your list at least quarterly, although monthly is even better. “With triggered events, the condition that triggers an e-mail may never occur,” he said. “It’s good to send out quarterly messages to weed out bad addresses right away.”
5) Don’t get caught in a spam trap. ISPs and large domain holders may set up spam traps, placing e-mail addresses that don’t belong to anyone on their home page or around the Web to thwart those spammers engaged in e-mail harvesting. You can end up sending to one of these addresses if someone maliciously signs one of these addresses up for your list or if a legitimate e-mail address is entered incorrectly. You have two ways of preventing this problem, Bilbrey said. The first is to implement a double opt-in so you can verify every address before it goes on your list. The second is to e-mail double opt-in e-mail messages from a separate domain as well as a separate IP address. “If you do hit a spam trap and get on a black list, you can go to the ISP or the domain owner and say, ‘This is my confirmed opt-in welcome stream. I can’t control what people input. That’s why I have a double opt-in in place,’ ” he said. “The ISP sees you’re trying to do the right thing and, as long as you provide some evidence that that’s what you’re doing, you won’t have a problem getting off the black list and at the same time, the rest of your e-mail list is safe.”
How to Avoid TMI in Email: When Less Is More
by Josh Nason
You have them dead in your sights. They're eager to sign up for your email list. (Yeah, they actually want to get information from you!) The user is on your site and that all-important Subscribe click is made. You are seconds away from having another prospect to market to, and then... they stop.
They go away, never to return because they were turned off. Why? What happened?
It's an ill that has plagued marketers for years. Heck, even I had it in my former life as a sports marketer. It's called TMI-tis, short for Too Much Information-itis. You're not alone, however, so don't fear. Read on for help in curing your email marketing ills.
It starts simply. You're setting up fields for your email signup form and instead of grabbing just the basics for information, you start to wander. What if I got all the information I want up front? That would save me so much time! Who cares about emailing them at that point? I'll have it all! Bwahahahaha!
So then it begins: name, address, home number, work number, mobile number, bag phone number, AOL IM, Yahoo IM, favorite band, favorite station, favorite team. Sure, you don't make it required that all the fields are filled in, but while they're there why not offer it, right?
All they wanted was to supply you with was an email address, but instead the end users are looking at a form worthy of governmental consideration.
Eventually, the process you create gets so bad that the person attempting to sign up can't even find where to enter in an email address, which was the only reason they clicked to begin with. They get frustrated, the browser window closes, and within seconds you've lost a potential addition to your list because you came down with TMI-tis: You got greedy.
Let's get to the root of what you're trying to do: collect emails from someone who wants to stay in contact with your company or client. They've attempted to engage you by opting to give you their address, so you've already achieved your goal. Stop right there.
While it's tempting to assume that they'll be willing to give you every possible bit of information while they're at this critical juncture, ask yourself what you're going to do with that information when you get it. Is there an immediate purpose and plan, or are you getting it "just because"? If you hesitate with answering this question at all, then you should be asking just the basics: first/last name, email and zip code. This allows to you know who the email owner is, how to contact them, and where they're from.
However, if you really need that info right away, I'd suggest going about it a different way.
Most times, you will probably get those highly coveted demographics and psychographics just by smart marketing. Try a targeted data-collection initiative to your list, securing information for the chance to win something of high value. You could do a direct sales campaign, offering a specific product in a specific window of time that would achieve your data collection goal. Or you could just practice great email marketing and entice them to provide information in other legitimate ways.
A few examples:
* Sending out timely newsletters with worthwhile and engaging content that builds trust. If users trust the source, they will be more likely to supply information for a contest or some other sort of data-collection drive.
* Doing a "recommend-a-friend" push whereby you award prizes for the most people recommended who sign up for the marketer's list. On the sign-up landing page, ask the initial user (the "recommender") for the rest of their info. If they're engaged in asking others to sign up and there's a trust already established, this might be a chance to get them if you feel the timing is right.
* Surveys: If you can create a very short-and-sweet survey asking some other important information, you can probably also get your additional demo information here.
Ultimately, there are ways to get what you want without overwhelming end users and losing them before they bite the hook. Don't overcomplicate the process... just do what you do best!
A good rule of thumb is to put yourself in the slightly-worn out seat of the end user. You're a busy person just like your potential subscribers. If you were sitting in front of a computer and signing up for an email list, what would you want your user experience to be like? Signing up to receive emails shouldn't be an uncomfortable and lengthy process.
A few other thoughts on the email-signup process:
* Please, please, please don't make people choose a username/password to get emails. I subscribe to a few arena mailing lists to get information on concerts, and two of them required me to create a username/password. Why? I'm not that concerned about someone hacking into my account and changing my music preferences from Tool to Toby Keith, so why should they? It's email, not national security.
* Always use the double-opt-in process. Keep your lists legit and clean. This is something people are now accustomed to doing, so don't look it as a needless extra step on their behalf.
* Keep them on your site during the signup process. I cannot stand it that when I'm attempting to sign up for a list, a non-branded window pops up for me to fill in. Any email marketing company worth its salt should able to provide you, the marketer, with HTML code that you can format into your own site, so that users don't have jump to a stock order-form landing page.
My marketing friends, the golden rule with avoiding TMI-tis is to keep it simple. Do whatever it takes to get subscribers in your database with as little difficulty as possible. Then, get the rest of the information the old-fashioned way: by providing a service they absolutely have to have.
You have them dead in your sights. They're eager to sign up for your email list. (Yeah, they actually want to get information from you!) The user is on your site and that all-important Subscribe click is made. You are seconds away from having another prospect to market to, and then... they stop.
They go away, never to return because they were turned off. Why? What happened?
It's an ill that has plagued marketers for years. Heck, even I had it in my former life as a sports marketer. It's called TMI-tis, short for Too Much Information-itis. You're not alone, however, so don't fear. Read on for help in curing your email marketing ills.
It starts simply. You're setting up fields for your email signup form and instead of grabbing just the basics for information, you start to wander. What if I got all the information I want up front? That would save me so much time! Who cares about emailing them at that point? I'll have it all! Bwahahahaha!
So then it begins: name, address, home number, work number, mobile number, bag phone number, AOL IM, Yahoo IM, favorite band, favorite station, favorite team. Sure, you don't make it required that all the fields are filled in, but while they're there why not offer it, right?
All they wanted was to supply you with was an email address, but instead the end users are looking at a form worthy of governmental consideration.
Eventually, the process you create gets so bad that the person attempting to sign up can't even find where to enter in an email address, which was the only reason they clicked to begin with. They get frustrated, the browser window closes, and within seconds you've lost a potential addition to your list because you came down with TMI-tis: You got greedy.
Let's get to the root of what you're trying to do: collect emails from someone who wants to stay in contact with your company or client. They've attempted to engage you by opting to give you their address, so you've already achieved your goal. Stop right there.
While it's tempting to assume that they'll be willing to give you every possible bit of information while they're at this critical juncture, ask yourself what you're going to do with that information when you get it. Is there an immediate purpose and plan, or are you getting it "just because"? If you hesitate with answering this question at all, then you should be asking just the basics: first/last name, email and zip code. This allows to you know who the email owner is, how to contact them, and where they're from.
However, if you really need that info right away, I'd suggest going about it a different way.
Most times, you will probably get those highly coveted demographics and psychographics just by smart marketing. Try a targeted data-collection initiative to your list, securing information for the chance to win something of high value. You could do a direct sales campaign, offering a specific product in a specific window of time that would achieve your data collection goal. Or you could just practice great email marketing and entice them to provide information in other legitimate ways.
A few examples:
* Sending out timely newsletters with worthwhile and engaging content that builds trust. If users trust the source, they will be more likely to supply information for a contest or some other sort of data-collection drive.
* Doing a "recommend-a-friend" push whereby you award prizes for the most people recommended who sign up for the marketer's list. On the sign-up landing page, ask the initial user (the "recommender") for the rest of their info. If they're engaged in asking others to sign up and there's a trust already established, this might be a chance to get them if you feel the timing is right.
* Surveys: If you can create a very short-and-sweet survey asking some other important information, you can probably also get your additional demo information here.
Ultimately, there are ways to get what you want without overwhelming end users and losing them before they bite the hook. Don't overcomplicate the process... just do what you do best!
A good rule of thumb is to put yourself in the slightly-worn out seat of the end user. You're a busy person just like your potential subscribers. If you were sitting in front of a computer and signing up for an email list, what would you want your user experience to be like? Signing up to receive emails shouldn't be an uncomfortable and lengthy process.
A few other thoughts on the email-signup process:
* Please, please, please don't make people choose a username/password to get emails. I subscribe to a few arena mailing lists to get information on concerts, and two of them required me to create a username/password. Why? I'm not that concerned about someone hacking into my account and changing my music preferences from Tool to Toby Keith, so why should they? It's email, not national security.
* Always use the double-opt-in process. Keep your lists legit and clean. This is something people are now accustomed to doing, so don't look it as a needless extra step on their behalf.
* Keep them on your site during the signup process. I cannot stand it that when I'm attempting to sign up for a list, a non-branded window pops up for me to fill in. Any email marketing company worth its salt should able to provide you, the marketer, with HTML code that you can format into your own site, so that users don't have jump to a stock order-form landing page.
My marketing friends, the golden rule with avoiding TMI-tis is to keep it simple. Do whatever it takes to get subscribers in your database with as little difficulty as possible. Then, get the rest of the information the old-fashioned way: by providing a service they absolutely have to have.
Minimize List Churn by Reducing Unsubscribes
by Loren McDonald
Reducing the number of people who unsubscribe from your mailing list is one of the key ways to minimize list churn and in turn make it easier to grow your list.
That doesn't mean you make it harder for people to leave, however. Instead, learn why people leave, offer them other ways to remain in the relationship, and make the process a great customer experience.
Unsubscribes: A Fact of List Life
Email consumers control their destiny—choosing when to opt in and when to say adios. But, unsubscribes can also be a good thing. The alternative is a poor brand experience for the subscriber and spam complaints or deadwood on your list that masks true performance.
Make the process easy. You'll minimize spam complaints and likely retain the customer relationship through another channel.
Why People Unsubscribe
According to JupiterResearch:
1. 53 percent say they unsubscribe when the content is irrelevant.
2. 40 percent say they unsubscribe when email is sent too often.
How to Optimize the Unsubscribe Process
1. Make the unsubscribe and alternatives links stand out in your emails
Display a clearly labeled unsubscribe link prominently in your email message, in an easy-to-read font size, style, and color that match your email design. Don't try to hide it by blending it in with the background color, shrinking the type size, or moving it around each time.
Put it in both your primary or secondary navigation below the fold and near the bottom or in your email administration area if you have one. However, if you have a high spam-complaint rate, add it to the very top of your emails.
2. Deploy a combination unsubscribe/preference page
Create a well-designed, branded page that explains exactly how to unsubscribe, thanks the user for his/her patronage, and offers alternatives to unsubscribing but completes the unsubscribe process quickly for those who really do want to leave.
Test it for ease of use. Check it and the email unsubscribe link regularly to be sure they're working correctly.
