Caro Consulting

Managing the Evolution of Your Email Marketing Program

Okay, enough about blogs. Let's get back to my favorite topic. Email.

This past Wednesday, the AiMA had its monthly educational event. This one on email, which attracted over 170 people. Last year, we barely hit 100, so I consider this further proof that email has proven to be a key tactic in the marketing tool belt.

Elaine O'Gorman from Silverpop moderated a panel of leading email specialists - Gareth Morgan from InterContinental Hotels, Brad Bacon from The Weather Channel, and Karna Crawford from the Coca-Cola Company.

Elaine provided some great retail email marketing study statistics:

To avoid churn, email a minimum of every 90 days. Based on other statistics I have shared in this blog, I feel this is even too long. Of course everyone is different so just test what works best for you.

Another interesting although obvious fact, you have 1.5 to 3 seconds to get someone to recognize your email. Which makes your from and subject line both equally important. Some personal experience with this - test putting your brand in both the from and subject lines. Many companies have seen an definite increase in opens. Certainly worth testing.

Elaine also mentioned SpamAssassin to test your content.

Other tidbits shared by the panelists. Gareth (who has a fondness for hykus) shared InterContinental hotels' recent shift in focus to transactionsl emails such as cart abandonment, pre-stay/welcome, and thank you/opt-in emails. This type of targeting has seen much greater results compared to their broadcast emails.

The Weather Channel is also using transactional emails especially when it comes to renewing subscriptions. Unfortunately, with a one-year subscription credit cards tend to expire and change, so some auto-renewals fail. To contact the "failed rebills" Brad tested several different areas: HTML vs. text, increasingly urgent messages, and graphic buttons vs. text links. In a nutshell, the more transactional feeling email saw the best conversion rate - text not HTML, text link not graphic button. Let this be a lesson to everyone - it does not matter what the "experts" say, you need to test, test, test and determine what works best for your audience and your goals.

Finally, Karna Crawford took the stage and taught the audience about testing emails. She encouraged email'ers to ask themselves: What do I know about my subscriber base? Am I delivering to them what they want? Am I optimizing my email campaigns to produce the highest metrics possible? What are my baseline metrics?

Basic testing everyone should be performing: from line, subject line, creative, day of the week, time of day. More advanced ideas include personalization testing (interest/behavior vs. general content), frequency, and offers.

My favorite part of her presentation was the test between an Olympics newsletter and an Olympics postcard. The postcard was all graphics. You would think with all the graphic issues the media has been talking about, the postcard would fail. Actually it beat the newsletter by 30%.

Once again, repeat after me, "Don't believe what you read. Test, test, test."

Atlanta Bloggers Wrap Up

The Grape at the Forum expected a quiet evening for training a new server. Then the Atlanta bloggers showed up and excelerated the training just a bit. With ease they handled some spilt wine, numerous questions about wine and food, and the dreaded separate checks. Kudos to them.

The energy in the room was amazing as each person matched the face to the blog. All ages and backgrounds came together because of one common love - and became fast friends. It was a blast - just check out the smile on my face.

Here are the bloggers in your Atlanta neighborhood: Toby Bloomberg, Josh Hallett, Dave aka Earthlink Blog Master, Potato Chip Girl Abigail, Justin Hunt, Auburn Grad Justin, and Scott Burkett.

A special call out goes to my blog baby Carol Kirschner who I now realize can teach me a thing or two (or three or four) about blogs.

Finally, a special welcome to the soon to be bloggers, Polly Wade and Julie from Softscribe. Our event was certainly not limited to the blogging expert.

If you would like to join us in the future, just let one of us know. We'll see you next time.

Atlanta Bloggers

Josh Hallett is in town next week and is working with local bloggers to put together an informal blogging dinner.

Come join Josh, Toby, and myself on Tuesday the 28th at 7pm. We'll be dining at The Grape at the Forum. Josh has all the info in his Atlanta Blogger Dinner post. See you there.

