Email Marketing Blogger: 2012

Monday, August 20, 2012

Marketers Cash In on the 'Zombie Apocalypse'

Marketers Cash In on the 'Zombie Apocalypse' - Email Marketing Lounge Products Services News Clients Resources Company Blog Email Marketing Lounge Share Marketers Cash In on the 'Zombie Apocalypse' By

Jason Warnock on June 6, 2012 7:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) In case youhaven't heard the news over the past week, there have been tragic 'zombie'related stories gripping the USA.
InMiami, a young man--perhaps high on a street drug called "bath salts"--devoured mostof a homeless man's face before he was killed by police officers.Later,in Maryland, a student admitted to murdering his housemate and then consumingparts of his body.Meanwhile,our Canadian neighbors were on the hunt for a porn actor that dismembered someonebefore eating parts of the victim's body on video. Yesmail Market Intelligence, our proprietary digitalcompetitive intelligence tool, has detected a trend of marketers takingadvantage of these horrific events--via promotions on Facebook, Twitter,YouTube, and Google+--to increase sales. While our opinion on the matter is neutral, each of these 'ZombieApocalypse' digital marketing campaigns generated substantial user engagementas highlighted below.
Hot Topic promoted 'Zombie Killing'clothing.

Hot Topic Zombie Shirt

Ford touted their 'Raptor Truck' as the vehicle to own when the ZombieApocalypse happens. Keep in mind this was a third-party review created in 2010 thatthey chose to highlight on their Google+ page over the past few days.

Ford Raptor Truck Google+

Time jumped on the 'ZombieApocalypse' bandwagon and cited the Center for Disease Control with their tweetbelow.
Time - CDC Announcement Tweet

Forbes published articles that detailedthe best zombie media ever produced.
Forbes Zombie Media Tweet

Do you thinktrending news stories like these are fair game for brand marketers? What areyour thoughts on this 'Zombie Apocalypse' marketing trend? Let us know in thecomments below.

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Subscribe to Email Marketing Lounge by Email Authors John Harrison Administrator Tanya Hyde Matthew Caldwell Kristin Kleweno Jason Warnock Kyle Henderick Michael Fisher Justin Turner Rachael Darmanin Annie Wilkins Shaunmarie Gutbezahl Steve True Michael Scully Preethi Dumpala Kam Wa Tang Mike Kippenhan Travis Rice Jenny Stone Scott Seiter Jack Satta Bob Sybydlo Callie Heiser Matt Bogue Gavin Handley Nate Henson Matt Gault Bryan Finke Recent Entries EnVision Email Newsletter Wins International Association of Business Communicators Award Game on, Can Gamification Improve Your Marketing Programs? Facebook Still THE Social Network of Choice for Marketers Apples to Oranges: Comparing Your Brand's Social Engagement to Your Competitors' A Rough Guide To Email Marketing Law In The UK Even Facebook's Not Too Big to Spam Father's Day Email Campaign Run-Down: The "Gift Card" Holidays Marketers Cash In on the 'Zombie Apocalypse' O Canada - Canada's New Email Anti-Spam Law (CASL) #CASL 'We want your vote!' on Using Interactive Polls in Email Marketing Categories Acquisition (4) B2B Email Marketing Email Copywriting (13) Email Deliverability (13) Email Design (15) Email Humor (4) Email Inspiration (4) Email Lists Email Marketing News (10) Email Marketing Strategy (12) Email Newsletters (3) Email Open Rates (3) Email Program (88) Holiday Tips (11) Small Business Email Marketing (3) Social Media (21) Yesmail (18) Yesmail Client (4) Yesmail Clients (5) Yesmail Market Intelligence (9) Yesmail Partner (6) Monthly Archives July 2012 (2) June 2012 (7) May 2012 (7) April 2012 (10) March 2012 (10) February 2012 (10) January 2012 (5) December 2011 (3) April 2011 (1) February 2011 (1) December 2010 (1) November 2010 (5) August 2010 (1) April 2010 (2) March 2010 (2) February 2010 (5) January 2010 (5) December 2009 (5) November 2009 (3) October 2009 (2) September 2009 (1) August 2009 (1) July 2009 (2) June 2009 (2) May 2009 (9) April 2009 (15) March 2009 (21) February 2009 (23) January 2009 (3) November 2008 (2) October 2008 (5) September 2008 (3) August 2008 (10) July 2008 (3) Powered by Movable Type Pro Yesmail is an infoGroup Inc. company | www.infogroup.com