A. Unsubscribe function
This page should make it easy and obvious how to unsubscribe. In fact, a ruling in May by the Federal Trade Commission prohibits requiring logins or passwords, surveys, or the viewing of offers to complete the unsubscribe. The entering of an email address is the only requirement allowed.
Pass the subscribers' email address and preferences through to this unsubscribe page. They won't have to enter any information; they'll merely check or uncheck boxes or select radio buttons.
After completing the unsubscribe or preference changes, launch a thank-you page that confirms the action(s) and again offers ways to continue the relationship via other channels, such as RSS or catalogs.
B. Suggested alternatives
Many of your subscribers who click the unsubscribe link just want some aspect of the relationship to change.
Retain these subscribers with an unsubscribe/preference page that allows them both to change preferences and to opt out. Include these alternatives:
* Changing their email address. Best practice: To reduce mistakes, load the form with the address they used to subscribe.
* Changing the frequency. Offer some appropriate options, such as a weekly or monthly digest of daily or weekly messages.
* Changing the format. Let users switch from plain text to HTML or vice versa, as well as a "mobile" version—a shortened HTML format minus images—if you offer it.
* Changing the channel. Show users how and where to sign up for your RSS feed(s), SMS messaging, or direct mail, if you offer them.
* Changing their profile or preferences. People's needs and interests change over time. Present their profile/preferences this page or link to your preference page.
* Subscribing to your other lists/emails. You may have other emails or newsletters of more relevance to the subscriber. Present a list (with descriptions, if possible) of the emails you offer and highlight those they are currently receiving.
C. Alternate contacts
Always provide your customer-service phone number and email and postal addresses in case the subscriber has problems, such as when a page is not loading or in case of error messages.
D. Exit survey
Try to capture why subscribers are opting out. Use radio buttons listing the top five or so reasons you know why people are unsubscribing. Then, provide a comment box for people to elaborate or list other reasons, and study what they say. Make it clear the survey is optional.
E. Timing statement if the unsubscribe is not immediate
Consumers expect your emails to stop as soon as they unsubscribe, even though in the United States the CAN-SPAM Act allows up to 10 days to remove someone from a list. If, for whatever reason, it takes you several days to process an unsubscribe, include a statement such as the following: "When unsubscribing, there may be a delay of up to seven days. We apologize in advance if you receive further emails during this period."
Other Best Practices
* Launch a thank-you page that confirms the actions the subscriber took and thanks that person.
* Track your unsubscribe rate over several campaigns to spot trends, correlate with spam complaints, and analyze to find patterns.
* Test different unsubscribe formats to find one that works best.
* Minimize the need for unsubscribing by optimizing your opt-in procedure and following email best practices throughout your relationship.
Reducing the number of people who unsubscribe from your mailing list is one of the key ways to minimize list churn and in turn make it easier to grow your list.
That doesn't mean you make it harder for people to leave, however. Instead, learn why people leave, offer them other ways to remain in the relationship, and make the process a great customer experience.
Unsubscribes: A Fact of List Life
Email consumers control their destiny—choosing when to opt in and when to say adios. But, unsubscribes can also be a good thing. The alternative is a poor brand experience for the subscriber and spam complaints or deadwood on your list that masks true performance.
Make the process easy. You'll minimize spam complaints and likely retain the customer relationship through another channel.
Why People Unsubscribe
According to JupiterResearch:
1. 53 percent say they unsubscribe when the content is irrelevant.
2. 40 percent say they unsubscribe when email is sent too often.
How to Optimize the Unsubscribe Process
1. Make the unsubscribe and alternatives links stand out in your emails
Display a clearly labeled unsubscribe link prominently in your email message, in an easy-to-read font size, style, and color that match your email design. Don't try to hide it by blending it in with the background color, shrinking the type size, or moving it around each time.
Put it in both your primary or secondary navigation below the fold and near the bottom or in your email administration area if you have one. However, if you have a high spam-complaint rate, add it to the very top of your emails.
2. Deploy a combination unsubscribe/preference page
Create a well-designed, branded page that explains exactly how to unsubscribe, thanks the user for his/her patronage, and offers alternatives to unsubscribing but completes the unsubscribe process quickly for those who really do want to leave.
Test it for ease of use. Check it and the email unsubscribe link regularly to be sure they're working correctly.
A. Unsubscribe function
This page should make it easy and obvious how to unsubscribe. In fact, a ruling in May by the Federal Trade Commission prohibits requiring logins or passwords, surveys, or the viewing of offers to complete the unsubscribe. The entering of an email address is the only requirement allowed.
Pass the subscribers' email address and preferences through to this unsubscribe page. They won't have to enter any information; they'll merely check or uncheck boxes or select radio buttons.
After completing the unsubscribe or preference changes, launch a thank-you page that confirms the action(s) and again offers ways to continue the relationship via other channels, such as RSS or catalogs.
B. Suggested alternatives
Many of your subscribers who click the unsubscribe link just want some aspect of the relationship to change.
Retain these subscribers with an unsubscribe/preference page that allows them both to change preferences and to opt out. Include these alternatives:
* Changing their email address. Best practice: To reduce mistakes, load the form with the address they used to subscribe.
* Changing the frequency. Offer some appropriate options, such as a weekly or monthly digest of daily or weekly messages.
* Changing the format. Let users switch from plain text to HTML or vice versa, as well as a "mobile" version—a shortened HTML format minus images—if you offer it.
* Changing the channel. Show users how and where to sign up for your RSS feed(s), SMS messaging, or direct mail, if you offer them.
* Changing their profile or preferences. People's needs and interests change over time. Present their profile/preferences this page or link to your preference page.
* Subscribing to your other lists/emails. You may have other emails or newsletters of more relevance to the subscriber. Present a list (with descriptions, if possible) of the emails you offer and highlight those they are currently receiving.
C. Alternate contacts
Always provide your customer-service phone number and email and postal addresses in case the subscriber has problems, such as when a page is not loading or in case of error messages.
D. Exit survey
Try to capture why subscribers are opting out. Use radio buttons listing the top five or so reasons you know why people are unsubscribing. Then, provide a comment box for people to elaborate or list other reasons, and study what they say. Make it clear the survey is optional.
E. Timing statement if the unsubscribe is not immediate
Consumers expect your emails to stop as soon as they unsubscribe, even though in the United States the CAN-SPAM Act allows up to 10 days to remove someone from a list. If, for whatever reason, it takes you several days to process an unsubscribe, include a statement such as the following: "When unsubscribing, there may be a delay of up to seven days. We apologize in advance if you receive further emails during this period."
Other Best Practices
* Launch a thank-you page that confirms the actions the subscriber took and thanks that person.
* Track your unsubscribe rate over several campaigns to spot trends, correlate with spam complaints, and analyze to find patterns.
* Test different unsubscribe formats to find one that works best.
* Minimize the need for unsubscribing by optimizing your opt-in procedure and following email best practices throughout your relationship.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Bridging the Gap Between Email Marketing and CRM
by Drew Adams
It's easy to get frustrated when mapping out the complexities of integrating email marketing with a CRM application. Companies want to view all customer data, including email marketing statistics, in one easy-to-use application. However, few CRM providers have mastered the art of email marketing.
Some organizations attempt to build their own email tool within a CRM application for managing email marketing, but this often results in poor deliverability. A new system can't immediately leverage the whitelisting status that reputable email marketing companies work hard to maintain. Also, by bringing email marketing in-house, a company must dedicate staff time to developing relationships with ISPs.
Many firms turn to an API, or application-programming interface, as the solution. APIs bridge the gap between CRM and other third-party software applications, which is useful for organizations that wish to manage customer data and email campaigns in one interface. A user may view sales data, demographic, and other customer data in the CRM system. The API is simply a bridge between the two systems, allowing them to talk with one another.
Why is integration important? Simplicity. By using a single interface, users can quickly gather information from various sources rather than logging into different applications. Everything they need is available by the click of the mouse from their CRM's interface.
OK, I'm ready to integrate my CRM with an email marketing solution. What next?
Before you do hours of research on an email marketing company's API, ensure that your own system has an API. If you're using a CRM that does not allow third-party applications to connect, it may be difficult to achieve this level of integration.
Assuming you have a system that can plug in, you may begin shopping for an email marketing API. Your first step is to perform the standard email marketing litmus test:
* Is it whitelisted with the major ISPs?
* Does it use third-party services to measure deliverability?
* Does it offer Sender-ID and DomainKeys?
* Does it ban rented or purchased lists from their system?
* Does it offer and encourage double opt-ins?
* Does their feature set meet my needs?
* Does it screen resellers and API users to ensure they aren't abusing the system?
If the answers to those questions are favorable, then one can move on to evaluating the API. At this point in the evaluation process, you should pull in your development team, if applicable.
What Does the API Need to Do?
Automatic contact subscriptions
One of the main uses of an email marketing API is to subscribe people automatically to email lists from a third-party system. For example, when a customer is added to your CRM, an API call can be made to automatically add that person to an email list. Without the API, your marketing manager will be pulling double duty adding the email address to both the CRM and the email application.
Leverage whitelist and deliverability setup
Email campaigns kicked off by using third-party API services use technologies such as DomainKeys and Sender ID so that mail coming from your clients will be seen as legitimate mail.
In addition, the IP addresses of the sending servers will already be set up on whitelists giving the highest possibility of getting in the inbox.
Finally, third-party API servers will be set up on feedback loops with the ISPs. This means that when anyone reports a message as spam to an ISP, generally through the "spam" button inside the mail reader interface, a notification of that will be sent back to the sending server.
This allows email marketers to unsubscribe the recipient and keep track of how many people are complaining and take appropriate actions if those complaint rates spike.
Open and click-through tracking provided automatically
Those who might be thinking of adding email capabilities into their applications may soon be asked to provide statistics on how the email performed, meaning how many people opened or clicked on the message, how many messages bounced back, and how many people reported the message as spam.
Writing the code to deliver those statistics takes lots of time and testing, which is the reason many people choose to leverage an email marketing API. Those statistics come "built-in," which means they can be reported back to the senders, giving them actionable intelligence.
Unsubscribe and bounceback management
Managing subscription status is an important component of an email marketing system. When using a third-party email marketing API, an "Unsubscribe" link will automatically be added to all emails going out. The system tracks unsubscribes and does not send to that address again. In addition, any recipient mail that bounces back—either temporarily or permanently—will be tracked and reported back to you. All this ensures that you are CAN-SPAM and whitelist compliant, and yet another potential headache you don't have to worry about.
Speed of delivery (and message throttling)
Third-party systems are built to send mail and can deliver it quickly if need be. However, to ensure maximum deliverability, third-party providers enable throttling capabilities to ensure ISPs don't get mail faster than they are willing to accept it. This helps with deliverability.
Conclusions
There isn't a magic button to bring all these components together. Integrating your email marketing application and your internal databases will take time and planning. By selecting an email marketing application, along with an open CRM application, you can increase efficiency and ROI by bringing these powerful tools together.
