Blogs

Email marketing is one of, if not the most, measurable communication channels in the space. The challenge with these metrics is that everyone calculates and views them differently; so as email marketers look to learn from one another, they may not actually be comparing apples to apples.

The DMA recently released survey results that quoted open rates on a house list at nearly 20%, a click-through rate of 6.64% and a conversion rate of 1.73% - so what does that mean to you and your program? Here’s what it says to me:

1. An open rate of nearly 20%...does that mean that 80% of your email recipients don’t open what you send them? Most likely (or are not turning on their images, which is possible – but doesn’t explain away just how soft this reality is). We, as an industry of marketers, need to do a better job. We need to provide better content, a more relevant experience and a motivation to compel our subscribers to open our email communications. It also means we need to take a serious look at our database. It may be a fine time to renew your recipient's permissions. Just like you clean out your closet in the Spring – sometimes you need to lose some of the extra baggage in your database. Remember – it is about the QUALITY of your database not the QUANTITY.

2. Click-through-rates (CTR) of 6.64%...my first question is, “is that a figure calculated as a percentage of messages delivered or messages opened?” I am going to hope for our sake that it is a percentage of delivered – because if we are providing our subscribers with content and calls-to-action that only drive 6% of those that opened the message to click…we are in big trouble. So if nearly 7% of the messages delivered generate some kind of click action, we still have plenty of room for improvement.

In our attempts to be brief and scannable within our email communications, have we taken it too far? Are our messages unclear or just not compelling? Time to do some testing to find out! We need to spend more time analyzing WHAT it is that motivates our customer base. It may be our desire to offload distressed inventory with a free shipping offer, but the customer may prefer a %-off or $-off coupon code that would send your CTR in to the double-digits. That wouldn’t be so bad now would it?

3. Yikes! Only 1.73% convert?! I am not going to attempt to assume the calculation here. The point here is that we work in a channel that is more easily personalized, more measurable and more real-time than direct mail or telemarketing and yet our efforts under perform them all. Why is that? Are the DM and phone calls more personal? Are we moving too fast to keep our customers best interest in mind and provide them a satisfying experience?

Let’s strive to up these numbers next year – we need to rival the conversion numbers of telemarketing. We can’t be as bothersome as calls during dinner time, can we?

I just returned from two days at the Canadian Marketing Association’s annual conference, CMA Next 2010, where I was tweeting from the event in conjunction with The Email Guide. The event programming covered a broad swath of topics from branding, traditional advertising and product marketing to web analytics and social media. The presenters were some of the best and brightest minds in Canadian marketing who over the course of two days, challenged our assumptions and made us think, talk and laugh out loud. The hard work of programming co-chairs Mitch Joel of Twist Image (@mitchjoel) and Sandy Perlman of Microsoft Canada paid off and I left feeling enriched and informed. I have recapped some of the best takeaways from the event for you below.

1. Don’t Suck. That pearl of wisdom came from Avinash Kaushik (@avinashkaushik), Analytics Evangelist for Google and author of Web Analytics 2.0. According to Kaushik, if you suck, nothing else matters. “Sucking” is obviously a relative term, which he defines in terms of engagement. How are people interacting with your content? Are they engaging with your website or are they visiting your site and leaving after looking at the first page? If they “came, puked and left”, you need to stop worrying about everything else and fix it. He also stressed that speed and access to information should be the #1 feature of your website. Don't sacrifice functionality for sexiness. If your website isn’t fast, you will die.

2. We Live in an Age of Conversation Marketing. Participate and Empower. Kaushik also reminded us that marketing today has to be conversational – it’s time to stop broadcasting messages to our audiences. We need to use engagement metrics to analyze effectiveness in today’s marketing world. It’s no longer about reach metrics like fans, followers and hits (which he defined as “How Idiots Track Success”.) The new age of marketing is customer-centric. Abandon your comfortable metrics and start leveraging engagement metrics like your website bounce rate, clicks, email opens, social media sharing rates, re-tweets and Twitter lists. Once you have these metrics identified, optimize your marketing strategy, creative and technology choices to support improvements in those areas.

