Register now for this virtual summit and learn all about the latest trends and best practices in email marketing without leaving your desk!

And it won’t cost you a penny/eurocent/dollarcent/… 

The DMA is proud to be a sponsor of this, the very first edition of the International Email Marketing Summit.

Not only will you be inspired by the latest tactics that work but you’ll also take away a list of action items you can implement immediately.

Featured speakers

• Dela Quist, Alchemy Worx
• Dave Chaffey, Smart Insights
• Tamara Gielen, Plan to Engage
• Denise Cox, Newsweaver
• Riaz Kanani, Alchemy Worx
• Kath Pay, Plan to Engage
• Arianna Galante, ContactLab
• Tom Bailey, eCircle
• James Bunting, Communicator

What’s on the agenda?

• Beyond just selling: engaging with your subscribers
• 7 reasons why your subscribers don’t respond
• Tips & tricks for designing emails for a mobile audience
• Inactive Subscribers: Prospects or Problem?
• Creating a successful content strategy for email marketing: 8 Easy Steps
• and lots more…

As an email marketing consultant working with clients to improve the performance of their email programs, I have spent a lot of time helping brands change the practices that negatively impact their inbox placement and response rates. While this is both challenging and interesting work, it’s also refreshing to shift focus and appreciate some great practices that marketers are using to stand out from the “grey mail” and marketing clutter, target their subscribers using accurate data and provide relevant messaging that drives engagement.

I recently had the opportunity to experience these practices first-hand as an email subscriber when I made the move from London to San Francisco. My first week in my new city was spent running around taking care of the numerous tasks that come with a move, including the essential (buying a couch) and the mundane (learning how to program my new DVR to record my favourite shows). As I simultaneously added and crossed-off items to my to-do list, I found myself appreciating any effort made on the part of the brands I was interacting with to help me stay organized, sane and appreciated as a customer.

Here are three companies that did just that:

• Crate & Barrel – After purchasing furniture online (and visiting my local store to debate the finer points of curtain accessories with a few very patient sales people – single rods, double rods, hooks, clips, rings, anyone?) and receiving my delivery, an email arrived in my inbox a few days later asking me to rate my recent purchases and write a review of my shopping experience. The message included images of each of the items I’d purchased and a customized landing page with related items for my consideration. A few days later I received a phone call from a Crate & Barrel customer service representative asking me if I was satisfied with my recent order. I appreciated the multi-channel outreach, which came across as sincere rather than pushy, and the related product suggestions listed on the landing page enticed me to buy a discounted item that I had forgotten to order previously.
• Verizon Wireless – When I moved to the U.K. from New York City roughly four years ago, I decided to keep my U.S. cell phone and number active for the trips I knew I’d be making back to the U.S. Lots of friends and family members didn’t have international calling plans so it made it easier for them to call me. In addition, I’d had my cell phone number since college and it was one of the few things I stubbornly refused to give up as part of my transatlantic move. When I made the move back to the US in March, I wound up using my U.S. number again constantly. As a result, I racked up some serious overages on a plan that was originally downgraded for less usage. After the increased bill was generated, I received a message from Verizon letting me know that selecting a different plan could save me money. The message listed the overage charges (divided into voice, text and data categories) with a call-to-action to view various plan options and do an account analysis to determine the best one based on my ongoing usage.  The subject line, “See how much you could have saved last month,” certainly got my attention as moving isn’t particularly bank-balance friendly. The process was simple and easy and the new plan was put into place immediately.
• Zipcar – One of the conveniences of living in a big city is not having to rely on a car to get around. However, something inevitably comes up where one is necessary. Zipcar offers the perfect solution. It’s similar to the “Boris Bike” scheme in London, except with cars. Members pay a small annual fee and then an hourly rate to pick up one of hundreds of cars available at their nearest location, which in my case is across the street. Gas and insurance are included and members can choose from multiple models, whether it’s a hybrid, convertible, hatchback or SUV. After retaking my written driver’s test (as required by the state of California), I applied for a Zipcar membership and received a very helpful welcome message. It was personalized with my name, updated me on the status of my application, told me about the next steps in the process, and provided me with information about my local Zipcar office if I wanted to pick up my membership card in person. Once my membership was approved, I received another email letting me know I was officially a member and alerting me to the fact that my card was in the mail. The message also included instructions for activating my card and a link to view frequently asked questions about the process for reserving a car. There were also calls-to-action for a mobile app and information to contact Customer Service and follow Zipcar on Facebook and Twitter.

