Return Path Email Marketing Water Cooler

How I Spent My Early Summer: 7 Learnings from the OMS Tour

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:42:15 +0000

By Stephanie Miller
VP, Global Market Development

I spent much of May and June on the road in eight cities with the Online Marketing Summit Whistle Stop tour. It was great to get out and meet with so many smart digital marketers.

Here are seven observations/trends:

1. Email rocks. It's still a very important part of the online marketing mix. In fact, email this year has been elevated to a sort of celebrity status. Lots of executive attention due to the low cost and high return. It's the biggest revenue driver in the toolkit.

2. No amount of celebrity can trump the realities of lean budgets. Marketing budgets do not seem to be growing, but the investment continues to be strong with email and search, where the immediate revenue and return is. For email, there isn't so much innovation as preservation: Preserving our jobs and our team, growing our database assets, tying the various eCRM elements together (even loosely) and maintaining our list hygiene and deliverability budgets.

3. Top challenges around email are still deliverability and breaking through the clutter (relevancy). Especially with tight budgets. Marketers need immediate return.

4. Social marketing still gets all the hype, of course. But (dare I say it?!), it's lost a bit of shine. Every marketer is being asked about social marketing internally, and everyone needs to have a "testing" strategy. Yet, I'm also hearing a lot of dissatisfaction around the options available. "You want me to spend time on mobile or Twitter or Facebook, with uncertain return, when I have a big number to hit and reduced staff?"

The best solution is to find the points of synergy. Spending time on the email marketing program is smart, because that is how you hit your number and reach large numbers of customers where they spend time online. However, certainly some of them are also active on Twitter or Facebook. Look for the simple, occasional things to link your email program with social marketing. Consider having a once a month "Twhale" (Twitter Sale) that is promoted both in email and via Tweets. Conduct a weekly lifestyle or fun poll on Facebook and highlight the results in your email messages. Host monthly catalog cover tests on Facebook, your website or Linked In that link to the merchandise you are looking to move this month.

5. There is still a LOT of confusion between "delivered" as reported by most ESP systems (which is really your bounce rate) and inbox deliverability (meaning your message actually reaches the inbox and can earn a response). This is something that I blogged about last month (http://www.returnpath.net/blog/2009/06/delivered-may-not-mean-to-the.php) and is an issue that I'm working on with a group of industry volunteers through the DMA's Email Experience Council. We want to publish new definitions of these terms to eliminate confusion and ease benchmarking comparisons. (Email me if you want to participate! We'd love to have you.)

6. Data integration is finally starting to be possible, but too many marketers, even big brands, can't do it efficiently. The promise of truly end-to-end eCRM is very attractive, but remains elusive for most. A lesson for all vendors - we just have to make this easier, more automated and tied to stronger analytics.

7. My session was about how complaint and deliverability data are essential parts of a good email marketing optimization effort. You can't make good decisions about your program if you don't have access to inbox deliverability data. Period. Think about what happens when you see erratic or suddenly poor campaign results. What do we do? We blame the creative. "Oh, that offer must have been terrible." Or "Gee, subscribers must hate blue backgrounds." Actually, what is likely is that the messages never reached the inbox - they were blocked by the ISPs like Yahoo! or Gmail or Orange due to a weak sender reputation or an infrastructure glitch. If you don't have access to inbox deliverability data, ask us. You may also be able to get this data from your ESP, but it's not usually part of the standard reporting package. You have to ask for it.

If you would like a copy of the handout from my session, just email me!

Free webinar on going viral

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:45:15 +0000

By Stephanie Miller
VP, Global Market Development

Join me this Thursday at noon ET for a free webinar on taking your marketing campaigns viral. I'm on the panel lead by author/entrepreneur/guru Guy Kawasaki and featuring marketers from National Geographic and California Tortilla as well as word of mouth author Andy Sernovitz. It's all part of the SmartBrief BUZZ event happening all day in Washington, DC - with this particular panel being simulcast across the globe, free.

I will of course focus my comments around why email remains the killer app for viral campaigns. It's the center of the business day and the stickiest app on the web. If you've got a great viral story to tell, please let me know and I'll try to feature you! Just leave it in the comments below or email me.