3. Challenge Everything You Know About Marketing. Ken Wong (@kbw2009) of Queen's School of Business and CMA Hall of Fame inductee dropped a bomb on the audience when he told us that the C-Suite tends to view marketers as “margin sucking maggots.” Most companies know that they need to market their way out of a recession and yet the first thing that the executives cut when tough time hit is marketing. Why? Because marketing doesn’t appear to have a direct effect on profitability, the #1 factor affecting the success of a company.

The NYSE 2010 CEO Report ranked Marketing/Advertising Initiatives dead last in Profitability Impact for 2007. In the same survey, only one marketing variable entered into the equation as mattering to shareholders – brand strength – and it ranked second to last. It gets worse. According to Wong, only 18% of 545 executives in UK firms rated their firm’s marketing effectiveness as better than good and 36% rated it fair/poor. In fact, you are 2X more likely to get a marketing job in the UK if you have a finance background than if you have a marketing background. Ouch!

Why do executives view marketing as wasteful and expendable? Because we’re not communicating our value in terms that they understand. Marketing needs to stop focusing on market share and volume and return to building brand value because when the value is clear, you don’t need to slash prices. Price is the #1 factor in contributing towards profitability. Help your executives get there and your budget won’t be the first thing slashed during a recession.

4. Great Brands are Simple and Clear. Canadian design guru and television celebrity Debbie Travis (@debbie_travis) reminded us to keep to basics when building your brand. The best brands know what they do well and focus on that. When you try and take on too many ancillary things, you dilute your brand and loose strength and meaning. There are two aspects to every brand: brand character and brand value. Character is how you make a first impression. Brand value is about loyalty. You should develop a clear strategy for both sides of the brand equation. Do you provide enough value to keep your audience coming back for more?

5. Your Company Can Make A Difference for the Next Generation. One of the more surprising and inspiring keynotes was a joint presentation from the Ontario Power Authority, the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) and Airmiles, a Canadian frequent flier company that has penetration into 70% of the homes in Canada. This unlikely partnership was the result of three very different entities uniting for a common cause: to reduce carbon emissions while meeting distinct goals that benefitted each company.

The Ontario Power Authority needed to find alternative sources of fuel to avoid the rolling brownouts that have been plaguing the province and ensure continuous, clean power for future generations. They partnered with the WWF to develop a program that will eliminate Ontario’s reliance on coal by 2013. Simultaneously, Airmiles greened their company and became the largest rooftop solar energy producer in Canada. Now you can also redeem your miles for a transit pass, a scooter, bicycle, or other low carbon options instead of airfare. Their inspiring message was that transformative companies should use their influence beyond their four walls to change the world. Think about what influence you have beyond your own life and talk to your company about your environmental footprint. You can help change the world as well.

6. Surprise is the Key to Successful Relationships. Andy Nulman (@andynulman) reminded us in his own unique and creative way that the element of surprise is what keeps human nature moving forward. We tend to fall into comfortable patterns and are doing ourselves (and our marketing programs) a disservice by lulling our audience into complacency. Put in the time to think different and be creative each time you want to make an impression. It’s the only way to ensure a healthy, engaging ongoing relationship with your audience.

7. Friction is a Powerful Tool of Persuasion. Ad veteran Terry O’Reilly (@ageofpersuasion) had a slightly different theory about what the surprise ingredient in everyone’s marketing programs should be… friction. According to O’Reilly, friction is a powerful tool of persuasion. Only the smartest and most insightful marketers use friction to make a sale. For example, Johnson & Johnson invented a cream that healed without pain, but people didn’t believe they were being healed unless they felt a sting. J&J put a little alcohol in the cream and sales went through the roof. Marketers are social anthropologists and it’s product marketing’s job to find the right combination of ease of use with a just a touch of friction to make people want what we’re trying to sell.

8. Use Checklists. O’Reilly also referenced a study that was performed to reduce the number of accidental deaths that occurred due to human errors during surgeries. They analyzed how pilots prevented mistakes and found that they used checklists. A test group of surgeons adopted checklists and their mistakes plunged by 80%. I think everyone can learn from that one.

