Golden Leads

By all accounts, the U.S. economy and others around the world are either in recession now or heading for one before 2008 ends. How long it will last and how rough it will get is anybody's guess, but I'm not waiting for the official proclamation, and neither should you.

My original column idea was to initiate a strategic discussion around the potential impact of a recession on our industry, but since fellow Insider Bill McCloskey stole my thunder in yesterday's column, I've opted to outline survival strategies during an economic downturn.

Now is the time to strengthen your position inside your company. At the same time, reach outside to your customer base by making your email marketing as relevant and valuable as possible. By following a proactive strategic plan, you also guard against committing irreversible mistakes as you recession-proof your email-marketing program. Strategies to follow include:

·    Launch or beef up your campaign to remind management how email marketing helps drive your company's success. Many executives view email simply as an inexpensive marketing vehicle. Now is the time to reposition email as a strategic relationship-management channel.

·    Implement programs that integrate with and extend the ROI of other channels such as search, direct mail, RSS, broadcast or trade shows. For example, optimizing landing pages to convert prospects into an email relationship even if they don't take your core conversion action can greatly boost the long-term ROI of your search spend.

·    Leverage your email editorial content for search-engine optimization. Particularly for publishers and B2B marketers, optimizing your article content for search engines can pay off handsomely. When planning your editorial content, write your articles and titles using high-priority keyword phrases. Improving your natural search rankings for certain keywords might enable you to reduce your paid search spend when the CFO comes wielding an axe.

·    Assess the value of your customers and relationships. Use RFM or similar analyses to determine which customer segments are the highest value and most loyal and who will likely continue to spend during a downturn. Then, initiate or enhance loyalty or incentive programs to reward and encourage them.

·    Learn more about your customers. Add or update your preference center, and incentivize subscribers to update their profiles. Survey subscribers for insights to help you deliver more relevant emails and greater personalization. Integrate Web analytics data, and deploy more highly targeted messages based on Web activity.

·    Use more trigger-based emails, following up with subscribers based on specific open, click or Web activity.

·    Implement measurement systems and management reports that demonstrate the impact email has on the company. Move beyond process metrics — opens, clicks, delivery rate — and gather output metrics tied to the company's overall business goals, particularly strategic changes to adjust in a slowed economy.

·    Identify ways that the company can switch to email to save money, such as e-billing statements or special notices.

What not to do now:

·    Don't panic, and don't wait for your CEO or management to tell you to cut your email budget. Take the lead by proving value beforehand. Don't expend energy on unproductive email-versus-direct-mail arguments within your company. Focus on demonstrating what email does best and how it extends the value of your company's other marketing channels.

·    Don't revert to batch-and-blast techniques to boost or maintain revenue. I expect some marketers will be forced to just "send more emails" to their entire database. This might deliver short-term results, but it can also hurt your brand and deliverability, increase costs to replace lost subscribers and potentially anger many otherwise happy customers.

·    Don't compromise on permission and privacy. Resist the temptation to build your lists more aggressively. Focus instead on your most valuable prospects.

The reality of company politics and decision-making could make achieving all of these strategies difficult. So, don't feel you have to adopt them all.

However, do something. If nothing else, go to management with your plan to leverage email marketing to drive both the top and bottom lines during the coming downturn. You will be way ahead of peers who wait for uninformed instructions to drift down from the high command.  

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One of the advantages of going before heavy hitters like David Baker and Loren McDonald in the Email Insider lineup is that I get first crack at hot topics. Like this week's for instance: email and the recession. Loren and David were both lining up to make some comments on the topic, and hopefully my brilliance won't intimidate them too much from chiming in on their own columns this week. And actually, even I'm not the first to talk about it: Elie Ashery was first up with a column this week on the Email Experience Council blog:

My theory is pretty straightforward. While a recession is certainly not good for anybody, it may have a beneficial effect on email marketing. Or at the very least, email should be less affected by a recession than other marketing channels. Because of email's low cost, high ROI value and the fact that it is a proven medium, marketers might see themselves directing more marketing dollars to this channel as a sure thing, and away from less proven (mobile marketing, RSS), less direct (banner advertising) or less costly (SEO) channels. Good old email: it works, it's cheap, and my return is high. It's a safe harbor in troubling times.

