EmailList Articles

The days of bulk emailing your entire email list are over. Customers are demanding only those emails that pertain to them and their needs only. This has likely impacted your KPIs and revenue streams in the sense that customers are refusing to interact with your emails unless the content is tailored to them. So the next logical questions are: how do you give your customers the emails they want and only when they want them? The answer is both simple and complex…build an email preference center.

A preference center is an interface created for your email customers so that they can relay specific information about their email preferences to you. You may include a single option to choose from, or a completely customizable email solution. Either way, build your preference center with your customers in mind, making sure that they can quickly and easily make changes at any time.

Building a preference center can be fairly easy if it is managed through your Email Service Provider (ESP). The system will automatically create folders, segments or suppressions that continuously roll customers in and out of your mailing stream. It will still be up to the email marketing team to decide what messages your customers will receive though.

The first thing to keep in mind when building an email preference center is making sure that the instructions are incredibly clear. When a user lands on your preference center page, there should be a distinct explanation for each of the sections they can complete. Be sure that your customers have a solid understanding of what email subscriptions they are changing, keeping and losing. This will hopefully eliminate spam complaints that may arise from miscommunications. In addition to preference changes, be sure to include a global unsubscribe option that will remove a customer from your email list in entirety. This not only complies with CAN-SPAM regulations, but also assures your customers that you have their best interests in mind.

The next step to developing an email preference center is to identify which parts of your email stream is relevant to your customers. Such things as categories, frequency and day of the week are all options that a customer can choose to customize.

Categories – If you’re an e-commerce site that offers many different products or services for sale, have your customers choose only those that they are interested in. You may also want to provide further selections such as gender, price ranges, locations, discounts offered, free shipping, etc. Any of these options will produce completely customizable email content that is not only relevant, but also desired, by each of the customers in your email list.

Day(s) of the Week – Since customers are so bombarded by emails everyday, let them choose which day (or days) they’d like to receive your emails. By doing this, you’ll teach your customers when to expect your emails, who in turn will be more responsive and engaged.

Frequency – Many companies are still mass-emailing their entire email list, and to a customer, it can seem like they are receiving emails nonstop. For those customers who don’t check their email every day, this can be incredibly overwhelming and will cause them to engage with your email far less than you’d like them to. Letting the customers choose how often you email them will allow you to send your most important messages while reducing the number of emails in your customers’ inboxes.

There are many other options you can provide for the customers in your email list. But in the end, make sure you honor their wishes and send them only what they’ve asked for. It is likely that the number of emails sent will be reduced, but you shouldn’t worry about this. Your email strategy will likely change from static content to dynamic, customized emails. Since the email content is geared towards only those topics they are interested in, your customers will appreciate your emails and respond better. It is almost certain that you will experience better overall KPIs – such as open and click rates – and revenue since the email content is what specifically pertains to what your audience wants.

If your email system or ESP is not able to handle dynamic content, you can still use email preference centers to your advantage. Create the static content as you normally would, but instead send it to only those customers who would find it relevant based on the preferences they chose. Even though you won’t be sending emails to your entire list, targeting customers based on their preferences is still a smart strategy. Cycle through the preferences to ensure that the customers in your email list do still receive email from you in a timely manner (ex. once or twice a week). If you insist on mailing your entire email list, create several versions of the email creative that ‘speak’ to each preference and send accordingly.

If you do decide to use the preference center to target specific mailings, be sure to build a testing strategy into your email program. You can test concepts such as combining similar targets or correlated selling. For example, if you have an email that features computers, you may include the segments that have elected to receive emails about computers plus those that have elected to receive emails about electronics. Or, if you know that customers who buy apparel are likely to buy shoes in their next purchase, you can send an email that features both categories.

In addition to experiencing higher KPIs and email revenues, an email preference center can also help with deterring unsubscribes. Unless there is an email effort to drive customers to your preference center, they are most likely hitting it because they are trying to unsubscribe. Whatever the reason they got there – too many emails, not relevant content, no longer want to be on your email list – the preference center gives them options on how to adjust their subscription so that they might not globally opt out. You may be able to entice them to keep a portion of their subscription by simply reducing the frequency, changing the day or adjusting the content.

All in all, email preference centers are designed to enable marketers to give customers in their email list the content they want to receive combined with when they want to receive it. Designing your email strategy around this concept can significantly reduce the quantity of emails sent. But you will also experience greater open rates, click rates and revenues because your emails are just that to the customer now – significant.

Email has been the single most revolutionary communication device since the invention of the telephone. Even current texting technology is little more than an extension of basic email techniques. Unfortunately it is also a double edged sword…..from encouraging lackluster grammatical skills to being one of the producers of easily misconstrued messaging. As with any tool, it becomes important to know how to use it effectively, and wield it like the two edged sword it is, accomplishing your intended purpose without inadvertently causing injury.

Your email is a logical extension of your public image, which means you need to put forth your best foot when utilizing this technology. Getting lazy with your emails has the same impact as showing up for the staff meeting in a t-shirt and flip flops.