Look forward to seeing you there.

Happier Holidays Begin Now

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:29:10 +0000

By Margaret Farmakis
Senior Director, Response Consulting

It's that time of year again. If you're an email marketer, you're probably not thinking about hosting a back yard BBQ or staking out a spot on your favorite beach. Your head (and your company's bottom line) is much more focused on what's going to be in Santa's sleigh this year and how you can use email to ensure that your customers will be decking their halls with your products this holiday season.

Most email marketers plan their holiday strategy in the summer, and this year is no different. However, this year does bring with it a greater set of challenges. The current economic climate is stagnant at best. While the financial pundits predict signs of an upturn any day now, that hasn't translated to consumer spending. Purse strings are tight and marketers are going to have to work harder than ever this year to stand out from the rest of the holiday inbox clutter, resonate with their customers and provide relevant messaging that encourages brand loyalty and purchasing activity.

So what can a forward-thinking marketer do? The first step is to break free from the same type of "Free Shipping" messaging that was sent last year (and possibly the year before that, and the year before that). While discounts and savings are certainly relevant this year, sending the same one-dimensional messaging throughout the holiday season will only lead to subscriber fatigue (and possibly opt-outs and complaints) and won't differentiate your brand from the competition. Instead, consider implementing these tips to help you stand out:

If you don't know what your subscribers want to receive from you this holiday season, ask! The pre-holiday season (basically now through early October) is a great time to send out a subscriber survey that gives you insight into how you can really resonate with your subscribers this holiday season. What did they like (or not like) about your emails last year, in terms of content, offers, and frequency? What do they need the most help with? How much are they planning to spend, and on who? How can you help get them into the holiday shopping spirit? Offering an incentive (like an entry into a holiday contest, prize give-away or a coupon code) could improve response rates, and once you've received answers and feedback, be sure to actually use this data to make adjustments to your email program strategy.
Count down the season with a special holiday series. Ask subscribers for permission to send a new gift-giving series. Send the series once a day for a week or once a week for a month. Content can include gift ideas for her, for him, for the kids, for a budget ($50 and below), for the hard-to-shop-for friend or family member, or feature non-traditional gifts or eco-friendly items. Track sign-up rates and subscriber behavior across the series. Do all messages in the series perform well? Which ones get the most clicks and conversions? Which categories generate the most interest? The least? Start promoting the series in your fall campaigns and make it easy to sign-up for. Be sure that you set clear expectations about what subscribers will be getting, when they'll get it and for how long.
Give a little something extra. While sending email is first and foremost about driving sales, show your subscribers that you can still embrace the true meaning of the holiday season. Inspire them to tap into their holiday spirit and connect with friends and family by featuring extra helpings of content in at least one promotion a week. Consider sending a favorite cookie recipe (and give subscribers a forum for sharing theirs), instructions for a family-friendly craft idea, how subscribers can start a new holiday tradition, ideas for festive activities, or a how-to guide for hosting a great party or mixing the perfect cocktail.

The options are endless, and a little content (a few bulleted tips, a short checklist, a three-step guide) will go a long way to ensuring that your subscribers appreciate (and anticipate) your messages in their inbox this holiday season.

Need More Email Revenue? Check Out These Ideas

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:53:36 +0000

By Margaret Farmakis
Senior Director, Response Consulting

I had the chance to speak at the DMA UK's Digital Planning Conference, "Exploding the Digital Myth" last week. The conference agenda was focused on helping marketers integrate the various digital technologies available to them to target consumers with the right offers at the right time and in the right medium. The second-half of this two-day conference will be held this Thursday in London. Click here for registration details.

On the agenda with me were six other speakers, all experts in the digital space with deep experience in producing successful digital marketing campaigns. I was particularly interested by what Mark Brill, CEO of txt4ever and Chair of the DMA's Mobile Council had to say about mobile marketing. He pointed out that mobile is an extremely versatile digital medium with the capacity to strengthen CRM, retention and brand loyalty initiatives by handling customer service issues, while also focusing on customer acquisition through targeted marketing messages, as well as aiding in commerce through the management of e-transactions. It's no surprise that mobile is so successful, especially with statistics like these:

6.5 billion SMS messages are sent in the UK each month. That's more than twice the number of UK Google searches.
Worldwide mobile penetration is estimated at 50%, which represents 3.3 billion subscriptions.
48% of 15-24 year-olds say SMS is their preferred method of written communication.

