I’d like to ask you one question: how you are going to make your next test as remarkable as it can be?

This is the opposite of boring
When you are designing email marketing optimization, normally your goals are the best starting point: conversion or customer value. That might be translated into things more measurable like opens, clicks, sales, ROI, etc. The percentage of increase in the results of your optimization is called gain. And the goal is to get the best results you can for your email marketing. But that doesn’t mean that your tests should be boring. A test is even better when it is the opposite of boring: remarkable.

The remarkable optimization
I would advise everyone who is designing an A/B or multivariate test to try and make it a remarkable optimization. What makes a test remarkable? It has potential to be one of those great email marketing stories that your colleagues and customers will love. They just have to tell it to a friend because it has that “I like it and I have to share this” quality. Ok, you can call it a ‘viral optimization’ if you like. Another buzzword is born.

Keep it on the agenda
A remarkable test is also very useful. It will allow you to talk about testing, results and the importance optimization. In your organization, but also with clients. While telling an interesting story. Also it helps to keep testing on the agenda and get some broad understanding about what optimization is all about. Besides that, it could also make for some great PR material and make the company look cool.

Viral optimization
With a bit of creativity you could probably think of a few things you could test that would be remarkable enough to get some viral effects going in your company. Think about all the memorable, epic things you could do with product pictures, incentives and headlines.

Takeaway: Push the testing envelope! Don’t just test what you have to; test what you can do.

So get creative and share with us how you are going to make your next test as remarkable as it can be?

Quick course in email persona’s
In my last post I first mentioned interestability, the fact that you should make your messages interesting. This is a part of email marketing often mentioned but, just as often forgotten. What if your email marketing message was a person? Let’s see who your email messages look like and if, as a person, you would find them interesting.

The most interesting person you have ever met
Look at your email marketing messages and imagine it’s a person. Yes, a normal person like you or someone you would meet on the street. Now add a face to that. Try to look into your email’s soul. Try to image what his/her passions are, his/her traits and his/her goals in life are. Probably you would end up with a character in mind. In marketing, this type of personification is called a ‘persona’. Not to be confused with the popular term personalisation.

You might not be the most popular guy in school
Have you imagined what kind of person your email messages are? Try again, but this time with a reality check. Most of us marketeers are seeing our emailings as if we were in love with them. Thinking it is the message we wanted it to be, instead of the message it really is. So take a good look at your last five messages. Ask some of your readers to tell you who they look like. You might end up seeing a whole different persona.

Best friend or distant cousin
What kind of persona is your email marketing message? It could be a salesperson or a freedom fighter; it could be your best friend or a distant cousin. It could be a pop-star or a (email marketing) nerd. Do you like who you see? Actually, it doesn’t really matter if you like it. It matters if your subscribers like it. Would they be able to talk with your email marketing persona for an evening? Would they love to have it over for dinner? A very important question if you want to build customer loyalty.

Interest ability, don’t end up alone
People can be interesting, boring or even irritating for a lot of reasons and so can your emailings. Your audience should want to listen to your email marketing persona. They should find your persona interesting enough to stay for a conversation. Some subscribers who are bored would say they were leaving (unsubscribe), while some would fake as if they needed to go to the washroom and never come back (mark as spam). Or easily just not listen while your persona is talking (non-opens).

Fact is that uninteresting people end up standing alone, not having a conversation at all and not being happy (unproductive marketing results). Some subscribers might try to help you and change the subject of conversation a few times. But in the end: if it isn’t interesting they won’t click….

Waiting in the cold, just to click
In the best case your subscribers would be anticipating to meet your monthly newsletter every month. As if they were sleeping outside in the cold just to get tickets to your rock star persona’s next show (your next mailing). Wouldn’t you like that? In reality of course, that may be only for a happy few companies (a goal worth shooting for in any case). Reality also is that not every conversation is as interesting as every other one. However, if there is a constant value in your email messages, you could develop a better customer relationship with your subscribers and your email marketing might have a high interestability.

Takeaway: Keep your email messages interesting and your subscribers will stay. It is an important step in realising your email marketing goals.

Feel free to add your comments or questions below, or catch me on Twitter@jvanrijn

Until next time!
Jordie van Rijn

A first step in creating email marketing relationship with your (potential) customer is the sign-up process. In most cases a web or sign-up form is used to get the information needed to get the email relationship started. You are not there by simply adding a sign-up form to your website.

Walk through the funnel
Not everyone who starts the sign-up process for your email marketing newsletter will complete it. Some might not even make it to your website but that’s a whole other discussion. Once the subscriber is interested in signing up, they need to walk through the process and complete it. You can visualize this as a part of a sales funnel. At the top, the interested people, at the bottom, the ones that buy from you. Each (mental) step will cause extra defection. The signup is in the very top of the funnel, so this is a very important part if you want them to buy from you.

