Smarten Up - eDM and You

Movember Jerimo Style

2008-11-24T15:41:00.005+13:00

They say you gotta love yourself first...

As well as huge fans of our fantastic clients, we are fans of our own superb team of specialist email magicians. And we especially love the sub-set of Jericho staff who moonlight as the "Social Club".

These esteemed blokes make life for the team funner than you might think a bunch of geeks and people-who-make-geekstuff-pretty-and-profitable might be. So let me share.... JERIMO, our gesture small tho it might be, to Mo-vember.

View the mo's and the movie (it's short and funny)

I've just made a donation so I get to display this badge on the blog (ta da):

Yours in great male-health,

SmartenUp

Looking for the eject button

2008-11-21T14:22:00.008+13:00

I'm loving trail runs each weekend, which mostly consist of shredding your body while you run one km after another, on all manner of naturally occurring bush-weapons, and so the looney in this photo has my understanding to a degree. When someone emailed me this my first thought was 'I wonder if he'd changed his mind at the edge?' There is obviously no eject button for this dam rider. (The article link is at bottom if you want to see more of him).

I'll try to segway here into my topic. Speaking of 'eject', we've been talking to a couple of clients this week about their un-subscribers, and how to read reports on them, assess the cost or value to your business, and act to effect the churn through your database. I will write on this more in another post soon. For now, it's clear that losing a subscriber is usually losing a customer, and if that customer who likely (either directly or indirectly) makes you $200 or $2000 or $20000 per year then you need to do your best to stop them clicking the 'eject' button at the bottom of your emails!

Q. Why do you unsub from something?
A. Because it's not relevant, or doesn't meet your expectation. A Jupiter Research study found 53 percent of email users said they unsubscribe when the content doesn't interest them.
Once you have the strategy of what your email is to achieve for your business, then state the benefits very clearly and remember the golden email rules: Personal, Relevant, Anticipated.

In our daily work we find another bunch who unsubscribe when they can't change their profile... if you don't allow your recipients to change their own email address they will unsubscribe even if all they actually want to do is tell you they have a new addy. You can check your unsub reports and read the comments - this is really common.

Next is unhappiness with message frequency. Calculate the ideal frequency with a formula that includes:
how central to their life are your products and services?
how often do they buy from you?
how much are you willing to invest to make this great?
how good is your content?
Then set the frequency and stick to it like glue. You can blow years of loyalty by caving to temptation or sales pressure by sending two messages in a day or a week, if your readers like to see you once a month, each month, like clockwork.
Allow your recipients to update their own preferences! If you don't you will be losing money, without a doubt.

To summarise: The most common use of the Internet is email of course. If you don't want an email any more you can choose to delete, ignore or unsubscribe. Deleting them is easy, and ignoring them is pretty straightforward. Unsubscribes are great because they are far more visible to you than the other two - so this week get out your calculator and work out how much a customer makes you, how much it costs to lose one, and how you can let them tell you what they want when - and then knock yourself out making a plan to give it to them.

See the Daily Mail article here.

Email budgets grow as display, TV, DM and print shrivel

2008-11-20T10:17:00.005+13:00

Marketers are looking hard at what they spend their budgets on as belts are tightened across the board, and digital media with it's clearer picture of your ROI (or not) pleases the CEO as well as the CFO...

According to Sherpa, brand tactics suffer - as this chart shows clearly. Branding campaigns are for the good times, it seems marketers think, and for now we'll hunker down and make some good old-fashioned sales!

We hope that these marketers planning on cashing in on the ROI that email delivers so obediently do it smart. Flooding inboxes with untargeted offers on the cheap has obvious risks for all of us fighting for the click.

Couple that with trying to skimp on the email smarts that do cost you money - great strategy, clever life-cycle campaigns, deliverability management and show-stopper creative design .... When it all comes around again, you risk a 'burnt' database and you'll be far far away behind competitors who have actually got email marketing as a line item in their marketing budget and a planned channel in their marketing plan!

Click here to read the Sherpa story.

Size, Performance or a Good Personality?