Let’s take a more in depth look at the do’s and don’ts of email usage, namely the ones that can make or break your good corporate image:

Dropping The Subject Line. Do you open emails with subject lines that read “no subject”? I didn’t think so. In an age where people have email messages piling up and clamoring for their attention, you have exactly one chance to grab their attention. The subject line is that chance. Make the most of it.

Give the Subject Line Some Substance. Like many of you, I have a bad habit of inserting useless things like “Hi” (or worse “howdy”) as opposed to anything remotely resembling the contents of the email. Take the few extra seconds and type in precisely what the e-mail is pertaining to. Again, you have one chance to grab their attention. Make it count.

Keep Your Header Corresponding With The Subject. We all get tired of wading through previous emails to try and nail down the specific one we’re looking for. Keeping your header adjusted to reflect the subject you are currently discussing will help you keep up with what is where, especially in cases where the exchange runs on for an extended length.

Make It Personal. Personalize your messages. It doesn’t matter if you are sending the same message to multiple recipients, taking the time to personalize the greeting makes a great impression. Email by its very nature is a fairly cold means of communication. Get around that obstacle.

Choose Words Wisely. With email, you have some of the instantaneous nature of communication, but without the non-verbal, body language element. Email messages are often misconstrued. I’ve had more than one humorous message be received as sarcasm or even a personal attack, and you never see it coming. Second and third guess the tone of your message and make every effort to see that it is received in the spirit intended.

Check Your Grammar. With the advent of email came the idea that proper grammar was no longer important. This is a mistake. Sending a message full of errors (or worse, those lazy abbreviations such as “ur” in place of “you’re”) does nothing to make a decent impression, and may actually cause co-workers (or worse, superiors) to not take you very seriously. Take the time to compose your emails with the same due diligence that you would with a regular business letter.

Keep It Simple. Emails should never be very long. People usually skim through them so short messages that are easily grasped are preferable. If you find that you are suffering from an excessive case of literary bloat, then back off and arrange for a face to face meeting or phone conversation.

Unauthorized Forwarding. I don’t care how funny or inspirational the message is, never forward an email without the express consent of the person who wrote it. If the wrong thing gets out and you’re pegged as the responsible party then your credibility and integrity just went right out the window.

Think Of The Net As An Open Book. It can never be said often enough, don’t put anything in an email or other online message that you aren’t willing for anyone and everyone to see. Because chances are that anyone and everyone eventually will. Once you hit send, you effectively relinquish all control of the contents of that message.

Create A Signature. Most email programs offer the option of creating a signature that can be automatically generated for every message you send. Do this, and include your name, email address, phone number, whatever communication methods are best for reaching you directly. Never assume that the other party will simply hit respond…it doesn’t always work that way.

Don’t Be Impatient. This is one of my biggest goofs. I naively assume that the person I am sending the message to is sitting at the other end, and as a result I should get an immediate response. Email may be a way of getting a message out instantly, but don’t assume the same is true in reverse. Have some patience and wait for the other person to get back to you.

There are a lot of ways to run your career in the ground, but email doesn’t have to be one of them. Take your time and exercise some common sense and your email communication will prove to be a powerful and effective communication tool.

Okay, you blew it. Whether through no fault of your own or perhaps just a few ill advised words, the response from your clients to your most recent email blast has been overwhelmingly negative. You find yourself with visions of your business collapsing, your finances swirling down the drain, and for all you know, perhaps a good old fashioned tarring and feathering.

Or perhaps you misfired on quoting a price, and a $1000 table becomes a $100 table. Quite a difference, right?

It’s a well known fact that once you hit send, you should be prepared for whatever is in that chosen message to be out there forever and ever amen. You can’t get it back, and there is always the possibility that it can come back and bite you, usually at the most inopportune times.

So how do you respond? Is there anything you can say or do that will get you back in the good graces of your clients? Do you have a future with these people? Well, the answer is yes. People are usually very willing to forgive the occasional gaffe or misjudgment, but you may have to swallow your pride and go ask for it.

First thing, make it right. As soon as you discover your error, send out the corrected information. Most people realize that they aren’t going to purchase a new Lexus for $4500……so be upfront and tell them that you forgot the extra zero. Nobody in their right mind is going to try and hold you to an obvious mistake.

Be human. Be willing to admit that you make mistakes. A recent political statement was in fact exactly right… corporations are people, people are prone to errors in judgment and execution. Make sure your apology is properly worded and appropriately humble. Again, people are willing to forgive, but diminishing their importance or trying to act as though you are above them will do little to win friends and influence people.

Take one for the team. It doesn’t matter who dropped the ball, let the buck stop with you. Taking full responsibility (even if it wasn’t totally your fault) really raises you up in the eyes of your clients. So resist the urge to blame your ad agency, marketing department, or personal assistant or whoever, and let the buck stop on your company name.

In the case where product descriptions are bungled or items are mispriced, be sure that everyone knows that there was a mistake made. Some people may have already bought the item in question, but you should make sure that everyone who may have even laid eyes on it is properly informed of the error and made aware of the correction.

