Perception versus reputation management in email marketing by Rory Carlyle @rorycarlyle

Reputation perception management and efforts for the inbox

Do you know your email marketing Sender Score? Are you using DKIM for domain authentication?  Is there a measurable difference trending in your email marketing deliverability rate, right now? No? It doesn’t matter, that’s not my expertise anyhow. I was just checking to see if you believed I was smart. (Hint: I am not. These guys are: Mark Brownlow , John Caldwell,  Luke Glasner,  Chad White, Jeffrey Rohrs,  Al Iverson,  Matthew Vernhout, Jordie van Rijn just to name a few.)

Reputation perception management is more than a technical issue that gets tackled by Email Geeks and Email Snobs alike; it’s a marketing issue as well. Yeah, I know, we’ve all heard of PR and reputation perception management isn’t new in the corporate world. So, what’s ol’ Carlyle rambling about this time? Good question. Because I’m not smart like the email marketing people named above, I have to be something else without being dumb … so for now I’m “creative”.

My creativity brought me here: “Who cares how many emails are being delivered if the entity sending the emails is perceived negatively or irrelevant?” On a recent eMail Radio show Dela Quist, CEO of Alchemy Worx brought up some interesting points to think about. I suggest you listen to the show no matter how much you disagree, it’s thought provoking.  It brought me to my “Who cares” moment.

A perception list to think about:

1. Are you driving segmentation efforts for nothing? – Dela brought up a point in the show that Papa John’s Pizza discarded advanced segmentation for a “Coupon a week” to the entire email list. Not only was it cheaper to manage; it provided more value to the consumer, increased relevance and was perceived as “better” for business and consumer.

2. Are you measuring perception with the right metrics? – Current clients are great for information around retention efforts, but don’t base your findings on people that already like you. Be open and real about outside perception.  Perhaps the reason there are a large portion of inactive recipients on the email file is because they liked the company at conception and are disappointed with what came after.  For my Twitter people – OH: “Maybe your game isn’t as polished as your outfit. I like to look at you … but not talk.”

3. Do you know what your customers want or are you stuck in ‘best-practices’? – Just because ESP’s tout their features and acquire new social and sharing capabilities doesn’t mean it applies to you, capiche? Dynamic content, segmentation, time-based sends, trigger-based sends, workflows, granular and aggregate data analysis, social sharing, HTML vs. Text, Pre-header testing, etc – all don’t mean squat. If you’re misinformed on the perception and expectations of your recipients, all efforts are uphill battles.

I’d love to add more to this list, but I’d like to spur conversation around this as I feel it’s important.  Maybe the next three will be my next post.  I encourage talk around this issue, I feel like we as email marketers go to the extreme to keep up with trends and new tactics without really understanding our personal responsibility to the people on our lists. Remember: batch-n-blast used to work, still does … it’s all in the application of the tools and the perception of the recipients. It’s our job to align those efforts and thoughts and drive success for both parties.

Drop a comment and let me know what you think!

Takeaway: How you are perceived by your clients is every bit as important as your sender reputation. Do you know how your clients really perceive you?

Viva la Email.