The balance of value
There should always be a balance between the value they give (time, energy, information) and the value you provide (experience, product, service). This is true for the sign-up, but also later for the interestability of the email marketing campaigns they will receive. Make sure that the future value is clear and well presented. Also the perceived value investment can be made smaller by using good design and interaction. Liz Fulghu gave us some great examples of creative sign-up form design. When we make it as easy as we can for them to sign-up, we will be providing a good user experience.

Mental steps
Sign-up forms are always a source of debate. It is still the question how much information we should ask for during sign-up. Should we ask for 3 fields, 5 or 10? In general, you are always asking too much. With each field you add to your form, you are adding a mental step and reducing the number of people who will complete it. So if you can do with less, ask less. There are three basic questions to ask yourself and see if you could do with less data.

The 3 questions:

1. Would you complete your sign-up?
If you would not even complete your sign-up form, get to redesigning right away. But think about your customers. Would they fill out your form? Why would a part of them defect?

2. What will I do with the information?
If you are not going to use the information in the sign-up form, don’t ask. Be critical here, often clients don’t know or are not sure what they will do with information. Asking more information feels safe “just to have it”. While actually you are preventing a part of your future email relationships from even getting started.

3. Do I need this information now?
If you don’t need it now, you should consider asking later. Partial commitment is a very powerful persuasion strategy. You could for instance ask them more in your welcome email series. By asking later, you could tip the balance between giving and asking to your favor and get those extra subscribers.

Takeaway: Make sure your sign-up is easy. Show the future value and ask for only the data you really need. This will get you more subscribers. A good sign-up experience is the first step to a great email relationship.

After going through the gigantic task of compiling the Email vendor selection guide beginning of this year. I had the extraordinary position of talking to more than 25 emailtool providers at the same time and not feeling guilty or as if I was wasting time.  I asked some of them to write down that one tip that they would give to anyone looking for an Email Service Provider. Here are the top 7 tips.

Focus on the best return, not just lowest price
Don’t just focus on price. While it is certainly tempting for marketers to get carried away trying to reduce costs, it’s return on investment that really counts. It’s only by using more advanced email marketing tactics like personalisation and segmentation that marketers will get the very best returns from their email marketing activity. So focus on a platform that puts these more advanced tactics at your fingertips. Tink Taylor, MD, DotMailer

Consider your other departments’ needs
The most important thing in the process of selecting an email vendor are your own expectations and goals. Make them clear and ask yourself the question, what are my requirements? Consider not only your own requirements, but also collect the needs from other departments in your organization. Find out what other departments use email for communication, like the marketing department or operations. Look at departments that not  use email as a communication channel yet. Could they benefit of it and maybe reduce the costs for your company. Ronald Dubbeldam, Managing Director, Measuremail

See if they practice what and how the arrange their backyard
It requires some time, but it can provide useful insights. After selecting the 10 ESPs that better fit your needs,  signup to their customers newsletters and check link tracking, unsubscription methods, deliverability, social sharing options, preference center, message customization, rendering speed (if images hosted by the ESP)… Nazzareno Gorni, General Manager, MailUp

Always do a background check
Always ask for references and ensure that those ESPs are practicing what they preach. Mia Papanicolaou, Messaging Specialist, Striata

Don’t sign up for a long time
Don’t sign long term contracts, they only ever serve the ESP not the customer (despite what you might be told), it’s a competitive market place and you’ll be able to get a great deal whoever you go with – so go with the one that you can imagine staying with – even if you didn’t HAVE to. Marc Munier, Commercial Director, Pure360

Keep your feature wishes limited
The one tip is: do not ask for an abundance of features! Most email vendors offer products that have more features than email marketeers actually need. Ask for the soft facts which will really make the difference: do you feel comfortable with the email marketing platform (usability, performance)? Is customer support included? Does the vendor have a good reputation? Are companies in your size and branch among his clients? Are there any hidden costs? Are there ISP relations and abuse management teams? And most important: Can you achieve your email marketing targets? Martin Bucher, CEO, Inxmail

Define your measurement metrics beforehand
We encourage potential customers to sit down with their teams and relevant departments and set out why they are sending email.  Marketer’s need to ask themselves the following questions: Who are you going to be sending to? What are your key performance indictors – your measurement of success? They will define what metrics you track. Having this information makes it easier to pick the right system in general, but for it allows the ESP to help the prospect pick which elements of the systems they need to use. Marie Moynihan, Marketing Manager, Newsweaver

Go for the right click
As you see, that is experience talking. These ESPs have gone through literally hundreds of ESP selections from the supplier side. To add two cents of my own experience  in guiding organizations in selecting the right email marketing vendor, it’s crucial to go with a supplier you feel 100% comfortable with to help you forward.  The so-called ‘click’. And as it turns out that is also what you want your subscribers to do.

