All About Email

A question of surveys

2011-08-17T14:42:00.000-07:00

I seem to be getting a lot of surveys right now - all prompted by email. In principle, I think that's a good thing - customer interaction logically follows customer engagement, and if you have dialogue via email, why not make the most of it.

But, and it is a big but, without exception, all of these emails have left me cold. Why? Because they are without exception from emailers who have never engaged me - companies from who's lists I am simply too lethargic to unsubscribe.

And to compound matters, they seem to recognise this - by trying, and I use the word in it's broadest sense, to incentivise me to take part in their survey.

Now, again, in principle I am all in favour of this - incentives are great. But they must be good incentives, or they actually disenfranchise readers.

Complete our really boring survey and go into the draw to win one of 3 $50 vouchers. Whoopy-do!

And it gets worse. For some reason, companies outsource not only the mechanics of the survey, but also the wording of it. These surveys completely fail to continue the dialogue style of email which can be so engaging. Impersonal barely covers it. Inadequate is about right. They certainly don't inspire you to eagerly await the next.

So if you have a well engaged database, and you want to interrogate them, do it properly - make the incentive worthwhile, write the survey questions yourself, and then you might get some decent results.

Why are you selling this?

2011-06-15T11:51:00.000-07:00

Many retailers who use email as a marketing channel send their customers a weekly shot of offers. I like the idea. In principle.

But their is a perception danger which seems to get overlooked, especially when those offers appear very good. "Why are you selling these, and how come they are available at such good prices"

In other words, is this just a load of unsold crap you need to offload quickly on us poor unsuspecting punters?

Now that may very well be the case, but it's not advisable to say so. Rather than giving the impression this is something you want to sell, you have to presnt your weekly offers in such a way as to craete demand, and highlight yourself as a valued supplier to that demand.

There are three basic strategies for doing this:

1. With every email, emphasise and re-emphasise your mission - to deliver great product at great prices to your favourite customers - you email ones

2. Underline that these offers are only available by email and to email recipients

3. Theme the offers - provide a reason for them to appear in this weeks email.

It should be marketing 101, but for some reason many email markeetrs ignore it, and give their audience the entirely wrong impression - every week.

That missing email!

2011-06-07T14:59:00.001-07:00

Sorry, it ended up in my spam folder!

This is now in line for the most overused and underbelieved excuse of 2011.

Three times last week I heard this - from three separate clients, none of whom had ever previously had an email of mine land in their spam folder before.

By some strange quirk of fate, all 3 emails dealt with a similar subject - invoices, and remarkably all were overdue, unpaid invoices.

It falls into the "cheque's in the post" class of excuses, and curiously enough that's what two of these clients went on to claim.

In short, it is now so unbelievable that everyone automatically assumes it is a lie. I mean, nothing, especially from a trusted source, goes into the spam folder now, does it?

We have to presume spam filters work, at least to a degree, don't we?

Surround Sound Marketing

2011-04-28T15:55:00.001-07:00

I have just heard the greatest phrase since sliced bread - Surround Sound Marketing - which basically means screaming at your audience via email, mobile and social media.

Sounds great (no pun intended) in isolation, but give the very low barriers to entry, if any, presumable, if it catches on as a defined concept, then most recipients are going to start turning the volume down where many of their surround sound marketers are concerned -in other words, unsubscribe, lest they be deafened.

It's yet another example of how shallow marketing is nowadays - it should not be about the loudest noise, it should be about the most actute message delivered by the most appropriate medium.

The non specific offer

2011-04-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a rather disturbing trend developing in NZ email marketing - I feel safe being specific about the location because I have not seen it anywhere else.

I call it the non specific offer (NSO) - and I have had 4 or 5 of them this week. NSO emails all seem to look the same - a lot of preview pane real estate taken up with branding, and then an offer without details - usually along the lines of click here to learn more.

It is often as non specific as telling you no more than the identity of the retailer and some general details - 15% off special deals this month, for example.

Putting aside the obvious accusation of laziness as a reson for it, I wonder if it is good practice - I mean, presumably some though has gone into it as a strategy?

Conventional wisdom says that emails and related calls to action should be focussed - well, it's certainly that. But I think it lacks engagement. And it's too assumptive - there's no bait on the hook, not really.

It seems to me the sort of marketing that might work better on Facebook or the like. It's reactive. Emaio is a very personal level of dialogue, and the NSO seems to leave that behind - sending a flyer isn't personal.

So I don't think it will work. But it will be interesting to see if it catches on.

2011-03-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

An email newsletter from a digital media agency landed in my inbox today. It urged my business to get a Facebook page, extolled the many virtues and benefits of so doing, and then helpfully advised me that if needed, they could help me set it up. I presume a fee would be involved. My first reaction was to say that the sort of companies who need help setting up a Facebook page have no place in the digital media arena. Then I reread their list of great reasons to have one. At the end of this highly tenuous and often desperate list, I wondered whether any company should bother. A year ago the airwaves were full of digital marketers banging on about ROI and how Facebook would be a contributing factor, nay, a leading one in your digital campaign. Now they are talking about ROR - return of relationship, an as yet undefined and again highly tenuous concept which presumably means their is no ROI, but if we invent something called ROR then that will go someway to making up for the disappointment of not getting any ROI. Then of course there are the many reasons why a company Facebook page can actually severely damage your customer relationships. Facebook takes what could / should be a private conversation between company and customers and brings it into the public domain. When those comments turn negative, enormous damage can result. Sure, you can moderate it, but who monitors their facebook page 24/7 - only those who can afford to have someone 24/7 keeping tabs on what the people say. Then there';s the old dwindling content factor - running out of interesting posts, because lets face it, there really not that much great and interesting news to keep your hordes of likers interested. And now that every company they do business with has a Facebook page, and they are being heavily incentivised to like them all, it's practically a full time job just following the posts of the companies you do business with. Then when are you going to read their tweets? The biggest reason that Facebook is still around is that it is worth billions, and it is worth billions because some heavyweight institutions have lent it a lot of money, and their only chance right now of getting it out is to say it's value just keeps increasing and hope someone takes it off them. Remember the early days of the web - Elephants graveyard of poorly conceived websites. FB is / will be the same.

Stats we like!

2011-03-08T14:56:00.001-08:00

Statistics / metrics are a major part of online marketing - their exactness humbles traditional media.

Below are a few just released that we find particularly noteworthy:

In 2010, 30% of total email time was devoted to commercial emails, compared to 17% in 2005. (Merkle)

90-100% of Millennials (Ages 18-33) engage in email as an online activity. (Pew Research Center)

90% of adults internet users in every age group subscribed to emails from brands, while significantly fewer "liked" companies on Facebook or followed them on Twitter. (ExactTarget)

What conclusions can we draw from these - pretty much what we want, as with all stats, but I think the following are inescapable:

1. Facebook and Twitter will never replace email - just complement it

2. Email is a channel that demands, and achieves attention

3. Tomorrows customers are highly emailcentric - always remember this, because they are your future.

It's good to see stats suppoirting our belief that email is alive and well, and growing, not shrinking in significance.

Timing

2011-02-22T17:39:00.000-08:00

Today is the day after the Christchurch earthquake. A nation reels in shock and horror as the full extent of the disaster is revealed. It is hard to focus on anything else, just as it is hard to gain a sense of perspective on what has happened.

Today I have also received no less than 16 marketing emails, not spam, but legitimate ones from lists to which I am subscribed.

I am staggered. Is it stupidity, or just a plain lack of sensitivety?

Either way it is wrong. This is not a day for email marketing. I have unsubscribed from all of them. I hope, if you get them, you do too.

The next big hurdle!

2010-12-07T20:36:00.001-08:00

Something new and potentially devious has just appeared in the world of email marketing. It relates specifically to delivery, and to those addresses on your database with a gmail, yahoo or hotmail suffix - it's called engagement filtering, and it's the latest weapon in the war on spam.

Engagement filtering will judge your email based on how well it engages the recipient - how they react to it - clicking links, replying etc - the first time that filtering has been based on positive behaviour.

If engagement levels are low, then so will your sender reputation be.

This poses all sorts of challenges for email marketers - to be seen as a good sender and avoid widescale filtering by the big 3, you need mechanisms in each and every email you send which prompt either response of clicking. In other words, your copy has to be very engaging and relevant.

Now, many people say this is a good thing - the industry is forcing email markeeters to do a better job. Fair point.

But at the same time, it effectively prohibits the sending of passive announcements.

It's another typically reactive measure by the big 3 to the spam problem. It's not the answer, and I suspect all it will mean is a lot of legitimate emails will fail to reach recipients.

Which given that 74% of hotmail users say the reason they have a hotmail account is to channel all commercial email to, doesn't make much sense.

It's the end of email, Zuckers

2010-11-16T12:04:00.001-08:00

So Facebook's new product is signalling the end of email, is it?

I suppose you have to salute Mark Zuckerberg - after all he does dominate the world of social media.

But Facebook is hardly making any money, it's rivals are collapsing around it, and presumably he needs plenty more investment to carry on. So statements, and products such as his new chat mail are inevitable - but perhaps to be taken with a pinch of salt.

His comment, for example, that subject lines are so formal is a good example of where he is going wrong. Subject lines are vital in deciding what messages to read, and when.

Zuckerberg may be a visionary. He may be predicting the future. But in doing so he is missing the present. Email, even in it's purest form is still an evolving tool - both for ordinary communications, and for business marketing.

Very few businesses have Facebook predominant audiences, but most have email based ones. Very few companies have so far really worked out how to use Facebook as a marketing tool with any great degree of success. Quite a lot are getting the hang of email.

Facebook still blurs too much the distinction between private and business - it's use during office hours is frowned upon by too many right now.

So here's to you, Mr Zuckerberg. The only way you can be a presence in the email market is to try and change it, and we salute you for trying. But the end of email? Not yet, methinks.

Upping the preview pane impact

2010-10-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

The importance of making the right impact in the preview pane cannot be overestimated.

So many companies still insist on dominating this valuable real estate with a web type banner, which doers little more than show a repetitive picture, and at best slightly add to the branding of the email.

With images disabled in so many browsers nowadays, the impact of this banner is in fact a negative one – especially as many companies also neglect to recognise the value of compelling alt text – mind you, some browsers disable that as well. What a battle.

There is a simple answer – we now recommend it to all clients – and it is working.

Summarise in no more than two lines the key message of your email, and place that at the very top – above any images, web versions etc – so it is the very first thing readers see.

Try it – it works!

Want to discuss? jflay@inbox.net.nz

Incentivised database growth

2010-09-23T19:01:00.000-07:00

Using competitions and incentives to get people to sign up to receive your email information is a tried and tested formula - inasmuch as it does generate response.

But how valid is it in the modern marketplace?

Sign up competitions are two a penny - to stand out, organisers are increasingly forced to offer expensive prizes - and I wonder how often they really show a worthwhile ROI?

For starters, people who sign up are doing so primarily to win the prize, not because they specifically want to receive your marketing emails or newsletters. Expect a heavy initial unsubscribe rate, however well you do in engaging them with your first send out. It's not a reflection on your email or it's content, simply on how the recipients were gathered. But it is a reality. If 40% unsubscribe initially, and another 30% in the first few weeks, was it worthwhile?

Then there's the issue of how quickly you get in touch with them. Many companies, especially those who choose to gather their emails on bits of paper, often wait months before actually using their newly found database. They might as well have not bothered, as most will have forgotten signing up, why they signed up, and why they might want to continue receiving your information.

Don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting abandoning competitions and incentives as way to grow your database.

But I do think it should only be a small part of your strategy for database growth, and if you do do it, make sure you follow up quickly, and effectively.

Want to talk more about this? jflay@inbox.net.nz

Unsubscribe!