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Apples to Oranges: Comparing Your Brand's Social Engagement to Your Competitors'

Apples to Oranges: Comparing Your Brand's Social Engagement to Your Competitors' - Email Marketing Lounge Products Services News Clients Resources Company Blog Email Marketing Lounge Share Apples to Oranges: Comparing Your Brand's Social Engagement to Your Competitors' By

Jason Warnock on June 26, 2012 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Planning your brand's social marketing strategy without takingyour competitors' campaigns into consideration is like shooting into the dark. Whilecustomer insights help you determine how your brand meets customer needs, marketintelligence allows you to:

Brainstorm marketing ideas from competitors'offerings, creative, deployment methodsDevelop campaigns using time-tested strategiesCreate enticing counter offers, in real-time,that beat current promotions in the marketplace

After implementing your marketing programs, you can evaluateyour engagement metrics versus your competitors,' but to define whose effortswere a 'success', wouldn't it make sense if there was some industry average onwhich to base your decision? Let me paint you a picture with an example.

In a recentstudy, we tracked 20 leading retailers over a three-month period (Jan - Mar2012) that heavily target the important 18-35 age demographic. The graph belowmeasures Facebook engagement based on volume--volume meaning the total number of'likes' and comments each campaign gained. By just glancing at the graph, youmay think that Ralph Lauren's campaigns were significantly more engaging thanEddie Bauer's however is there more to this story?

Now, would you change your mind if I told you that RalphLauren had about 4.9 million Facebook Likes while Eddie Bauer had about 73,000?Is it fair to compare the two brands' engagement metrics based on volume alone?Didn't think so.

At Yesmail, we realized that in order to trulycompare brands' social engagement, you have to control for the number ofbrand followers. After developing an algorithm that adjusts for the size of abrand's follower base, we crafted another graph that compares apples to applesand conveys more meaningful information for marketers.

See how the tables have turned (no pun intended)? Afterrecalculating each brand's actual engagement score bycontrolling for follower size, it appears that Eddie Bauer is a top-performerand Ralph Lauren less so. By standardizing engagement, marketers can accurately evaluate the effectiveness oftheir digital campaigns in relation to their competitive market. In turn, theycan then identify areas of opportunity and improve their marketing strategiesaccordingly.

So, how are you comparing your brand's digitalperformance to your competitive set's? Are you for or against an industrystandard of 'brand engagement'? Leave us a comment below or send a message to@Yesmail on Twitter.

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Do Email Marketing Resends Work?

Do Email Marketing Resends Work? - Email Marketing Lounge Products Services News Clients Resources Company Blog Email Marketing Lounge Share Do Email Marketing Resends Work? By

Preethi Dumpala on May 23, 2012 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) Repeat When Necessary

We get this question a lot when working with clients, and here is what we'veseen - every resend email campaign, on average, results in a 5% increase inopen rate and 2% increase in click rate. So the question becomes, if you can get these additionalopens and clicks with minimum effort and cost, why not, right? Well, like mostmarketing strategies, it is going to depend on the situation.

Repeat WhenNecessary, Use With Caution

If your email marketing campaign performed poorly thefirst time, it is always worth considering resending the campaign tonon-openers. Without annoying your customers, of course. Considerable time,money and effort (perhaps along with approvals from legal) go into building anemail, and thus we always advise squeezing out as much ROI from it as possible.But always use caution as it is best not to overuse this tactic.

