Top 5 Things You Should Focus on in 2013

Top 5 Things You Should Focus on in 2013

1. Data: At the soul of every email marketers plan should be the data you have about your subscribers. Who they are, what are their likes/dislikes, and how they interact with not only your company but also your industry.

2. "Other" Email: Are there other departments or branches of your company that send bulk email? If so, are those emails branded and maximized to their full potential? Do a little digging and be sure you have a handle on everything that your brand sends out.

3. Automation: Do you currently have automated email campaigns in place? If not, maybe try starting with a birthday, or anniversary of sign up campaign. Have fun with these and ease some of the burden of constantly composing manual mailings.

4. Testing: There are always new things to try out in our ever developing space of email. Run a series of A/B tests to see how some of the latest tricks might work or not work for your subscribers. Characters in subject lines, mobile dedicated versions, animated gif's, etc. all make for great tests.

5. Optimization: How do your emails look across email clients? What about mobile? There are many rendering tools available out there to make proofing and tweaking your designs easier. Make sure you always take a look as a subscriber would, at least in your lists top 3/4 ESP's.

Permissions Based Marketing

If you are familiar with my philosophies, you will know that one of my core foundations for the email strategies I teach are what's called: "Permissions Based Marketing". Here is the link to the Wikipedia page in case you aren't familiar.

This morning I saw a rare post from one of my favorite blogs on the internet, "The Responsible Marketing Blog" regarding the recent changes to users privacy permissions on Linkedin. Click here to read his take.

It really got me thinking. I wonder how many companies and people in them, make these kinds of decisions to take liberal action with peoples info every day?

In what ways do they justify this? In my experience, people who are making these decisions usually don't think about the entire picture. In terms of email, I see it often that they think about their own policies and usually CAN SPAM. But what about the recipient? They are all to often forgotten in the decision to send them mail they didn't directly ask for.

Because in the US, we live in an opt-out world. But the reality is that the recipient is the one who ultimately decides to delete or mark as spam, and guess what, if they do that often enough then their ESP takes notice and your digital reputation and future deliverability is damaged.

What's the moral of this story??? ALWAYS ask permission from your subscribers. Be forthright, clear, and honest in your intentions. Always use opt-in procedures for both your internal and external emails.

Permissions Based Email Mantras:
For those of you who can appreciate some solid mantras, here is my list (which hangs on my wall to remind me daily):

·        “Teach me today, sell me when I am ready.”

·        “People only care about their problems not your product.”

·        “People won’t remember what you say, but they will remember how you make them feel. Move, touch, inspire.”

·        “Practice storytelling- speak your brand truth. Give voice to your brand enthusiasts.”

·        “Consider how you handle yourself when the sale is not imminent- this is speaks volumes about your brand.”

·        “Show them what you will be sending and how often to set the expectations and BUILD TRUST.”

·        “Give guidance, share info, and always remain positive.”

·        “Provide access to plenty of relevant info- make them into educated buyers.”

·        “Focus on being interested, instead of interesting.”

·        “Tell me what you can’t do, and I will believe you when you tell me what you can do.”

·        “Do less and ship.” –seth godin

 

Shocking Inbox Statistics

According to Yahoo:

• 8 emails are rejected for every 1 email delivered. 

  
 According to Gmail:

• 81% of Gmail users have Priority Inbox enabled
• Average users inbox =
• 91% hits the inbox
• 17% gets filtered as "priority"
• 9% goes "missing" / deleted at the ESP level

  

•  Gmail now includes DKIM and advanced sender info in all headers- placing your sender reputation front and center.

Users of the Hotmail:

• When your message is included in a "sweep" delete by a subscriber- it does not damage your reputation as a sender.

Mobile Subscribers:

• 89% of the US population has a cell phone
• 41% have a smart phone
• 33% = android phone
• 25% = iphone
• 66% check their smartphone for email daily
• 55% have made a purchase with their mobile phone
• 15-25% of all read email is viewed on a mobile device
• desktop viewing is same
• webmail viewing is down

According to Mailbox Monitor by Return Path:
The average inbox receives:

• 86% to the inbox
• 7.5% to the bulk folder
• 5.9% missing

What's the future of an email inbox look like? 

Ask yahoo....they have already started a revolution with their new inbox features incorporating: 

• Social
• Viral
• SMS
• IM
• Skype
• 3rd Party apps

More on this next time....

Re-Engagement Plan Case Study

A while back, I wrote a post about connecting with your subscribers:
http://runspammers.blogspot.com/2011/10/email-list-hygiene.html

Today, I wanted to SHOW you a real life example of one of the many re-engagement plans I have run for the clients at my company.

The Problem:

• We had a total list size of 94,000 opted in subscribers.
• 53% (50,100) of this list was subscribers who:
• had been in the CRM for more than a year
• and had never clicked/forwarded/opened anything
• 62% of these addresses were submitted more than 3 years ago
• This is the list we used.

