Unsolicited B2B Email - SPAM or Not?

Ever since CAN-SPAM came out, I've been struggling to answer this question:

Since unsolicited email to business-people is not prohibited by CAN-SPAM regulations, is this a viable lead-generation activity, or is it something that we direct marketers should steer clear of?

Is it SPAM, or not?

The industry seems to be handling this a few ways. Many of the leading data firms (such as Experian and Acxiom) will not append email addresses to prospect lists; they'll only append emails to customer files, citing their strict focus on consumer privacy and compliance.

And, some providers of email marketing services first send an email to their list warning recipients that they're about to receive an email from Company X. This step allows the mail recipient to opt out of a specific offer.

On the other extreme, you see news stories like this one from Direct Magazine. The story outlines how one email list company may (or may not) have stolen a list of conference attendees and is now selling the file. The accused company claims that they legitimately collected the email addresses and have every right to sell them. Hmmm. Sounds fishy to me.

So, what say you? Is unsolicited B2B email--emails to people who you don't know--something that you support? Do you have any success stories? Horror stories?

More on Marketing for Wineries

I just can't seem to get off of the topic of direct marketing for the wine-making business, can I?

Last week, I shared with you news about Jordan Winery's new loyalty program (as well as some personal information about my love for wine and the genesis of my firm's name, RRW!). Today I thought you might be just as interested in how Stag's Leap is using email to build a customer relationship.

From DM News: Stag's Leap Wine Cellars toast to e-mail. The article goes into some pretty good detail about how this winery is maximizing the channel.

The winery works with e-mail services firm Vertical Response to send 12 e-mail campaigns a year. Six are launched every other month to the house mailing list and the company plans to double that number this year. The others are launched on the opposite months to club members only.

“The strategy is to reach out to our consumers who have requested information about our winery and to hopefully prompt them to visit our Web site to build a long-term relationship with our customers,” said Nancy Burton, Club 23 manager at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, via e-mail.

I agree that email is an excellent channel for Stags Leap.

Email is a tool that, when used the right way, generates sales and boosts visibility. We all receive so much email on a daily basis, however. We know that the only emails that survive the 'delete' button in our own in-boxes are those that we want to receive; those that we're interested in. We all keep personal emails and we all have that short-list of commercial emails that we wouldn't miss, and that we definitely open.

So, what makes an email move to that 'open' short-list? In my opinion, it's as simple as relevance. If the email is coming from a company or an industry that I'm interested in, I'll open it, even if I don't have a long-term relationship with the sender. In my case, for example, I would definitely open an email from Stags Leap (or any other winery). I'm interested in hearing about wine. I like to buy it and I'm already a member of many wine clubs.

The challenge, of course, is to figure out who among your customers and prospects is receptive to hearing from you. This is where tried and true direct marketing disciplines such as testing and segmentation come into play. A strong offer and a clear call to action are critical components of a good email campaign, too.

And, to complete the loop, it's critical to measure success against campaign goals. By success, I think we need to go beyond open and click through rates, and do a much better job of quantifying email campaign results. Your measurement strategy needs to answer these types of questions:

• How many incremental or new sales did the campaign generate?
• How many referrals did you make? How many new names can you add to your list?
  
• How did the campaign build loyalty (a really tough one to answer, btw)?

The bottom line: We direct marketers already have the knowledge and the tools to build superior email campaigns.

Email Personalization

Just as in direct mail, email marketers are finding that sophisticated personalization boosts results.

Yep, we like to see our names in print; we like to know that the companies we buy from know us and have taken the time to address us personally; we wait for the day that each and every mailing is so relevant that the words SPAM or Junk Mail is no longer in our vocabulary (Suzanne being optimistic, here...).

This BtoB Online article, Personalizing your e-mail efforts, provides a recap of a research report recently released by the Aberdeen Group.

"Companies that engaged in more advanced personalization strategies are more likely to see a higher return on that investment. Ian Michiels, a senior research analyst in the digital marketing department of the Boston-based research firm and author of the report, said customers are beginning to expect a higher level of relevancy in the e-mails they receive."

The article then provides 4 pointers on how to take personalization to the next level. I'll summarize the 4 tips.

1. Database accuracy is key. Getting the personalization wrong (with wrong info) is worse than not doing it at all.
2. Verify and segment your data. Consider appending data from an external source to round out what you've collected. Then, use that complete view of your customer and identify unique customer segments. Tailor your creative and your offer so that they resonate with each segment. (A side note: segmentation is a subject near and dear to my heart. I'd love to send you more info on our approach and share some case studies, if you're interested.)
3. Use Web analytics to track behavioral data and improve personalization. Track and monitor how individuals in the database move around on your company’s Web site. Know what people are clicking on, what they're most responsive to, and use that data to improve future campaigns.
4. Understand the buying cycle. Take information from the Web analytics efforts and figure out where individuals are in the buying cycle. "The next message a company sends to people on the e-mail list should help them progress to the next step so they ultimately make a purchase."

Oh, just reading this research makes me excited! Direct Marketing experts who understand data and analytics can really impact e-marketing, and improve the customer experience at the same time.

Marketing Case Study: Email and Segmentation

Last week we had a nice discussion about the new environmental guidelines for direct marketers, just introduced by the Green Marketing Coalition. One of my suggested additions to their guidelines was to incorporate marketing channels that do not require paper. Another suggested addition was to better target mailings, again to reduce the amount of paper used.

Well, this case study, coming to us from BtoB Magazine is an excellent example of doing both of these things--moving from DM to email marketing AND using segmentation to better target campaigns. Thought you'd be interested.

Background and Initial Results:
E-mail marketing has been a boon to Analog Devices, a manufacturer of semiconductors and supporting products for signal processing applications. Five years ago, the company started testing e-mail marketing against direct marketing and saw an instant winner, said David Kruh, direct and database marketing manager for Analog Devices.