Another interesting presentation was given by Chris Arnold, Creative Director of Creative Orchestra. He referred to technology as the "fourth element" and spoke about the power that the digital medium has to change our perceptions of the world around us, our behaviours and our beliefs. It's no wonder why purchasing a newspaper and flipping through the Yellow Pages has become a thing of the past. As a result, marketers must adjust their strategies to embrace multi-channel communications focused on reaching the right customers at the right time with the right message and creating interactive experiences that entertain as well as resonate.

He shared some great examples of marketers who were at the forefront of the digital space, including CBS Outdoor who partnered with McCann Erickson to create the first-ever campaign to directly publish web content onto London Underground digital screens in real-time, and Esquire magazine which featured a digital cover and interactive electronic ad for Ford Flex on the inside cover of their 75th anniversary issue using a thin, digital paper with a built-in battery that keeps the display active for six months.

I followed Chris's presentation as the last speaker of the day, and while email may be perceived as less sexy then some of these innovative digital formats, it shouldn't be. Email is an effective and relevant digital medium that produces impressive ROI. My presentation focused on six ways that marketers can improve email ROI even further. These included:

1. Know where your email goes. Marketers can't fix what they don't know, and with 20% of commercial email not reaching the inbox, not knowing can cost you. Sent minus bounces does not equal your delivery rate. Unless you're using a seedlist-based delivery tool that can show you where you're getting bulked and blocked, you won't be able to fix your delivery rate.

2. Know your sender reputation. Every marketer has a sender reputation, whether you know it or not. Since knowing your reputation is important Return Path created the Sender Score, which is like a composite credit score for your email program. If it's under 30, you're probably experiencing delivery issues. Your Sender Score is based on the number of complaints your emails are generating (registered to the ISPs when a subscriber clicks the "this is spam" button), the quality of your list (the presence of spam trap addresses and unknown users ), your infrastructure (authenticating your mail server) and your sending permanence (maintaining a consistent volume over the same IPs). You can find out your Sender Score using our free tool at: www.senderscore.org.

3. Make a great first impression. According to our recent UK Subscriber Experience Study, 55% of UK marketers aren't sending a welcome message. This is a fundamental best practice that gives marketers the opportunity to instantly engage with a new subscriber and encourage them to start interacting (and purchasing). Two UK marketers who are doing this right are HMV (with a three-message welcome series) and Thomson (by using the subscribers post code to provide their local store's contact details in the welcome message). You can find these and other examples featured in our study.

4. Send triggered messages based on lifecycle position. There are certain points during the customer lifecycle where subscribers are primed and more likely to convert and make a purchase. Create triggered messages to deploy during those key stages and include relevant content and offers. Some examples include abandoned shopping cart emails (the subscriber has added items to their shopping cart but has navigated away from the website without making a purchase); items out of stock (the subscriber previously purchased an item that is running low in inventory or is being discontinued); wish list emails (an item on a subscriber's online wish list has been reduced); and reminder emails (the subscriber has asked to be reminded about purchasing a gift for a birthday or special occasion).

5. Reactivate non-responders. Permission isn't static and subscribers' lives and situations change. It's inevitable that some subscribers will lose interest in your email program. What can you do to prevent that? Don't leave money on the table. Send a triggered win-back campaign that will bring inactive subscribers back into the marketing fold. These inactive subscribers are past customers or potential customers who were once happy to be receiving your email. They represent a huge source of untapped revenue.

Want to find out what the sixth idea is? Check out the presentation here or the handout here. Want more great ideas for increasing your email marketing ROI? Learn how we can help.