Take it to the top. If you are not the president or CEO of the company, have them be the ones who sign off on it. Having the top of the heap be the bearer of the message will carry far more weight than the same message coming from some low level exec.

Balance the scales. No, you cannot sell a new Lexus for the aforementioned $4500, but you can compensate for the mistake by throwing in a few perks, such as free oil changes for the first year or a discount on accessories. Going the extra mile to try and make up for the mistake really polishes up the good old corporate image. Will it cost money? Yes, but it will pay off handsomely in the long run when it comes you customer satisfaction and retention.

Leave the lines of communication open. Nothing grinds my gears more than receiving an email from a company that cannot be responded to. Make sure your return email addy is one that gets delivered to a real person, preferably you, and make every effort to get back with anyone who contacts you.

Finally, how do you know when to send an apology? The common prevailing wisdom is that if something feels wrong, then it probably is and needs to be addressed. If you are genuinely unsure, however, ask yourself two questions:

1. Will my customers be inconvenienced if I do not send an apology?
2. Was the mistake serious enough to warrant a heartfelt apology?

If you answered yes to either of those questions (or both), then start writing. It’s time to make this thing right.

Finally, take the time to compose the apology carefully. Email is one of those forms of communication where, if it can be misconstrued, then it will be. Responding too quickly, in the heat of the moment, may actually produce counterproductive results. Compose your apology, walk away, and come back to it later. You can look at it with fresh eyes and gain a better perspective on what is working and what isn’t.

If you do email marketing long enough, you’re going to eventually screw up. Determine now just how you are going to deal with it, then go and do the right thing by your clients and by your company.

Transactional email messages are those that are triggered to customers in your email list based off of an action they took. Whether it is a welcome message to someone who is new to your email list or an order confirmation to someone who just purchased from your site, it is important to make sure that this type of email is both informative and engaging. Since the customer expectation is so high, it is even more important that you get this email to them in their inbox in a timely manner.

By their very nature, transactional messages should be short, sweet and to the point. They essentially should be an instantaneous response to an action your customer has just taken. For the most part, it is usually in your best interest to deliver an email response within just a few minutes or seconds. Since your customer is actually expecting this email, you are likely to experience incredibly high open and click rates. In addition, transactional emails are a great opportunity to easily cross-market other products to your customer.

One important factor to consider when sending transactional emails is their delivery. Some messages, such as order confirmations and credit card decline notices, are vital to e-commerce and must be delivered instantly. For this very reason, it is usually recommended that you set up all transactional emails on IP addresses separate from your marketing streams. Since transactional emails are sent as one-offs instead of large batches, they tend to be under the radar of ISPs. This then results in better delivery rates, and are also not affected by the bounces and complaints that may coincide with your email marketing efforts.

Although it may require some tech resources, make sure that your transactional emails are built on a system of well-developed API calls. It is crucial that you time your emails properly according to their type. When customers will be expecting an email immediately, make sure that they are not waiting around for long. For these cases, be sure to design your email response to be as close to real time as possible.

You may also consider having a significant waiting period before an email is triggered. An abandoned cart email, for example, would be best received a couple of days to a week after the event occurred. Sending this type of email any sooner would probably not be well received by the customers in your email list since it may come off as hounding them for not purchasing.

Once you have the timing down on any of the emails you send, be sure to have creative that succinctly conveys the message you intend it to. Transactional emails serve a specific purpose that is usually built on dynamic information that is API-driven. Because of this, nearly every transactional email you send can be unique and might contain data that is different for every user. If you have content management systems designed to handle exactly this, it might be a good idea to leverage this functionality to monetize your transactional emails. Whether your business model is built around e-commerce or page views, use extra space in your transactional emails to make product recommendations or link users to other articles and/or landing pages. Since the engagement in transactional emails is so high, use this space wisely. Don’t bombard the user with too much information or ads that could distract from the email’s original intention.

In addition to having triggered single messages in response to a user’s action, consider developing a series of transactional emails. Welcome emails are a great opportunity for this. If you have a lot of content on your website or program, create an email program that slowly educates your customers. For example, you can have one email that is fired off instantly after the address is added to your email list. Perhaps 24 hours later, your system would send a second email and 24 hours after that, a third. In each of these emails, you could focus on the benefits of being in your email list or of different website features.

One last thing to consider about transactional messages is the users who may take advantage of your strategy. There are many smart customers out there who realize that they can easily get discounts or special offers through transactional emails. Since so many companies are trying to win their customers’ dollars, many will include coupons or promotions simply for signing up or leaving a product in their shopping cart. If you do choose to include a discount, make sure to properly suppress those who have received your emails before.

In the end, transactional emails are a very important means of communicating with your customers in real time. If you make sure that they contain relevant information and are delivered in a timely manner, customers will be highly responsive and you can easily rely on transactional messages to be a solid source of revenue.