2010-08-03T17:35:00.001-07:00

I have been thinking about unsubscribes this week.

Clients tend to look at unsubscribes from a very personal perspective. They fail to take into account any number of factors - such as how the database was gathered in the first place. If it came together through an incentive programme, then a good percentage of the database will be there because of their interest in the incentive, not the subject the client wishes to communicate to them. It's only natural to get a high unsubscribe rate with that.

Audiences usually fall into 3 categories - regular readers, occasional readers and grey readers - those who don't really read client emails at all, but can't be bothered to unsubscribe - reader lethargy. Those are the ones you want to unsubscribe, and a healthy number would be 0.2% per send out. Any less than that, and the audience are either very passionate about the subject (you can check this by looking at open rates), or are simply deleting the email in large numbers, unread.

Unsubscribes can be as good a metric for judging interest as can opening rates and click thrus. Email metrics are about trends, and a sudden fall or rise in unsubscribe rates can tell you a lot about the impact of the content of that particular email.

So don't take unsubscribes personally - they can tell you a lot.

Like the Grand National

2010-07-14T17:40:00.000-07:00

Spam filters are a funny breed of technology - given at how many levels they operate - ISP, email programme, desktop etc, they have become like fences in the Grand National - very hard to negotiate.

They also lack coverage or commentary - so it is difficult to know if you have fallen, and if so, when or where.

Each filter is different and, it seems, increasing zealous - presumably in a bid to become the market leader.

AntiSpam - stops 99.9% of all spam (and lots of legitimate emails as well)

A client, fed up with her subscriber only emails getting filtered on an ad hoc basis, recently tried an experiment - she included every spammer phrase she could find, and the results were astounding - the highest open rate ever!

Made me, and the advice I had been giving her, look pretty silly.

The point is that it is a lottery nowadays - and suggestions for industry standards will only make it easier for spammers - they will have a much more precise definition of what they have to combat.

The problem with 3rd party filters is that they are deciding for you - at Inbox we have a no filters policy, and if that means we spend 10 minutes a day clicking delete in reply to those kind people who want to award us $30 million or enhance or gooleys, then so be it.

At least we get all of our email.

Innovate or die!

2010-03-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

The economic recession of 2009 has changed many things. It has had a pronounced effect on result driven email marketing - mainly downwards.

Shocked by the downturn, and the impact it had on their income and asset values, many consumers entered 2010 with a new set of values - based around the principle of economising.

Even in my house, we vowed to make 2010 the year of economise without compromise - which in layman's terms meant drinking good red wine only once a week instead of the previous every day approach.

Email marketers who had been doing very nicely with their weekly emails, found very quickly into the new year that sales generated by emails were down, thus disproving the old adage "if you do what you did, you'll get what you got"

Consumer spending patters and motivations are simply not the same as they used to be, and any retailer who ignores this and just hopes for a return to the old ways will be found out.

To adapt your retail strategy to meet the new market, and to try and boost demand for your offerings, there is a need to innovate in the way you sell them.

Of all retail channels, email is surely the best suited to this - the ease, and low cost of changing your emails, the volume and way in which content is presented etc is great. Compare it to a store refit, even a website redesign.

Email also allows much smarter and more personalised marketing - use these capabilities to the full. Segment your database, and don't be afraid to try different approaches for different segments. It costs nothing, it produces quantifiable and instantaneous results - results you can learn from and amend your future outreach accordingly.

A client and I had a reasonably strong difference of opinion recently over a subject line for an immediate call to action email - I suggested we split her database down the middle and see whose line got the better opening rate.

As it happens, she did - 39% to 35%. The point is, we knew instantly - not so much about the respective merits of our creativity, but in fact more about what sort of subject line motivated her database to open their emails.

So for 2010, for retail email marketers, if you do what you did, you'll get less than you got.

Innovate - don't be afraid - and with email you have the perfect medium.

What will 2010 mean for email?

2010-01-13T14:53:00.000-08:00

It's a tough question, especially because in many ways, email has dropped off the radar as a hot topic - especially in New Zealand.

Has email become boring? Has it been so overshadowed by the current obsession with desperately trying to find some justification for social media sites as valid marketing tools?

There are two reasons why a medium of communication might be topical - technological development, and development of impact.

Email is a relatively complete medium - highly functional, yet simple. But it's technological advancement will depend upon advancements in supporting platforms, hardware and transmission capabilities. As such, email is probably on of the most mature web based concepts available.

So for email to become big news in 2010, it is going to have to make an impact - by increasing ROI for email marketers.

Which brings our wheel full circle - again. Email, like any tool, is only as good as the hands it is in.

We can all send emails, we can all operate DIY bulk email programmes, but unless email marketers finally get their heads around the fact that email is a unique medium requiring unique knowledge, experience and expertise to operate successfully, then the only place email is going in 2010 is backwards.

And that would be a shame.

Words that get your email junked

2009-11-03T14:42:00.001-08:00

I read a story today about email which, if weren’t so grotesque, would be funny.

That government department which deals with youth problems will reject all emails sent to it which contain the word teen.

An overzealous (or moronic) webmaster has decided that the potential pornographic connotations of the word teen outweigh the importance of communicating about teens – with a government department who’s responsibility they are.

A client recently sent an email to it’s database which turned up a very high error rate – after exhaustive investigation we determined the word breast had caused the problem – even though Bayesian filter authors will tell you that context affects such decision – our client sells meat, and the breasts in question were chicken ones, and so YahooXtra bounced the lot.

It all stems, of course, from our obsession with diminishing spam volumes. The manner in which this manifests itself in the above examples is endemic of the way our society deals with all problems and consequent legislation nowadays – punish all to mitigate the behaviour of the few.

And it’s rubbish.

The threat of social media?

2009-10-19T11:37:00.001-07:00

Many wise heads have suggested the social media revolution spells the end for email.
I beg to differ.

First it was Friends Reunited, then MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, and most lately, Twitter. New, exciting ways to communicate. Only Facebook and Twitter still cut any ice, and I believe Twitter to be no more than a fad. Watch it die death as mainstream media as celebs desert it en masse.
Facebook may survive, but already its pages are littered with the remains of casual, lapsed users. Try searching for a name, and see how many dormant entries there are.

These are not media - they are applications, whereas email is a unique medium. Applications will come and go. Some will morph into survival, some will die through user inertia, or stark lack of revenue.

But email has already taken it's place amongst the bedrock media on which our lives are based, and will endure. As a communications tool, as a marketing device. Email works, and does not depend upon being commercialised to survive.

Clever marketers will integrate social media into their campaigns, but email will need to be, must be a fundamental component of these for the campaigns to succeed.

Email is, after the telephone, our best chance to talk directly, personally and individually to people. It is already many people preferred method of communication. It allows response, rather than reaction.

It has so many benefits, and it will be here long after Facebook, Twitter et al have been consigned to the publishing graveyard in the nether regions of the world wide web.

Spam? What spam?

2009-09-15T18:04:00.001-07:00

Heard about Spam recently? It seems to have dropped off the radar completely – as a news item anyway. I still get around 30-40 junk mails everyday. But at least I know they are illegally sent. What a comfort.

I also still get several faxes and phone calls on a daily basis – all unsolicited, all unwelcome and all far more intrusive. But they are legal. They are also from reputable organisations – banks and such, all with outstanding, must have offers which just don’t seem that appealing when you are trying to get the children to bed.

So is that it for spam? Have we just accepted it? Have people realised that pressing delete 30 times a day is actually not that hard? Could it even be that as the first internet generation ages, emails about the little blue pill are not quite so unacceptable?

Time marches on, email is old hat, Facebook, Twitter et al get all the headlines now. And people deal with spam – as they always should have. That’s what will defeat it in the end. Hitting the delete button.

In to win?

2009-07-21T16:11:00.000-07:00

Smart companies are constantly looking to increase their databases. You have to, just to compete with organic database fatigue and wastage. These factors reduce most lists by around 7% per year.

Any database growth will, by the very nature of its initiative, lead to a higher wastage level initially - usually because joining the database is incentivised - a good portion of those who sign up for your incentive do so because they want to win the prize - not because they want your newsletter.

But it is still a valid way of increasing database numbers.

However, and it is a big however, I recently spotted a flaw in this - I investigated further and found that at least 50% of email based competitions which were aimed at database growth contained this flaw.

The email in question offered a great prize, and I signed up immediately. But the only contact detail it requested was my email address. Three weeks later, I was routinely clearing my junk folder of the 700 odd emails offering me the way to sexual nirvana, when I happened upon one saying I had won the prize being offered.

I immediately rang the organisers only to be told that I was too late, and the prize had been given to someone else. I explained that their email (Subject line YOU ARE A BIG WINNER) had been filtered. Why hadn't they called me, I asked? They didn't have my phone number, they replied - because they had not asked for it.

And there lies the flaw. Any email making noise about being a winner in the subject line (especially all in caps) is likely to be considered spam and get junked. If, however, the subject line looks mundane, then it may not get read - especially if the sender is not on your "must read emails from" list.

So get a phone number as well - if you are running a competition, and all people need to do is enter, then it is your responsibility to ensure winners are properly notified - and become good members of your email database.

Missing in Action?

2009-06-25T20:24:00.000-07:00

Do all emails either reach their intended destination, or get reported as a bounce? This is a question that arose during our recent bounce metric test - more on those next week.

They threw up a couple of apparent, and if true, major anomalies, which web developers say are simply not possible - the main one being the concept of the vanishing email.

We tested all our apparent bounce emails, and whilst most did bounce, some didn't. Call them non bouncers.

We then tested the non bouncers - asking them to reply if they got the message. Some did - so we discarded them.

We then rang the remainder - people whose email was being reported as getting through, but who had not responded. 8 out of 100 denied ever receiving it, so we begged their indulgence and sent them another whilst staying on the phone. All 8 reported were reported as delivered - no bounce messages, and all 8 people confirmed that they had not actually received anything. Spooky. By this stage I was thinking of calling my Sculder or Mully!

I checked with the technical people. Not possible they said. But my evidence seemed to say different.I always use a read receipt with my personal email, and make every effort to convince all my email correspondents to use it. It eliminates the possibility of the odd, probably vital message getting lost in cyberspace.

Of course, it could be held up by a filter. But all 8 confirmed they had no rigorous filters in play, and checked their junk folders, but found nothing. DerNer Derner

So unless there is a secret monster out there munching random emails and thriving in it's lair in the nether regions of the Interweb, there are only 2 explanations. Either the Internet is leaky, which I believe to be a strong possibility, or ISPs are filtering emails so aggressively (too make it look as through their attempts to combat spam are effective) that a certain percentage of legitimate email is getting junked by the post office, so to speak - collateral damage, I believe they call it.

If true, a worry. I will now probably be taken in the dead of night by a crack team of ISP sponsored hit men and silenced forever. Or eaten by the monster!

Picture this

2009-06-01T17:04:00.000-07:00

One of the great assets of Html email is its ability to present images - images which help sell the message of your email.

Images help break up, and consequently complement and illustrate content A good pic replaces a 1000 words. In fact, the pics, if done well, dictate the content - which should say only what the image cannot say.

The temptation, of course, is to load your email with images - but the consequence is either excessive overall file size, or poor quality images. Neither is very helpful.

So balancing the image equation is essential - get it right, and sales could go through the roof. Get it wrong, and deliverability and rendering issues, or simply poor presentation will lower response rates dramatically.

You do not need to be a professional photographer to get good images - digicams allow for lots of experimentation, and a little imagination goes a long way in making a pic look both attractive and artistic. Think location and context, background and angles.

Get your pictures right and people will read your text - and then you are a long way down the track to getting your message across, and appropriate action taken.

I like bouncing

2009-05-12T12:44:00.000-07:00

We are about to undertake an interesting exercise - testing our bounce reporting mechanisms.