2008-04-30T21:07:00.009+12:00

What's really most important - is it the sheer total size of your database? Is it how you make that database make you cash? Or is it how you make it sound to the boss that counts?

Marketer's who believe that email is a valuable tool need to get out from behind their desks and work out the best way to get it in the budget for next year - a clear plan, commercially sound strategy, and evidence of the super-positive return on investment is the minimum you should have.

This article and the comments about Open Rates are the best kind of argument - considered, intelligent, experienced and a little bit argy-bargy...

Loren starts off:
Here are some real-world examples of the inaccuracies and inconsistencies of email opens:
· The email is “opened” (launched), but images are blocked: not counted as an open
· The email is not opened (launched), but images are enabled and is read in the preview pane: counted as an open
· The text version of a multi-part message is read on a BlackBerry. The HTML version (with images blocked) is later opened in Gmail (or other email service/client). The email has been opened and read twice — but zero opens are recorded.
· A text version is opened and read but not clicked: not counted as an open
· A text version is opened and read, but the user clicks a link: not counted as an open with some email software. Others assign an open because the email was clicked on, which assumes an open.
I think you get my point. With marketers increasingly being held accountable for their marketing spends and actions, do they really want to base performance reports and marketing decisions on such a flawed and inconsistent metric?
Further, the open rate is a process metric that does not measure return on investment or how well the campaign helped you achieve a strategic initiative for your company. Showing how much email contributes to the bottom line, not how many people opened your email, will help you secure a bigger share of the marketing budget."

In response, we get comments like this from John Calder:
"I have to disagree that clicks are a better open indicator.
Subject lines cause a message to be opened and read. Value proposition and call to action cause a link to be clicked. What happens after the click causes conversion.
Therefore, a weak subject line with a good value proposition and strong call to action may get more clicks even though fewer people have “read” the message than a good subject line where more people have “read” the message with a weak value proposition and call to action. From that, which is the better subject line?
The people who buy from you or read your newsletter and really want what you have to offer will turn images on. They will show open rates along with click rates. These people are a good indicator of what people like them are interested in, and if that’s your target market I’d say that there’s some pretty good intelligence to be had there."

I'd love to hear your thoughts with comments here.

Speaking of metrics and reporting - how responsive is the database you have? Do the same people read each time, and the same people - too lazy to unsubscribe - simply delete when they see you in the inbox?
Key points in the second article I'll point you to today - cleaning up the drones so you get more effect with fewer people - write these down somewhere so you'll have them when you need them:

1) Be clear in the subject line. “Your subscription will end soon” tend to work well. “Goodbye” was another subject line that worked remarkably well.

2) Restate your value proposition. This is a simple reminder of what your email program offers, and what they will miss if they do not confirm their email subscription.

3) Use YES and NO options. This is huge! In every instance the “Yes and No” option resulted in significantly more opt-ins! There is something about seeing both options that drives more people to respond.

4) Send a second request. We find that these second requests consistently get nearly the same number of opt-ins as the first, so failing to do so could have a material impact on the success of your campaign.

I can't read all the brilliant things that are being written every day by people smarter than me on this subject, but I do my best to read every day, and often its on my laptop (literally - on my lap) at 10 pm. If you have insights to add, please add them here. Until next time.

Who the heck are you? The Importance of your ‘From’ details in email

2008-04-22T13:01:00.000+12:00

A recent study suggests that a majority of email users look at the sender name and address before deciding whether or not to open the email. If they recognise the sender name they’re more likely to open the campaign, however if they don’t, they’re likely to delete the email or mark it as spam.

Your decision to open an email can be based on various factors but the most important one is recognition and credibility. If your clients recognise your sender name and have an association with this, then they’re more likely to open the email.

You have the choice of using your company, brand or product name as the sender, or you may choose to use a real name as an alternative. E.g. one email might be able to use any of these:
Microsoft excel@microsoft.com
Excel User Centre excel@microsoft.com
Bill Gates excel@microsoft.com

Most companies use their company or brand name, because a real person’s name carries more risk, however some may use a real name when it has some kind of relevance to the recipient. I.e. the real name could be a popular personality within that company or the recipient’s account manager.