Another Successful MAAWG

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:07:44 +0000

By J.D. Falk
Director of Product Strategy, Receiver Services

Over the past five years, the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) meetings have brought together many of the world's experts in email spam, botnets, cybercrime, and related issues. Last week, 270 participants from more than 19 countries met in Amsterdam, in The Netherlands.

Like nearly all computer security conferences, there's a strict policy that information shared within MAAWG is confidential -- so, unlike most marketing conferences, you won't see anyone twittering or blogging the highlights. (We got permission to post this.) A few participants reported on Facebook that there was a fascinating session about "[REDACTED]" (sic), but no other details have been made available. This difference in style shouldn't be surprising to anyone who has spent time with friendly, outgoing marketing conference regulars like our own Stephanie Miller, and with paranoid security and anti-spam experts like...um...I shouldn't mention their names. So if you want to learn what MAAWG's doing, the best option is to review the growing number of published documents.

During the past couple of gatherings, however, a few reporters have been permitted into specific sessions -- always with sufficient notice to the panelists and participants. Here are some of the resulting articles:

Financial Times: Secret war on web crooks revealed (may require registration)
PC World: ISPs Report Success in Fighting Malware-infeced PCs
CIO: Europe Looks to Step Up Fight Against Cybercrime
Network World: Security group converges to fight Internet abuse

Return Path has been an active member of MAAWG since 2006; Melinda Plemel, George Bilbrey, Alex Rubin, and I spoke in various sessions last week. Though MAAWG doesn't spend much time talking about deliverability, we're very interested in industry collaboration and cooperation towards making the internet -- and, for us, email -- safer and more reliable for everyone who uses it.

Delivered May Not Mean To the Inbox

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:33:17 +0000

By Stephanie Miller
VP, Global Market Development

It's no surprise that email marketers are often confused about the difference between a bounce rate and an inbox deliverability rate. Most email broadcast systems in the U.S. and Europe report something called "delivered." It's usually a pretty high number - like 98% or 93%. And your ESP would like you to judge them on that number, because it's really high, and it's easy for them to be confident that it will stay high.

The problem is that most vendors define "delivered" as the inverse of your bounce rate - the number of records on your file that either no longer exist (a hard bounce) or are having temporary delivery failure (a soft bounce), perhaps due to an out of office reply or a full mailbox or some glitch in the ISP server.

Most marketers who keep their lists clean and have good permission practices have a bounce rate of 1%-5%. Even if you outsource your bounce handling to your ESP, you are still responsible for how they manage the removal of names - so be sure you understand what they are doing on your behalf. Your bounce rate is a good number to have included in your reports. It tells you something about your list hygiene. But it tells you nothing about what happens to your emails. Moreover, your choice of ESP has little influence this number. It's all about the cleanliness of your file and if you remove hard bounces correctly and frequently.

What's the number you really need on every single metrics report you look at? How many messages actually reached the inbox so you can try to earn a response on them. Let's be honest. Very few subscribers will search for your message in their junk folder or contact you if they didn't receive it at all. You know about spam filters and probably know that some of your email gets lost. However, many marketers don't know the full extent of the problem. In fact, about 20% of email marketing messages globally never reach the inbox (source: Return Path client and ISP data).

Twenty percent is a big number. Imagine your revenue boost if all of your response metrics - opens, clicks, purchases, downloads, page views - went up by 20% this week.

The fact is irrefutable: You must reach the inbox if you want to earn a response.

Luckily, the factors that go into whether your messages reach the inbox are under your control as a marketer. You can improve your inbox deliverability rate by following best practices around complaints, permission, list hygiene, blacklists, frequency, relevancy and yes, bounce processing. Be sure that you know your inbox deliverability, and know it by campaign and by domain (e.g.: Yahoo! vs. Orange vs. T-Online and so on). Make sure you get this number in addition to whatever your ESP or MTA reports as "delivered."

Knowing that your bounce rate is low is a good thing. But it won't tell you whether or not your email is reaching the intended recipients. And this means that that decisions you are making to optimize response are based on faulty metrics. You think your click rate is low because the headline didn't work. But if a big percentage of your subscribers didn't receive your message then they couldn't possibly click. Your headline might be fine. It's your deliverability that is the problem.

