Signs Your Email Program Is Behind The Curve

by Chad White, Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Email marketing's high return on investment often breeds complacency -- and is often pointed to as both a blessing and curse. After all, why invest more in analytics, segmentation, and testing when the profits are already rolling in quite nicely?

 

Meanwhile, some companies realize that there's much more to be had from their email programs. They recognize the effect that a strong email program can have on other channels and on their brand reputation. They make smart investments in new capabilities and are constantly optimizing their processes, messaging and email designs. They're way ahead of the curve, leaving complacent competitors in the dust.

Here are a few signs that despite "good" results, your email program is getting lapped:

1. You rarely, if ever, A/B test anything. Why sweat the details? Different subject lines, calls-to-action, messaging, layout and send times can sometimes boost the performance of an email by double digits, while uncovering tactics that you can operationalize and build upon further. To me, a culture of testing is the surest sign that your email results are market-leading.

2. You don't review performance metrics. Money keeps coming in, so why bother with analyzing open, click, unsubscribe and complaint rates? If you're flying blind, you have little hope of making improvements to your program.

3. You don't segment. All of our subscribers are interested in everything we offer. Unless you only sell one or two products, this is surely not true. Mining past purchases and click behavior in your emails and on your Web site, plus asking subscribers for their preferences, will reveal lots of opportunities to send the right offers to the right subscribers. One-size-fits-all programs are losing their effectiveness as email volume rises and consumers gravitate toward email programs that respect their time. People know that they can just Google discount codes when they want them. They don't need to sign up for your emails to get broadcast discount codes and other non-targeted, non-individualized content.

4. Transactional messages are the only triggered emails that you send. We don't have to send other triggered messages to be successful. Lifecycle messaging such as welcome, birthday, anniversary, browse, and shopping cart abandonment emails deliver revenue per email that's multifold what's generated by broadcast emails. Plus, trigger email programs tend to return the money you invest in them within a matter of months and don't require much upkeep thereafter. 

5. You haven't updated your sign-up form, opt-in confirmation page or any other such pages since launching them. They work pretty well for us, so we're focused on other things. These pages are not fire-and-forget. Logos change, brand messaging changes, email program benefits change. These elements should be reviewed annually, at a minimum.

6. You don't make it easy for customers to sign up for your emails. Our Web site department is hard to work with and won't give us space for a sign-up link on our homepage or anywhere else. If customers can't easily opt in, your list growth will be perpetually stunted. Weak organic growth may also drive you to try to acquire subscribers through riskier means, jeopardizing your sender reputation.      

7. You're totally preoccupied with the day-to-day of getting emails out the door. We've hired strategic consultants before, but we never have time to implement any big changes. If you're mired in the trenches of email production and not devoting a substantial chunk of your hours to strategic initiatives, your program is basically static, making it easy for your competitors to pass you by. Look for ways to streamline production processes through better coordination with other departments, faster production tools, more flexible email templates and other means, so you can spend time building the future, not just your next email.

It's my hope that 2010 is the year that CMOs and CEOs wake up to the massive investment gap in their email program. In the not-too-distant future, they may find that gap has grown so large that they're unable to close it.

Chad White is the Research Director at Smith-Harmon, a Responsys Company and digital marketing services agency. Visit his blog at http://www.retailemailblog.com/

Direct Mail Starting To Show Signs of Life

Jan 15, 2010 12:28 PM, By Herb Torgersen

Great post from Herb, direct mail is not dead, far from it. It is finding its strength again in both traditional and new verticals, supporting the multi-channel marketing world we live in.

If the first two weeks of 2010 are any indication of what is to come, direct mail might just find its way off life support.

In the past few weeks my mailbox has been overflowing with direct mail—an increase in credit card offerings, mortgage re-financing offers, home improvement offers that actually have my name on them, and of course, some catalogs.

However, the majority of the direct mail we've received has been from national retailers and restaurant chains. These are two categories that picked up their direct mail presence in 2009 and it appears that the trend is continuing into 2010.

They are using direct mail to drive store traffic. Plus, they're employing a multitude of direct marketing tactics to capture consumer information to further CRM initiatives, both through direct mail and online. Companies like Target, Publix Supermarkets, McDonald's and Chik-fil-A are putting a high level of importance on being able to continually communicate with prospects and customers to drive in-store traffic. Frequent communication is essential in this tough economic environment. Lifetime customer value has become an important part of their marketing strategies.

These retailers/restaurant chains have been amassing a considerable amount of consumer data that will continue to drive their marketing strategies. For example, consider how Chik-fil-A continues to grow in today's tough economy.

