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 Issue 6 - November 2009 |
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eCRM STATS Holiday email send volumes have increased 20% year-over-year since 2006 and start earlier each year. (Source: The 2009 Holiday Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report, Experian.) The 4 most popular email days of the year for retailers:
In a Forrester Research study of 5,000 online consumers, 64% reported wanting to see user ratings and reviews when making a purchase decision. (Source: User Ratings Top Consumers’ Online Wish Lists, Forrester Research, Inc., Feb. 2008.) ASK THE EXPERT Q. I want to make sure that my holiday emails get through in the best possible format. How does an email vendor know whether to send an HTML or text version of an email to each recipient? A. Unless a recipient has specifically requested to receive email formatted as text or HTML when they signed up to receive your email, emails sent from your Email Service Provider will be sent in "Multipart MIME format." Basically this means that both an HTML and a text version will be sent, and the recipient's email client will determine which version can be displayed. Have a question about anything related to eCRM or email marketing? Send questions to 
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Gearing Up for the Holidays
Deck the halls with frantic marketers ... it's holiday time again, and most of our readers are already scrambling to tap into the year-end buying spree. As holiday shopping represents a "make-or-break" time for many retailers, it definitely pays to get the marketing right. This month's eCRM Advisor provides benchmarks on holiday e-marketing and tips on getting your emails safely delivered, read and acted on during the holiday rush. Better “Gift-Giving:” More Effective Email Creative  By Jaime Senior, Creative Director The holidays are right around the corner, and my seven-year-old is already counting down the days to the big gift-opening extravaganza otherwise known as Christmas at Nana's house. His approach to opening gifts is down to a science. He scans his pile, evaluates who each gift is from, and has an idea of what to expect based on previous experience. It doesn't take long after opening each one to determine if he likes it or if it's time to move on to the next gift. It dawned on me that his approach to opening the gifts is not unlike how we approach reading emails in our inbox. When developing email creative, business managers can apply tactics similar to that of the gift-giver. Here are some things to consider to be a more effective email gift-giver. "Nice Wrapping Paper!" Grab their attention in the subject line and the preview pane. Subject Lines"Just what I wanted!" Know your audience: Dynamic content. There is always one aunt or uncle who gets all the kids the exact same gift. However, kids want a gift they can show off to others who don't have it. The same goes for today's email audience. They like to think that email messages were written and designed specifically for them. Dynamic content involves more than just a personalized salutation. Send them relevant, targeted messages based on data you have collected before communication begins, and behavioral patterns gathered after the relationship is up and running. If you know they just purchased a 40” plasma TV, hit them with a discount on a surround sound system. "Share, kids, share!” Social Integration. It’s hard for the kiddies to give up a toy they just received to one of the other kids to play with. It’s a little easier to get your email recipient to share the message with the masses. Today, you see more and more messages in the inbox with links to share the message on the various social sites… it’s the new “forward to a friend.” After all, why wouldn’t they want to share a 50% Off or a Buy One Get One Free offer with their loved ones? You may miss the mark on the original target, but someone visiting their Wall is bound to be interested. "Awesome!" "Cool! " "What the ...?" Testing: the best "best practice." You have to love the gutsy, risk-taking gift giver who is willing to go out on a limb when choosing that something special. Sometimes it's just what the recipient needed, and sometimes it misses the mark completely. But at least they took a shot. The lesson learned here is to TEST to see what works with your audience. Getting clients to test in email can be a struggle at times. Yes, they all eventually come around with the ever-so-popular subject line test, which does give them some valuable insight. But try pushing the envelope a little and test formats, content, and anything else you can think of. It's the only way to learn what truly works and figure out what best practices are for your audience. David Ogilvy said it best: "Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving." HOLIDAY REPORT: The 2009 Holiday Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report By Experian Marketing Services Extracts republished by permission How much email is sent at the holidays? When do marketers send the most email? Which offers and subject lines work best? Find out how your email program stacks up against others in your industry in the latest findings from Experian and CheetahMail.  TECHNICAL CORNER: Deliverability Is Fulfilling a Promise By Ian McCollum, eCRM Manager The best way to ensure the deliverability of your email campaigns is to fulfill the promise you made to your subscribers when they signed up. Send them what they asked for, when, and as often as they asked for it. As soon as your emails stray from this promise, engagement will go down and complaints and unsubscribes will go up. Since most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) look at levels of engagement and complaints when deciding whether or not to let your messages through, this should be your number one deliverability priority. Before working on your reputation and engagement there are some basics that should be covered from a technical perspective. First, sending domains should be authenticated so that ISPs can validate that you are the true sender of messages from your domain. There are three authentication technologies in place today -- Domain Keys, SPF, and SenderID. Since each ISP uses just one or two of these technologies it is best to support all three. Domain Keys, Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM)It is also important to white-list sending IP addresses with the major ISPs. The deliverability expert with your Email Service Provider (ESP) should have established relationships with the major ISPs. They can register your domain and IP address(es) with the ISPs to help ensure that messages are delivered. Along with white-listing, any feedback loops that are available should be set up at the same time. Still, this is just one piece of deliverability. If you are not sending relevant messages that engage your subscribers you will be blocked. Once the ISPs are able to validate the sender of messages they will begin to track your reputation. Building reputation takes time. Slowly ramping up your email program with relevant messages to small groups of active subscribes will help build a positive reputation. But as soon as you deviate from your promise to your subscribers, reputation will suffer. This bring us to the final factor in deliverability management -- list hygiene. It's essential to monitor lists for inactive subscribers, invalid email addresses and complainers. Inactives are those who have not opened or clicked in a message over a defined time period. These subscribers should be segmented out and treated differently through frequency and/or offer testing to try and re-engage them. The last resort is to not send to inactive subscribers. Addresses that have bounced or are invalid should be removed immediately to minimize failed attempts to send to the ISPs since this is also taken into account when building reputation. Lastly, any subscribers that have complained should be removed. These subscribers can be identified through the feedback loops set up between your ESP and the ISPs. Covering all the technical bases of deliverability is a time-consuming process that only gets you started. All of the work in domain authentication, white-listing, feedback loops, reputation building and list hygiene will be for nothing if you fail to send your subscribers what they asked for when, and as often as they asked for it. ABOUT US Razorfish eCRM Solutions is a dedicated solutions group in the Razorfish Network, built to support the evolving needs of our clients in building best-in-class marketing programs. The team is a comprehensive set of experts in email marketing and relationship marketing that supports all forms of strategic services, including strategic planning, communication roadmaps, email delivery and technology, campaign management and optimization with an emphasis on experience and analytical optimization.
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