Learn more about the factors that contribute to whether your messages actually reach the inbox in this Best Practice Guide

To find out how Return Path helps companies monitor their inbox deliverability and increase response rates, contact us.

Cool Email Idea: Re-Engagement Email Series

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:24:43 +0000

What: Re-engagement Email Series

Who: Reed Business Information

Why we love it: It's always tough to know what to do with email addresses that haven't shown any click activity over a long period of time, especially for publishers. Is the person at the other end happily reading each issue, but content to get the news in their inbox rather than clicking through for more? Or are the emails being deleted unread or, worse, going into an unattended inbox never to be read again? Reed Business Information decided to take action. They now send a triggered "subscription renewal" email to anyone who hasn't clicked within a certain period of time. The subscriber needs to click on the link in order to keep their subscription active. If they don't click on that message they get another message and another, of increasing urgency, until the "final notice" that results in a suppression of the email if no action is taken (see examples of two of the messages, below). The series is well-timed and does a good job selling the value of the subscription. Results have been impressive. Subscribers click-through at rates that exceed industry averages, particularly for the first several messages. In fact, the rates are high enough as to afford Reed confidence that anyone who hasn't clicked by the final message really isn't paying attention to their messages anymore and is best removed from the database.

What would make it better: Offer new options in the email. Without cluttering up the message, Reed could suggest new email offerings that might better meet the reader's needs, particularly for the emails later in this series.

Bonus points: With all email marketing it is on-going testing that wins the day. Reed is continually tweaking the copy, cadence, and more to optimize this series.

Check it out: Peruse Reed's many great email offerings here.

Think your email qualifies as a cool thing? Send it to us!

New Case Study: What do you do when you don't know what to do?

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:18:45 +0000

By Bonnie Malone
Director, Response Consulting

Think about when you were a child - it was nearly summer break and you couldn't wait to go to the pool! You were looking forward to spending countless hours splashing around with friends and the freedom of being out of school. There was just one problem: you didn't know how to swim. So, what did you do? Did you dive right in and hope for the best? Or, did you sign up for lessons with a swim instructor?

When it comes to email marketing, many companies dive in head first, only to realize after the fact that email is much more complex than clicking the "send" button. The smartest companies, like CIG, look to industry experts for strategy advice and education on email basics and best practices before they put the first toe in the water.

Return Path's Response Consulting team had the great pleasure of working with CIG recently to strategize and launch a brand new email marketing effort centered around the company's new loyalty program, The Protector Network. Because of CIG's steadfast eagerness to leverage the channel well - both for their business success and for their customer's experience - success of the new program was immediate. Read about it here.

Whether you are a new or established mailer, take a few minutes to read the case study, re-evaluate your approach, and see what nuggets you may be able to apply to improve the performance of your business.

What you don't know can hurt you in email marketing

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:34:43 +0000

By Stephanie Miller
VP, Global Market Development

Later this month, we will be releasing the results of a survey of European email marketers. However, one finding was so worrisome (and astonishing) that I wanted to gauge your reaction now. It seems that there is a woeful lack of knowledge and understanding among email marketers for how to get past the spam filters, reach the inbox and earn a response - what is known as "inbox deliverability."

According to our survey of several hundred European email marketers (which will be released in full later this year), too few marketers have deep enough knowledge about the causes of delivery failure and the rewards of success to manage and optimize their inbox delivery. While a majority of survey respondents (61%) believe that some messages may be blocked by the ISPs (e.g., BT, Free.fr, Neuf, Orange and T-Online), a full third are woefully ignorant of this reality: 26% said they do not believe messages get blocked at all, and 12% didn't know.

This is a fault in the email reporting. Marketers are right to worry, but they often don't have good data to back up those concerns, or better, correct any practices that cause failure. Globally, about 20% of permission-based marketing email never reaches the inbox - it gets dumped in the junk folder or simply goes missing. There's a big upside to correcting this deliverability failure. Lifting inbox deliverability lifts all other response metrics, too.

If you don't have access to your true inbox deliverability, ask your ESP for it! Marketers need this information to make good decisions about data sourcing, subscriber satisfaction and real response rates. Typically, what is reported as "delivered" by an ESP is only your bounce rate (those messages that return an error code for a non-existent or closed mailbox).

