Sep 01

Gmail Releases Priority Inbox

By Todd Coffey Email Delivery, Email Marketing No Comments »

Yesterday, Google announced the release of a new feature that could have significant impact on email marketing.  Priority Inbox is an inbox enhancement designed to improve the overall experience of Gmail subscribers by highlighting messages in their inbox that are deemed “Important”, ultimately reducing email clutter.

So how does it work?  Mail reaching the inbox is grouped into 3 sections – Important and Unread, Starred, and Everything Else.  These classifications are powered by the activity and engagement of the end user.  Examples of engagement are the frequency of opens, replies or emails to the sender, staring emails, word associations in the content, archiving without opening and deleting.  If Priority Inbox makes a mistake, the user is provided with “mark as important” and “mark as not important” buttons for each message.  These interactions teach Priority Inbox how to properly classify the mail in the user’s inbox.

Obviously, this new feature has the potential to be a game changer.  But it’s way too early to tell how it will impact email marketers.  It certainly does reinforce the current trend at major mailbox providers that emails deemed unwanted are less likely to reach the eyes of consumers.  The age old models of “Last In, On Top” and “One Message Fits All” no longer apply, and marketers must focus on relevance and personalization in order to keep their subscribers engaged and avoid being lost with “Everything Else”.

For additional information about Priority Inbox, visit the Gmail Help section.

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Jun 28

Is Permission Enough?

By Todd Coffey Email Delivery, Email Marketing No Comments »

As we all know, deliverability is a critical component for email marketing success.  If your subscribers never see your message because it’s blocked or sent to the spam folder, they are unable to take an action.  A 2009 benchmark study conducted by Return Path found that nearly 20% of permission-based email messages never reach the intended recipient.  They are bounced back, delivered to the spam folder, or even worse, accepted by the ISP and not delivered to the inbox or spam folder (silent filtering).  I’m sure this statistic gets a lot of marketers pretty steamed, and after speaking to some of my clients about this study, I started to wonder:  Is permission to send someone an email really enough?

The Definition of Spam Is Changing

Over the past year, email professionals have witnessed a fundamental shift in the way ISPs and email providers accept and filter incoming mail.  Today, the focus is on delivering email that subscribers want, rather than just blocking unsolicited or malicious messages as evident by the upcoming changes to Hotmail.  To accommodate this new model of filtering, ISPs are utilizing more data about subscriber response when determining inbox eligibility.  In addition to the traditional metrics of spam complaints and unknown users, ISPs incorporate open and click data, time spent viewing an email, and deleting without opening when calculating sender reputation.

With this increase in filtering intelligence, the definition of spam has now changed.  From an ISP perspective, spam has become any email message determined to be unwanted by the end user, regardless of whether or not the email sender obtained opt-in consent.  Even if your list is double opt-in, if the majority of your subscribers are not positively engaged with your brand, you run the risk of being filtered by the ISPs.

Focus On Customer Value

So as a permission-based marketer, how do you avoid having your mail misclassified by the ISPs?  First, it is important to develop a program that provides ongoing value to your subscribers.  Leverage customer data and history to send relevant messages at the right time and stay away from the batch and blast mentality where one email fits all.  In addition, a welcome series, original content newsletters, and ongoing transactional messages are a great way to reinforce your brand and increase positive engagement from subscribers.

Bottom line, if you focus on what your subscribers want out of your email program, then deliverability and revenue usually take care of themselves.

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May 26

Hotmail Changes and Email Marketing

By Kevin Senne Email Delivery, Email Marketing No Comments »

Hotmail is in the process of revamping their service.  The past year or so, Microsoft had been attempting to move users to the Windows Live brand.  It looks like that course has changed, and Hotmail is back in vogue.  There are some pretty important changes and features that you should know about if you send email marketing messages.  Most senders have a substantial portion of Hotmail addresses in our lists, so when Hotmail does something like this, you should be prepared.

I’ll hit some of the highlights (or lowlights) for you today.

My top concern is the “Sweep” feature.  Sweep allows you to get rid of groups of messages from a sender in one swoop.  Microsoft defines these messages like this.

We also know you still get a lot of other mail in your inbox that you don’t want. We call this “graymail” – legitimate mail that you signed up to receive or agreed to receive at one point, but you no longer want. The new Hotmail gives you the first and only virtual broom in any inbox out there, letting you sweep the mail you don’t want right out of your inbox – all in just a couple of clicks.

That’s not good news for email marketers.  This only highlights the push to send engaging messages.  Now more than ever, as a sender you must deliver content that recipients actually want to open and click on.  FYI, the “sweep” will also continue to sweep away these messages until the user says stop, and that’s probably never.  Lose the customer once, and you may never see them again.

The second addition is the possibility to manage your Gmail, Yahoo!, and AOL email boxes in the same interface.  We’re looking at the real possibility of the addresses that make up 75% of most lists being managed and swept away in the Hotmail interface.

There are also enhancements to sharing, photos, and documents that may make the service attractive again.  You can also sync up the email from social networking sites.  There’s a lot here to take in.  I encourage you to read the blog and watch the video.  There’s an opportunity here for senders with great messaging to stand out.  There’s also an opportunity for a large portion of your messages to be swept away.

