What’s in store for Email Marketing in 2010The start of the year always seems to be a time for marketers to take stock and start planning for the forthcoming year.

Over the past year we have seen some parts of the email marketing industry progress and become more prominent whilst we have also seen announcements which mean certain aspects of email marketing will stay the same for quite some time.

Domain Based Reputation

One of the big issues to arise for me is ISP’s adoption of domain based reputation.  There’s a couple of great articles on it here:

Times are changing for E-Mail Marketing
The coming gold rush with domain based reputation

In a (very small) nutshell, this potentially could mean that you’re accountable for your sending practices regardless of how many different IP’s or ESP’s you go through.

Although in this Return Path post it does point out that rather than being the sole solution to everyone’s problems, it will more likely be another tool for ISP’s to adopt to be more accurate with their reputation filtering.

So what does this mean to you?  Well, basically it’s another step forward in promoting good sending practices and sending relevant emails.  Those of you who are conscientious about your sending practices and campaign content, will see your campaigns strive, whilst those who don’t will see their campaigns continue to lose effectiveness.

Engagement

The best way to adapt to domain based reputation filtering is to keep your subscribers engaged in the emails you send out.  Engagement has become a more prominent issue throughout 2009, and I can see that continuing through 2010.

This post from Mark Brownlow brings up a great point “organizations managing incoming email (particularly the big ISPs) would broaden the list of criteria used to define spam (unwanted) email to include how people interact with a sender’s messages”.

As reputation filtering progresses, so does the definition of spam.  Marketers still looking towards what the law defines as spam will ultimately fail as its definition is now the opinion of each person you send to; legal terms won’t stop a recipient from disengaging or pressing the “this is spam” button.

Have a look at a previous post I wrote for inspiration on how to maintain engagement.

Preference Centres

Another way to keep your recipients engaged is through preference centres.  Okay, not a new subject but it has continued to grow in popularity since it was introduced.

Preference centres are an alternative to unsubscribe links.  They will allow your subscribers to choose what they receive from you.  In theory, this should reduce the levels of unsubscribes you receive – great.  This in turn will allow your subscribers to also choose what emails they receive, which should keep them more engaged in your messages – also great.

So why not use them for your campaigns? Read more here:

Why an email preference center matters
Preference centres and positive unsubscribe processes

Strategy

The new year is a great time for marketers to start to plan ahead for the year.  A post I wrote last year outlines how some campaigns become stale and fall into a rut.  Eventually you could see your recipients becoming emotionally unsubscribed from your messages – an email marketers’ nightmare.

So with the new year in place, why not try planning out a full years campaigns using the email campaign life cycle model?  The idea is that by setting out your campaigns with a definite end to it, it will keep you engaged in your own campaigns as well as your recipients.

Design

News in 2009 was that Microsoft confirming that Outlook 2010 will keep the same rendering engine as Outlook 2007. Despite a big uproar from the email marketing community, the engine in Outlook 2010 will keep the design side of the industry limited.

Here’s an email design essentials post I wrote a while back to help you on your way in this area.

For all designers out there, here is the only guidesheet you need.

I have found that welcome email campaigns can be a bit of a hit or miss affair; something I have learnt over the past couple of months first hand.

I’m not going to lie, I like a flutter now and again and have previously signed up for Betfair and PKR’s sites, both of which, had an active welcome email campaign that followed subscription.

I have also taken to legal digital music downloads since I converted from Vinyl to CD and have signed up to Beatports’ service.  These companies will be the three I’m intending to use throughout this blog post.

As I’ve said before, striking just after purchasing/joining is the best time to start opening a channel with your recipients as their interest is at a maximum.

PKR’s and Beatports were both generic welcomes just explaining the system which was all well and good and my interest was maintained.  Betfairs’ though took it in a different direction and outlined every section of the site into categories for me to try.

It presented a bonus scheme for actively betting in each of these categories – the more you used the site, the more bonus you would receive for doing so.  Now, whether you agree with gambling or not, you must admire the inventiveness of Betfair’s team for coming up with this.  Straight away I was much more active on the whole site (not just the football section) looking at all the other available betting options I could participate in.

This is something that I really think needs to be addressed.  We always say to email marketers to only send something relevant in your emails or you risk turning the subscriber off from the messages.  This still applies to welcome email campaigns, if not more so, as these messages are the first impressions of your company you are sending your new recipients.

Now we come to content and frequency of your welcome campaign.  After I’ve signed up for something, I expect to receive a few messages in the first week or so from the service just outlining what they offer etc.

The problem with this for me as I’m a doer not a reader.  Instruction manuals are things that are left in cellophane wrappers and are only opened as a last resort.  So to send repeated help guides is a bit tiresome for me. 

Unfortunately, PKR did just this, and it has left me not actually reading anything they send me as I found that nothing they sent me was of any interest to me in the early stages.

But, send me instructions with a little bonus for myself, and all of a sudden my (email reading) ears have pricked up.  Beatport managed to successfully do this by giving me a free cd to download.  Lovely.  Betfair were obviously continuing their bonus payout emails and had even been updating me on what I had and hadn’t done in a scorecard format so I could try out new things and receive more bonuses.  This in my eyes was a great piece of personalisation added onto a well thought out campaign.

Now I understand that not many companies can really match what Betfair did on their welcome email campaigns but I thought I’d show you how my personal interest in each of my examples differed due to content and how it hindered anothers’ due to the frequency of emails.