If you do choose to use a personal sender name, the content in your email campaign needs to reflect this. I.e. the email needs to have some sort of connection. Alternatively, you can put you company or brand name in the subject line, and use your personal name in the from line:

Bill Gates excel@microsoft.com Microsoft Excel User Tips

Unless you are Jamie Oliver or Oprah Winfrey you’re likely to be best to use your company name. We’d recommend you do some testing though to see what works best for your audience – many SmartMail clients have improved their campaign metrics with testing, and we’re always happy to discuss this with you so you are welcome to call the office on 64 9 360 6463.

Six Truths for e-marketing for 2008

2008-03-14T14:12:00.003+13:00

Make every email count. Decide what you want to achieve before you start to plan. Allocate enough resource – it'll be more than you think. If you want action, say exactly what, where, when. Use links to everything relevant but keep your key message easy, clear, and obvious.

And think about these truths:

Truth 1. You can't annoy people into liking you - you have to make yourself useful
Truth 2. Subject lines are important
Truth 3. From address is critical
Truth 4. Best practise at least
Truth 5. Outsourcing makes sense and dollars too
Truth 6. E-Marketing has made the world flat (or at least the playing field!)

Truth 1. You can't annoy people into liking you - you have to make yourself useful.
I liked that so much I have it scrawled in jericho red across the whiteboard here. You have heard it before, but not as neatly as that. No it's not about YOU, it's your job to be as helpful as you can to THEM. That means:

* use targeting if you need to, to make sure everything you include in your e-comms is relevant to each of your client or prospect groups,
* keep to your subject,
* be true to the personality and tone of your business so your recipients get to know you as they go,
if you are not sure, use the phone or a form in your email to ask for feedback from your audience as to what they want/need from you. For example, shall I use this post to tell you about our recent move? Why do you care that we have expanded our office? Well perhaps I should, because that means we are growing. That means we are credible - it means you aren't the only one to trust us with your crucial projects. It lightens the risk you've taken by spreading it around amongst your peers - marketers like you who have decided to use our team for your design and emarketing. So I might tell you that... but will I tell you what we have for lunch? Ah, no. Each time you communicate you get one chance for the attention of the most important people in your world - your clients.

Get your strategy nailed down for 2008 (i.e. why are you sending that email?), and ensure everything you write contributes to your goals. Remember also that your recipients much prefer when your tone is collegial and not patronising. So don't be teacher - just be generous with yourself, share your discoveries and resources and learn alongside them.

Truth 2. Subject lines are important

In 2008 you have to get this right or your email will not be opened when it arrives. And if it's not opened when it arrives its most likely it will be lost in the depths of the inbox. We are all so very busy and you are granted a slim window of attention - grab it or miss it. A recent JupiterResearch report showed 89 percent of people who receive an e-mail will look to the subject or the product's or service's name to determine if they'll open the e-mail.
I subscribe to so many fantastic resources, but many of them get a purple follow up flag (my code for 'to read') and go and sit and wait weeks for me to read them until the cows come home or the fat lady sings etc. There is no room for dilly dally - the email needs to get read now. Many newsletters coming from the States have the company name in the subject line now, followed by a three word teaser. If it makes sense and isn't too cheesy, personalising the subject line is a powerful tool that always strikes a chord on way or another, and often that's all you have to do to get opened.

The subject line must relate to the content of them email. Clever and enticing never ever means deceptive so keep it easy to understand and straight forward.
Remember that you have just a few words that will be viewable when the email arrives.
If you have a favourite newsletter check and see what protocol they use for subject lines. It's quite common, and in many ways simpler, to decide on a formula and stick to it. For example company name, and one or two words for each of the topics you cover inside,
e.g:[SmartMail] Email truths, website tweaks, news.

What do you think of that subject line? How would you say it?

Truth 3. From address is critical

A JupiterResearch report showed that 89 percent of people will look to the subject or the name to decide if they'll open the e-mail. Organisations often hide people behind department names and job titles becuase they fear staff turnover will unsettle clients. A consequence may be customers' reluctance to communicate as they don't have a key contact. Who has the customer relationship, and who is actually speaking this communication?