“It cost us about $1 per piece to print and mail a brochure, but it only costs about one cent to send an e-mail,” he said. “Furthermore, e-mail is trackable. ... When we tested e-mail versus direct mail, we found we were getting hundreds-of-times-better response rates for e-mail marketing.”

Fine-tuning the Program:
But as successful as e-mail marketing had been for his company, Kruh knew he could do even better. Working with e-mail service provider Experian CheetahMail, Analog Devices revamped its program, focusing on list segmentation, extensive testing, personalization and the use of affinity analysis, a graphically based data analysis tool that uncovers common behaviors, relationships and characteristics of people who buy specific items.

For list segmentation, Kruh split his list into two distinct groups: one he termed “tire-kickers,” who fall into the hobbyist or student category, and the other more influential group that includes designers and consultants. He did so to help his salespeople gain better-quality leads, he said.

“We’d send out our ‘Solutions Bulletin’ and some months get 3,000 requests for samples, But the sales didn’t follow the requests,” he said.

After digging deeper, Kruh’s team saw that the people who purchased most often were also the ones who clicked through to fewer links. “The more activity we saw in terms of clicks, the less we saw in terms of revenue,” he said. “It makes sense. Who has time to go clicking around a Web site? Hobbyists, students, and people at smaller companies or research facilities.”

Kruh ceased sending direct mail to the unprofitable group; at the same time, he started sending specific, targeted e-mail messages to the profitable group. He also tested dayparting and personalization for both groups. Doing so revealed that Thursdays beat Tuesdays by 15% across the board. He also learned that sending a message at midnight beat midday by 10%, and that sending messages at midnight resulted in one-third fewer unsubscribes.

“The way we see it is engineers come to work, have coffee and read their e-mail to get their days started,” he said. “By noon, things are piling up for them and they don’t have time to read our messages.”

Results:
Personalizing messages—a strategy that Experian CheetahMail encouraged but Kruh initially resisted—has also helped significantly, translating into 10% to 60% higher click-through rates.

The final piece to the e-mail puzzle, Kruh said, has been affinity database analysis, which helps the company figure out, for example, what other parts someone who buys an amplifier is likely to buy.

“In 2007 we ran a campaign to introduce a new sensor amplifier. We got 25% better click-through rates with the affinity populations than with the folks who were previous amplifier purchasers,” he said. “Part of what we believe is people who are already buying our amplifiers know all about them, so the information we are sending is not of as much interest.”

Case Study Monday: eROI and Travel Oregon

Thought you'd be interested in this case study, brought to us by eROI, a leading interactive agency headquartered right here in Portland. Not only is the case study quite interesting, but I wanted to share some 'link love' with eROI as a THANK YOU for inviting me to their awesome party last week. These folks know how to have fun--what a creative group!

You can download the entire case study at their website, but the following provides highlights of the emarketing/newsletter work that eROI did for Travel Oregon.

"Travel Oregon" E-newsletter
The Travel Oregon consumer marketing department has been publishing a monthly electronic newsletter since October, 2005. The newsletter's goal is to keep Oregon vacations top-of-mind with potential visitors across the country and worldwide by providing subscribers engaging features and editorials of unique Oregon experiences, all wrapped in an evocative creative design. The newsletter is an extension of the Travel Oregon brand, bridging the gap between the inspiration Travel Oregon Magazine provides and the trip planning assistance at TravelOregon.com.

Background - Cautious Optimism
Being this was a first time effort in consumer outreach, Travel Oregon remained cautious and conservative in its expectations. Even with confidence in its engaging content and evocative design, it was unknown how consumers would react to a previously non-existent communication channel from Travel Oregon. In addition, Travel Oregon expected to lose upwards of 30% of its subscriber list due to "bad" email addresses or lack of interest. It is with great pleasure that we provide the following observations from the October, 2005, Travel Oregon newsletter.

October 2005 Issue - The Beginning
The October newsletter marked the first active direct communication with consumers. Its goals were to:

1. Introduce the 'Travel Oregon Newsletter' and request consumers update their preferences, including contact information and interests.
2. Provide information on timely fall events, with a focus on the Oregon Bounty campaign and the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial celebration.
3. Determine "best day" to communicate with interested consumers.
4. Update and "clean" database to only communicate with people interested in Oregon as a vacation destination.

Results
Download the case study at eROI's site for full Bounce, Unsubscribe, Read and Click rates, by day sent. Here is a summary:

Overall, Travel Oregon Open rates (ranged from 14-31%) are slightly higher than the industry (based on a recent industry study performed by eROI). Click rates (ranged from 7-9%) appear to be close to double on Wednesday, slightly higher on Thursday and Friday and over twice as high on Sunday compared to the eROI study.

The October issue appears to have resonated exceedingly well with consumers both from tangible and intangible observations.

Tangible Observations: One of the toughest challenges facing marketing today is that consumers are inundated with a barrage of advertising in every medium--from print to TV to email. The ability to stand out and build a long term relationship with consumers thus becomes increasingly difficult and even more important.

Intangible Observations: Measuring consumers' subjective reactions to the content and creative is often the best measure of a campaign--it is also the most difficult measurement to ascertain. however, based on what consumers are saying about the newsletter (when forwarding it to friendds), it is evident that the newsletter is a hit!

Summary
As stated before, consumers are being bombarded by marketing messages from many different channels. Travel Oregon and eROI work together to execute on their shared belief that the best way to cultivate a sustainable long term relationship with a consumer is to provide them with information based on their interests.

Segmenting and disseminating information based solely on an individual's preferences makes the newsletter highly relevant and enables Travel Oregon to meaningfully engage those "hand raisers" to sell them their Oregon dream.


Kudos to both eROI and Travel Oregon for making the first newsletter a success, and for being strategic to implement testing within the first edition!

Case Study: How to Grow Your Email List

We firmly believe in the power of email as a great way to communicate with customers and prospects. The challenge, of course, is how to start the email relationship--how to get your customers and prospects to stand up and say that they want to hear from you via email.