Every email deployment results with a number of bounces, and our mailing software duly lists a variety of reasons for why messages have bounced. Do we trust them?

I guess the answer is no - which is why we are going to strip out all the bounced emails and send them a special message asking if they receive them or not. If not, then we will cull them, but I bet there will be some who say yes.

If I am right, does this throw up the whole issue of how accurate email metrics are?

My gut feel is that they are inaccurate, but consistently so - which is why we always encourage clients to look at trends rather than actual numbers when assessing campaign metrics. Trends are more valuable anyway.

We recently established a really good upwards trend for a new client by making a series of improvements over a period of weeks - opening rates, responses and orders have all grown consistently. Historically the client, with a DIY email set-up, had little faith in the medium. Now they love it!

We'll report back shortly on the bounce test results - could be interesting!

All gone quiet over here

2009-04-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

Has anyone else noticed the recent decline in the volume of email marketing received?

Over the last 4 weeks I have observed a marked decrease in the number of messages urging me to buy something. I think I know why.

It is because, as I have been saying for so long, few marketers really understand email - they see it as an extension of the web or worse still, other media.

By pursuing this erroneous belief, companies have failed to engage their email audiences. Poor results lead to disenchantment, and in tough times, a disappointing medium of marketing, however cheap, suddenly becomes negatively cost effective - and gets the chop.

It is disappointing from a number of perspectives - for the company who hoped email would prove a success, for the audiences who signed up in the hope that email would give them access to great deals, and for the industry as a whole - being buried by its own incompetence.

It is also a reflection of the fact that email as a budgetary item is normally included in the web spend - rather than as a standalone item. When the web budget gets cut (and don't get me started on why NZ companies are doing poorly with the online retail by and large), then so does the email.

Email marketing in NZ needs to reinvent itself in order to prosper - that means knowledge acquisition, followed by planning and smart delivery. Kiwis will usually give someone a second chance, but are quick to condemn repetitive mistakes. So the next, probably post recessionary wave of email marketing needs to be better.

Will it be? Well, I hope so, but sadly I doubt it.

Most email marketers pouring money and databases down the drain

2009-03-26T15:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, we are in recession. Yes, it will get worse, and yes, more companies are turning to email to market their way out of it.

Is it working?

Well, based on the stuff that hits my inbox, probably not for most of them.

There is still a fundamental lack of understanding amongst many so called email marketers about how best to use the medium. Email advertising doesn't work per se, yet it remains the staple format of what is being sent out.

To make email work as a marketing medium, there are some golden rules that need to be applied:

1. Email is a unique medium that offers a uniquely direct and personal form of communication - so make your offers unique to email - show the value in communicating by email.

2. Be clear about what you want recipients to do, and how to do it. Drowning a sales message in a whirlpool of unnecessary marketing fluff simply disguises your message.

3. Limited offers in limited numbers is a formula that works. Few people will buy all 20 of your special offers in one go, but if they are only offered 2, they might buy one, which leaves 18 more to make similar impact over the next 9 weeks.

4. Most companies use marketing to sell what they want to sell, but you must remember to give buyers reasons to buy. Demand comes from a number of factors - need, availability, price - underline these so a buying decision is an easy one. Emails that simply say here are our cheap offerings this week are treated as companies trying to shift the unsellable.

Understanding the basic principles of email marketing is not rocket science. Getting them right does require a little more thought and intuition, but ignoring them is simply wasting time and money, and right now that seems to be what the majority are doing. What a shame.

Not a good look?

2009-03-09T16:52:00.001-07:00

What makes a great email design? It is an increasingly complicated question. So many different email clients with different rendering protocols. So many different approaches – do you replicate printed media designs, optimise for email or what?

When designing a template for a client, it is important to explain that you cannot please all of the people all of the time – if you want to, then forget Html, use plain text.

We use Html because it enhances branding, it creates a visually appealing environment for your copy and because it allows us to gather metrics.

The golden rule is simplicity. Let your content lead your design, not vice versa. Unless you don’t care about 40% of your audience. That’s the harsh reality of it. Some marketers are happy to sacrifice nearly half their recipients in order to send a print style design through to the remaining 60% - big images with overlaid text everywhere, usually unsupported by Alt text. Or with the most pitiful stuff behind it (image of fish etc).

I believe that people respond to email because of what they read. But images can be a factor in deciding whether to read it or not. So can rich text. So Inbox always lets copy lead design.

But until the impossible dream of standardisation occurs, the design vs rendering conundrum will remain a challenge – an increasingly hard one to win.

Out with the old.....

2009-03-01T19:15:00.000-08:00

Feeling the recession yet? We did, last week. A long standing client decided they could o better and cheaper themselves, and I quote: "we can access bulk email technology at less than half the price".

I bit my lip and thanked them for their business.

Of course they can access bulk email technology cheaply, just as you can sell the Merc and buy a Skoda and save a few bob. I know the technology will be poor, and I know also, rather sadly, that they do not have the knowledge and skills in house to use it to best effect - that's why they paid us rather more.

Inevitably in a recession, people will look to save money, and often will sacrifice quality in so doing.

The irony is that the 5 new clients we have already picked up this year are upping their spend to sign with us - because they want email to work for them, and have realised that their self-managed, cheap bulk email technology is not producing the goods!

Of course it is sad to lose a client you have spent 4 years developing a professional and effective email communications campaign for, but at the end of the day, if you are sacrificed to cost, they probably attached little value to what you did for them, and losing them was an inevitability at some stage.

So, 2009 is one out, 5 in, and all for the right reasons. Plenty to smile about, and plenty of new clients to do a great job for.

09 - the year of clarity

2009-02-09T12:25:00.000-08:00

I have just finished listening to a really interesting webinar by Herschell Gordon Lewis - one of the USA's pre-eminent thinkers on marketing.

Of course, there is always a danger that when you hear the right voice saying things that make sense, you buy in a little too much - many people say that's how Hitler rose to power.

But Gordon Lewis' message was loud and clear. For email marketing, motivation to respond is a function of clarity and specific benefits. And it is very hard to argue with.

Attention spans are diminishing - as part of our evolution, and as a function of email volume. Recipient reaction must be an immediate "I get it."

Whilst Gordon Lewis was arguing from the background of a professional copywriting expert. I think he could have gone further to align his ideas to email. he omitted to discuss the presentation of email - and made the assumption that recipients would look at the entire message.

I believe what he should have said is that you need to ensure the recipient says "I get it" on the basis of what they see in the preview pane alone. Be clear, direct and engaging. Don't be clever. Cleverness is no longer valid.

Traditionally email begins with a banner. Is that any longer valid? I suspect not. Prime email real estate should support the subject line. A logo and a message should form the header of email. A message which is true. Real bait works better than false bait. Cynicism has grown. Claiming special offers as a preview pane hook which are riddled with subsequent conditions do not work.

More on this soon.

Less is More

2009-01-26T20:28:00.000-08:00

As an enthusiastic online shopper, when I discover a site that sells something I might want to buy, now or in the future, I always look to see if they have an email newsletter I can sign up to.

The other day I sat down and looked at my online shopping patterns, and noticed a trend.

Virtually all of my buying is prompted by email from the vendor. I don’t always buy what their email is promoting – sometimes it just puts them in front of mind, and leads me to buy something else from their site.

But rarely will I go and buy something unless I get an email from them.

Let’s assume for a moment that I am not alone in this – that I am an element of a trend. What does it mean for email marketers? Should they be filling their messages with more content, encouraging recipients to buy more and more things, or should they recognise that some buying is offer driven, some not, and use email partly to highlight one or two juicy offers, and partly just to maintain vendor awareness?

I think the latter. Content intensive emails lose a lot in translation. Very few people read one email containing 25 special offers before clicking a link to something they want to buy. Emails which try and promote every offer available on a site are just replicating the work of the site – unnecessarily, IMHO.

Email is a prompt and alert tool, not a cataloguing device. So we at Inbox are currently telling all our retail clients to look at cutting down the copy, and increasing the impact of their message – and resulting sales.

If only they had a cunning plan!

2009-01-14T10:53:00.000-08:00

Looking, with increasing gloom, at the huge volume of marketing emails that are flooding into my inbox right now from increasingly desperate retailers, I reached a point of realisation yesterday. It is not email marketing at all; in most cases it is email advertising.

People are sending me adverts, usually an exact replica of ads from other media, by email. I have only one word for this - stupid!

Stupid because it assumes that email presents adverts in the same way as print.

Stupid because it shows an absolute ignorance of how people read and react to email.

Stupid because (can't believe I am still saying this) it shows that marketers have still failed to embrace email and learn about it - they just see it as a cheap alternative to other media.

It amazes me that companies such as Dick Smith, Noel Leeming, Air NZ etc employ agencies / marketing bods with so little nous.

Doubtless the bods in question will soon be looking for jobs as the recession bites further and their inept marketing strategies are revealed for what they are!

Farewell to Ferrit - thank god!

2009-01-12T13:08:00.000-08:00

The timely demise of Ferrit should serve as a wake-up call to many online retailers in NZ. A common theme amongst the myriad of comments made about Ferrit experiences was the appalling after sales service. For online retailers, the sales process does not end when the buyer clicks buy now, pays with a credit card and awaits their goods. It ends only when those goods arrive, in a satisfactory condition.

Any successful online retailer will tell you this. But for some reason they are few and far between. Given the uniformity of access, and often price, on the internet - there are no local shops - to not deliver the best possible service is commercial suicide.

The best online retailer I have experienced in NZ is Gourmet Direct - they make it their business to ensure you receive what you have ordered, on time and in good shape. They will always have my business, irrespective of competitive pricing. Customer loyalty for online retailers is critical.

Ferrit was a poor site in every way - poorly constructed, understocked, weak content, technically inadequate and appallingly marketed.Even with Telecom's billions behind it it could not make a go of it, even in a country where online retailing is generally behind the times and consumers less savvy.

What makes this doubly sad is that NZ, with its geographically diverse population, is ideal for online retailers. But the market needs a wake-up in order to start delivering. Maybe the end of Ferrit will be just that.

Will email save the world in 2009?

2009-01-04T13:23:00.000-08:00

Here comes 2009 - a year in which we will all be under pressure, people and businesses alike. Businesses in particular, mainly retailers have already felt the squeeze. Some have gone under, and things will only get worse.

Each day, emails are reaching my computer from increasingly desperate retailers, offering more and more incentives to buy from them, at increasingly cheap prices. Stock must be shifted.
So will email save these retailers? Yes, it is cheaper, faster and more direct. It thus offers a very effective medium to communicate with past and present customers.

But that is not enough. It will be the message sent that decides whether the email marketing campaign works. It is a concept that is still not understood by most companies using email marketing.

To receive an email on Monday offering you an LCD TV at $X, followed by another 2 days later offering the same product even cheaper will not work. That's the tone of many messages arriving right now. It smacks of despair.

So yes, email could offer a lifeline to some retailers, but it needs to be planned, strategised, tailored to the medium and smart!

Email holds the key

2008-10-30T15:59:00.000-07:00

Knowledge, they say, is power. Right now in NZ we may well be experiencing a slight variation on that theme – knowledge leads to power.

I am referring to the widespread knowledge of National Party policy, and specifically the activities of its leader in the run up to the election – spread by his quite savvy daily campaign email newsletter; undeniably it is an effective tool in spreading his message, keeping his supporters informed and enfranchising marginals; it may well lead him to power.

Interestingly, the Labour party, who have been promising an email newsletter for several years, do not appear to be delivering. Also interestingly, they appear to be about to relinquish power.

You can parallel this quite closely to business, and this is of direct relevance in these difficult times. The businesses who will endure and prosper are the ones who take the time and trouble to inform and enfranchise their customers – those who fail will overlook the importance of this.

