Now in its fourth year, the National Client Email Marketing Report is the most widely read and distributed of all EMC reports. Over 150 marketers completed the 2009 survey and with the support of a media partner, New Media Age, we are aiming to increase this to over 200 in 2010.

For the 2010 report there are multiple sponsorship opportunities. We will provide each sponsor with a bespoke report that is co-branded with their logo and perspective which can be distributed to prospects and clients.

To find out more information on this opportunity please contact Ross Caddy on 020 7291 3383 or ross.caddy@dma.org.uk

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 Many years ago, I read a short story by legendary Sci-Fi author Arthur C. Clarke called “The 9 Billion Names of God.” The story revolved around an order of Tibetan monks, who had determined that there were 9 Billion possible variations on how to write the name of God and, that once this task had been completed, mankind’s reason for existence would be fulfilled.

Not surprisingly, the monks were finding that this task was taking a long time to achieve by hand. Leveraging the newly available technology of the time, they commissioned an IBM mainframe ( this was 1953 ), and 3 months later the job was done.

It was after the admittedly sceptical IBM engineers had decommissioned the computer, and were heading back down the mountain trail to the nearest airport, that they suddenly notice that “overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.”

I was thinking of this story while I was visually inspecting a new client’s email list prior to broadcast, and starting to wonder precisely how many ways there are that people can mis-spell Hotmail ! So I ran the file through our suite of email address hygiene applications,  and the answer would seem to be close to 100 – and those are just the ones where I had at least 90% confidence that Hotmail is the domain that they were actually intended to represent.

There was “htomail.com”. And “hotamil.com”. And “homtail.com”. And “hotmali.co.uk”. And “ohtmail.com”. And . . . – the list is ( nearly ) endless. And that’s before we even start to consider the likes of “btinterent.com”, “ayhoo.co.uk”, “ntlwolrd.com”, “tisclai.co.uk”, and “gogolemail.com” ( all real examples, by the way ! ).

Sometimes these errors are made on purpose, by people who are responding to a call to action ( “give us your email address and you can download our 2 for 1 voucher” ). Consumers are increasingly savvy, and want the reward without exposing themselves to a blizzard of e-marketing activity. This could point to issues with engagement – another topic in its own right. However, these errors are more often the result of genuine errors where people either can’t type or can’t spell ( or both – as an aside, this has been recognised by the developers of www.fatfingers.com which finds mis-spelled entries on eBay such as “nitendo wee” where bid activity is – not surprisingly – much lower, so the chance of a successful bid is correspondingly higher . . . ! ).

Anyway, back to “hootmail” – oops ! While it’s ( almost ) funny, this also represents a serious problem for e-marketers. Bounce activity is one of the core metrics that feeds into the calculation of a sender’s reputation data. While the vast majority of these addresses will be filtered out after the first time that they have been broadcast to, you’ve still got to generate the bounce notifications first ! e-Marketers have traditionally dealt with this by using a separate IP address for the welcome email / first broadcast, but the increasing use of domain-based reputation means that this isn’t a perfect solution either.

Because of this, it’s starting to place a premium on making sure that the address is being captured correctly in the first place. That means using a technique such as double-entry, so that if our fat-fingered friends get it wrong the first time, it will be flagged up when they enter the address correctly ( hopefully ) the second time. Alternatively, to use a validated opt-in process that generates a confirmation email and only activates the account once the confirmation email has delivered successfully.

However, even then you are not completely out of the woods, because some of the incorrect spellings are actually valid domains, a fact that major ISPs such as Hotmail have recognised, and which they are now monitoring as a new form of spam trap. What makes this particularly difficult is the fact that these records won’t usually generate a bounce notification, so you could end up perpetuating the problem by sending to them many times over – and ending up with a mail block every time. So the only effective way of dealing with these addresses once they are on your database is to monitor your response behaviour, and screen out all non-responders on a regular basis ( which is actually part of the best practice that you should be applying anyway ! ).