It's easy to get frustrated when mapping out the complexities of integrating email marketing with a CRM application. Companies want to view all customer data, including email marketing statistics, in one easy-to-use application. However, few CRM providers have mastered the art of email marketing.
Some organizations attempt to build their own email tool within a CRM application for managing email marketing, but this often results in poor deliverability. A new system can't immediately leverage the whitelisting status that reputable email marketing companies work hard to maintain. Also, by bringing email marketing in-house, a company must dedicate staff time to developing relationships with ISPs.
Many firms turn to an API, or application-programming interface, as the solution. APIs bridge the gap between CRM and other third-party software applications, which is useful for organizations that wish to manage customer data and email campaigns in one interface. A user may view sales data, demographic, and other customer data in the CRM system. The API is simply a bridge between the two systems, allowing them to talk with one another.
Why is integration important? Simplicity. By using a single interface, users can quickly gather information from various sources rather than logging into different applications. Everything they need is available by the click of the mouse from their CRM's interface.
OK, I'm ready to integrate my CRM with an email marketing solution. What next?
Before you do hours of research on an email marketing company's API, ensure that your own system has an API. If you're using a CRM that does not allow third-party applications to connect, it may be difficult to achieve this level of integration.
Assuming you have a system that can plug in, you may begin shopping for an email marketing API. Your first step is to perform the standard email marketing litmus test:
* Is it whitelisted with the major ISPs?
* Does it use third-party services to measure deliverability?
* Does it offer Sender-ID and DomainKeys?
* Does it ban rented or purchased lists from their system?
* Does it offer and encourage double opt-ins?
* Does their feature set meet my needs?
* Does it screen resellers and API users to ensure they aren't abusing the system?
If the answers to those questions are favorable, then one can move on to evaluating the API. At this point in the evaluation process, you should pull in your development team, if applicable.
What Does the API Need to Do?
Automatic contact subscriptions
One of the main uses of an email marketing API is to subscribe people automatically to email lists from a third-party system. For example, when a customer is added to your CRM, an API call can be made to automatically add that person to an email list. Without the API, your marketing manager will be pulling double duty adding the email address to both the CRM and the email application.
Leverage whitelist and deliverability setup
Email campaigns kicked off by using third-party API services use technologies such as DomainKeys and Sender ID so that mail coming from your clients will be seen as legitimate mail.
In addition, the IP addresses of the sending servers will already be set up on whitelists giving the highest possibility of getting in the inbox.
Finally, third-party API servers will be set up on feedback loops with the ISPs. This means that when anyone reports a message as spam to an ISP, generally through the "spam" button inside the mail reader interface, a notification of that will be sent back to the sending server.
This allows email marketers to unsubscribe the recipient and keep track of how many people are complaining and take appropriate actions if those complaint rates spike.
Open and click-through tracking provided automatically
Those who might be thinking of adding email capabilities into their applications may soon be asked to provide statistics on how the email performed, meaning how many people opened or clicked on the message, how many messages bounced back, and how many people reported the message as spam.
Writing the code to deliver those statistics takes lots of time and testing, which is the reason many people choose to leverage an email marketing API. Those statistics come "built-in," which means they can be reported back to the senders, giving them actionable intelligence.
Unsubscribe and bounceback management
Managing subscription status is an important component of an email marketing system. When using a third-party email marketing API, an "Unsubscribe" link will automatically be added to all emails going out. The system tracks unsubscribes and does not send to that address again. In addition, any recipient mail that bounces back—either temporarily or permanently—will be tracked and reported back to you. All this ensures that you are CAN-SPAM and whitelist compliant, and yet another potential headache you don't have to worry about.
Speed of delivery (and message throttling)
Third-party systems are built to send mail and can deliver it quickly if need be. However, to ensure maximum deliverability, third-party providers enable throttling capabilities to ensure ISPs don't get mail faster than they are willing to accept it. This helps with deliverability.
Conclusions
There isn't a magic button to bring all these components together. Integrating your email marketing application and your internal databases will take time and planning. By selecting an email marketing application, along with an open CRM application, you can increase efficiency and ROI by bringing these powerful tools together.
Tips for Improving E-mail Marketing Performance
By Karen Gedney - May 28, 2008
You may not think of yourself as a publisher. But if you're involved in sending out e-mail marketing for your company, you've got the makings of a mini-publishing empire on your hands.
In most companies, e-mail marketing is proliferating at a rate that's far outstripping the staff resources dedicated to it.
B2B (define) companies that don't consider themselves in the publishing business are generating a huge amount of content in the form of event and Webcast campaigns, e-newsletters, surveys, lead-generation e-mail, and e-catalog promotions.
And often, there's just a small e-mail marketing department dedicated to handling it all. Overworked and underbudgeted, this group is often tasked with formatting content provided by outside departments into a usable e-newsletter template and blasting it out the door.
They may review open rates and CTRs (define) after the fact, but they rarely have time to strategize how to improve these rates in advance -- when it can make a difference.
Having consulted at a number of companies where this is the case, I have a number of questions and recommendations that you might want to consider if you're planning a midyear review of your e-mail marketing performance.
Are You Reaching Your Ideal Customers?
If you're just looking at your open rates across the board, you might be missing something pretty fundamental. It could be that you're getting a lot of interest, but not from the decision-makers who have the budget, authority, and need for your products.
Match your sales team's top prospect list to the list of people who open your e-mail to see if you're getting through to the right folks.
If not, you must rethink your e-mail strategy. You may need to test a segmented publication to reach this desirable group of decision makers. Or if your best prospects are C-level executives, you may need to concede that an e-mail-only approach isn't the best way to reach them -- and instead create a multichannel campaign that includes high-quality direct mail, dimensional packages, and telemarketing.
By focusing on your ideal customer, you may find that you can streamline or curtail e-mail communications to prospects on your list who are less desirable or unlikely to buy.
Are You Reaching Your Ideal Customers on Their Preferred Communication Device?
If you send out dense multi-article e-newsletters to sales executives who are out of the office all day and only read e-mail on their BlackBerrys, your communication strategy is out of date and out of sync.
It's time to strip down your content from a too-much-information format to a need-to-know format that your audience can read on the go.
While formatting e-mail for the BlackBerry is a relatively new challenge and there aren't too many best practices available yet, you can:
- Ask new e-mail subscribers how they want to receive your messages when they sign up. Usually most e-mail preference centers offer the choice of text or HTML. However, one e-mail service provider told me that 95 percent of people sign up for HTML. So I would drop the text option and replace it with a handheld or BlackBerry option.
- Offer a "View by handheld" link at the top of your e-mail.
- On your mobile version:
- Strip out your banner, but be sure to create a text-letterhead with your company's name.
- Put your call-to-action link up top.
- Top-line your information in just a few sentences.
- Front-load your subject line so that it says everything in the first 15 characters (the length of the BlackBerry screen.
Are You Helping Your Reader Self-Identify the E-mail They Need to Read?
If you bombard your prospects and customers with look-alike e-mail messages with vague subject lines, how will they know which messages to open?
Categorize your messages according to your readers' needs and your objectives. For example, your sender lines could be categorized in the following way:
- XYZ Co. Webcast
- XYZ Co. Event
- XYZ Co. Survey
Or you could alert readers to the type of communication they're receiving at the beginning of the subject line, then follow up with an intriguing teaser that entices them to open your e-mail:
- [Webcast] Recession-Proof Your Marketing
- [Event] Marketing in Uncertain Times
- [Survey] Share Your Insights for Special Report
- [E-Newsletter Name] Top CMOs Reveal What's Working Now
In the same way, the e-mail messages should be categorized by using different formats. For example, e-newsletters shouldn't use your company's traditional banner. They should have their own mastheads with the publication name, a subtitle describing the value to the reader, and the issue number and date. And Webcasts invitations should look distinctly different from live event invitations.
Are Your E-Mail Messages Taking Too Long to Write? Are They Missing the Point?
There aren't a lot of writers trained in the fine points of e-mail writing. As a result, most companies aren't achieving their objectives in terms of sales generated.
To make things easier, create fill-in-the-blank templates for the main types of e-mail communication you send out. Areas to include in your template:
- Subject lines: Specify the optimal number of words or characters, and provide a few of examples of subject-line approaches that tend to work well.
- Alt-text tags and photo captions: Require that each image (including your company banner) include an alt-text tag in the image itself, as well as an intriguing caption.
- Preview pane: Require that the e-mail's whole message be summed up in one or two sentences at the top of the e-mail, so that it shows through the preview pane.
- Call to action: Specify where the call-to-action message should go (near the top) and how often it should be repeated in the message.
- Sidebars, Johnson boxes, and hotboxes: Create a template to break up information into bite-sized chunks that all appear in the initial screen.
Finally, guide your writers to where their creativity really counts, including:
- The subject line: If it isn't good, no one will open the e-newsletter.
- Your event or Webcast name: It better be compelling, or no one will attend.
- Your headlines and lead-in sentences: If you don't catch readers in the first few seconds of opening your e-mail, you'll lose them as they hit delete and scroll away to view the rest of their inbox.
Follow these guidelines, and you'll soon be thinking like a publisher by creating e-mail content that your audience really wants to read, and streamlining or discontinuing e-mail efforts that aren't making the mark.
What techniques are you using to manage e-mail proliferation, strategize communications, and get that e-mail out the door quickly? Let Karen know.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Five B2B Email Marketing Tips
by Stephanie Miller
Editor's note: See Stephanie in person at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum, Driving Sales: What's New + What Works. Catch her session on "B2B Email That Moves the Needle." Sign up for the event and use promo code ESPK08 to save $200 on the registration fee.
Here we are, oh email marketers, caught in the middle. On the one hand we are celebrated for being the go-to resource for generating short-term revenue results (anyone have that "hey, our numbers are down, send another email" conversation this week?). On the other hand, it's "funny" how the applause dies down when the budget talk comes around and we continue to be handicapped by limited investment and strained resources.
What's an email marketer to do?
With that reality as our foundation, I'm leading a panel of great marketers at the upcoming MarketingProfs B2B Marketing conference in June. Return Path blog subscribers can.
Here are five ideas from a panel that I'm leading at the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing conference in June that you can apply to your own program. I'll be expounding on them during our panel at the conference. (Sign up for the conference and save $200 with the promo code ESPK08.)
1. Turn the recession to your advantage
Email is easy and inexpensive to get into, so more and more businesses are sending messages. You can see the result is in your inbox—more and more clutter.
That means our messages have to be better than everything else to break through. To get better messages you need to create great subscriber experiences. And that requires discipline around sending frequency, segmentation, data integration and advanced measurements and reports. Which requires more investment in the channel.
So when you feel the pressure to do more with less, focus on proving how sending more targeted messages will result in higher return over time and add value to your email asset. For example, trigger a message around a customer lifestage event—renewal, contract anniversary, upgrade, number of uses, new to the relationship, etc. Show how those messages earn higher engagement, in order to automate them for every subscriber.
2. Improve your benefit statement
Email is the highest-ROI channel, so be sure to capture email addresses at every touchpoint. Since you want to capture email at the point of entry, your homepage may not be the best location if most visitors come through alternative pathways.