A large part of my job is helping brands achieve their marketing and business goals through email, while simultaneously providing value for subscribers. It was great to experience first-hand how smart marketers are using the channel to improve their customers’ lives, one relevant message at a time.

In the last quarter LinkedIn earned $33.3 million from Premium membership subscriptions. That’s 20% of LinkedIn revenues and its grown 87% in the last year.

Persuading more of the 90% of free members to upgrade is a major revenue opportunity for LinkedIn.

LinkedIn are using email to convert members, sending a free one month trial offer. I am a LinkedIn member and after many years still on the free package. As an early adopter of LinkedIn this makes me a target for Premium membership upgrade.

Just as I was putting the finishing touches to a new email copy & creative training deck of 87 slides a LinkedIn upgrade offer dropped into my inbox. It demonstrates several of the principles I’d just covered in the slide deck.

LinkedIn have optimised

What happened next was even better. I found a copy of the same offer from last November in one of my email folders (LinkedIn have tried a few times to convert me).

The difference between the email now and from last November is an excellent case study in email optimisation, so let me share the key elements of what changed and why.

Before

After

Another smart move

Not only is LinkedIn (a social network) smart enough to use email to drive revenue but they also send an urgency based reminder email shortly before the offer is due to expire. A second urgency based email to follow-up on an original offer always improves conversion.

In this issue of Infobox, there’s a lot more to integrating social media and email than just dropping in a few “share to social” icons. Dave Chaffey of SmartInsights, comes up with some inspiring examples of channel integration from the likes of uSwitch and Mothercare.

Dave Chaffey is among the speakers at a free, virtual International email marketing summit, which takes place on 16 May and is sponsored by the DMA.

Elsewhere in this issue, Simon Hill from Extravision analyses email deliverability across the globe and I reveal why I look forward to receiving e-newsletters from The Innocent Group in Campaigns we like.

Kath Pay, editor, Infobox
Co-Founder, Plan to Engage

PS – want articles like these delivered to your inbox twice a month? Then sign up to Infobox here!

It’ll surprise no-one to hear that smartphones and mobile devices are changing the way we receive email. Research suggests 63% of women and 71% of men access email services on their mobile device.

But it’s important to remember this isn’t just a platform used on the bus or in shops. There’s just as much chance you’ll find someone surfing through emails on their mobile while at home on the sofa.

It is perhaps the most ubiquitous way of consuming email in the modern day. So it’s important to take it seriously.

Whether that means making sure emails render properly on mobile devices or ensuring a smooth transition when recipients click through to a mobile landing page, mobile integration can’t be just an afterthought – it needs to be discussed and considered at a strategic level.

Use what you already know

One piece of good news in considering mobile email is that you don’t have to invest in new technologies to get ahead of the game- you’ve got them already. Many email service providers will be able to tell you the exact devices your recipients are using to read your emails and help you focus your attention on certain screen sizes or platforms.

Once you have this baseline understanding, the other important signal to look for is whether this audience is growing and how fast. The opportunity once you have this group segmented is to send them different emails optimised for the platform and test open rates and reactions.

A big part of the potential success here will depend on your business – what works for a retailer may not be so effective if you are a massive B2B services house. But there’s only one way to find out and get ahead of the game.

Responsive design is the future of email

Even better than a separate version though is a relatively old trick, stolen from the world of website development, called responsive design. This allows you to intelligently juggle two style sheets within the same email, but it’s not often that I see this used in all the emails I receive.

It means you can have a more balanced layout specific to the screen size your recipients are using, without obscuring any important calls to action or rendering emails disproportionately.

The best of both worlds.

The last mile

What often lets recipients down is the user experience when they click through to the landing page.