A small exercise. Close your eyes and think about the products in the room. Do you know which brands they are and where they were bought? We don’t know the brands of most of the product we use.  Now how are those brands going to keep us loyal?

A cool story
Half year ago I bought a refrigerator online. I don’t buy a fridge every day, so I wanted to know more about it before I bought one. I searched online about the different types. I also went to a physical shop that week to ask one of the salesmen what to look for and to see some of the models.

Now I know everything about frost-free, dual thermostats and why transparent freezer drawers are a good idea. It was a whole new world opening up to me. I went online again, searched for the cheapest shop on a comparison site and ordered it from the comfort of my home. It was a “search and buy”.

What’s my name?
They brought the fridge on time, payment was correct and the fridge works like a charm. The service was good, so I was totally satisfied. They have an extra loyal customer. I would certainly buy with them again, even if they were a bit more expensive. But euhhh.. what was their name again? I would never know. Retailers, media and services that are only online, face a bigger challenge when capturing their audiences attention and keeping their brand top-of-mind.

Importance of contact
To all of those brands, take note. A competitive advantage based purely on price is a hard thing to maintain. Customers are not going to buy from you again if they don’t remember your name. And if it was a “search and buy”, they still need to get to know your brand áfter they bought from you.

Takeaway: How do brands become friends? By keeping in touch, preferably meaningful, helpful contact that sparks a positive emotion. A welcome (email) program then seems a bit more than just a way to do some cross-selling. For some companies it’s a pure necessity to get just one loyal customer.

European Email Vendor Features and Functions Guide Released

This week the European Email Vendor Features and Functions Guide is released. The second part of the two part guide that offers side-by-side comparison of in total 53 ESPs (email service providers) worldwide. Differences between email vendors are bigger than expected.

The first worldwide edition
In a collaboration of Red Pill Email and Emailmonday, this will be the first time there will be a world edition. Listing the features and functions of 53 email vendors from both North America and Europe. By adding the European vendors the number of included ESPs is effectively doubled, presenting a more complete overview of the international ESP marketplace.

Jordie van Rijn: “We see a lot of ESP’s expanding their services abroad. Sometimes with very aggressive methods and competitive pricing to get a bigger piece of the e-mail market. We are seeing that American suppliers look at Europe for innovation and clients, and vice versa. The US version has been running for two years, now the European vendors are also included.”

Differences between European Email Service Providers
While all ESPs find a solid email marketing strategy an essential requirement for email success, 20% of the email vendors don’t offer any email strategy advice. A quarter doesn’t offer creative services.

Large differences are also to be found in the emailtools themselves. If you would like to have more control of your data than just a simple export mechanism, it is advisable to look at all the different ESP offerings. From the questions we asked European ESPs about data control, there where suppliers that offered between 20% and 89% of all functionalities, quite a difference!

A new trend is offering pre-configured campaigns, like an abandoned cart campaign, a welcome mail and automatic resends to non-openers. With this type of e-mailings a lot of additional conversion and efficiency can be achieved. But only 2 out of the 28 European Email vendors offered all types of pre-configured campaigns. The majority offers less than 40% and a few don’t offer any of these campaigns.

Contents of the guide
The 2011 Email Vendor Features & Functions Guides show side-by-side comparisons of 53 email vendors ranging from small market table vendors to commercial MTAs and points in between, with over 200 essential questions asked. For the first time, a desktop application was added that helps users to identify the vendors best suited to their needs based on their own business criteria.

Further contents of the guide
The Email Vendor Features and Functions Guide presents comparison tables and graphs, in 8 different categories that look at the features and functions. It explores virtually all functional areas of interest to email marketers and end users. Over 1000 hours went into the making of this Guide; written from the perspective of an experienced hands-on email marketer.

About Red Pill email
John Caldwell, the author of the guide has been in the email space since 1996. The Red Pill Email founder, has worked on the agency side, the client side, and as a consultant, using deployment tools that range from ESPs to in-house to home-grown email systems.

About Emailmonday
Jordie van Rijn, contributing editor of the EU Email Vendor Features and Functions guide is an independent email marketing consultant with his company Emailmonday. He has over 8 years of hands-on experience as an e-mail marketing and loyalty marketing consultant. He has worked with A-list brands like AEGON, Unilever, Roche, Heineken, and many more. He is a common blogger, speaker and coach in the field of email marketing. Jordie is also partner at Emailtestbox and runs the website Emailvendorselection.com.