9. Be Open to Opportunity and Change. Howie Mandel’s (@howiemmandel) closing keynote had everyone roaring with laughter, and yet his key message was an important one. You have to be open to opportunities as they arise and be willing to adapt and change. Over the years, he has “re-branded” himself from a carpet salesman to a comedian to an actor to a game show host and television producer, but none of that evolution would have happened if he had given in to fear and doubt and not been open to change.

Similarly, we learned that Indigo Books & Music is transforming their brand, product offerings and fulfillment mechanisms in real-time to adapt to the changes in how people are consuming media. Instead of clinging to traditional books as adoption of digital readers skyrockets, they are embracing change and adapting to become a leader in this new method of consumption.

10. Never Underestimate the Power of Alcohol in Building Relationships. And finally, this oh so true statement came from the advertising veteran “war stories” panel and was the most tweeted and re-tweeted phrases from the event. I’m not sure if Mad Men’s constant drinking reflects the era or the industry… but one thing is certain. Marketers love our booze.

For a complete play-by-play of the event, I invite you to read my full Twitter Transcript posted on StrongMail’s website. If you would like to follow my coverage of future marketing events, you can find me on Twitter (@kristinhersant).

SAP and Unica both held their annual user conferences last week in the same city – Orlando. Both events highlighted a fundamental shift that’s underway in the world of B2C marketing. Corporations are moving from near-time to real-time marketing communications, where they can immediately serve up personalized experiences to consumers interacting with their brand across multiple channels. This might sound next to impossible, but for companies that use multichannel campaign management (MCCM) solutions like those offered by SAP and Unica, there is a real opportunity to reap the benefits of real-time marketing – and email is one of the most effective channels for executing on that strategy.

MCCM solutions make it possible for companies to capture customer information across multiple touch points and then make that data readily available to drive campaigns. The advent of social media has forced companies to start looking at customer experience holistically, rather than continuing to operate in disparate marketing silos. Loyal customers expect a brand to know who they are and what they like, regardless of what channel they choose to interact with the brand through. Real-time marketing enables companies to achieve a new level of relevancy that meets customer expectations and drive significantly higher response rates and revenue per customer. Companies that chose to embark on such a significant undertaking will have a critical competitive differentiator in the coming years.

Email is fast emerging as the common thread that links all of these customer interactions together. It is the hub of all digital marketing conversations and the unique identifier in many customer databases. A cutting-edge example of real-time marketing comes from Unica marketing excellence award honoree Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG). When someone books a room online at one of IHG's 4,400 global properties, they automatically receive a confirmation email that is tailored to the individual based on their loyalty status, the hotel location, their purchase history and specified preferences. No two confirmation emails are alike. At the time of booking, IHG's online reservation system communicates with StrongMail and Unica Interact to deliver a unique, targeted email to that individual in less than 2 seconds. Soon this real-time personalization will be extended to the web, providing a seamless customer experience between channels.

Brands are quickly realizing that the days of batch and blast are over. Not only are they becoming increasingly ineffective, they are also alienating customers who expect companies to send messages that reflect their relationship with the brand. Campaign management systems like Unica and SAP CRM are making real-time marketing possible, and tight integrations with email, web, mobile and social media channels are necessary for delivering these unique experiences to the consumer.

Smart marketers know that one-to-one marketing is the best way to generate revenue and customer satisfaction, and StrongMail works with leading campaign management vendors to put true one-to-one marketing within your reach. For more information on using email and CRM together to deliver targeted, personalized messages, you can view our on-demand webinar "Email Marketing with SAP CRM: Achieving Relevance, Deliverability and Scale."

Before the rise of social media sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, content was typically spread through email – the first social network. Web visitors and email recipients that liked a piece of content would email it to their friends and they, in turn, would do the same.

This had the potential to spread content visibility faster than search engines but sharing options were still limited. Today, email still holds the lion's share of content visibility at about half of the total content sharing on the Internet. However, social media has provided an interesting way for email marketers to increase their reach while using sharing tools as quick and effective calls to action.

What are sharing tools and what can they do for email marketing?

In short, sharing tools are the small icons that say things like "retweet" or "share this". A good example is StrongMail’s Social Notes.

These buttons allow readers to not only favorite your content, but send it to their friends via email and social media.