Anyone who has ever worked in email marketing knows the value of getting your emails delivered into the inbox. You probably also know just how difficult this can actually be. The hardest part is knowing that your business objectives – open rates, click rates, revenue – all can be affected by poor delivery and for which you have no idea why.

In the internet space today, Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail/MSN and AOL dominate the free email account market in the United States. That being said, it’s probably a good idea to familiarize yourself with each of these ISP’s rules so that you can ‘play nice’ and comply with each one. Each ISP has its own rules of what email messages they consider spam and what they don’t. They also are constantly changing their email filters to protect their customers, so where your email lands is a day-to-day task to tackle.

Probably one of the simplest ways to help with your inbox delivery is to make sure that your sending IPs are set up properly. This includes having both the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) records available for all of your IP addresses and domains. Basically, these records are checked by the ISPs to ensure that they mail they are about to deliver is actually from you. Spoofers and spammers set up IPs quickly and don’t usually bother with the SPF or DKIM records, so if either (or both) of these two verifications is missing or broken, it’s likely that your email will not be delivered. Practically every ISP relies heavily on these records for email sender verification, so remember to check them frequently.

Some ISPs are willing and able to work with marketers to get email delivered to the customers who actually want it. This comes in the form of whitelists and feedback loops. Whitelists are available only with a few ISPs – Yahoo, AOL, Verizon, to name a few – but can give you preferential inbox treatment. While whitelisting doesn’t guarantee that your email will always make it to the inbox, it shows that you are willing to comply with the ISP’s policies. Putting forth this effort to send reputable email to the customers in your email list resonates well with ISPs, so this is definitely an email best practice worth acting on.

Feedback loops are another relationship you can create with an ISP to help with your delivery. This process allows you to be notified by the ISP when a customer makes a complaint or reports your email as spam. You can then build services to automatically remove these customers from your email list. This shows the ISPs will see that you are complying with your customers’ wishes and only mailing those that want to receive email from you. In turn, you are likely to have better inbox delivery of your emails. Still, inbox is not guaranteed, but any extra help you can get is beneficial. Again, there are only a limited number of ISPs that offer feedback loops – Comcast, Yahoo, Hotmail/MSN, to name a few – but definitely worth the time spent to set these up.

Another – albeit expensive – option to help you achieve inbox delivery is to pay for email certification. By using this service, you pay a per-message fee and agree to comply with very strict spam complaint regulations in exchange for guaranteed inbox delivery. As simple as this sounds, you can never predict how the customers in your email list will respond to your messages, and your IP addresses can go in and out of certification with a single mailing. So essentially, the ISPs are leaving your certification status up to their customers. To ensure that you comply with the complaint rate standards, optimize your email stream so that the customers that receive your emails are, in fact, the ones that want to.

In addition to implementing all of the above options, you will constantly need to monitor your inbox delivery. If you don’t have the time or resources available, there are a few 3rd party options available to help. Companies such as Return Path and Pivotal Veracity offer several tools that can help you keep your email in the inbox. On a day-to-day basis, you can send emails to their test or seed lists that will determine what percentage of your email list received their emails in the inbox. While these are not actual statistics, they are a solid indicator of how your mail is delivered overall.

These companies usually offer other tools to assist with your email delivery such as screening your email content through spam filter checks, IP reputation monitors, delivery statistics alerts, benchmarking standards, among many others. As an added plus, these companies can help with the whitelisting, feedback loop and certification processes. It’s likely that they may also have established relationships with several ISPs. This can be incredibly beneficial when troubleshooting IP and delivery issues that are not resolved by usual means.

A last – and sometimes obvious – method for battling the inbox war is to simply comply with email best practices. However old school they may seem, they are consistent with what the ISPs want to see from bulk mailings. And as the customers in your email list get more and more advanced, it’s always a good idea to stick with the standards and play it safe.

1. Text-to-Image Ratio – In your email templates, be sure to use a combination of both images and text. Even though it is easy to use all images and allows for better branding, ISPs do take this ratio into account. Simple text additions such as promo codes, product descriptions, personalization, expiration dates and fine print can all help with your email delivery.

2. Reinforcing the Email Relationship – It is usually a good idea to remind the customers on your email list how they got there. A small line of copy in the footer of your email that includes their email address and the site they signed up on is usually sufficient.

3. Links and Images – Make sure that the links and images you use in your email have matching domain names to your own. While using external links isn’t wrong, it can be picked up by some ISP’s filters and can seem like spam. If you must use external links, try masking them by sending them through a tracking server.

4. Check for Spam Words – There are still a number of words, phrases and syntax that indicate spam to ISPs. Such things as the words ‘free’ and ‘guarantee,’ typing words in all capital letters and dollar signs can all get your messages caught in the spam filters, so avoid using them where applicable. Remember both the subject line and email content are ‘read, ’ so apply the best practices to all of your email copy.

All in all, ISPs are willing and able to deliver your email to the inbox if they determine that it is what their customers want. If there is any indication that you are sending spam – even if you believe you really aren’t – they will err on the side of caution and send your emails to the junk folder. It is definitely in your best interest to ensure that you have done all you can to comply with each ISP’s standards and take any action that they require. This is probably the best way to get your email delivered to the inbox, which will certainly have an effect on the statistics of the email since all of the intended recipients in the email list actually received it.