When a Resend is a Good Idea

Deployment time and/or day affected the performance

If you believe the time and/or day of sending affectedthe campaign's email open rates, and that resending the email at a more optimaltime will help boost performance. Examples of this may be if the email went outon a Friday night when most people are probably not checking their email, or ona Monday morning when your message might have gotten buried under hundreds ofother emails.

Poor subject line

If you feel confident that the subject line was theculprit the first time, and plan to resend to non-openers with a differentsubject line.

Technical errors

If there were technical errors - the website or emailservers were down during the deployment time - that might have hampered yourcampaign the first time.

Non-purchasers

If the main objective of your email was to get peopleto buy, it's always a good idea to resend an email. This is because you canaccurately determine which of your customers have not made purchases. Ofcourse, whether or not a recipient makes a purchase depends on a lot of otherfactors such as product selection, site layout and navigation, so tread lightlyand don't over resend.

Key Don'ts When Resending

Never resend with the same subject line

Never resend with the same subject line - this maymake the customer wonder why he is receiving an email twice and think it is anerror, or worse, SPAM.

Never resend to openers

Never send to customers who have previously opened theemail. You don't want to risk annoying your active openers and creating emailfatigue.

How to Get More Out of a Resend

Resend to active non-openers

Resend your email to non-openers who have been activeduring the last 30/60/90 days. By resendingto active non-openers, you are retargeting the base that is most likely to openyour emails. This may include people who are interested in your emails buthappened to miss reading it the first time.

Resend at the optimal time and day

Look at your email performance trends, determine whenis the best time to send emails, and resend the email at that time. You can dothe same analysis for day of week, and resend on the best performing day.

Alter subject line based on past performance

Resend with a more aggressive subject line. Highlightan offer or call-to-action that got the most clicks on the first send.

Why will someone who ignored your email thefirst time read it when you resend? There could be many reasons why someone whois interested in your emails did not open a message the first time--the emailmight have gotten buried under a flood of other emails, the recipient was in abad mood or received the email when they were in a meeting-- but might be moreinclined to open the next time. The best way to know is to always test it, like these guys.

So do you use email marketing resends in your programs? If so do you find them effective? If not, are they on your radar now? Leave a post on this blog or feel free to contact us at marketing@yesmail.com
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Saturday, August 18, 2012

A Rough Guide To Email Marketing Law In The UK

Do you send marketing messages via text, voice, sound, or image over a public electronic communications network which can be stored in the network or in the recipient's terminal equipment until it is collected by the recipient?

Don't look at us; this is how the UK's Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) defines marketing email

Legal language. Big sigh.

As tedious as legal language is, it's vital that we email marketers understand what our responsibilities are. There is no way to avoid it, but we've made it a little easy for you. Use this rough guide to find your way around the regulations that govern email marketing in the United Kingdom.

Which law applies to you?

If you send out any type of direct marketing email, the PECR applies to you.

If, in the course of your email marketing, you collect personal information about your subscribers - like name, telephone number, address - you must also follow the rules of the Data Protection Act

THE PRIVACY AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS REGULATIONS

The PECR's fundamental rules:
You can send unsolicited marketing email to someone -

Email Marketing Privacy Laws - United Kingdom

Only if they have previously notified you, the sender, that they consent to receive such communications. Read more about consentYour identity is not disguised or concealedYou have provided a valid address to which the recipient can send an opt-out request

Exceptions to the PECR

You can send emails without prior consent to -

e.g. admin@company.com

Soft opt-ins are people whose details you obtained in the course of a sale or negotiation. You can send marketing emails to soft opt-ins without prior consent if the emails relate to a similar product or service and the individual is given a simple way to unsubscribe from all such future emails.

Unsolicited and solicited communication

A solicited message is one that the subscriber has actively asked to be sent to him.

An unsolicited marketing message is one that the subscriber has not invited, but for the time being, does not object to receiving. E.g. an individual signs up to a competition online, and checks a box that says "send me regular updates about your product."