Reaching the inbox is not guaranteed. Be sure you have the data you need to optimize your email marketing efforts. Contact us to learn more about how Return Path can help.

Demand Accurate Deliverability Data!

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:00:30 +0000

By Dennis Malaspina
Regional Director

Here at Return Path we talk a lot about how good deliverability yields great response. The concept is so simple to us that we find it a little hard to believe that some marketers still don't monitor deliverability. Unfortunately, some marketers think they have all the information they need to accurately measure the success of their program, but the problem lies with the data they are receiving. It's just not complete. Most marketers are looking at simple bounce reports and making assumptions that their email reached the inbox. Unfortunately, the email that didn't bounce may be delivered to the junk folder or be blocked completely - a purgatory state that we call "missing."

To understand this problem, you need a comprehensive email delivery report to truly gauge the impact of your email marketing program. If your reports don't tell you what percentage of your email was placed in the inbox or junk folder and what percentage went missing in cyberspace, your analysis is flawed.

Wouldn't you like to know the truth about your email program? Consider this. On average 20% of permissioned email gets blocked by ISPs. If 20% of your email got junked at Yahoo!, wouldn't you like to know that so you can adjust your strategies? For example, if you were dedicating marketing budget to acquire Yahoo! addresses, wouldn't you stop until you could ensure delivery at Yahoo!?

And factoring in that same metric wouldn't your click through and conversion rates skew higher if you eliminated the 20% of subscribers that you knew never received your mail? By making that small adjustment to your methodology, you're actually doing better than you thought!

Now consider this. What if you could get that same 20% delivered directly to the inbox? What would your response metrics look like then?

The point here is to make sure you are getting the right data. You're being judged on the success of your email program. Therefore, you deserve to know where your email is going. Demand the right data. It's worth it.

To find out more about the data you need and other great ways to improve email marketing results, join me and resident response expert, Margaret Farmakis for a 45-minute webinar on Thursday, June 11 titled "No Inbox, No Click. Get IN. Get Clicked. Earn ROI." Register here.

OTA Proposes Online Trust Principles

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:10:41 +0000

By Tom Bartel
Chief Privacy Officer

In our recent webinar with the FTC we confirmed that the agency is open to continued industry self-regulation - as long as they see some action. I suspect that like me, most of us in the email industry prefer the self regulation ideal. We took the opportunity with our conversation with the FTC to point out many examples of how our industry works together to build and maintain trust in email with consumers.

We continue to have an opportunity as service providers and industry associations, to lead our industry by setting and adopting realistic best practices guidelines that businesses can implement. The email and advertising industries are graced with numerous agencies and associations doing just that, including the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), the Direct Marketing Association, the Email Experience Council, the Email Sender and Provider Coalition, Network Advertising Initiative and the Internet Advertising Bureau, to name a few. Each of these existing industry associations have produced best practice guidance that has resonated with us and helped us manage our businesses properly. The latest effort comes from the Online Trust Alliance (OTA) who has just released a timely draft of Online Trust Principles for public comment.

The thing about any set of principles, and these from the OTA are no exception, is that they are generally straightforward and obvious concepts. The challenge is in presenting them in a way that is clear and demonstrates they are both achievable and worth doing. Many of the principles are baseline practices we should be implementing anyway, and others raise the bar for us.

The trust principles proposed by the OTA have been organized into three areas:

1) Infrastructure, including protection of servers, web sites, desktops and mobile devices;
2) Data that includes both sensitive and Personally Identifiable Information (PII);
3) User Choice, Control and Privacy.

I like this approach. All of these areas have existing regulatory requirements, and/or new pending regulatory requirements, and all could have more future government regulation imposed. We are pleased to call out and support these principles as they represent exactly the kind of guidance that can point the way for the industry and ensure we are doing the right things for consumers and for the health of the online world. And of course we like the fact that the principles endorse use of certification programs like the one run by Return Path!