Hotmail Changes Video

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May 14

5 Email Marketing Testing Mistakes

By Kevin Senne Email Delivery, Email Marketing, Online Marketing 1 Comment »

Everybody knows you should be testing your email marketing messages.  A/B testing, split testing, time of day testing,  and day of week testing are just a few of the programs you can choose to run.  For something that seems so basic and mission critical, the email marketing industry as a whole does a pretty awful job with testing.

Today, I wanted to share a list of my top 5 mistakes that I’ve observed email marketers make.

  1. No Testing – For all of the testing mistakes that are out there, it is shocking to find out just how many senders don’t do any testing.  If you aren’t testing your messages today, don’t feel embarrassed, you are not alone.  There is always room for improvement in your marketing programs.  Without testing and benchmarking, you will never know where those areas for improvement (increased loyalty, retention, and possibly revenue) exist.
  2. No Test Plan – If you decide to do testing, congratulations.  The first thing you should build is a test plan.  What do you want to accomplish with your program/campaign?  How long will the test run?  What will you test?  Put it on paper before you begin and don’t get distracted.  Have a plan.
  3. Too Many Variables – You should run testing to answer a specific question.  Answer ONE question at a time.  Testing a call to action in 2 segments with different subject lines doesn’t necessarily tell you much about the call to action, although it might.  Be patient, test, learn and move on.
  4. Sample Size – We tend to want our test results to come very quickly.  I see senders do a single test to a small percentage of their audience and make long-term decisions that shape the future based on those results.  You need to make sure everyone is comfortable with the results.  If you received a bad diagnosis from a doctor, you’d go and get a second opinion.  Give yourself enough data to make an informed decision.
  5. Interpreting Results – You’ve got a plan, sent out the right amount, tested things that make sense, and have reams of data.  Now what?  You need to be sure and look at these results in the context of your own universe.  Some email marketers see a 60% open rate for a mailing and are disappointed, while some campaign owners see a 1% open rate and are ecstatic.  Everything must be relevant to you.  Don’t compare apples to watermelons.

Testing email campaigns can be tricky business.  Don’t let the learning curve intimidate you.  I think you will feel that the more effort you spend in testing, the more reward you will see from your email program.

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Apr 21

2010: The Year of Engagement?

By Kevin Senne Email Delivery, Email Marketing, Executive Insight, Online Marketing No Comments »

What does it take to be a great email marketer? We’ve asked you to have and maintain a great reputation. We’ve asked you to be honest with your recipients. You have to be exactly who you say you are and send what you say you’re going to deliver. You can’t pretend to be something cool like a doctor or stuntman to impress potential recipients. As if all those requirements aren’t tough enough, we’re now going to ask you to make one final commitment: engagement.

We only just met. Now we’re talking engagement? I know the mere thought of commitment makes some of you break out in a rash. Understandably, engagement can be a pretty scary prospect. But take it from me, there’s nothing to fear. Now is the time to embrace engagement in a big way because engagement is the new black, the way of the jungle, the bee’s knees, and the cat’s meow all rolled into one. Engagement will be the single most important buzzword you hear in email marketing this year.

Here’s the skinny on engagement. Every day, the path to your customer’s inbox gets more and more narrow. ISPs are now not only looking at your reputation, mailing history and content before deciding to deliver to the inbox or the bulk folder, they now want your recipients to actually engage with your messages. Engagement in its simplest form means that when an email arrives in an inbox, it is actually opened and clicked. If messages aren’t engaging to their recipients, ISPs have started to help recipients out with inbox maintenance. You read that right. Messages that don’t generate clicks and opens will be filtered to the bulk or spam folders.

So what does this mean for senders? It means we’ve got to make ourselves presentable very quickly. Our reputation still matters. Our identity and infrastructure still matter. But, now we also have to be charming. You can put your best foot forward in email by following some of these best practices:

  • Only send messages with a clear purpose and message — all email should have a clear and identifiable call to action
  • Email templates should resemble your Web site to help with visual identification
  • “From” names should clearly identify your company and not change
  • Subject lines should clearly explain what your message is about

Commitment is good once you take the first step to building a long lasting relationship with your customers. Go out and get engaged!

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Feb 24

Extending the Life of Your Subscribers

By Michael Goldberg Email Delivery No Comments »

In my experience, many companies tend to focus their efforts on acquiring new subscribers and neglect their existing subscribers and/or customers. Lead driven companies add these new email addresses to an existing house file with a general communication stream, regardless of the subscribers’ interests or the nature of their conversion. As a result, many of these customers don’t take further action or make additional purchases – quickly turning into unsubscribes or complaints.
Since reputation plays such an important role in deliverability, companies can’t afford to neglect their existing subscribers. Doing so will lead to a decrease in subscriber engagement as well as a reduction in the overall life span of an email address in your database. This not only increases customer attrition but can also result in an overall decrease in inbox deliverability. Here a re a few tips to keep in mind to help increase the life of a subscriber’s email address.

• Make sure that newsletter content and promotions are fresh and relevant to your audience.

• Don’t over saturate your audience with emails.

• Create a customer-focused email program.

For more in-depth information from our deliverability experts, contact us today!

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