MediaPost | Email Insider

The Inattentive Consumer: How To Break Through To Mobile Subscribers

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:00:04 -0400

As marketers, we've put a lot of focus on building mobile programs over the past few years. We've learned that 80% of smartphone users won't leave home without their smartphones, creating an abundance of opportunity for us to reach subscribers anytime, anywhere. However, we also know that 86% of smartphone users are multitasking when they're on their phones (rather than giving their undivided attention to our carefully crafted marketing campaigns). People are inundated with information every day but can only process so much of it. They're consciously and unconsciously prioritizing the information coming at them. How does our brand fit into their experience?

Mother's Day Hangover

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:15:04 -0400

Post-Mother's Day, and we made it through. While not quite the holiday retail rush that the last quarter of the year brings, it was still a ubiquitous time of gift-giving. As we build marketing programs and aspire to build customer engagements that promote repeated purchase habits, we have to continually question the way we do things.

Parenting Advice For Email Marketers

Thu, 09 May 2013 15:04:00 -0400

As a parent, I recognized from day 1 that everyone has an opinion about how to care for my children (and discipline them, and dress them and cut their hair -- ugh). Thankfully, I also recognized that I can choose to internalize the advice (or not) and apply it, alter it accordingly or disregard it completely - based on my unique situation. And that's exactly the same frame of mind all email marketers should take with the advice they receive about their programs.

Phishers' Kryptonite: Big Data

Wed, 08 May 2013 09:29:22 -0400

Over the last few years, spam has become a "largely solved" problem. The average consumer sees very little spam in the inbox (although there is *a lot* of spam at the gateway). Many of the criminals that had been focused on spam have moved on to phishing. Volumes of phishing attacks are up more than 150% year over year, according to RSA and the Anti-Phishing Working Group. Just as spam had a very negative impact on email marketers - inboxes crowed with spam drive lower response rates - phishing has a very negative impact on email effectiveness. According to surveys, 40% of victims of phishing attacks are much less likely to interact with the phished brand. Just as with spam, our goal is to make phishing a "largely solved" problem.

Go Ahead -- Send More Emails

Fri, 03 May 2013 00:04:10 -0400

In fact, send a lot more emails. There, I said it. I feel better now.

The Truths Your Email Metrics Don't Reveal

Wed, 01 May 2013 11:09:22 -0400

When you read the latest email statistic as it comes through your news feed each day, it conjures up an image of the consumer behavior the data point depicts. For example, when you read that 70% of big brands' opens in March occurred on mobile devices, is it not inevitable that your mind creates an image of a person (dressed exactly the way you picture your ideal customer) peering intently at a mobile phone with the very expression that your last message was crafted to elicit? Also, he's standing. My imaginary mobile consumers are always standing.

Email Before Breakfast -- And Other Trends

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:43:17 -0400

I always say, I get more done before 9 a.m. than I do the rest of the day. But with email, it's a continual stream: it's the first thing many check before they brush their teeth, have coffee, or breakfast.

Sending A Welcome Series Is The New Onboarding Differentiator

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:24:30 -0400

The beginning of an email marketing relationship is the most important. Not only are subscribers more engaged and more likely to convert, but optimizing the experience of a subscriber's first month or so on your list can extend the overall time they remain engaged with your brand via email.

Updating Email Acquisitions? Focus Further Down The Funnel

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 21:01:00 -0400

For many companies, revenue or conversion activity mirrors something similar to the 80/20 rule, with 20% of their customers/subscribers contributing 80% of revenue. No matter whether your company sees 90% of your revenue coming from 10% of customers or 70/30, a small percentage of your database is likely doing all the work. What implications does this have for your email-marketing program? If you are like a lot of marketers, you focus on filling the top of the funnel in an economical manner and increasing your mailing frequency to your entire database. Why not? This approach works to deliver more revenue. But if that sounds like your approach to email marketing, perhaps it's time to rethink how you define and approach database growth to increase your percentage of higher-value repeat customers.

