Be Relevant! Email Marketing Blog

Infographic: The Evolution of Email Marketing

The below infographic (courtesy of Red Eye International) outlines some of the biggest influences on email marketing, showing how it has evolved from a mass marketing approach to a highly targeted form of marketing automation.

Bringing Sexy Back to Email

I came across two videos this week (kudos to Loren McDonald and David Baker) about innovations in email that I wanted to share with you. The first one is an ad about a BMW (yes, the car!) that reads emails and the second one is a video from Bloomberg with Angel Investor and LiveIntent CEO Matt Keiser about a service that shows display ads in email. Interesting stuff...

The BMW ad:

The Bloomberg interview:

Enjoy!

Plan to Engage: Kath Pay and Tamara Gielen Join Forces

I don't usually post announcements like these, but since this is something that involves me and it's kind of important and I'm really excited about this, I thought I should let my readers know.

Kath and I have been good friends for years now. We speak at the same conferences, we go to the same events and we share the same passion for email marketing. We often just call each other to talk about our jobs, our boyfriends and other important stuff :-)

A couple of weeks ago, Kath came to visit me here in Belgium and at one point we starting talking about how lonely it can be running our own business, because you don't have anyone you can brainstorm ideas with, talk to when you aren't sure how to tackle a certain problem or project etc.

In the past we'd talked about joining forces but we never really pursued it. Until today.

Today is the day that Kath and I officially join forces. This means that going forward, Kath and I will be offering our services under the same brand name: Plan to Engage. Check out the website at www.PlanToEngage.com

Read the official press release here

Overview of Marketing Automation Players

Check this out:

IAB Releases Email Monetization Strategies Best Practices Document

Email monetization provides publishers, advertisers and audiences with a modern method of driving revenue, new customer growth and knowledge of new products previously only available via print ads and television.

The recently released “IAB Email Monetization Strategies” seeks to explain how email monetization works, present best practices and serve as a resource for publishers and marketers who wish to take advantage of email, which is one of the most effective direct and brand marketing mediums.

The recommendations outlined in this document offer best practices and advice for:

• Advertisers
  • Leveraging email newsletters to reach a valuable audience
  • Using the email channel to test offers and promotions
  • Driving sales and site registration through stand alone email advertising
  • Criteria for choosing a email publisher
  • Emerging trend of video in email campaigns
• Publishers
  • Revenue opportunities through sponsorship and ad units in email newsletters
  • Pricing models for email monetization
  • Inventory management
  • Data collection
  • Developing a video email campaign

Also check out these IAB docs:

• IAB Email Guidelines: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/508676/508905/1458
• IAB Email Campaign Performance Metrics Definitions: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/508676/508905/79176
• IAB Email Data Management Best Practices: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/508676/508905/emaildata

Email Marketing Works Because...

I asked my Twitter followers to finish the sentence "Email marketing works because..." today. Here are some of the responses I got:

• @marcmunier: Email marketing works because people spend more time at their inbox than any other online activity
• @adrianragucos: email marketing works because, honestly, who does not use email these days?
• @MarkatEMR: Email marketing works because emails deliver value to gain attention at the heart of the online world: the inbox
• @spamtacularcom: Email marketing works because of trust between the sender and the recipient.
• @siherron: Email marketing works because it's malleable, measurable and cost effective
• @DanniEmery: Email marketing works because it enables you to send targeted messages and see instant measurable results
• @newzapp: Email marketing works because it's affordable, flexible, can be targeted and tracked
• @djwaldow: "Email Mktg works b/c it has a proven, measurable, ROI; easy to test; "Long" track record; digital glue of SM
• @stefaneyram: Email works because it is measurable and can be easily tested and optimized.
• @jewelss: bc it's cost-effective & allows u to form a personal relationship w/ a consumer by way of their inbox! :)
• @RupertHarrison: Email marketing works because... it allows you to send your customers what they want, when they want it
• @mbagrrl: Email marketing works because..." you are reaching customers who have opted in and you know are interested in your comm
• @adRom: email marketing works, because you know the recipients.
• @Newsmarketing: Email marketing works because there is still a lot to discover with this channel...
• @resultsrev: Email marketing works because mainstream tech adopters are still leaning heavily on their Inbox
• @resultsrev: Email marketing works because there is no gatekeeper. Viral potential.
• @Newsmarketing: Email marketing works because it is (still) communication media Nr 1 in the world
• @PhilMonk09: "Email marketing works because it's extremely cost effective"
• @KNLorenz: Email Mkting works b/c it's a 1-to-1 comm. (ideally) & email ties most online activities together-purchases thru personal
• @DocS: Email marketing works because I know my followers better and I can select, target, test and measure
• @eWayDirect: when it's the right message delivered to the right person at the right time in the right way
• @LorenMcDonald: Email marketing works because when done correctly no marketing comms channel resonates more w/ subscribers & delivers higher ROI
• @thecmunzproject: Email marketing works because it opens up a conversation that otherwise you could not have with your members.
• @messagingtimes: Email marketing works because it facilitates direct, relevant and measurable conversations with people.
• @djwaldow: Email Marketing works b/c unlike other social media tools, nearly everyone uses (& regularly checks) email. Even my dad.
• @DaveMcCue: Email marketing works because doing it right places a premium on audience satisfaction.
• @tomwyns: because it is a cost effective tool to spread your message instantly and directly towards your readers
• @resultsrev: Email marketing works because I test & measure subject lines & content that can then translate to other media
• @tabsharani: Email Marketing works b/c it has a a proven track record & has become a "natural" way of conducting business.
• @simmsjenkins: Email Marketing works b/c your customers & prospects asked for it
• @jordancohenpr: Email marketing works b/c you learn something new about your brand and customers with every mssg you send
• @spinnakerpro: email marketing works because email, as the most widely used web application, builds lasting relationships
• @LukeAnker: Email marketing works because it shows you care for your prospects and customers and they appreciate this
• @flatironsi: Email marketing works because email is the backbone of permission-based, digital communication channels.

and my personal favorites:

• @adrianjock: Email marketing works. U'll know that it stopped working when the spam disappears LOL
• @emailtransmit: Email Marketing works b/c you can prove that it does.

Feel free to re-tweet these responses :-) I'll update this post with new responses as they come in...

European Email Marketing Survey

If you live in Europe, I encourage you to take Return Path's Email Marketing Survey in which they benchmark perceptions among European email marketers.  Your answers will help to develop new products and training that help email marketers improve response and revenues.  The results will be shared with you.

Survey:  http://bit.ly/gby6k

Multivariate Testing in Email Made Easy

Multivariate testing - testing multiple variations for multiple placements such as headlines, images and call-to-actions - used to be complex and tedious to set up and analyze for email marketers.

That's why the founders of 8seconds decided to develop a tool that simplifies the process. They have just released this tool - and it is not only very simple but also very cheap to use.

How does it work?

Well, 8seconds provides you with an interface in which you define how many placements you have in your email and how many creatives you have for each of these placements. It then asks you to enter a link for each creative plus the url for the landing page that is linked to that creative. The tool will compile a small piece of code (and href and img tag) that you need to include in your email and will also ask you to define how much statistical validity you want to aim for.

Once you sent out the email through your usual email service provider, it will serve different variations of your email until statistical validity is reached. From that point forward it will only serve the most optimal variation of the email - all in real time.

Check it out here and try it out for free.

Full disclosure: 8seconds have asked me to help spread the word about this product. Your honest feedback will be highly appreciated and will help 8seconds make their product even better.

Return Path Partners with Yahoo Mail for Feedback Loops

Return Path has partnered with Yahoo Mail to extend its anti-spam feedback loop service to Yahoo Mail.
Under the terms of the agreement, Return Path will monitor Yahoo spam complaints and create anti-spam feedback loops to help track e-mails that have been flagged as spam.

Yahoo will send these spam complaints, via feedback loops at http://feedbackloop.yahoo.net/, to legitimate commercial senders to help them address the issues for Yahoo Mail users.

Yahoo also will now consult with Return Path's Sender Score Certified as one part of its e-mail filtering process.

Source: DMNews

PCSMail Domain and Service Discontinued

Michelle Eichner posted the below on the Email Marketer's Club's forum today and since I know that not all of my readers are a member of the Club (yet), I'd like to share this with you as well:

As of Decmber 31st, 2008 Sprint has discontinued the PCSMail domain and service. More info at http://sprint.com/landings/pcsmail/

Mailers should consider removing the following domains as they fall under the PCSMail umbrella:

myboostmobile.com
sprintpcs.com
pcsmail.sprintpcs.com
messaging.sprintpcs.com
sms.myboostmobile.com
paging.sprintpcs.com
myboostmobile.com
sprintpcs.com
pcsmail.sprintpcs.com
email.sprint.com
sprintce-authn.sprintpcs.com
vision.sprintpcs.com
wifi.sprintpcs.com

Thanks for sharing this with the community Michelle!