That's why I was pleased to see this article in Direct Magazine (which I've included below) about how Bath and Body Works has solved this problem. Their stats on the value of an email address are interesting, too.

Summary:

Bath and Body Works began collecting e-mail addresses from customers just last January and has since built a whopping file of over 10 million addresses.

“By November, we’ll have the largest e-mail file in all of specialty retail,” said Brian Beitler, vice president of customer marketing for Bath and Body Works, at a presentation during eTail 2007 in Washington, DC last week.

A customer’s e-mail address is worth $18 to the company, Beitler added.

Tactics:

To entice customers to give over their electronic addresses, Bath and Body Works offers free tubes of lip gloss. However, they don’t get it on the spot. The company takes a true multi-channel approach.

The gift comes as an offer in customers’ e-mail boxes that they must take back to the store to redeem, Beitler said.

“E-mail is significantly more valuable to us for a store customer than for a Web customer,” he added.

Results:

“When they’re in the store the first time, they make a $24 or $25 transaction,” he said. “When they come back to the store, what do they do? They make another $24 or $25 transaction.”

Part of the reason for success of the young program is that when customers began coming into the store asking about specials offered online, store managers immediately saw the benefit of getting customers’ e-mail addresses. Another reason is pure store traffic volume.

“We make a lot of transactions,” he said.

Also, bringing customers back into the store is a crucial component of the program because of the effect physical contact has on conversion rates, he said.

“We have found that if an associate touches the customer’s hand, our conversion rate goes to 65%,” he said. “This is compared to around 30% otherwise,” he added.

My commentary:
Wow--these are some awesome results! Lesson learned--think about the absolute best offer you can make (and afford). In this case it was a free lip gloss, and then ongoing great deals extended through their email channel. Think about what you can give away to entice your prospects to come to you. Giving value will get you valued customers.

Customer Preference Key When Planning E-Mail Campaigns

We're big believers in letting the consumer or business dictate which channel and how often they prefer to receive communications. By paying attention to these factors, direct marketers can make the most out of each DM campaign. This is becoming increasingly important when it comes to e-marketing.

According to DM News today, Habeus, Inc., has just conducted some research that concurs with our thoughts. The study looked at how e-mail and online interaction with businesses overall is being adopted by consumers. A few key points that came out of the study were that, overall, more consumers prefer to receive e-mail messages from direct marketers -- in fact, it is the channel of choice most of the time.

Here's a snippet from the article: “'E-mail is still vital, and it will continue to be,' said Des Cahill, CEO of Habeas Inc., of the fact that 67% of respondents prefer e-mail as a communications channel compared with other online vehicles and 65% believe this will continue in the next five years." Sixty-seven percent is nothing to sneeze at!

Folks are busier than ever these days, and if they can go to their computer to do their shopping and purchasing because companies are sending out targeted, relevant e-mails, it's no wonder that this percentage is so high.

The other two findings were (1) that consumers, in particular, are still very wary of spam -- both to their computers and wireless devices. So, while they prefer e-mail, they don't want to be spammed; and (2) they'd like to have more control over both the frequency and the content of the e-mails that they receive. “Consumers want more control, so we are recommending our customers set up preference centers,” Cahill said. Just imagine . . . as part of our direct marketing efforts, teams are being created to determine customer preferences. This is the ultimate in letting the customer dictate the marketing that they receive, and demonstrates that pull versus push marketing is becoming more of the norm.

We really like this trend -- and we'll be tracking it for you as it continues to evolve.

Email Subject Lines

Sometimes it makes a lot of sense to get back to basics--to review direct marketing principles and remember to apply those learnings to current campaigns.

This article made me think hard about an email marketing essential--the proper subject line. Man Bites Giraffe: Some Awesome (and Awful) Email Subject Lines.

The author, email marketing expert Josh Nason, has collected a wide variety of emails and he comments on what lines are effective, and why they're effective. I tend to agree with most of his observations. And, I definitely agree with his 'golden rule.'

"Always remember the Golden Rule of email marketing subject lines: Tell what's inside, don't sell what's inside."

A reader should know what to expect in that email, and, if at all possible, should be intrigued enough to actually take the step to open it. Tougher than it seems, that's for sure.

Some other ideas we have on the topic of email subject lines:

1. As firm believers of testing, we urge you to test versions of your subject line to get an objective view of what actually works (and not just what your 'gut' tells you will be most effective).
2. Try to incorporate humor--this brings the fun factor to your campaign and can be a brand-booster, too.
3. Consider using segmentation techniques and vary your subject line based on the segment you're communicating with. See yesterday's post that provides a case study demonstrating the power of segmentation in email marketing.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on what makes YOU open an email. Of, if you have some tips and tricks to share, we're all ears.

New SPAM Law Considered in California

Why is it that this type of legislature starts in California? Not sure why, but it actually makes me proud to be a native California gal!

The San Francisco Chronicle reported: Bill toughening anti-spam law in works.

The article discusses the introduction of a new bill whose goal is to go beyond the Federal CAN-SPAM Act and attempt to reduce the amount of SPAM we receive in our in-boxes.

"Details are still up in the air, but the goal is to get tougher on spam, or unwanted e-mail, by prohibiting falsity and deception."

As always, there are two sides to this story. The bill's proponents and co-author Dan Balsam of DAN HATES SPAM, firmly believe that this bill will go a long way in stopping false and deceptive commercial email. They don't believe that CAN-SPAM did enough.

"Federal law has been ineffective at stopping spammers, Balsam said, in part because it prohibits individuals from suing the spammers in federal court. Instead, litigants must rely on California's current law, which does not define what's deceptive or false."

The other interesting viewpoint comes from Direct Magazine and this article, titled Not Again: Anti-Spam Bill Being Crafted in CA. I think you can get the gist of the author's (Ken Magill) viewpoint with this quote:

"Why is it that so many anti-spam activists refuse to understand that spammers are generally breaking about 142 laws every time they hit “send” already, and that a 143rd magical piece of legislation will do nothing to fix the problem that can’t already be accomplished with existing law?

