While Mark Twain was talking about his own death, there is another reported death that I am thinking about.  Back in January 2009 I included a quote about banner ads being the next direct mail.  I mean no offense to direct mail but the implication was that the value of a banner ad was diminishing.  The belief was that banner ads were being replaced by social media, which is a disruptive technology much in the same way that e-mail marketing has replaced direct mail in many industries and situations.  Direct mail still is a valuable channel but it is being used more selectively than it once was.

Well reports of the death of the banner ad might be premature.  A recent study by eMarketer predicts that banner ad spending in 2010 will be up 8.2%.

Most of what I have written this year about e-mail marketing has been complaints.  So these are my New Year’s resolutions for e-mail marketers:

1.  Target your e-mails.  Resist the temptation to blast everyone on your list regardless of whether they will be interested in what you have to say.  A good e-mail is timely and relevant.  If you send out too many e-mails, your recipients will report your e-mails as spam, hurting your reputation and possibly your ability to send e-mails in the future. 

2.  Send trigger emails.  I am a big fan of Barnes and Noble.  I love purchasing books on-line and they make it so easy for me.  For example, their website indicates how quickly each book typically ships.  When I place an order, I receive confirmation almost instantaneously and then am kept abreast of the shipping status of my order.  I love knowing exactly where my books are and when I can expect to receive them.  As a result, I appreciate trigger emails and expect them to be timely.  If I sign up for a new service on-line, I expect to receive a welcome e-mail within 24 hours, if not sooner.  I am amazed and disappointed by organizations that do not send trigger emails as they are important for reinforcing the relationship and offer an up-sell or cross-sell opportunity. 

3.  Create a preference center and follow it.  Allow subscribers to determine the frequency, content and even form of communication.   DailyLit is a great example I wrote about.  DailyLit allows subscribers to choose the amount of text they receive, the frequency and timing of communication and whether users receive emails or RSS feeds.  Thus, their communication is more likely to be read.

4.  Create your emails with image blocking in mind.  I wrote about image blocking in one post and then had to resist doing it again and again as I received more and more e-mails that clearly were not designed for e-mail providers who automatically blocked images.

5.  Reactivate or eliminate inactive e-mail subscribers.  As I noted in an earlier post, it is nice to be asked if you want to continue to receive emails from an organization.  This gentle reminder reengaged me and reestablished a relationship.  Alternatively, marketers could create a formal reactivation campaign as part of their campaign cycle. 

6.  Measure your campaigns and continuously learn.  I believe strongly in testing and measurement, comparing campaigns to benchmark rates or past campaigns, and determining the return on investment (ROI) of campaigns.  In the end, everyone one wants to know what worked, what did not work and whether the campaign was successful.  If you are interested, past posts have provided sources for e-mail metrics and a discussion of A/B testing. 

Happy New Year!

Recently I received an e-mail from a local art gallery that was updating its subscriber list.  They sent me a brief e-mail letting me know that they were moving their e-mail list over to a new host and, due to its strict anti-spam policies, they asked that I confirm my desire to subscribe and receive periodic e-mails from them.  All I needed to do was click on an embedded URL to verify my subscription.  If I chose not to subscribe, I had to do nothing.  Ignoring this request would result in my deletion from their e-mail list.

This was a great e-mail, because it …

1. was short and to the point
2. made it extremely easy for me to re-subscribe by including the URL in the e-mail
3. followed best practices by asking for me to opt-in (it is best practices to ask consumers to opt-in but for businesses, it is more common to ask them to opt-out)

Consider asking consumers to opt-in.  The quantity of e-mail addresses in your subscription list will diminish but your list will be the better for it.  Only those engaged and interested in your products and services will remain. 

To keep my niece entertained during long car rides, I tell her the story of Odysseus (also known as Ulysses).  If you start with the Iliad, which I do because it was Odysseus’ idea to build the Trojan Horse after all, and then move onto the Odyssey, you can pleasurably fill quite a lot of time.  So she’s 6 years old.  Can you ever be too young for Homer?