How To Design Mobile Emails

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:00:03 -0400

Mobile-enabled email has truly been the topic du jour for 2013 so far. A recent article says it best in its title: "Mobile Email Opens Now 41% & on Pace to Surpass PC by End of 2013." Whoa, that's huge!. So that's the "why" of using mobile email; now let's focus on the "how." There are three components that marketers should consider when creating mobile emails:

What's Next When Email Doesn't Work

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:36:53 -0400

A hundred emails are sent, and 95-98 of them get delivered. 30-40 are actually seen, 10-15 of those on a mobile device. 5-15 of those that received it will click through and if you are lucky, 1-2 will buy something. This process, repeated weekly over a year, can add up to a lot of effort to reach less than half your audience. Do you know what your aggregate reach is for this email audience? If so, what are you doing with the other half that just don't engage, or engage infrequently?

Avoiding Common Email Marketing Faux Pas

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:22:15 -0400

As email marketers, we are guests in the inbox of our customers. We have been invited to enter into their personal world and, much as you do when visiting a friend at home, you need to respect their personal space. Taking the analogy even further, when you move and enter a new neighborhood (which I did not too terribly long ago), it's important to get to know and understand your neighbors. There's already an existing dynamic there; having a firm understanding of it helps to determine the role you play in that ecosystem.

Who Are You Really Competing With?

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 08:46:58 -0400

When I've argued in the past that marketers need to understand more about their competitors' email programs, I inadvertently left out one small detail: Many don't know who their competitors really are. They think they do, but things are different in the inbox.

Is Your Email Marketing Program Stuck In A Rut?

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:09:30 -0400

In my meetings with marketers, a common frustration I hear is that they lack the budget, people and time to get things done. Well, I've been hearing these complaints over and over - and have uttered them myself - in my nearly 30 years in marketing. But you have to do more than complain about your challenges to move your program ahead. Take charge instead. Create a new way of thinking among your email teams and reset the process for getting things done. Below is my prescription for getting off the hamster wheel, shaking things up and taking your marketing program to a higher level:

The Prisoner's Dilemma That Is Email Marketing

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 11:56:48 -0400

As consumers, we all get too much email. That means as marketers, at least collectively, we are sending too much. Now I know it's easy for any brand to point at its own ROI metrics and insist that email is still working very well. Yet you only need to look at the proliferation of inbox management tools to see a universe of email users struggling under the deluge. Our metrics tell us one thing, but studying user behavior provides some contradictory insights on subscribers' appetites for just one more message.

Birthdays And Other Important Dates

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 20:19:54 -0400

How can your brand make the most of birthdays: a prime opportunity to do something thoughtful and premeditated, and connect a consumer to your brand? Is yours one of the 50 birthday emails that are sitting in someone's inbox the morning of? Here are a few ideas for planning your next-generation birthday or recognition program:

March Madness Sweet 16: Your Email Testing Brackets

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:51:00 -0400

March Madness is in full swing for all those college basketball fans out there. I know this because I think my husband may be the biggest Indiana Hoosiers fan I have ever known (and according to him, they are going to slaughter Syracuse). Of course I've spent many a night with ESPN and their bracketology assessments running in the background -- and have heard more Charles Barkley-isms than a girl can handle. So what do I do to cope? I turn it into email marketing fodder. So friends, welcome to Email Testing Brackets!

The Fundamental Imperatives Of Email Marketing Rules

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 07:45:19 -0400

Back in November of 2010, I wrote an Email Insider column titled "'Best Practices' Are Dead," in which I argued that the term "best practices" has been much abused and was too broad to cover what I called the never-break "ethical imperatives" and the okay-but-unwise-to-break "recommended practices." I didn't know it at the time, but that column would be the genesis of my new book, "Email Marketing Rules: How to Wear a White Hat, Shoot Straight, and Win Hearts," which discusses 108 email marketing best practices.

Shifts Of Change: The New Email Paradigm

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:05:56 -0400

Having observed the email marketing industry the last 15 years, I've come to the conclusion that our beloved channel is entering its next phase: adulthood. Although I foresee no really revolutionary changes that would immediately disrupt email marketing, several shifts are happening now that require your attention and action. These shifts are helping to create a new email-marketing paradigm with six essential buckets of ideas:

Video In Email, Take Three

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:49:00 -0400

If you ask the email marketing industry's founding fathers about video in email, they'll hark back to a time in the late '90s when sending email with embedded video was no problem. There may not have been too many marketers producing video at the time, but if they did, and wanted to deliver it via email, they had nothing to worry about. By the early 2000s, everything had changed. The rapid rise of email-borne security threats like spam, phishing, and malicious code got ISPs nervous about allowing images to be displayed in email -- let alone more complex content like video. And so, for almost a decade, email was resigned to static images, even as video on the Web was exploding with the advent of popular services like Hulu.com and YouTube.

