Golden Leads

Search for mobile marketing on the Web, and you’ll be presented with a plethora of resources and articles on SMS and MMS. Search for mobile email marketing, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find much at all. Yet whether we pay attention to it or not, mobile email is happening. Not only have business users been reading their emails on mobile devices, but an increasing number of consumers are as well.

Not surprisingly, one of the first questions marketers ask is, “What do I need to do to ensure my mobile customers have a positive experience with my email?” Lacking an adequate set of published resources, we powered up our mobile email rendering solution and began examining what a variety of business- to-business and analyst newsletters were doing to optimize the mobile user’s experience. Our hope, of course, was that as purveyors of industry expertise, they were likely to have implemented all the latest best practices and would serve as guiding lights on how to do it right.

What we learned is that we all have a lot to learn. Even though the newsletters we examined were not universal guides to how to do it right, what they did do wrong can serve as lessons for us all.

Keep it light — 20kb or less. Forrester Research sent a lengthy newsletter which, while not image-rich, was still heavy on text. The W3C recommends page sizes of 20kb or less for mobile devices - Forrester Research’s email, however, was 204 kb without images and 213 with images downloaded - 10 times larger than recommended. The result, slow download times, higher data charges for recipients, and in some Mobile Email Readers, an incomplete email, as size thresholds were exceeded.

Use multiparts — and don’t forget the text part. Adweek sent an HTML-only message. Not unusual, unfortunately, as many mailers now either send HTML-only, or send a multipart but fail to populate the text part. The result is unintelligible for recipients using the latest BlackBerry phones. Unlike the iPhone or WM6/Mobile Outlook platforms that render the HTML part, BlackBerry will render the text part of a multipart message. If an HTML-only email is received, it renders the raw HTML code — an ugly experience at best.

One column is better than two or more. Fierce Wireless used tables to create a popular two- column layout. Unfortunately, even though users of Palm mobile devices do get a variation of HTML, the installed Palm Garnett reader does not support tables. Instead of presenting the two columns next to each other, the newsletter renders as one long column with the right column following immediately after the left column.

Don’t rely on images to convey critical information. Business Week sent a terrific discounted subscription offer conveyed primarily via a series of images at the top of its email. Those marketers who care about and optimize the message for desktop and Web-based email readers already know this lesson: Don’t rely on images to convey your brand or critical calls-to-action, because many email readers (AOL, Hotmail/WLM, Outlook 2007) now have images disabled by default. This rule is pretty universal, as it applies to the most popular Mobile Email readers - images either can’t be enabled or are disabled by default. If you do use them, at least incorporate descriptive ALT-TAGS so readers realize what they are missing.

The takeaway here is that mobile is on the move. People are walking, driving and flying with their email in their pocket. As the mobile market grows and becomes a staple rather than an incidental, understanding the limitations of the platform will be crucial to establishing and maintaining a clear and compelling communication channel with an “on-the-go” audience.

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Thanks to Email Insider for this great article.

I’m very excited to announce that one of the most respected email marketing executives has joined Silverpop. Loren McDonald has come onboard with us, serving as vice president of industry relations.

Loren is well known throughout the industry for his keen understanding of email marketing and insights into methods to maximize the benefits and returns the channel offers. His development of white papers, studies and articles over the years has helped move the industry forward. His leadership and deep experience will benefit not only Silverpop and its clients, but all marketers eager to maximize customer relationships in ways that build lifetime value.

Loren will be a regular blogger and contributor to Silverpop’s e-newsletters, as well as help drive thought capital through the development of white papers and original research for both Silverpop and Vtrenz audiences.

To read the announcement about Loren, click here.

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

Dear Email Diva,

Is a business that hosts its own mail server required to deliver only certain or all emails to the recipient specified in the email header? Is the business allowed to block or withhold emails from delivery, based on content? If email is withheld, is the business required to store the withheld email, and for how long? Is the business allowed to block certain emails (based on content or sender) from the mail systems?