It’s because they hate the Can Spam Act, that’s why. Can Spam doesn’t force marketers to get permission before they mail and it doesn’t give individuals the right to sue. You see, compulsory opt in and private lawsuits are anti-spammers’ magic cure-all for the spam problem.

The individual right to sue in e-mail-related law has already proven to do nothing but create cottage industries of zealots suing legitimate companies. Those are the only ones they can serve, after all."

So, where do we come out on this debate? As a consumer, I hate SPAM (duh!!!), but I truly do see that the SPAM filters are pretty good at determining what is and what isn't SPAM.

As a direct marketer who dabbles in email marketing, I would hate for a legitimate marketing channel to be obliterated due to prohibitive laws. In fact, I see too often that legitimate email doesn't get past the SPAM filters and that's a problem that I wish someone could solve for me.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Is it Spam or is it Your Direct Marketing Approach??

What is your definition of spam? In a recent article from DM News, Q Interactive and Marketing Sherpa teamed up for a study to find out this definition according to consumers. If you are an e-mail marketer, the results of the study may surprise you. Here's a snapshot of what the articles reports:

• 31% of respondents said that they consider "e-mails that were once useful but aren't relevant anymore” to be spam.
• 41% hit the "report spam" button if "the e-mail was not of interest to me,” 25% if "I receive too much e-mail from the sender" and 20% if "I receive too much e-mail from all senders.” (yikes, how am I responsible for all senders?!?)
  
• 56% thought that by clicking the button they would "filter all e-mail from that sender" while 21% believe it will notify the sender that the recipient did not find that specific e-mail useful so the sender will "do a better job of mailing me" in the future.
• 47% of respondents believe by hitting the “report spam” button, they will be unsubscribed from the list.

With all of the uproar around the increasing numbers of junk e-mails, you'd think that consumers would understand e-marketing better and -- at the very minimum -- know how to successfully unsubscribe from unwanted e-marketers lists! I guess we're not as far along as we think when it comes to e-mail. In fact, since this study resulted in the way it did, Q Interactive is urging the industry to better educate consumers on how to opt-out from unwanted e-mail messages.

E-marketing is an interesting conundrum. As a channel, it is such a boon to direct marketers because it is inexpensive and really easy to measure and track campaign success. Yet, I think the success of it is tied to many factors.

I was having a discussion with a colleague, Barbara Perdome of Grapevine Communications, and she really drove the point home. She shared with me that while many firms have been trying to cut down on direct mail expenditures because of rising costs of postage, printing, etc., many of those that she works with have pushed their DM campaigns to e-mail, and lessened the amount of direct mail campaigns. And, her opinion is that you can only do this if those who receive the e-marketing messages are going to be open to reading them. Let's face it, some segments of the population just aren't going to read e-mail messages.

And it takes just 1/2 of a second to hit the delete button.

On the other hand, most of us walk to our mailboxes each day and take the time to go through the mail that we receive through snail mail. We may still throw the marketing messages away, but Barbara thinks (and I agree with her) that more care is taken to look over each piece of mail prior to tossing it in the round file.

Another colleague, Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing, advises business consultants to send their marketing messages many ways, and when it comes to online, you've got to send multiple e-mail messages along with advertising it in your online e-zine and on your website. Why? Because people simply don't read every e-mail message that they receive. Even those who have opted-in on his e-mail marketing list and want to attend his seminars and workshops don't always read his message until he's sent out several versions of it. People are stretched for time -- and then there's the argument that everyone gets so many e-mail messages each day, it's impossible to (a) read them all or (b) really pay attention to what each one is saying/offering/selling.

You could argue that it is the same with direct mail -- and with telemarketing. I remember in my telecom sales days when we would do a dialing-for-dollars telemarketing sales day, we would have to call 20 customers in order to get one appointment. Sometimes, it was more like 30 or 40!

I guess the point is that you need to be delivering relevant information to people who are interested in your particular products or services. The only way to accomplish this is through a direct marketing approach where you examine the customers who buy from you today, and determine what they look like from a demographic, lifestyle and financial perspective. Then, you can target your e-mail, direct mail or telemarketing campaigns to your customers with messages that will most likely be of interest to them.

Of course, having the right creative is important, too. Your message has to be on target and your offer must be compelling. All of the pieces of planning a direct marketing campaign are very important.

However, if you aren't targeting the right people, your efforts may not have the payoff that you desire -- in spite of all of the other DM components that you've carefully crafted. Our advice is as simple as this: Use an intelligent approach for all of your direct marketing efforts to better hone in on a target group of customers or prospects. If you do this, those who you target will be less likely to hit delete, hang up, or throw your message into the trash can!

E-Marketing More Important than Ever to a Solid Direct Marketing Strategy

There has been a lot of talk about e-mail marketing in the news -- more than ever before. Marketing Sherpa has just completed their e-mail summit in Miami and they've written an article about the key takeaways from the deep dive into e-marketing. It sounds like it was a great event!

Since the article will only be available for a few more days, I'll note all 12 of the key takeaways gathered from summit participants here in their entirety. This is really great food for thought and we hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

Takeaway #1. Become more than a marketer

The days of simply dedicating yourself to designing email or multichannel campaigns and then testing them are over. Marketers now have to learn how to think like their IT people, their financial officers, and their other top execs.

Why should you put on "the hats" of people who have other jobs?

- To pre-empt IT-related gaps in the production pipeline. Many email directors brought IT people with them to get them on the same page.

- It's not only *you* who should understand why your company must invest in certain areas of email. You should also to be able to sell it to your CFO.

How would you think about email if you were a CFO? Ask your CFO as many questions as possible to help yourself. Get to the point where you comprehend his or her email concerns.

- See above for your CEO, too. They have their hands on the purse strings, as well. And is there a better person to have on your side? Get to know your CEO and other execs in terms of how *they* need and want your ideas presented in a crucial meeting.