Their advertising campaigns are creative, witty and cutting edge. Their direct mail initiatives are specifically designed to drive store traffic. They have chosen to stay with their core competency…serving delicious and healthy chicken products in spotless restaurants with exemplarily customer service. And through these tough economic times they have not resorted to price reduction promotions to drive traffic. Applying consumer psychology, they count on their product and customer service reputations for increased customer visits. And it works—here in the greater Atlanta area, Chick-fil-A at dinner time is quite considerably more busy than competing fast food restaurant chains. Each individual store is actively involved in their community and that sense of community participation is widely accepted by their customer base.

If we go back about 10 years or so, direct mail was predominately the domain of "traditional direct marketing companies" like catalogers, publishers, financial services firms, insurance companies and continuity clubs. Now with the new decade upon us the landscape has changed.

There is a whole new spectrum of companies applying direct mail, and direct marketing initiatives. As we all seek continued growth it is time we step outside our comfort zone and embrace the opportunities available. It may require research and learning the marketing strategies of a new industry but the effort will be well worth it. Direct mail is showing signs of life once again.

Herb Torgersen is president DirectInnovations Inc., Suwanee, GA(htorgersen@directInnovations.biz).

Are Email Appends An Achilles Heel For Deliverability And Strategy?

I follow Ryan's posts and this one I thought was worth sharing. The benefit of email append can certainly be improved by following Ryan's suggestions. Enjoy the read!
by Ryan Deutsch, Thursday, March 19, 2009, 11:15 AM

Last Thursday, I joined a friend for a pick-up basketball game, played (poorly) for 30 minutes, made a move on the baseline and ripped my Achilles tendon in half!  Four days later, I was in surgery, and I am now in a cast for the next ten weeks....arghhhhh!   What does this have to do with email marketing? Not a thing -- other than giving me some extra time to read up on all the latest email articles and putting me in the mood for a good fight -- I mean, debate! 

On Tuesday, I came across a blog post denouncing the use of opt-out email appends.  For those of you not familiar with the practice, it is essentially a quick way for marketers with large postal files to add emails addresses to their database.  For example, Acme Company sends their postal file to a database company, said database company matches Acme's postal records to the records in their database, and when a "match" is found with an email address they add that record (with  the new email address) to an "append" file.  The database company then does a quick "welcome" email to the entire append file with an opt-out only link and then ships the resulting file back to Acme company.  The issue with this process is that Acme Company now has a file that is NOT opt-in and could cause serious delivery problems for their business.

While opt-out email append is not without risk, if managed correctly it can be an excellent way for marketers to grow their email lists.  In these tough economic times, companies are looking for ways to accelerate the use of the email channel, essentially reallocating marketing budget from less "accountable" channels to email.  As experts in the space, I think it is our job to help them do so responsibly.  

We often look at things as black and white with regards to email best practices and deliverability. I understand and agree that from a delivery standpoint, email append can be a bad idea, especially if the senders simply add the append to their current list.   However, I think from time to time we should try and look at things from the marketer's standpoint.  If we know that they are going to go down this path, why not try to help them do it effectively?

Here are some thoughts on opt-out appends that folks should consider before deciding to throw in the towel altogether:

1. Only append active customer files.  Do not append inactive or "stale" customer files.  These result in poor match rates and are riskier than active customer files.  Furthermore, it is critical that these customers pass the PBR (Prior Business Relationship) test.  As a general rule, be sure that the customer has purchased and/or interacted with your organization in the last 12 months.   If you append bad data you will, as the article I read Tuesday suggests, destroy your deliverability.

2. Build an append-specific communication strategy.  You should not treat your appended email recipients the same way you treat subscribers that have been on your file for months and years.  First, make sure you isolate your append mailings from your core programs.  While I believe opt-out appends can deliver value to a marketer, we must accept that this file IS riskier than the house file.  As a result, keeping it separate limits any negative impact the program will have on your existing email campaigns.  Second, develop a series of communications that repurpose email content for the appended addresses, and be sure to place opt-out front and center and continually remind recipients how they ended up on the email list.  Be transparent; your customers will appreciate it.

3. Build rules to migrate append addresses to your house file over time.  As time goes by, proactively migrate appended addresses into your house file.  Migration should be based on specific recipient activity (clicks, purchases, etc.) Companies can build these rules to apply to their unique business models. 

Of course, as with any other poorly executed email program, opt-out appends can negatively affect your email strategy.  But if executed correctly, they can add tremendous value quickly. In these tough economic times, what marketer can afford to ignore ways to reallocate budget to more effective direct channels?

Marketing Spend For Email and Social Media Top Plans for 2010

by Jack Loechner, Monday, December 7, 2009, 8:15 AM

According to the November "2010 Marketing Trends Survey"  of business leaders by StrongMail, 89% of respondents plan to increase or maintain marketing spend in email marketing and social media budgets in the New Year. The industry survey of more than 1,000 global business leaders found that the positive outlook is supported by 50% of polled businesses that expect their customers to spend more in 2010, and nearly a quarter more that expect them to spend the same.  Only 8% of businesses expect their customers to spend less.