Oliver Schmid
Kärcher Residential Solutions, Inc.

Dear Oliver,

When it comes to employee email, the organization is in the driver’s seat. The organization’s rights stem from the need to prevent the transmission of trade secrets or inappropriate (racist, sexist, pornographic) messages by employees via email.

According to NOLO, a legal information Web site whose goal is “to make America’s legal system accessible to everyone,” a smart employer will have “a policy explaining the rules for using email — and reserving your right to monitor the messages sent and received on company computers. There are several very good reasons to adopt an email policy. First and foremost, you need to let your employees know that you may monitor their messages. Even if you have never read employee email and don’t plan to make it your regular practice, you should protect your right to do so. If you don’t, you might find yourself unable to investigate claims of harassment, discrimination, theft, and other misconduct — or threatened with a lawsuit by an employee who claims that your investigation violated his or her privacy.”

Every company the Email Diva has worked for — and it’s a long list — had such a policy, explaining that email sent and received is company property. Now consider the task of the corporate network manager. It is not so different from that of providers of free online email, which is, in part, to manage the server volume by screening out spam. The free email provider, however, wants to satisfy end users so that they continue to use Hotmail, for example, over Yahoo Mail. Corporate network managers are far less interested in individual users; they want to please management, and management has already stated that it controls employee email use.

What does management want? To enhance productivity (among other things). So they have no problem blocking commercial email that is not work-related. Another challenge is that network managers may subscribe to out-of-date blacklists and harsh filtering software, which yields excessive false positives. (Go ahead, complain to the overburdened network guy that you’re not receiving your shopping/entertainment email at work!)

It’s another good reason to ask opt-ins for an alternative email address, and request permission to send to that address if the primary becomes undeliverable.

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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Thanks to Email Insider for this great article.

You’ve all been told how you need to start segmenting your lists and sending more relevant emails to yoru subscribers. Here is an out-of-the-box example from HornyToad.com (who just opened the very cool Lizard Lounge store in PDX).

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How they will determine what to send me from this, who knows.

But I found this to be a fun excerise and break from the same old routine. Think of ways you can get creative to engage your customers this year.

Thanks to Return on Subscriber for this great article.

When was the last time you gave to a charitable organization? Think about how you became emotionally connected to the cause, and how they kept that connection overtime. How did you learn about the cause, what prompted you to give, did you give more than once, did you grow from a donor to an advocate and actually volunteer to help, or did you actually tell someone about the organization in an attempt to create awareness outside of yourself? If the answer is no to all of the above, then you likely won’t connect with the column this week.

Now put on your email marketing hat and think about how poorly these organizations use email to build this connection with the individual. Gone are the days of getting your address stickers in the mail with cute little dog icons and hoping that you will give a $25 donation to the poor animals that are being abused. Is there such a thing as an “e-donor” that will only give online, only use e-channels to engage with you? I’d have to say, unequivocally, YES. The Web site has a reason, search provides a function, email is the constant and all the trends suggest efficient “giving” is trending the same — and digital offers those opportunities — but can you direct an emotional and functional connection with the consumer and charitable organization through email? It’s hard, but if you get the basics down, you have a chance.

Sadly though, charitable organizations have even less marketing resources than most marketing organizations. They are likely using clunky email systems, at best, maybe doing a newsletter, and even less thought is put into customer segmentation or communications. Getting a newsletter out the door electronically can be quite the task. With this reality, there are simple ways to improve what you do. But the methodology is not any different than that of other brand organizations — if you are going to do it, do it right.

The NFP sector has a very specific customer path, in my opinion. There is obviously the art of creating awareness about your cause. There is a general education about the cause and the level of involvement that varies greatly by the type of donor: there are those who donate for tax reasons, or may do it as a gift, may want to give continually over a period of time, or actually want to get involved and become advocates. There is the charitable event that pops up periodically to bring “life” to the cause.