Pushing  the envelope

Why is it that we receive so much uninteresting email? How is it possible that testing, one of the most advised email tactics, is still not widely used by e-mail marketers? Why do our inbox messages gravitate towards mediocrity and below? It is time for us to start pushing the envelope.

A people oriented business
E-mailmarketing is a people oriented business. All marketing is people oriented. It is focused on the needs of clients, the matchmaking of messages and the inspiration of marketers. People know what they want, what is worthy of their attention and above all they are trained to see what isn’t. But one person can make the difference.

We have the opportunity
Marketers now have more opportunities to excel than ever. They can choose what channels they will use, what campaigns they will launch and which messages they will send. Even the products, services and markets aren’t set in stone. But with more opportunities come more choices and more choice means more uncertainty.

Risky business
Ever since our youth we have been thought to walk on the beaten path, color inside the lines and reduce risk where possible. Otherwise we have the chance of being punished. But the current overflow of messages and stimuli in media demand something else. Only by breaking the mold and being prepared to fail every once in a while we are able to entice and excite our subscribers.

Junk mail or Inbox
It only takes one person. One person willing to take an extra step and enthuse the rest of his team. Willing to walk outside the beaten path. Because that one person can make the difference between failure and success, between boring and interesting, between junk mail or inbox.

Pushing the envelope
So start thinking about the ways to be better. Get your subscribers interested again, send remarkable messages. Do marketing with passion for your products, for your clients and for excellence. Without regard for what is considered ‘normal’ or for ’what we always did’. That is what I call: pushing the envelope.

Takeaway:

Marketers now have more opportunities to excel than ever. So start thinking of ways to push the envelope and break out from mediocrity. It just takes one person to take the extra step and make the difference between junkmail and inbox.

The future of email: less segmented and less personal
Marketeers always look around: what is the competition doing? What is the industry doing? It’s part of their job to know the market. E-mail marketeers also need to know their battleground: the inbox. I’ll give you a look at the average inbox in 2011: less segmented and less personal.

Less personal and less segmented?
What? Less personal and less segmented? That totally contradicts everything I was meant to believe! But yes, 2011 will be the first year that the average message in your mailbox will become less relevant via personalization and segmentation. For some five years the experts are saying that each following year would be the year of relevance, adding that segmentation and personalization are the ways to get there. But this year it is not.

A fork in the road
In reality we see a clear a fork in the road. On the one side the highly advanced and more mature e-mail programs and on the other hand the less sophisticated use of e-mail marketing. E-mail marketing is still growing and growing and this growth is not primarily coming from the top segment, but from the bottom tiers. The numbers from the DMA show that the number of email has reached an all time high, but less of these have personalized or segmented content. For instance the e-mail with personalized content has dropped from 38% to 22%. The average 2011 inbox therefore will contain more email from the bottom tiers, making it less sophisticated.

Webshops for example
For instance small webshops are popping up like there is no tomorrow (and for some of them there will not be), but they are all growing their e-mail lists and some are quite successful at it. Growing  fast and still making a good buck with a small marketing budget, priorities usually are not yet into developing a higher sophistication in their e-mail marketing. Knowledge, budget and time recourses are usually the main constraints. It is very easy to set up an e-mail marketing program, but it seems hard for them to get the minimal basics in place and a lot harder to get it right. Especially because they don’t have a lot of experience in the field.

So what should I do?
Don’t get me wrong, the way to get into people’s minds, hearts and wallets is still to deliver value. And segmentation and personalization are top tactics to raise that value. Just know that you are in the inbox in between all these e-mailings with average to low value. My advice: be sure to make a good first impression, grab the attention at the start and set the right (high) expectations. If you can deliver on that, you can carve a notch in the (mental) priority inbox.

Takeaway: Know that your e-mailing sits between lots of uninteresting messages. So make a great first impression and use tactics like segmentation to deliver on added value.

What is the marketing value of an out of office reply?

What is an out of office reply worth to an email marketeer? Most of us filter them from the “real” replies as soon as they come in. Or we even block the replies altogether. But that doesn’t do justice to the nature of that automated reply message. So what is the value of an out-of-office reply?

Winning first prize

The travel website boekvandaag.nl won first prize at the Dutch EMMA-nl email marketing awards 2010. Their case shows how they were able to build a successful online travel site within a year using smart email marketing.

Boekvandaag.nl has a daily travel offer on the website and in your inbox. It’s daily candy for travel. People don’t book a trip every day, so keeping the message interesting is very important. Inspiring travel locations and trips are a big part of that story. Email frequency is also a big issue, I’ll come back to that.

