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June 30, 2009
Fight "Cheap Email" Trend by Emphasizing Value
When a company finds itself struggling for sales in a tight economy, the first response is often to start competing on prices.
Although price slashing, discounts and other costly promotions can bring short-terms gains, they could end up tarnishing your email program if you simply turn it into "the discount channel."
Frequent discount offers simply train your customers to wait for a deal before pulling the sales trigger. Your best customers, though, will likely be more interested in getting better value for their money than yet another 20 percent discount that all of your subscribers receive. When every other commercial email is pushing the same promotions, your email is fighting harder to stand out in the inbox.
How to do it? Find ways to strengthen your relationship with your brand-loyal, high-value customers. These are the people who will continue to buy from you, but you must offer something more tangible than another free-shipping promotion.
Use customer data to create targeted or lifecycle messages, such as shopping-cart reminders, cross-selling, upselling and restocking reminders, which build on preference data or previous purchases.
If big-ticket items aren't moving, feature lower-cost alternatives, such as a pair of earrings that match a previous necklace purchase, or a three-day domestic cruise instead of two weeks in Italy.
Keeping email a high-value, high-return channel will help you resist the trend toward turning email into a low-value discount channel. I talk about this in more depth in my recent Email Insider column, "Strategies to Meet 5 Macro Trends Altering Email."
The other four strategies:
- Market with global sensitivity to avoid sending culturally irrelevant emails.
- Use a mix of channels--microblogging, social networks and email--to speed news and communications.
- Build engagement to break through "attention distraction" from channels that compete for your readers' eyes.
- Give your email messages a distinct personality through looks and "voice."
I welcome your comments about these strategies and what you're doing to help maintain your email program's value in these stressful times.
This entry is tagged:
cross-selling, email marketing, email marketing best practices, lifecycle messages, targeted emails, upselling
May 27, 2009
Are You Measuring How Email Helps Achieve Corporate Goals?
If you're an email marketer, you've probably learned one hard truth: Your executive management doesn't care about email as much as you do.
These C-Suite executives are more concerned about the issues that affect the company bottom line, such as revenue, customer retention, profit margins, return on budget investment, costs to deliver products and support customers, customer acquisition costs, lead flow and more.
Your email program either does or can affect these critical aspects, but you have to use the most relevant metrics to tell that story. Think outside the box of familiar metrics such as open and click rates. Work with other departments to find ways to measure how email contributes to their areas.
So your last campaign drew a company-best open rate? Yawn. Only you care. Tell management instead that since incorporating FAQs and product tips in your email program, you've reduced the number of calls to customer support by 15 percent. Now you've got their attention.
You don't have to abandon your other metric approaches, because you need them to understand how your program is performing and where you can make improvements. But many marketers spend most of their time benchmarking their email performance instead of using metrics to measure how their email program affects management's key concerns.
Email Performance and Company Goals
Email metrics fall into two general categories: "process" metrics that measure your email program's performance currently and over time, and "output" metrics, which measure how your email program contributes to your company's strategic marketing and business goals.
You employ both kinds of metrics in four basic measurement approaches:
- Analyze performance of a single message or campaign and diagnose problems.
- Gain insights into customer/subscriber behavior that can help you deliver more relevant messages.
- Benchmark your program against your peers or your own past performance.
- Measure your email program's performance against specific marketing or company goals.
(See my latest Email Insider column, "Are You Using the Right Metrics?" for a complete explanation.)
Most of these uses of metrics measure email processes, such as deliverability rate, open or click rate, or list churn. Unfortunately, this seems to be where most email marketers focus their measurement efforts.
Instead, spend more time measuring your email program against company goals. When you can show how email helps solve some of your company's most pressing concerns, you speak the language your executives understand. Your reward is increased management mindshare and resources.
For further information on key email metrics, download the new Silverpop white paper, "Beyond Opens and Clicks: 5 Email Metrics to Boost Results and Prove Your Worth."
This entry is tagged:
c-suite, deliverability, email marketing, email metrics, open rate
May 18, 2009
Send Time Optimization Finds the Email Delivery Time "Magic Moment"
Marketers who can reach their email subscribers when they're actively in their inboxes will gain a competitive advantage. Quite simply, having your message at the top of the inbox makes it much more likely to be seen and acted on.
However, finding that "magic moment" has been a major challenge for email marketers.