A good, well strategised and managed email campaign, right now, is likely the most cost efficient and effective way of achieving this.

Report as Spam

2008-10-09T20:41:00.000-07:00

One thing all email marketers fear is being reported as spammers - especially to the major networks - gmail, yahoo etc. This can happen for no other reason than your properly subscribed recipient is having a bad day - they click report as spam, and there you are, on the spammers register. This can have seriously adverse effects on your recipient rate.

You go to enormous length to build a reputation as a trusted sender and it is gone just like that. Unfair, isn't it.

I saw a unique and rather funny solution to this today - I am not sure that I approve, but it's worth sharing. I received an email newsletter from xyz company - the sender being jon@xyz.com very prominently displayed in the banner was a report as spam button - which generated an email to bob@xyz.com saying I think this newsletter I have just received is spam.

Presumably, xyz company simply unsubscribed anyone who did this - having circumvented the possibility of being reported to an ISP, and got on with their business.

I wonder if it will catch on!

The promise premise

2008-09-23T16:51:00.000-07:00

I rang Sky TV the other day. I wanted to upgrade to their new MySky service. Sure, they said. We'll be round on Wednesday.

How exciting. Wednesday was perfect. It meant I could watch John Deed and record Ashes to Ashes. sadly they came on Thursday. I was so upset I told them not to bother.I guess what I am saying is, if someone makes a promise, then keeping that promise is as, if not more significant, than the actual substance of the promise.

There is an email parallel. When you sign up for marketing emails or newsletters, you will (you should) receive a welcome message which tells you what to expect in terms of service as a subscriber. Frequency, volume and subject matter should all be covered.

That is their promise to you, and if they fail to keep it, you might well unsubscribe. Emails received too often, or not often enough. Too many, or too few. Content which fails to live up to your expectation.

Using email to communicate with customers or stakeholders needs holistic planning.Work out what you have to say. Plan when and how to tell them. Tell them what, and when you are going to tell them. Then tell them. And they will be happy!

Absence makes the memory weaker

2008-08-25T19:09:00.001-07:00

Let’s assume you use email as a marketing / communications tool for a reason - a good one that is – to engage your stakeholders in meaningful dialogue, and, from time to time, to call them to action.

One thing that is sure to diminish your ability to do this, in this oh-so-crowded email marketplace, is irregular communication with unpredictable gaps between missives.

I received an email recently from a company from whom I had not heard in a year. It took me a while to remember who they were and why I had subscribed in the first place. Sadly for them, I realised more quickly that they were not holding my attention, and unsubscribed.

Regular contact (allowing of course for high value and personalised content) enables you to build dialogue – which makes people less likely to disengage from it. It allows you to build anticipation from one communication to the next.

So it keeps your audience active, enthusiastic, and subscribed. As mentioned, you need to deliver the right content, but if you can do that, then you will have much higher response rates, and much lower unsubscribe rates.

You wouldn’t publish a magazine to which people were subscribed on an ad hoc basis – not for long, anyway. So don’t lose touch with your audience. Set a schedule, let people know what it is when they sign up, and keep to it – any keep in the forefront of their minds.

Dear Customers, you are all the same...

2008-08-13T21:09:00.000-07:00

Segmentation is a major buzz word in email marketing right now. It means splitting your database into groups – characterised by common themes – preferences, purchasing habits etc.

By segmenting, you can increase personalisation. By increasing personalisation, you can deliver increasingly directed and relevant marketing messages – which should lead to an upswing in transactions.

A potential client approached us last week – with a database of 27,000. He wanted to start segmenting and personalising. He had, however, no information except names and email addresses.

The question this raises is one of timing. At what point do you start gathering data about your customers? Is it a one-off or ongoing process?

As with most things, there is no universal formula for success.

Your data gathering strategy must be formed in the context of your business, and your audience.

But there is a basic principal which should be followed.

Use the sign up point to gather a limited, important amount of data which will allow initial personalisation. Win the customers trust with a series of interesting and relevant emails. At this point, ask for more data. Explain your request so that the benefits to the customer are their driving force in answering your questions.

Justify their faith in you by delivering what they want. Use the data you have to ensure that what you send them is always relevant and takes into account what they have told you.

A major benefit of this is the improvement in perceived dialogue between you and the customer. Personalised emails, containing a great deal of unique customer data and preference recognition, are far closer to a discussion that standard, generic marketing emails. Discussions lead to deals. That’s smart marketing.

Email and the hairline economy

2008-07-15T15:59:00.000-07:00

Anyone who denies that we are in a recession probably still thinks there were nuclear weapons all over Iraq. Never before have we seen debt levels like this, in both business and consumer sectors. Oil prices will never fall significantly. Inflation is here to stay. Property prices will continue to fall.

In fact, it may well be that we all have to make significant changes to our lives and businesses. No bad thing, perhaps. This could be the wake-up call that we need.

So what does it mean for email? Well, I think it represents an opportunity – for email to mature as a medium in NZ, and for many businesses and organisations to undergo a long overdue traditional media cost cutting exercise, and dramatically improve their communications impact and efficiency into the bargain.

I predict that in 12 months time the volume of legitimate commercial email in NZ will double. I also predict that unsubscribes will rise dramatically as recipients make more aggressive reading decisions based on impact, content, presentation and relevancy.

Smart email marketers will increase segmentation, email design will change considerably to increase initial impact and allow for mobile view, writing for email will become a highly valued skill, and 90% of businesses and organisations sending email will continue to skimp on costs and trust their own in house knowledge, leading to even higher unsubscribe rates and lack of return on investment.

The 10% who value, and employ skilled email agencies, will beat the recession, and emerge all the stronger.

You heard it here first.....

A Silly Bank

2008-07-03T20:35:00.000-07:00

A month overseas gives you a nice clear head. A fresh perspective. Even a new tolerance of those things which were threatening to make you explode because you needed that holiday so much.
So when I got back and surveyed my inbox, even though there were over 1000 emails to deal with of which at least 30% were spam (thank you our wonderful anti-spam laws for keeping it below 50%) I did not mind.

Jet lag is a funny thing. For the first three night I found myself at my desk by 3.00 am. Actually, it’s a great time of day to work.

Anyway, as I was sitting there, happily considering opportunities to enhance my length, or give my bank account details to a range of generous Nigerians, I was surprised to receive a marketing email from my bank. At 3.00 am. At first I assumed it was a con, some spammer stealing their identity, but closer inspection revealed it to be the real thing. I won’t tell you which bank it was, except to say I consider them A Silly Bank. The same bank, by coincidence, that recently told me they did not need an email agency to show them the best way to use email to market their services, as they had plenty of expertise in-house.

I have to say, just for a few moments, it swept away all the good from my break, and made me mad. Not just because they should have employed our services, but because this sort of irresponsible and ignorant email marketing breeds mistrust amongst the general public.

For email to prosper as a marketing channel, big players need to get it right, and A Silly Bank sending out emails at 3 in the morning is wrong.

Don't open sesame

2008-05-18T16:39:00.000-07:00

We hear more and more about crowded inboxes, competition for attention, and how email recipients have so little time to read what we send them.
I am no different; I too receive a very high volume of email, and today I caught myself doing something that I suspect may be very common behaviour.

I cleared my weekend inbox. In amongst the mass of messages were some newsletters that I read avidly. Today I read them avidly, but I did so in the preview pane. I thought about this and tried to remember the last time I actually opened an email. Some time ago, was my initial response. I racked my brains and reached the conclusion that it was in fact some considerable time ago, like a year or two.

If I am right, and if more and more people are behaving in this way, what does it mean for email publishers?

Well, quite a lot. Opening rate metrics become irrelevant. Brevity, preview pane impact, and low image levels become vital. Use of preview pane real estate become even more important.

I know the golden rule of email analysis is never assume your behaviour is typical, but I am willing to bet that just this once this is a growing trend; one that probably will not, and cannot be reversed.

Next up, based on this assumption, I am going to reflect further on the design of an email in a world where readers only ever use the preview pane.

Spoiling the broth

2008-05-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

I watch Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Most weeks, Gordon gives great advice that gets ignored by the owners of failing restaurants, usually because they are bad businessmen. Gordon finds this quite a frustrating experience.

I know how he feels. Last year a publishing company asked me to take a look at one of their email newsletters. They did not want to pay for my advice, but suggested that if I gave some for free, then there could be quite a bit of business in it for me. How tempting.

I duly gave the advice, and it was duly ignored. Today, I received the same email newsletter. In the opening paragraph, it had 3 spelling mistakes (including the word magazione, which I presume meant magazine), numerous grammatical errors, no alt text for all of the pictures which blocked the preview pane, and, well, at this point I got bored of counting basic errors and unsubscribed.

The newsletter is about rugby, a subject close to my heart. But as a reader, I felt pretty disenfranchised. They hadn’t even bothered to spellcheck it. Shows how much they care about their email readers.

If the same errors had appeared in print, then the editor would now be looking, probably with some difficulty, for a new job.

I know that the publishing industry has been one of the slowest to fully embrace online opportunities, but even the most moronic publisher surely appreciates that the basic tenets of print publishing apply to online?

A good email newsletter acting as a prompt and alert can really enhance the appeal and commercial success of a magazine. Or not, in this case. Like Gordon, I just walked away and left them to their own devices.

Compelling Sign-up Strategies

2008-05-04T14:16:00.000-07:00

All email databases contract; unreported change of address, relocation, loss of interest etc all contribute to a process of natural wastage which is inevitable. So in order to stand still, let alone go forward, it is crucial to have a simple and compelling sign up process to attract new audience.
What contributes to the success of your sign up strategy?

Visibility, simplicity of process, and maximisation of opportunity are three key factors.
If using email to engage and market to customers is a core strategy, then signing up for your emails must be highly visible – it should be a focal point of every page on your website, and prominently displayed on non electronic media. It should form part of the standard text of every email message you send.

How many people track readers to their sign-up pages and then compare numbers with actual sign-ups? It makes fascinating reading, and percentages vary wildly from 5% to 95%. In every case, simplicity, and not requesting superfluous information is a key factor in sites with the higher percentages. Initial sign up is not the time for requesting too much personal information.
When someone is signing up to receive email from you, you have a wonderful opportunity to begin the process of engagement. Maybe even two or three opportunities – sign up page, thank you page and welcome email. Use them wisely.

Database wastage will only grow as email gets busier. Smart marketers will recognise this, and already be implementing strategies to marginalise its impact.

Will you marry me?

2008-04-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

It is a question you ask when you get engaged. Engagement leads to marriage - a plan for life, but as we know, some marriages don’t last.

Because laws dictate that we can only send email to people who have requested them, we begin the process of audience engagement by being told “I want to be engaged to you”.

So when it all goes sour, and that reader divorces themselves from your emails, the smart email marketer will acknowledge that it may well have been their fault – they failed to continue to engage.

So what are the key factors in engaging, and continuing to engage readers?
Expectation is one. At time of sign up, a reader should learn what they are going to receive, when, and how often.

Information value is another. How often do marketers send out information which they think is interesting, because they analyse it from their side of the fence, but which in reality bores readers senseless? To gauge audience value on information you send, you need to juxtapose your perspective.

Purpose is an oft forgotten or underestimated aspect of engagement. Is there a purpose to your campaign, to each component deployment? What do you want the reader to do? Have you told them that? All too often a lack of purpose, and absent calls to action mean that recipients read, then scan, then in time ignore your emails. Compelling text and images without purpose need to be very good to carry on the process of engagement ad infinitum.

I’ll talk more about engagement in the coming weeks, but remember, if you want to stay married, you need to stay engaged.

The right to reply

2008-04-21T17:03:00.001-07:00

Have you ever received an email newsletter from an address that begins noreply@ or something similar?