Taking The Pain Out Of Creating Creative Briefs

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:49:19 -0400

When working with a creative team to get your marketing messages across, it's essential to get your brief spot-on. And yet this often doesn't happen. Creative teams find themselves struggling to interpret a brand's vision, and marketing decision-makers find themselves unsatisfied with the creative execution. Based on my experience, it's crucial to spend the time to take a few steps back and look at the bigger picture before diving into creative brief-making.

Innovation: Hardest Thing To Get Right

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 09:52:00 -0400

Innovation is not just new technology or new ways to do things. True innovation must be marketed, or adoption will lag and scale in your operation will never have a chance.

Could Your Email Program Benefit From A Diet?

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:45:37 -0400

So it may be a little clichd, but with March and shorts weather finally upon us, it is definitely time to hit the gym and a diet (for me, at least, it's my annual routine). This led me to spend some time last night re-familiarizing myself with the Weight Watchers PointsPlus system. I figured that by counting points for every ounce of ice cream (uhhhh, fruits and veggies) I put in my mouth, this act should somehow curb my bad behavior. If counting points works for modifying bad eating behavior, what could it do for email? In order to find out, I am assigning points to email tactics that marketers use every day.

Marketing In The Age Of The Inbox Within The Inbox

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 09:22:38 -0400

Message prioritization and foldering is becoming the typical email experience, as big mailbox providers and independent developers introduce ways to organize and unclutter mailboxes. Many take different approaches to reach a similar solution: essentially an inbox within the inbox. (The primary example of this is Gmail's Priority Inbox.) Does that mean commercial senders who've worked to maintain deliverability can now find their messages shut out of subscribers' email sanctum sanctorum? In some cases, yes, but smart marketers already have the knowledge they need to succeed in the automated inbox.

How To Find Good Email Marketing Help

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:11:00 -0400

It's no secret among email marketers that good help is hard to find. My clients ask me to help them fill positions; my friends in the biz ask me for references; and on more than one occasion, I've received emails from strangers asking for introductions or suggestions. Recently, I received such an email from someone offering her services should my company need an extra freelance resource. I was able to refer her to another friend looking to hire; the fit was good, and everyone was happy. But those stories are few and far between. More often than not there are more companies looking to hire experienced email marketers, than experienced email marketers looking for jobs.

Are You And Management Speaking The Same Language?

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 10:54:03 -0500

Email marketers love to argue -- or rather, to discuss and share their opinions. From pre-checked boxes to the value of open rates, everyone has an opinion.Still, inside your organization, opinions and misunderstandings often contribute to projects being derailed, never getting off the ground, or being focused on the wrong result.

Email's Role In The User Experience

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 12:47:12 -0500

Why is it OK for brands with graphically modern, visually arresting, personality-forward sites to confirm an email subscription using a simple text email with robotic copy? How often are visitors to thoughtfully merchandised online stores invited back with altogether ham-fisted promotions in their inboxes? In how many meetings have marketers waved off email as pass and turned the group's collective attention to a brand new social site they read about on Mashable last week?

Are We 'Pushing' The Messaging Threshold?

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 08:43:48 -0500

Email has a significant impact on the everyday consumer. Yet are we pushing the threshold with new forms of messaging?

In Defense Of 'Low' Open Rates

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 10:46:06 -0500

No one wrings their hands over email marketing's stellar ROI, but I'm surprised by how often a big deal is made out of "low" open, click and conversion rates. Everything is about perspective. And that's absolutely the case when looking at open rates, which can be highly misleading, especially when compared over long periods of time or between different companies.

Why (And How) Marketers Should Follow DMARC

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:20:08 -0500

A little over a year ago, a who's who of leading Internet players announced the Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) working group, an industry-based approach to combating spam, phishing and other forms of messaging abuse. And on Feb. 6, its one-year anniversary, DMARC.org announced a rather amazing accomplishment: The DMARC standard now protects almost two-thirds of the world's 3.3 billion consumer mailboxes worldwide, and was responsible for blocking 325 million unauthenticated messages in November and December 2012 alone.