It's impractical, given your list demographics, time variables and mindshare, which I discuss in my recent Email Insider column. The key is being able to use recipient time-of-day open and click data.
Send Time Optimization Calculates Ideal Email Delivery Time
Silverpop recently unveiled Send Time Optimization (STO), which automatically calculates the optimal time to send to each recipient, based on a recipient's past mailing behavior. Your message is then distributed at the ideal day and time without requiring multiple segments or scheduled mailings.
Send Time Optimization (STO) analyzes when individual recipients interact with your messages over a rolling period of time and calculates the ideal email delivery time for each recipient on your list, no matter the time zone.
Clients See Measurable Lift
A number of Silverpop clients who have been using Send Time Optimization have reported phenomenal results. Across a sample of just a few clients, we've seen these results:
- 20 percent to 46 percent increase in open rates
- 30 percent to 50 percent increase in click rates
- 52 percent to 75 percent increase in total revenue
- 40 percent increase in net revenue (Encyclopedia Britannica)
- 30 percent increase in total number of orders per campaign
- 35 percent to 47 percent increase in value per order
These numbers are exciting, and not just because of improved performance. Like trigger and drip campaigns, Send Time Optimization leverages the power of marketing automation. In this era of tightening budgets, reduced resources and overflowing inboxes, email marketers need all the advantages they can muster.
This entry is tagged:
email delivery time, email insider, email marketing, encyclopedia brittanica, send time optimization, top of the inbox
May 1, 2009
Should You Use Rich Media in Email Messages?
Rich media, like Flash and video, is immensely popular in Web-based communications. If a picture is worth a thousand words, isn't animation worth, well, something significantly larger? Rich media--usually defined as a combination of graphics, audio, video and animation--can be a great way to pique interest and deliver content in a limited amount of screen real estate. And for email marketers working with precious "above the fold" space to get a recipient action, that's a good thing.
We get a lot of questions about whether to include rich media in email messages. And while my knee-jerk response is an emphatic "no," there are a lot of ways to include different content in your emails without including it in your emails. Confused? Let me explain.
As you may know, there are a lot of different rules about designing for email as opposed to the Web. Every inbox provider renders a little bit differently, so it's best to make sure you render consistently for as much of your audience as you can. This is one of the biggest challenges with pushing the envelope with different media types.
Now back to my point: You can include this media without including it, and have the same effect and layout. Creative use of screenshots makes a great stand-in substitute. Having an alternate image that makes the recipient "click to play" in a new window serves two purposes. First, you've incented a recipient action--congratulations! Second, you're closer to driving a conversion, because the recipient is already on your landing page or Web site.
Use rich media wisely, and you can be enhancing your return on your next email campaign.
This entry is tagged:
email best practices, email marketing, rich media
April 29, 2009
Deliverability Alert: Bell Canada Internet Subscribers May be Switching Email Addresses
Bell Canada recently changed its residential Internet service provider division name from Sympatico to Bell Internet. Customers will be able to keep their existing @sympatico.ca address, get a new @bell.net address, or do both. Our information doesn't indicate a timeline for these changes to take effect.
If you have Sympatico subscribers on your email marketing list, we recommend that you contact them as soon as possible and ask them to update or reaffirm their email address contact information. Not only will this ensure you don't lose touch with valued subscribers, it will protect email deliverability by preventing you from sending messages to outdated email addresses of recipients who have changed email addresses.
This entry is tagged:
deliverability
Does Your Marketing Department Own Transactional Emails?
The title of Silverpop's most recent Webinar says it all: "Transactional Emails: Loved by Recipients, Neglected by Marketers."
In this Webinar (view below), Silverpop Product Marketing Manager Whit Lanier and I showed how transactional messages, which are highly relevant to recipients, can drive engagement when you add carefully chosen marketing content to a branded design consistent with your promotional emails and newsletters.
For many marketers, though, these are an overlooked opportunity, often because the responsibility for transactional emails belongs in another department.
In my latest Email Insider column, "Transactional Emails: Make Your First Impression Count," I review the reasons why moving transactional emails into the marketing department makes sense, not just because you can create more useful and attractive messages but also because you can more easily monitor recipient actions and deliverability, as you do with your other branded email.
The following question on using HTML in transactional emails was the most asked question during and after the Webinar:
Q: There's the perception that transactional messages are text messages, and recipients have been trained for that. If you move to a more visual approach with images and HTML, doesn't that make them more suspicious-looking? Will it increase deliverability challenges?