If you're not a member of the Email Marketer's Club yet, do sign up today because you are missing out! Over the last year and a half, the Club has grown into a one-stop resource for email marketers. At this point we have almost 2,000 members from all over the world that use the Club to network, learn, share knowledge, ask questions and lots more.

IAB Issues Best Practices for E-mail Data Management

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has issued Email Data Management Best Practices, a position statement recommending privacy and data security guidelines for publishers, marketers and service providers.

Key best practices include:

• Senders should only send commercial email to individuals who have provided informed consent

• For all third-party licensed data, a global unsubscribe mechanism should be implemented

• Consumer permission to receive commercial email from a List Owner cannot be replicated or transferred without reference to the original point of collection

• Clear, conspicuous and repeated notice of data collection and use are required

• Advertisers and marketers should authenticate their email by publicly registering the domains from which they send email

• Anyone using email for marketing purposes should adopt and use authentication protocols for both their email and corporate domains

• All parties should use a one-way encrypted hash to encrypt suppression files

The complete document is available at www.iab.net/emaildata.

Source: btobonline

Search Overtaking Email? Ken Magill Doesn't Think So

This article by Ken Magill made me laugh this morning, especially this part:

I’d like to propose The E-Crapper Index. The idea behind this index is that as mobile devices become more mainstream, the percentage of people who say they’ve engaged in a specific Internet activity while on the pot is directly proportional to how integral it is to their lives.

Here's the full article:

Internet searches are quickly catching up with e-mail as consumers’ top online activity, according to a recent report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

The percentage of Internet users who perform online searches on a typical day has risen steadily from about one-third in 2002 to 49%, according the Pew report.

“With this increase, the number of those using a search engine on a typical day is pulling ever closer to the 60% of Internet users who use e-mail, arguably the Internet’s all-time killer app, on a typical day,” said the report.

Can you say: “bullsh*t?”

Though search may be catching up from a used-on-a-typical-day standpoint, the Pew report would be more accurate if it focused on people’s usage during a typical day.

Take AOL’s recent “E-mail Addiction Survey,” for example.

According to the world’s fastest-failing Internet service provider, 46% of e-mail users surveyed said they’re hooked on e-mail, up from 15% last year, and 51% said they check their e-mail four or more times a day, up from 45% in 2007.

Also, 20% of e-mail users said they check their e-mail more than 10 times a day, according to AOL.

Twenty three percent said they check e-mail as soon as they wake up, according to AOL.

Of those surveyed, 59% said they have checked e-mail in the bathroom—up from 53% last year—67% said they check e-mail in bed, 50% said they check e-mail while driving—up from 37% last year—and 38% said they check e-mail in business meetings. .

Can Google claim that kind of bathroom usage? Well, can it?

While the idea that digital material will replace all things print would seem to be a little overblown—I’ve always said that as long as there are men and bathrooms, there will always be printed reading material—the constant improvement of handheld devices certainly raises the stakes.

As more and more people are able to comfortably surf the Internet with their phones, it’s a safe bet the percentage of men heading into bathrooms with newspapers, magazines or books tucked under their arms will drop—particularly at work, where the printed matter is an advertisement to co-workers that we’re going in to do a fairly long No. 2.

As a result, I’d like to propose The E-Crapper Index. The idea behind this index is that as mobile devices become more mainstream, the percentage of people who say they’ve engaged in a specific Internet activity while on the pot is directly proportional to how integral it is to their lives.

While bathroom-media consumers may increasingly read articles and books on electronic devices while on the pot, it’s difficult to imagine online searching will ever overtake e-mail from an E-Crapper Index standpoint.

Source: Directmag.com

Return Path to Acquire Habeas

Looks like Ken Magill was right back in April when he posted "Habeas Getting Shopped Around". Return Path announced today that they will acquire Habeas.

From the press release:

"For Return Path customers, this acquisition solidifies Return Path's market leadership with a larger client base, more innovative tools and services, and a larger professional services team. It also increases the company's base of ISP and filtering/receiver partners and brings the industry's two leading third-party whitelists under one roof, making Return Path the undisputed leader in third-party email accreditation.