Well, there’s another Ulysses I was hoping to conquer.  This one was written by James Joyce.  I have begun subscribing to an e-mail service that provides excerpts of books.   It is from DailyLit.  I tried it on a lark and am enjoying the brief but intense dose of literature in my inbox each weekday.  That is, once I get over the dread and open the e-mail.  I loved Dubliners so why the dread of Ulysses?  It certainly has a reputation for being difficult but that is partly why the e-mails are perfect for me.  I can savor the book in small doses and read them when I have the time and focus needed.   Further, seeing them in my inbox each day encourages me to read them.

The e-mails from DailyLit are what e-mails should be — relevant, timely and meaningful to the recipient.  In this case, I selected the book from a myriad of choices and set the frequency.  My choices were daily, weekdays or Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Further, I was able to schedule the time of the e-mail or RSS feed.  Other e-mail senders can learn from the customer preferences provided by DailyLit.

Book Vending Machine © Craig Alexander

Have you heard this one before?  If you put two analysts together what do you get?  Three opinions.  Okay, so it wasn’t a very good joke but I have certainly had conversations with analysts where it seemed like I was talking to Sybil.

This is my way of saying that I understand if you are sceptical about the following link to Email Marketing Q&A.  However, it was created by the Email Experience Council of the DMA.   Also, if you are new to e-mail marketing, you might find it helpful.  If you don’t find it useful or relevant, please let me know.

Clients ask me about e-mail open rates and, honestly, they are not what they used to be.  In fact, they no longer matter for many reasons but here are my top three:

1. False negatives.  An e-mail is considered opened when a tracking image is downloaded.   However, major e-mail clients like gmail disable images by default.   If you read the e-mail with the images disabled, it will never be counted as an open.   And what about text e-mails?  They do not include images and thus do not count as opens unless you click on a link (and even that might be e-mail software dependent).

2.  False positives.  Let’s assume that images are enabled.  E-mails displayed in a preview pane are considered opened because the images were downloaded.  But who always reads the e-mails in their preview pane?  I don’t and I bet you don’t either.   So you have undercounting due to the disablement of images and overcounting due to the use of preview panes.

3.  What really matters is the action taken.  To me, the true success of an e-mail marketing campaign is whether you drove the desired action.  Did you sell more widgets as a result of the e-mail campaign?  If not, the open rate is moot.

A colleague of mine recently told me, “direct mail is dead.”  I can certainly understand why he would say this.  First, mail volume has been falling.  Unsolicited direct mail by the financial industry has declined due to concerns about the credit markets for example.  Given the continued economic challenges in the United States, mail volumes are expected to continue to fall.  Second, direct mail is viewed as junk mail that quickly goes into the waste bin.  Add to that concerns about the environment and waste.  Sending multiple mailings to the same customers or prospects can alienate them. Third, e-mail is an attractive alternative where e-mail addresses exist, as it is cheaper and offers many of the same advantages of direct mail.

However, as an article in the New York Times yesterday detailed, direct mail is not dead but undergoing a transformation.   The return on investment from direct mail is too high for it to be abandoned.  When direct mail is targeted to the right person at the right time, it can be incredibly effective.  I know because it worked on me.  A few years ago I was involved in a volunteer committee that donated company funds to non-profit organizations.  One of the other volunteers suggested that we give money to Doctors without Borders and in the process educated us about the organization.  Around the same time, I read about their mission and efforts to help individuals in the Middle East in the New York Times.  Thus, when an unsolicited letter requesting a donation arrived in my mailbox shortly thereafter, I gladly gave to the organization. 

Direct marketers are pushing for direct mail processes to be more efficient, for the offers to be more targeted and the pieces themselves to be more environmentally friendly.  The DMA and others are pushing for all sorts of improvements including cleaning or purging purchased and house lists of undeliverable addresses, using soy inks and recycled paper in mail pieces, and recycling waste materials.  It remains to be seen how effective they will be; however, it is in their best interest to develop standards.  They run the risk that future legislation will dictate what they can and cannot mail.

Direct mail is not dead but rather will be used more sparingly and in concert with other channels, especially e-mail.