A: Not necessarily, if you do them correctly. If you design transactional messages with the right brand, with HTML text that renders with images blocked, and if you test the message template first with a tool such as Pivotal Veracity to check for spam-filter triggers in content or design, you should minimize any deliverability issues and avoid raising trust issues.
Four tips:
- The subject line must be crystal-clear: "Confirming your purchase from XYZ Online," for example, instead of "Order Confirmation."
- Use a friendly "from" address that names the company or department that generated the transaction: "XYZ Online" instead of a vague email address.
- Always place the details of the transaction front and center in the message to comply with CAN-SPAM requirements. Place promotional content below or to the side of the transactional content.
- Always check with your legal counsel if you have any concerns.
This entry is tagged:
deliverability, Email Insider, transactional email best practices, transactional emails, transactional messages, webinars
April 13, 2009
Don't Fear the Unsubscribe!
The unsubscribe is perhaps the most misunderstood and ignored element of an email program. But given that a best practices unsubscribe process minimizes damage to your brand, aids deliverability and can help retain subscribers, it's worth a closer look.
Good Practice: Make It Easy to Unsubscribe
Unsubscribing is a normal part of the email relationship, and using tricks to make it difficult to opt out will backfire with an increase in spam complaints. Alternately, a trustworthy unsubscribe process can help your deliverability by leading more people to use it instead of clicking the spam button, deleting your emails unopened or leaving you when they migrate to a new email address.
Start by labeling your unsubscribe link clearly and in the same size type as you use in your email's main message, and use a text link instead of an image-based link so readers can see it even with blocked images. Locate the link in the same place in every message, preferably in an email administrative footer. In certain situations, such as when sending to segments that are completely inactive or have high spam-complaint rates, consider including an unsubscribe link near the top of your message.
Find more thoughts about where to locate the unsubscribe link in my Email Insider column, "The Unsubscribe Link Location: Top, Bottom or Both?"
Better Practice: Make It Easy for Subscribers to Do What They Really Want
Yes, you should keep the express lane open for subscribers who really want off your list. But some just want to change an aspect of their subscription, like their email address, format, interests or frequency.
Suggest alternatives along with the unsubscribe, and let them know in your newsletter that they can either unsubscribe or change preferences easily. You'll end up retaining more subscribers, even if they move to another communication channel.
Best Practice: Make Your Email Program Irresistible
Think about the reasons people unsubscribe:
- Emails come too frequently
- Lack of relevance
- Email content isn't what they expected
- Their interests changed
- Never really wanted your emails to begin with
Look at every aspect of your email program for ways to improve it. Consider these:
- Be explicit at opt-in about what you send and when
- Add a welcome program
- Use subscriber data to segment your list and send targeted, personalized messages
- Move to a lifecycle program or triggered messages instead of bath-and-blast broadcasts
- Design attractive messages that render well with or without images, regardless of platform, and tell your story with well-written copy.
Unsubscribes are generally a sign that you've failed with some aspect of your email program. Embrace this and work to improve those areas that aren't meeting subscriber expectations. However, don't fear the unsubscribe, because by making this option easier, you'll minimize more-damaging spam complaints.
If you still have questions or doubts, post them below.
This entry is tagged:
best practices, deliverability, spam complaints, unsubscribe links, unsubscribe process
April 1, 2009
ReturnPath Introduces New RoadRunner Feedback Loop
RoadRunner announced on March 16, 2009, that its new feedback loop offering is now in place. ReturnPath, which powers the feedback loops for other major ISPs such as Comcast and Cox, announced that it will be running the new RoadRunner feedback loop service for RoadRunner. Silverpop is now set up with this service on all RoadRunner domains for all our clients' IP addresses.
For engagement marketers, feedback loops provide valuable information about email sends. What's a feedback loop? As the name suggests, it's feedback from an ISP, which forwards complaints originating from its users—usually in the form of them hitting the spam button. For marketers, there are two primary benefits: They can remove subscribers that don't want to receive similar messages, and they can analyze the complaint rate and tweak their campaigns accordingly.
The RoadRunner feedback loop service change was requested and implemented on March 16, 2009. It should not have any effect on Silverpop clients, nor did we see a disruption in service.
This entry is tagged:
feedback loop, ISP, ReturnPath, RoadRunner
March 30, 2009
Why Email Needs to Become More 'Social'
To answer my own question from my recent blog post "Have Social Networks Killed the Birthday Email?" I say no, they haven't. In fact, the birthday email, the anniversary reminder and similar email messages could help keep email relevant and alive as a marketing channel.
