There’s a famous proverb which suggests that to truly understand how people function, you should walk a mile in their shoes.

I think this is something that applies to email marketing in a big way. To really be successful, marketers should put themselves in the shoes of their recipients. This will help understand what the experience is like on their end, allowing future messages to be improved and results increased.

Here are two elements of the user lifecycle where email marketers should put themselves in the shoes of their recipients:

1. The sign-up form

Once you realise the possibilities of a good email marketing strategy, it’s easy to get a bit lost on a power trip of segmentation and personalisation, ruthlessly demanding more and more data from registrants to try and get more value from them.

It’s true that being able to target and segment campaigns effectively and efficiently is a noble goal. Getting the right data is imperative, but thinking about precisely what you need them to input is just as important. Are all the questions you ask necessary and relevant when you send out your campaigns?  Remember to test your sign up page: how does the number of questions, the format of the questions (check boxes, drop downs) and wording of the questions effect sign up rates?

2. Sharing is caring

In all the presentations I’ve ever given over the years, I’ve always asked attendees if they use the ‘forward to a friend’ link as a recipient. A handful people – usually 5% – put their hands up. However, when asked ‘who has ever used it to actually forward a message to more than five people’, no one has ever left their hand up. This is clearly a much more personal one to one communication tool. Therefore, as an email marketer, it’s important for us to consider why people use such links and when.

Maybe the ‘forward to a friend’ link just isn’t as popular as it used to be. Look at how the world has changed; since the rise in popularity of social media and its integration into all our work, is email the first medium we think of when sharing content?

One thing I love about social sharing via email is that it is a fantastic tool to explain the benefits of targeting and relevancy. By ‘putting ourselves in the user’s shoes’, as marketers, we should know that when a recipient finds content relevant, compelling and stimulating, they’re more like to share it. Often this can take time, effort and budget. But the size of the prize is what makes people’s eyes light up. In my personal world, with just three quick clicks, to Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin, I can share a message with thousands of my friends and followers.

Build your links and lists

The engagement stats and additional reach these messages have can be phenomenal. It appears that my friends can’t help but click on the content I have shared with them. But why? Its simple: they are in my social network because they share common interests.

Therefore make sure your email creative includes a link back to your sign up page. It’s a great way to build your list with new subscribers that are interested in your products and services.

Nielsen Norman’s Email Newsletter Usability Report is out. You can read the Executive Summary here. Some of the key findings are as follows:

• Email newsletters invoke more emotional responses from users than websites.
• 69% of users said they look forward to receiving at least one newsletter
• Most said newsletters had become part of their routine
• Many users refrain from unsubscribing from newsletters with the four main reasons being:

1. Emotional attachment to the newsletter: Users said that it didn’t feel good to sever the relationship, even when they no longer read the mailings.
2. Low expectations for the website’s usability: People assumed that it would be difficult and time-consuming to unsubscribe, so they postponed the job for another day and simply deleted the newsletter’s current issue.
3. Fear that unsubscribing would fail and would subject the user to even more mail: Many people have heard that asking to get off spam lists only confirms the validity of their email address to the spammers; this notion has become an urban legend that contaminates users’ mental model of legitimate newsletter publishers as well.
4. Easier options: It’s often easier to simply use a spam-blocking feature to stop future issues than it is to unsubscribe.

• Mobiles are being used to kill time. Many users say they read for longer on a  mobile than on their desktop.
• Therefore newsletters and landing pages should be optimized for mobile reading wherever possible
• Users admit to clicking ‘spam’ instead of unsubscribing when they tire of a newsletter
• Users spent an average of 51 seconds on reading the newsletters in their inbox
• Newsletters must be designed to be scanned. Only 19% of emails are read thoroughly
• 40% of users cited the following four reasons for valuing a newsletter:

1. Informs of work-related news or company actions (mentioned by two-thirds of users)
2. Reports prices/sales
3. Informs about personal interests/hobbies
4. Informs about events/deadlines/important dates

• Email Newsletters are a better way to stay in touch with customers than Facebook or Twitter
• When asked to ‘receive updates’, 90% elected to receive a newsletter over 10% throgh Facebook.
• 50% of users said that newsletters affected their B2B purchases (occasionally)
• Newsletters must be seen as a long term investment
• Finally, when asked why they liked newsletters more than one third replied:

1. Email newsletters are informative and keep users up-to-date (mentioned by two-thirds of the users).
2. Email newsletters are convenient and are delivered straight to the user’s information central; they then require no further action beyond a simple click.
3. Email newsletters have timely information and real-time delivery.

This week I have watched with interest as one of my colleagues on the Email Marketing Council asked a discussion board about innovation in email.  So far the group has remained fairly quiet.