48% of businesses are increasing overall marketing budgets in 2010, and email and social media marketing are the two leading areas of investment at 69% and 59% respectively. Search marketing comes in third at 42%.  Conversely, events and direct mail lead the pack in decreased spend at 44% and 42% respectively.

Marketing Program Spending Plans for 2010 (% of Respondents)
Program	Increase Spend	Decrease Spend
Advertising	28%	32%
Direct mail	21	42
Email marketing	69	6
Mobile	22	5
Public relations	19	12
Search (SEO/PPC)	42	7
Social media	59	3
Tradeshows & events	20	44
Other	7	7
Source: StrongMail, November 2009

 Social media marketing is a clear focus for businesses, with 69% of respondents planning to integrate it with their email marketing campaigns in 2010.  However, of those who have already integrated the two channels, only 42% are achieving a lift in campaign performance.  35% report no significant lift and another 23% are unable to measure.   Respondents identified the top three benefits of social media marketing as:

• Awareness building (64%)
• Customer loyalty and retention (49%)
• Expanded reach (46%)

 Bill Wagner, executive vice president of business operations at StrongMail, notes that "... this survey reveals a strong focus on high ROI channels like email and emerging ones like social media... (with) an unprecedented number of companies look to integrate email and social media in 2010..."

Most Important Email Marketing Initiatives in 2010
Initiative	% Ranking Among Top 3
Improving performance of campaigns	59%
Growing opt-in list	44
Re-engaging inactive subscribers	28
Integrating with social media marketing	42
Integrating with mobile marketing	19
Improving deliverability	26
Reducing costs	19
Integrating into transactional emails	20
Accessing data to increase relevance	21
Improve segmentation and targeting	46
Centralizing on single platform	11
Other	4
Source: StrongMail, November 2009

Reported survey highlights include:

• 89% of businesses plan to increase or maintain marketing spend in 2010
• 50% of businesses expect customers to spend more; 23% to spend about the same; 8% to spend less
• 69% of businesses plan to increase marketing budget for email; 59% social media; 42% search
• 69% of businesses plan to integrate email and social media in 2010
• 64% of businesses identify increasing awareness as the primary value for social media

Button Up Your Email

by Darrah MacLean, Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 11:32 AM

Have you ever found yourself standing in front of an automatic towel dispenser, waving your hands frantically over the hands-free scanner, praying for a towel to come out? Yeah, me too. Usually, if I wave my hands over, under and around the dispenser long enough, something comes out. The key word here is usually.  

A week ago, I found myself working up a sweat in front of a towel dispenser when a waitress finally came in and said, "Oh, you have to actually touch the button." To which I said, "But the button says hands-free." Her response? "Oh, it's wrong. You actually have to touch it."  Interesting. The directions were wrong and if that nice lady hadn't come in the room, I could still be standing there like an idiot waving my hands. Because the button said hands-free. 

This little interaction got me thinking about the importance of directions, or as we call them in the email universe: CTAs (Call-To-Action). We use buttons and links to tell people what action they need to take if they want to continue their shopping experience. They are the clicking points of your emails, and you'd best be spending some time crafting them.  

Think of buttons and links as mini billboards. You have six words or less to get your point across. Choose them wisely. While CTAs should be visually easy to spot and read, they don't have to be generic. Yes, sometimes down-and-dirty is your best bet, as in this Staples email. "Order Now" works, so why reinvent the wheel? That said, there is always a time and place to get a little creative with your CTA copy. Here are some quick Dos and Don'ts for how to push some buttons in your next email.

DO: Make the button a part of the story. By crafting your CTA to play off the headline, you suddenly have a story with a beginning, middle and end -- just like Piperlime does here and here. REI and Backcountry take the idea a step further by cutting out the body copy altogether. They let the headline and button tell the story in a clean and clever way.

Anthropologie knows how to have fun with its CTAs, and this Holiday '08 email showcases its brand voice to perfection. Free People shows off another fun way to incorporate the CTA visually in this email. If only the company had added a carrot or something to make the CTA a tad more obvious.

DO: Take the direct route when needed. Being too clever can backfire, so sometimes a direct CTA is the way to go, as Coach did here. The imagery and headline do the heavy creative lifting, while the "Shop Our Latest Jewelry" pulls the story together. And check out the way Coach added the "Free Shipping" bug just below the link. Sheer genius.

DO: Give customers the option to "Shop this Look." If you're showcasing one small piece of a larger collection in your email, give your customers the option to "Shop this Look" in addition to "Shop the Whole Collection." Tommy Bahama pulls it off nicely in this email.