In the mid to late 90’s, if you didn’t have an e-mail address, people generally looked at you as if you were from the wrong planet. Now, nearly 20 years later, we have a generation wondering what exactly email is good for in an age of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media outlets, not to mention texting, which is probably the ultimate form of instant written communication.

It leads business owners to wonder if they aren’t beating the proverbial dead horse to a veritable pulp by going to the trouble of assembling and maintaining an email marketing list. Even this author has been guilty of neglecting my hard fought and won email list in favor of the more instantaneous social media avenues.

It’s not hard to see why. Social media paints a much more vivid picture of a given market as a whole. Just be spending time on Facebook, you can get instant feedback from a large number of people on a given topic, product, or service, as well as literally watch the market landscape change, ebb, and flow.

The smartest marketers out there will find a way to have the best of both worlds, integrating the tried and true (email) with the newest and more innovative forms of communication. How, you ask? Well, consider the following:

Make Your Social Presence Known. If you have an online presence for your company with say, Facebook, then start including a link to that page when you send out an e-mail blast. Invite your clients to come and join you on Facebook (or Twitter, or whatever the hot spot of choice is). Providing multiple avenues of conversation can only become a benefit, and may actually increase your online visibility. And the key word there is “conversation”… these channels should be a two way street between you and your customers, not just a pulpit from which you endlessly extol the many virtues of your company brand name.

Listen. God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason…..to listen twice as much as we talk. Not sure what to craft for your next marketing blitz? Spend some time perusing your social media accounts. See what your customers are talking about (or arguing about, or complaining about). You have a perfect opportunity to remain relevant and engaged by addressing these factors in your next communication. Your customers will certainly appreciate the fact that you are responding to their concerns

Try Some Variety. Okay, so you have multiple channels of communication available to you. So now, instead of just sending out a mass e-mail to your list, you take the e-mail message ad repost it on Facebook, tweet it to all your Twitter followers……that’s effective, right? Well, not really. Who wants to get an e-mail about your lawn care company offering a new fertilizer service, and then log onto Facebook to read the exact same message again? It’s an old rule… avoid duplicate content. Make each of your channels, e-mail, direct mail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn… make them all different and unique, addressing a different aspect or angle of your business. Variety is the spice of life (to borrow a tired but true cliché’), and you can rest assured that it will keep your clients coming back and engaging. We all like to be where things are happening, and if it appears that your company has multiple balls in the air on a number of different fronts, it will generate interest.

If Something Works, Do It Again. You’ve spent a lot of time learning what works and what doesn’t as it applies to your email list. For example, subject lines. You need a line that is brief, catchy, and interesting… something to make people click on your message and read it. Facebook has the same thing, called a status update. I am constantly amazed at what people put out for the entire world to read (i.e. nobody cares if you had Froot Loops for breakfast this morning). All too often, the status update is the social media equivalent of watching somebody else’s home movies. You want to be different, eye catching, intriguing. You have a momentary opportunity to grab attention, particularly with people like me who peruse status updates rapidly and are very discriminating about what they will and will not click on. Adopt the same method that has served you well with subject lines, and you’ll see more visitors to your page.

Make Customers Work For You. I’m a firm believer that the best marketing you can ever hope for comes from your customers talking to each other, and they are no more likely to ever do this than they are through social media. If you own a pet supply store and have a corresponding Facebook page, then it’s a pretty good bet that at least a sizeable majority of the folks who “like” your site have, oh I don’t know, a pet! They have a common interest. You make a post about a new product and you will no doubt receive scores of comments from folks about that product, both pro and con. Don’t be afraid to share them through other venues. You can use a FB comment as a part of your next email blast, or in your next tweet, to tout the benefits of a given product. People will pay far more attention to their fellow customers than they will to you. Trust me on this one; I made a living through word of mouth for over twenty years.

Email is not becoming extinct. It is merely another step in the evolution of online marketing. There is no reason why it cannot be successfully integrated into newer forms of communication. We still use the phone don’t we? But it is a markedly different animal than it was when Mr. Bell made that first static filled connection.

Commit yourself to riding the crest of the wave in 2012!

Happy New Year! And welcome to 2012! Of course you are going to want to keep your business moving forward in the coming year, and part of that process will include staying on the cutting edge of marketing techniques, especially as they relate to your email lists. The last thing you want to do is fall off the crest of the wave and end up in the backwash of outdated or ineffective email marketing techniques.

Sixty five million years ago, the dinosaurs looked up and no doubt wondered about that big rock hurtling their way, and businesses that fail to stay abreast of current email marketing trends are destined for a similar extinction. Technology is advancing at a rapid pace, and the phrase “that’s so 20 minutes ago” while often made in jest, actually carries with it a great deal of truth.

So, equip yourself for the coming year by exploring some of the latest and most effective options for enhancing your marketing efforts.