It takes everyone in the industry, whether innovators and solution providers, or users of those solutions, to develop and protect online trust for our industry. In that spirit, I encourage you to read through the principles and then take the opportunity to comment on them. Make sure your organization's voice is part of the conversation! That's industry working together. Also, if you are going to be in Amsterdam next week for the OTA Town Hall & Forum, be sure to stop by as our CEO Matt Blumberg moderates a panel on the principles and what self-regulation means to the online industry.

Of course you can also leave comments on this blog and we will be sure to share them with the folks at OTA.

Episode #9 of Reputation Radio is LIVE!

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:13:39 +0000

Our new episode of Reputation Radio is available now on iTunes.

In our first segment we interview Return Path's Margaret Farmakis and Stephanie Colleton about their study of email practices by some top US retailers. Then, in our Cool Email Ideas segment Margaret shares a great example of fun (and funny!) transactional messaging from CD Baby.

Is there someone in the email universe you think we should interview? Do you have a question about email deliverability or sender reputation>? Call 206-350-5512 and leave a message. Or, email us: podcast@returnpath.net. We might use your question in a future episode.

Listen to episode 9 now and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss a minute of Reputation Radio.

What's In a Name?

Wed, 27 May 2009 16:01:05 +0000

By Stephanie Miller
VP, Global Market Development

One of the great promises of email marketing is to have a one-to-one dialogue with your customers and prospects. Unfortunately, not many email marketers in either the U.S. or Europe today are actually delivering on that promise - most email marketing is mass marketing, with the same message going to everyone. However, since technology makes it easy to insert a first name salutation, some marketers and publishers try to give the appearance of friendliness and a personal touch.

Generally, I caution against using personalized salutations in broadcast email marketing. There are several things to consider:

1. Consumers know that you don't know them. Assuming too much familiarity too early in the relationship may have the reverse affect intended. Consumers may be off put by the forwardness, and tune out this message and all others to come. This is especially risky early in the relationship. Be careful with personalized salutations in welcome messages, as well. If the subscriber has only provided name and email address to sign up for email newsletters, then there is not much of a relationship there yet. Once you've earned the relationship (e.g.: after a purchase), then personalization may be more welcome. An order confirmation may be more personal, as you can genuinely thank the person for their business.

2. Match the tone to the relationship. There are some instances when personalization makes sense. If a new customer has just registered for a new service, then using both the first name and surname, "Dear Thomas Smith" may be a way to acknowledge that a form was filled out, but not get too intimate too quickly. Similarly, using the first name in a subject line or headline for a publisher can work if the content has been customized. For example, "Thomas, Your Custom News Alert is Ready." In both of these situations, the subscriber knows you collected their name, and since you are delivering a custom service, the personalization works well.

3. Localise. Some cultures and audiences do not welcome personal salutations. For examples, Brits generally like to see their first name, but Germans do not, and Americans often find this practice spammy. Australians seem to love it. The French are more reserved unless there is a real relationship, built on transactions and several interactions. We've seen personalized event invitations do better in France than in Britain, but personalized discount offers work well in both Britain and the U.S.

4. Manage the technology. There are too many examples of "Dear Smith" or mis-spelled names or "Dear UNKNOWN." Be sure you test your technology thoroughly. If there is even a small risk, I recommend avoiding it. Better safe than sorry.

There are painful penalties for not getting personalization right. Messages that appear spammy or spoofed, or even poorly formatted, are more likely to generate complaints to the ISPs like Hotmail, Orange, Yahoo! and T-Mobile. Those complaints depress your sender reputation and may result in all your messages being blocked as spam. You may also find your "Dear Sample" messages laughed about on blogs or Twitter. But most of all, you run the risk of poorly implemented or inauthentic personalization disappointing your customers and lowering your brand value.

If you use someone's name, be sure your relationship is genuine - customers can tell when a machine calls them by their first name. More than just a salutation, however, think about how to adjust content so that it feels more custom to each recipient. Move content up and down your template for different audiences, featuring the products, promotions and articles that appeal to them most. That takes more effort, but it is true personalization, will be most welcome and most significantly improve your response and revenues.

Is Email Impacting the Environment?