DO: Try to think outside "Click Here." When emails first starting hitting the inbox way back when, we saw a lot of "Click Here" CTAs. But we've evolved. Using a "Click Here" in today's email world feels really old-school, and not in a cool retro way. If you find yourself taking the easy way out with a "Click Here" button or link, challenge yourself to reword the CTA without it. For example, Pottery Barn could have simply gone with "Learn More" in this email 

DON'T: Forget to include clear directions (remember the towel dispenser). If you're taking the time to send out an email and you have specific sales goals for that email, why wouldn't you direct people towards the experience you want them to have? Bottom line: You risk your click-through when you don't include a clear call-to-action.

Hollister makes a conscious creative decision to leave out the CTA altogether in its emails, like this one and this one. Maybe it's cooler on some level to the teen crowd (it'd be an interesting test, no?), but without a top nav. the lack of a CTA leaves customers hanging. Crate and Barrel emails are always on-brand, but the lack of a clear CTA leading to its Christmas landing page in this email feels like a huge miss. (Although, they win bonus points for the fantastic headline: "Deer Santa." Love it.)

Seniors Are Prolific E-Mailers, Online Shoppers

Today’s Seniors and Boomers Rival Younger Generations in Online Activities

(Alexandria, VA – October 27, 2009) Seniors aged 65 and older (also referred to as “Matures”) have made the Internet an integral part of their everyday lives. In a recent study, 77 percent report that they shop online. In fact, Matures lead all other generational groups when it comes to this online activity. They regularly use email (94 percent), go to the Internet to look up health and medical information (71 percent), read news (70 percent), and manage their finances and banking (59 percent). Matures also turn to the Internet for gaming, approximately half (47 percent) of online Matures regularly play free online games.

Boomers (ages 45 – 64) are heavy online users as well, with 93 percent using email and 71 percent shopping online. Other regular online activities of Boomers are going to the Internet to read news (73 percent), gather information (67 percent) and pay bills (66 percent). Three out of ten (30 percent) regularly watch videos online, and 39 percent regularly go to networking Web sites, forums, message boards and chat rooms.

These findings come from the CTAM Pulse report that includes data from the Life Stages & Life Styles: Turning General Differences Into Media Opportunities, and analyzes four generational groups.

“The technology adoption behaviors of the younger generations is studied frequently and their impact on advertising and marketing is widely known.” said CTAM President and CEO Char Beales. “But this study is unique in that it reveals opportunity among the Boomers and Matures, who have significant purchasing power, are active online and more comfortable with technology than often reported.”

Boomers are tech-savvy and just as likely as the younger generations to own a digital camera, DVD player and cell phone. While younger generations are more likely to send and receive text messages, 92 percent of Millennials (18 – 29), and 76 percent Gen Xers (30 – 44); half of all Boomers (48 percent) text, and a surprising 18 percent of Matures engage in this activity. Although all groups are high subscribers to cable TV service, the youngest generation – Millennials (61 percent), is the highest group to subscribe to cable TV service.

This CTAM research was partnered with BoomerEyes, a division of C&R Research and is based on a total of 1,500 online interviews from June 3 through June 14, 2009.

CTAM, the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, is dedicated to helping the cable business grow. As a non-profit professional association, CTAM provides consumer research, case studies, topical publications, conferences and the CTAM SmartBrief to more than 4,500 individual members. On behalf of its 90 corporate members, the organization leads the Advanced Cable Solutions Consortium and facilitates national cooperative marketing efforts, including the Cable Mover Hotline™ and the Cable Means Business initiative. For more information, go to www.ctam.com. CTAM is also on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

More Evidence E-mail’s Not Dead

Nov 17, 2009 1:35 PM, By Ken Magill

Someone forgot to tell small-business owners e-mail is dead.

According to a just-released survey done by Hurwitz & Associates on behalf of e-mail service provider Campaigner, 46% of businesses with 20 employees or fewer use e-mail marketing today and of those who don’t, 36% plan to begin doing so in the coming year.

“The survey points to a major adoption trend in small business email marketing,” said Laurie McCabe, partner, Hurwitz & Associates, in a statement. “As the recovery from the recession gets underway, businesses that already have email marketing programs in place are better positioned to take advantage of new opportunities to increase sales and revenues.”

Meanwhile, according to a newly released survey by e-mail service provider VerticalResponse, well over two thirds of respondents said they plan to increase their e-mail marketing in 2010.

According to VerticalResponse, 74% of 831 companies with fewer than 500 employees plan to increase their use of e-mail marketing in 2010.

Also according to VerticalResponse, 38.9% of companies surveyed with 10 or fewer employees and 34.1% of businesses with from 11 to 100 employees plan to increase their e-mail marketing by “a lot” next year.