Text Marketing: Texting is the logical evolution of email, providing an even more instantaneous connection. Some of the newer programs send automated text messages to customers in their database, offering a gift card for a given amount in exchange for answering a question such as “What kind of car wash products do you use?” The answer given allows the company to even more accurately target the customer with specific deals or products.

Mobile Optimization: With the advent of the Smartphone and tablet devices in recent years, fewer people are spending their time retrieving emails by sitting in front of a computer screen. Mobile commerce is expected to increase significantly in the coming year, following a threefold increase in 2011. More and more retailers are optimizing their sites for mobile transactions, and more complex marketing efforts such as up selling, cross selling, and other promotions are being generated across mobile channels

Product Subscriptions: This technique allows customers to subscribe to receive a given product or service at regular intervals for a prearranged price. This allows the merchant to forecast revenues, establish recurring sales, and provide more effective inventory management (since they know approximately how much of a given product will be going out every month).

Triggered Emails: It sounds like we’ve wandered away from the e-mail field, but we haven’t gone very far. Triggered e-mails are messages sent to coincide with an event or announcement or product release, and were a very successful marketing tool during 2011. Triggered e-mails are sent based upon customer behavior or interaction, or lack thereof. Say a customer shops on a given site, fills his shopping cart with say, golf equipment, and then abandons the online cart without checking out. An email offering special discounts or other incentives may be sent to the customer to encourage him to return and complete his transactions. Triggered e-mails may also go out a week or so after a purchase has been made, offering special deals on related products.

Video Content: Online videos have been a part of email marketing campaigns for the last several years, but the medium still has not reached its full potential. The average internet user watches more than 20 hours of video content per month, so any company not utilizing video in their presentations is missing a rather large piece of the marketing puzzle.

Video is one of the best ways to present a product or service, and is generally accepted favorably by the majority of consumers. It offers easily acceptable and understandable product information, and is easily shared across various platforms such as Google+ or Facebook. This of course brings us to….

Social Media: In today’s society, if you don’t have a Facebook page, you’re almost looked at like a leper. With such an across the board acceptance of social media platforms, it is almost equally mind boggling that merchants would fail to take proper advantage of such an effective communication avenue. Emails should be properly marked with Facebook or Twitter icons, along with an invitation for your customers to “like” or “follow” your company. Of course any social media page should provide prominent opt ins for customers to submit their contact information as they wish. Done correctly, exposure through social media can spread your brand name almost exponentially, reaching far more people with a minimum outlay of time and effort.

The Good Old Fashioned Inbox: This may be a misnomer, as the e-mail inbox is a rapidly evolving tool, one that is becoming ever more effective at catching and filtering out spam. You will also find yourself competing with other companies who are utilizing the same approach. This is one area where you cannot ignore the power of quality, relevant content, as that is what will guarantee that your message will actually be read. Engage your clients and you will go much further than flashy slogans or over the top promises.

The New Year always brings with it the promise of a fresh start. Make sure your company takes the next step forward in its e-mail marketing strategies and enjoy a prosperous and successful 2012!

One important – and frequently overlooked – aspect of email marketing is the copy, or message that you are trying to get across to your email list. Whatever the message may be email is a quick and easy way to relay it to your customers. There are many opportunities to convey a message in email, so it is important to coordinate all components so that the entire email has a cohesive message.

The first touch points an email has with a customer is the subject line and from name. It is a best practice to keep a consistent from name on all of your email campaigns so that customers instantly recognize the message is from you. A proper subject line should be brief and prepare the subscriber for what is contained in your email body. The recommended length for a subject line is 52 characters, but this can vary according to your brand’s preferences. Just keep in mind that the longer your subject line is, the greater the chance that it gets cut off in the ISP and some of your message can be lost.

Another touch point outside of the email is the super subject line or eyebrow. This is a line of copy you place just inside the body of your email’s HTML. This copy will display in some ISPs immediately after the subject line. Many email marketers do not realize that this copy will show to the subscriber and in most cases you just see the email header copy. Instead, if you use a super subject line, you have the opportunity to provide more information about the email’s contents before the user opens the email.

Once the customer is inside your email, but before they have downloaded the images, the alt tags provide another opportunity for you to convey your message. The alt tags are the text back up to images and will display in the ISP before the customer turns the images on. Here, you should use this text to give additional details as to what the email contains, or explain what content is displayed in the images. Remember that any text in the email will also display, so make sure you are not repeating what is already there.

So now that you have intrigued your customer enough that they want to open the email, make sure that the body appropriately matches the subject line. Tricking your customers into opening will only increase unsubscribes and complaints, so try not to be misleading. If you plan to use mostly images in your email, design it so there is a large headline that is short and to the point. Remember, the intention of an email is to direct traffic back to your website. With this in mind, be sure to write the copy that is both vague and intriguing so that they want to click on the email to learn more.

Inside the body, you should include additional copy that supports your email message. Since emails are usually only around 600 pixels wide, long sentences and paragraphs can translate into many, many lines of copy. Instead of really long copy blocks, use sub headlines and bullet points to get your message across. You can always use images to portray your content as well, so use them to supplement your message.