Technology lets you make each email appear to have come from the desk of the customer 'owner' - even if you have lists of thousands of customers and twenty account managers. Accept that people like to be treated as people, by people.

Email is an interactive media - if you are doing a good job you will get responses to which you will reply and action as required. From and Reply addresses not only tell your recipient who it is at your organisation that cares enough to send them useful information (see 1. above), they can manage response by funnelling replies to the right place - to their own Account Manager, to Customer Services, to Management etc.

There is often more good than harm in allowing personality into your email and so using a name can be powerful. Why not split your groups and test it? We did some tests on From address - one group was sent an email showing the company name, and another had a persons name first (i.e. Green Door vs. Kate at The Green Door). Adding the Kate made a 30% difference in open rate.

Truth 4. Best practise at least

The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act has been released in New Zealand. We swim in a small pond, and love our customers so would never dream of offending them. The law does however give us a great opportunity to ensure we are getting it righter than right. Happily, doing it right is EASY!

• Use your manners.
• Only email people who have asked to be informed and deliver what you've promised. Keep the content relevant.
• Make sure you identify your intentions at the beginning of the relationship, and if your intentions change, make it clear how and why they are changing.

Always remember the three most vital ingredients: obtain consent, identify yourself, and offer an unsubscribe feature.

The Act covers all commercial electronic messaging and is aimed at email and SMS/TXT messaging. It excludes facsimiles. It requires that opt-out requests are honoured within 5 days.

The guts: what is 'consent'? Although there is a lot of talk of opt-in, which is what we insist upon with our clients, the actual definition of consent leaves quite a bit of leeway for 'inference'. In a nutshell, consent is either expressly given or can be inferred from the position or behaviour of the recipient. 'Express consent' obtained in a variety of ways: through a paper form, via a website tick-box, or through a clear conversation where it is understood that commercial electronic messages may subsequently be sent. 'Consent that can be reasonably inferred' through the business or other relationships of the people concerned. 'Consent that is deemed to have been given' when a) the address is published, b) there is no note to say 'don't' with the published address, and c) the message is relevant to the business role, functions or duties of the address-holder.

Email marketing has a strong future as part of marketing activities. It can keep your customers informed on items that are of relevance to them and it has the power to help you develop direct relationships with your customers. Email is direct marketing on steroids. Done correctly, you become their best friend; done incorrectly you become a public nuisance. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us for guidance.

Truth 5. Outsourcing makes sense and dollars too

Most organizations don't have the resources in-house to manage the dynamic complexities of email marketing. These marketers will outsource their email to professional email service providers that can deliver an on-demand, easy-to-use email solution to communicate to customers individually with relevant, trackable emails while staying compliant with current regulations.

Increasingly marketers prefer to work with experts to help turn their brand strategy into an emarketing plan. Email is a peerless tactical tool for marketers with real-life budgets and few options for fast turnaround targeted comms. A great emarketing plan allows for calendar planning, resource and budget allocation, whilst leaving room for opportunities as they present themselves. Quick-witted marketers with an E-marketing Partner can target offers and info using demographic and behavioral info collected from every campaign. Relevant and targeted marketing will put distance between their competititors. JupiterResearch finds targeted e-mail marketing campaigns can generate nine times more revenue than broadcast mailings.

These questions are some of the ones that come from an article published in Clickz: they are a good place to start when considering oursourcing:

Do we have people on staff who can create strategic e-mail programs that drive results, improve customer relationships, and integrate with other marketing/communications efforts?
Can we access industry-specific and vertical-market-specific benchmarks?
Do we have a process to set our own benchmarks?
Do we have e-mail-specific design and copy capabilities?
Do we have strong knowledge of the complexities involved with coding e-mail or how creative renders across ISPs and Web-based e-mail providers?
Do we have project managers and analysts with experience in the e-mail channel who can set up, execute, and analyze our e-mail initiatives, from start to finish?
Can our e-mail platform assemble, deliver, and track high volumes of e-mail in proper formats? Can we tap into our other databases and automate e-mail communications?
Does our reporting tool provide the information we need?
Who supports the e-mail system, and how?
What's the process for resolving issues arising from our e-mail communication efforts: data quality, bounce backs, delivery, replies, customer questions, and so on?
How easily can the technology adapt to changing delivery requirements from ISPs and Web-based e-mail providers?
How does the current system optimize delivery?
Does the system operate on a proprietary e-mail relay server, or are we reliant on a third party sending software for upgrades?
Is there support for multiple sends for soft bounces?
Can these be controlled by set parameters?