Takeaway #2. Email marketers get religion on landing pages

It's official: Every marketer is now at least thinking about landing pages.

We spoke to people who wouldn't even consider going into a campaign without significant landing page tests. But a surprising number admitted they were just beginning to dip their toes into these waters.

Many marketers are still sending clickthroughs to the homepage, but they realize that must change soon. Designing separate pages for every campaign is a lot of work, but the fruit of this labor is what builds companies and careers. There was much discussion about people taking their email marketing to the next level.

A key tip: After finalizing the crux of the offer and message, try building your landing pages first and *then* construct the other campaign parts. If you get the landing page done, at least you know that you are going to have one when the campaign does email. This way, there's no skipping it.

Note to vendors: It may be time to revisit your clients with the idea of doing some A/B split testing. In the day-to-day lives of email marketers, they are often putting out brush fires. They may appreciate the "nudge" to take the next step.

Takeaway #3. It's all about the message

People are still coming to grips with how to keep a campaign on message. For instance, the copywriting base camp on Sunday -- where landing pages were critiqued -- showed that people are getting off message in the transfer from subject line to email body to landing page.

It may feel painful at first, but do NOT overpopulate your landing page with various navigation options. They only distract and confuse recipients on what's really important about the offer.

More specifically, do not give in to the temptation to inform them about everything you offer. Stay on message and resist asking yourself this type of question: "But what if they do not realize I offer electronics, too?"

Key tip: Do not use your website navigation on your landing pages. Landing pages should be unique and, once again, targeted to the offer.

Takeaway #4. Deliverability anxiety fades

At last year's Summit, attendees -- and people in the email community at that time -- were deeply worried about deliverability. This year, the number of one-on-one clinics for deliverability was noticeably lower.

"Deliverability hasn't been a big topic," said Bird from TaxBrain.com. "Relevancy is really what is on everyone's minds. ESPs seem to be doing their jobs."

Takeaway #5. Segmentation grows on emailers

With marketers feeling better about getting their emails into in-boxes, it wasn't surprising to hear them talk more about the next steps of executing successful campaigns -- like subject lines, body copy and segmentation.

The issues of segmentation and relevancy were -- by hook or by crook -- party to nearly every discussion heard during the three days. And an increasing number of marketers are splintering their lists into up to 12 or 14 different files.

"The focus has shifted to relevancy and the importance of segmentation," says Jayne Lytel, Executive Director, The Early Intervention Network. "It's almost more important to have a smaller list than to have a huge list that is not performing as well. I plan to go back and clean our lists and segment it better, while not taking the one-size-fits-all approach."

Takeaway #6. Email is not dead

The death of email is premature. Some people think it is stagnating or withering rather than growing, but it seems exactly the opposite.

Indeed, Summit attendance -- participants and vendors -- jumped 20% from 2007, showing the continued reliance on and infatuation with email. And many emailers predict that the phenomena of text messaging will eventually be usurped by email as smart phones like the iPhone and BlackBerry continue to grow in sales and get better at rendering HTML.

So, don't believe the hype about email being dead. It's growing in terms of both marketers' awareness levels and sophisticated executions. People care about it more than ever.

Takeaway #7. Be interesting

Multiple presenters said that if you want to get your email opened and read, you need to quit "mailing it in." In short, you have to test the idea of taking chances with subject lines, overall messaging themes, body copy and images. A few great tips:

o Write targeted emails to each segment.
Kimberly Talbot, Relationship Marketing Manager, Adobe Systems, Inc., says that being creative with your segments can be key to a campaign's outcome. For a campaign that saw stellar results to her 'designers' file of targets, she used the provocative subject line, 'Today Everything Can Change.' "It was a time where we could use that without sounding too self-promotional," she said.

o Test headlines that test curiosity.
Jeff Greene, Director of Marketing, Coast Federal Credit Union, talked about how they have greatly succeeded with playfully personalized headlines, such as, "Jeff, Go Fetch!" In this example, the headline was accompanied by an image of a dog leaping in the air to catch a dollar bill.

"You have to grab their attention. It can be a good thing to make them wonder what you are up to."

Takeaway #8. Are we really "post-open"?

No, this is not a "subject lines are dead" takeaway. However, there were a number of presenters who said that while open rates are hugely important in the grand scheme of things, some marketers take their eyes off the prize(s) -- clickthroughs or sales, depending on their niches.

Stephen Wellman, Director of Email Newsletters, CMP Media, talked about the importance of engagement metrics like post-opens data -- after people look at your newsletter or go to a landing page (or Web page).

"This is the real meaty data, as opposed to the typical newsletter obsession with open rates," he said. "I think managing to open rates is antiquated."

Takeaway #9. B-to-B emailers are playing hard at catch-up

On the whole, B-to-C emailers are still ahead of their B-to-B counterparts. But the field is leveling. And it was clear at the Summit that B-to-B marketers are taking their email more serious than ever.

"I saw that trend starting last year," said one rep from a so-called 'soup-to-nuts' B-to-B services provider. "With big companies like IBM, teleservices are being augmented and supported more and more by email."

Better yet: B-to-B marketers appear to be finally getting serious about what superb personalization can do. For instance, Dave Wieneke, Manager for Interactive Marketing, Thomson CompuMark, presented a Case Study on how his company started sending newsletters and service emails to clients that included a photograph of their sales rep and a note from them. Results turned around dramatically.

Furthermore, Wieneke said, many companies tend to go about personalization the wrong way by writing lame copy like, "We here at company strive to provide the best service we can ... blah, blah, blah."

"Any sentence that starts with 'we' isn't really about your customer," Wieneke said.

Takeaway #10. Ask your customers questions

Sherpa's recommendation of using surveys to better target your audience was well-represented in the Case Studies. Some folks are emailing surveys, while others are including them at various points on their websites.