So when it came to writing this blog piece I thought I would challenge myself to come up with some innovative ideas that you might want to apply to your existing email program.  This is definitely outside of my comfort zone as I always like to make recommendations that are backed up by cold hard facts and metrics but here goes…

Innovate your email program

1.  In the retail sector, how about sending emails out to let recipients know that their local store no longer has a product in stock but it can still be ordered online if they are quick.  This could be based on products they have browsed for previously.  This would have been very useful for me just before the Christmas period!

2.  Depending on the products you sell and the time of year, it might also be an interesting idea to revise the online check out process and ask if the product is being purchased as a gift.  If it is, why not use “Send to a Friend” functionality to send the recipient of the gift information / instructions about their present.  This not only adds value but also helps you to collect data on the end customer.

3. In the hospitality sector why not collect data on all attendees at the event rather than just the organiser.  In this way you can quickly grow your email database and send targeted emails to gather information on food choice and post event feedback.

4. Because I never seem to have enough time to plan my holidays as well as I would like I never seem to find out about a local event until I return from the holiday.  Personalised emails could be used to let holiday goers know what is happening before they actually arrive at their holiday destination.

5. I am increasingly seeing examples of shopping cart recovery emails (an email to tell a recipient they have left a product in their shopping cart) but what about adding a second cycle to these messages.  For instance if the recipient still hasn’t purchased 48 hours later, send an email to let them know how they can get help with their order or reminding them of the benefits of your service?

6. Moving away from campaign ideas, perhaps you could find out exactly what system your recipients receive their email messages on i.e. Outlook 2003.  This information could then be used to tailor your content accordingly, for example sending video content just to those people where you know it will work correctly.

7. Local government or utility providers could give each customer their own email address (housenumber@streetname.com).  This could remain with the property and ensures you always have the correct email address for the property.

8. In the B2B sector you could ask your subscribers to create a folder just to put your businesses emails into (and provide instructions on how to ensure your messages filter into the folder).  In this way your company name and industry expertise will be easy to find whenever your customer or prospects need it.

Hopefully my eight “ideas” above will have given you some food for thought.  What innovations are you planning on adding to your email program this year?

If you are an SME B2B, or communicate with this sector, you’ll want to attend this DMA UK event. The report will be launched and available to attendees. (Findings include “marketing by email is now a firm favourite”).

UK SME Tracking Study Launch, London, Wednesday, 24 November, 5.30pm – 8.30pm

You are cordially invited to the launch of the inaugural UK SME Tracking Study.

Taking the pulse of the SME B2B sector, the inaugural UK SME Tracking Study provides detailed analysis of the health and wealth of the sector, as well as its current business and marketing trends.

This event will give you a key insight into:

• How SME’s plan to spend their budgets on marketing
• What particular channels/activities SME’s plan to spend their budgets on
• What type of communication they want (DM/Email/Telephone etc)
• What day of the week they want to be communicated on
• What time of the day they would prefer to receive communications
• What particular type of messages would solicit the best and worst response
• What key products or services SME’s want to buy in the immediate future

This evening event is also a great opportunity for you to network with you industry peers. For more details please click here.

If you or your colleagues would like to attend this free event, please RSVP today to book your place.

Email errors can be  a turnoff – don’t let mistakes affect your response

Even in the age of textspeak, instant messaging and social media chitchat, people still care about quality control in communications of an even slightly more formal nature. They may write “lol” and “CU tonite @ 8” on facebook or their mobile, but they don’t like it when spelling mistakes and errors creep into a letter from the energy company or even a restaurant menu. Or, come to that, a marketing email.

In these contexts, poor quality control can quickly undermine brand credibility and – as research repeatedly shows – even lead to loss of business. After all, would you give someone a job who couldn’t spell your name?

Many emails err alike…

Here at Alchemy Worx, we’re up to our necks in email. Hundreds of messages flood into our accounts every day as we monitor what’s going on in the world of email marketing. And guess what? Loads of them contain errors. And loads of those errors are the same. And all of them could easily be avoided.

To err is only human, of course, and often only too understandable. For most marketers, an email send means tight deadlines, quick turnarounds and last-minute changes. All of which can open the door to errors. But none of that will count for anything if a subscriber leaves your list in disgust because you’ve emailed them twice. And got their gender wrong both times. About an offer that’s already expired…

Catching the glitches

So what can be done? Increasingly ESPs are adding tools and functionality to help you avoid sending poorly constructed emails (after all poor emails can upset ISPs – relationships that good ESP rely on). But there are still some areas that even the best software struggles to catch. With our help, you can still fix that glitch and save the day…

How to avoid the top 6 mistakes your Email platform won’t spot

Tailoring your content according to what you know about subscribers can boost response. Here’s what you need to know…

What’s the difference between dynamic content and personalisation?