Make sure there is a strong, compelling benefit statement on every search and advertising landing page, at the bottom of every blog post, in every sales and customer service call, in every webinar and every whitepaper download page.
The key here is "compelling." Product announcements and press releases are not compelling. These ideas are: Productivity tips, insider reviews, chances to network with peers, invites to cool events, and exclusive access.
3. Simple segmentation is essential
If you do no other segmentation, distinguish your messages between prospects and customers. These are singularly different groups with different relationships to your brand/products and different knowledge levels of your product and solution benefits. Treat them differently, or you will continue to optimize your email marketing for neither.
4. Sender reputation matters in B2B, too
Though many B2B marketers think that the feedback they get from the Web-based ISPs (AOL, Yahoo and MSN/Hotmail) isn't relevant since their file is not saturated with these domains, the reverse is actually true.
Those ISPs provide important feedback about your sender reputation based on complaints (registered at the ISPs when a subscriber clicks the "This is Spam" or "This is Junk" button)—and you can use that data to understand your program's deliverability at corporate systems.
Most business system administrators use Cloudmark or Postini—both of which are strongly based on complaint data—to decide what messages to allow past the gateway and to your subscriber's inbox. And, of course, some businesspeople specifically use consumer email systems to get email they don't want in their corporate inbox. It could well be person123@ AOL or Yahoo is also important.person@ your biggest account.
If you don't know your sender reputation, start here for a free evaluation: www.senderscore.org.
5. Test the tone
As the inbox clutters and budgets get tighter, test tone. Will your subscribers respond better to a happy, sunshiny "spend now to get ahead" message of hope, or a more somber, "how to get more with less" partnership approach?
Perhaps one will work better for different types of product messages.
Need more great B2B marketing ideas? Sign up for the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing conference now. Remember to use promo code ESPK08 and save $200.
Stephanie Miller is vice-president of strategic services for New York-based email performance-management company Return Path (www.returnpath.net) and the co-author of Sign Me Up: A Marketer's Guide to Email Newsletters that Build Relationships and Boost Sales. Reach her at stephanie.miller@returnpath.net.
What Is Your E-mail's Value?
Merkle notes two key findings based on its annual consumer survey "View from the Inbox":
- 50 percent of respondents had bought something based on a permission e-mail message, up 3 percentage points from the previous year.
- 50 percent also said a company that "does a good job with e-mail" influenced their purchase decision.
Conversely, a negative experience can drive customers away. In Merkle's report, 32 percent of respondents said they stopped doing business with at least one company because of its poor e-mail practices.
We talk a lot about how to improve e-mail deliverability by using opt-in subscription practices, managing your reputation, segmenting lists, optimizing content, and testing. But it all boils down to this:
Provide demonstrated value in each e-mail.
It would be nice to think your e-mail program's value would be so obvious that readers would see it in each message. Alas, we live in the real world, so we know we have to sell the value at all points in the e-mail relationship, even before it begins officially.
Promote your e-mail value at the following crucial places.
Home Page
This is your first chance to sell potential subscribers on your e-mail value. "Sign up for e-mail updates" and a link don't begin to hint at what they will receive if they hand over their e-mail addresses. "Join now and receive e-mail-only discounts and advance sale notices" makes the value clear and begins to set subscriber expectations.
Registration Page
This is your showcase, the best location to explain the benefits of signing up for e-mail, including the kinds of e-mail you send, how often, and what the content entails.
All too often, though, companies who have an otherwise excellent e-mail program give this short shrift. They rarely dedicate a page solely to the value of their e-mail program.
Instead, they slap up a checkbox and a one-sentence value statement more focused on the subscription function itself.
Elements to convey your e-mail value proposition more effectively:
- Explanation of benefits: What's in it for them?
- Privacy policy: Assure them you'll treat their e-mail addresses responsibly.
- Preference page: This increases message relevance.
- Sample messages: Let subscribers see what they'll get.
- Links, images, and transactions (subscribing, confirming, even unsubscribing): Make sure they work reliably each time.
Welcome Message
This is another opportunity that too many companies waste with a simple "you are subscribed" message. It's accurate enough, but it does nothing to remind subscribers about what they signed up for and what value your message brings.
Thus the welcome message, sent immediately after opt-in confirmation, has become a generally accepted best practice for conveying value before you mail your first program e-mail.
The optimum welcome program encompasses more than just a single message. It includes a separate cycle of message designed to get your readers engaged as quickly as possible.
Your e-mail program's value should shine through in each message, reminding subscribers of what they signed up for and that they need to open each message or miss out.
Regular Program E-mail
These are the regular e-mail messages you send as part of an established programming cycle. However, if all you do is sell, sell, sell, you'll wear out or bore your readers. And bored readers are likely to click the "spam" button to make you go away, especially if they don't trust your unsubscribe to work.
Elements to help remind subscribers about your e-mail program's value:
- E-mail-only discounts (one-time or permanent, only for subscribers)
- Invitations to fill out surveys or complete profiles
- Directions on how to use products or to contact company reps
- Account statements, membership numbers, links to key functions on your Web site
- Company or product news
- Changes that affect the e-mail subscriptions
Transactional E-mail
Naturally, a transactional e-mail's first job is to confirm an action, deliver an account statement, ask for a payment, or conduct other business. However, you can remind subscribers of your e-mail value here, too, provided you keep the focus on the transaction.
To do this, put the business in the top half to two-thirds of the message content, then put your e-mail value proposition in the bottom third to half. This is also called putting it "below the fold," a reference to a standard broadsheet newspaper page, where the most important stories go on the top half, above the fold.
Midcycle Messages
Don't wear out your list by sending more e-mail than you promised. However, a carefully chosen and timed message sent between campaigns or in the middle of a publishing schedule can restate and refine.
Use these messages to remind subscribers, especially less active ones, about e-mail benefits or account details to bring them back into the fold. Invite them to update their profiles. Send a short survey. Offer incentives for referrals. Explain any program changes that could affect their subscriptions.
Final Word: Emphasizing Value Is Easy
It might sound as if you have to overhaul your messages to make the value clear, but you might just need a simple retooling. Put yourself in your subscribers' shoes again, and see where you can add information or functionality, improve design, or boost convenience. Never waste another chance to remind your subscribers of all the benefits they have coming.
Until next time, keep on deliverin'.
Friday, April 18, 2008
How to Make Email Marketing More Mobile-Friendly
by Andrew Osterday and Chris Lovejoy
Mobile technology continues to develop. The number of consumers with mobile devices capable of retrieving and viewing email continues to increase rapidly. The early adopters of the Blackberry have given way, in numbers at least, to those using what are fast becoming fully functional internet-ready devices.
With multiple mobile platforms on the market and mobile phone companies vying for the sale of not only the devices but also the data plans that supply the bandwidth, these "mini-messengers" are in the hands of millions of consumers.
Could your email be more mobile friendly?
Are your email messages ready for the move to mobile? They had better be: Over two-thirds of B2B emailers regularly read your emails on their mobile device.
If you haven't tested how your emails are rendering across multiple handhelds, you might be very surprised, and not in a good way.
Here some things to think about when considering email on mobile devices:
- Communications that rely on image-heavy content, special font treatments, tables, or other advanced coding will not translate well without optimizing the message for the mobile user.
- If sending mobile campaigns, be sure to be honest and very personal. Use the name of a real person if possible.
- HTML links can be used but should be used sparingly and only if the call-to-action link is also enabled for mobile devices.
- If your communication boasts a lengthy terms-and-conditions section, it may be better rendered as a mobile-formatted landing page for the user.
- Opt-out rules still apply. One-click opt-out works best.
A few basic formatting rules for mobile devices:
- Coding fonts may or may not work on the user's device. Most mobile devices allow the user to select a preferred default font. Although the link to the mobile communication is actually a web link, simple (default) font coding or basic fonts are best. Font size consideration: Keep it small. Work with your messaging provider on the appropriate size.
- Screen size is limited. Design for easy word wrap. The list should be kept short (in regards to width), as odd wrapping will occur on the smallest of screens.
- Keep the message short and keep your call to action in the top area of the communication. Being "front of mind" for users, even if they do not view the entire message, may prompt them to save the message and view the full HTML version when they get to their computer.
- Simple black text with color action links work best on smaller screens and make it easy to view and navigate.
- Images should be small and few. Depending on the connection speed of the device, images may take some time to render. Small logos for brand recognition or small but viewable images that support content should be used, if at all, sparingly.
- Do not replicate your website navigation in email. Place it at the bottom of the message if at all.
- Use full images, not sliced. Sliced images will wrap and appear jumbled.
- Design in columns and plan for content to wrap after a couple of hundred pixels.
- Include a click-to-view-online link and take users to a mobile-optimized landing page.
- Include a click-to-call link, if applicable.
- To test rendering across different handhelds, download a free tool at Opera (www.opera.com).
How to start: Use email to promote mobile marketing
So you've made your emails mobile friendly. Now lets look at marketing via SMS (short message service) and MMS (multimedia message service)—aka mobile marketing.
Using wireless networks to reach consumers on personal phones and mobile devices has come a long way over the past few years, and consumers are warming up to the emerging technology.
But how do you start?
What better way to introduce the mobile option than through an already established email relationship? Email is the perfect vehicle to introduce your audience to an alternative form of communication such as SMS or MMS.
Permission is just as important in mobile marketing as it is in email. Rather than starting from scratch or purchasing lists, build your mobile list organically: Engage your current base of email subscribers who have already requested a relationship with you. Provide a choice to receive mobile communications where it makes sense, especially for timely messages.
Mobile campaigns are great for the following:
- Same-day reminders
- Special events
- Meeting confirmations
- Product delivery confirmations
- Flight status
- Financial alerts
- Data collection
Use your primary email template when introducing the mobile option to your users. This helps maintain familiarity and instantly establishes trust. The copy should be brief and personal and should direct your customers to a landing page where they can submit their mobile phone number. You can also include the option on the registration page so they can sign up for mobile messages right from the start.
Not ready to jump head first into the mobile arena? Then optimize your email messages for handhelds, as described above. Or simply include a link at the very top of your email to "View on Handheld." Then link the user to a mobile-optimized landing page of your message. Use rich text to be safe.
There are many ways to approach the growing propensity of mobile users to engage with marketers' messages. Experiment now and find the right fit for your business.
Andrew Osterday and Chris Lovejoy: Andrew is solutions director of eMarketing at Premier Global Services (www.premiereglobal.com); Chris is eMarketing strategic services account executive.
E-mail Marketing vs. E-mail Sales
By Jeanne Jennings , March 24, 2008
Early in my career, during a job interview, I was asked to talk about the relationship between marketing and sales. After a moment's thought, I said marketing was the umbrella term for a lot of different activities, of which sales was one. Marketing was about doing things that would help grow a business in the short, mid-, and long terms; the focus of sales was closing business today, this week, and this month. The director of marketing and sales (that was his title, in that order) seemed to agree, and I got the marketing position.