Read the Clickz article here

Truth 6. Marketing has made the world flat (or at least the playing field!)

Gone are the days that good marketing requires big budgets! It doesn't matter if you are a one-person shop, a chain, or a national powerhouse. The playing field has been leveled, thanks to new technology and tools.

In 2008, the advantage in the marketplace will be captured by the company that can drive the better relationship.

Small Companies: Some of the best email marketing done in these parts is done from one-man-bands optimising average sized lists to best advantage. These people are generating their customer base and revenues from email and leveraging that to build real 'bricks'n'mortar' businesses: two that spring to mind are Advintage - who built a stunning wine retail warehouse after garning revenues and profits from a back-room style set up; and Itchy feet - who moved from a very average suburban Auckland travel agency to a downtown shaker and mover on the back of an almost home-made but aggressively grown and optimised (and now substantial) web and email marketing database.

Large Companies: The best email marketing that we see from large organisations always has a champion - a marketer or manager who believes that customers need to be kept in the loop with relevant and targeted offers and information. Email is not an after thought, its a core channel. It should have a place in all of your campaigns. The best marketers use email to tell loyal customers about things they deserve to know about - before they shout at stragers to grwo market share they stroke the share they have already. Advise of the billboard aquisition campaign they'll see soon on their drive to work. Brag of the Award before you send the press release, open your sale one day early and invite your regulars in first.

Email is super smart and fast. Small teams can make magic. And if larger companies adopted the smart agility of the smaller success stories they can get the leg up on competitors that make them untouchable.

If you need any help at all with getting down to your emarketing for 2008, give the Jericho team a call on +64 9 360 6464 or email roanne@jericho.co.nz

Bring back the love

2008-03-11T08:42:00.003+13:00

The Break Up
by geertdesager

Sound like anyone you know? Agencies and advertisers alike are working hard to reach as many consumers as they can with king hit campaigns, while DM'ers like us have sat below the line, pleading with them to take into account segmentation and targeting, preference tracking, every-day language and relevance. If you come and see us, we'll tell you its the same as it was 10 years ago when Seth Godin came out with his three golden rules for eDM -

Personal

Relevant

Anticipated

If you aren't using these three as a measure of your communication with consumer, then woohooo.... you get to start now. The golden rule yardstick will help you and your team, and most of all it will help your customers fall... in love... with you....

Welcome warmly...!

2008-03-10T09:22:00.002+13:00

WC Fields once said 'start each day with a smile, and get it over with'.

Welcome emails have a huge advantage in that they are the most opened of all emails you’ll ever send, and therefore give you a second to none chance to make a real impact in terms of:

Walking the talk
Delivering what you said you would
Cementing the newly-forged and tentative relationship you have with your recipients by driving them to engage with offers or ‘gifts’ from you, right up front
Etc.

If you want a double opt it then that’s okay too, but less relevant usually unless you have a real reason to use that, you will lower your uptake by asking them to confirm – better to warmly welcome and king hit with something they weren’t expecting like an offer or giveaway.

Did you know that SmartMail can setup a fully automated email for you which will be instantly sent to welcome all new subscribers who sign up for your newsletters via your website form? Nifty huh! Automated emails can be fully branded and personalised so it's a great way to introduce yourself to new readers and it's the perfect opportunity to encourage them to invite their friends to join too.

If you are looking to learn more, then I'd suggest you read the article at Media Post: "A welcome email should come immediately after sign-up. It's important to capitalize on a user's attention and no better time to do that than the present. The welcome email should thank users for opting in, explain what they can expect from your email program and get them excited to receive the next one. Some advertisers find that asking additional profile questions during this time too is helpful. This is something you should test to determine its viability in your program." Read the whole thing here.

