Persuasive e-Marketing

To my dear subscribers: e-buzz is outta here!

2007-07-16T10:12:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed things have been a little quiet around here... That's because I've been busy setting up the Sitebrand blog - Persuasive e-Marketing.

Persuasive e-Marketing will basically be the same as e-buzz - I'll be the chief contributor, however, we will have more guest bloggers in a wider array of topics. Also, the scope will be slightly broader - incorporating other e-marketing techniques .

e-Buzz will still sit here for a short time - and then all pages will be redirected to the Sitebrand blog. I hope you will subscribe to the Persuasive e-Marketing feed!!

As always, if you have any questions or comments about the move, feel free to email me: krusk(at)sitebrand(dot)com

Looking to search all the best e-marketing info?

2007-07-06T11:24:00.000-05:00

Well you're in luck! Mark Brownlow, of No man is an iland fame, has created "OnlineMarketing.info" a search engine that includes only the best email marketing resources.

Check it out...

Experimenting with link placement/call to action...

2007-07-04T08:49:00.000-05:00

So given the buzz recently stirred up by Chad White about whether text or button links work best for calls to action... We decided to run a little test with our final edition of our e-bulletin Expresso.

Due to our acquisition by Sitebrand, we are retiring Expresso, but are asking people to sign up for the new Sitebrand Snippet. As you see below, we put in a text linking "opt-in now!" very close to that, a button saying "Subscribe to the Snippet"(circled in blue). Plus a second little test: in every issue, we include a link in the intro text to the featured article, as well as a short lead-in at the bottom, I was also interested in what worked best there as well (circled in red).

Drumroll.... The results!

Now here's the fun part: According to Chad White's reportlet (available through the eec Whitepaper room - free for members, small fee for non-members) AND according to results from the poll on the eec's website buttons perform better than text links...

According to our little experiment, however, the text link beat the button by 66%! Now of course, Chad's reportlet focused on retailers, which we are not, but the point here is always test, test, test. Your audience is unique and you need to figure out what works best for it. (I will admit, the results are not what I thought they would be! )

As for the the secondary test: link placed in intro "Above the fold" vs. with lead paragraph at the bottom of the email, the lower link won by 70%. Combined, both got a lot of clicks, so I would definitely recommend putting an extra link above the fold if you can, because surely without it there, the overall click rate would have been lower.

PS - Want to know how to test how identical links perform in the same email? I read this tip online somewhere (If you're the one who blogged about it.. let me know and I'll give you credit) you can insert non-existent anchors at the end of your text (e.g. www.sitebrand.com/subscribe/index.php#1 and www.sitebrand.com/subscribe/index.php#2) which will take your recipients to the same page, but track separately in your results. Very fun!

Basic email metrics explained....

2007-07-04T08:16:00.000-05:00

One of the many mysteries of email marketing is the definition of key metrics - unfortunately, there are no standards, and it can be tricky to find out how they are calculated.

Lucky for you, Tamara Gielen over at Tamara's Email Marketing Best Practices has posted a list of explanation, which includes a breakdown of formulas. When in doubt get the raw data and calculate yourself! And as a reminder, our Quarterly Email Trend Reports, breakdown opens, clicks, and click-to-open rates as they are explained in the article.

Compliments to the chef...err.. email marketer!

2007-06-26T15:37:00.000-05:00

It's so easy to pick apart email newsletters - but every once in a while we have to stop and give kudos to a great one... Especially when a couple of email marketing specialists start raving about it (and it's not one of our clients), you know it's definitely something worth blogging about. I'm talking about the Canadian Kraft Kitchens email program...

See a sample issue...