However, a better way of dealing with this problem is to pre-empt it by pre-screening your data prior to broadcast. As a business, we have developed an email address hygiene routine that applies fuzzy-matching logic to test supplied domain names against known valid domain names, and to then filter out all matches where there is statistical confidence about the likelihood of the supplied domain being an incorrectly spelt version of the valid domain. The match rates aren’t massive – on average, about half of one percent – but that’s still 50 records in a list of 100,000 addresses, which based on our experience is definitely more than enough to trigger a block against you if they are not removed.

So the key learning here is that the bar for good email data hygiene is being set increasingly higher. Standard bounce management processes are certainly no longer enough – validation of email addresses at point of capture, pre-screening to remove known errors, and recency analysis of open and click behaviour are all now playing a crucial role in the delivery of successful email broadcasts. Implement them now, and the stars will continue to shine on your e-marketing program !

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Whilst everyone is full of excitement around the New Year and making predictions for 2010 I’d like to take time and ponder the DMA National Client Email Marketing Report (free for DMA members) that came out late in 2009. This is the companion piece for the quarterly surveys and tracks only the clients (or the actual marketers) viewpoint rather than their technology providers.

There is much to digest in the report and I recommend it to one and all. The thing that is most interesting for me to read is the actual concerns that marketers have and they have several it seems. The specific question was worded; “Which of the following are you most concerned about?” Top of the list for both B2C and B2B marketers alike was deliverability; top of the list means the client marketer’s number one concern. That’s right, you read it correctly, the number one concern for email marketers was deliverability and that is ahead of concerns such as clicks and conversion rates.

Although it may sound obvious but simply put without deliverability, and very specifically delivery to the recipients inbox those click and conversation rates will be depressed. Indeed the ROI of the overall marketing programme will be less than it could be.

Yet deliverability remains for some a confusing term, what does it mean? Who is actually responsible? How can I reliably measure and improve upon it? What can I do to improve upon it? Wait a minute are my messages even reaching the inboxes?

Whilst I don’t plan to tackle these questions in this post, I will make some predictions on the topic of deliverability for 2010. Firstly getting messages delivered to the inbox is, for many reasons not going to get any easier. Why? Because as ISPs get better at identifying truly criminal spam, they will focus more attention on the email practices of legitimate mailers. And as they rely more on trusted whitelists and start using engagement metrics to determine if mail is actually wanted, marketers will have to work harder to achieve relevancy in the inbox by developing loyal subscribers that regularly open, click and convert. Secondly, and following on from this, monitoring email deliverability will become more important than ever for all marketers. Those who want to outperform their competitors, cut through inbox clutter and earn higher response rates will want to understand which factors drive good deliverability and demand greater insight into whether their messages actually arrived in the inbox.

The data point they will now covet is the Inbox Placement Rate (IPR) a metric that is fast becoming widespread as marketers become savvier about measuring true ROI and a metric marketers are more frequently asking their technology providers to provide in order to gain full visibility of their email marketing programme. If you are a marketer and would like to find out more, why not take our quick three question survey here.

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Welcome to the January 2010 issue of Infobox. We have now set foot in what is ostensibly the email marketing industry’s second decade of existence. As we entered the new millennium, few could have predicted just how email would quickly evolve to become one of the preeminent marketing channels. Technological developments aside, what has been most impressive is how sophisticated the medium has become in such a short period of time. What the digital world will look like ten years hence is anyone’s guess, but I’m confident that the next decade will see email marketing continue to be at the forefront of marketing innovation.

This month, Infobox features articles on how the ’spray and pray’ approach used by some email marketers needs to be retired and make way for the three Ts: tailored, targeted, timely; taking a level-headed approach to integrating email  with social media marketing; and a case study on how Apple uses email to effectively up- and cross-sell.

Don’t forget that we’d also like to see you in the real world at our series of Email Customer Lifecycle seminars during 2010. On 3 March, we’ll be looking at conversion – how to earn that click and open and drive revenue. Tickets for the first Lifecycle sold out, so to guarantee your seat today, please make your booking here.