However implementing sharing tools in your emails and on your website is only part of the job. In order to be shared, the content has to be share-worthy in the first place. Stop and ask yourself... would I forward this on? What about this is interesting and valuable? If you can't answer those questions, it's time to go back to the drawing board.

Choosing sharing tools and social platforms for your emails

One of the most common mistakes that email marketers make is trying to do too much with a single email. This is often manifested as a vast forest of tabs targeting every social media network.

Just as you need to evaluate your content, it is important that you think about who your audience is and determine which social networks and social media channels they use the most. This will help you select a sharing tool that will best facilitate the sharing of your content. Remember that more options isn't always better. Sometimes too many options can detract from the user experience.

You can follow these steps when building a sharing tool strategy for social media and email marketing integration.

1. Content Research: what types of content are shared most often?
Alternatively, which topics tend to quickly turn stagnant? Use the reporting in your sharing platform to understand what people like and don't like. Modify your content creation strategies to feed them more of what they love.

2. Ask: marketing power comes from an audience that is willing to provide feedback.
Ask your readers which social media sites and applications they prefer and what motivates them to share content. Choose sharing tools and options that meet their needs and address their feedback.

3. Expand and Test: Add more sharing tools and social media.
If a piece of content is already doing well in email sharing, try adding social media sharing options. This can revive old content and enable you to fairly benchmark sharing sites against each other.

Why should email marketers use sharing tools?

The average Internet visitor is primarily concerned with speed. How fast can they get the information they need and how quickly can they share it with others.

If you provide sharing tools within your email marketing campaigns, you can give them a quick way to send interesting content to their networks. In a way, these sharing tools function in much the same way as calls to action.

By providing these tools throughout the content after key points or powerful statements (not just at the bottom), you can give your reader a quick way to connect with their friends through similar interests, benefiting your brand.

Do you want more tips to leverage the power of social media in email marketing? Discover StrongMail’s integrated social media and email marketing solutions and download the Email in the Age of Social Media white paper to learn how to effectively integrate social media into your email marketing campaigns.

Next week, the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) is holding its National Convention in Toronto, May 26 – 27 2010. Titled Next: 2010, the event looks to be one of the year’s most exciting and informative Canadian marketing events, featuring keynote speakers ranging from accomplished direct marketers to environmental activists, social media gurus and even a few noted celebrities.

The CMA is breaking from tradition and taking a different approach with this event. Instead of linking their largest annual event to an exhibition, the they have eliminated the tradeshow floor to focus exclusively on making the conference experience as enriching as possible for the attendees. This decision was based on feedback from attendees and exhibitors in previous years, and I applaud the CMA for listening to their constituents and responding in such a quick and nimble way. I am honored and excited to be covering this event in conjunction with The Email Guide and look forward to learning what’s next from the best and the brightest minds in Canadian marketing.

For live coverage of the sessions, you can follow my Twitter stream at @kristinhersant or www.twitter.com/kristinhersant. I’ll be tweeting under the hashtag #cmanext2010.

UPDATE: For a complete recap of this event including a link to my 13-page Twitter Transcript, check out my blog post: The Top 10 Things I Learned at CMA Next 2010

The Email Experience Council (owned by the the Direct Marketing Association) released a new whitepaper today that contains useful information on the different types of email authentication (SPF, Sender ID, DomainKeys and DKIM) and when you should use each type. The report also contains a handy chart that details which types of authentication are being enforced by which ISPs, so you can plan based on the domain composition of your list.

The report is free for EEC members and $149 for everyone else. To get it, visit the following link:

EEC Deliverability Roundtable Email Authentication Whitepaper >>

Social media is playing an increasing role in customer engagement. However, as Econsultancy found in their 2009 Customer Engagement Report, email marketing remains by far the most important customer engagement tactic.

Since that report was published, a new study by eMarketer showed that when social media and email marketing are combined it strengthens the reach and viral marketing potential of both marketing channels.

However, the real power of the integration of social media and email marketing lies in the ability to engage customers in conversation. It is about generating word-of-mouth and enabling people to engage in conversation with your business when and where they want. Marketers today must embrace the power of online customer conversations and facilitate them using whichever channel the customer prefers.

