Essential Guide to E-mail Marketing - Haymarket

18 FUNDAMENTALS DM News • E-Mail Marketing Guide 2007
ones, including unsubscribes and spam complaints.
Check your mailing list for a pulse. Chances are, half your mailing
list is inactive. Determine how many addresses have not responded
for a set amount of time, say six months. Send a message to those
addresses, inviting them to opt in again, update their preferences or
take advantage of a special offer. Those who don’t respond can be
safely deleted.
Dave Dabbah is vice president of marketing at Lyris Technologies. He can be
reached at ddabbah@lyris.com.
So you want to reach
the inbox?
BY JARED REITZIN
In the constantly changing world of e-mail marketing, reaching
the inbox has become a lot more complicated than just pressing
“send.” For most marketers, sending successful e-mail campaigns
has become a tedious process with numerous hoops to jump
through. The continuing prevalence of spam has led to more and
more “false positives,” or legitimate e-mail messages that get incorrectly
labeled as spam and therefore never reach their intended
audience. According to Return Path, an e-mail performance solutions
company, more than 20 percent of permission-based e-mails
go undelivered. This accounts for
billions of dollars in lost revenue.
The rules keep changing and
marketers need to adapt, or it’s
going to hurt their pocket books.
There have been big changes in
how ISPs identify spam. In the
past, spam filters would determine
whether a message was
legitimate based on its content.
The more suspicious the content,
the higher the potential for a
Jared Reitzin
spam score. However, the ISPs
MobileStorm
soon realized that technique was
insufficient, so they now take a more comprehensive approach,
analyzing the sending IP address and the sender itself. This has
given rise to the concept of sender reputation.
So what exactly is sender reputation? It goes beyond a mere
message check or spam filtering to investigate your overall status
as a sender. Below are the four most important things you need to
take care of if you want to be a reputable e-mail marketer:
Complaints Complaints logged against your campaigns are a key
component to your sender reputation. Sending e-mails too often,
or sending messages with irrelevant content and adding people
without their knowledge, are a few ways to get in trouble. Avoid
complaints by practicing permission, setting expectations and
understanding your audience.
List Cleansing It is important to have a list that has been built
naturally and with the subscribers’ permission. It needs to be
maintained and scrubbed for invalid e-mail addresses, dead e-mail
addresses and, most important, unsubscribe requests and complaints.
Consistent List/Brand Matching A common mistake by e-mail
marketers is to assume that because you have captured an e-mail
ESSENTIAL GUIDE
address for one brand, you have permission to e-mail them about
another. You earn your reputation by keeping every brand separate
and distinct from each other. Include this policy in your privacy
agreements.
Relevant Messages The days of “batch and blast” are long gone.
Nowadays, it is all about making sure your intended recipients
find the campaign relevant. If you are a pet supply store, don’t
send dog food offers to parakeet owners. A solid e-mail marketing
platform that allows you to create targets will go a long way for
your reputation.
Inbox delivery is a complex and organic process, so you must be
vigilant about ensuring you know the rules and follow them both
today and as they continue to evolve.
Jared Reitzin is CEO and founder of mobileStorm. He can be reached at
jared@mobilestorm.com.
Build your house list the
right way
BY JERE DOYLE
It’s no secret that the key to building a successful brand is to
build solid relationships with your customers. Building and corresponding
with your in-house list can be one of the most effective
marketing tactics there is.
What is surprising, however, is that many brand marketers are
using (sometimes unknowingly) poor practices in building their inhouse
e-mail list via online customer acquisition. These bad practices
often include the selling or sharing of consumer data to third
parties, irresponsible use of e-mail (such as bombarding consumers
with too many messages) and forced registration.
Initially, some companies may see a quick surge in profits by following
these irresponsible practices, but they will ultimately feel
negative effects on profits as lead quality suffers. Poor lead quality
results in poor ROI and will ultimately harm a brand’s reputation
as consumer trust is lost. The practices mentioned above also
reflect poorly on the lead generation industry as a whole, which is
why leaders in this industry need to be more vocal when breaches
occur.
Not only are unethical e-mail practices harmful for brands, they
are a direct violation of consumer
privacy and trust. Once a consumer’s
online experience has
been tainted, he is more likely to
think twice about shopping, participating
in communities or sharing
his personal information on
the Web. Consumers are savvy,
and if they feel violated they will
turn to a new source for the
information they need. It then
becomes very difficult, and often
Jere Doyle
impossible, to regain their trust.
Prospectiv
This is why it’s imperative to
follow best practices that build trust among your customers and
promote high standards within the industry:
■ Allow consumers to opt in for each offer. Let them choose what
information and promotions they would like to receive one at a