Emailhead

Unsubscribe Link Only Universally Adopted Email Best Practice

Email marketers have yet to adopt widely accepted best practices -except those required by the CAN-SPAM Act, according to an EmailLabs study (PDF). Inclusion of a working unsubscribe link, required by the CAN-SPAM Act, was the only best practice to be universally adopted.

The company analyzed whether emails incorporated best practices, such as a design that takes into account the preview pane and blocked images, and whether or not they included a link to a profile update, a link to a privacy policy and a forward-to-a-friend button, among others. The top three most widely ignored practices involved including a subscription or administration center, providing a site-search function in the email itself, and including a forward-to-a-friend link.

By industry, travel companies - including airlines, hotels and booking agents - had the highest adoption rates of the 18 best practices considered in the audit, scoring six top ratings and none of the lowest ratings. Financial marketers like credit card companies, mortgage brokers and banks - who rely on trustworthy emails to be delivered to the recipient's inbox - performed the worst of all market segments.

Other adoption trends among the market segments:

-- Travel marketers are increasingly using the subscription link function, allowing customers to easily update their email and personal information.

-- Publishers increasingly optimize their messages for preview panes and blocked images, and incorporate a subscribe link in the email to make it easy for people who've received the original email from a friend to subscribe.

-- The financial services market adopted the least best practices of all the industry segments audited.

15 Golden Rules for Blogging

Jennifer Nastu, a partner at Fast Trike, was one of the offical bloggers at the Word of Mouth Marketing Associations conference in San Fran this week - we handle their blogs/newsletters. Here's one of her posts from the conference on the 15 golden rules for blogging:

The companies that are going to be the most successful are the ones who are able to "unlock content" and the blog is the best way to do that.

It's important to understand that there are a lot of flavors of blogs. There are event blogs, CEO blogs, blogs about the news, crisis management blogs.

Marc Schiller of Electric Artists offered 15 Golden Rules for blogging:
#1. Recognize that every client has a different set of business objectives
An A&E blog he launched around tattooing to reach a specific niche, while a blog for Starwood Hotels was launched to increase loyalty and drive ecommerce.
#2. Don't focus on the results.
Document the process. The best blogs let you peek behind the curtain of the company.
#3. Don't try to force someone to be a blogger.
#4. Copywriters can't be bloggers. The worst blogs are over-written.
#5. Center editorial around advice and recommendations.
#6. It's okay to enter a crowded marketplace, but you must be best in class.
#7. No stealth blogs, no character blogs.
#8. Get the lawyers and PR team invovled early.
#9. Don't let your branding and advertising compete with the content.
#10. Let bloggers publish early.
#11. Update every day or you won't hit critical mass.
#12. Develop themes and obsessions that will get people coming back for next session.
#13. Keep content eclectic.
#14. Make sure bloggers can respond to legal side.
#15. Be benevolent.

Spammers Try Free-Verse Poetry - Or Vice Versa

Some interesting Spam came in over the transom today. It opened in the preview pane and I couldn't help but notice that instead of the usual long paragraphs of type, this one employs some sort of poetic free-verse form. Maybe it's an attempt to somehow beat the filters - or a jaded poet who's turned to more lucrative employment. The bet is that someone will take notice and we'll see a few permission-based free-verse email marketing messages. You know, just to test it out.

Email Disaster Recovery

Have you ever sent out an email that you wish you could pull back from your customers' inboxes? Unfortunately, you can't. But there are steps you can take to mitigate problems that arise from problems like misspellings or promotional errors in emails. Here are a few tips from a Mediapost article.

1. Assign a disaster team. Convene immediately to discuss the error and outline potential courses of action. Don't wait until your vice president, who is seeded on the list, sends a note down the chain.

2. Minimize impact. If you see that there is an error and all the e-mails have NOT been sent, many ESPs have the ability to cancel the e-mails in the queue.

3. Why did it happen? 99 percent of the errors we see are due to teams sacrificing good process for urgency. Was it a system error? A human error? Did you sacrifice what you know is right to get it out quickly?

4. An error doesn't always justify a response. Spare your customers from a slew of meaningless apology e-mails. Discuss what constitutes an apology and who should receive it, and if you should reward the consumer.

5. Develop a protocol for apology e-mails. Use them for marketing and loyalty purposes. You'll get a higher response, so use this as an opportunity to let them know how important they are to your business.

Of course, the first step is to always proof your emails by as many people on your in-house and outsourced teams possible. Most errors come about because people didn't look closely at the email before hitting send.

Why Winning Campaigns get the Shaft

Have you ever run great email campaign or promotion that just works time and time again until one day when someone - usually not a marketer - decides it's getting boring? The analytics don't back up this hunch, but all the same, the promotion gets the axe. Anne Holland from Marketing Sherpa has an interesting article on her blog about this phenomenon.

Holland sees three reasons why this happens:

#1. Boredom -- the marketing department is bored of the creative, the offer, whatever and figure newer is always better.

#2. Ego/Salary justification -- a new marketer, agency, or president has come on board and they want to put their personal stamp on the campaign.

#3. Politics -- power has changed hands somewhere internally and whoever now has it wants to make changes for pet projects/pet peeves.