According to every major study released in the last several years, that channel is most likely going to be email, followed by the web and increasingly social media. Hotmail recently surveyed their users and found that the top three reasons people have a Hotmail account all have to do with communicating with businesses, whether it be to keep up with a company’s developments via newsletter, receive transactional email confirmations or get special offers and discounts.

The power of customer engagement: why social media and email marketing are best friends

Earned media is defined as awareness gained through publicity or grass roots action, and this term has taken on new meaning with the advent of social media. By analyzing your subscriber database and empowering them to spread the word about your brand through viral marketing, your customers can literally become your most effective "earned" marketing channel.

To accomplish this, start by looking at your email database. Who are your most profitable customers? Who are opening and clicking on your emails the most? Who are the most engaged with your brand? These segments should be your first targets for an integrated social media and email marketing campaign. Key rules of thumb when designing your campaign include:

- Give them something to talk about. This is social, after all. What about your message is worth sharing with someone else? If you can’t answer that question, you shouldn’t launch the social email campaign.

- Make the conversation seamless. Use email marketing as the launchpad to start a conversation in social media.

- Move from listening to engaging. Customer engagement is about creating relationships that result in value for both customers and businesses. Listen to your customers, engage in conversation with them and inspire other customers to chime in where appropriate.

- Use the right technology. Make it as easy as possible for people to share your message and take it viral in social media. Plus, you’ll need detailed tracking on how well your program is performing, including reach, engagement and conversion metrics for the C-Suite.

Discover StrongMail’s integrated social media and email marketing solutions and download the “Email in the Age of Social Media” white paper to learn how to effectively integrate social media into your email marketing campaigns to drive customer engagement.

If you simply want to engage your customers via social media and learn how to turn Twitter and Facebook into revenue generating channels, request private beta access to StrongMail Social Direct, a killer new social media management tool.

UK email marketing agency Alchemy Worx recently announced an important change in the way that Gmail renders image code. I've re-posted the full announcement below. As a reminder, always use an email campaign preview tool to see what your email is going to look like in various email clients prior to deploying your campaigns!

From Alchemy Worx....

Why does this matter?
It matters because it causes unwanted spaces to be added to your email potentially breaking the layout of your HTML. Code that used to render perfectly may now render incorrectly.

The change appears to be affecting messages in Gmail webmail when viewed in Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari. However it does not appear to have any effect on HTML emails in Gmail webmail viewed in Internet Explorer.

The solution
This issue is similar to a long-standing Hotmail bug. However, although you can fix this by adding at the top of your email in Hotmail, Gmail ignores this code so that fix will not work.

To ensure your HTML emails render the way they should in Gmail the following needs to be added to every image tag: style="display:block"

There is one exception: when you are displaying images directly alongside text, such as when you are wrapping text or putting images inside paragraphs.

Don't forget your triggered and transactional messages
The change will not just affect new messages you create, it will also affect any triggered or transactional email templates you have already set up.

Kara Trivunovic recently talked about the importance of the convergence of email marketing and social media and how both marketing channels are complementary.

Interviewed by Mike McDonald of WebProNews at the Online Marketing Summit 2010, she said that several aspects of social media and email have the potential to come into play together and allow businesses to expand the reach of their existing offers.

When combined, email marketing and social media allow marketeers to expand their customer base in a way that was not possible through email only. In particular, leveraging both channels can be an effective tool for gaining new subscribers.

When Mike highlighted a statistic that was presented at the event, stating that 50% of all content is still shared via email, Kara replied that about 86% of people in StrongMail client programs choose to share via email, the rest via Twitter and Facebook.

Sharing and sharing tools key when integrating social media and email marketing.

Kara further explained how StrongMail enables businesses to improve their email marketing campaign performance by combining the proven ROI of email with the power of social media to reach new audiences.

Today, businesses need to create integrated campaigns to leverage the natural synergies of these two channels to boost customer acquisition, retention and loyalty while generating more revenue.

According to Kara, there are three ways to integrate email marketing and social media:

1. Share with your network:
To engage evangelizers to share content, email is a great channel. But also provide other options to share including social media sharing tools.

2. Leverage as a medium to incentivize current customer base
Use social media and email marketing to drive additional subscribers, and to create awareness about your programs.