"I survey the living daylights out of our customers," said Tara Zanecki, Director, Online Sales Channel, Workshare, Inc. "Surveys are invaluable in drawing assumptions before a campaign."

Marketers talked about how showing customers that you care what they think is worth doing a survey unto itself. Others pointed to focus groups as excellent places to start before going into a campaign or a series of initiatives.

Takeaway #11. Mobile is 'new deliverability'

There was definitely more talk about mobile email this year. Until the US catches up with Asia and Europe on this front, however, marketers seem like they are still going to be only dipping their toes for a while.

There seems little doubt that the marketer who are paying attention now will be cashing in first. As more people migrate from standard cell phones to the constantly evolving smart phones, the marketplace is going to be there big-time for both B-to-C and B-to-B firms.

"It's kind of like deliverability was two years ago," said Annette Promes, Director, Email Marketing, Expedia Inc. "They were saying, 'Hey, there's this new thing that's going to change everything.' I think you are going to see the same thing with mobile over the next year or so. Mobile is 'the next deliverability.'"


Takeaway #12. Test, test, test

Testing will always be a key to successful email and interactive marketing. The most important reason why: You will never truly understand what each segment of your audience is looking for until you crunch and analyze the numbers. Everything comes down to testing.

"I saw some data here that dramatically contradicted what we have seen," Promes said. "Different businesses perform very differently -- even if they are competing in the same space sometimes. And what it tells you is that research can be informative, but you still have to test."

Again, great stuff! So, take a renewed look at your e-mail marketing campaigns. Are you doing all you can to make them relevant, creative and successful? We'd love to hear what makes your campaigns successful -- if you have a good story, please share with us.

Case Study Monday: Using Dynamic Content to Generate E-Mail Marketing Campaigns

Welcome to another Case Study Monday!

This week, we are featuring a very compelling -- and thorough -- success story that was done as a collaboration between Listrak (a leading provider of hosted email marketing software, that "allows permission-based marketers to manage, send, track and grow their email marketing investment"), and DiscountBeautyCenter.com (an online retailer who offers the "nation’s largest selection of brand name cosmetics, fragrances, and professional beauty supplies at everyday savings of up to 70% and more").

Listrak offers this Case Study along with several others in the resource area of their website. For all of us who utilize e-mail marketing in our direct marketing strategy, this is some very interesting reading. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Overview
In response to several customer inquiries regarding practical uses for dynamic content, Listrak’s marketing and professional services departments teamed up to help DiscountBeautyCenter.com, an online supplier of brand name cosmetics, fragrances, and professional beauty supplies, set up and test the viability of using dynamic content to generate their email campaigns.

Specifically, DiscountBeautyCenter.com and Listrak wanted to determine the differences in:

• The time it takes to create dynamic content emails verses regular batch and blast HTML emails
• The overall click through rates generated by both types of campaigns
• The number and amount of sales produced by both types of campaigns
• The ROI each type of campaign received

Listrak selected DiscountBeautyCenter.com for the study because it offers over 30,000 products across 339 different brands. The products are categorized into seven categories – hair products, cosmetics, appliances, skin care, nail care, fragrances, and bath products.

DiscountBeautyCenter.com has used Listrak to send out email newsletters and promotional
material since 2001, and it has always achieved good results from each email send. However, even though it has a lot of valuable customer data, DiscountBeautyCenter.com was not segmenting its list or building targeted email messages. This made it a prime candidate for Listrak’s dynamic content case study.

At first, DiscountBeautyCenter.com was not convinced that dynamic content would increase response, but Listrak felt that relevant messages targeted to specific customers would sell more products and, therefore, increase the overall ROI of the email campaigns. DiscountBeautyCenter.com agreed, and Listrak began the project.

The Creative Process
Listrak started the creative process by holding an internal meeting between its marketing team, professional services team, and DiscountBeautyCenter.com’s account manager in order to determine the correct course of action. First, they looked closely at DiscountBeautyCenter.com’s email campaign strategy and found that it was already sending re-engagement campaigns offering $5 off a $25 purchase to customers that have not made a purchase in over three months. For companies that are new to dynamic content, a re-engagement campaign is a good place to start.

However, DiscountBeautyCenter.com was not using dynamic content to generate the emails. Instead, it used simple profiling to segment its list of more than 42,500 names. These emails generated the highest conversion rates for DiscountBeautyCenter.com, so Listrak made the decision to use the same offer but to expand the emails to cross-sell each customer based on their purchase history.

The first major challenge in doing this was the sheer number of products DiscountBeautyCenter.com sells. Listrak wanted to have the email campaign ready to send out within a matter of weeks and it did not have time to create 30,000 dynamic content containers for each of DiscountBeautyCenter.com’s products. It had to come up with a way to target a broader audience while still presenting relevant product offers. One possible solution that the teams discussed was to pick the top selling products across DiscountBeautyCenter.com’s categories and send targeted email messages to the customers that purchased those products. For example, if someone recently bought a hair dryer, the customer would receive information on other appliances, such as diffusers, dryer stands, or flat irons.

Another possible solution was to cross-sell across the top four selling brands. For example, customers that previously purchased OPI nail care would receive information on new OPI
products, and customers that previously purchased Aveda hair care would receive information on Aveda products. A third possible solution was discussed that would combine the two approaches.

Instead of just using one dynamic content container for the brand or category level, Listrak would design an email that had two dynamic content containers for each item. This way, the emails would present information on each customer’s brand and product preferences while giving DiscountBeautyCenter.com the space to highlight the top selling products in each category.The teams felt like this was the best approach but they knew they could not make a decision without any data to support their theories, so the account manager was asked to gather customer data to see if this was a viable option. Because DiscountBeautyCenter.com had all of the data readily available, it took less than two hours for the product manager to mine the information from the database.

For many companies getting started with dynamic content, this step presents a challenge as the companies have not collected enough data or the data is stored in different locations and it takes a lot of time and effort to pull it all together. (For more information on the type and amount of data to collect, read Listrak’s white paper “Creating Relevant Email Campaigns with Dynamic Content.”)

