Chris Baggott's Email Marketing Best Practices

Go Postal!

Can this be advice from a a passionate emailer??

Let me say it now, if I haven't made it clear before:
Email is a terrible prospecting tool...don't do it!

You know what makes a great prospecting tool? Old Fashioned Direct Mail. People still respond pretty much like they always have to traditional direct mail....which is usually not too great. That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be part of your prospecting arsenal.

The difference now is that you have a way to measure it. If you can measure, you can improve.

Like all good marketing, test and consider what the goal is. I find that driving people to a custom landing page can offer dramatic results. Make a compelling case to visit a specific webpage and on that page drive them to 'conversion' which should be an opt in to learn more about you.

Postcards, Letters, Handwritten notes all work wonders. Just put some effort into versions and testing...and make sure your landing page has the clear purpose of getting that opt in.....you don't want to waste that time and effort (and expense) for a one time visit. You are looking to get Married :-)

Next we will talk about the phone....

Getting Email Addresses #1

A lot of people.... (ok, almost everyone) asks me for ways to get more people that they can email into their database.

There is a lot I can talk about here, but I'll focus on one thing....

Test!

I can't tell you how many people I meet that throw up a form at the bottom of the homepage and then whine that their customers won't opt in. Without testing how do you know "Why" they don't opt in? Is it the positioning? The color? The offer? The number of fields I have to fill in?

We doubled our opt in once by simply changing the corners of our sign up form from square to rounded and adding a 3-D element. Who knows what is going to work until you test alternatives?

How are you using your web analytics? Can you recognize a person who has visited your site before but has not opted in?....how are you approaching that person compared to a complete stranger?

Email Name collection has got to be a primary marketing objective. You have got to approach it just like you would any other campaign....set a goal, test copy and creative and be dynamic!

Afraid of Zombies? You should be.

Are you afraid of Zombies?

You should be. If your business depends on email Zombies matter a lot to you. According to AOL, 89% of all of the spam the get comes from Zombie PC’s. These are PC’s that unknowingly are hijacked by spammers as relay points to deliver their junk.

The net result is that it is forcing ISP's both big and small to increase their blocking which of course greatly increases the risk that your email is going to be blocked.

The solution: Authenticated Senders. Bottom line is this is the death knell for the listserv busiess and the mom and pop Email Service Providers.

ISP’s have a finite capacity to manage relationships with Authenticated Senders. Weather you are a large enterprise or someone trying to make a few bucks on eBay, you need to make sure that your outbound email provider is on the right side of this battle and closely aligned with the ISP’s.

Remaining Legally Compliant

Are Your Emails Legally Compliant?

*Can the enterprise manage & maintain several "suppression" lists?
*Can it control these lists across all departments?
*Can it differentiate between specific opt-outs and master unsubscribes?
*Can it handle opt-out requests within 10 business days?
*Can it prevent anyone from contacting an unsubscribed user after the 10 days have passed?

Answer yes to these questions and you are. But don't be too quick to answer yes without checking.

We conducted a survey two weeks ago:

In the survey, when respondents were asked how concerned they are that an unsubscribed person will receive email from their enterprise again, 78 percent of survey respondents reported feeling somewhat to very concerned. In validation of their concern, 35 percent reported that subscribers had received emails during the past year despite opting out of lists.

Read the entire story here....

RSS Instead of Email??

RSS is a technology that is evolving in geek-dom right now to actually pull content into a browser. It is complicated and at this point probably not something the average customer is going to employ…..

The bottom line to this article however is that marketers are desperate to find solutions that get them delivered. As of course you know we tackle that problem in a bunch of ways…but I’ll just focus on two:

1) We get our customers delivered. With everything from our strict policies, advanced technology, stellar relationships and our proactive approach with things like delivery log monitoring, report cards and proactive interaction on behalf of our clients.

2) This is even more important. We provide the marketers with the most advanced tools ever to actually generate the kind of targeted and relevant messages that customers want.

Most companies SPAM. It might be clouded in actual “permission”, but the reality is that even with permission (and add great data) most email communication is based on blasting and by definition is not relevant or specific enough to break through the clutter or really build a one to one relationship with anybody.

RSS, even if it becomes easier can’t help this problem. Until marketers embrace tools (like ExactTarget software) they will continue to blindly flail about trying to grasp a random customer

Enterpise Spamming

Managers Worry about Being Spammers Themselves, According to Survey

Managers, many who presumably have gone to great lengths to protect themselves from receiving Spam email, now find themselves worrying that they too may be a source of unsolicited commercial email, according to a survey conducted by email solution provider ExactTarget, which is used by more than 2,000 organizations worldwide. The survey also shows that these same managers are grappling with the issues of maintaining both brand control and message consistency throughout all outbound emails (article in RealMarket CRM News)

Small Business & Email

Kelsey Group estimates that 10 percent of small businesses, or about 800,00, participate in email marketing at some level, while 30% (more than two million)
are collecting email addresses - and presumably have some plans for them.

Are you a small business? Are you using email?

Are your competitiors?

Make It Easy

How easy can you make it for your customers to do what you want? Do you lead them to a page? Does it take three pages to complete a transaction?

With RFM data, customer purchase likelihood can be very predictable…so why not make it easy?

The example to the right is a terrific (and very successful case) Churchill Downs has a great database. They know how you like to bet based on past behavior. Rather than challenge their customer to figure out their bet, or lead them to various web pages to consummate the deal, they simply use dynamic data to present you with your most likely bet right in the email. All the bettor needs to do is hit the button….simple. If the bettor wants to look at other combinations, the drop down in the email gives her every choice in the race.

Does this work? I’ll just say that they keep doing it at CHD and whenever I see the VP of Marketing, he has a big smile on his face.

Yes, No......Maybe?

According to a report I saw from WebTrends, 95 - 99% of your web visitors don't do what you want. Even if you feel that you are being successful with your site, this is a dismal statistic.

The question I always ask is: "What are you trying to get them to do?" If a sale is your only alternative...well you already know that is wrong. (see wedding below)

Think about how to get a percentage of those visitors to say Maybe. Maybe gives you another shot. Maybe gets them into your email database and gives you the opportunity to learn more about them so you can better prove how you meet their needs....

Look at your site carefully, test forms and landing pages frequently. Make Maybe a significat goal of your site...push the envelope and as always: Test Test Test.

Who's it From?

Hello from OC!. Sunny, Warm...except for traffic I can see the attraction.

My meetings here are focused on Enterprise deployment. Who an email comes from is the single most important factor in determining response.

The client I had lunch with yesterday sells a very high value service ($10,000 20,000). The process works like this:

1) Television drives traffic to a site or a phone call
2) Prospects register for more information
3) Information could be a direct mail catalog or email cycle based on specific attributes
4) Drive to visit with local consultant.
5) Convert to customer

The breakdown here is to get the conversions up. <30% of the people who visit the consultants actually convert. How can email help?

Our suggestion was a series of triggered email that appear to come from the consultant. Using Dynamic content send communications that not only speak to the individual needs and secret desires of the prospect, but further develop the personal relationship with the consultant. Wouldn't you rather have an email from someone you have already met vs. info@companyname.com. Especially for a personal service, but really it even works great for large retailers....

People buy from people, so include your relationship owners as part of the channel of communications.