3. Acquire customers through referrals and shared content
Email is important since it still is the main channel to enable people to share information through emails, of which at least 90% can be converted. Emails do enjoy higher conversion rates.

Finally, Kara explained how StrongMail has embraced the integration of social media marketing and email marketing to make this integration work for StrongMail customers and businesses, seeking to leverage the power of both social and email.

From a technology viewpoint, StrongMail offers a referral marketing platform StrongMail Influencer, a social media management application called Social Direct and a social sharing tool called Social Notes.

Customers of StrongMail’s email marketing solutions can use these tools as part of the platform while our email and social media marketing strategists (led by Kara) help you get the most out of the integration.

To learn how to effectively integrate social media into your email marketing campaigns, please download the “Email in the Age of Social Media” white paper.

You can watch the full interview below.

Bruce Biegel, Managing Director of The Winterberry Group gave a very interesting keynote at the Email Insider Summit in Captiva Island, Florida last week. He presented his outlook on the email marketing industry from an investor’s perspective, including shifts in marketing spending, email revenue projections and mergers and acquisitions. The content was so valuable, that I have recapped his presentation for you here.

First the good news. According to Biegel, GDP Growth is back. Q309 officially marked the end of the recession; however, unemployment is still up, which is holding back spending. Companies are finally shifting dollars back into new customer acquisition, but they’re doing it cautiously because spending is lagging. We are seeing some growth in advertising, but not a lot. Surprisingly, television advertising is up 5.6%, while everything else is still down. Print advertising has been hit the hardest, with a significant amount of marketers abandoning it in favor of digital channels. According to Beigel, U.S. digital ad spending in the US will hit $154.3 billion in 2010.

The Winterberry Group focuses their investments exclusively on the Advertising and Marketing industries, and is therefore in touch with a broad swath of marketing technology providers and agencies. To stay current with market demand, Winterberry is seeing a widespread trend where traditional offline agencies are attempting to move into digital marketing.

Marketing Budgets Are Shifting Online
The good news for email marketing providers is that we’ve already mastered the digital space and continue to innovate in it. To keep pace with increased demand, email suppliers are increasing their staffing levels. Email is the #1 area where marketers are increasing spend, but that shift isn’t showing up in the marketing forecast because of declining CPM fees and the fact that marketers have slashed their budgets during the recession.

Of the $1.4 billion that Forrester Research projects will be spent on email marketing in 2010, 80% of email marketing spend is in retention marketing, 17% is spent on acquisition marketing and 3% is spent on transactional email. Acquisition direct mail spend is making a small come back, but retention direct mail spend is moving almost entirely to email. According to Biegel, if email can pick up a fraction of direct mail spend, it will beat its forecast. He predicts that email marketing spend will hit $1.6 billion instead of $1.4 billion in 2010 because of this shift.

The Move Towards Relevant Messaging
Marketers have started consolidating data and systems down to one centralized system so that they can leverage it to send targeted, personalized communications based on specified preferences and behavior. Surprisingly, only 16% of e-commerce companies send personalized or behavior-based email, leaving a huge market for that type of integration. According to Biegel, there is more data available from online transactions than there has been in the offline database in its entirety. This is a lot to manage, so there is a big push by enterprises to consolidate those reams of data down into a single source and make it actionable.

To plug into this new centralized data structure, email marketing providers today are moving towards becoming an "integrated campaign execution stack." Biegel’s message to ESP’s is that if you only provide email, you'll be left behind. When selecting an email marketing vendor, he recommends that marketers look for a provider who offers email in conjunction with social, mobile, e-commerce and analytics integration, services, and an international presence.

Will Social Media Kill Email? Absolutely Not.
Email is still the most powerful way to reach consumers. When asked if social media is going to kill email, Biegel stressed that social media is a partner to email. It's not going to stand alone or replace it. Interestingly, he pointed out that of the $1.2 billion projected for social media spend in 2009, $700 million of that figure is display advertising and $200 million of it is applications. Should that really be categorized as social media spending or is that display and mobile? This drives home how pervasive social media is and how it touches multiple departments and marketing channels. As the wild social frontier continues to evolve, email marketers can rest easy knowing that the channel still remains the backbone of business critical communications.