Using DiscountBeautyCenter.com’s customer data, Listrak found that the top four selling brands were Aquage, OPI, Helen of Troy, and Kenra, and it also found the top selling products in the hair care, skin care, cosmetics, nail care, appliance, and fragrance categories. Knowing what the top brands and products were, Listrak was able to design the layout of the campaign. The new campaign featured one template with a common logo header, category navigation buttons that mimic DiscountBeautyCenter.com’s website, a large dynamic content container for the four different brands across the top of the email, and another dynamic content container for the top selling products in each of the six categories. The template also included an offer and call to action as well as the legal disclaimer at the bottom of the message.

With this many dynamic content containers, it meant there were 24 possible versions of the email that would be sent to DiscountBeautyCenter.com’s customers as each of the four brand containers could be matched with six possible category containers. Customers would receive the version based first on their brand preference, or the brand they bought the most, and then on their product preference, or the products they purchased the most. This way, the emails would fulfill the purpose of cross-selling each customer with targeted products based on their purchase history. If the contact did not fit into one of the brands or categories, he or she received the default versions. Listrak selected the Aquage brand as the default brand and hair care as the default category as these had the most number of sales in 2007 and would, therefore, appeal to the broadest audience.

Putting it All Together
It took about 10 hours for the graphic designer on Listrak’s professional services team to create the HTML template for the dynamic content email campaign as well as the 10 dynamic
content containers. He built the HTML template using a combination of Photoshop and Dreamweaver. He imported the content using Listrak’s HTML editor and he used Listrak’s Media and Content Libraries to build the dynamic content containers. The Media Library is a feature of Listrak’s email marketing solution that allows users to upload images for online storage, ensuring that the links remain valid and the images render correctly.

Listrak’s designer simply copied the images from DiscountBeautyCenter.com’s website, pasted them into Photoshop, saved them, and then uploaded them to Listrak’s Media Library. Then, as he designed the message, he simply inserted the graphics from the Media Library into the message.

Similarly, the Content Library allows users to create and store blocks of plain-text and HTML content for use in the dynamic content containers. Then the user simply has to add the dynamic
content containers to the body of the email and define the profiling filters so the system knows which content block to use for each individual email.

After the emails were created, Listrak worked closely with DiscountBeautyCenter.com to ensure it reviewed each content block carefully, along with the other sections of the message. Because this was DiscountBeautyCenter.com’s first experience with dynamic content, Listrak wanted to explain in detail the profiling filters, content blocks, and dynamic content containers that would lead to the 24 different versions of the message. The total development time for Listrak’s version, including the data mining and the time to create the content containers, was 10 hours. However, as this was the first dynamic content email for DiscountBeautyCenter.com, many items had to be generated from scratch. Future campaigns will take much less development time now that some of the key items are in place.

In contrast, the previous DiscountBeautyCenter.com newsletters only took about four to six hours to create, as the CEO would simply select products to promote without any research into purchase history or segmentation. With the differences in creation time, Listrak knew that it needed to increase the amount of sales in order to match the ROI generated from the regular email campaigns. But it still felt that the targeted approach would deliver higher response rates and conversions.

The Results
Listrak’s dynamic content email campaign generated more sales for DiscountBeautyCenter.com than the "End of Summer Sale" email campaign it sent out in August, making this email send its greatest performing email campaign to date. Listrak found that there was a noticeable lift in both open and read rates for the dynamic content emails when it specified brand preference in the subject line. Open rates rose from 13.2 percent for non-preferential segments to 15.5 percent when it had brand preference stated in the subject line – an overall 15 percent increase in lift.

Concurrently, read rates, which Listrak tracks as a message opened for five seconds or more, rose from 9.1 percent for non-preferential segments to 12.4 percent when it had brand preference stated in the subject line – a 27 percent lift.

Listrak also found that the click through rate increased 41 percent - from 3.4 percent to 5.8 percent - when brand preference as well as category preference was dynamically inserted into the email messages. It is important to note that the average click through rate for all of DiscountBeautyCenters.com’s email campaigns in 2007 is 3.68 percent. The preference-based segmented campaigns represent a significant milestone by going above and beyond what has been previously possible. It is also significant that Listrak was able to increase response without heavy discounting which was one of the goals set forth by DiscountBeautyCenter.com’s management team.

Improving the Results
While the results were good, Listrak expected them to be better. So . . . the teams gathered again to look more closely into the campaign send and the response rates. The first thing that Listrak noticed was that only 13,000 of DiscountBeautyCenter.com’s customers fit into one of the targeted brands, which meant that nearly 30,000 customers received the default, un-targeted version of the email. Listrak should have chosen more brands to segment as the top four only represented one-third of DiscountBeautyCenter.com’s customers. Being able to target “long tail” preference appears to be the pathway to improved response. Going forward, Listrak will code each recipient email address on file with brand preference and category to be used in the subject line.

Listrak also found that the $5 off coupon was not used in 27 percent of the sales. This stresses the importance of following email design best practices even in targeted and segmented
messages. Listrak presented the brand preference at the top of the email and the product preference in the middle. However, the offer was at the bottom of the page below the fold, which means that many customers did not see it.

The power of segmentation and the power of the offer should not be isolated. Both features need to be used together to create an email that is irresistible to your customers. Overall, Listrak and DiscountBeautyCenter.com were happy with the exercise they went through in order to gain the firsthand knowledge and experience of generating a dynamic content email campaign. Both companies learned valuable lessons that they will carry forward to ensure that future campaigns
capture an even bigger audience with more relevant messages.

I'm sure you'll agree that this is an excellent case study! If you'd like to view the companion webinar that went with this success story, click here.

Friday Blog Log

Welcome to another edition of our Friday Blog Log! Here are our Links of the Week for your enjoyment!