In fact, what really shocks me about it, is that it doesn't even follow some email best practices that I (and others in the industry) are preaching - for example, the first 1/3 of the email is all image-based, not great for preview pane/image blocking, but I definitely open and activate images every time I receive the email, and here's why:

Timely - the email always seem to arrive in the late afternoon - when I'm getting distracted from working and thinking about what's for dinner. Also, it often has relevant 'themed' recipes for upcoming holidays (in this case, Canada Day)
Targeted & relevant- on sign up, Kraft asks for quite a few details which it explains:
Most importantly, when you create your personal profile and register, you'll receive content that is relevant to you. By telling us about yourself we can design more recipes, tips & timesaving techniques with you in mind
It's fairly obvious the program is well thought out, and planned ahead of time - which makes a huge difference.

Also, what I love, is they sometimes cross promote another issue at the top with a "send to me now" button - therefore, they aren't annoying me for sending too much, and now I'm in control of whether or not I want another one... Genius!

11 Tips for successful B2B landing page

2007-06-26T14:20:00.001-05:00

Luke Newton, over at skatterbox.com has posted this great list of tips B2B landing pages.

You spend a great deal of time developing a web site - so it's nice to leverage that work with your email program as best you can... However, building a successful landing page that quickly and efficiently bridges the gap between your consumer and your conversion point can be the difference between a good campaign and a great campaign.

My favourite is Tip # 2:

Personalize the content: I've seen marketers spend hours segmenting a list and crafting a highly customized message that speaks directly to each recipient...only to forward them to a generic landing page once they decide to take action! If your email program allows for personalization of content... drive that personalization through the link in the email and into the landing page. If you want to see how you can do this through using simple javascript, see this earlier post.

Despite rise in spam, Canadians willing to subscribe to email

2007-06-26T12:29:00.000-05:00

It was one of those magical moments - I'm sitting here wondering what to blog about, and this perfect email from Ipsos lands in my inbox - no wonder I love this medium so much...

According to a study by Ipsos-Reid, Even though Canadians have seen an increase in spam messages this year, up 51%, email is still the communications method of choice for 66% of us. Furthermore, two-thirds of Canadian Internet users are willing to provide an email address to companies that ask.

Other highlights include:

44% of us agree that we can hardly keep up with the amount of email that we receive.
After a steady decline since 2003 in the amount of email received by Canadians in an average week, that figure has risen again. Canadians report receiving an average of 206 e-mails per week, a 26% increase over last year and up from a high in 2003 of 197.
Four-in-five Canadian internet users who have registered at a website to receive e-mail have also deregistered, stating a variety of reasons including a loss of interest (43%); the inability to deal with e-mail volume or no time to read the emails (25%); and, too much junk mail or irrelevant information (22%).

See the press release...

The study's executive summary is available online, and the full version available for purchase: "Email Marketing 2007: SPAM or Marketing – Do Canadians Know the Difference?"

Better late than never - card Q1 '07 Quarterly Trend Report

2007-06-19T09:47:00.000-05:00

Finally, the Q1 '07 Email Trend Report by card is ready for your reading enjoyment! It was a bit of a kooky quarter - trends that we've seen repeated over and over again were different, although some things stayed the same (smaller, segmented lists still outperform larger lists!)

Take a look...

Email resource roundup

2007-06-19T07:53:00.001-05:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks around here, so I admit I've been ignoring the blog a little. Luckily for you (and me) there's been a lot of great email marketing articles posted about the web lately. Here's just a few:

New Research Shows 53% of Email Subject Lines Broken + How to Fix Yours
(Open access until June 19, but if you miss it, you can download the Pivotal Veracity study it's based on)
Jeanne Jennings, over at ClickZ, tells us to Ask the Right Email Questions, and answers some of the obvious ones asked by email newbies.
The email diva, Melinda Krueger, offers suggestions for improving your newsletter.
Silver Pop tells us How to get your boss to love email.
Email Marketing Reports and Email Marketing Voodoo both give examples of emails sent at the wrong time.
And finally, Mail Chimp teaches us about Weeding out Your Email List.

Enjoy!

Is permission enough?