Integrate or go home

2008-03-04T19:33:00.003+13:00

How are marketers integrating email with the rest of their marketing activities?

In a variety of innovative ways:

*always planning your regular email comms with themes that support and emphasise your key business strategic goals
*with auto-scheduled lifecycle campaigns,
*with Tutorials and Welcome series that educate, qualify and build loyalty and satisfaction,
*to launch promotional campaigns that extend across media,
*from television to the web to email.

Even those who are wary of doing overt email marketing should understand that all online customer support - such as fulfillment, cross-selling and transactional confirmations - has rudimentary email marketing threaded within the experience.

In the smartest organisations email is fully integrated into marketing programs and seen simply as another channel for conveying marketing messages, and in many examples it is unbeatable in ROI.

You need to isolate your IP!

2008-03-03T21:00:00.001+13:00

Why do I need IP Isolation?

In October 2007, Yahoo and Xtra announced they require authentication to ensure emails will be delivered into the inbox and that a dedicated IP address specific to your company is required for this authentication process to take place.

Yahoo and Xtra’s email delivery policies are especially important as combined these ISP’s represent approximately 60% of New Zealand email addresses.

The authentication process is known as Whitelisting.

What is a Whitelist?

The Whitelist is a list of senders that are known to Yahoo and Xtra as adhering to best practice email marketing, and therefore their messages will be delivered into the inbox.

What happens if I don’t get IP Isolation?
Your messages may have images or attachments blocked, end up in the spam folder due to content filter rules, or even blocked entirely.

What are the costs and how do I go about setting up a dedicated IP Address?

The costs include establishment of a new dedicated IP address specific to your companies SmartMail email sends, registering Domainkeys and SPF authentication and submission of your Whitelisting application and any ongoing management as is required.

Are you talking... the talk?

2008-02-21T11:29:00.005+13:00

Email marketing aims to start a conversation between an organisation and its subscribers and often invites interaction between the subscribers and the company’s website.

As technology expands, the complexities of growing, segmenting, and managing your email lists and campaigns are becoming more sophisticated. The more you know about your current subscribers, the more likely you will be to not only add them as customers, but to also find more subscribers that meet the same criteria and potential. To do that, you must understand who your current subscribers are, what their needs are, where they came from, when they subscribed, why they continue to interact with your company, and how they will respond to your email messages.

In January 2008 JupiterResearch projected that email marketing spending will grow from $1.2 billion in 2007 to $2.1 billion in 2012. Spending on retention email will more than double during that period and account for over half of total email marketing spending in 2012. Acquisition email marketing will grow more somewhat more slowly, with most spending in that category going toward sponsorship (for example, ad-supported newsletters).

The report’s finding that while spam volumes will continue to rise, the spam reaching consumers will remain flat over the next few years as ISPs battle senders and use progressive tactics to block billons of messages daily. "This will create better opportunities for email marketing, although marketers will have to work harder to remain relevant in their communications with their intended audiences."

Embracing targeted email tactics, marketers will increasingly rely on enhanced email application features and strategic services, benefiting full-service agencies and self-service technology providers alike. "The solid growth in spending on email marketing is a testament to the effectiveness of the channel," said David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch.
DMA’s Retail Email study of 2007 showed email is rapidly emerging as one of marketers’ most powerful marketing channels,” said Ramesh Lakshmi-Ratan, PhD, DMA’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. “In fact, according to DMA research, commercial email in 2007 is forecast to generate $21.9 billion in US sales. And, impressively, each dollar spent on commercial email is projected to generate more than $48 in sales.”

The study found that addressing privacy concerns is a best practice that’s seeing adoption approach the 50 percent mark. Also, it found that providing sample newsletters is a clear emerging best practice that should help reduce opt-outs, with nearly 12 percent of major online retailers doing that. The additional transparency provided by these two practices should increase subscriber satisfaction.

