e-Consultancy Asks My Opinion - Yikes!

Below is an excerpt from my interview with Chris Lake, of e-Consultancy, www.e-consultancy.com

What are the biggest challenges facing email marketers today?

Email deliverability is a topic that is at the top of everyone's mind. 5 years ago most people were asking me about how to best format their email, or write copy, subject lines or calls to action. Today many are just trying to make it to the inbox.

The discipline is getting more complex. You now have CAN-SPAM in the USA, PIPEDA in Canada and the EU Privacy Directive to think about, and may have to take steps to make sure your program is compliant.

The story is the same on the technical front, as new standards seem to crop up monthly for authentication -- Sender ID, SPF or DomainKeys, as well as accreditation and reputation programs such as Bonded Sender, Habeas or Goodmail. With this much complexity, outsourcing email is becoming more critical.

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How do you think the market is going to evolve in 2006? What will be the key trends?

Two main trends have been creeping into the industry. First, you have an increasing need to authenticate your email using at least one of the popular protocols, SPF, Sender ID or DomainKeys.

Hotmail adopted SPF/Sender ID in 2005 and has begun showing a warning to end users if the Sender ID record check fails. They have said that eventually the lack of authentication will drive filtering. In fact, having a valid SPF/Sender ID record now will reduce your chance of a false-positive bulk folder at Hotmail or MSN.

The second trend is the rise of sender accountability, via sender reputation and scoring systems, such as Bonded Sender, Habeas and Goodmail Systems CertifiedEmail. These systems are intended to improve the email equation for both senders and receivers.

Good senders, with low complaints are able to capitalize on their "good behaviour" by being accredited by one of these firms, providing them with deliverability guarantees.

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Deliverability seems to be the single biggest concern for the majority of marketers. What tips do you have to help increase deliverability?

Tip 1: "The Deliverability Golden Rule: Send only email to others as you would have email sent to you." It seems silly, and a bit basic, but it is the best way to sum up how to steer clear of most issues that could affect your deliverability.

The number one driver of blocking is complaints. Avoid the complaints and you avoid most everything. Then you just have to focus on content, which is really just trial and error if you have the right testing tools. We use our own Content Detective to look for spam-like words, phrases, and HTML, then weed them out before sending.

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We've just gone through the painful process of securing Bonded Sender status, and still have no clue as to why we were blacklisted by Hotmail during 2005. Aren't ISPs accountable to companies if they choose not to deliver email?

I think that you could easily argue that ISPs' number one accountability would be with their users - protecting them from spam and other bad things.

Hotmail is sensitive, again, to complaints when they issue a block. They monitor averages for all senders, so they maybe made a mistake on your email (a false positive block or junk folder), but they probably saw a pattern on their end that was similar to what they see from spammers. Also, were you authenticating with SPF or Sender ID? This should reduce the chance of a false-positive at Hotmail and MSN.

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How should companies running in-house email campaigns deal with ISPs, in the event of deliverability problems?

First, don't attack. Find the correct contact on their website, or at last resort send an email to their postmaster, and politely ask what they saw on their end that triggered the block? In many cases, just by reaching out they'll remove you. Spammers don't contact ISPs. Second, take their feedback and see if you need to modify your name capture policies to meet their recommendations.

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What are the key factors that govern open rates?

Though our recent study shows that open rates are decreasing due to image blocking at ISPs, click rates have held constant. Driving opens has most to do with your subject line, from address and brand, and the quality of your communication.

Also, are your emails anticipated by the recipients? If not, they won't open them. Always brand your subject line, and provide a reason to open your email. "April 2006 Newsletter" won't cut it anymore.

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How can companies encourage recipients to whitelist their email?

Make it part of your name capture process. Have an "add to address book strategy". Ask the subscriber to add your email address to their address book or safelist, and also at the top of each email. This will get you around almost all filters at major ISPs and desktop mail clients.

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What is the percentage share of the main email clients, eg Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail etc?

The top 3 - AOL, Hotmail, and Yahoo make up nearly 60% combined. Gmail is still only about 1-2% of a typical B2C list.

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How can data gathered from email campaigns be used to improve a company's understanding of its customers? (ie using email as a behavioural data capture tool)

Behaviour is really the number one thing to monitor and use to your benefit for remarketing. What are they clicking on? What are they buying? When are they buying?

Each email is a chance to learn as buyers self-select their interests just by interacting with your email. Also, email surveys are a great way to get more pointed data on an audience, and to help fill out a subscriber's profile.

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Do you have any ROI metrics related to the adoption of personalisation and segmentation? What are the main trends in this area?

Relevance really goes beyond just adding a personal greeting to an email. The gains can be 10% or more for a very relevant/targeted email. For example, we have a client that focuses on ticket sales for second-tier concerts and festivals. They use the data I gave them on "music interest" at the time I signed up to know they should send me information on jam and jazz bands (my preference), but not for other genres of music. Then, they customize each communication using our dynamic content engine.

We also have Scotts Lawn Care that is using up to 70 attributes on each customer to customize an email communication helping them with lawn and garden tips customized to their region of the US, or world.

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You have a lot of experience in offline direct marketing. What can email marketers learn from old school DM techniques?

It's funny - most of it applies. What I would recommend to offline marketers choosing to do email, is use the same logic to select your list! Just because email is very low cost, doesn't mean you should mail everyone on your list.

The fact that email is inexpensive has lead much of the DM community to discontinue their list modelling and segmentation, which is really just as important for email as it is to the offline direct marketer.

Recency, Frequency and Monetary Value are still the most important metrics to look at. Also, multi-media is a must. Using email to support an offline campaign, remind the recipients that they just received a new catalogue, etc. is very effective.

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What do you make of the email charges proposed by AOL/Yahoo?

The media has been largely confused by this one. CertifiedEmail is largely a good development, though its impact as of yet isn't fully known. Goodmail Systems CertifiedEmail is really a "new class" of email. Think 3rd class mail vs. FedEx. Why shouldn't guaranteed delivery and a trust stamp cost money?

This is a new type of email for which many senders, especially those sending "high-value" email, or critical transactional email, will be willing to pay. The status quo really doesn't change for other senders who choose not to "stamp" their email with CertifiedEmail, or don't have low enough complaints to qualify. They will continue to get the service they received before the Goodmail/AOL/Yahoo agreement.

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Can you name five companies that are best-in-class when it comes to email?

There are hundreds that are doing email well right now - though that is still just a drop in the ocean. I still like Amazon because I only get an email when it is relevant to my music tastes.

Also, a client of ours, Home Depot, does a fabulous job of segmenting their list based on interest and engagement level. Subscribers that don't open or click for awhile will gradually see fewer offers, or will enter their reactivation program. If they don't reactivate, they are removed from the list. This kind of active drive towards relevance and list hygiene is the absolute best practice any mailer can pursue.

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