That missing email!

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

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

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.

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!

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

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!

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.