Of course, responsive design could also provide a solution here on your mobile landing page conundrum. Many email marketers get everything right when it comes to the message itself, only to be let down when mobile recipients click through and find a landing page that is impossible to view without some radical scrolling.

It has been argued that perhaps for certain customer databases, mobile opens are not that high or that the rendering of emails on mobile email clients isn’t that bad on templates around 600 pixels wide. However, I would go the extra mile and take a serious look at media queries and responsive design if your mobile open rates are high. This is where it will pay off the most.

It is important to remember that every campaign is a process and that equal attention should be paid to all parts of the recipients’ user journey. Make the most of info you already have – especially when it comes to mobile.

Simplicity, clarify and accessibility

With mobile email marketing, simplicity, clarity and accessibility are always the most important considerations. Smartphone screens are small, the connection can be flaky and a recipient’s time is short. If that recipient is to be worth anything to you, you should consider their time as money!

Mobile presents a world of opportunity and it’s vitally important to tap into this but, at the same time, it is crucial to keep on top of changing trends. Innovations in mobile technology are being so rapidly adopted that some recommendations are out of date as soon as they are published.

At the email evolution conference in Miami last year, Yahoo and Hotmail announced that they were looking at allowing dynamic content within an email. ISP’s are concerned about users leaving their site when they follow links in an email. The idea is that when a user clicks on a link they don’t leave the ISP’s site but the content of the link is displayed in the email. This was an encouraging sign that ISP’s would start allowing us to do more with our emails.

In Hotmail these are called Active Views. This basically gives partners the ability to run scripts within an email and produce true dynamic content. Such partners include YouTube, LivingSocial and LinkedIn. But what about the rest of us?

Email service providers talk about dynamic content all the time but this is in regards to personalising the message for individual recipients. When the email is actually sent it is very static.

The more sophisticated marketers can change images that are served to the email to make the email look dynamic. Suppose you are sending a campaign offering a promotion then ends on 1st Feb 2012. The main promotion could be in the form of a number of images. After the promotion has expired you can change the images that are served to say that the promotion has expired. Simple but effective. It is not 100% accurate but there are several companies around that will facilitate this for you if it is something you want to try.

However this still isn’t true dynamic content. What about if the HTML of the email actually changed within email client to give a different message? For example, if the email was promoting restaurant discounts then it might show you different offers depending on the time of day you read the email. Lunchtime offers around midday and Dinner offers later in the day. This could be extended even further to personalise based on your current location. If you read the email in the office then it would show offers for a restaurant round the corner from work. You then go home and look at the same email again and you would see totally different offers for local restaurants near home. The email itself has changed the content based on its location and time of day.

All this is technically straightforward and something you could do on a webpage easily. Many websites already personalise the content based on the country you are in. The difference is that email clients don’t allow background scripts such as JavaScript to run in an email as this opens the way for malicious code to be implanted and run without the user knowing. Active Views is the first step to allowing such scripts to run but in a very secure environment.

So how would dynamic content like this affect your email campaigns? Obviously more targeted content is going to lead to better engagement of the user but would varying content actually work? It may scare and confuse the recipient and lead to reduced click through rates. Only time will tell and I look forward to trying this when it all becomes possible. We will wait and see if anything else regarding dynamic content is announced next month at the email evolution conference in Florida.

A couple of weeks ago, before I flew to the States and entered into a turkey-induced coma, I shared with you some thoughts on five ways email marketing is thriving in a “mocial” world.  Well, as we all well know “thriving” doesn’t come without its fair share of challenges or effort. So, in that vein, here’s a look at five key challenges email marketing faces to stay relevant in a world intertwined with mobile, social and local marketing.

1. Focus on Deepening Relationships. The most savvy email marketers are adopting the long-held belief that email marketing is best suited as a relationship medium. Email programmes today are about adding more depth to customer relationships and expanding connections that already exist with the brand.  Use social media to create buzz and expand brand awareness. Use email to carry that first interest through the customer life cycle.