ALWAYS remember that if challenged, you must be able to prove that the subscriber has opted to receiving further info from you. Read more here

Opt-in and opt-out

A person is opted-in to receive your marketing email if he has consented to receive email communications from you. A person is opted out if he has objected to receiving marketing email from you. Please note that just because someone has not objected to receiving communications does not mean he has consented to receiving your marketing email. Read more about opt-in and consent here

Email addresses obtained in the course of a competition

If you have obtained email addresses and other personal data that people provided while entering a competition, you are allowed to use the data to email such subscribers provided you made it clear at the time of obtaining the information what you're going to use the information for. Read more

Information obtained from third parties

There is nothing in the PECR and DPA against using data obtained from third parties. But you need to make sure that the third party you are getting the data from has collected the data lawfully and, at the time of collection, made it clear how the data was going to be used. Read more.

Viral Marketing / Forward to a friend

If you include a forward to a friend link in your marketing email, you must advise your subscribers to forward to only those people who they believe will be interested.

If you ask your subscribers for their friends' details you are assuming that the referred friends have consented to receive communications from you. You are liable for any such communications sent to the referred email addresses. Read more

THE DATA PROTECTION ACT

Here is what the DPA says:

You must have legitimate reasons for collecting personal data, and provide a clear privacy notice to individuals at the time of collecting information.You must be honest about how you plan to use the data. Processing the data for anything other than what you previously specified will be a violation of the Data Protection Act.You must not collect more information than necessary.You must not hold the information for longer than necessaryThe personal data must be kept up to dateThe data must be protected against unlawful processing, damage, destruction or loss.

Read the ICO's guide to the Data Protection Act for full details.

THE COOKIE LAW

The cookie law says that cookies or similar devices must not be used unless the subscriber or user of a website has been provided with clear information about how his details will be stored and accessed, and unless the individual has given his consent.Once the individual gives his consent, it need not be obtained every time he visits the website. Read more.

There is nothing specific in the law about open tracking. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) believes that open tracking is not covered by the cookie law. Read the DMA's summary on the Cookie law here. The DMA has reviewed the legislation and believes that open tracking is not covered by the cookie law. Read more here and here

EMAIL MARKETING GOOD PRACTICE GUIDE

The laws have been written to protect the interests of your subscribers. Certain parts are not specific and are open to interpretation. Here are a few good practices that every email marketer must follow:

When collecting personal details, explain clearly how the information will be usedDon't collect more information than necessary, and don't store it for longer than necessary, and don't use it for any purpose other than what was initially disclosed.Always obtain consentDo not have consent boxes already tickedProvide a quick and easy way to unsubscribeWhen you receive an unsubscribe request, process it promptlyWhere consent is implied, make sure you are satisfied that the user understands that cookies will be set.

Please note that the information above does not constitute legal advice. Always speak to your legal counsel if you are unsure of your legal position.

Image courtesy of Surian Soosay

Friday, August 17, 2012

Even Facebook's Not Too Big to Spam

Even Facebook's Not Too Big to Spam - Email Marketing Lounge Products Services News Clients Resources Company Blog Email Marketing Lounge Share Even Facebook's Not Too Big to Spam By

Bob Sybydlo on June 18, 2012 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) Facebook Dislike Button

Spamhaus, an organization dedicated to tracking and fightingspam, apparently does not "Like" Facebook's recent email campaigns, and theyhave listed over 30 of the social media giant's sending IP addresses on theirmost predominant blacklist - the SBL (Spamhaus Block List). Spamhaus stated that Facebook has beensending "spam" emails to new potential Facebook users on behalf of their currentusers and asking them to "Join Facebook". Unfortunately for Facebook, a lot of the email addresses they targetedturned out to be spam traps, and in some cases, these were addresses that havebeen dead for over 10 years, before Facebook even existed.

Spamhaus' definition of "Spam" is Unsolicited BulkEmail. This means they are looking outfor emails that are both Bulk(newsletters, customer communication, enquiries, etc.) and Unsolicited (emails sent to recipients who have not granted thatspecific sender the explicit permission to contact them).