To see if my theory held water, I posed it to the Inbox Insiders list, a private list of high-level email marketers I run. Here is what they had to say:

Josh Baer, founder of Skylist and now CTO of Datran Media: "I think we saw this happen in 2000-2001 when the bubble burst - we saw 300% growth from 2000-2003… I always thought of it just as you describe - online marketing was the only safe place to spend because the ROI is high and measurable and because you can test it out at a low cost of entry."

Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path: "I think email will fare better if there is a recession now than it did in 2001-2003 (note I say if, not something more definitive).  The channel is more proven and mature and demonstrates results.

However, I don't think a recession will really be good for anyone.  It's not like online marketing, or even email as a low cost option, are truly countercyclical."

Industry Insider Joe Rueckert: "I think existing use of email infrastructure (read: more campaigns) would increase as campaign dollars shift from more expensive mediums (direct mail, etc) to online. However, I'm concerned about the spending on infrastructure to bring email campaigns to more effective heights. This is the investment in system integration, head count, new medium testing (mobile, etc) that we need do email marketing better and not just more. I hope we truly are able to get more of those dollars — and less of the dollars that simply lead to more volume.

As Matt stated, I don't think a recession will be good for anyone."

David Baker, from Avenue A/Razorfish: "I'm a believer that in tough times, consumers will flock to the Internet. Use of email will increase for all the social values we read and talk about.  While retailers, financial services and multichannel venues may suffer from conservative spending patterns, I believe the measurable channels will benefit and budgets will shift even more so..

I think we are smarter today about monetizing email than we were in 2000…the channel is a more mature consumer channel than it was back then. 

Will the dollars shift to online?  Not necessarily, as online will suffer if spending is down as well, but I don't see email marketing taking a huge hit for all the benefits we tout that will become even more important when marketing groups are truly tasked to ‘perform' and ‘measure' performance, which is a weak spot in the vast majority of companies I see today.

I'd bet on consumer trends over financial and market trends for our channel, any day."

Michael Mayor, senior vice president at Aptimus: "I think the better question is ‘will email marketers be more empowered to act more properly in a recession than they were 7 years ago?,' because that was a ship wreck that email barely survived. One storm was created when marketers halted acquisition and churned their databases into the ground (and many vendors, too). Another storm, of course, was spam, which was just a tropical storm at the time. In the middle were many of us good guys on the tiny swordfish boat in the North Atlantic looking at crappy weather readouts. It was ugly. Live and (hopefully) learn."

Aaron Smith, principal at Smith-Harmon: "I concur with the general consensus that a recession is a bad thing for everyone. To follow up on the point Joe made about doing email better not just more, I see a lot of potential for our industry to get itself into hot water considering the dynamics of a recession. The following scenario is quite plausible if we don't as an industry continue to police ourselves and control the urge to overmail when numbers in other channels are down:

• Marketers hit with bad numbers will try to make up the revenue by increased focus on high ROI channels like email
• More mailings going out means more inbox clutter and more customer churn, leading to even more mailings in hopes of improving the decrease in ROI (the classic downward spiral)
• We already know that in many cases, over the long-term, dramatically increasing the number of mailings leads to flatter or lower overall revenue for email programs
• In addition, dramatically higher mailings across the industry would likely prompt the ISPs and/or FCC to respond with more prohibitive restrictions, leading to more time and effort invested for increasingly lower returns on investment
• Imagine the general public response if email marketing volume on a daily basis was as high as those days during the early December holiday push — not pretty!

It could be bad for all of us. Not saying that's where we're headed, but it's a possibility we should be aware of. Let's hope as an industry we are able to resist the urge to overdo it and shoot ourselves in the collective foot."

Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts on the Email Insider blog.