Email Best Practices Exist, not Followed

According to a recent study completed by Multichannel Merchant and Direct magazines, 61 percent of business-to-business marketers have formal permission practices for collecting email addresses, while 93 percent of consumer marketers say they have formal practices in place, eMarketer reports (via MediaBuyerPlanner).

Sixty percent of the consumer marketers surveyed reported using a single opt-in method of gathering email addresses, while 7 percent used a double opt-in method - whereby registrants send a confirmation reply to remain on the list. Of the business marketers surveyed, 26 percent used single opt-in methods, and just three percent used the double opt-in method.

According to a Jupiter report, email customer service is worsening as response times have decreased, with 39 percent of sites taking three days or more to reply. Jupiter's David Schatsky pointed out that "failure to resolve requests via email is driving continued use of cost-intensive telephone work, negating any potential cost savings from handling inquiries via email."

"Managing opt-outs has always been a tricky issue for marketers," said Bill Nussey, CEO of Silverpop, concerning the results of his company's "Retail Email Marketing" study. The study encourages marketers to consider "implementing a re-engagement component to their opt-out process." Nussey added, "If you ask appropriately and remind recipients of the value of being on your list, you may find that enough customers will stay to make it well worth asking - failing that, you should try to get as much information as you can before the customer is gone for good."

Five Simple Steps to Increase B2B Sales with e-Newsletters

E-newsletters are a great way for B2B companies to increase quality leads for sales teams and give a boost to viral, word of mouth, and referral marketing programs. Here are 5 simple steps to create an e-newsletter your sales team will love.

#1 Keep it helpful
It's often repeated and often forgotten. But it's the kind of truism that's, well, true. If they don't read the newsletter, forget about capturing them as customers. Keep it short, informative and helpful. Unless your contact list consists solely of employees' mothers, subscribers don't want to read company press releases, long sales copy, or big clumps of text announcing your good fortune. What they want are quick tips that will increase their bottom line or at least make life easier.

#2 Make it interactive
Readers love to share their opinions. Give them an opportunity. At its best, a newsletter begins an ongoing dialog between you and your customers and potential customers. Ask them to submit stories. Get them to take part in a survey. Make it about something that will help them in their business and then share the results. Soon, you'll see a community forming with your business at the center.

#3 Advertise your business
While the stories in your newsletter should help your readers, fill other areas with advertisements about your services. Use creative links and copy to drive traffic to your site and to forms where you collect contact information. Between meatier stories try a short two- or three-line ad that will get people to explore your services further. Advertise white papers, live demos, webinars, and free consultations -- anything that will put them in contact with sales.

#4 Offer incentives
If you want people to forward your newsletter to colleagues or give referrals, offer something in return. Prepare a number of different white papers and offer them at different points in the subscription cycle. When someone subscribes to the newsletter, give them a white paper. If they forward the newsletter, offer another.

#5 Measure results
Don't forget the importance of tracking the results of your e-newsletters. You have to know who's opening it and who's not, as well as what they're clicking on. You can also track activity from the newsletter through your site. If your readers are a good representation of your customer pool, you'll know what your customers care about--and what holds no interest. Share results with the sales team and base subsequent sales initiatives and customer contacts on the results.

Don't Spam your House List

Here's an interesting article about abusing the relationship with your customers who opt-in to receive email marketing. Just because people opt-in doesn't mean they want to receive messages every day - or every week for that matter. How to avoid this? When people opt-in give them a choice about how often they want to be contacted by you. Also ask what kind of messages they want to get. Newsletters? Promotions?  Press releases?

You've worked hard to build up an in-house list - don't blow it by abusing the relationship.

The Benefits of Email Newsletters

Interesting interview covering email marketing with Ralph Wilson, the man behind wilsonweb.com, in Technology News.

Here's a little of what he had to say about the benefits of email newsletters:

"One of the things I advocate strongly for businesses and organizations is to start a newsletter even though you are small and just getting started. The reason is this: Let's say you put a lot of effort into getting people to your site, but your conversion rate for what you sell is 1 or 2 percent. That means that 98 percent of the people get away without you having any way to market to them again or have any indication of who they are. So, if you have a newsletter with interesting content, I think it is quite possible to get 10 or 20 percent of the people that visit your web site to sign up for it, and then you can build a relationship with them. When they are ready to buy a certain kind of product, they know you. You have to ask, 'What kind of regular publication might I put out?' It could be product updates or product information. For others, it might be interesting articles on whatever field they might be in. I think people should make them short -- 500 words or less. Then I think you need to set up a frequency. I think once a month is the outside limit, because you need to be sending often enough for them to remember you. If they don't remember you, you will get deleted."

How to Split Test Offers to Your House List

MarketingSherpa has published a new case study that points to the importance of testing email and landing pages in combined testing.  Last December Pete's Coffee & Tea tested three different email discount offers - with surprising results. Don't miss how adding the offer to every page of the site that email click-throughs see on their path (not just their initial landing page) helped improve results. The article is only free until March 26 so hurry and get it now.

I should probably also mention that Fast Trike wrote the case study and that we provide weekly email newsletter articles to Marketing Sherpa.