It is about the most stupid thing any email marketer can do. Putting a line in your message which says reply to another address is simply not good enough, because people the world over reply to emails – by hitting the reply button.

So the address you send from should be one you expect replies to arrive at, and it needs to be closely monitored and replies acted upon immediately.

If it is not, you could be missing business

The Hurdle Race

2008-04-17T17:07:00.000-07:00

Email marketing is a never ending hurdle race. Each deployment represents a new hurdle in continues reader engagement. But in email, if you fall, you are probably out of the race. Once you have disengaged a reader, they most likely will unsubscribe, or simply stop reading your emails.

Never estimate reader unsubscribe inertia. Most people continue to receive, and immediately delete, far more emails than they actually unsubscribe from.

So don’t think, just because you have a low unsubscribe rate, that you are engaging your readers.

Complacency is a fast track to poor results. Each stage of an overall email campaign news to be the most exciting, persuasive, engaging and fully functional. It is as if you are starting from scratch with each send out. OK, readers you have hooked may allow you a little latitude, but if you build that in to your efforts, then you will quickly let standards slip.

At Inbox we say to each and every client, before each and every mailing; “This is your first contact with these people – are you going to engage them?” Content, design, functionality, rendering etc are all checked and improved upon relentlessly in order to ensure the email does the best for the client and the recipients.

It’s called the pursuit of perfection, and in the noisy marketplace that email is, nothing less will do.

Making Images Work

2008-04-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

I get around 30 email newsletters every day. Most have amazingly high image to text ratios. Many have no alt text at all, and of those that do, the majority have banal descriptions such as image of whatever, or even worse the image file name.

I feel sorry for the companies who are creating their own designs, or whose agencies are too lazy to learn the fundamentals of email marketing.

Whatever numbers you believe about images disabled, we all know it is a growing percentage of our databases.

So Alt Text must be used. But not just any old alt text. Plain and banal descriptions are unlikely to engage a reader enough to make them enable images. Crafting Alt Text is copywriting skill in its own right.

If images are disabled, you want compelling text which makes the reader wish to see your images. Next time you receive an email newsletter, think how you could have improved the alt text – what might make you want to see the image?

Alt Text has one other use as well - as a “hover caption” – and what better way to annotate your images and build on their marketing message?

Never Assume

2008-03-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

The old police saying; to assume makes an ass of you and me. I think it was Oscar Wilde originally. No Matter.

In email, sender assumption is the cause of lower open rates, lower reaction rates, and higher unsubscribe rates.

Sender assumption, that is, that the recipient will mirror the sender - in terms of interest, knowledge, understanding and enthusiasm.

To a degree, this can be overcome by dumbing down - creating your email with the lowest common denominator in mind.

Make sure you sender ID clearly identifies you. Make sure your subject line is informative and engaging. Make sure that your call to action is the focal point of your email. Make sure that your desired transaction is simple and obvious.

Too often , marketing minds used to the subtlety of other media make the mistake of copying their tactics for email.

Time is not on your side. You have seconds to compete with a crowded inbox. So keep it simple, and never assume that the recipient is sitting there, waiting eagerly for your email, and has hours to devote to deciphering what it is you want them to do.

So when should I send out my newsletter?

2008-03-13T16:26:00.000-07:00

Since email time immemorial there has been great debate about timing. What day to send, what time to send?

Statistics are studied, theories evolved. Results change, and consequently so do timings.
Timing strategies often depend upon your database; is it primarily composed of business users, or weekend users?

Some rules do apply to all deployments – from Friday lunchtime through to Monday lunchtime, don’t bother sending – unless your message is time sensitive and critical to an event during that period. After hours emails in midweek are usually a waste of time, as well.

I believe that the most important timing rule is consistency. By deploying at the same time of the same day each week or month, you can gradually create an event – one that will be anticipated, and also that can be teed up by previous send outs, and on your website.

This can only help opening rates and audience engagement.

Too many links spoil the broth

2008-02-11T15:20:00.000-08:00

I am currently challenging conventional wisdom in email. This week, my subject is links. Most people agree that a high degree of consistency between web design and email design is important. One area where that often carries through is in site navigation – boxes of links to part of a website appear in the email template.

3 years ago we conducted a survey on user behaviour. One of the most interesting results was that the more links that existed in an email, the more people clicked them. The novelty of receiving email newsletters, and following their links was still high. This trend has now reversed. The best results, in terms of click-throughs, come from fewer links.

In fact, I would suggest that if the purpose of your email is to get recipients to click through a particular link, then you would be best served by having only that link, and by focussing the direction of both layout and content towards it. Anything else is a red herring.

So when designing an email template, think about links. Yes, have one through to your home page, but do not replicate the navigation menu of your site, as you may lose people who might otherwise have clicked through your key message link.

Don't let branding hide your key impact message

2008-02-03T15:17:00.000-08:00

Just as all websites began life with headline banners that covered the width of the site to brand and identify the site, so most Html newsletters did the same.

Again, as with last week’s post, this is valuable real estate, and if you are communicating with an audience who are not brand new, is it the best use of that space?

What is your key intent in the email – is it reinforcing your branding, or perhaps the delivery of a message which hopes to stimulate action and response?

If it is the latter, then you should consider split headlining – reduce your branding to 30% of the headline banner, and replace it with rich text – headline news, calls to action which work in conjunction with your subject line and new top text headline (see last week’s post).

This is unlikely to diminish your brand or identity impact – remember that is already enforced through your sender ID.

It may not look quite as slick initially, but it will improve impact – especially in the preview pane.

Sudden Impact!

2008-01-29T15:07:00.000-08:00

Early Html email was quite a basic proposition, but senders soon discovered rendering incompatibilities between browser types. Code disintegration, blocked images etc made a good chunk of volume unreadable.

The solution, which was quickly adopted as standard, was to offer a link to a web version at the very top of the email.

As inbox competition intensifies, and preview pane decisions are commonplace, perhaps this valuable piece of real estate can be put to better use.

Most marketing emails and email newsletters have a principal headline – either an attention grabbing news story, or a tag line designed to entice the recipient to read on and complete whatever transaction the email requires.

Try putting it at the very top, in bold, and in a standout colour, with a line separating it from the subsequent, standard text.

The impact this has, being the very first thing seen, may cause a marginal increment in readers.
It should complement, rather than replicate, the subject line. The two can work together.

I predict that before every long, this will become a new standard.

Time for email marketers to challenge conventional wisdom?

2008-01-24T12:28:00.000-08:00

In the increasingly crowded and noisy place that is our inbox, it is getting ever harder to gain entry and get heard.

Smart email marketers will recognise that if they are not going forward, they will be going backwards in terms of email impact. There can be no standing still.

Like websites, marketing emails, as part of their evolution, have, to a degree, become standardised in format. Conventional wisdom exists.

Perhaps, in order to stand out from the crowd, it is time to challenge those standards. To look at what is considered acceptable and necessary and wonder if there might be a better way of doing it. Such is the process of evolution.

Over the next few weeks I plan to examine those standards one by one and see if I can think of any changes or developments which will benefit the goals of the sender, whilst at the same time remembering the needs and requirements of the reader.

I’ll share my thoughts with you, and look forward to your comments.

No.8 Wire not suitable for email

2008-01-13T09:56:00.000-08:00

NZ is rightly proud of its ability to produce cheap, innovative solutions. But sometimes it is just not appropriate.

To kick off 2008, I want to quote 2 key points in the new year message from Al DiGuido, one of America's foremost email thinkers:

Outsource smartly. Some people still believe effective e-mail deployment and execution can be accomplished with internal IT staff and deploying on your own servers. Not a chance. The last thing you want to worry about these days are the technical underpinnings of the infrastructure that deploys interactive messaging.Instead, use that time to leverage the capabilities available to you to increase customer acquisition and retention and to upsell. Stop listening to IT folks who claim they're the only ones on Earth who can build what you need. Great technology is in the market. Establish a demanding list of features and functionality, then find a vendor that can serve your needs.

Demand great customer service. In the old days, e-mail provider customer service was measured by the speed and flawless nature of message delivery. We all remember how painful it was when mistakes were made, campaign delivery lagged, or IP addresses were blocked. We took partners to task for lack of service. We created huge service level agreements with all types of penalty grids for violations.Customer service must to be much more these days. If your provider isn't proactively offering tangible insight into your campaigns and how to improve effectiveness, it's time to start asking why not. Stop thinking about e-mail as print production or direct mail blasts. Your provider and the people who work for the company must provide value-added insight as part of their agreement to serve you.

It's Christmas - make the effort

2007-12-02T14:29:00.000-08:00

This year I will be sending my Christmas cards by email. Most of the recipients live overseas. So yea, there will be a considerable saving on cost. No purchasing, no envelopes, no stamps, and no mad rush to beat the Christmas post.

Doubtless some of my nearest and dearest will scoff at what they suspect is a lack off effort. But, for the first time, all of them are on email - even the older ones. A sign of the times?

They will not understand the effort, and knowledge required to put together their cards in such a way that they reach the inbox and render properly - public (and business) ignorance of such matters is still high.

They might however appreciate the fact their card is a personal thing, rather than a bland image of snow and trees, containing some generic message from the card manufacturing industry.

So even though it might actually take longer than simply writing a few cards, I am going with it. Even if no-one understands the effort.

I want to complain

2007-11-27T15:05:00.001-08:00

Last week I received 2 pieces of blatant spam - both sent from NZ, and both emenating from companies who were large enough to know better.

As much out of curiosity as anything else I decided to complain about these.
After a fair bit of searching, I finally found a web page where I could submit my complaint. I had to register - that took 20 minutes, and when I was finally able to submit, the site broke down!
4 tries later and it finally worked. I was told that my complaint might or might not be investigated.

I have not heard anything since.

It's good to see NZ is serious about stopping spam!

If you want to try, the page is: http://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/wpg_URL/Services-Anti-Spam-Business-Info?OpenDocument

Christmas is coming, my Inbox is getting fat

2007-11-20T11:01:00.000-08:00

I am subscribed to email newsletters from all over the world. It goes with the territory. So late November is always an interesting time, as marketers who have ignored my requests for their email newsletters all year wake up and flood me with special offers, solutions to my Christmas conundrums etc.

What fascinates me is the absolute lack of planning in this - nothing for ten months then three in a week. Did I sign up to receive it? Often, I can't remember. This year I bought my presents early, so they have missed my custom. Shame in some cases, as a few have some good ideas.

If they had spent the year teeing up their seasonal bonanza, I might have factored them in to my reckonings - spent a few dollars with them.

Most of these marketers are suffering from a syndrome that seems unique to email - the "that's what I do" syndrome. It does not exist in other media where campaigns are planned. Email marketers seem to assume that their behaviour is typical, and structure their actions around this assumption, in the process making the proverbial ass out of me and themselves.

Christmas gets earlier each year. If someone bothered to tell me in September that they would have some fantastic Christmas specials, and to watch out for them in November, then I might do so.

It is the besetting curse of email marketing that the immediacy of email, seems to have been assimilated into its planning. "Lets do this...now". A planned and structured campaign will always work better.

More on these Christmas emails shortly.

A cautionary tale

2007-11-11T11:25:00.000-08:00

I heard a very sad story this week. We used to have a client - a small event, and we worked with them for 4 years. During that time we helped them build a database of interested parties – all properly opted in – of just over 10,000 people. It became a significant factor in their marketing and ticket sales, and the event went from strength to strength. We built them a professional website, and advised them on content, and driving traffic to it.

All in all it worked really well for all concerned. The organisers were not necessarily that expert in digital dialogue, but they were smart enough to appreciate what we were doing.

Then there was a change in the senior event management. We were not sure about working with the new chairman and decided to withdraw. We did however offer our advice for free to enable them to continue using email successfully – we also offered to guide them through the new legislation – but we never heard back from them.