In many companies the marketing team is tasked with driving leads to the sales team. This isn't a trivial thing; businesses must sign on new customers to grow. But sometimes, especially in e-mail marketing, the broader responsibilities and goals of marketing, over and above immediate sales and lead generation, seem to get lost.
Case in point: e-mail messages that are strictly promotional. Don't get me wrong; I'm not against sending these types of e-mail. But if the only thing you send your prospects is a "buy from us now" or "take a demo now" message, you aren't doing true e-mail marketing. You're doing e-mail sales or e-mail lead generation.
Why Do True E-mail Marketing?
True e-mail marketing, which would include branding, relationship-building, sales/lead generation and other efforts, will not only deliver sales or leads today, but also make it easier for you to deliver sales or leads in the future. These other efforts can be used to:
- Position your company as one that understands your prospects and their needs
- Keep your brand name top of mind so when prospects are ready to buy, they think of you
- Address common objections prospects have to taking a demo or buying your product, moving the sales process forward
- Build a relationship with prospects, increasing their comfort level about doing business with you
Could you use direct mail or an ongoing telephone campaign to your house list to accomplish these goals? Maybe. But it would be more expensive. E-mail is an affordable way to provide targeted content to a large group.
Why Don't More Companies Do True E-mail Marketing?
Many companies have made the investment in true e-mail marketing and are reaping the benefits. But just as many, if not more, haven't. Why?
One reason is that laser focus on short-term sales or lead generation. If you have even a halfway successful promotional e-mail program, it's likely that your first relationship building e-mail effort won't meet or beat the promotional e-mail's conversion rate. If a company has a strong focus on short-term results, that can be a hard sell: Why spend additional money to develop an e-mail with a mix of editorial (read: nonpromotional) and promotional content when you could just do an additional send of your promotional e-mail?
In the short term, another send of the promotional e-mail is the wiser choice. But if you're looking at the mid- to long term, the logic shifts. There comes a point of decreasing returns. If you send a promotional e-mail to your house list once a month and generate 100 leads from it, that doesn't mean that a weekly send of the promotional e-mail will garner 400 leads per month. And it's very unlikely that a daily send to that same list will bring you 3,000 leads for March.
Promotional e-mail attracts a limited audience: people who are ready to buy or are investigating buying. Relationship, branding, and other e-mail messages not strictly focused on sales or lead generation appeal to a larger group and give you the chance to frame the discussion. Success stories might cause readers who didn't know they had a problem to want to learn more about your solution. Interviews with experts in readers' industry might position you as someone who understands their business, which is always appealing in a partner. Getting a daily tip with your branding might trigger a call to your sales team when a need arises.
The key to success is your content's quality. Developing an e-mail message that isn't 100 percent promotional takes more effort than creating a single promotional e-mail. Many companies have an e-mail newsletter but find it isn't driving sales, leads, or other business goals; often it's being sent but rarely opened, read, or clicked through from. The reason is quality.
People are deluged with e-mail today. And they are busy. Just sending an e-mail newsletter isn't enough; you have to make sure your content is compelling to your readers. This is where many attempts at true e-mail marketing fall down. Companies are going through the motions, but they either don't have the resources or don't know how to create an e-mail newsletter that's engaging to readers and effective at forwarding the business' goals.
When done well, efforts that aren't strictly promotional can drive more sales or leads than your promotional e-mail. I've worked with clients where their e-mail newsletters, which comprise 60 percent or more editorial (read: not promotional) material, delivered sales at a higher rate than their 100 percent promotional efforts. In one instance, the relationship was two-to-one; its e-mail newsletter had double the conversion rate of its sales e-mail. This requires great quality content and some strategic placement of promotions in the e-mail newsletter, but it can be done.
The beauty of a true e-mail marketing program is that the branding and relationship-building efforts aren't replacing the promotional efforts, they're being added into the mix. So you aren't losing the 100 leads your promotional e-mail brings in every month. Instead, you'll add a different type of communication to the mix in hopes of providing a short-term lift to leads and building value over time that allows you to maintain and increase this monthly lift.
Give it a try and let me know how it goes!
Until next time,
Jeanne
Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.
E-mail Copy Tip From a Great E-mail Copywriter
By Jeanne Jennings , February 25, 2008
Pat Friesen is an award-winning, results-oriented on- and offline copywriter, as well as a friend. Her client list includes AT&T, Century 21, Hallmark, Hasbro, Hershey's, IBM, Motorola, and many other household name brands.
Friesen is my go-to copywriter for client projects. Driving response, not just writing copy, is one of her strengths. She was kind enough to share her keys to successful e-mail copy with me for this column. I encourage you to check out her regular column in Target Marketing. Her most recent column is an interview with yours truly, discussing the similarities and differences between offline direct mail and e-mail marketing.
Be Clear on Objectives
"It's important to clearly define the e-mail's objective," said Friesen. "Do you want people to buy, fill out a lead-qualification form, or just raise their hand [click through]? The copy needs to motivate the reader to the action needed to meet the objective. The more you're asking from them, the more information you will probably need to provide."
Prepare Before You Write
I know Friesen immerses herself in projects before putting fingers to keyboard. What I didn't fully comprehend was the amount of preparation. "Although I don't charge by the hour, I do keep track of my time." Friesen told me. "On average, only 20 percent is spent writing; the other 80 percent is research. I go deep into the product or service I'm writing about, as well as the audience I'm writing to. I look at current e-mails that are working for the client, as well as competitive information.
"The more information I get from a client, the better. Performance of past e-mails, including clickstream information from the open to the conversion, helps me identify opportunities and gives me a goal to beat," she continued. "Reviewing past e-mails, especially controls, is critical. Often there's a small detail that was under emphasized or just missed. By making this detail the hero of the new piece, putting it front and center with the same offer, you can often get a lift in response."
Understand the Sender
"Who is the e-mail coming from? What type of relationship does the sender have with the audience? These are critical questions to answer before you start writing." said Friesen. "E-mails come from people, not companies, so I try to work that into the copy. In some cases, the e-mail may be from a person (the director of marketing, product manager, or CEO); in other cases, it may be from a community (the company's customer service team, your friends at that company, etc.)."
Something Friesen and I agree on: there are pros and cons to using a real person's name in the sender address. If you take this route, be sure to include your company or brand name along with the person's name so you familiarize recipients with the company as well as the person sending the message.
Visualize Your Audience
Friesen says she "always has an image of who I'm writing to in my head. If the e-mail is going to mothers of little girls, I picture a woman I know and her little girl. If it's to a businessperson, I picture someone I know who's in that audience.
"I think about where they're reading the copy -- at their desk, in their home -- as well as how they are seeing it -- holding a piece of paper in their hand, viewing it on a computer screen, or scanning it on their mobile device. Also important are the distractions they may face while reading it; the copy needs to be interesting enough to gain and hold their attention."
Focus on What's in it for Readers
"The more specifics the client provides about what would motivate the audience to take the action desired, the better," said Freisen. "It's all about putting myself in the shoes of the reader. What's in it for them? Why should they open, read, click, and follow through to meet the objective?" is what Friesen focuses on. I think this is what makes her copy so highly relevant to the target audience, which is the secret of all great e-mail marketing.
Know the Features, But Talk About the Benefits
Friesen stresses the importance of knowing the different between the features of your product or service and its benefits. "A pocket is a feature; the benefit is that it can hold business cards or other things that the reader needs to keep with them," she said. "The benefit is what's in it for the reader, what's important to them, not the feature alone."
Use Violators to Highlight Key Messages
Many traditional direct marketing tactics translate beautifully to e-mail. Friesen has had success with "Johnson boxes, bursts, slashes, sidebars. These are all 'violators' which pull the key message out of the copy and give it more emphasis, so it won't be missed by the reader. Most people scan copy, rather than read it, so these techniques help you highlight the key takeaway and get your point across, even if the reader only skims."
Develop a Unique Voice and Use It Consistently
Friesen can't emphasize enough the importance of voice. "No matter what the medium, you should have a voice that you use to speak to your audience and keep it consistent throughout the relationship. E-mail tends to be more conversational, looser than copy used elsewhere. Even if you're targeting a business audience, you wouldn't want to use the type of language you find in an annual report.
"The voice you choose needs to be an accurate reflection of your brand personality. For an entertaining consumer product, it should be a fun voice; this is reflected in the vocabulary you use as well as the way the dialogue is structured. For business e-mails, you'll want to be more business-like but still conversational.
"Reading copy out loud is a great way to make sure your tone is appropriate to the audience and suitably conversational. Often I'll rewrite sentences which initially seemed good on paper but which don't work as well when I read them out loud."
Be Your Own Best Editor
"Don't say or tell too much," advised Friesen. "Hone in on the two or three things the reader needs to know to take the action you're looking for. If something in the copy isn't moving the audience toward the objective, get rid of it. If possible, step away from the copy and come back to it a few hours or a day later. Keep cutting until the message comes through loud and clear, without clutter."
Test, Test, Test
Friesen is as big a fan of testing as I am. "That's what makes it direct marketing!" is how she puts it. This is another reason she's one of my favorite copywriters to work with. It's not just about copy that reads well, it's about beating the control, lifting response rates, and creating an e-mail that's more effective than anything the client has used before. Once we get a winning e-mail, it's about tweaking it to make it even better or going back to the drawing board to create a new e-mail that will beat it.
Use Friesen's tips to write your own copy and let me know how it goes!
Until next time,
Jeanne
Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.
Pat Friesen is an award-winning, results-oriented on- and offline copywriter, as well as a friend. Her client list includes AT&T, Century 21, Hallmark, Hasbro, Hershey's, IBM, Motorola, and many other household name brands.
Friesen is my go-to copywriter for client projects. Driving response, not just writing copy, is one of her strengths. She was kind enough to share her keys to successful e-mail copy with me for this column. I encourage you to check out her regular column in Target Marketing. Her most recent column is an interview with yours truly, discussing the similarities and differences between offline direct mail and e-mail marketing.
Be Clear on Objectives
"It's important to clearly define the e-mail's objective," said Friesen. "Do you want people to buy, fill out a lead-qualification form, or just raise their hand [click through]? The copy needs to motivate the reader to the action needed to meet the objective. The more you're asking from them, the more information you will probably need to provide."
Prepare Before You Write
I know Friesen immerses herself in projects before putting fingers to keyboard. What I didn't fully comprehend was the amount of preparation. "Although I don't charge by the hour, I do keep track of my time." Friesen told me. "On average, only 20 percent is spent writing; the other 80 percent is research. I go deep into the product or service I'm writing about, as well as the audience I'm writing to. I look at current e-mails that are working for the client, as well as competitive information.
"The more information I get from a client, the better. Performance of past e-mails, including clickstream information from the open to the conversion, helps me identify opportunities and gives me a goal to beat," she continued. "Reviewing past e-mails, especially controls, is critical. Often there's a small detail that was under emphasized or just missed. By making this detail the hero of the new piece, putting it front and center with the same offer, you can often get a lift in response."