Favorite Blog Books

I just finished reading "Freakonomics" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. It certainly makes you look at the world differently... And is not recommended for those who prefer to look at the world through rose colored glasses. I'm now reading "The World is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman. Very timely for today's world. Both come on CD, so my long commute home is good for something.

Upon my request, my blog mama Toby Bloomberg recommended the following books for those looking to brush up on their blog marketing skills. Before I add them to my Amazon.com wish list, I'd like some feedback first. What do you think? Worth the time?

I'd also like to know when these authors are going to come out in a podcast version... I need to continue filling that time in the car.

• Jeremy Wright's book, "Blog Marketing" - The guy who auctioned himself off as a blog consultant on eBay.
• Debbie Weil's book, "The Corporate Blogging Book" - Not available until August 3, 2006.
• Robert Scoble and Shel Israel's "Naked Conversations"
• A random entry James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds."  The concept is a good one and the book was enjoyable, but it did trend to drag on at the end.

Thoughts on these books? Suggestions for other books?

Top 10 Email Marketing Tips

Last month Jim Herbold provided a list of Top 10 Email Must-Dos. I can't resist adding them to this blog... and adding some of my two cents.

1. Get Relevant
Jim talks about using more personalization and segmentation. At Shop.org FirstLook, Forrester Research made the same recommendation and showed how the conversion rates increased as the emails became more targeted.

Of course, you need to take time into consideration. Time is money, so spend wisely. The testing I have done targeting gender or purchase habits does show good results, but was not worth the time needed to execute it properly. Many marketers will find an integrated approach will have the best affect - a portion of mass mailings and a portion of segmented emails. It's a matter of testing until the right balance is reached.

2. Deliverability and rendering
It's not just making sure your emails are received (and not sent to the junk folder), it is also making sure the email looks right when it gets there. Many times, fonts and formats change or the layout does not show up at all. Make sure to test the email first with many email clients and platforms first.

3. Preview panes and blocked images
Before someone clicks to open the email, they typically see it their preview pane first. The first quarter to a third of your email will dictate whether or not someone opens and reads the rest of your email.

How do you read email? Me, I receive a lot of newsletters, if the first three headlines shown in the preview pane are not interesting, the email is deleted. I just don't have time to open every single email.

4. First impressions are lasting impressions
Jim states that the most significant decline in email performance comes in the first two months. Make sure you engage your audience immediately. Send a Welcome email upon opt-in registration. Make sure you send relevant, timely emails frequently enough to keep their attention.

How often is appropriate? It all depends on your email. I have worked with Internet retailers that send an email out twice a week. Some retailers have daily alerts. Others just email during special holidays. It all depends on the audience and the email content.

5. Get on the permission train
Jim is right - someone who opts in to receive your emails tends to be more valauble then someone obtained through an opt out program.

As with email frequency though, not everyone can follow this rule of thumb. At a recent event, I spoke with a interactive marketer whose site targets kids. She found she needed to pre-check the opt-in box, because her audience did not understand how to opt-in to emails. The audience assumed by filling out the form, they were automatically opted in... It's also a yound audience who does not read directions. Yes, she had to comply with COPPA guidelines, but she found pre-checking the box was a lot more effective and generated less customer service inquiries.

6. Metrics that matter
Who has time to use all the metrics available to us? We can drown ourselves in data. Yes, focus on the metrics that matter. And don't forget, those metrics will change depending on where you are in the organization. Create an analytics strategy and determine the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each area of your organization.

7. Long-term subscribers
EmailLabs estimates 30 to 50% of a company's email list may be inactive and 2.5% of emails churn each month. Do not wait several years and then go back and try to reactivate them, create a program now and automate it through your email marketing system. Jim provides some great ideas - surveys, sweepstakes, special offers. You may want to try to go offline as well. Send a postcard to those hard bounce emails and the emails not responding to your campaigns.