It’s a tough business, prying money from people and keeping your cause top-of-mind. Isolate these keys paths, and build a couple of simple messages, tied to key events, and execute them well. Sounds simple — and it can be, but it starts with understanding how to connect with people and simplifying the message to them over time.

The concept of “E-Outreach” is not an uncommon idea. Build a communication program that embraces new donor’s interaction with your company, optimize it through the lifecycle and do whatever you can to keep the donor as emotionally connected to the cause as possible. Use the most active supporters as advocates to share the word with others, identify the highest value donors and most frequent donors — and cater to them.

What we do know from the NFP sector is that multichannel programs work. Using direct mail, using email, keeping the Web experience fresh, all combined create the ideal donation engine.

While this subject is very close to my heart as an advocate, donor and marketer, I see a real need to improve this category as a whole, and I don’t know it that will happen organically. There are great messages to carry, wonderful stories to share, legacies to develop — and we can all do our part as marketers or as advocates to the charitable organization.

First, we can help our local charitable organizations “do it right.” Teach them to build a welcome communication stream, optimize their newsletter, and build a few “proper” reminder emails that extol the values of their organization in a direct response nature. Show them how to optimize their registration forms, how to optimize their site for search, how to create a great user experience on the Web at little to no cost.

And if you can’t give the gift of time to the organization, just give the gift. Pick a cause and get involved financially or emotionally, carrying the word or sharing information that will make them smarter.

Live, learn and leave a legacy.

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Thanks to Email Insider for this great article.

Like many of you, I was not surprised by the roster of bubblegum-card heroes whose names showed up in former Sen. George Mitchell’s recent report detailing widespread use of performance enhancers in Major League Baseball. While cheating has long been part of baseball (think spitballs, corked bats, stealing signs) the steroid era has seriously and perhaps permanently damaged the reputations of America’s favorite pastime and many star players.

I’ve been thinking about the concept of “cheating” in the email marketing industry for a while now, and the release of the Mitchell Report makes me wonder: What would an outside investigator find if he came in and scrutinized our industry? Who would be the Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens of email marketing?

The email industry has its superstars, of course — marketers who preach respect for the subscriber through strict permission, relevance, transparency and reputation. Which of them are also secretly guilty of using questionable performance enhancers such as poor permission practices, buying (not renting) lists, refusing to police affiliates, blocking the road to unsubscribing, or participating in poorly conceived co-registration schemes?

On one hand, I can understand this drive to game the system in order to gain a competitive advantage. In baseball, the major-league ballplayer who doesn’t do HGH may be at a disadvantage when compared to a teammate or competitor whose regular dose keeps him in top condition during the dog days of the season. In the same way, a legitimate marketer who observes a strict opt-in policy might have a harder time making quarterly numbers than the buddy up the street who message-bombs any and every email address he can grab — regardless of permission.

We’ve almost become inured to cheating, from parents who do their kids’ homework to college students buying papers, plagiarism and fabrication by authors, corporate schemes to defraud customers and investors — and a climate of rampant cheating and unbridled mendacity at all levels of government.

So, why am I upset at the idea that a few bad apples in our own industry hide the unsubscribe link in their emails, or write slimy privacy policies that nobody can find anyway?

Simple: Because these players make the rest of the industry look bad to the public at large, to our peers in other marketing channels, and, most important, to our customers. Customers who don’t trust their email won’t buy from it. Executives who control budgets and who think we’re a bunch of spammers won’t give us money to create effective, trustworthy programs.

The Mitchell Report is bound to spur a new round of investigations and attempts to impose new regulations on baseball. And if we don’t get our collective act together, if we can’t agree on basic standards for reputable email marketing (by default defining what “cheating” is) and weed out the bad actors, we could be the next ones to find ourselves in the glare of the public spotlight.

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Thanks to Email Insider for this great article.