Understand the Sender
"Who is the e-mail coming from? What type of relationship does the sender have with the audience? These are critical questions to answer before you start writing." said Friesen. "E-mails come from people, not companies, so I try to work that into the copy. In some cases, the e-mail may be from a person (the director of marketing, product manager, or CEO); in other cases, it may be from a community (the company's customer service team, your friends at that company, etc.)."
Something Friesen and I agree on: there are pros and cons to using a real person's name in the sender address. If you take this route, be sure to include your company or brand name along with the person's name so you familiarize recipients with the company as well as the person sending the message.
Visualize Your Audience
Friesen says she "always has an image of who I'm writing to in my head. If the e-mail is going to mothers of little girls, I picture a woman I know and her little girl. If it's to a businessperson, I picture someone I know who's in that audience.
"I think about where they're reading the copy -- at their desk, in their home -- as well as how they are seeing it -- holding a piece of paper in their hand, viewing it on a computer screen, or scanning it on their mobile device. Also important are the distractions they may face while reading it; the copy needs to be interesting enough to gain and hold their attention."
Focus on What's in it for Readers
"The more specifics the client provides about what would motivate the audience to take the action desired, the better," said Freisen. "It's all about putting myself in the shoes of the reader. What's in it for them? Why should they open, read, click, and follow through to meet the objective?" is what Friesen focuses on. I think this is what makes her copy so highly relevant to the target audience, which is the secret of all great e-mail marketing.
Know the Features, But Talk About the Benefits
Friesen stresses the importance of knowing the different between the features of your product or service and its benefits. "A pocket is a feature; the benefit is that it can hold business cards or other things that the reader needs to keep with them," she said. "The benefit is what's in it for the reader, what's important to them, not the feature alone."
Use Violators to Highlight Key Messages
Many traditional direct marketing tactics translate beautifully to e-mail. Friesen has had success with "Johnson boxes, bursts, slashes, sidebars. These are all 'violators' which pull the key message out of the copy and give it more emphasis, so it won't be missed by the reader. Most people scan copy, rather than read it, so these techniques help you highlight the key takeaway and get your point across, even if the reader only skims."
Develop a Unique Voice and Use It Consistently
Friesen can't emphasize enough the importance of voice. "No matter what the medium, you should have a voice that you use to speak to your audience and keep it consistent throughout the relationship. E-mail tends to be more conversational, looser than copy used elsewhere. Even if you're targeting a business audience, you wouldn't want to use the type of language you find in an annual report.
"The voice you choose needs to be an accurate reflection of your brand personality. For an entertaining consumer product, it should be a fun voice; this is reflected in the vocabulary you use as well as the way the dialogue is structured. For business e-mails, you'll want to be more business-like but still conversational.
"Reading copy out loud is a great way to make sure your tone is appropriate to the audience and suitably conversational. Often I'll rewrite sentences which initially seemed good on paper but which don't work as well when I read them out loud."
Be Your Own Best Editor
"Don't say or tell too much," advised Friesen. "Hone in on the two or three things the reader needs to know to take the action you're looking for. If something in the copy isn't moving the audience toward the objective, get rid of it. If possible, step away from the copy and come back to it a few hours or a day later. Keep cutting until the message comes through loud and clear, without clutter."
Test, Test, Test
Friesen is as big a fan of testing as I am. "That's what makes it direct marketing!" is how she puts it. This is another reason she's one of my favorite copywriters to work with. It's not just about copy that reads well, it's about beating the control, lifting response rates, and creating an e-mail that's more effective than anything the client has used before. Once we get a winning e-mail, it's about tweaking it to make it even better or going back to the drawing board to create a new e-mail that will beat it.
Use Friesen's tips to write your own copy and let me know how it goes!
Until next time,
Jeanne
Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Email Marketing and Small Businesses: Waste of Time or Worth The Effort?
by Josh Nason
Stop me if you've had this conversation before with a small-business owner:
You: "So that's a broad overview of what we do. We can definitely help you out with whatever you might need in the email marketing space."
Them: "Well... how much do you cost?"
You: "It really depends on what you use us for, whether it's software, creative or something else. Do you have a budget set aside for this type of thing?"
Them: "Not really."
You: "OK. How much money do you invest in marketing?"
Them: "We don't really have any money set aside for that."
You: "Oh."
"You" are the email marketing person. You've made your pitch, given the 10,000-foot view of your assortment of services, and provided a cost-effective and much more financially sensible way to spend marketing dollars. "They" are the small business owner (SBO), who either has no idea about what email marketing is all about or has only a rudimentary knowledge. They have heard of email and figure they should be doing something, but they're not sure where to start.
For email marketers, how to deal with the SBO is an ongoing challenge. I always try to be optimistic in the early stages of these talks, since it takes a lot of small pebbles to fit around the giant rocks in the sales bottle I'm trying to fill. You never know when the person on the other end of the line has the next big idea that will catch fire and, as a result, create a fanbase of information-seeking consumers.
Obstacles
In my experience, there are three main obstacles to introducing email marketing to a small business.
1. Budget
No matter who you're dealing with, the question of cost will always be a factor. Every dollar counts when it comes to a small business, from pens to water to benefits to that arcade game you buy from the pizza shop going out of business. So the SBO often worries about the expense before the benefits.
2. Education and Experience
There is a chart that a coworker and I designed to help us classify prospects and how much of an educational investment we'd have to make in bringing them on. Featured on one axis was experience and on the other education. Some people were very experienced with email, but had no real education on what a successful campaign was. Some people were well educated, having done research on the subject, but had never deployed a campaign themselves.
For the most part, the SBO falls low on both counts, simply because email doesn't fall high on the priority chart when you're opening up the doors to a new restaurant. Email marketing is one of those deals that come after a Web site, unfortunately months after people have already become consumers of the product—and, with the right offer, could be easily enticed to come back. This leads to direct mail and, then, a colossal waste of money and resources.
So when you're trying to explain paying for something that traditionally is understood as free (Hotmail, AOL, etc.), it can become difficult to get the SBO to understand the next step. In addition, when you try something new and don't have experience, it can be a bit scary. You don't want to err so badly that you suddenly alienate your client base, but you also don't have to the time to fully commit to doing things the right way. How can you win?
3. Desire
The best marketers are those who want to do a great job, rather than feel like they have to do a great job. Desire will turn a good marketer into a great one, and a lackluster campaign into an award-winning one. However, most SBOs don't desire to do great email, but feel they should be doing something because "everyone else is."
If SBOs don't embrace the concept, how can we expect them to pull off successful campaigns?
Surmounting the Obstacles
Have no fear, though. There are ways to get around those obstacles.
Sing to their stinginess
One of the easiest selling points of email marketing is its cost-effectiveness. Pay by the month, pay by the campaign, do whatever makes you comfortable. If they're saying they have no money, tell them that email is the stopgap in flushing money down the marketing drain, and that if done right email will help their sink overflow. (Note: The overflowing sink isn't a great analogy with plumbers... so try something else.)
It's the metrics, baby!
Are they going to do ads in the local paper? Stop them. Running a series of :30 jingles on a radio station? Stop them. Letting their crazy nephew walk around town in a sandwich board? Stop... well, let them do it—and then stop them.
Paint a simple analogy: If you put an ad in the paper/TV/radio, will you know whether people keep going back to it, point to it, or tell other friends about it? With email, you can track all that and more. Know your prospects' actions, and then cater your marketing around it. Feel free to add in the cost/benefit again, too!
Be honest
I've told several potential SBOs, "Just so you know, this might not work out." Some are stunned, while others appreciate the honesty. Quite simply, there are some smaller companies that we just don't have the bandwidth to work with... because of time, budgetary resources, or needs. They need more than we can offer at a price we can't justify. But that's OK. We'll refer them to one of our partner email consultants who has more one-on-one time available.
If you're honest and upfront with every prospect you come in touch with, that'll alleviate any potential trust issues down the road. And trust is a huge part of any partnership that a small business encounters.
***
Helping the little guy win some battles can be a great feeling, especially when it means that you're helping make their dreams come true.
The email marketing business is more effective and targetable than any other mass medium. And it is relatively easy to get started. So the small business owner can spend more time thinking about all these new revenues he has and less time banging his head against a wall trying to figure out why his radio ad isn't working.
The tricky part is getting them to understand that.
Josh Nason is The Email Marketing Guy for SendLabs (www.SendLabs.com), an email marketing software and solutions company. He can be reached at josh@sendlabs.com or (603) 296-4084 ext. 01.
Published on February 12, 2008
Stop me if you've had this conversation before with a small-business owner:
You: "So that's a broad overview of what we do. We can definitely help you out with whatever you might need in the email marketing space."
Them: "Well... how much do you cost?"
You: "It really depends on what you use us for, whether it's software, creative or something else. Do you have a budget set aside for this type of thing?"
Them: "Not really."
You: "OK. How much money do you invest in marketing?"
Them: "We don't really have any money set aside for that."
You: "Oh."
"You" are the email marketing person. You've made your pitch, given the 10,000-foot view of your assortment of services, and provided a cost-effective and much more financially sensible way to spend marketing dollars. "They" are the small business owner (SBO), who either has no idea about what email marketing is all about or has only a rudimentary knowledge. They have heard of email and figure they should be doing something, but they're not sure where to start.
For email marketers, how to deal with the SBO is an ongoing challenge. I always try to be optimistic in the early stages of these talks, since it takes a lot of small pebbles to fit around the giant rocks in the sales bottle I'm trying to fill. You never know when the person on the other end of the line has the next big idea that will catch fire and, as a result, create a fanbase of information-seeking consumers.
Obstacles
In my experience, there are three main obstacles to introducing email marketing to a small business.
1. Budget
No matter who you're dealing with, the question of cost will always be a factor. Every dollar counts when it comes to a small business, from pens to water to benefits to that arcade game you buy from the pizza shop going out of business. So the SBO often worries about the expense before the benefits.
2. Education and Experience
There is a chart that a coworker and I designed to help us classify prospects and how much of an educational investment we'd have to make in bringing them on. Featured on one axis was experience and on the other education. Some people were very experienced with email, but had no real education on what a successful campaign was. Some people were well educated, having done research on the subject, but had never deployed a campaign themselves.
For the most part, the SBO falls low on both counts, simply because email doesn't fall high on the priority chart when you're opening up the doors to a new restaurant. Email marketing is one of those deals that come after a Web site, unfortunately months after people have already become consumers of the product—and, with the right offer, could be easily enticed to come back. This leads to direct mail and, then, a colossal waste of money and resources.
So when you're trying to explain paying for something that traditionally is understood as free (Hotmail, AOL, etc.), it can become difficult to get the SBO to understand the next step. In addition, when you try something new and don't have experience, it can be a bit scary. You don't want to err so badly that you suddenly alienate your client base, but you also don't have to the time to fully commit to doing things the right way. How can you win?
3. Desire
The best marketers are those who want to do a great job, rather than feel like they have to do a great job. Desire will turn a good marketer into a great one, and a lackluster campaign into an award-winning one. However, most SBOs don't desire to do great email, but feel they should be doing something because "everyone else is."
If SBOs don't embrace the concept, how can we expect them to pull off successful campaigns?