8. Maximize your traffic
So many companies I have worked with stay focused on driving traffic to their site. As time goes by, these companies are driving the same traffic over and over again - and paying for that traffic over and over again. Give the traffic a reason to opt-in to future communications from you.

9. Test, test, test and improve
All of us "email experts" can tell you what works and what does not. In fact, I was on a call with a co-worker of mine and was surprised to discover how many times the results of her tests differed with my experience. Every company is different. Every message is different. Every target market is different. It's up to you to take the best practices and then tweak them until they work for you. That is the fun of direct marketing.

10. Create a plan and align your resources
Before you start collecting the very first email off your website, make sure you have the plan, money, and human resources to support it. I cannot begin to count the number of times I have provided my email address and then received nothing in return. By the time the company emails me, my email may be bad. I may not remember opting in and think they are spamming me. Or, the company may be blacklisted because of the extreme number of bad email addresses going to a single domain.

Please add some of your own tips.

Email Marketing - Getting Back to the Basics

The other week, I had the pleasure of moderating the AMA Interactive Marketing SIG (special interest group). There was a good exchange of information during the week - one on how companies can address email churn. Here are some thoughts shared.

Did you know emails churn 2.5% each month?. Here are some ideas on how to bring them back:

• Direct mail - many times people change their email, but not their street address. Create a quick postcard to tell them you miss them and give them an incentive to come back.
• ECOA (Email Change of Address) - some list managers choose to use companies like Experian or Accudata to locate a customer's new email address and opt them back in to receive emails.
• Email Append - In this case, a list manager has the customer's name and address, but does not have their email address. List managers use Accudata or Melissadata to overlay (or append) customer email addresses to the list manager's database. Once again, these customers are only delivered when they opt-in to receive emails.
• Offline Database Matching - Work with a large third party vendor such as CoolSavings. Match your list with their list and determine what they have that you don't have. Once you have your new list of desired email, have the third party email them on your behalf and give them a compelling reason to opt-in to your list.

Regardless of the tactic you choose to use, make sure you indicate in your database where the email came from. It is not cheap to "reacquire" these emails and you will want to make sure they generate positive ROI for your company.

Creating a Digital Brand

A couple weeks ago, AiMA hosted Creating a Digital Brand. The panelists included Bryce Emo and David Borstein from MySpace.com and Jason Hirschhorn from MTV.com. It was moderated by AiMA's very own Mel Clements, Interactive Brand Manager from The Coca-Cola Company.

All I can say is if content is king, choice is most certainly its queen and MySpace and MTV have certainly harnessed the power of both. Take Kristin for example. She is a teenager who watched Laguna Beach on TV the other night. She was so excited about the episode, she went to the website. She found some great spoiler information and posted it on her MySpace account (by the way, MTV just announced it is also getting into the social networking business). Kristin also downloaded some music and the "ultimate hotty" and posted both on MySpace. Her friend Jill heard the song, saw the picture, and read about the spoilers and then went to the Laguna Beach website herself. Kristin also sent a text message to her friend Jenn about Laguna beach ring tones and short takes for her mobile phone. Not really interested in Laguna beach before, both friends are now big fans and TIVO it each week.

Traditionally, we learned about a TV show, a new car, or a new line of shampoo through TV or magazine ads. Integrated marketing was limited to ensuring your message and creative were consistent. Today, that same TV show, car company, or shampoo producer must create digital brands to complement their offline efforts. Integrated marketing means your TV or magazine ad need to have a digital component... Oh and forget to create that digital component someone can easily find and you can guarantee your competitors will be ready to grab those who come on line looking for you.

Avenue A | Razorfish Releases 2006 Digital Media Outlook Report

Last week Avenue A | Razorfish launched its 2006 Digital Media Outlook Report. You can download the report at Avenue A | Razorfish Points of View.

There are several interesting articles highlighting different aspects, although there are some interesting tidbits I plan to share over the next few weeks.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/interactive/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002074916

http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3587661

http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/tech/internet/10270388.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=40279