It transpires they handed over the email side of things to their new web designers – similar field, so they were of course well qualified to manage it (not).

The new people changed everything – look, name etc and sent out a long and boring email under the new brand. Right at the bottom they asked the recipients to resubscribe – unnecessarily as all recipients were properly opted in, as well as having an exisiting business relationship with the event and its organisers.

They broke 2 major rules (and lots of minor ones):

1. You never use an email to deliver a major branding change – you might instead use an email under the existing brand to warn of the upcoming changes.

2. You never hide an important call to action – you make it the focal point of the email.
And this is where the story gets really sad. The database shrank from over 10,000 to around 300 – 4 years of work destroyed in one moment of autocratic management and professional incompetence – there’s no other way to describe it.

Shortly afterwards, the event was cancelled.

The moral of this story is simple. Email is too important to be handled by amateurs. Cost cutting in email will come back to bite you. If you are going to do it, do it properly.

And still it comes

2007-11-08T19:50:00.000-08:00

Today we have heard about the latest mercy spam which is flooding our inboxes - poverty stricken East Europeans begging us to engage in dialogue and then hand over all our hard earned cash.

Ok - this spam comes from overseas, so our much vaunted anti spam act cannot be held accountable - but our major ISPs can - once again they are failing to prevent spam, despite:
a) investing heavily in anti spam software and
b) continuing to ignore the introduction of whitelists and authentication

OK, I know the sort of people who fall for this type of spam trick are also still trying to invest in Bridgecorp, but really, decreasing the amount of spam we get without impinging on legitimate email is not that hard - just a case of admitting the current solution is not working and accepting that there may be a better way.

Test, test, test

2007-11-04T11:14:00.000-08:00

Last week we did the unthinkable and sent out an email without a working unsubscribe link. At best it is poor practice, at worst, illegal!

How did it happen? We have a rigorous testing policy. Every email that goes out is tested for link functionality, browser rendering etc.

Well, it seems that one of our developers was making some upgrading changes, and during the process, the auto unsubscribe function slipped off the frame template. No-one noticed - after all, it gets input automatically, and is not even considered as part of the normal testing process.

It has been a very welcome wake up call - complacency is the enemy of great email - so we, and so should everyone, will revisit our testing procedures to ensure such an error never happens again!

You musy be joking

2007-10-25T11:45:00.000-07:00

After a very busy, trying, and blog-free week, a moment of humour which fully restored my good spirits!

Yesterday we sent out a newsletter on behalf of a client - audience approx 45,000 which is quite big by NZ standards.

One auto response showed just how confused the world of email is.

Your message has been blocked, it read, due to restricted contents. The restricted content is: to unsubscribe from this newsletter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The one thing just about every anti-spam law and best practice all over the world agrees on is that every email must include a working unsubscribe link. Yet this particular email client found it offensive and filtered our newsletter.

He was running a programme called MailScan - not one I have heard of before, and not one I could recommend if you want to receive emails!

Confusion reigns

2007-10-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

Those who read this blog will know that I have been pretty critical of the Anti-Spam Act - so far from the perspective of spam volumes and ISP commitment to solving this.

Today I want to examine it from another perspective - that of the supposedly legitimate emailers in NZ.

Since the laws came in I watched with interest as email marketers and publishers have reacted in many different ways.

As recently as yesterday - one month later the laws took effect, I was receiving emails asking me to opt in, to opt out and so on in order to be compliant with e laws. I have also received quite of lot of completely unexpected and unwanted emails from publishers I have never heard of asking me to join their lists.

Amongst those who have tried to come to terms with the law, there are many who have failed to understand it - usually small companies who have seen email as a cheap and easy option. I hope they are not made an example of by the authorities because most of them are transgressing in many ways, but are clearly attempting to do it properly.

In fact, since the laws came in there has been zero publicity surrounding it - no warnings, no prosecutions, and with the exception of material released by Inbox, no comment about it at all.

I am all for improving the practices of legitimate email marketers and publishers - ultimately if standards are adhered to it will help in the war against spam, so wouldn't it be a good idea if the MED followed up their law with a review and some guidelines to help achieve this?

I suspect they won't!

Plain Text

2007-10-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

Most email platforms have the ability to deliver a plain text version of your Html - to browser like Lotus Notes that mangle Html, or to recipients who habitually view their emails on handhelds.

Your platform will probably take your email, strip out the Html and deliver a pure, unformatted text version as standard, and sometimes you may be happy with this.

It looks horrible, and reads even worse.

As use of handhelds grows, so a rethink of the text version will become more important.

My feeling is that it should be no more than a simple introductory line followed by a link to the web version of the email - so it can be viewed properly, and at an appropriate time.

For example: The October edition of our newsletter, including an update on XYZ, is now online at www.whatever.com

Perhaps a little top and tailing to emphasise content is a good idea, but simplicity and brevity are the watchwords.

It helps if you know which of your readers habitually reads email on their handheld - do you ask at point of sign up?

When less is more

2007-10-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

Last week we challenged the ISPs with the statement that more spam was getting through than ever before, the anti spam act had failed and that authentication and national whitelisting must be adopted sooner rather than later. Only IHUG bothered to reply, and they said it would not work, and that the Act was a success.

Our sister company Opinion Polls NZ ran a national survey to see whether people were getting more or less spam since the introduction of the act - and guess what - 97% of people said they were getting more!!!!!!

A cynic might conclude that the ISPs just can't be bothered.

What gets you noticed?

2007-09-30T21:07:00.000-07:00

In the noisy and crowded place that is our inbox nowadays, many people receive so much email that all they do is scan visually for ones they recognise then delete the rest.

Traditional email analysis says that readers look first at Sender ID and second at subject line.

I am no longer sure that is the case. I believe, based on talking to a broad range of people, that subject line might be the first point of recognition - especially as so many sender IDs have been highjacked by Trojans.

It seems that people are starting to scan just the subject line - as they feel it gives them a truer indication of whether the email is of interest or not, and generally disregarding sender ID.

If this is true, then the whole issue of subject lines must be re-examined and greater importance placed on those few words!

You have to laugh

2007-09-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

An article in the UK Daily Telegraph caught my attention today, and made me laugh - in a bitter and cynical sort of way.

Broadband too slow, it proclaimed.

It seems that the UK rate of 20 megabits per second is holding them back, when countries like France and Korea offer 5 times faster.

Yes, well, us Kiwis can understand why that would be a problem; after all, our typical premium broadband rate of 500 megabits is; what? Oh, that's 500ks? you mean about a 40th of the UK rate?; a 200th of the Korean rate?

Do you think that might be holding us back as well?

And still - mounting frustration

2007-09-25T13:11:00.000-07:00

3 weeks into our new anti spam laws, has anything changed yet?
Well, yes it has. I am receiving a lot less email from newsletters I have previously subscribed to.
One thing that remains the same is the volume of spam – still very high.
But it does appear that certain amount of legitimate email has been discouraged – so well done the Government – another piece of brilliantly thought out and well executed legislation.
At least we can take heart in the high volume of prosecutions that have resulted – well, none in fact, demonstrating that this toothless legislation missed the point – there are no spammers in NZ and the solution to ending, or at least limiting spam is no nearer.
A recent conversation with the Marketing Association revealed that for some time they have been in discussion with major NZ ISPs about a national whitelist.
Those discussions must be pretty arcane, because no-one seems to know anything about it – how far the issue has been progressed, when it might come into force etc.
A national whitelist, combined with authentication, would make a major difference to the volume of spam, and the ability of legitimate emailers to reach the desktop, so it is a great idea.
It is not hard to set up, and needs to be implemented sooner rather than later to ensure we in NZ do not lose faith in email as a medium of communications.

It's still coming

2007-09-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

So 10 days into our much vaunted anti Spam act, what has happened?

Well, 2 things; the first is that I am still getting the same volume of spam as before - no surprises there.

The second is that I have also received, many well after due date, a raft of messages asking me to opt back in. One even told me that my previous opt in was irrelevant - if I did not opt in a second time they had to unsubscribe me.

Given the significance of email as a communications tool for both personal and business reasons, you would think that a relatively simple piece of legislation such as this would be a little clearer for people. But it is not, and one result is that many businesses have shed up to 50% of their marketing databases unnecessarily.

Another has been our bombardment (mostly quite without need) of these opt in emails. We want value when we receive a marketing email, not chores.

So, so far, the anti spam act has been a failure - my inbox is more clogged than ever, and we are no nearer to a solution that we were six months ago.

There is, supposedly, in the pipeline, a solution - a national whitelist. You might have thought that there would be an urge to announce it as work in progress, and a desire to prioritise it, but apparently not.

I'll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, work on your email - deliverability is only in your own hands right now.

Boring auto replies are boring

2007-09-03T14:27:00.000-07:00

I am going away for a week. On holiday. The first one for three years. I expect to get a normal volume of email while I am out of office, so what should I do?

To me email demands urgency - it is quick to send, and people expect / appreciate a quick response.

So rather than just ignore my messages for 7 days, I need an out-of-office auto reply.

Many people forget the significance of these. I have thought about a few ideas:

1. Do not use the usual boring out-of-office subject line. Say something engaging - how about: Responding from the beach.

2. Remember that this is an opportunity to communicate with existing and potential business contacts. Rather than saying I am away for a few days, embellish your message. - I am out of town for a week and when I return I look forward to talking more with you about business, especially our new strategy for XYZ

3. Share you trip with them - it will be a great icebreaker when you return - I am going to be trekking through the jungles of South Chicago for 2 weeks.

So always think carefully about your message - it is a marketing / engagement opportunity.

Of course, I won't really be out of touch - my trusty blackberry will be with me, so I can take a sneak at who is emailing me - any who knows, I might even reply to the lucky ones!

Don't change the subject

2007-08-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

Right now there's a lot of talk about subject lines, maybe too much talk, to misquote Bono. But it is an important issue, and one where opinion is sharply divided between the email cognoscenti, and your average corporate email marketer.

Industry advisers urge a conservative approach - be exciting and engaging without being spammy, yet users seem determined to "win free double your money" in the subject line wherever possible.

This week ASB, after much internal huffing and puffing, relaunched their email marketing programme with a new, and when you dug it out of the spam file, quite interesting newsletter.

But it did go straight into the spam folder.

Their subject line was: Celebrate 10 grand years with $10,000.

Now spam filters, especially here in NZ, are not known for their sophistication, so matching up a spammy subject line with a domain which had not sent anything for a while and coming up with Spam was a simple move.

How badly this will impact upon ASB we have yet to see - being a good citizen (even though they declined to use our services) I replied with some advice about subject lines, but of course it was sent from one of those Oh-so-clever noreply@ addresses.

When you are launching or relaunching a newsletter, initial audience engagement is a worry. Using a really exciting and enticing subject line is tempting - because getting recipients to open that all important first message is crucial. In fact, I predict that shortly we will see the arrival of a new type of email sub-specialist - the subject line writer!

Subject lines are another component of the design / delivery compromise equation - is it better to get sexy and compelling marketing to 50% of your audience of good solid marketing to 95% of them? (more on this soon).

To my mind, delivery into the inbox is crucial - so rein back a little with those subject lines.

Some words won't work

2007-08-26T13:01:00.000-07:00

There are some words you just cannot use in email. No, not the rude ones (although they are a problem too), but words that appear perfectly normal - in fact ones that truly reflect what your message is about.

This post is not about subject lines - that's an entirely separate topic we will deal with shortly. No, this is about the body content of your message.

Most filters are based on the Bayesian principle - examining the content of a message and deciding if it is spam based on the percentage of known spam words.

Imagine you are a Life Insurance company. You have a legitimate list of your own policy holders that you regularly email. You decide to have a marketing push and organise a sale, combined with a totally free, no hidden clauses assessment of insurance needs.