Surmounting the Obstacles
Have no fear, though. There are ways to get around those obstacles.
Sing to their stinginess
One of the easiest selling points of email marketing is its cost-effectiveness. Pay by the month, pay by the campaign, do whatever makes you comfortable. If they're saying they have no money, tell them that email is the stopgap in flushing money down the marketing drain, and that if done right email will help their sink overflow. (Note: The overflowing sink isn't a great analogy with plumbers... so try something else.)
It's the metrics, baby!
Are they going to do ads in the local paper? Stop them. Running a series of :30 jingles on a radio station? Stop them. Letting their crazy nephew walk around town in a sandwich board? Stop... well, let them do it—and then stop them.
Paint a simple analogy: If you put an ad in the paper/TV/radio, will you know whether people keep going back to it, point to it, or tell other friends about it? With email, you can track all that and more. Know your prospects' actions, and then cater your marketing around it. Feel free to add in the cost/benefit again, too!
Be honest
I've told several potential SBOs, "Just so you know, this might not work out." Some are stunned, while others appreciate the honesty. Quite simply, there are some smaller companies that we just don't have the bandwidth to work with... because of time, budgetary resources, or needs. They need more than we can offer at a price we can't justify. But that's OK. We'll refer them to one of our partner email consultants who has more one-on-one time available.
If you're honest and upfront with every prospect you come in touch with, that'll alleviate any potential trust issues down the road. And trust is a huge part of any partnership that a small business encounters.
***
Helping the little guy win some battles can be a great feeling, especially when it means that you're helping make their dreams come true.
The email marketing business is more effective and targetable than any other mass medium. And it is relatively easy to get started. So the small business owner can spend more time thinking about all these new revenues he has and less time banging his head against a wall trying to figure out why his radio ad isn't working.
The tricky part is getting them to understand that.
Josh Nason is The Email Marketing Guy for SendLabs (www.SendLabs.com), an email marketing software and solutions company. He can be reached at josh@sendlabs.com or (603) 296-4084 ext. 01.
Published on February 12, 2008
E-mail Testing: A Real-World Approach
By Karen Gedney , February 6, 2008
I recently read "The Practical Guide to E-mail Marketing" by Jordan Ayan, CEO of SubscriberMail and frequent speaker at ClickZ's e-mail forums.
It's a great CliffsNotes introduction to e-mail marketing (only 55 pages total) that can help online marketing newbies quickly get up to speed.
While the whole guide is very helpful, the section on e-mail testing stands out. It covers the real-world thought process of anyone who's thinking about testing her e-mail program's effectiveness while providing a simple road map to follow.
I've excerpted the section because I think it outlines testing scenarios in the way people really think (or should be thinking) about testing.
Hand out this checklist next time you go into a meeting to discuss how to improve your e-mail marketing performance. It will help you guide the discussions more productively -- and probably hit upon the most profitable areas to test.
Step 1: Ask a Question
Start the testing process by asking a question. What are you hoping for? Determine a specific goal to accomplish rather than attempt multiple goals with one blanket approach. A series of small steps can be easy to test and analyze:
o I'd like to have more people open my messages.
o I'd like to have more people click through to my Web site.
o I'd like to reengage with historically inactive people.
o I'd like to have people click on a specific area, topic, or action.
Step 2: Form a Theory
Use your marketing experience and best practice knowledge to determine what aspects may make a difference in achieving the goal you've defined.
o I think people may be bored with my current subject lines.
o I think that the placement of the specific content may drive more people to action.
o I think that people may not understand this is from my organization and therefore will not interact.
o I think my calls to action need to be stronger.
Step 3: Create the Test
Set up your test, following best practices. Remember, you don't need to prove the obvious.
To optimize opens, I am going to test (one per test):
o From name
o Best day to send
o Subject line
o Best time to send
To optimize click-throughs, I'm going to test (one per test):
o Creative/layout
o Subject lines
o Copy
o From name
o Calls to action
To optimize conversions, I'm going to test (one per test):
o Landing pages
o Calls to action
o Creative/layout
o Subject lines
o Copy
o From name
Step 4: Segment the List
Choose the best list or segment to test, and split it (for that specific test):
o I'm confident this list is the most appropriate to prove or disprove my theory.
o My list is only large enough to do an A/B split.
o My list is large enough that I can break it into a larger control and other smaller test segments.
o My list is large enough that I can sample a percentage of my list to test.
Step 5: Measure and Analyze Results
Measure and analyze results to gain insight and prove or disprove theory. Accurately compile stats (to conversions). What does it all mean? Look beyond the numbers. Even small percentage differences can mean large gains in response rates:
o My opens increased ___%.
o My click-throughs changed __%.
o My conversions changed __%.
o Traffic to my Web site increased __%.
o My click-throughs were more focused on specific area, topic, or action.
o My click-throughs were spread out across areas, topics, or actions.
o Sales calls increased __%.
Step 6: Make Changes
Commit to making at least one change in each campaign.
o I need to change my from name.
o I need to change my subject line.
o I need to specific words.
o I need to subject line format.
o I need to add content.
o I need to decrease content and simplify.
o I need to increase clickable areas or clicks.
o I need to highlight actionable items more.
o I need to change copy.
o I need to modify layout.
Let me know how this checklist works for you. You can be sure I'm passing it along to my clients.
Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.
I recently read "The Practical Guide to E-mail Marketing" by Jordan Ayan, CEO of SubscriberMail and frequent speaker at ClickZ's e-mail forums.
It's a great CliffsNotes introduction to e-mail marketing (only 55 pages total) that can help online marketing newbies quickly get up to speed.
While the whole guide is very helpful, the section on e-mail testing stands out. It covers the real-world thought process of anyone who's thinking about testing her e-mail program's effectiveness while providing a simple road map to follow.
I've excerpted the section because I think it outlines testing scenarios in the way people really think (or should be thinking) about testing.
Hand out this checklist next time you go into a meeting to discuss how to improve your e-mail marketing performance. It will help you guide the discussions more productively -- and probably hit upon the most profitable areas to test.
Step 1: Ask a Question
Start the testing process by asking a question. What are you hoping for? Determine a specific goal to accomplish rather than attempt multiple goals with one blanket approach. A series of small steps can be easy to test and analyze:
o I'd like to have more people open my messages.
o I'd like to have more people click through to my Web site.
o I'd like to reengage with historically inactive people.
o I'd like to have people click on a specific area, topic, or action.
Step 2: Form a Theory
Use your marketing experience and best practice knowledge to determine what aspects may make a difference in achieving the goal you've defined.
o I think people may be bored with my current subject lines.
o I think that the placement of the specific content may drive more people to action.
o I think that people may not understand this is from my organization and therefore will not interact.
o I think my calls to action need to be stronger.
Step 3: Create the Test
Set up your test, following best practices. Remember, you don't need to prove the obvious.
To optimize opens, I am going to test (one per test):
o From name
o Best day to send
o Subject line
o Best time to send
To optimize click-throughs, I'm going to test (one per test):
o Creative/layout
o Subject lines
o Copy
o From name
o Calls to action
To optimize conversions, I'm going to test (one per test):
o Landing pages
o Calls to action
o Creative/layout
o Subject lines
o Copy
o From name
Step 4: Segment the List
Choose the best list or segment to test, and split it (for that specific test):
o I'm confident this list is the most appropriate to prove or disprove my theory.
o My list is only large enough to do an A/B split.
o My list is large enough that I can break it into a larger control and other smaller test segments.
o My list is large enough that I can sample a percentage of my list to test.
Step 5: Measure and Analyze Results
Measure and analyze results to gain insight and prove or disprove theory. Accurately compile stats (to conversions). What does it all mean? Look beyond the numbers. Even small percentage differences can mean large gains in response rates:
o My opens increased ___%.
o My click-throughs changed __%.
o My conversions changed __%.
o Traffic to my Web site increased __%.
o My click-throughs were more focused on specific area, topic, or action.
o My click-throughs were spread out across areas, topics, or actions.
o Sales calls increased __%.
Step 6: Make Changes
Commit to making at least one change in each campaign.
o I need to change my from name.
o I need to change my subject line.
o I need to specific words.
o I need to subject line format.
o I need to add content.
o I need to decrease content and simplify.
o I need to increase clickable areas or clicks.
o I need to highlight actionable items more.
o I need to change copy.
o I need to modify layout.
Let me know how this checklist works for you. You can be sure I'm passing it along to my clients.
Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
How to Make Your Email Program More Productive in 2008
by Reggie Brady
Welcome to the New Year! I hope you've recharged your batteries and are ready to start a successful 2008.
And if you haven't done it yet, now is the perfect time to map out plans for your email program. Any changes you might make in the first few months of the year will stand you in good stead.
Resolve to do your homework
Good planning starts with analysis. Have you compared your overall results with available industry benchmarks? There are many sources for this information, but one to check is email provider Bronto. Though your own metrics are more important, you will have a gauge for how well your program is working in comparison with those of your peers.
Drill down deeper and look at results from the types of campaigns you send. Many email marketers vary the cadence of their messaging. They send e-newsletters, product or service promotions, general-themed promotions, and more. Are there variations in your results? If certain types of emails are stronger, attempt to discern what makes them work. If some campaigns are weaker, you may need to try a new communications strategy for those.
And, take the time to analyze your list. Is your list size growing substantially each year? Is your list showing any fatigue in terms of open and click-through rates? If so, you might want to look at frequency. Have you analyzed performance by the source of the names? Email sign ups from your Web site should be the most productive. Other marketing techniques such as co-registration, contests, or appending may not be as effective. If you find that's so, you might want to tighten your permission practices for those sources.
What percentage of your list has not opened or clicked on a message in four to six months? Possibly a substantial part of your file. Put a plan in place to re-engage them. Some common techniques are to ask recipients to update their preferences, special time-sensitive offers, and text or HTML-lite messages (to overcome potential delivery or image-blocking problems). After one or more reactivation efforts, it may be time to take a big step and selectively prune your list.
Resolve to test new email features or capabilities
Email programs should never be on autopilot. There are great features and capabilities that should be part of your email marketing toolkit. For a well-rounded program, you should include the following features:
1. A preference center. Today the power is in the hands of your recipients. Make sure they can alter their information and preferences. If you already have such a facility in place, perhaps it is time to add additional features, such as giving them the choice to indicate specific topics or products of interest or the ability to decide how often they want to hear from you.
2. Triggered messaging. If you are an e-commerce marketer, you should definitely have an abandoned-shopping-cart program in place to recapture lost sales. Consider putting triggered messaging in place for email recipients who clicked through to your site and browsed, but did not purchase. You might start this simply and choose only your top products or services. Or, launch a cross-sell initiative for purchasers. Each of these techniques will improve the relevance of your programs and increase sales.
3. Segmentation. This is important to your email success and should be part of your communications strategy. Some common elements used to segment are geography, gender, past purchase behavior, demonstrated interest from click-throughs, and the length of time the person has been on the list. If you're not segmenting, set a goal to test one or two factors. If you already see the value of using this technique, it's time to test additional groups. Dynamic personalization makes it relatively easy to set up and monitor results.