Wed, 20 May 2009 19:38:00 +0000

By Larry Ellis
Manager of Business Development

I recently ran across an article in the New York Times titled Spam and Global Warming?. Trust me, I was skeptical about this, how could email really be impacting our environment? The article was extracted from The Carbon Footprint of E-mail Spam Report published by McAfee which had some interesting information about the environmental impact of unwanted email.

I have always believed that email is generally free for the sender, but expensive for the recipient. But thinking about it as an irresponsible use of global resources was something that I just hadn't done before. Unfortunately, McAfee's research methodology has been called into question - seriously by spamnation and hysterically in a column by Ken Magill.

But even if spam does not contribute to global warming - at least not in a way that can be quantified - there is no question that sending unwanted email is huge waste of social and personal resources.

What's really ironic about the McAfee study is that for a long time Return Path and other email companies have argued that email is "green" as compared with direct mail. In fact, we wrote a post on Earth day about going green with email. But we've also been long time proponents of targeted, relevant, valuable messages. Wasted marketing is wasteful -- whether it's paper or digital. All marketing consumes resources -- including human resources -- so working harder at making those resources pay off is important. No matter what the medium.

Permission is Not Enough

Mon, 18 May 2009 16:37:08 +0000

By Stephanie Miller
VP, Global Market Development

A digital marketer in France said to me the other day, "I don't need to worry about inbox deliverability, I have permission." I was shocked that this myth could be so firmly held by an otherwise smart and savvy email marketer. "Do you stop trying to earn a second sale just because you made the first?" I said. "Doesn't what you send and how you treat subscribers after they give you permission have anything to do with subscriber satisfaction?" He paused, and then agreed.

After all, it's subscriber satisfaction, not permission, that earns our place in the inbox and gives us a chance for a response and revenue. And subscriber satisfaction is all about the experience we create with every message, over time.

Consider that:
1. Subscribers forget just seconds after they have signed up that they gave you permission. Many will deny they ever provided permission at all, even when presented with the time, date and IP address associated with their permission grant.

2. Permission files get complaints, too, which are measured every time a subscriber hits the Report Spam button in the ISP email interface, like those at BT, FastWeb, Yahoo!, Gmail, Orange or others. When a message arrives from a brand they don't recognize or if the message has no value, subscribers will complain - permission granted or not.

3. Permission is not a factor considered by ISPs like Yahoo! or Gmail when determining your sender reputation, the only thing that determines if your messages will consistently reach the inbox. Your reputation is measured by your Sender Score and reflects your sending practices for relevance, frequency, list cleanliness, complaints and infrastructure.

Thus, permission is just a starting point. It's certainly important - and required by law throughout Europe and in other countries around the world. We recommend it to all marketers as part of a holistic commitment to provide great subscriber experiences. Permission helps set expectations with your subscribers. Providing an email address to a company or brand is like making an agreement. Subscribers agree to give us their private email address and in exchange, we promise to send them something relevant, interesting or valuable. By setting expectations up front, subscribers are more likely to welcome and engage with marketing email messages.

The alternative is higher ISP complaints (and depressed inbox deliverability) as well as brand degradation and reduced subscriber satisfaction.

Simply, opt in does not replace relevancy and keeping your promises. Here are a few important checks for your own permission practices today:

• Make the permission grant very clear. State the frequency (weekly, daily, etc.).

• Confirm the permission grant on the landing page or order confirmation page. Don't be shy or stealth about it. If your email program is worth signing up for, then celebrate it.

• Send a welcome message as soon as possible, and definitely within 48 hours. Restate the permission grant and make it easy to change options or unsubscribe. Rather to have them opt out now than complain later.

• If you send something new, be it a one-time mailing or a whole new newsletter, be sure to make it really clear that you are sending subscribers something outside the original permission grant, and give them a very visible and prominent chance to unsubscribe. Do this for several messages in a row, not just once. I know it feels counter-intuitive to encourage an unsubscribe - but really what you are doing is re-confirming the permission grant.

• Use a preference center. Give subscribers choices about what and how often they hear from you. Also, having choices can "flip" an unsubscribe request into a more satisfying email relationship program.