The deal, the terms of which were not disclosed, was signed on August 6 and is expected to close on August 18. While specific integration plans are still being worked through, the company plans to maintain the Sender Score Certified whitelist and the Habeas SafeList as separate and distinct programs."

Read the full press release here. Habeas also posted an FAQ on their website about the merger. Read it here.

Read also what Matt Blumberg has to say about the merger on his blog.

Well done guys!

Email Marketing's Role in New Media

Thought I'd share Greg Cangialosi's slides on “Email Marketing’s Role in New Media.” The central theme of the presentation is that email is the “digital glue” of the new media landscape, and a medium that is not to be overlooked. Email is the internet’s dominant application, and is where the attention is of our audiences on the most frequent basis. As companies move more towards a “publishing is marketing” model, email is more important than ever to tie your messaging together and cross-pollinate content.

   

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Revolutionary New Tool Combines All Your Mailboxes and IM accounts

I have 6 email and 4 IM accounts that I regularly check, and until now I've been using Netvibes to keep an eye on my inboxes but I think I found a new tool that makes managing my inboxes and IM accounts even easier.

Email world: meet Orgoo, an e-mail/IM integration service that sticks together all your different mail accounts, contacts, and IM buddies onto one page. I've been playing around with it a bit today and I think it definitely has potentional once it comes out of beta. Here's a short video that gives you a nice overview of what it does:

In the welcome email I received when I signed up, it said this:

Just some of the things you can do with Orgoo:

• Get all your IM accounts organized in one buddy list
• Get all your email accounts in one inbox, or organized in separate folders
• Create your own video chat rooms and invite your friends to talk
• Send and receive SMS from your computer
• Instantly reply to emails with IM
• Save and organize all of your conversations regardless of platform
• Find anything with Orgoo Search: emails, IMs, video chats, contacts, buddylists...

And so much more coming (very) soon...

• Freemail - pull your Yahoo and HotMail freemail accounts into Orgoo.
• SocialLink - get all the updates happening on yours and your friend's profiles on any of the social networks.
• Calendar
• Open API's so developers can build on top of Orgoo's integrated communications platform.
• Video Chat Widget - have multi-user video chats right in your Facebook or MySpace profile, or anywhere that supports widget integration.
• Conversation View
• Improved Search - Yes, we know our current search, while accurate, is far too slow. We're working on it.
• Safari - Users are already asking for it and very soon we will be supporting Safari.

It's a bit early still, but you may want to keep this one in mind when you are testing your email designs in different mail clients.

Hat tip: @morganwitt

PS. I have 3 invites to give away. Leave a comment in which you explain why you absolutely need one. I will give the invites to the 3 most original comments that I will select during the weekend :-)

UK DMA Email Marketing Council's Blog Launch

The UK DMA Email Marketing Council have been busy!

Not content with resting after their re-design of their newsletter, Infobox a couple of month's ago, they've now launched an Email Marketing Blog which aims to impart and encourage Best Practise as well as discuss relevent and topical issues.

Some of the blogs already posted are:

Beyond opens and clicks: why it's time for new metrics
Has Legislation helped?
Getting opened in the business inbox
Spam is in the eye of the beholder
Test. Send. Analyse. Change. Repeat

So check it out: www.dmaemailblog.co.uk and while you're at it, why not sign up for the newsletter?

How Good Intentions Can Go Bad

Did the EEC spam its members? Ken Magill certainly seems to think so. Here's what really happened:

in celebration of Earth Day the eec thought it would be nice to give something free to our subscribers (just like we did when we gave away free dice from SubscriberMail during the holidays 2 years ago). We decided to go with one free issue of VIV magazine. We chose this because it both demonstrated how email can extend into the digital world even further and because it is an all “green” publication.

Sadly, when the service message was set to send, notifying people their eec gift was ready for review, a few things went awry:

1. People received two or more emails with this notification
2. The context of the eec Earth Day gift was left off the copy

While no one’s information was rented or sold to any other company, admittedly, the perceived recipient experience looked pretty poor. 

Source: EEC blog

Now, we all know that Ken Magill likes to post controversial articles and he's not afraid to spread gossip either, but he does have a point in his article: VIV Magazine had no business sending emails to the EEC list: EEC members never opted in to receive emails from third parties (it doesn't matter that the email was announced) and the offer (a digital woman's magazine) was completely irrelevant to a large part of its member base (a gift that would have been of value to all EEC members would have been eg. free access to one of their reports/studies).