Here are some other findings from EEC’s Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study:
· Only 92 percent of retailers have an email sign-up form or link on their homepage.
· 28 percent of retailers offer more than one content selection, with it ranging from two all the way up to the 50 content options offered by Amazon.com.
· Only 3 percent of major online retailers use a double opt-in subscription process.
· The subscriber’s name (31 percent) and ZIP Code (18 percent) were the two most often required pieces of information.

What was also great to see is that it’s not just the USA where email is booming. In an earlier study of email marketing by professional marketers in the UK, 92% are now including email in their marketing budgets and 51% of them are planning to increase that spend next year. The study didn’t report on the amount of the marketing budget that was being committed to email marketing. However, given the preference of consumers and their likelihood to respond, it would seem likely that we will see that quota increasing.

Sadly, the number of marketers who are really using the full power of email marketing is still too low. Only 41% of marketers were measuring open and click-through rates to analyse the effectiveness of their campaigns and 63% are still not sure about privacy laws. The ability to plan event based sequential campaigns relies on using this response information. So it seems we still have a long way to go before we are getting the most out of our email marketing.

No wonder it’s busy out here in e-Marketing land. I did my own informal survey of other eMarketing Network members and our experience supports these findings. It’s busier than ever, it’s working better than ever but there’s still so much to learn!

We’re yet to be satisfied that we are sharing the knowledge that we have in ways which really benefit the emarketing industry and to grow the total share of the marketing budget allocated to ‘E’. Our clients excepted of course, it still seems to be absolute standard practise for companies to mark the to-do-list with a tick next to ‘website’ and forget about it for another three years. Ouch. Everyday thousands more consumers are using the web to research everything they buy, and are judging that a useless website, a disintegrated brand marketing plan and poor email communications equals useless company.

No matter how many times we use words like ‘maturing’ and ‘mainstream’ and ‘multi channel’, because our smarts are as much based on technology which is changing rapidly from day to day, all of us are learning as we go and growing from our learning. Even teams like ours where all we do is online… but especially marketers for whom the web is a fraction of their budget and mindshare. It’s up to all of us to get smarter and better at this brilliant medium.

At the eMarketing Network meetings in the past, we have discussed the possibility of forum events where marketers could bring a brown-bag-lunch and sit around comparing latest initiatives, response rates, the online space and wish lists… where? when? are you in?

Email Deliverability – The Importance of Authentication

2008-02-21T10:33:00.002+13:00

Many emarketers will be aware that email delivery is part art and part rocket science. It’s critical of course as if your email does not get into the inbox, then it will have a hard time delivering on your goals for it! We take it very seriously and we ensure your emails are able to be authenticated in the most widely used methods, and for the serious emarketer we offer the most advanced delivery practices available. We urge you and your IT staff to please read this weeks article by our key contact at Yahoo regarding why you need authentication, and what will happen to emails that are not authenticated.

Click here to complete the enquiry form for IP Isolation at SmartMail or else send an email to us to ask for more information about the effectiveness and costs of our advanced deliverability services

Three ways to get your email into gear for this year

2008-02-21T10:13:00.003+13:00

No one has the perfect database, but you owe it to your stakeholders to make the best of what you have. With that in mind see what you can extract to get a better picture of who is on your database, how they act, and what they want from you. Then use it, starting in the simplest of ways, to target and test what's works best for whom. When you can make relevant offers to your recipients you can make massive increases in response rates - and revenue! Sit down with your strategic goals, work out what information you dont currently have about your customers that would help you reach those goals. Next, use surveys with incentives to ask the most important questions - then add the new information to keep building that goldmine of a database! I'm happy to sit down and help you with this - contact me if you have feedback or questions.

Preferences are best practice: It’s not just black and white your customers want but charcoal, steel, silver and dove grey too. If you offer more than one or two types of email communications and you don’t have a preference centre that allows self-selection of which they get when; then you will soon! Preference centres are standard practice in the more enlightened online marketers strategy. So then when they ask to unsubscribe you don’t just offer all or nothing/Yes or No – but show all of your email communications, and let your client use one click to choose to subscribe to all, change their personal options, unsubscribe to all, or change frequency etc.