Since the late 90s, Spamhaus has been tracking abundantamounts of unmanned email accounts called Spam Traps to track who is in factsending unsolicited bulk email. It hasbeen surmised that in some cases these trap email addresses are old emailaccounts that have been turned "dead", or have been deactivated. It has also been considered that these trapaccounts have been created and opted into email collection forums and websitesfor the purposes of tracking which marketers get a hold of them and send "unsolicited"email (as defined above). When thesetraps begin receiving "spam", the sender gets blocked by Spamhaus.

Every day, Spamhaus blocks and lists IPs that are beingutilized by bot-nets, Trojans, malware software, and scan gang to send "spam". However,Spamhaus is also occasionally blocking well-known businesses as well as EmailService providers that knowingly or unknowingly send Unsolicited Bulk Email.Spamhaus does not "like" spam.

No matter what the business is or how big their brand nameis, if their email program is sending Bulkand Unsolicited messages to Spamhaus'spam traps they will be blocked. Going back to Facebook, the biggest social media network around, as soonas they began sending Bulk email to Spam Traps they were blocked withoutexception. While Facebook boasts over900 million active users, Spamhaus actively protects over 1.7 billion mailboxes.

For a blacklist to actually be effective, an InternetService Provider has to adopt its use in their email filtration/security system,and Spamhaus has a lot of "followers" who are subscribed to its blacklistingservice, including Yahoo, Hotmail, GMAIL, AOL, Comcast, Road Runner, andEarthLink. An additional 110,000 B2C, corporate, and personal domains worldwideare also checking the Spamhaus block list when they are receiving email. For Facebook this means that while blocked,their campaigns will not reach any email inboxes since their messages will beblocked outright.

Several postmaster accounts that I monitor receivedliterally dozens of these requests to "join Facebook". None of these postmaster accounts are signedup for Facebook or subscribed to receive communication of any kind fromFacebook. Spamhaus' argument here isthat since these users have not actually joined Facebook, they have not giventheir consent to receive any communication from Facebook. This is a great example of the types ofissues an email program can run into when attempting to contact a large groupof potential users (customers) while not having the explicit consent to contactthem. If it can happen to Facebook, itcan happen to anybody - and it does...every day!

Let us know in the comments if you've encountered issueswith sending "unsolicited bulk email" i.e. spam or if you've received it fromFacebook.

Image courtesy of Sean MacEntee

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Thursday, August 16, 2012

Facebook Still THE Social Network of Choice for Marketers

Facebook Still THE Social Network of Choice for Marketers - Email Marketing Lounge Products Services News Clients Resources Company Blog Email Marketing Lounge Share Facebook Still THE Social Network of Choice for Marketers By

Matt Gault on June 28, 2012 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With an audience of nearly two billion eyeballs (900 millionactive members x 2), Facebook is the king of all social networks and a goldminefor marketers. Because of this, the channel is congested with marketingcampaigns and brands are now challenged to find innovative ways to captureconsumers' attention. While one may presume that engagement with brands wouldbe on the decline because of this over-messaging, our three-month studyproved otherwise.

The twenty retail brands we studied, all of which target theimportant 18-35 year old segment, released more Facebook campaigns month-over-month.Surprisingly, at the same time, consumer engagement grew at an even fasterrate. This finding alone can justify marketing spend on the channel and squashany marketers' fear that Facebook programs are a waste of time.

Before investing your dollars in Facebook--in the marketingsense, at least--you should do your "due diligence." We discovered more trendsfrom our research that you should take into consideration when optimizing yourmarketing programs. See below for details.

Day of the Week Trends

Campaigns got the most engagement on Tuesdays. Ironically, Tuesday: Ranks 4th in terms of when campaigns are actually deployed Is one of two weekdays showing a decrease in the volume of deployed campaigns

The number of launched campaigns and the most used days ofthe week varied over the time span of our study, which implies that brands weretesting their marketing tactics to see what worked best for their uniquebusiness and follower base.