However, let's not make this any bigger than it is. As far as I'm concerned, this was a mistake and I'm willing to forgive them for it.

Jeanniey has done and is doing wonderful things with the Email Experience Council and I would hate to see the EEC lose credibility over this.

And to answer Ken's question: Jeanniey assured me that the email addresses of EEC members were not added to Zinio's database.

You can read Ken's article here.

Should the Email Industry Lobby for Stricter CAN-SPAM Legislation?

A while back I asked the following question on the Email Marketer's Club's forum:

If we all agree that CAN-SPAM legislation is just the bare minimum that email marketers should adhere to in the US, doesn't that mean it's time the email industry lobbies for stricter legislation? In my view stricter US spam legislation (at least require prior consent before you can include someone to your mailinglist) will benefit the industry as a whole. What's your opinion on this?

Judging by the responses, you can say that this certainly is a topic that many of us feel passionate about. Here's what people said:

• "Yes, legislation for the right reasons, that can actually improve email as communication channel, I agree with. Legislation to punish only the people who can be found and sued is a waste of everybody's time."
• "I do think that ISP's need to be more accountable for delivery/non-delivery of messages. I would love to see legislation that says if you provide a spam complaint button, you must deliver the complaints to the sender (just like a bounce message). I would like to see legislation against black holing of messages (aka Hotmail). I would also like to see ISP's held responsible for their own networks being abused and pumping out most of the bot-net spam that occurs."
• "I believe CAN SPAM either needs to evolve or be superceded by stricter anti-spam legislation. However, I'm not holding my breath for that to happen anytime soon, seeing as it took at least eight years for CAN SPAM to be generated and pass."
• "The biggest disservice Can-Spam did was legitimize the concept of opt-out. If I had a dollar for every forum post or email from marketers assuming Can-Spam compliance was a carte blanche to send what was effectively spam, I'd be writing this from a laptop on a very expensive cruise. Which is why I would love to see the US switch to opt-in. Almost everywhere else has permission as part of their anti-spam legislation, and I don't see email marketing in those countries suffering as a result. After all, permission is a basic best practice."
• "The problem with legislation is that those who make these rules/laws often do not know the industry as we do and this makes the outcome unpredictable. Not to mention possible other political objectives than just making the world a bit better."

It seems that most people are against making legislation stricter, because they fear that only legitimate marketers will be punished. However, I continue to believe that the industry should lobby for an opt-in legislation in the US rather than the current opt-out legislation. The need to have permission before you can legally send marketing emails to consumers is instrumental in creating a positive perception of email marketing and will help safeguard email as an effective marketing channel in the longer term. And yes, I know that having permission is only the first step (of course your emails have to be relevant etc), but it's a very important first step.

Read all the answers to my question here (login required) and feel free to share your opinion as well! If you are not a member of the Email  Marketer's Club yet, you can request an invitation to join.

Revised: MAAWG Best Practices for Volume Senders

Matt Vernhout just posted this message on his excellent blog:

Announced today the MAAWG Senders Best Practices Document (Version 2.0 - pfd) has been officially released.

Updates to the documentation include:

• New guidelines for legitimate email avoid being mistaken for image-based junk mail.
• List permission and opt-in recommendations have been amended to reflect current best practices.
• User-unsubscribe processes have been clarified.

along with a number of other updates to the document.

This is a great document to read as a marketer, and should set the bar for your marketing programs.

And in response to @covati's question on Twitter @EmailKarma added: that recommendations changed "enough that you should review it.  But maybe not enough to have a drastic impact to your process".

AOL Is Looking for Input From ISPs and ESPs

Just read this on Laura's excellent Word to the Wise blog and thought I'd help spread the word:

AOL is looking for input from ISPs and ESPs to better understand how you handle data sent to you by AOL.

In regards to bounces - users unknown, specifically - could you please explain the following:

• ESPs: When do you take action on clients because of bounces? What is your threshold for acceptable, and not? Do you have an escalating level of punishment for people who break your thresholds?
• ISPs: What is your threshold for “acceptable” in regards to inbound mail streams and “users unknown”? What do you do when that threshold is breached?

Here's where you should submit your responses to. Do NOT answer them here because Laura won't read them here.