It's six months since the New Zealand UEM Act was passed – are you happy with the best practices your organisation has put in place? If you need a reminder, Click through to the NZ Marketing Association’s to find out or learn more... www.marketing.org.nz/best_practice.php

Is email recession proof?

2008-02-18T19:02:00.000+13:00

Here at Smartmail we've been thinking a lot about whether the current growth in online advertising is sustainable in a tighter economy.

Marketers are multi disciplined and often charged with a range of influence over the strategic and tactical activities of a business across sales, advertising, design, marketing, branding, customer service, sponsorships, events, promotions, and communications, internal and external. That’s a tall order by any measure!

With this in mind, Jericho (the company behind SmartMail) was created in 2000 with a singular focus on supporting the New Zealand marketer. Our focus is producing tools for marketers that allow them to produce attractive and useful material, measure the return on their marketing dollar, and work within the demands on their resources. It was marketers’ demand for email communication tools that led to the development of the first version of SmartMail back in 2001. Since then input from our clients has been fundamental in helping us to develop, redevelop and perfect SmartMail into the ultimate marketers toolkit it is today.

Designed to work for the user who is not a computer-whizz, but loaded with targeting, personalisation, automation and reporting tools, SmartMail provides thousands of users with the tools they need to communicate with customers and stakeholders. Clients use SmartMail to talk to people on databases from 500,000 to just a handful. New campaigns can be deployed on a frequency ranging from many times a day, to integrated one off campaigns. The best thing about SmartMail is that it puts the control back in the hands of the marketer, resulting in more relevant, personal and anticipated communications – and happy customers.

So, that's all well and good, but do you think a recession is in the wings? And what does that mean to you? Marketers work smarter anyway. But when budgets are cut too, and resources pulled tighter, it's often marketing who get chopped. Our friends the marketers are just so darn resourceful though, it's possible they'll simply get on with it and no one will notice any difference...

So what can we do to make sure marketers get the email marketing (or eDM) budget not only to grow year on year -to actually get acknowledged as a real channel with the best ROI in the arsenal? Heck - even getting it's own line in the budget would be a start in many org's, but we are pushing for more than that. Email works like DM on steriods when it's treated at least as well as old-school DM - specialist design, tools, teams, and best practices.

This 'r word' is coming apparently, and it's coming in at a critical point in the maturation of online marketing. Americans are spending 14 hours per week watching TV, and 14 hours a week on the internet. The DMA in the US shows latest ROI as $50 per $1 spent on email marketing.

I agree with some of my peers who fear that the recession poses both a very large opportunity and a very real risk to the hard-won gains in email marketing. Email is not as easy and cheap as we might have made it out to be in the 'good old days', but its certainly a lot more simple and cost effective than a print or TV campaign. It is rocket science, and experts like the SmartMail ones exist so that marketers can be sure the design, the technology and the delivery is taken care of - leaving you to plan, and count the money in the till at the end of the day!

Marketers who have done everything right and built up a permission data base of clients and stakeholders have a potential gold mine. They can work that list by using segmenatation and relevance to get results - heck they can get real, live, SALES! REVENUE! PROFIT! - the stuff the boss is going to get very excited about when for the last few years she's been watching cheques for unmeasurable 'branding' campaigns flutter out the door like so many ethereal butterflies...

But you know what happens next don't you? The boss figures out that if only the sales reps could access the database they'd keep the targets figure looking rosy for another few months...

If tighter budgets leave above the line advertisers looking around for some more bang for the buck, may their eyes alight upon eDM... may email get more of the recognition it earns for the bottom line, and long after the 'r word' ends, may our channel line entry on the marketing budget remain!

But we all have to hope they let their email experts advise them as to frequency, targetting and testiing... and email marketers are going to have to think really hard before they heave a whole lot more noise at this hard-won email database...

So, what are you going to pay attention to over the next few months? Plan, target, set goals, test brilliant design, and protect that database... then when the Sales Manager comes sniffing around for a last minute blast campaign you'll be able to point out how he can fit into your plans... not vice versa!