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Dear Email Diva,

I came across an example of what I would commend as a way to marry green as a reward for a simple “mundane” task, while simultaneously, albeit subtly, “guilting” you into compliance with the request. Even if a company is offering something in return for updating your profile that’s for yourself, you can usually ignore it without much guilt, but jeez, here’s a company making it easy for me to be greener — heck, look at the baby tree, helpless until I plant him — just for updating my profile. Now is that too much to ask? Of course not.

I must go now, because even though I’m not actually a real prospect for Company X, I owe them the clarification, and that baby tree the chance at life.

Update: Unfortunately, the sign-up dropped the ball in my opinion. I think that knowing who on your list is not a viable prospect for you is as valuable at times as knowing who is, so your targeting is effective. But, the landing page gave me absolutely ZERO opportunity to identify myself as anything other than their target market. No way for me to tell them I’m just a lurker and not to worry about wasting their efforts nurturing me.

Green Girl

Dear Green Girl,

Thank you for highlighting this smart approach. As the Email Diva mentioned in this column, I believe that combining commercial and charitable interests is a win-win-win for the corporation, the charity and the consumer.

As I have warned in other columns, however, one must be careful about offering incentives of such broad appeal that they encourage people to sign up for email regardless of their interest in your product or service.

You say you are not a legitimate prospect for Company X, but have a professional interest in the company, and should have been able to indicate this. Did they really “drop the ball”? Once someone has subscribed to an email program (without bribes or sleight of hand), the company should be able to assume that this person has an interest in them. There will always be a small portion of subscribers with other motivations: competitors, vendors, journalists, etc. But these people are still looking for company messages. If non-prospects were able to identify themselves as such, what should the company send them via email?

For companies that use email subscription as the first step in a lead generation program, however, identifying “lurkers” will prevent salespeople from wasting time.

So the Email Diva says, good for Company X for improving its targeting while contributing to the greater good. Go green and…

Good Luck!

The Email Diva

Send your questions or submit your email for critique to Melinda Krueger, the Email Diva, at emaildiva@kd-i.com. All submissions may be published; please indicate if you would like your name or company name withheld.

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Subject: Email Performance Award Voting Ends Today - Vote Now!

Don’t forget to vote for the 2008 Email Performance Award. The polls close today at 5pm EST so cast your vote before it’s too late.

Here is the link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=TrahHVi24mD0SFs45oAqDQ_3d_3d

Thanks to Return on Subscriber for this great article.

One evening, at the start of a four-hour train ride at the end of a long day, I found myself wishing I could just close my eyes and be transported home immediately. This got me thinking about how we live in a society where people constantly seek instant gratification versus enjoying the journey. Just look at the number of “lose ten pounds in a weekend” ads and the abundance of get-rich-quick schemes bombarding us everywhere. The reality is that one has a better chance of getting hit by lightning than waking up a millionaire with a model-perfect physique. Yet we still yearn for these instant results.

Even email marketing plays into the instant gratification idealization. We deploy an email and within hours we can see how well it is performing — so it’s not a leap to understand why many marketers quest for the quick-fix solution that will result in response rates that soar through the roof.

The reality is that email marketing success does not happen overnight, any more than weight loss or riches. However, by taking the time to actually enjoy the ride, it’s possible to painlessly optimize your email program over time. Here are some thoughts to get you started.

Look where you’ve been — and appreciate the lessons learned. Conduct post-mortem reviews and benchmark your campaign metrics. Too frequently, marketers only look at top-line, ad hoc results. They’re too busy blasting out the next campaign instead of slowing down to see what’s really happening.

Identify the best- and worst-case scenarios — in terms of day of week, time of day, seasonality, frequency, subject lines, offers, creative approach, lists and segments, domains, etc. Analyze the results from all perspectives. Is there an upward or downward trend? Or are results all over the place? What patterns do you see? How do results compare with industry benchmarks? How can these lessons be applied to future campaigns?

By thoroughly reviewing your campaigns today, you’ll yield long-term learnings to improve tomorrow’s campaigns.