What has to change, however, is the way email marketers approach their own email programs.
Why has social networking taken off like a rocket over the last two to three years? Because people are hungry to connect and share information with each other in any way they can.
Social networks let them do that easily and in exciting new ways. They can meet up with people from their past (think Classmates.com), with people they'd like to meet (think LinkedIn or Twitter) or with friends and family in new ways (think Facebook).
Social Media Is Changing the Email Landscape
Email has been a connecting point, too, even though spam and overzealous companies started to pollute the channel. Today, more email users are savvy and sophisticated about how they manage their email. Their expectations and use of email are evolving, both from years of experience and from their involvement with social networking.
Marketers who don't understand or respond to this rapid and radical change in expectations will likely see their email programs decline in performance and engagement. In short, email needs to become even more "social" in its tone, personality, conversational style and relevance.
Work Harder to Stand Out in the Inbox
In my Email Insider column, "Will Social Media Kill the Email Star?" I urge marketers to think about how the inbox has evolved over the years, to find ways to make their messages stand out, and to get management buy-in for the resources you need to take your email program to the higher level you need to maintain your program's ROI.
This isn't a new plea. However, social-network notifications, which are triggered emails that speak directly to the recipient instead of a broadcast audience, up the ante even more.
This doesn't mean you necessarily have to throw out your entire email program and start over. However, you do need to rethink how your emails are positioned relative to this influx of social network emails and increased volume of commercial messages--and what your subscribers want and expect from you in this environment.
These changes go beyond adding share-to-social links in your emails and are really about creating an email experience for your subscribers that reflects what you know about them and when, what and how they want to be communicated to from your company.
It also isn't simply about turning your emails into 140-character Tweets. It is, however, about recognizing that many email subscribers now expect less selling and more education, less corporate speak and more personality, content and recommendations from their peers. And they likely expect all of those to be done in a manner that is short, sweet and scannable on a mobile device.
Are your personal expectations with email changing? Are you making changes in your email program to reflect this new social environment? Let us know your observations in the comments section.
This entry is tagged:
email marketing best practices, Facebook, social networking, Twitter
March 20, 2009
Have Social Networks Killed the Birthday Email?
We all know how the Web and email have changed the way we communicate with each other and with companies, but the light bulb really went on for me when I looked at the ways friends, co-workers and peers sent me greetings before, on and after my recent birthday.
First, here's the tally of how and from whom I received happy birthday wishes:
1 - direct mail (Southwest Airlines)
1 - personal phone call from our Lexus dealer
1 - work email (a savvy co-worker who thought an email would be more special and different)
2 – emails from companies (Olympus, Pasta Pomodoro)
2 - Twitter direct message (this is a one-to-one private message)
7 - Twitter @replies (these are public messages)
7 - in person (wife, two daughters and four members of The Cheesecake Factory waitstaff)
33 - Facebook messages via Facebook's new home page feed and email notifications
The first time I viewed many of the Facebook wishes was via email notifications that let me know someone had posted a note on my Facebook wall.
They really stood out in my inbox, whereas on the marketing side, the commercial interactions were the same old thing: "Free shipping!" "XX percent off!" "Buy now!"
Only two marketers used the personal data I have willingly shared with them--in this case, my birth date--to send me unique, personal and relevant messages.
On top of this comes the Nielsen Online survey claiming that social networks and blogs have become more popular online activities than email.
I'll be exploring what this all means for email marketing in future blog posts and my Email Insider column, but for now this insight stands out:
The evolution in digital communication channels and the ways people are using them mean marketers have to work harder on building relevance, using the customer data they have to send more relevant, targeted messages.
Just mail-merging someone's name into the subject line doesn't make this happen. Nor is this another plea for segmentation. Rather, it means creating emails that are more personal, sound more like a dialogue than a TV pitch and reflect some personality other than "sell, sell, sell!"
Otherwise, they'll fade into insignificance next to the emails that speak to a subscriber's personal interests and relationships.
If you have thoughts about how social networking is intersecting with email and the implications for marketers, I'd love to see them. Post them in the comments below, and stay tuned for more on the changing use of digital communications.
This entry is tagged:
birthday emails, email marketing, engagement marketing, Facebook, multichannel marketing, social networking, Twitter
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