The Welcome Email
Your Chance To Make a Positive First Impression
By Whitney Hutchinson, Group Director, Strategy and Account Planning

You never have a second chance to make a first impression. From the time someone walks into your store, visits your Web site or talks to one of your customer service representatives, their experience molds their opinion of you. Creating positive experiences is key to driving positive opinions -- and positive opinions lead to both valuable and loyal customers.

So how does this idea of making a good first impression and molding and managing customer experiences and opinions translate into the email space? Two words – welcome email.

A welcome email should come immediately after sign-up. It's important to capitalize on a user's attention and there's no better time to do that than the present. The welcome email should thank users for opting in, explain what they can expect from your email program and get them excited to receive the next one. Some advertisers find that asking additional profile questions during this time too is helpful.

RAZORFISH POV: The Preference Center
Giving Customers What They Want While Maximizing ROI
By Deirdre Cook, Strategy Director

A surge of new competitors is flooding the email channel with irrelevant messaging. As a result, the number one challenge all marketers face today is getting their messages to stand out in the inbox. A key way of doing this is to ensure the proper delivery of relevant messaging to your customers and prospects. Relevancy should be based on customer understanding and insight garnered from both behavioral and self-reported data.

This POV discusses ways in which marketers can build out a robust collection vehicle for prospect and customer self-reported data. Specifically: who are your consumers, what do they want and how can you deliver information to them in order to maximize their value to you?

TECHNICAL CORNER
Are Your Emails CAN-SPAM Compliant?
By Susan Addy, eCRM Manager

One of the fundamentals of email marketing is CAN-SPAM compliance. Although Razorfish does not provide legal advice, we wanted to review the highlights of the act for our readers as a refresher course.

The following requirements apply to commercial emails, both B2C and B2B. Transactional emails such as order or shipping confirmations are exempt.

• Prohibits false or misleading header information. "From," "To," "Reply-To," and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.
• Prohibits deceptive subject lines. These cannot be misleading with regard to the content or subject matter of the message.
• Requires the inclusion of a legitimate physical address of the publisher and/or advertiser (a P.O. Box is acceptable).
• Requires that you identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement.
• Requires that emails contain an easy unsubscribe or opt-out method. The email recipient should be able to send a reply email message or clearly identify a link to a single Web page to opt out from receiving future emails from the sender. They cannot be required to pay a fee or provide information other than their email address and opt-out preferences. Opt-out requests must be honored within 10 business days. It is illegal to sell or distribute email addresses of people who have chosen to unsubscribe.
• Allows for "forward to a friend" and "tell a friend" as long as you do not store the friend's email address for future use. You may also not "procure" nor "induce" forwarding of the email (e.g. – by offering something of value). The email to the friend must follow the header rules as stated above.

Be sure to confer with your legal advisors to confirm the compliance of your emails with CAN-SPAM.

For more information, visit the Federal Trade Commission online.

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.