With a daily email going out, they receive a lot of out of office replies. But how to create value out of them?

Value #1
Profile information from out-of-the-office

About 60% of all the replies are just people who are taking a day off. But it also offers a lot of personal profile information. What time of the year a person goes on vacation, which destination, active or sun vacations, long trips, short trips.. People write all of that in their out of office replies. That is a golden nugget of personalization info for each travel agency. On average 20% of all replies contain vacation information. But with a big fluctuation, on Thursday and Friday and especially during holidays the number of vacation messages are much higher.

The information from the out-of-office replies is combined with preferences, response behaviour and bookings. With the help of the email platform Clang, segments based on this dataset are automatically generated. The information is used to send messages best suited to the subscribers profile. They don’t make different versions of the emailings (yet). Instead they filter out the irrelevant ones, bringing down the email frequency. If you stated in your preference that you love sun, you will receive that sun vacation offer. They use the out-of-office info in the same way, if it stated you where going on a beach vacation.

Value #2
Timing insights

Looking at the aggregated out-of-office information, they were able to distill patterns in customer behaviour. If people are traveling on Saturday, a large group already takes off from work on Thursday. That is really valuable information, timing is key in vacation messages. Already 5% of the total volume are “have a nice vacation” or “welcome home” emails. These pre and post-vacation emails contain upsell offers like last-minute upgrades, car rental, insurance and review requests.

Value #3
Lowering email frequency: Smart use of the out-of office

With a daily email program a lot of traditional unsubscribers actually don’t want to unsubscribe. They just want to reduce the amount of mails they receive. Boekvandaag has a preference center where you can switch to a weekly mail instead of daily. And also a pause function, where you can temporarily stop receiving emails. These measures are responsible for a shocking 35% decline in unsubscribes.

Your subscription is actively put on pause using the out-of-office information. Cleaning out your inbox after being away for a while is a big annoyance. When people come back from vacation they won’t find a list of boekvandaag mails waiting there, just one service email: “We have temporarily paused your emails, have a nice vacation.” In this way they are adding value by communicating less, people greatly appreciate it.

Roy Platje, CEO of boekvandaag.nl: “For us the reply mails are such a great source of information and service. We will be optimizing the use of it even more during the course of the year. But then again, a large part of the subscribers just go on vacation once a year.”

Meet us in London at the European Email Marketing Conference!
Catch me or Roy Platje of boekvandaag at the European Email Marketing Conference 1 – 3 November 2010. Roy will be presenting their winning case together with of E-village / Clang with a lot of other smart email tactics they are using.

Takeaway: Even out of office replies can provide valuable data and an opportunity to score points with your subscribers if you think outside the box.

Christmas and the holiday season are coming around. The average email marketing program starts sending their holiday emails around 19 October. It is time for customers to be merry and take out the wallet to become even merrier. In most of the shop windows there are some Christmas promotions or decorations. But why?

Themed promotions spice it up
Within email marketing there is not a strict separation between those who go all out on the Christmas theme and those who don’t. There is always that group that just wants to “Christmas it up a little”.

In my own experience special promotions and themed emailings can work to break email fatigue and help spice up the communication a bit. A different design and message every now and again can keep your campaigns more interesting over time. But it can also have direct impact on your sales and conversion, even when only changing small things in the design.

Hat on or hat off?
Less than half of  marketeers regularly test their offers or creative. With the increase in frequency and volume during the Christmas days, this would be a great time to test that email creative. You could imagine there would be a clear difference in results between Christmas themed and non-Christmas themed emailings.

Christmas raises the bar
38% of retailers use a different (Christmas) design in their emails during holidays. That number is climbing year over year. It is a clear signal that, on average, changing the design works to increase results. Christmas themed messages usually act like a reminder for holiday shopping, they are generally used to increase conversion. The holiday season is when the most personal spending is taking place. So you especially want people to go to your store, not the competition.

The question would not be “(Christmas) hat on or hat off?”, because Christmas messages drive conversion. More a question of choosing the right Holiday elements and optimizing them. So keep you Christmas hats on, but also put on those testing gloves! What do you think, is Christmas a good time for you to test?

PS: If you want to know more about Holiday campaigns, be sure to check out Chad White’s the Retail email guide for the holiday season for some last minute Holiday insights.

Takeaway: Using Holiday elements can increase your results, but don’t forget to optimize and test that Santa design!

It optimizes your e-mail in real-time áfter you send it. Start using Emailtestbox today and lift your results.

You create and send your email campaign like you always do. Using your own trusted email platform.