Your email says: "Take advantage of our 100% free offer - click here to see more details. Apply now to receive a 25% discount on all new policies - double your Life Insurance cover with the lowest insurance rates around. Take better care of your family."

Although this is a true reflection of your marketing thrust, many filters will block your message - most of the words and phrases in that snippet are absolute no-nos for email.

So yet another challenge for emailers - to write persuasive copy which truly reflects your marketing message that engages readers, but does not fall foul of spam filters!

Yet another reason to call in the professionals if you are serious about email.

The other side of spam

2007-08-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

We all get spam, some more than others. Upcoming legislation in NZ, originally aimed at preventing spam, will simply prevent spammers from operating in NZ - it will not diminish the volume of spam we receive.

So what will?

For legitimate email marketers and publishers, spam is a problem in that due to ISP and desktop filtering practices, quite often our emails get blocked or filtered even when the recipient is dying to receive it. So we have a commercial and conceptual interest in diminishing spam.

In the USA, where email is a sophisticated and specialist discipline, Authentication is catching on. 44% of all emails are sent using either Sender ID or Domain Keys, the two main standards of authentication.

Put simply, Authentication ties the senders IP address to the domain name used - thus preventing spammers from pretending to be abc@bigbrand.com or whichever well known name they hide behind. So this would enable ISPs to eliminate a great deal of spam, and all phishing emails at source.

Then there is the perspective of legitimate email marketers and publishers; using authentication, ISPs can whitelist proper email senders - so that all legitimate emails get as far as the desktop.

Senders of bulk email who were not whitelisted could be identified and encouraged to demonstrate their legitimacy so that they could be whitelisted too. After a while, any bulk sendouts which were not authenticated and whitelisted could also be blocked at source until such time as they either stopped emailing, or adhered to the ISP standards.

The Unsolicited Commercial Messages Act states that it is merely one of a number of measures that will fight spam, and stresses the importance of self regulation amongst the email industry.

Authentication is a relatively cheap and simple solution to implement, yet when asked Xtra, Ihug and Clear all said it was "too hard".

So next time you miss a really important email because your ISP guessed it might be spam, remember, ask them to adopt authentication.

Choose me, I'm best (part 1)

2007-08-12T19:11:00.000-07:00

Most companies who publish an email newsletter do not develop or own their own email platform - they either contract out or buy in.

Smart move - it costs a lot less, and avoids having to acquire in-house expertise.

So what do you look for when making a decision about vendors? There are lots of companies competing for your email business, all with glossy websites that promise a great deal, and often obfuscate in order to avoid real issue.

Here are some of the key issues:

1. Do they develop their technology in-house? This is important, because if you want changes or developments made to suit your requirements, you do not want to be dealing with an intermediary.

2. Do they have (and what is) a deliverability strategy? This requires advanced deliverability tools, and constant strategic monitoring and management. Without this, you may find 50% of your emails fail to make their intended destination.

3. Do they overbrand your messages? Many people prefer this not to happen - it can confuse recipients, A good ESP will want to overbrand, but will make this optional.

4. How do they track? With so many desktop and ISP filters in operation, a new degree of sophistication is required to obtain all encompassing and meaningful stats

5. Do they provide integrated web form solutions? With new laws, opt-in is more important than ever. A good ESP will be able to create and host these so they are seamlessly integrated.

As with all things, it is only during the pursuit of excellence that these factors are important. If you want to set the standards, in terms of deliverability, best practice and impact, then a good ESP is essential - and worth every penny.

More on delivery

2007-08-06T13:04:00.000-07:00

A recent ClickZ white paper discussed “how to ruin deliverability in 10 easy steps”!
Deliverability is the single most important issue facing emailers, because if you cant get the message through, the rest really doesn’t matter.
In NZ we do not face the same challenges as those in the developed world – our incredibly unsophisticated email framework does not make delivery the issue it is in the USA, for example, but we have to assume that we will one day upgrade the wood-burning technology which currently manages email in this country, and plan that concepts such as authentication will eventually reach us.
Ruining deliverability is something most novice emailers do without trying. Sending out bulk emails with attachments, Html emails with a file size of 500k, sending to an uncleansed list with over 50% dead recipient addresses, that sort of thing.
Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to look at ClickZ’s 10 easy steps and see which applied in NZ.
Top of the list is Authentication – we don’t have that – too hard, according to Xtra and Ihug when we suggested it to them.
Then it’s a list of general design and best practice factors – dirty lists, poorly rendering content, spammy subject lines, unrecognizable sender Ids, untested links and messages etc – all the things that non-expert emailers do all the time.
So it’s good to know that the problems I see every day here in NZ exist elsewhere.

Lies, damned lies and.......

2007-07-29T16:41:00.000-07:00

Relatively accurate statistical measurement capability is a key component of what sets email aside from other media as a unique channel of communication.

A new site, Email Stats Centre (http://emailstatcenter.com) provides a wide range of comparative stats for inspection. Quite how useful this will be in unclear, but like all email stats, they do provide benchmarks.

Most email stats are less accurate than we would like, but because their MO is relatively consistent, we can compare and contrast, and that is where the real value is.

The email stats centre offers a whole host of stats - categorised by some of the key factors such as Authentication, delivery, subject lines etc.

They appear to be taken exclusively from the USA, and often garnered from 3rd party surveys, but for the curious there are some interesting conclusions to be drawn - which back up many of the golden rules we should be following. Have a browse, but remember - stats are like a paint brush - the picture depends on who's holding it.

The right club

2007-07-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

As a mad keen golfer I invested heavily in a top of the range set of clubs a few years back. So heavily that it caused the better half to murmur pointedly about expensive jewellery. A year later she (again) pointedly enquired why I was not competing with Tiger Woods. When I explained it was because I was not good enough, she acidly reminded me I had spent a small fortune on clubs. "Surely they should make you better", she said.

I was reminded of this recently when a would-be client told me they were eschewing our services (good word that) and devoting their budget to a top notch DIY email platform.
Well sure, that's their decision, but is it a really smart one?

Of course a great email platform is essential, but nowadays there are lost available, and give or take a few gimmicks, most perform the necessary functions.

But like the golf clubs, they are only as good as the person managing them.

As each and every day, email is becoming more specialist. Delivery and impact challenges are growing. Without the right level of experience and expertise, your email cannot rely upon the platform to achieve your goals.

Design, copy, and coding are just some of the basics that require human configuration for successful email.

So yes, good clubs will give you an advantage, but you still need a great golfer to get the most out of them.

The Kitchen Sink

2007-07-18T20:12:00.000-07:00

I love getting email newsletters - partly for the information, and partly so that I can assess whether they are well put together or not.

So whenever I see the opportunity to subscribe, I do.

Some newsletter sign up forms are very straightforward - name and email. I like those ones.

Others, however, want to know pretty much everything about me - kitchen sink and all. Quite why my postal address is a must fill in I am not sure - I only want email.

The answer is, I assume, one of two things; either the form has been created with no thought at all, or the publisher plans at some stage to utilise segmentation.

Now don't get me wrong - segmentation is a very valid, and excellent email marketing practice - but here in NZ it is practised by pretty much no-one - the old too hard basket again.

"We'll get round too it", say the marketing team, before getting distracted by another online survey email coming through on their blackberries.

So, segmentation; targeted communications - great things, but they need following through.

There is an equation for how you ascertain information about your audience when using email; attract, engage, interrogate is the formula.

First you attract them to sign up - do not make it a chore, keep the information to a bare minimum.

Then you engage them through a series of valuable and entertaining messages.

Then and only then do you try to find out more to enable segmented marketing. Those who are still with you will readily divulge the info you want, and benefit from you targeted messages you subsequently send.

Asking for shoe sizes, mothers maiden names and toothpaste preferences at initial sign up is a bit like hanging a sign in your shop window saying "we are not that interested in your custom" - don't do it.

Thinking about Spam

2007-07-17T11:47:00.000-07:00

We are told that it's never been harder to get Spam through to recipients - ISP and desktop security options should mean that spammers face a virtually impossible task. But still it arrives.

My new Windows Vista system started really well, automatically diverting all junk email to a special, yet accessible folder. It took the spammers about 2 weeks to work out how to get round this and get into my Inbox.

But personally, that's fine - I welcome spam. As an email professional, I can learn a lot from it. What subject lines and body phrases and words to avoid, for example. Given the growth of Bayesian filtering, this is very important.

I would also rather spend 5 minutes a day deleting unwanted emails rather than run the risk of missing a genuine and important business or personal communication because it has been inadvertently filtered by a third party. I hate the thought of someone else deciding what I should and should not receive.

Unless email becomes a totally permission based network, where you can only send and receive emails from someone who has whitelisted you at ISP and Desktop level, then we will have to live with Spam, and personally I believe the benefits of free and open email far outway the negatives.

And remember, one mans spam is another mans welcome message - as a colleague once said, it's only spam if you are not interested!

The NZ Anti Spam Act

2007-07-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

It seems like a lifetime ago that I was asked to make a submission on the proposed anti spam laws.

Now we all know that NZ is not a spammers haven, but it did seem like a good idea to put a legal framework in place to regulate the email industry, and clear out the poor practices which were widespread.

I duly bit the bullet and turned off Cold Case (yes, that's how long this series has been running) and made some notes. 2 weeks later those notes were 22 pages of neatly typed, thoughtful and well argued points which assessed the proposed NZ legislation from a 360 degree perspective, compared and contrasted with overseas legislation and experience and, I hoped, summarised both the problems and solutions very neatly. I duly sent it to the MED and waited - very much in the same way that I am still waiting for anything other than a standardised thank you message.

I took the time to study the other submissions - some were from industry insiders like myself. Some were from big commercial organisations whose networks were clogged up with spam, and one or two were from those good upstanding citizens who populate the letters to the editor columns and the Talkback radio shows.

I then studied the proposed legislation when it was published, and after it had been reviewed by a parliamentary committee whose qualifications seemed to be that they had an email address.

I was disappointed by it then, and now, as it is about to take effect, and I am equally disappointed - by its inadequacies, poor definitions, areas of omission and most of all by its failure to address the issues facing the NZ email market. Our website (http://www.inbox.net.nz/) deals with the specifics of what the Act does do, and it would take too long to address all of its shortcomings, but let me say this: it will not reduce the amount of spam we get by one little bit. It has more grey areas than a British weather map on a summers day, and it is typical of any government legislation - it misses the point.

Nevertheless it is here now, and it will at least clean up the bottom end of the market - making sure everyone at least does the basics properly from now on.

Don't rely on passing trade

2007-07-02T21:10:00.000-07:00

If I was going to open a shop, the one thing I would not rely on is passing trade - especially if I was one of many shops in the same location, most of whom had far more extensive resources than I to attract people to their shops.

So it always amazes me when retail web site owners, as one recently said to me, hope that people will stumble (he said find) on their site and recommend it to all their friends.

Yes, of course some will, but I think he was missing the point. If potential and actual customers do visit your site, then they are a precious resource. Find out who they are and they reach out to them and get them back to your site time and time again. If you have new offerings, or special deals, tell them about it. Do not hope that they will check your site every day.

One of the reasons that email is so good for doing this is that (Blackberries and other PDAs excepted), people are in situ when reading email - your website is just a click away. The click though rate from email is far higher than from other media - far far higher.

There is an argument that says people make less instantaneous buying decisions when browsing after an email prompt. Possibly this is true, but when taken in the context of the extraordinarily low conversion rates from other media, you still achieve more tangible business from email.

So if you have a site, and you want people to visit regularly, find out who they are, and use email to prompt them to the site.

Where is it?

2007-06-27T14:58:00.000-07:00

I was recently asked to review the eMedia strategy of a part catalogue, part online retailer. The company had been surprised by the growth of sales online, and was considering an investment in strategic thinking to maximise this new revenue stream.