2007-06-14T15:32:00.000-05:00

Stephanie Miller of Return Path shares some insight into why people may opt out, ignore or complain about your email.

Bottom line is, you should always set the stage for your subscriber - if you are going to mail more often, or different types of email than initially promised, ask for permission again.

Read on...

Retailers using animation in email

2007-06-08T07:43:00.000-05:00

Chad White of RetailEmail.blogspot and the eec has just put out a new report on the use of animation in retail email.

The use of animation in email is interesting: on one hand, it can help your creative be more eye-catching and attention getting, however, on the other hand - it just won't work in some email clients (i.e. Outlook 2007) and image-blocking software can make it ineffective.

My recommendation is go ahead and use animated gifs (not flash in email) but be aware that some recipients may not see the animation - only the first image in the cycle - so be sure that image can stand alone without animation.

Check out Chad's executive summary, the full report is free for eec members, and costs $99 for non-members.

Boosting web site visits w/ personalized emails

2007-06-01T08:10:00.000-05:00

According to this new study from RightNow Technologies and Harris Interactive, segmented and tailored e-mail messages can be a key driver for sales while personalized follow-up can turn a one-time customer into a loyal repeat customer.

Ya no kidding!!! Here's the skinny:

68% of consumers surveyed said they were prompted to browse a web site after receiving an email from a retailer, according to the study.
73% said they would appreciate any post-purchase follow-up.

The survey also found that 50% of consumers have increased shopping online “a great deal” or “somewhat” in the past five years. This is great news for all our e-commerce friends!

Oh and 42% said they would prefer to be able to find the answers they need online by themselves if they had a question or needed help during an online shopping experience. HINT: you better make sure you have a good online search tool AND think about web site personalization - more at: http://www.sitebrand.com/solutions_retail.html

“Providing shoppers with easy access to relevant information is critical to the success of any online retailer,” says Greg Gianforte, CEO of RightNow.

The study was conducted online from March 26-28 among 2,873 adults ages 18 and over.

Renting a list? 5 tips to do it right...

2007-05-30T09:44:00.001-05:00

An interesting little scenario arose today... I received an email from an industry publication asking me to subscribe to its weekly newsletter. It was a well-written offer, in fact, I was tempted - until it occurred to that I was subscribed, and had unsubscribed last November.

It seems the email was sent through another company (although the from name belonged to the certain publication), so I suspect it was a list rental of sorts. However, it should have been arranged that anyone who had previously unsubscribed to the publication's list should not be included on the rental list. Since the email was branded from the publication - this is definitely a violation of Can-Spam.

As an email marketer, I'm definitely sympathetic - things go wrong sometimes, but here's the real kicker: I hit reply to politely let them know what had happen, only to find my email bounce back to me! Anyway, I'm feeling nice, so I won't out the culprit. I will, however, provide a list of tips for list rentals...

Tips for List Rentals

My personal feeling is that if you can avoid renting lists, you should, renting a quality list is expensive, and you always run the risk of ticking people off. However, if you need to, there are steps you can take to get the most of your money:

Suppress your house file unsubscribe list from rented lists - If I've unsubscribed, it means I'm not interested in hearing from you. Usually, when someone is mailing to a list on your behalf, they should ask for this.
Ask that the list owner use its normal 'From name' for the email - The from name should always match the company with the relationship with subscribers to avoid spam complaints. Your brand should be introduced in the subject line.
Use a reputable list broker - if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Ask about how often the list is rented out, how often it's mailed to, how names were collected. Being perceived as a spammer (or in association with them) can hurt your brand reputation.
Make the most of your rental, ask for an opt-in - Make the primary call-to-action a request to subscribe. You could try to sell a product, and that may bring in X amount of dollars, but if you convert the rented names to join your own house list, you can sell to them time and time again.
Handle replies appropriately - It becomes a bit confusing - are subscribers replying to the list owner, or the company who is renting the list? The reality is a lot of the replies will most likely be list items: people asking to be unsubscribed, auto-replies, etc. However, some people may want to inquire about the company crafting the message. First, the reply-to address needs to be valid! Secondly, whoever is handling replies should have a clear understanding of what to do with emails. Consider adding a reply email address inside the body to help subscribers who may want to contact you directly.