The first openers see different images. Emailtestbox measures their results.

Emailtestbox finds the images that generate the highest conversion. The most successful images are defined.

Emailtestbox adapts the emails in real time. All the next recipients will see the best content.

The inbox is like a crowded party with a lot of things happening at the same time. How do you make make it the best party possible and be sure you are not a background noise?

The challenge of the crowded party
One of the challenges in email marketing is to stand out in a crowded inbox. Once the email reaches the inbox, it has some stiff competition and the reader will only spend a split second to decide if your message will be read. Just like looking around in a party and deciding where to stand and with who you would like to talk.

Join the party
Sometimes we forget that our marketing messages are alone in the inbox party. A study by Merkle concludes that permission-based email accounts for 26% of the total time spent with email. The biggest competitors are work-mail (19%) and email of friends and family (43%). Fact is there is a lot of partying going on and we need some way to stand out in the inbox to get the recipients attention.

The cocktail party effect
When you are at a crowded party with a lot of people and a lot of noise, there are too many conversations to follow. Still, when talking with a friend in a crowded party, you can listen and understand what your friend says and can even simultaneously ignore what another nearby people are saying — This is called the cocktail-party effect. You are actually filtering the rest of the noise and focusing your attention on the interesting conversation. The same goes for the inbox. There are some senders who always get your attention.

The cocktail-email
As an email marketing professional, you want your email to get the attention needed. The cocktail-party effect creates a separate, high quality channel where attention is focused to one message. It would be ideal to let your email spin on the cocktail-party effect.

Be close to the recipient
One tip, for the cocktail party effect to work, you still need to be close to the recipient. People can filter out the rest of the noise but not from across the room. So try to think how you can be closer to your recipients and keep the interestability high during the whole relationship. Does your email marketing have the cocktail party effect?

Takeaway: Staying close (being relevant) and being interesting will help you take advantage of the “cocktail party” effect.

Personalization in retail
In April a new study about email marketing in Dutch retail came out. The study was conducted amongst 500 retailers who have their roots in the offline world, for instance with a physical store.  For those retailers their emailings can have a big impact on bottom line sales and customer loyalty. And more so personalized emailings. If the message catches on, it can lead to a store visit and the next buy. So, what is the state of personalized email in retail?

Personalisation statistics
The study showed that only 24% of retailers personalize their email newsletters with the name of the recipient. Even less use the preferences of the subscriber to segment their newsletters: 21%. Its remarkable these numbers are so low.

Personalization in email marketing is confusing?
There is some confusion about the term personalization. What does it actually mean? Have you ever heard two email marketeers talk about personalization? They will probably be talking about two totally different strategies, but they both fit under the personalization umbrella.

And that is understandable, because personalization means a diferent message for each recipient based on personal data. But it doesn’t say how much of the data is used. So it could mean that you are deeply into the data, highly differentiate your messages and take personal profiles into account. This personalisation is also referred to as segmentation. It could also mean that you use “dear [firstname]” in the salutation of the email.

A closer look gives a different view
If we look at the percentages of the retail email research a bit closer we see there is not that much difference in percentages of using name and using preferences (24 vs 21%). A careful conclusion might be that if you use the name for personalization, you are using the personal data in your email marketing and will be very likely to also know personal interests and or profiles. However, that is not true. A part will use both name and personal data, but the use of a personal salutation has given mixed results in the past. Use of segmentation on the other hand is a must-use tactic. So there is partial overlap. Our advice: use profile data first and then test the use of salutation.

Shocking statistics
The numbers are shocking. How could it be that only 21% uses personalisation and segmentation? You could think that a good general newsletter should deliver enough value. But think about that a bit longer,

No difference between potential, current and best customers? Just send that email to the customer that just filed a serious complaint? With offers he is just not interested in? Truth is, a lot of retail email is only about sales promotion an getting people to the store. Personalisation will help you do just that. So get to the next level and keep the interestability up.

What about loyalty in retail
In 2009 the CMO council released research: The relevance drives response and relationships. In comparison to the above retail email percentages, it makes you wonder. The research shows that 94% of the respondents usually percieved the communication of a loyalty program as personalized or based on recent purchases. So it is possible to get more personal. 16% even thought the communication was always personalized.  That should have quite an impact on the customer experience.

Maybe the retail should focus on their loyalty marketing a bit more? What do you think? Leave a comment!

Takeaway: Only 21% of retails segment their email. Maybe they should think of their bottom line results and the consumer… and get personalizing.

Until next time!
Jordie van Rijn
Twitter @jvanrijn

Did you know that there are over 800 ways to say hello in different languages? The Cherokee use “O-si-yo” to greet someone, while the French say “Bonjour” and in Hawaii they say “Aloha”. Well it’s a good custom to greet someone when you see them, especially when you meet them for the first time. So let’s talk welcome emails.