So when thinking about your welcome email campaign, make sure you have in mind a series of interesting emails.  I think as well, additional discounts and bonuses are a great way to not only gain a repeat purchase/use in the short term, but it also encourages a higher level of interest in future campaigns you will send.

If though, your welcome campaign isn’t going to have these bonuses or freebies in, then try to think about the frequency of your campaign.  Too many emails can really begin to put people off from your messages and you could sever your links with them straight away.

Instead of spreading out over 5 emails, try and condense your emails to 2 or 3 and instead of having long explanations or instructions in each email, give them the subject headers and let them search for what they want to read.

Many of my posts always say only send an email when you have something relevant to say.  The problem is, a lot of companies don’t even know what they should be sending in the first place.  I have offered a few questions and ideas to help you get on course:

What kind of Campaign are you doing?

Clearly define that so you know what your goals are.  If it is a sales campaign you’re performing, too much content will water down the email and distract the recipient from the main goal.

If it is a newsletter you’re sending, try to only send when you have something to say.  People are subscribing to you to receive content and so want something worthwhile to read.

What did you promise when they signed up?

Now this is something which I see a lot of companies lack when they are placing subscription forms on their site – an outline of what their subscribers can actually expect to receive.

Just briefly outlining what you are intending to send them will help for them to decide whether to sign up.  Some might just be scared off by the lack of info or being too vague on what they will receive as they might not want irrelevant emails. 

If though, you already have a list that has been built without this in place, have a look at a couple of my posts to get some ideas on how to resolve the issue:

Passive Segmentation

Preference Centres and Positive Unsubscribe Processes

When Less is More

I find that some emails are just too long and I lose interest in what they have to say.  Most recipients viewing habits are spent just skim reading the email, which is why call to actions have always been heavily endorsed so you can still get your message across.

If you really do have a lot to say, why not put it all into a summary article that has many links in it directing them to the full articles on your site.

Otherwise, keep the message limited to a certain amount and don’t exceed it.  One of my favourites for doing this are ebuyer.  They provide a weekly email, that I feel has just the perfect amount of offers and content in it (view an example here).  I can skim through the offers quickly and see what appeals without getting caught up in too much needless writing.  I know some of you will be looking at the email, thinking that I’ve forgot about some email fundamentals, but hear me out.

Obviously, this email isn’t perfect for everyone and is a bit of a lazy approach to it but I feel that if you’re going to send a sales promotion, don’t divert from it.  Coming back to the issue at hand – sometimes less really is less.  A prime example of this can be found on one of my previous posts.  I receive an email with not a lot in it, and it doesn’t even relate to me. Tut tut.

Content that keeps them Returning

I have always been an advocate of linking through to interesting media from your own newsletter.  Obviously depending on the kind of company you are depends on what links would be “appropriate”.  Linking to interesting articles, relevant and funny news stories and videos will have that mass appeal that will have your subscribers forwarding on the email to their friends and colleagues.

For more on this subject read my post about viral emails.

 A recent post by Mark Brownlow really interested me.  It essentially outlined what Spam actually meant to the recipient. 

I think it is well worth going through what they think as it doesn’t matter if you keep referring to what the laws say – it is what the subscriber thinks in the first place which is Spam as they are the people who are reporting the emails in the first place.

Below are highlights of his post and with some handy advice to minimise the chances of coming up against these same problems.

A Return Path study of consumers showed that 50.9% said they used the “this is spam” button “sometimes” or “all the time” when they no longer wanted to receive emails from a company.

To me, this points towards just recipients taking the easy and hassle free route out of unsubscribing.  I wrote a post on unsubscribe links a while back now, concentrating on the placement of the link to offer an easy way to opt out and reduce the Spam complaints.

Silverpop questioned consumers about what they defined Spam as, with 40% saying “email I don’t want to receive” and 35% “saying email from any commercial entity”

I think these results represent the “short-term fix mentality” of some email marketers out there.  Instead of building there lists up, they have gone out and bought a huge list and just massed mailed them. 

I have stressed previously the advantages of self built lists and I think are a majority of people who this won’t effect but at the moment we are in a situation where a lot of companies are turning there marketing efforts towards the cheaper method of email marketing.  I can’t help but have the feeling that the “short term fix mentality” is about to rise a bit in the near future. 

In the same Silverpop survey, consumers gave there main reasons for reporting an email as Spam as “getting too many emails from a source” and “when they had lost interest in emails they were subscribed to”

These answers show a great bit of advice to email marketers who are thinking of revving up their campaigns a bit to try and compensate for a down turn – don’t.  If you value the responses and income that email marketing brings to your company then don’t attempt the perceived easy route and choose to spend your time making the email relevant, interesting and appealing to your subscribers; that will see you getting closer to that extra revenue you’re looking for. I wrote a post about increasing active subscribers that goes into further depth about the subject.

Though there is more information within Mark’s post, I will end my post with two direct quotes:

“Operationally, we define spam as whatever consumers do not want in their inbox.”

Yahoo Mail

“CAN SPAM lists the minimal standards an email must meet in order to avoid prosecution. CAN SPAM does not define what is spam, it only defines the things senders must do in order to not be violating the act.”

Laura Atkins – Word to the Wise

Read the whole of Mark’s post here