The 3 T’s – Tailored, Targeted, Timely by Jonathan Burston

Email as a social stepping stone by Simone Barratt

Campaigns we like: Apple by Tink Taylor

Read the full issue of Infobox here

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 The wintry weather has given us all plenty of un-expected “down-time”, whether waiting in hope on snowy station platforms or huddled around an open fire with our families. Rather than succumb to the clutches of Cabin Fever I have been thinking about the “big wins” that treating customers differently delivers email marketers. With that in mind, here are some suggestions for treating people differently to reflect their unique registration, transaction and click-stream profiles.

Acquisition tools – if you’re renting data, ask the list owner what variables they hold and then deliver different versions of the same message. For BtoB that should be different subject lines, opening paragraphs and calls to action based on “job function” or “industry sector”. For consumers you may know their lifestyle and affluence from geo-demographic variables that list owners like Acxiom hold…have different propositions for less affluent and older prospects or use a different creative for young professionals. Let you imagination run free!

Conversion - as digital marketers we sit on the most valuable real-time prospect data so let’s use it. Who clicked on an email link but did not complete a successful outcome? Who looked at deep product pages on your site but did not buy? These re-marketing campaigns should deliver 4-16 better conversion rates than one-size-fits-all messages so start building them.

Retention – send different message programmes to your newer customers, or have a different tone of voice for purchasers of specific products. Build “personas” to help with your tone of voice, imagery and calls to action.

Re-activation – how do you know when you’ve lost a customer? Probably when they’ve not bought for a specific time period. So develop a “win back” programme with the first message triggered by a “date of last purchase is more than 60 days”. And be relevant…”we’ve noticed that you have not bought from us for a little while….” is a good start.

These are certainly not new or radical ideas, but it is surprising how few campaigns in my in-box are trying to follow these rules. Now that the dust has settled at the end of a demanding 2009, and whilst UK PLC is slumbering in icy grasp of winter, we should be using this precious time to develop relevant, engaging segmentation and personalisation strategies. Happy New Year!

Chris Combemale and David Hughes, Co-founders The Email Academy

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The Daily Telegraph runs a Business Club feature every Tuesday, in a which a company presents a problem that they are currently grappling with, and a panel of experts then provides their recommendations on what steps should be taken to resolve the problem in question. The week before last’s edition was a particularly interesting one for our industry – Via-Vox ( the company behind the Powwownow conference calling solution ) has a significant issue with email deliverability. The full story can be found at :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/businessclub/technology/6589059/Business-Club-Conference-call-company-Via-Vox-losing-customers-due-to-junk-email-filters.html

This is obviously a major problem for Via-Vox. It is not just a question of their marketing emails ending up in the junk folder. Even their transactional emails – vital in terms of carrying login and pin number details for an upcoming conference call – are regularly failing to deliver.

The real eye-opener for me was the responses from the “expert” panel. Some of the points that they raised ( or failed to raise ) that particularly stuck in my mind included :

• One of the panel made the statement that email deliverability is a subject that “most companies are only just waking up to.” That left me gob-smacked – I’ve been involved in email marketing for the past 10 years, and I can’t recall a time when delivery rates were not a key success metric for e-marketers.
• Not one of them touched on the subject of sender reputation. Given that a good set of sender reputation metrics now plays a role in three out of every four decisions that are taken on whether to process or reject inbound emails, all of the other recommendations that were put forward ( authentication, spam filter testing, embedded images ) – while important – are secondary. Sender reputation trumps them all in terms of importance for email deliverability.
• While all 3 members of the panel referenced the importance of email authentication, not one of them mentioned Domain Keys Identified Mail ( DKIM ) – something of an oversight given that particular importance of this form of authentication when broadcasting to BT/Yahoo! addresses.
• There was also quite a lot of focus on “spam trigger words”. In my mind, this is an increasingly irrelevant subject. Key spam filters such as Spam Assassin and Barracuda operate weighted scoring systems that will not reject an email simply because it identifies a text string as having spam-like attributes. In any case, the knowledge bases that contain these words are continually updated, so there isn’t really such a thing as a definitive list. And the chance of a transactional email containing enough spam trigger words to cause the email to be blocked is remote to say the least . . . !

