Essential Guide to E-mail Marketing - Haymarket

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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
Q: How do large, complex email marketing programs ensure success? A:Silverpop Silverpop is the premiere enterprise-class email service provider. Just look at some of our key strengths: » Consistency Silverpop is the only company that has appeared as one of the top five enterprise-oriented ESPs in the JupiterResearch Buyer’s Guide for each of the last four consecutive years. » Sized for Enterprise Applications According to Forrester Research, Silverpop is among the top 10 largest enterprise-class* ESPs in the market. » The Company We Keep Our client roster includes some of the most impressive marketers and brands in the world. » Keeping Our Company We have the highest client retention rate among our enterprise-class competitors. » An Educated Marketer is Our Best Customer We have nearly 100,000 copies of our award-winning white papers and studies in circulation. *Enterprise-class is defined as sending at least 1 million pieces a month, on average, per customer. Come join savvy email marketers who have discovered the value of Silverpop. Visit our site for a free copy of any of our popular white papers or studies. www.silverpop.com Silverpop • 200 Galleria Parkway, Suite 750 • Atlanta, GA 30339 • 866-SILVPOP • www.silverpop.com silverpop_ad_dmnews.indd 1 9/12/2007 1:20:56 PM
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