Email marketers love a warm welcome
A welcome email is a great opportunity for an email marketer to engage subscribers and drive action. A welcome email might have higher open rates, because they arrive when the subscriber is literally asking for it. That makes it an ideal time to set the stage for further contact. When done well, it could help you get the first boost in engagement and get better results in future email campaigns.

Don’t let the welcome moment pass
Research form 2009 by Smith Harman’s Chad White showed that a lot of email marketers still don’t seize the golden welcome opportunity. Sometimes a new subscribes has to wait a month (or even more) to get their first email message. That is too long, way too long. It’s often overlooked that the purpose of a welcome email is to remind people that they signed up in the first place. Especially if the sign up was a co-signup or together with a purchase or download.

24% of high end retailers don’t send out a welcome email at all, according to the research. Almost a quarter of the ones that do send, take more than 24 hours before they send it. Ideally a welcome e-mail should be sent very close to the moment of sign-up, in those first “golden minutes” of maximum receptivity and effectiveness.

White list
Because the welcome message has a high attention value, it is a prime opportunity to add some extra content besides just saying “hello” or “thank you for joining”. A first thing you could add is white list instructions, to make sure that your future emails get delivered to the inbox instead of falsely being marked as spam.

Hi my name is…
The “from address” is the most important part of an emailing as far as open rates are concerned. Make sure that the recipient recognizes your company name. Also, think about adding the company name to the start of your subjectline and adding your logo in the welcome mail to let the recipient see who he is signing up with. But at least, always, always, add a link to your website. For the same reason, make sure that you don’t sign the welcome email with “webmaster” or something similarly generic. They didn’t sign up to the webmaster, did they?

Building blocks of your relationship
The first period is a great period for building loyalty and a solid basis for a customer relationship. Make sure you make a right impression. But choosing the right message can be a tricky thing. It helps to put yourself in the shoes of your new subscribers and ask yourself, “what would I need now?” and even better, “what would I love to get now?”

Setting the right expectations
Telling your new subscriber your name is not enough to let them really know you better.

Make sure that your emailing is in the same tone of voice and visual style as your future emailings (so no text-only!). Look and feel is important, as it will help them recognize your future emailings.

To set the right expectations, you could:

• Tell them how many emails and topics of emailings they will receive
• Add a link to the latest version of your emailings or (sales) promotions
• Point them to helpful resources like a FAQ
• Warm them up for future things to expect
• Give them a product or service tour
• Introduce and brand yourself a bit further…

Other options for welcome messages:

• Give an introduction (sales) offer or special coupon
• Ask for extra information about themselves and interests (progressive profiling)
• Ask for product feedback
• Add some fun elements
• Let the director or CEO write the welcome message
• Get a lasting impression by making it a highly personalized email

So many choices, so much to do
As you can see there are many ways to say “Hello” and many other things you could say or do when you welcome someone. So you could think about making a welcome series, with 2 or more welcome emails during the first period and get the most out of your relationship with those new subscribers.

Takeaway: There are many ways to welcome someone. But it is the best thing you can do to start off your email marketing on the right foot. The best way depends on your situation, but make sure you do it!

If you have any questions feel free to add your comments or questions below or catch me on Twitter.

Jordie van Rijn

It’s simple: I hate deliverability.
I can’t stand the word. And that is not a simple life when you are an email marketer. My skin crawls when deliverability is mentioned in the same sentence with, “one of the biggest issues” or “a big challenge in email marketing for coming years”. But hold on, I’m not “deliverophobic”. I’m not scared of the word deliverability. I’m just not pleased with how the term is used. Here is why:

Did you get the message?
Deliverability is how well your message is getting through — through to the inbox that is. Not through to your recipients heads. It combines all the issues concerning getting your messages in the inbox, nothing beyond that. And that’s the big problem.

Don’t mix it up!
The term deliverability mixes up technical problems with issues concerning common sense and marketing and that is not how it’s supposed to be. To put it simply: the technical stuff, your ESP should take care of that. But that doesn’t mean that they can guarantee the email is getting to the inbox. A part is to be done by the email marketer themselves. Those common sense and marketing issues should not only make that your message gets to the inbox, but also contribute to it getting opened, read and, if you can be so lucky, clicked.

“Interestablilty”
But what is a message in an inbox worth if it’s not being clicked and read and not contributing to your goals? Right, it’s worth nothing. I therefore would like to introduce the term “interestablilty” – making your message interesting. So interesting it moves your receivers to open your email and act on it. Mind though, this is not the same as relevance. So, what do we call the technical issues before that? Making sure the email makes it to the inbox? Let’s just call that email delivery.