Additionally, pay close attention to the copy you use in your links. Be sure that the Call to Action (CTA) is strong and tells the user what you want them to do. In the case of hyperlinks, link the appropriate words in the copy so that the customer will know what website they are going to if they click on it. By default, hyperlinks will be underlined and will turn a royal blue color. If you wish to stylize your hyperlinks, make sure that they look clickable – keep the underline, make them a different color than the rest of the copy, italicize, etc. If your message is more of a newsletter style with lead-in copy, try cutting off the copy in the middle of a sentence and have the customers click a link to read more.

For graphical button links, use short, action words that lead customers to the next logical step. Also make sure that these images look clickable. Use shadows, underlines and arrows to make it easy for readers to know that they are supposed to take action.

Remember the entire process of ‘reading’ an email takes only about five seconds. Since this is such a limited amount of time to engage your subscribers, be sure to use all of these text areas to get your message across as directly as you can. Optimize your text and images so that they all coordinate into an email that is cohesive and can be easily engaged with.

If you’ve been in the business of email marketing for a while, it’s likely that you have collected quite a large number of email addresses. You probably have a group that are [hopefully] engaged with you and open and click your emails frequently. Then there is the rest of your list…one group that is unengaged and hasn’t interacted with your emails in quite some time. These might be marked as unmailable due to hard and soft bounces and unsubscribes. Since the inactives and unmailables are probably a majority of your email list, take some steps to clean them up or remove them from your mailing stream. In the end, you may experience an increase in email metrics along with better inbox delivery.

First, take a look at some of your email metrics to determine how customers are reacting to your email campaigns. The failure rate is an important number to watch because it shows how many emails never made it to the customers in your email list. Failures can include hard bounces, soft bounces, connection errors and other technical issues that made your email undeliverable. You should be sure to take action and remove any hard bounces from your email list, since the address is no longer valid and can only further harm your deliverability.

Some other important email campaign statistics are the unsubscribe and complaint rates. These rates indicate how your customers are responding to your email. If subscribers don’t see value in receiving your emails, they are going to take an action of either unsubscribing or complaining (marking your email as spam). While neither of these actions are desirable, it is better to have customers unsubscribe since this action goes under the radar of ISPs. A complaint will notify the ISP that a subscriber believes your message is spam. If too many people complain about your email, it’s likely that all of your incoming mail will be blocked or immediately sent to the spam folder. If you have feedback loops in place, you will be notified of which subscribers are complaining and you can immediately remove them from your email list. According to CAN-SPAM regulations, you legally have 10 days to remove an email address from your database. However, it’s in your best interest to remove any addresses that unsubscribe or complain immediately to avoid any extra harmful behavior.

The churn rate is another metric you should be monitoring. Depending on how often you mail, you might report on this metric differently, but calculate it by month to see how you trend throughout the year. You simply need to add the total number of unsubscribes, complaints and unmailable addresses and divide by how many total email addresses you have at a certain point in time. This will give you a percentage that indicates how many email addresses you lose each month. If you have email acquisition efforts running, this number is important since you pay for every email address you acquire and should have an idea of how many you will lose due to churn.

Next, take a look at the composition of engaged and unengaged users in your email list. Instead of continually emailing to everyone in your list, find those that are most engaged and target them for your campaigns. To find these customers, run counts of users in your list that have recently taken an action on your email. Depending on how often you send email campaigns, try running counts of those that have opened or clicked on an email in the past three, six, nine or twelve months. And depending how quickly you acquire new subscribers to your email list, run counts of users who have recently been added to your list in the past week, month or quarter.

Then you will need to put together a testing strategy where you mail these groups separately and track how each responds to your email campaign. From here you can create separate lists of the most engaged users that will optimize your email campaigns. Not only will you experience better email statistics – ex. open and click rates – but you are likely to have lower unsubscribe rates and fewer delivery issues. If you do experience deliverability issues, it might be a good idea to separate your database into separate engagement lists. First deploy your email campaigns to actively engaged users, then roll it out to the moderately engaged (and possibly then unengaged). This strategy will allow your email to be immediately opened and clicked and will indicate to the ISPs that it is a message of value and should be delivered to the remainder of users.

For those in your email list that are dormant engagers or completely unengaged, you may choose to either mail them less often or not at all. Put together a separate email strategy for these users that gives them the opportunity to re-engage with your brand or to opt out of receiving emails. Since these subscribers haven’t engaged with you recently (or ever), it’s likely that they won’t respond and you’ll have to decide what action to take for them. If this is the case, your best bet would be to put them on the back burner and email them quarterly with the options above.

If you have a large email list, you’ve probably collected a very large amount of invalid email addresses. This group could hold a trove of valuable customers, but for some reason, they are not able to get your email due to typos, fat-fingering, their mailbox was full, etc. Whatever the reason is that they were marked as invalid, there are some options available for recovering these email addresses. There are several third party companies in the market that can help with your recovery efforts. Many will provide free or reduced-fee trials to help you decide which of their services will best hygiene your list.