 The Risk:

• Continuing to send to these addresses could easily result in:
• Hitting of spam traps and /or honeypots
• Sending to "dead" people (every year 0.7% of subscribers DIE)
• Sending to people who have left their emails (20-33% of addresses churn each year)
• High complaints / unsubscribes
• Damages to our sender reputation
• Email blocked/deleted by ESP
• Email filtered to junk by ESP
• Decrease in opens / clicks
• Decrease in ROI

The Plan:

• 4 weeks out we met with the client to plan the dates and content.
• We crafted 3 emails:

Email #1: sent 1 week after our initial client meeting













 Email #2: Sent 2 weeks after our initial client meeting

Email #3: Sent 3 weeks after our initial client meeting

Each message gave the subscriber a clear way to opt in or out and the benefits of continuing to hear from us. Those who clicked on the opt in link were send to a thank you page on the website and those who clicked opt out were removed instantly by our ESP. For those who didn't click on anything, they received all 3 emails.   

One week after the last email was sent, we pulled all the remaining inactive subscribers and reimported them as held/supressed list members.

The Results:

• 220 (0.4%) subscribers clicked to opt back in
• 2,576 (5.1%) subscribers clicked to opt out
• 42,522 (84.9%) didn't click on anything
• 2.1% Average open rates

90 Days After:

We have seen the metrics for this list continue to improve, post re-engagement:

• 13% improvement in received rates
• 48% improvement in open rates
• 58% improvement in click through ratios
• 98% lower soft bounces
• 46% lower hard bounces
• 72% improvement in forwards
• 81% fewer unsubscribes
• 52% less spam complaints

Transactional Email

"Email that facilitates an agreed-upon transaction or updates a customer in a existing business relationship."
-US Federal Trade Commission

How is this different from your regular bulk email you send? These are typically:

• bills
• reciepts
• statements
• password conformations
• out of stock notices
• whitepapers
• chat transcripts

These types of messages are exempt from US CAN SPAM regulations, provided that 75% of the message remains transactional.

Consider sending your transactional messages out through their own IP address. This will help insure their deliverability. 

Email Design Tips for Small Business Marketers

---

Brought to you by The Exact Target Blog Posted: 02 Aug 2011 07:30 AM PDT You've got your subscriber list and communication strategy, but before you start creating your emails consider these tips for designing a more effective campaign: 1.       Create Brand Synergy. Utilize your current brand elements to create a cohesive online brand experience. 2.      Watch your Image and Text ratio. Images may look aesthetically pleasing, but too many divert attention from your message and may cause your email to be too large for and blocked from some email clients. Images should balance and complement your text content. 3.      Use Tables. For consistent display and better control of your email layout, use tables when writing your HTML and when formatting your content within ExactTarget's Content Editor. Check out these resources on Coding HTML for email vs. web. 4.      Edit Images. Use photo editing programs to edit images to proper size and save the edited images in your portfolio. For best rendering results use JPEG or GIF file types. 5.      Use Plain Text and Web-Safe Fonts. Text from websites or word processors include formatting that cause rendering issues when pasted into your email. Copy your text into a Plain Text Editor such as Notepad (PC) or TextEdit (Mac) and format your text using web-safe fonts. 6.      Have a Clear Message. Use a Call-to-Action to encourage a response from your subscribers. 7.      Optimize Your Content. Adding background colors to images and including styled "alt" tags will allow your subscribers to experience your content when images are blocked.  8.      Design for the Subscriber Experience. Organize your content according to the six stages of the email experience. 9.      Be CAN-SPAM Compliant. Become familiar with commercial email regulations and what your email needs to include. 10.  Test. Errors can reduce your message's effectiveness and your brand's credibility. Here's a testing checklist. BONUS TIP: Get Social. Integrate social media into your email design. For more interactive marketing tips and advice, read our past blogs or follow @ETDesign on Twitter! Amanda Parks Associate Designer, Small Business ExactTarget Campaign Solutions Team

Deliverability- Making it into the inbox

 
"Of the 8 billion emails Hotmail receives each month, 5.5 billion are blocked at the gateway and another 1 billion are marked as junk." -Strongmail 12/2010


 Staggering to think that 75% of the email you send to Hotmail users is potentially never being seen. Deliverability is a tough game to play. Marketers are chasing a moving target as ESP's constantly update their algorithms to keep up with the increasing amount of Spam.

How do I make sure my legit bulk email gets delivered?
You must practice good list hygiene by managing bounces, opt outs, and spam reports on an ongoing basis. Your hygiene efforts should include measures to allow you to look at the members who are inactive after more than a year. Clean, maintain, and always strive to send timely, relevant email- that's how to ensure your future deliverability. 

According to marketers, list dormancy and junk placements are only getting worse! 

Did you know on average, 20% of all the email you send winds up undelivered? That's mostly because 4% of it goes into the junk folder and 16% is "missing" or rejected/blocked by the ISP's.

The future of email deliverability is = SENDER REPUTATION.
  
What's that? It's your reputation as an email sending vendor that is effected by:

• What you send
• How often you send
• How many you send to
• Whether or not subscribers are opening, clicks, deleting, reporting as spam to your messages
• What you use as your sending domain
• Your sending IP address

There are 4 items you can control that effect your deliverability:

1. List Hygiene
2. Spam Complaints
3. Relevant Content
4. Sender Historical Performance 

Think like your subscribers and make sure your emails are:
 Targeted / Relevant / Anticipated