AOL.com joins the bandwagon ~ disables images

2007-05-23T10:24:00.001-05:00

Adding to a substantial list of email clients already blocking images by default, AOL.com and AIM.com have made the jump.

This isn't really bad news for e-marketers, but yet another reason why your email creative should be optimized for image-blocking.

You can, however, bypass the blocking by either having your name added to your subscribers address book, and also by being on AOL's enhanced Whitelist. More details on the eec's voice of email blog...

Canadians more willing to give permission than grant forgiveness...

2007-05-16T08:42:00.000-05:00

More Canadian email news today! Ipsos published an article about Canadians thoughts and opinions towards email marketing. The article is free for subscribers, but I will touch on some of the interesting points here:

65% of Canadians prefer communicating via email over other methods, although on the flip side, 44% of us agree that we can hardly keep up with the amount of email that we receive.
After two years of ‘winning the war against spam’, the volume of spam has increased 51% in 2006 to an average of 130 emails per week.
Spam overload does have an impact on legitimate email marketing because of the fact that the lines are often blurred between the two in consumer’s minds.
80% of Canadian Internet users have registered with at least one website to receive permission-based email, with the typical Canadian Internet user registering with an average of slightly more than eight websites

My favourite part of the article comes here, under the subtitle "Email Marketing is Successful in Engaging Internet Users", particularly, the article provides some insight into what consumers like to receive:

Respondents also expressed interest in receiving discounts (82%), free gifts (73%), contest offerings and tips (70% each), and interest is also relatively high in eCoupons (61%), industry news (50%) or eFlyers (49%).

And finally, what influence is email having over consumers buying and purchasing habits?

A significant minority of Canadian Internet users have forwarded a direct email they have received on to a friend or colleague (27%), purchased the advertiser’s product or service at a later date (20%), or purchased the advertiser’s product or service from the website (16%).

Ipsos comes out with interesting articles about email marketing pretty frequently - I would encourage you to sign up (for free) for Ipsos-Ideas.

MSN Canada examines Canadian email habits

2007-05-15T12:42:00.000-05:00

A survey by MSN and Ipsos reveals that Canadians actually prefer email (78%) over snail-mail (28%) because 'it's easier', And 76% of Canadians are creating 'virtual shoeboxes' with their email inboxes by archiving these important messages, documents and photos. The survey also highlights some stats from west coast Canada:

British Columbians have been plugged into email for the longest, with 36% claiming to have had email for over 10 years compared to the national average of 28%, and a rate of 18% in Quebec.
Three quarters (75%) of British Columbian users have had a Hotmail account for five years or more, compared to just over half (53%) of residents of Atlantic Canada.
14% of British Columbians have sent or received wedding announcements via email versus just 6% in Atlantic Canada.
Similarly, 33% of British Columbians have sent or received baby announcements versus 13% of Atlantic Canadians.
British Columbians are most likely to have felt the impact of cupid via email, with 42% saying that they have sent or received a love letter online, compared to the national average of 32%.

More information in the news release posted on CCN Matthews.

Relevance, Measurement key to email success

2007-05-11T07:28:00.000-05:00

Laurie Petersen posts a recap on Online Media Daily from the Email Insider Summit in Florida, discussing why relevance and measurement are the most important factors in a healthy email program.

I especially love some of the examples she gives, such as targeting pregnant women at different stages of pregnancy, and puppy owners according to the pet's age. While finding out this information about your subscribers can seem cumbersome, and developing the strategy, content and sending at the right time may seem a lot harder than blasting off one email to your list, it truly will pay off in the long run.

Read the article...

If you buy one book this year...