Campaign FrequencyTrends

The five most engaging retailers on Facebookdeployed 20-32 campaigns per monthThe five least engaging retailers deployed around54 campaigns per month

This suggests that a high quantity of Facebook campaignsdoes not necessarily equate to more engagement and marketing returns for yourbrand.

Content Type Trends

Out of the retailers we studied, Ann Taylor andThe Limited were customer engagement stars, creating 73% of the most engagingFacebook postsTop-performing campaigns clearly answered thefollowing questions for customers: What doyou want me to do? Campaigns conveyed the desired consumer behavior. What do Iget in return if I do what you want me to do? Campaigns provided anincentive for carrying out a certain action. How can Ibe the boss? Campaigns put them in charge.

Email Marketing +Facebook Trends

Engagement on Facebook increased by about 50%when an emailcampaign was launched in the same timeframeEngagement on Facebook increased by 100% whentwo email campaigns were deployed in the same timeframe

With the prevalence of social share buttons, thesecorrelations can work in your favor if you lead your multichannel marketingstrategy with email.

While these trends were solely based on data from the twentybrands we selected for this study, we have 2 final recommendations:

Explore your competition's Facebook marketingprograms that stick and adapt your strategy accordinglyVary yourcampaigns and content for your brand and always ensure what works and what doesn't by testing, testing, and testing again.

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Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Email Acquisition Through Google AdWords

Email Acquisition Through Google AdWords - Email Marketing Lounge Products Services News Clients Resources Company Blog Email Marketing Lounge Share Email Acquisition Through Google AdWords By

Kam Wa Tang on May 15, 2012 7:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) Just a short post this week to point out an interestingdevelopment in Google AdWords that may have a great impact on email marketing in the near future.

For the last year or so, Google has been offering AdWordsextensions, which enable advertisers to display more information abouttheir company, such as product details, a phone number, or a linkto store directions, within their text ads. It's been a great boost for PPC andSEM marketers, but has had a limited influence on email marketing campaigns.

Sony T.v AdWords Campaign

Interestingly, a new feature within AdWords extensions hascropped up: the ability to capture emailaddresses directly within the text ad. So, for example, if I search for "DailyDeals" and an interesting text ad appears, I'm now able to subscribe to thatbrand's promotional emails without ever leaving the search page. Better yet, if I'm signed into my Googleaccount, my email address is pre-populated into the field, eliminating one morestep in the email registration process.

Daily Deals Email Capture

Right now, Google's still testing this capability, but if itbecomes a mainstream addition to AdWords extensions, it will hold someinteresting implications for email marketers as another avenue to acquiresubscribers. This could impact marketingin three ways:

Copywriting: Right now, text ad copy is written to encourage click-throughs toa landing page and is usually targeted around branded and non-branded keywords.With the ability to offer instantaneous email subscriptions, email marketersmay have to work with their SEM counterparts to produce subscriber acquisitionstrategies and copy that encourage people to sign-up there and then. This couldbe a mean feat given Adword's 75 character limit for descriptions, but luckily peoplein email marketing have some experience with this given our need to writeenticing subject lines.

Triggered Campaigns: Currently, to myknowledge, AdWords' email extension doesn't offer integration into any emailmarketing software. However, if it does (and my opinion is that it should,otherwise managing successful AdWords-based acquisition will be a nightmare),this opens up the question of how to successfully engage these new subscribers,who may have signed up for your email without viewing your landing page and sohave a limited awareness of your brand.

Tightercross-team coordination: In order to provide a consistent brand experienceto web visitors, email marketers will have to coordinate acquisition campaignsto a much closer degree with SEM marketers to prioritize requirements. Forexample, which AdWords campaigns get priority during the all-important holidayseason? Which keywords are related towhich campaigns?
I would love to hear your comments and opinions on this,especially if you've been part of Google's beta-test for this extension.
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Saturday, August 11, 2012

Avoiding Email Marketing Boobie Traps

Email marketing can be a great way to increase marketing ROI. Email marketers must fist be aware of relevant regulations governing the use of commercial email, while focusing on permission based, double-opt lists for distribution.