Map the best route to your ideal destination. Without a clear understanding of your goals and objectives, it’s very likely you’ll end up in the land of the lost. Develop a master calendar, including sales seasons and holidays, with all integrated marketing efforts marked by the date they will reach the consumer. When does your print campaign hit the newsstands? When do your online media campaigns run? When do your direct mail campaigns drop? Take the steps needed to ensure all events are aligned and working in a synchronized fashion.

The ultimate goal is to create a comprehensive plan that leverages the impact of stacking and maximizes marketing dollars — creating the biggest bang for your buck.

Explore a fresh perspective — and get inspired along the way. I‘ve always been fascinated by the out-of-the-box thinking in advertising, going back to the cool Absolut ad inserts that used to run in magazines — to today’s interactive viral campaigns where you’re compelled to spread the word. But where do these ideas come from? And how can one stimulate the creative juices to develop the kind of thought-provoking concepts that create memorable campaigns that get results?

One way to start is to set up a dedicated email “swipe file” — then expand your horizons and sign up for everything, not just your competitors’ emails. Then, sit back and watch the flurry of campaign executions pour in. Create an email inspiration board and fill it with anything and everything that piques your interest. Somewhere in there, an idea will spark and ignite.

Don’t be insane — be fearless! So many clients prefer to play it safe, going with the “same ol’ emails”, and therefore getting the “same ol’ results.”

Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Isn’t it time to break the mold? Next time you have that crazy wildfire idea, don’t be afraid to try it out. Go ahead - email is the perfect vehicle to test it.

By taking the time to enjoy the journey and by breaking out of your routines, you just may experience some instant gratification and find you have a new zest for email along the way.

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Below are 2 very similar emails I received that are worth taking a look at. It looks like the ESP (probably the same one) lost some data, to the extent

What I don’t understand is why the only thing to do in this email is unsubscribe or ignore. I think a “profile update” or “check your preferences” option should have been added as well.

Thanks to Return on Subscriber for this great article.

Chad White of RetailEmail.Blogspot.com and contributing writer to the Email Insider on Media Post had a great email article yesterday that focused on simple mistakes marketers and agencies make in email. We are all guilty of a misspelled word, a link pointed to the wrong place or the wrong image. Here is a snippet of Chad’s article.

“While mistakes are pretty much inevitable, there are some processes that you can put into place to minimize them and to respond appropriately when they occur. Some tips:

1. Develop a pre-flight checklist and follow it every time.
2. One word: Spell-check.
3. View a test send in accounts from all the major email clients, or use a rendering tool to ensure consistent rendering across platforms.
4. If you make a mistake in an image, simply correct the source file.
5. Don’t resend emails that contain minor mistakes. Only resend those where the mistake has significantly impaired the message.
6. If the error is significant, see if you can halt the send. You may be able to stop your entire list from receiving the erroneous email.
7. Develop a protocol for your apology emails, so you can respond quickly when serious mistakes happen.

Let me end by saying that the best feedback I got on last year’s Oopsy Hall of Fame was from a marketer who said, “I feel so much better after seeing the mistakes that other marketers made. They make my mess-ups seem not nearly so bad.” I hope that’s how all of you feel after reading this.”

Read the full post here

Thanks to Return on Subscriber for this great article.

This week I inducted the 2007 class into my Oopsy Hall of Fame, which is a collection of email marketing mistakes made by the retailers I track via RetailEmail.Blogspot. The point of the list isn't to shame anyone; mistakes in this business are pretty much unavoidable, given the high volumes and short deadlines that many work under. Rather it's to point out where trouble spots lie and to inspire processes to avoid them.

Just like last year, subject lines once again proved to be fertile ground for oopsies, which is unfortunate since they play such a strong role in determining whether the recipient goes on to open the email. I saw misspellings, including the misspelling of brand names, as in this CompUSA subject line: "NEW LG Monitors & Samung TVs Now Available." And I also saw strangeness that should have been easily caught with a spot check, like this subject line from Musician's Friend: "2007-01-11_MF_Newsletter - src=http://blogs.mediapost.com/email_insider/3NL7AB."