I spoke to the Technical Director at Via-Vox after the article had been published, and he was in agreement, saying “we’ve already implemented most of this – they haven’t really told us anything we didn’t already know. It was a good article from a PR point of view !”

What this really flags up for me is the completely “moving goalposts” nature of the technological issues that affect the email marketing industry. Intelligence that was 100% correct 12 months ago is quickly out of date, and it is a major challenge for e-marketers to stay abreast of the key factors that ensure that their campaigns will be successful. While there is no shortage of white papers and best practice documents that are available for them to refer to, they are quickly out of date.

The DMA’s Email Marketing Council recognises this. The existing deliverability white paper ( published in 2007 ) is currently being revised by the EMC’s Legal, Data & Best Practice hub. It will be a considerably different document to its predecessor in terms of the issues that it focuses on, as will be seen when it is published in January 2010, and the intention is for it to provide its readers with common-sense, practical, and ( most importantly ) up to date guidance on how to deal effectively with the latest email deliverability obstacles.

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When the lead goes cold – what to do with inactive e-mail segments

The festive season is here again and the ‘inbox’ is bursting with invitations and enticing offers from a wide variety of email marketers.  As the number of shopping days diminish and the pace of life, for the consumer, intensifies the easy option for retailers would be to increase email frequency in the hope of achieving the highest return on investment.  However, the intelligent e-marketer knows that by segmenting ‘inactive’ consumers it is possible to highlight where new opportunities lie.

Before considering tactics for inactive segments it is important to define exactly what is meant by ‘inactive’. We live in a multi-channel world where consumers are able to connect with you by many different mediums, so while e-mail, for example, may not be particularly effective they may happily interact with you on any number of others. It is essential to take a holistic view – activity from customers or prospects on other channels should have a direct bearing on your email tactics.

When does inactivity become ‘inactive’?  How dead is dead?

The first question to consider is: how long does a recipient have to be inactive before you officially classify them as ‘inactive’? One company’s ‘inactive’ can be another’s ‘active’. The key criteria for your decision should be an understanding of where a customer is in the buying cycle. If it typically takes your customers 30 days to make a purchase then your definition of inactive will be substantially different from a company that’s buying cycle is 60 days. It may also be appropriate to consider how many different spells of inactivity are required before you officially categorise someone.

On a more technical level, be sure that everyone in your team knows what inactive means to your organisation. Not opened? Not clicked? Not purchased? Most important, though, be sure to double check that the e-mails are actually being delivered in the first place! With careful planning and understanding, it is always possible to predict and prevent inactives in the first place.

Change e-mail content for the inactive segment

Re-engaging inactive customers presents a very convenient opportunity to try new content tactics such as adding interactive elements or experimenting with a new format. The first thing you should do, however, is test new subject lines – any other changes will be irrelevant if recipients don’t open the mail in the first place.

If something new manages to rekindle the interest of a certain percentage of inactive customers, it may be worth testing it against the rest of your e-mail list. Of course, if these changes have no impact, there’s no down side as you haven’t exposed your most faithful and profitable customers to the changes.

Invite inactive customers to update their profile

If an inactive customer hasn’t evaluated her profile in a while, it could well be the reason your e-mails have gone unnoticed. Send an e-mail that encourages inactive customers to review their profile information. Let them know that updating profiles will help you deliver more relevant e-mail. It’s an easy and inexpensive way to re-engage inactive customers with your brand.