One service that is offered is an email syntax check. They will take your entire list of invalid email addresses and check each one for common mistakes and errors that would cause your email to be unmailable. Such things as misspelling a Yahoo address as ‘@yahho’ or missing the shift button and typing a 2 instead of an @ sign could cause an otherwise correct email to bounce. You would then be returned a list of corrected email addresses that you can now try to re-mail. Be careful when mailing these recovered email addresses though. Remember they have probably never gotten an email from you and it may have been awhile since they signed up for your email list, so the first message you send them should be some form of welcome email.

Another service offered by third party hygiene companies is a validation tool. This software is designed to catch syntax and spelling errors up front, and ensure that the hard bounce never happens. This service happens at the time when the user enters their email address. Once they hit submit, the service will verify that the email address is both properly formatted, as well as checking it for common errors and typos. If it detects an issue, it will provide several options of what it ‘thought’ the user was trying to enter and force the user to choose the correct address. Although pricey, this service can do wonders in preventing bad email addresses from entering your database.

In all, there are many different ways to hygiene your database. It is important to constantly keep a clean mailing stream as ISPs get stricter and stricter with delivery standards. Whatever budget and resources you have available, it can only benefit you and your bottom line to ensure that you are only mailing those in your email list that want to be mailed.

I used to manage my e-mail list meticulously, even down to going through it name by name and eliminating people that my gut told me probably wouldn’t qualify as long term subscribers. I included opt outs, and usually made mention in the body of the message that folks should feel free to let me know if they no longer wished to be on the list. I was also diligent and removed those folks who wanted to be removed for fear I would obtain a spammer reputation.

But despite my best efforts, I would still occasionally get those angry e-mails from people who thought I had gone too far, worn out my welcome, crossed the line, and for all I knew, probably beat on my own mother just for kicks. It really was quite amazing how intensely people responded when they got the impression that they were being spammed, and even more disappointing for me to think that I was being perceived as such.

Today’s lesson… sometimes you just can’t help it, and no matter what you do, you get the label of spammer hung around your neck like a three ton boulder, leaving mental images of you kissing your collective career goodbye. Is there any level of damage control that will work when you’ve been branded with the dreaded “S” word?

Whether the accusation is true or not, it should not be ignored. Enough complaints to your ISP will result in your internet service being shut down, your website yanked, or all of the above. Once the damage is inflicted, it is awfully hard to undo. Can you possibly take the necessary steps to prevent this from happening? And if not, how do you combat the false accusations when they do occur.

One thing to remember is that a lot of people sign up for e-mail lists and then forget about it. Six months later they are wondering why they are getting e-mails from a given outfit. I’m guilty of this myself, and I like to think I’m pretty thorough when it comes to e-mail issues. Moral: it happens to the best of us.

Also, forwarding is a big thing nowadays. Almost every morning I find myself cleaning out forwarded messages of all kinds from my inbox. Occasionally, the forward may look like it is coming from the company itself as opposed to a well meaning friend. Something like this could easily tick off the wrong person, they lodge a complaint, and then you’ve got problems.

About all you can do when you get these responses is to be proactive in responding to them. Promptly remove the person from your e-mail list, and send them a polite personal message, apologizing for the inconvenience and assuring them that you have heard their request and will honor it.

Of course there are methods by which you can be better prepared with regard to your e-mail database:

Don’t buy e-mail lists from companies. It takes longer, but suck it up and take the time to build your list on your own, one step at a time. Building any business endeavor takes time, but the end result is worth it and you will find your list to be more substantive and ultimately more productive for you, your product, and your business.

Make it at least a little difficult to get on your list. Have your webpage set up with an opt out button; basically making it a decisive action for the person to add their name and information to your database. Informed decisions go a long way towards cutting down on the number of irate folks that you will be hearing from (unless of course you go off the deep end and inundate them with useless info or otherwise wear out your welcome, but that’s another story…).

Give them every chance to back out. When you get an e-mail subscriber, if at all possible, send them a thank you message in return. The personal touch is always appreciated and makes people want to maintain the connection.

Don’t be a stranger. If you let a long time go by between mailings, you run the very real risk of people forgetting about you. Then, when they finally do hear from you, it comes off as unexpected and you end up looking like a garden variety spammer. If your product or service warrants it, then touch base with your clients every month or so. If you can send a birthday wish or Christmas e-card, do it. If you establish a relationship with your clients, then the business relationship runs so much smoother.

Whenever you do a mailing, include the URL where they initially signed up. This may serve as a reminder if they are scratching their heads trying to remember who you are. Place the URL near the “unsubscribe” feature to make things easier.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, well, you get the rest. Don’t engage in activity that makes you look like a spammer. Avoid the cheesy, unrealistic subject lines, include a functional return address, as well as a real header. If your messages look professionally composed, with a personal touch, and coming from a reputable source, then you stand far less chance of your presence being rejected.