So I went to their site and, as I do on these occasions, tried to sign up for their email newsletter. I am a veteran at sniffing out well hidden sign up pages, but this time I was really tested.

Eventually I found it (I think), hidden at the very bottom of the long home page, under the guise of Join XYZ company. I say I think, because I still have no idea what I signed up for, or joined, for that matter. No confirmation email, no promise of a forthcoming email newsletter, nothing. It asked me for a lot of personal information as well, information I was reluctant to give out without knowing why.

My conclusion, which I sent on to the client, was that an emedia strategy would be a good idea, as they clearly had none.

In order to maximise the potential of a site of this kind, you need to understand the mentality and differetn types of site visitors you will get.

Some will be there to buy, and will be regular visitors - for now we will put these to one side, and focus on the others - the ones you never know about.

Casual site visitors should be identified and captured - an email newsletter is a great way to do this, so make the sign up very prominent, and incentivise it - once captured, you have the opportunity, through smart communications, to convert casual visitor to regular, regular to customer.

If you do not know who they are, you may never see them again, and you can do absolutely nothing to influence their behaviour..

Do not ask for too much, or irrelevant information when they first sign up - it can be very offputting. Ask for key data - name, email, location, and perhaps a checkbox list of options which will enable you to personalise your communications to them - sectors they might be interested in, for example.

And make sure you sell them the benefits of signing up and remaining a recipient of your newsletter on a regular basis.

Once they have signed up, they should immediately receive a thank you email - and don't be shy of adding some concise marketing message into this.

Do not ask for their physical address - these people want electronic communications, not posted ones, and people hate typing in their address needlessly.

Identifying site visitors gives you the chance to secure their custom - so don't hide your sign up forms - make them the focal point of your homepage.

Recognition

2007-06-24T22:29:00.000-07:00

In the ever increasingly loud place that is email, to make yourself heard is getting harder. After a weekend away from the office, someone's inbox will be full of junk, spam, and a few valid emails. More often than not they simply delete the lot.

What do people look at? Sender ID and Subject line are the two key factors that determine if people notice and read your email - so follow the golden rules - do not sacrifice functionality for creativity.

Sender ID must remain the same - sender IDs are what get you onto whitelists, into address books and most importantly get you instantly recognised by recipients. So give some thought to getting the right sender ID when you start a campaign.

Subject lines are getting harder. Subject lines need to change each time, otherwise recipients will assume you are sending them the same email time and time again. If you are publishing a periodical newsletter, then you are on safe ground - you just need to change the date, and the constant of the title will help recognition.

However........assume you are not publishing a regular newsletter. You want to use an eye catching, engaging and action prompting subject line. You need to remember that most of the good words have already been taken by spammers, meaning that if you use them your email may get filtered or blocked. It is not easy to strike the necessary balance.

Nowadays, subject lines are a skill in themselves. they need careful thought. A good one will work wonder for your open rate, but a bad one may result in many bad things, not least of which could be you being blacklisted as a spammer. So think first!

Comparing statistics

2007-06-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

Clients often ask about their statistics.

Why is my open rate so low? Why have so few clicked through to our offer? Why did 9 people unsubscribe?

Quite often you sense that they are disappointed by the statistical measurements of their send out, and it is not unusual for them to blame you!

Problems of this nature should never occur. The responsible email publisher will always brief their clients at the start of their relationship.

Email is different to other media - recipient statistics are based on the behaviour of the entire audience - not on a supposedly representative sample and then extrapolated.

So, assuming (for the moment) there is no margin for error, email statistics provide you with a true and global assessment of audience behaviour. You simply do not get that with other media, where stats can be manipulated to give you the answers you want, rather than the real picture.

So yes, Mr or Mrs Client, sometimes you may not like what you see with email statistics, but there is good news too - you have a quantitive level on which you can base future performance targets. So if open rates are, say, 27%, you can look closely at why you think that might be, and work to improve that.

Taken in isolation, a single set of stats from one send out are useless.

To make stats work for you, compare and contrast from semd out to send out. Adjust aspects of content, delivery timing, subject line and other behavioural factors. Analyse their impact.

So what about that margin for error? Yes, it is true that email stats are not 100% accurate. Email publishers simply cannoy develop technology rapidly enought to kep pace with browsers, recipient hardware etc, so accept up to a 10% error factor. But.....the margin of error is reasonably constant, thus ensuring that comparisons of stats on stats are valid.

So explain to your client; it is not about the absolute numbers, it is about trends and interpretation.

The little things

2007-06-07T15:45:00.000-07:00

Attention to detail is what defines the gulf between good and great.

A good email is one which gets consistently high delivery rates, a great one is which recipients read as a priority and respond immediately to any calls to action, whilst busily telling their friends and colleagues about it.

An email is like a house - a good strong framework, built on solid foundations, will enable it to provide shelter; innovative, attractive and well presented design and furnishing make it desireable to live in. Similarly with email, you need the skills of a builder, architect and designer to produce the ultimate email communications. Each will bring specialist knowledge which the project manager will meld together to ensure the finished product is something people eagerly anticipate and respond to readily.

The pursuit of excellence is about recognising that marginal increments count. Each small change or improvement will bring another marginal percentage of readers into the fold. Your goals must always be 100% delivery, 100% readership, 100% response and 100% retention - any the planning, design, writing and production need to aim at that goal. Each tiny detail can ove you closer to that goal. Acceptance of anything less will lead to lower delivery, readership, response and retention than you want.

Post send out audits are your greatest intelligence - so use them. Try and understand reader behaviour in the context of your email, and implement solutions to improve next time. It's the little things that can make the big differences.

The real cost

2007-06-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

I am often told that email is cheap. Yes, well, I suppose that is true - much in the same way that food is cheap, clothes are cheap, or advertising is cheap.

What it really means is that it can be done cheaply - but not necessarily effectively for either you or your audience.

What is undeniable is that email is extremely personal and direct - the most visible form of communication between you and your audience, so perhaps doing it on the cheap isn't such a good idea.

I have advised many potential clients that they would be better off ceasing their email newsletters and marketing send-ours rather than doing it cheaply. There are easier ways to disengage and progressively disenfranchise your audience than by sending them a series of shoddy emails. One email calling them idiots should do the trick!

An audience is a valuable thing - it will have cost time and money to create, and it should stand to reason that it will cost time and money to engage and develop. It does not matter which medium of communication you plan to use, the most important thing is to communicate well and grab and hold their attention.

Success in email is about marginal factors and marginal percentages (I'll talk more about this soon), and the knowledge, experience and insight required to get those marginal factors right comes at a price. Mistakes come cheaply, and it does not take many mistakes - often only one, to switch off an email audience.

So if you do use, or plan to use email to communicate with your audience, don't skimp when it comes to design, content and strategic planning - and that's just for starters!

Frequency and Follow On

2007-06-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

How often should we communicate? It's a question we hear all the time from clients who use email.

The answer, as a general principle, is simple - as often as you feel it will be of benefit to you and your audience, but what does that really mean?

Communication leads to relationship development, turns interested parties into stakeholders and builds and manages customer relationships.

But of course, it is not that easy, and there are no general standards - each email communicator must assess the unique circumstances in which they are operating and adjudge an initial optimum frequency.

Regularity is important; that does not mean there is no room for additional, ad hoc emails, but if you promise your audience a regular communication, they know what to expect, and they will expect your email. The frequency of that regularity should be based on the value of the information you are transferring; low / zero value information will lead to fall-off in readership rates, higher unsubscribes and very low responses to any calls to action.

If your emails are more direct marketing based - special offers etc - then frequency needs to be based on the value of those offers. Measurement and analysis of initial send-outs will provide you with the clues you need to see if your audience want more or less from you.

Frequency of communication is a critical factor for audience engagement and retention - if you are not heard, you will slip off the radar, and if you talk too much, many people will only listen to some of what you say.

Monitoring and evaluating statistical reports is the best way to assess audience response. Do not overlook the importance of this.

Images and the Design Compromise

2007-05-27T15:12:00.000-07:00

The need to render properly in different browsers; image blocking; image to text ratios; file size limitations; font and colour protocols - these are all factors in successful email design.

Pretty pictures do not work - unless they form no more than about 20 percent of an email, alongside plain and rich text.

Designers must learn to compromise on aesthetic appeal in order to increase functionality - deliverability, preview pane impact, and image blocked impact.

Image blocking is on the increase; it is estimated that 40% of NZ recipients have images blocked, so if your email is one big Jpeg, or has a large screenwidth banner image, then it will not render well in the preview pane. Browsers such as Gmail allow users to permanently enable images from trusted senders, but first you must become a trusted sender.

So if you want to communicate with 100% of your audience rather than 60%, then cut back on the headline banners - share the top spot with text headlines and semi screen width banners.

Alt text is important, although this may change with some latest browsers disabling this as well. Alt text sits behind an image in email - if the image is blocked, the Alt Text appears, so give careful thought to what you put there.

Why not drop images altogether? Just send plain text emails? Because you would be catering for the minority. 60% will still see your images, and they do increase impact, and reinforce branding.

So remember, email is a unique medium with it's own set of rules. It is not web design, and unless you recognise that, your audience will suffer.

Keep your images small and relevant - complementing text in the body of the message.

More haste, less speed

2007-05-21T17:53:00.000-07:00

It's one of those old sayings that does not appear to make sense, but it means slow down, plan, and you'll get where you want quicker.

Email is like that. It's so easy to send an email, that you want to just do it. You have an audience database, you have a message to send to them, and you have access to a broadcast email programme, so why not go ahead and send it?

There are many reasons; email is a conversation, and future conversations will be based upon past ones. If you plan to use email regularly to communicate with an audience, then each message must ensure that they want to read your next one.

So take a step back, ask yourself some pertinent questions, and then plan a communications strategy.

As I have said before, email is a noisy marketplace. Lots of people are competing for your audience's attention. Your aim is to get, and keep, that attention. So your strategy must be formulated around the principle of saying what you want to say, when you want to say it, in such a way that it is delivered as what they want to read, when they want to read it.

To be a successful deliverer of information, you must first understand the perspective of the recipient.

What is interesting to you may not be to them. What you perceive as regular communication may be seen as over-frequent.

The most commonly made mistake in broadcast email is thinking your audience will read and absorb your email because it is from you.

You as the publisher have to ensure, on each occasion, that your email is worthy of attention - of opening, reading and, if it demands it, of reacting.

An email strategy is not set in stone, but provides you with an outline plan of what you plan to say, how you plan to present it, what reactions you intend to achieve, and how you will use each message to tee up anticipation of the next.

Only when that strategy is in place, should you begin to communicate. If you lose audience attention when communicating by email, it is very hard to win it back.

The Wild West

2007-05-20T15:21:00.000-07:00

In New Zealand, email marketing and publishing is a fledgling market. Because of low barriers to entry, the market is now growing fast.

The volume of email newsletters and marketing emails is far outstripping the knowledge and experience required to ensure high deliverability, good impact, audience enaggement and retention, and important aspects of email best practice.

Low cost is also a negative factor. Many would-be email marketers take the view that low delivery costs offer an opportunity to test a marketing medium - they see it as a roll of the dice.
Experience dictates that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing properly.

In the crowded, noisy marketplace that is email received by consumers, poorly prepared marketing emails will disappear without trace.

Email newsletters which are written with the publisher, rather than the recipient in mind, will quickly slip off the "must read" list.

If marketers and publishers in New Zealand want to utilise the undoubted benefits of email to become an important, sustainable medium of communication between them and their audiences, then they need to take a step back.

Email has very quickly become a mature medium, and even though it is evolving on a daily basis, it already requires a level of knowledge and experience which can only reside with experts.

Next time I will start to look at the first step - planning an email strategy.