With the writers strike sucking the life out of the Golden Globe awards, I thought it might be a good idea to give you award-starved readers something to tide you over.

I currently track the email campaigns of over 35,000 brands, publishers, and affiliate sites. Below are some of the best email marketers of 2007. If you are an email marketer that didn't make the list, don't despair.  I may not be tracking you for one reason or another (so please make sure that I am for when I do this again, by dropping me an email a bill@emaildatasource.com). At least that is what you can tell your boss. Criteria for selection included a number of factors including overall traffic lift to the Web site after the email was sent, quality of the email list, and many other factors.

Automobile Manufacturing

1) Dodge               (dodge.com)
2) Infiniti                 (infiniti.com)
3) Ford                   (fordvehicles.com)
4) Saab                  (saabusa.com)
5) Land Rover      (landroverusa.com)
6) Porsche            (porsche.com)
7) Mini Cooper     (miniusa.com)
Volvo                  (volvocars.com)
9) Scion                 (scion.com)
10)Audi                  (audiusa.com)

Airline

1    Spirit Airlines                  (spiritair.com)   
2    jetBlue                             (jetblue.com)   
3    Continental                     (continental.com)     
4    Ryanair Ltd.                    (ryanair.com)            
5    Lufthansa                       (lufthansa.com)   
6    Delta                                (delta.com)   
7    American Airlines          (aa.com)
8    US Airways                     (usairways.com)  
9    Northwest Airlines        (nwa.com)   
10    Icelandair                     (icelandair.com)

Diet

1    Sonoma Diet                  (sonomadiet.com)
2   Ladies Home Journal   (lhj.com/weightlossplanner)
3   Weight Watchers            (weightwatchers.com)
4   Denise Austin                 (deniseaustin.com)
5   NutriSystem                    (nutrisystem.com)
6   Jenny Craig                     (jennycraig.com)
7   eDiets                               (ediets.com)
8   South Beach Diet           (southbeachdiet.com)
9   Makers Diet                     (makersdiet.com)
10   The Biggest Loser       (biggestloserclub.com)

Employment

1 LiveCareer                         (livecareer.com)
2 Yahoo                                 (hotjobs.yahoo.com)
3 Salary.com                        (salary.com)
4 Career Builder                  (careerbuilder.com)
5 Beyond.com                      (techcareers.com)   
6 Lucas Group                     (lucasgroup.com)
7 Manpower Inc                   (manpower.com)
8 monster.com                    (monster.com)
9 Women for Hire                (womenforhire.com)
10 Dice Career Solutions (dice.com)

Family Clothing

1) Abercrombie & Fitch       (abercrombie.com)
2) Macy's & Co.                    (macys.com)
3) Old Navy                           (oldnavy.com)
4) Buckle Inc                         (buckle.com)
5) Lands End                       (landsend.com)
6) Sierra Trading Post        (sierratradingpost.com)
7) The Gap                            (gap.com)
Eddie Bauer                     (eddiebauer.com)
9) May Department Stores (lordandtaylor.com)
10)American Eagle             (ae.com)

Beverage

1 Pepsi                                                (pepsiworld.com)
2 Gevalia                                             (gevalia.com)
3 Coca-Cola                                         (coca-cola.com)
4 Ocean Spray                                     (oceanspray.com)
5 Boca Java                                          (bocajava.com)
6 Folgers                                               (folgers.com)
7 Florida Department of Citrus                  (floridajuice.com)
8 Milk PEP                                             (bodybymilk.com)
9 Green Mountain Coffee Roasters          (greenmountaincoffee.com)
10 Starbucks                                        (starbucks.com)

Online Dating

1. Match.com                        (match.coM)   
2. Friendfinder                      (adultfriendfinder.com)
3. Spark Networks               (blacksingles.com)
4. eHarmony.com                (eharmony.com)
5. Reunion.com                   (reunion.com)
6. Cupid.com                        (cupid.com)
7. True Beginnings             (true.com)
8. Family Friends                 (singlesnet.com)
9. eCube Media                   (thirtyplusmatch.com)
10. Beliefnet                         (soulmatch.com)