I also saw deployment errors. In one case, a season's greeting message clearly went out a week too soon. In other cases, identical emails were sent twice. And in one awe-inspiring case, a blank email was sent — and then resent the next day STILL BLANK.

Coding and image problems also made the list. I saw duplicated images in a Circuit City email, faulty personalization coding in a Crutchfield email and a squished nav bar in an Eddie Bauer email. There was also a coding error in a TigerDirect email that wiped out the bottom portion of the email, including TigerDirect's address and the unsubscribe information. So the error resulted in the email not being CAN-SPAM-compliant.

And to be a total nitpick, I also pointed out a variety of spelling and grammar errors that were made. The one that killed me this year was when Home Depot said they had "Live Tree's." My eyes started bleeding!

But I digress. While mistakes are pretty much inevitable, there are some processes that you can put into place to minimize them and to respond appropriately when they occur. Some tips:

1. Develop a pre-flight checklist and follow it every time.

2. One word: Spell-check.

3. View a test send in accounts from all the major email clients, or use a rendering tool to ensure consistent rendering across platforms.

4. If you make a mistake in an image, simply correct the source file.

5. Don't resend emails that contain minor mistakes. Only resend those where the mistake has significantly impaired the message.

6. If the error is significant, see if you can halt the send. You may be able to stop your entire list from receiving the erroneous email.

7. Develop a protocol for your apology emails, so you can respond quickly when serious mistakes happen.

Let me end by saying that the best feedback I got on last year's Oopsy Hall of Fame was from a marketer who said, "I feel so much better after seeing the mistakes that other marketers made. They make my mess-ups seem not nearly so bad." I hope that's how all of you feel after reading this.

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I had just told a client a few days ago - “BlackBerry’s are going to have to add some type of support for HTML emails this year.”

Now this announcement, thank you RIM.

HTML and Rich Text Email Rendering - BlackBerry smartphone users will be able to view HTML and rich text email messages with original formatting preserved including font colors and styles, embedded images, hyperlinks, tables, bullets and other formatting.

More details on the new release here

Thanks to Return on Subscriber for this great article.

I’ve been inviting my colleague, Scott Voigt, our head of product marketing, to put together some guest blogs over the last few months. I am pleased to include his first blog entry below…

From Scott:
A few months ago, the Internet was abuzz with the meme of Inbox 2.0. A couple of articles in the Wall Street Journal (here and here) and a post in the Bits section of The New York Times, pointed to a future where the inbox would begin to take more proactive role in managing communications, acting as much like a social network as it does a hub for receiving good ol’ SMTP messages. Leading the charge on this new frontier are a number of start-ups (Boxbe, ClearContext, and Xobni to name a few) that are, in essence, using technology to help consumers manage their overload of email. More recently, we’ve seen some of the big inbox providers indicate that changes were indeed on the horizon. To wit, at this year’s CES, Yahoo’s Chief, Jerry Yang demonstrated a future version of Yahoo! Mail that included a “simplify my inbox” button, which, once clicked, would reorder messages based on “people that are important to me.”

My colleagues and I pay careful attention to anything that has to do with changes (perceived or real) that may impact the inbox. As such, a number of us have been testing these new inbox tools, talking to inbox providers and holding late-night bull sessions in an effort to intuit email’s future and its impact on email marketers (all the better if we can devise new offerings to better serve them ). At the most recent Email Insider Summit, I shared some of our initial findings in a presentation that contemplated the factors present in a hypothetical “inbox algorithm” that inbox providers might use to categorize, prioritize and sort messages. Bill has been kind enough to lend me some real estate in his blog to expand on this topic. So, over the next few weeks, I’ll try to contribute some additional commentary on the future of the inbox. (I just can’t bring myself to call it Inbox 2.0.)

Until then…

Thanks to Email Marketing Strategy from Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey for this great article.