Experiment with e-mail test streams and zero frequency

Another option is to suppress the inactive customer list and re-introduce it when a new e-mail communication stream with a compelling offer goes live. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and inactive customers may well be apt to open or click on e-mail when they realise they haven’t heard from you in a while. One test that we conducted recently showed that eight to nine per cent of inactive customers opened or clicked on an e-mail after they were reintroduced into the communication stream.

Survey customers about current e-mail content

It may sound simple but the most effective ideas often are. An e-mail survey to inactive customers can help determine the root of the problem. Did the e-mails they were receiving not meet the customer’s expectations? Was the content not relevant to their interests? Were they receiving emails too often or too infrequently? The answers you receive may allow you to engage inactive customers with an alternative programme, or at least understand what improvements or changes need to be made to current e-mail programmes.

Any of these re-activation programmes can be implemented as a trigger simply by targeting segments that have been inactive for a year, six months, or three months – the earlier the better. As said earlier though, never forget that we live in a multichannel world. If you find that none of these tactics is working, look to contact the individual on another channel – there’s no point in fretting or wasting time if you can quickly determine whether an address is incorrect and really ‘dead’ or simply inactive and a prime opportunity for re-engagement.

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With another Royal Mail strike looming just as the busy shopping season gears up, it’s understandable for retailers to be in a bit of a panic. Having signed off months ago on glossy Christmas catalogues, marketing managers will be left wondering when customers will actually see the results of their hard work (and high printing costs). Will they remain in postal sorting limbo, will they ever be delivered and when? Online retailers will be worried as well: consumers are going to be less inclined to shop online if they can’t have a guaranteed shipping or delivery date for their items.

As if this year wasn’t hard enough on businesses trying to keep a positive balance sheet and stay upbeat amidst the dire financial and economic predictions, now this. So what’s a retailer to do? Where can a retail marketer turn during a quarter so crucial to the company’s bottom line? The answer is email. Now, more than ever. Here are three ideas for surviving, and thriving, the Christmas crunch:

• Build an integrated marketing strategy. Use email to celebrate your printed marketing materials – celebrate what you’ve printed now; there’s no point waiting for them to be delivered to post boxes. Create an online version of your Christmas catalogues and circulars and invite your subscribers to check out what’s on offer this Christmas season. Encourage a sense of exclusivity by offering only your email subscribers a special incentive to start shopping from the online catalogue with a discount or voucher.
• Keep the lines of communication open. Email is a great way to instantly alert your customers and prospects that you’re proactively addressing their concerns about shipping and delivery delays. Email subscribers are primed to engage with your brand. They’ve purchased from you in the past or have requested to receive your email updates. Let them know you’re aware of the effects the strike may have on their brand experience, and if you are taking alternative steps to improve that, let them know. Have you expanded store shopping hours? Are you offering free in-store pickups? Do you have an order tracking functionality that updates their order status in real time? Are you offering in-time-for-Christmas delivery guarantees? Let your email subscribers know about it.
• Drive store traffic. If the crowds on the High Street are any indication, shoppers are already out in droves. Use email to promote your store events, sales and promotions. Offer vouchers that email subscribers can use in store and be sure to include a ready-to-print voucher in the email. All the subscriber needs to do is print off the email, rather than write down or remember a special promotion code or click to a landing page to get a print-ready format. Use the data you collected during the sign-up process to make your store promotions even more relevant. If you have subscribers’ post codes, feature their local store’s postal address and hours of business in the email. Consider hosting a special after-hours makeover session or festive cocktail party for your loyalty credit card customers or frequent buyers, and send these coveted invitations by email.
• Spread the word. Email is a fantastic channel for viral marketing efforts and the Christmas season is a great time of year to send an interactive game or quiz that subscribers can pass along and share with friends and family, thereby expanding your brand footprint with each forwarded message. Have a social media presence? Use your email messages to feature links to your pages and invite subscribers to become fans or followers. Encourage social media activity with exclusive prize draws or games only accessible through your network pages.

Now, more than ever, email is the channel to turn to for ROI, branding and relationship building. There’s never been a better time to press “send”.

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