2007-05-07T13:04:00.000-05:00

Make it "Email Marketing by the Numbers" by Chris Baggott. And I'm not just saying that because I contributed an article for it. I read the 290-page book in a day - because it's well written and captivating! It's available through Amazon, and there's been quite a buzz about it online. Buy the book...

Email Experience Council Launches " the Voice of Email" blog

2007-05-04T11:54:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note to tell you the Email Experience Council has just launched a new blog, the voice of email, which, judging by its impressive list of contributors, promises to be a great source of email insight and knowledge. It's definitely worth keeping an eye on!

More on delivery to Hotmail (Plus Live Mail & Outlook) from Microsoft

2007-05-04T09:39:00.000-05:00

Microsoft has published a 26-page PDF that goes into great detail about delivering to Hotmail, Live Mail and Office 2007. Now it may sound long, but you definitely want to check it out because Outlook, Live Mail and Hotmail users probably make up a nice chunk of your audience. Go get it!

PS - A big shoutout to MailChimp - where I found out about this!

Hotmail tough on spam (and legitimate mail too!)

2007-05-02T14:48:00.000-05:00

So lately there's been a bit of an upheavel over hotmail's "disappearing act." It seems emails are being sent to hotmail, not bouncing, not landing in the junk box or inbox, just completely disappearing into thin air!

What can you do to make sure your emails are getting through to your hotmail users? Easy... Authentication! (uh... what?)

Lucky for us all, some great people are blogging about it all over the place:

Mark Brownlow of "No man is an iland" points us to this article on The Register, which explains what's going on with Hotmail and what you can do about it.
David Baker of WhiteNoise, posts a recap of the Authentication and Online Trust Summit which includes great detail about Hotmail's (and other ISPs) delivery procedures.
Al Iverson of spam resource posts 3 Easy steps for setting up Sender ID authentication, which will vastly improve your chances of getting delivered to Hotmail.

See there's nothing to worry about! And if you are using a reputable ESP to send your email out, it probably comes equipped with authentication, so no sweat! (Don't be afraid to call and find out though)

Your sender reputation does matter

2007-04-26T08:07:00.000-05:00

Given the recent Authentication and Online Trust Alliance Summit, there's been quite a buzz about authentication, deliverability and sender reputation in the world of email marketing. I'll admit, using a reputable ESP makes me a little *yawn* unconcerned with the technical aspects of authentication & reputation, but it is no doubt important stuff.

Luckily for me, (and maybe you too) George Bilbrey of deliverability & reputation firm Return Path, has posted a quick and easy-to-understand recap about how ISPs/receivers handle your mail and what it means to them.

If you can't bare to get that nitty gritty, at least check out this very cool tool George mentions in the article www.senderscore.org - you can look up your sender IP address and get all the dirty details ISPs learn about you when you send to them!

5 Common headline mistakes & how to avoid them

2007-04-20T14:49:00.000-05:00

As usual, Copyblogger posts a fantastic article to help you write better headlines. I'm sharing this particular post because the advice translates to subject lines as well.

Subject lines can be the crucial difference between someone opening your email, and deleting it right away. Master the subject line, and you're on your way to e-marketing bliss!

New: Email Measurement Accuracy Coalition

2007-04-17T09:54:00.000-05:00

Jupiter Research has formed the "Email Measurement Accuracy Coalition" - A great move in the email world. If you've been following this blog (or our e-bulletin), or any other email marketing resource, you probably know about the lack of standardize metrics.

I encourage you to check out 'EMAC" and sign up for free membership & email updates!

Retailers Embrace Email 2.0

2007-04-12T12:02:00.000-05:00

Chad White, of eec and RetailEmail.Blogspot fame, posted a great article today in MediaPost's Email Insider column about Retailers embracing 'Email 2.0'.

If you are thinking of diving into new technology: RSS, Blogs, Wikis, etc, why not take a peek, and see how retail's big brands do it.