2. Design and Test for Multiple Devices. Email marketers face a design and testing conundrum with a myriad of new devices on the market. In fact, by the close of 2011, more than forty new tablet devices will have been introduced to the global market.  Email marketers need to make sure their messages are not only readable across of these different platforms and devices, but optimised for that experience.

3. Trigger Messages Based on Behaviour. Focusing on triggered and transactional communications allows email marketing to deliver an experience that can never be replicated in social media.  Real-time, behaviour-based communications triggered by a purchase, product shipment, event registration, etc. allow email marketers to connect with consumers with relevant information times precisely to the consumers interests.

4. Integrate Well with Mobile and Social. In order for email to thrive in this new world, it cannot live in isolation. Integration with social media for opt-ins is a must. And, design and optimisation for mobile devices is also critical.

5. Concise Messages and Focused Design is Key. Each month it becomes less likely that your email message is being read on a PC with a large, bright 19” display. Not only because Apple’s market share is growing along with monitor sizes – but because consumers and prospects are increasingly using mobile devices to triage and manage their inbox on the move.  The content, layout, and design of email messages needs to adapt to be more scannable, actionable, and designed for a touch experience.

The beauty of email marketing is that it never stagnates. Ever. The technology, practices and content strategy behind winning email marketing programmes is continuously evolving, and so long as it does, I believe email marketing has a bright and productive place in the marketing mix.  For now, we have a lot of work ahead of us to adapt our programmes to thrive in this new, Mocial world.  Let’s get started.

If we open an email it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re engaging with the message or the brand. That’s why it takes more than open and click rates to measure subscriber engagement, as Dr David Chaffey points out.

As the year draws to a close, James Bunting does a spot of crystal ball gazing for us email marketers, and it seems the future’s bright.

Email is still the core communication for ASOS. Back in January, I found its email designs lacking, with key messages hidden when images were blocked. ASOS has since totally revamped its designs and is now making the most of all that email has to offer. That’s why it’s this issue’s ‘Campaigns we like’.

But before we say goodbye to 2011, come join David Chaffey and myself at Fusion Marketing Experience where we will be sharing insights and giving master classes on how to improve your marketing efficiency and the all-important ROI.

Kath Pay, editor, Infobox
Co-Founder, Plan to Engage

Like to receive Infobox in your inbox? Then subscribe here

The Email Marketing Council’s Legal Data & Best Practice (LD&BP) hub has been reviewing the current email marketing best practices document over the past few months, and the publication of a revised version is imminent.

One of the things that the review process has identified is a need for more detailed guidance in certain key areas of the email marketing customer life cycle. For this reason, a number of supporting white papers have been produced, which can be found in the “Toolkit” section of the DMA’s website (www.dma.org.uk/toolkit), where they are available for download free to Members.

Here’s a quick summary of what has been produced to date:

Deliverability: Aimed at email program owners who have realised that their broadcasts are experiencing delivery problems, and are trying to identify why this may be the case. Looking at key factors such as sender reputation, spam filtering, blacklist operators, the document provides common-sense guidance on how to deal with them, including 10 easy-to-follow steps to improve your email deliverability.

Creative: Good creative is still an important determinant of a successful email campaign, and is sometimes the only connection a subscriber has with your brand. This document demonstrates that email creative is not a dark art requiring witchcraft and technical know-how! Rather, in non-technical language, it provides some easy-to-implement recommendations that will quickly optimise the performance of your email campaigns.

Data Analysis & Segmentation: Sets out a simple process to help email marketers start segmenting their data, and analysing their results. It defines five key areas to focus on, including: setting objectives; finding the right data; choosing the right segments; different segmentation models, and; effective use of segmentation. It also examines the best methods and approaches to implementing segmentation, as well as how best to interpret the results.

Split Testing: Provides email marketers with the basic capabilities that they will need to run split-testing activity. It looks firstly at the fundamentals that need to be in place to run a split testing program, and then examines ten prime opportunities where split testing can be introduced into any email marketing program to identify the optimal approach to maximise campaign response rates.