1) Charles Green's Trust Matters: In this Trusted Advisors post, Charles discusses how "issues of the commons show up first in government, later in business, because government by default gets the un-economic propositions. But the issues are increasingly not unique to government." He goes on to state just how trust issues impact business. And if you read our post yesterday, you know that this is an area that we are so very passionate, that every now and again, it causes us to rant. This is a great post, and the comments are very thought-provoking as well.

2) Bob Sullivan's InfoGrow: In Bob's post, he reviews The Association of National Advertisers Conference, where attendees were polled on topics around sales and marketing effectiveness. Another area in which we are passionate is using analytical intelligence in your direct marketing strategy. In this study, attendees polled think that utilizing an analytical approach, along with an effective creative strategy, will be the most important difference makers in 2008. Take a look at the other interesting nuggets that came out of this poll.

3) Paul Paetz AKA The Anti-Marketer: In Paul's most recent post, he discusses "a classic example of what Christensen labels "cramming" in his discussion of disruption theory." He goes on to define this concept: "Basically, incumbents often ignore disruptions until it is too late to do anything about it, and then make valiant attempts to "cram" the disruptive innovations into their existing offering to try to forestall or block the disruption." Paul gives some past examples of cramming that definitely resonated with me. The topic is very intriguing -- and it will be interesting to see if the "cram" that he refers to (the Wall Street Journal recently added a Digg widget to the end of their online articles) proves to be successful. Very interesting reading!

4) Jim Berkowitz's CRM Mastery E-Journal: Here Jim discusses the first of 7 Deadly Claims: Superior Customer Service. Yep, another area of our passion. His comments are dead on. He talks about how making this claim without backing it up by actually having superior customer service can, yes, in fact, be quite deadly. He also discusses how you create excellent customer service by actually wowing your customers, as opposed to stating it all over the place. OK -- I promise not to get started on another rant. We think you'll really enjoy this post, too. It is filled with insightful ideas on the topic, and he's got six more deadly claims to go (actually, 2 and 3 are already waiting for us)!

5) Jaren Angerbauer's post on the Digital Marketing Blog: In this post, Jaren discusses how to effectively manage old or inactive e-mail accounts. With the increasing importance of e-mail marketing in our multi-channel marketing strategy, this post provides some great insight for our consideration.

We hope you enjoy all of these posts as much as we did! And, TGIF, by the way -- don't drink too much eggnog on this Holiday weekend!

Happy Holidays!

Anyone ever call you a Junk Mail Queen?

Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about! You know -- think back to the holidays last year when your Aunt Rachel came up to you and said, "Now what is it you're doing these days, dear? Are you still responsible for all of that (insert proper expletive) junk mail in my mailbox?"

Uh-huh. That's what us Direct Marketing types get all of the time. Well, a new study has just been done by Commtouch (as reported by DM News). And guess what . . . this holiday season you'll be blamed for Junk e-mail. Yep, Commtouch's study reports that spam has now reached a whopping 95% of all email sent . . . 95%! The article reports that Commtouch's "report, entitled 'Email Threats Trend Report for the third quarter of 2007,' found that as image spam declined, new kinds of attachment spam such as PDF and Excel spam increased. Pharmaceuticals and sexual enhancers were the most popular spam topics, at 30% and 23%, respectively."

Good grief! And, that's not all. Not only are we getting these annoying emails, but the other types of spam use"zombie botnets," which is a consumer’s unknowing home computer that has been infected, to send the spam.

No wonder e-mail marketing still has such a bad name. It's not right. Here's the deal: When you use e-mail effectively, this is one of the best and cost-efficient channels available in our multi-channel toolboxes. E-mail marketing can be used to supplement direct mail or telemarketing campaigns or it can be used on its own. Either way, we've seen this channel respond beautifully when deployed correctly.

So, as direct marketers how do we compete against the 95% of messages that are Spam? We think that there are definitely some best practices to follow when considering an e-mail marketing campaign:

• Templates: As you design your creative, the use of templates is key. This creates familiarity and emphasizes your colors and branding. You need to keep your messages fresh, however.
• Personalization: This is a proven best practice. Using personalization can increase response rates 4-6%. People tend to read the message when it looks as though it was created specifically for them.
• Drive traffic to your website: By utilizing your website, the customer can learn more about your offerings. However, ensure that they end up on a landing page that is relevant to the message.
• Unsubscribe button: Follow the tenets of CAN SPAM to allow those who do not wish to hear from you to unsubscribe easily. This is not only important -- it's the law.

For more on how to create successful e-mail marketing campaigns, take a look at our white paper on the subject.

And, as the holidays approach, start planning your elevator speech for your family. It'll make it much easier to deal with post-holiday-dinner decongestion.

TGIF!

More on the Effectiveness of E-Mail Marketing

Continuing on our theme of effective e-mail marketing . . . Marketing Sherpa has recently released some very interesting statistics about the use of this channel in their E-mail Marketing Benchmark Survey.

The results of this survey are very compelling. Here's a sample:

• 61% prefer to receive marketing materials via e-mail
• 77% will open marketing emails from trusted sources
• 76% want to receive "relevant" marketing e-mails
• 67% are more likely to visit your website after opening a marketing e-mail

In fact, e-mail marketing sent to in-house lists has been shown to have excellent response rates, and can really help your company build customer loyalty. Further, due to the cost effectiveness of this channel, conducting relevant e-mail marketing campaigns can do a lot to help you reach your marketing budgetary goals -- and kick-start your ROI. The report also confirms earlier suspicions that the use of e-mail campaigns on prospect databases is at the opposite end of this spectrum -- open and click-through rates remain very low. Getting potential customers to opt-in or ask for your e-mail messaging is the only way to make e-mail campaigns effective.

And, the definition of spam has changed a bit. Where it used to be viewed as simply "junk e-mail" it is now more accurately viewed as "non-relevant e-mail from a source I don't trust."

If you'd like to review our ideas on integrating e-mail marketing effectively into your marketing strategy, take a look at our E-mail Marketing Best Practices White Paper.

TGIF!