More about “interestability” in my next post!

Until next time!
Jordie van Rijn

Takeaway: Getting the message through is a two part process. One part is delivering it to the inbox and the other is making your message highly interesting for the reciepent.

Valentine’s day is behind us and it’s time for a review. It always makes me smile when the email marketers try to capture the true spirit of a theme. Let’s see some favorites from the inbox.

A mysterious message
In the valentines tradition people would often send a card without the name of the sender. But with some clues to whom it might be. Normally it’s a rule of thumb in email marketing to make your message as clear as possible. But rules are there to be broken. A bit of mystery can add spice to your (email) relationship. And while your emailing should not be confusing, holding out some information can be the trigger to click-through success. The Dutch Bovag does it in a somewhat different way. Via a mini-site you can send your own valentines messages to your loved ones. The name of Bovag is nowhere to be found only in the disclaimer. Mysterious!

A mysterious kiss from Bovag

The perfect match
A  good match in interests and way of life is important for a great relationship. A brand must understand that their emailings should be in line with their brand image. The Dutch PGGM (www.pggm.nl) does a great job of combining the valentines spirit with their financial products by offering a “how do you and your partner match financially” check. Intriguing, too bad they jump to a text-only design on the website, it could have been better.

The perfect financial match from PGGM

Sympathy When hooking on a holiday. it’s always important to stay sympathetic. Although the nice guy doesn’t always get the girl, it makes for a happy and trustworthy brand. When done right, a sympatric message might even lead to some word-of-mouth. The Dutch travel agency Peter Langhout did it well. They made some special butterfly, flower, chocolate and valentine trips. Weatherman Piet Paulusma is used as a brand ambassador and when you look in his eyes, its sympathy (and some laughs) all the way.

The sympathy of travelling with Peter Langhout

Attractive
Which girl gets the most valentine cards? The attractive one does! An attractive look will help to raise attention and interest. For both possible Valentines (leads) and current relations (customers), spend some time to put some extra care in the emailings, images, look and design. Make your email is sexy and very desirable to click. Or you could just make it hot and steamy (literally), like bjorn borg does. :)

Björn Borg makes valentine Hot

Takeaway: Try to capture the spirit of a holiday when doing a hook.  Try to get past a flat discount on your own product and get creative.

By Jordie van Rijn

Just starting out in eMail marketing? Do you feel as if you’re in the middle of a crime scene, trying to figure out who done it or should have? Maybe you need some inspiration from the 19^th century’s great problem solver: Sherlock Holmes. There’s a lot we can learn from “The Great Detective”.

Always think 3 steps ahead

The brilliant Sherlock is well known for his intellect and deductive reasoning. But that is not enough. He always keeps the big picture in mind — a great trade to have as an eMail marketer. And although it doesn’t always look that way, Sherlock plans his moves carefully. Thinking about the goals he wants to achieve and the best way to get there. It’s easy to get sidetracked when taking your challenges (campaigns) one at a time. So think ahead and make a plan for at least the coming half year.

Play the violin

Did you know Holmes played the violin? That is not an easy instrument to play, let alone master. It takes a lot of practice and hard work to get it right. The lesson to learn here? Keep on practising and most important, enjoy it. Read everything about email marketing, keep on testing, take that extra hour to analyse your results. Otherwise you won’t be able to better yourself and the neighbours might even call the police.

Have a Watson

Hardly any eMail marketer does all the work by his or herself. In every company you will need one or more loyal companions to get the best results. It’s even better if your sidekicks have their own speciality like Watson has (doctor). So get your colleagues of the marketing, sales, communication, IT and customer service and keep them close. Make sure your allies can always count on you when they need help if you want to count on them when you need some.

Observe and profile

Our beloved detective has a keen eye, observing all the people he meets. By looking at your ring finger he will see if you are married. By looking at your jewellery, clothes, accent and behaviour he will construct your profile. By looking at sign-up, clicks, opens, customer data and behaviour you should do the same. Certainly Holmes would agree that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Get an archenemy

How to keep sharp? Get an arch-enemy! All heroes and 19^th century detectives have one. Better yet, get two. It keeps you sharp and will push your email marketing efforts even further. My advice: subscribe to the worst eMail marketing newsletter you know and take a vow you will never become like your nemesis. Your second archenemy would be the smarter type — the one who always seems to get away. So look at the competition and find one that does admirable work. Figure out how they do what they do so well, get inspired and try harder.

Takeaway: It’s elementary my dear Watson. Plan the work and work the plan.