The difference lies in how the email is built. Personalisation inserts data that is held in your database directly into the content of your email. Dynamic content, on the other hand, is where blocks of tailored content hosted by you or your ESP are inserted according to specific rules set by you.

Give me some examples

For a personalised campaign, you might include details such as your subscriber’s name, address, date of birth – any data that you hold, in the format in which it’s stored – so long as it’s relevant or adds value to your message.

Using dynamic content, meanwhile, you might opt to send different content elements to different subscriber groups that meet certain criteria such as:

• interests: a DIY store might send one content element to customers who browsed garden  furniture, and something different to those that browsed soft furnishings
• geography an international campaign might send content in different languages to users in different countries
• gender you might send one image to males, and a different image to females
• customer type for instance, sending high-value offers to big spenders and lower-value deals to lower-spending customers

Personalisation? Don’t people see through that “Dear <First Name>” stuff nowadays?

It’s true that simply personalising a message with a user’s name doesn’t have the impact it once did. Any message that just tops a completely generic message with a user name is likely to disappoint, and consumers are wary of supposedly personalised messages that turn out to be spam.

However, with a little lateral thinking, there are lots of easy ways to use personalisation to improve campaign performance such as:

• add credibility to welcome messages by including the source of the registration you’re confirming or
• include the Account Manager’s name or signature in B2B campaigns.

Better still, many platforms also enable you to set up dynamic personalisation – enabling you to build rules around personalisation. This gives you some of the advantages of dynamic content without the complexity, such as a rule like: “if ‘first name’ blank, use ‘customer’”.

Isn’t creating dynamic content very complicated?

If you haven’t created dynamic campaigns before, your first campaign can seem complicated, but the effort is well worth it: dynamic campaigns can save you significant amounts of time and resource in the long run.

Once you have your rules set up, you can often save them for future use, making ongoing dynamic campaigns only slightly more time consuming to set up and test.

To get you started, follow these steps:

• Create a test list with internal contacts or seed addresses with data that mirrors the data you hold for your subscribers. Then have a play with your platform.
• Start off simply with live data. Use just one dynamic content segment and a couple of rules, then you can build on your campaign’s complexity from there.
• Consider outsourcing the set-up and deployment of dynamic campaigns, so freeing you up to spend more time on generating content and strategies for future campaigns.

Checklist for developing campaigns with tailored content

Personalisation and dynamic content can provide a significant uplift to your campaign performance when done well; get it wrong, however, and you can harm your brand and reputation. Here’s what you need to get right:

• Check the quality of your data – are all fields complete and accurate?
• Make sure you’ve thought through the logic properly, and specify default values where appropriate.
• Test your campaigns thoroughly. With some ESPs you can test before deployment using live data; otherwise, create some dummy data and generate a test mailing to that list before your final deployment.
• Check your hosted version: whether personalisation or dynamic content carry through to your hosted version will depend on your platform.
• Find out what reporting is available for dynamic/personalised campaigns. Even if your platform cannot report on the performance of different content segments, you should still be able to run reports offline, though this will incur additional time and resource.
• Don’t personalise for the sake of it: only include information that is relevant and valuable to subscribers
• Always test the performance of your personalised campaigns against less targeted campaigns: sometimes broad offerings will generate unexpected sales, after all the fact a customer is male does not preclude them from buying a dress for a friend, relation or even for themselves.

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

 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

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.

Welcome to the November 2009 issue of Infobox. As autumn has well and truly arrived, kick back, warm your hands in the glow of your PC, sip from a mug of hot chocolate and read about the latest news and views from the world of email marketing. This month, Infobox features articles on whether or not the Royal Mail postal strikes will have a positive effect on the email sector; taking a consumer’s eye view at email marketing messages; advice on when to use the word ‘free’ in subject lines; and a review of a recent email marketing campaign that’s impressed us. For DMA members’ eyes only, this month’s special report looks at the effectiveness of using navigation bars in email templates.

Don’t forget that we’d also like to see you in the real world at the first of our four Email Customer Lifecycle seminars. On November 10, we will be addressing tactics for growing your lists with active and engaged subscribers. Tickets are going fast for this free morning seminar in central London. To guarantee your seat today, please make your booking here.

Also, now is your chance to take part in fast.MAP/DMA’s 2009 Marketing GAP study. This vital piece of research measures the gulf between what consumers think of marketing messages and what marketers think they think. Sounds confusing? Well it’s not, and if you take part then you’ll be entered into a prize draw to win £250 for your favourite charity. To start this short survey, please click here.

Our articles this month include:

Postal strike – good or bad news for email marketing? Simon Bowker

Research from my inbox…James Bunting

Free email marketing deliverability advice – when to use ‘FREE’ Chris Combemale

Campaigns we like – Firebox denise cox