Triggered Campaigns: Delivering timely and relevant email messages, using trigger-based email marketing, plays an important part of email best practice. By analysing subscriber behaviour and identifying meaningful changes and/or events, organisations can communicate with their customers at a point when they are most likely to be receptive. This strengthens customer relationships by making them feel valued, and it is not unusual for trigger-based emails to attract high open rates as a result.

In addition to the documents that have been described above, there are also three new white papers whose publication is imminent:

• Using 3^rd Party Data For List Rental & Lead Generation
• A Layman’s Guide to Email Marketing Law
•  Email Lifecycle Marketing

And there are a further two which are scheduled for arrival during Q1 of the New Year:

• Organic List Growth
• Measurement & Reporting

The production of these documents is a collaborative process and the Email Marketing Council, as the representative body of the much larger interest group, is constantly feeding in new ideas about key issues which email marketers would like to have expert guidelines for. Hopefully, the documents described in this article are servicing this need, but it would be great to have direct feedback on whether they are useful, and what the email marketing community would like to see produced next. If you have any feedback for us, then drop a line to email@dma.org.uk , or online via LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

Guy Hanson Chairs the The Email Marketing Council’s Legal Data & Best Practice (LD&BP) hub. He is Director, Response Consulting for Return Path.

Email marketers talk *a lot* about relevance and engagement. And rightly so. Email marketing, when done well, can deliver a personalised marketing message not achievable in any other medium. (No pressure, right?!?)

But, as we all banter about personalisation, segmentation and targeting, we are too often failing to send the right signal to recipients. Take a moment to think about your last three email campaigns. Was it clear to the recipient that you actually care about them? About their interests? Even a bit.

We aspire to connect with our recipients. We aspire to be more engaging. And, we aspire to drive more revenue by doing so. So, let’s do it already.

Here are four personalisation tips to help you show your recipients that you really do give a damn.

Tip #1: Dear %%FirstName%% is NOT personalisation. It’s the beginning of a form letter.

In 2001, “savvy” email marketers could address each email recipient by name. In the subject line. In the content. Oh Wow, frank m, that is truly awesome! Please. Stop. Doing. This. It is not personalisation any more than that advert you received in the post last week addressed to MR R J SMITH. It’s a cop-out. You can find better ways to deliver tailored content to recipients.

Tip #2: Relevance cannot be achieved solely with an opt-in form

While getting opt-in forms right is critical, the data you gather through them is just the starting point. It should be enough to drive a fairly relevant first email, but it is not meant to be the basis of all campaigns to follow. Not by any means. It’s like meeting someone at a networking event and discovering they have an interest in cricket. And then, for the next three years, only talking to them about cricket each time you see them. It’s a quick way to become incredibly boring and irrelevant. And in the end, it will leave you and your email marketing programme standing alone.

From that very first message, you should be using each recipient interaction or lack of interaction to tailor future communications. And, you should be driving the recipient to take further action on your website to gather more data points that you can then use to continue the dialogue in a meaningful way.

Tip #3: Behaviour is the best predictor of preference and interest

When is the best time to send an email? What content should I send to this segment this week? Don’t try to guess what to send to recipients or when to send it. If you can do this successfully (and repeatedly) please leave a comment below — I need your help with my stock portfolio. The truth is, behaviour is the best predictor of a recipient’s preference, interest and appetite to engage with your brand. Use past open and click behaviour to predict when you should send a communication to a particular recipient. Use click-through data from email and website analytics to understand what product categories or content is of most interest based on the recipient’s prior interactions. By listening to recipient behaviour and responding to it you will create dialogue and you will have a far higher likelihood of delivering relevant and anticipated communications.

Tip #4: Don’t fake it. (Applicable to multiple areas of life)

Much like Tip #1, if you aren’t going to put in the effort to truly personalise the content in your email marketing campaigns, don’t fake it. Seriously. Don’t even bother. Please go into your template and cut the salutation. Do your brand some good and either commit to being relevant or stick to batch-and-blast methods and execute them exceedingly well. I can promise that your boss, your customers and your shareholders will greatly appreciate your spending the time to be more tuned in to your recipients — using their behaviour to guide the dialogue instead of guessing or, worse yet, not %%caring%%.