Grocery

1 Pathmark           (pathmark.com)
2 Albertsons         (albertons.com)
3 Fresh Direct      (freshdirect.com)
4 Wegmans          (wegmans.com)
5 Peapod              (peapod.com)
6 Whole Foods    (wholefoodsmarket.com)
7 Shoprite             (shoprite.mywebgrocer.com)
8 Safeway             (safeway.com)
9 Lowes Foods    (lowesfoods.com)
10 Shaws              (shaws.com)

Hotels

1    Ritz Carlton                     (ritzcarlton.com)
2    Hampton Inn                  (hamptoninn.com)
3   Wyndham                        (wyndham.com)
4   Marriott                             (marriott.com)
5   Starwood Hotels            (starwoodhotels.com)
6   Choice Hotels                 (choicehotels.com)
7   Hilton                              (hiltonhhonors.com)
8   Best Western                  (bestwestern.com)
9    Hyatt                              (hyatt.com)
10    Accor Hotels                (accorhotels.com)

Congratulations to the winners. If you didn't make the list, drop me a line so I can make sure that you are on my radar for 2008.

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Thanks to Email Insider for this great article.

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a great holiday and that you are all off to a wonderful New Year.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but a colleague sent me an interesting article from MediaPost that seemed like a stimulating and provocative way to kick off 2008. The story is about social networks and the future of email. The writer, Max Kalehoff, defends email’s role in the much-hyped world of social networks. He notes that email is the engine behind many social networks, and that as young people mature, email may well replace social networks as their core communication tool.

To me, it’s more about the difference between business-to-business and consumer-to-consumer communications. In BtoB, the variety of traffic, the need for people to be able to contact you uninvited (e.g., “Hi, I’d love to buy your product”) and the age-old manage-your-life-via-email-folders make a strong case for email’s continued prevalence in business. For purely interpersonal email, however, social networks can provide a powerful alternative: no spam, better tracking of threads, control over who can contact you, deep context with the individuals you’re communicating with and so on. I don’t think everyone necessarily will use two email addresses for personal and business communications, nor will those who do necessarily use social networks exclusively. However, I do think we’ll continue to see a rise in social networks underlying our daily CtoC communications.

Either way, this line of thinking misses what may be the most interesting question of the day–what about business-to-consumer (BtoC) email? After all, this is how many of us make our living.

As a consumer, how will I want the companies that serve me as a consumer to communicate with me? Frankly, it seems like I’m going to want them to come through whichever channel I use for CtoC communications. This could seem threatening to our business but I believe it also represents a huge benefit. The fact is that consumer channels are diverging. In addition to social networks and email, there’s an increasing use of RSS and chat not to mention the explosively growing mobile channel. I believe that our industry is uniquely well-suited to provide the universal marketing dashboard/tool suite that enables marketers to reach their permission-based audience regardless of channel.

And, as some of you are well aware, many companies in our industry, including my company, Silverpop, are already well on their way. Speaking for the industry, I hope that 2008 will be looked back on as the year where email marketing took the next step.

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

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Although one of my resolutions this year was to watch less TV, NBC came right in my inbox with a reason to scrap that and watch more TV.

This email does “the fold” right. Why, you ask? Because I never looked at the rest of the email, but I do know that “American Gladiators” is on Sunday and “Celebrity Apprentice” is on tonight. And that was the main goal of this email, to get me to watch those shows.

This area is sometimes your only shot, the only thing they will see. Good images and great copy that get your message across are key. Anything that takes away from that, (like my favorite waste, banner ads), move it down or get it out.

Here’s to more “folds” like this in ‘08.

Thanks to Return on Subscriber for this great article.