4. Social networking. There's certainly a lot of buzz about blogs and customer reviews. They may not be right for everyone, but more marketers are experimenting with ways to increase interaction and the overall user experience on their sites. And, email is a perfect way to promote any new features you incorporate into your online presence.
Resolve to make your emails work harder
Take a hard look at your email template designs and make sure they put your best foot forward. I continue to be surprised that many emails I receive make no effective use of the preview pane.
Many do not include a link to view the HTML version. Since image blocking is a major issue, this is almost a mandatory element to include. You may also want to include headlines to support your subject line, additional personalization, or even a newsletter table of contents.
View your emails with images disabled. Is there enough supporting text to still stimulate interest and activity? Too many emails I receive are composed of a single large image. It takes more time to hand-code messages with images and text, but it is well worth the trouble. It is very easy to test whether this makes a major impact on your results.
Is it time to develop some new templates? Get your creative team to develop some new prototypes for the various types of campaigns you conduct. An updated look and feel can breathe new life into your program.
Resolve to focus on the customer
Finally, think hard about ways to amaze and delight your email recipients. That effort will make your emails stand out in a cluttered inbox and improve your performance.
My favorite technique is to introduce value-added content such as tips, interesting factoids, or user-generated content. You could also provide the opportunity to interact—via polls, an Ask the Expert feature, or periodic contests or games.
Any plans or changes that you implement in the first quarter should pay dividends for the balance of the year. I hope that I've given you food for thought and that you'll put several of these ideas into practice.
Have a great 2008!
Reggie Brady is president of Reggie Brady Marketing Solutions (www.reggiebrady.com), a direct and email marketing consultancy. She can be reached at (203) 838-8138 or reginabrady@att.net.
Published on January 8, 2008
Welcome to the New Year! I hope you've recharged your batteries and are ready to start a successful 2008.
And if you haven't done it yet, now is the perfect time to map out plans for your email program. Any changes you might make in the first few months of the year will stand you in good stead.
Resolve to do your homework
Good planning starts with analysis. Have you compared your overall results with available industry benchmarks? There are many sources for this information, but one to check is email provider Bronto. Though your own metrics are more important, you will have a gauge for how well your program is working in comparison with those of your peers.
Drill down deeper and look at results from the types of campaigns you send. Many email marketers vary the cadence of their messaging. They send e-newsletters, product or service promotions, general-themed promotions, and more. Are there variations in your results? If certain types of emails are stronger, attempt to discern what makes them work. If some campaigns are weaker, you may need to try a new communications strategy for those.
And, take the time to analyze your list. Is your list size growing substantially each year? Is your list showing any fatigue in terms of open and click-through rates? If so, you might want to look at frequency. Have you analyzed performance by the source of the names? Email sign ups from your Web site should be the most productive. Other marketing techniques such as co-registration, contests, or appending may not be as effective. If you find that's so, you might want to tighten your permission practices for those sources.
What percentage of your list has not opened or clicked on a message in four to six months? Possibly a substantial part of your file. Put a plan in place to re-engage them. Some common techniques are to ask recipients to update their preferences, special time-sensitive offers, and text or HTML-lite messages (to overcome potential delivery or image-blocking problems). After one or more reactivation efforts, it may be time to take a big step and selectively prune your list.
Resolve to test new email features or capabilities
Email programs should never be on autopilot. There are great features and capabilities that should be part of your email marketing toolkit. For a well-rounded program, you should include the following features:
1. A preference center. Today the power is in the hands of your recipients. Make sure they can alter their information and preferences. If you already have such a facility in place, perhaps it is time to add additional features, such as giving them the choice to indicate specific topics or products of interest or the ability to decide how often they want to hear from you.
2. Triggered messaging. If you are an e-commerce marketer, you should definitely have an abandoned-shopping-cart program in place to recapture lost sales. Consider putting triggered messaging in place for email recipients who clicked through to your site and browsed, but did not purchase. You might start this simply and choose only your top products or services. Or, launch a cross-sell initiative for purchasers. Each of these techniques will improve the relevance of your programs and increase sales.
3. Segmentation. This is important to your email success and should be part of your communications strategy. Some common elements used to segment are geography, gender, past purchase behavior, demonstrated interest from click-throughs, and the length of time the person has been on the list. If you're not segmenting, set a goal to test one or two factors. If you already see the value of using this technique, it's time to test additional groups. Dynamic personalization makes it relatively easy to set up and monitor results.
4. Social networking. There's certainly a lot of buzz about blogs and customer reviews. They may not be right for everyone, but more marketers are experimenting with ways to increase interaction and the overall user experience on their sites. And, email is a perfect way to promote any new features you incorporate into your online presence.
Resolve to make your emails work harder
Take a hard look at your email template designs and make sure they put your best foot forward. I continue to be surprised that many emails I receive make no effective use of the preview pane.
Many do not include a link to view the HTML version. Since image blocking is a major issue, this is almost a mandatory element to include. You may also want to include headlines to support your subject line, additional personalization, or even a newsletter table of contents.
View your emails with images disabled. Is there enough supporting text to still stimulate interest and activity? Too many emails I receive are composed of a single large image. It takes more time to hand-code messages with images and text, but it is well worth the trouble. It is very easy to test whether this makes a major impact on your results.
Is it time to develop some new templates? Get your creative team to develop some new prototypes for the various types of campaigns you conduct. An updated look and feel can breathe new life into your program.
Resolve to focus on the customer
Finally, think hard about ways to amaze and delight your email recipients. That effort will make your emails stand out in a cluttered inbox and improve your performance.
My favorite technique is to introduce value-added content such as tips, interesting factoids, or user-generated content. You could also provide the opportunity to interact—via polls, an Ask the Expert feature, or periodic contests or games.
Any plans or changes that you implement in the first quarter should pay dividends for the balance of the year. I hope that I've given you food for thought and that you'll put several of these ideas into practice.
Have a great 2008!
Reggie Brady is president of Reggie Brady Marketing Solutions (www.reggiebrady.com), a direct and email marketing consultancy. She can be reached at (203) 838-8138 or reginabrady@att.net.
Published on January 8, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Six International E-Mail Marketing Challenges
Six International E-Mail Marketing Challenges
By Derek Harding , March 20, 2008
Last month I was part of a panel on international e-mail marketing at the Email Experience Council's Email Evolution Conference in San Diego. When marketers think about sending e-mail internationally, localization is obviously one of the first issues that come up. The discussion then often moves to the questions of translation and infrastructure support for "foreign" languages. In effect, localization is often equated with translation.
What struck me most during the panel was the consensus that translation isn't localization. The panelists all agreed that localization is vital to international campaigns' success, and they weren't talking about translation.
Localization, effectively, is a form of segmentation. When sending e-mail within a single country with a mostly common language and culture, we know there are significant differences between audiences. We also know that speaking to these audiences individually (segmenting) substantially lifts results. Clearly the same will hold true when sending to multiple countries, each with its own language, culture, and social mores.
Some localization issues that regularly present challenges internationally include:
* Message form. The amount of content that works well in messages varies from country to country. In the United States, when we send newsletters, it's common to only include article overviews with links to the full articles online. However, in some countries the expectation is the full content will appear in the message.
* Personalization and salutations. In some countries, use of personalization and salutations (e.g., Dear Derek) can improve results. In others, it's seen as hackneyed or even a privacy invasion.
* Send time. When to send is also a regional and cultural question. Clearly, the local time zone must be taken into account. So should variations in when people work. Which days constitute the weekend vary across the globe. Holidays vary from country to country, as does when people commonly take vacations.
* Local norms. There are many local norms that can be entirely unexpected if you don't have local knowledge. For example, in the U.S. it's quite common to post prices exclusive of tax. In some other countries, this is simply not done and may even be disallowed by local law. In France, it's common to ask recipients to print out a form and fax it back, whereas in many other countries this would be considered absurd.
* Local laws. While anti-spam requirements are the most obvious laws that apply to international e-mail, some countries may have additional laws and requirements for doing business electronically, especially related to privacy and use of personal information.
* Language. The language selected does matter for international communications. However, the choice of language isn't necessarily clear cut. Many countries use more than one language, and which languages you support can be very important. For some cultural groups, using their language may be essential; for others, it may have little effect. Some audiences may even prefer to receive communications in English rather than their native tongue. This is often the case for more technical audiences.
In a tightening economy, many organizations centralize and close satellite offices to manage costs. What my fellow panelists made clear is that while such centralization of e-mail management can reduce costs and improve messaging consistency, it's essential not to lose the understanding of the places to which you're mailing.
At the end of the day, there's really no substitute for local knowledge to ensure effective international communications.
By Derek Harding , March 20, 2008
Last month I was part of a panel on international e-mail marketing at the Email Experience Council's Email Evolution Conference in San Diego. When marketers think about sending e-mail internationally, localization is obviously one of the first issues that come up. The discussion then often moves to the questions of translation and infrastructure support for "foreign" languages. In effect, localization is often equated with translation.
What struck me most during the panel was the consensus that translation isn't localization. The panelists all agreed that localization is vital to international campaigns' success, and they weren't talking about translation.
Localization, effectively, is a form of segmentation. When sending e-mail within a single country with a mostly common language and culture, we know there are significant differences between audiences. We also know that speaking to these audiences individually (segmenting) substantially lifts results. Clearly the same will hold true when sending to multiple countries, each with its own language, culture, and social mores.
Some localization issues that regularly present challenges internationally include:
* Message form. The amount of content that works well in messages varies from country to country. In the United States, when we send newsletters, it's common to only include article overviews with links to the full articles online. However, in some countries the expectation is the full content will appear in the message.
* Personalization and salutations. In some countries, use of personalization and salutations (e.g., Dear Derek) can improve results. In others, it's seen as hackneyed or even a privacy invasion.
* Send time. When to send is also a regional and cultural question. Clearly, the local time zone must be taken into account. So should variations in when people work. Which days constitute the weekend vary across the globe. Holidays vary from country to country, as does when people commonly take vacations.
* Local norms. There are many local norms that can be entirely unexpected if you don't have local knowledge. For example, in the U.S. it's quite common to post prices exclusive of tax. In some other countries, this is simply not done and may even be disallowed by local law. In France, it's common to ask recipients to print out a form and fax it back, whereas in many other countries this would be considered absurd.
* Local laws. While anti-spam requirements are the most obvious laws that apply to international e-mail, some countries may have additional laws and requirements for doing business electronically, especially related to privacy and use of personal information.
* Language. The language selected does matter for international communications. However, the choice of language isn't necessarily clear cut. Many countries use more than one language, and which languages you support can be very important. For some cultural groups, using their language may be essential; for others, it may have little effect. Some audiences may even prefer to receive communications in English rather than their native tongue. This is often the case for more technical audiences.
In a tightening economy, many organizations centralize and close satellite offices to manage costs. What my fellow panelists made clear is that while such centralization of e-mail management can reduce costs and improve messaging consistency, it's essential not to lose the understanding of the places to which you're mailing.
At the end of the day, there's really no substitute for local knowledge to ensure effective international communications.
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