A practical HowTo on Avoiding Email Marketing Boobie Traps

In times of economic downturns, where marketing budgets are being squeezed like never before, it’s tempting to buy-into unsolicited solicitations from email data providers to enticing you to purchase their b2b (business to business) or b2c (business to consumer) “opt-in, targeted, permission-based” email lists. The reason is simple. These lists brokers temp us with offers that appear to be a cost effective distribution platform to get our marketing message out to a large and targeted audience for a fraction of what it would cost to do a direct mail campaign or to use a reputable ESP (Email Service Provider). There is no doubt that a number of businesses use bulk email successfully to achieve high ROI or otherwise we would stop receiving the loads of unwanted emails that we all continue to receive on a daily basis.

That said, email marketing can be a great Internet marketing tool and when done properly, can increase your marketing ROI significantly. If done improperly, email marketing can damage a company brand for the long term, driving away existing and potential customers. Worse yet, done improperly, email marketing, in rare circumstances, can result in government imposed financial and criminal penalties. Therefore, using email marketing to promote a business, brand, product and/or service requires some basic knowledge of the relevant FTC (Federal Trade Commission) regulations on email marketing and using best practices applied with common sense to avoid email marketing boobie traps.

Email Marketing is Regulated with Severe Penalties for Violations

The first email marketing boobie trap to avoid is to having your marketing masterpiece become content for a SPAM submitted complaint against your business that gets submitted to the FTC online or possibly worse yet, to the Better Business Bureau. To avoid your email marketing communications from being labeled SPAM, it is important to first understand the legal FTC definition of SPAM since email marketing is regulated by the FTC through the CAN-SPAM Act. The acronym CAN-SPAM derives from the bill’s full name “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003” which was signed into law by then President George Bush on December 16, 2003. CAN-SPAM establishes rules for sending commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have you stop emailing them, and spells out tough penalties for violations. For more information, see the
CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business

While enforcement of the CAN-SPAM Act by the FTC, in practice, appears to be sporadic, the FTC does provide the easily found FTC Complaint Assistant Form which enables anyone with an Internet connection and the desire to lodge a formal complaint based on a SPAM email received. Connected users can do so, in either English or Spanish I might add, making it easy for recipients of unwanted email solicitations to report those solicitations as SPAM. Penalties for violating CAN-SPAM regulations can be severe with each separate email in violation subject to penalties of up to $16,000 each.

Be Careful with 3rd Party Email List Providers Promoted Through SPAM

It seems like everyday SPAM email solicitations for targeted email lists end up in email inboxes. What’s interesting to note is that many of these email solicitations violate multiple aspects of CAN-SPAM regulations including failing to provide the physical postal address of the company or to provide information about how recipients can unsubscribe from receiving future emails. The question you have to ask yourself is how much are you going to trust the claims of an email data provider that does not follow the regulations of the industry they are in (i.e. email marketing)? SPAM offers should raise a huge red flag of email marketing boobie trap ahead.

SPAMMERS rely on widespread user complacency to avoid enforcement of any FTC imposed penalties. By sending huge numbers of bulk emails, even with a relatively small conversion rate, SPAMMERS will find enough buyers to justify sending SPAM email. Admit it, how many times have you taken the time to report an instance of SPAM you received to the FTC? The point is that the list owners claim that their targeted email lists are opt in (i.e. permission based), but the fact that they have your email and presumably you did not provide them permission to send you email, then how much faith do you have in their emails address lists that they are representing as opt-in (permission based) yet they are trying to sell through SPAM? Any offer received in SPAM email, email marketing lists or otherwise, should be ignored.

Do it right with Double-Opt in to Protect the User and the Brand

Now let’s take it a step further and look at the large brands that you interact with via email such as national retailers like Wal-Mart, Radio Shack and Best Buy. These companies, like any large, reputable, national brand, will only add your email address to their email marketing list if you double opt-in. Can you ever remember receiving SPAM from a large, reputable, national brand? Usually double opt-in works by providing an email address on a branded website while signing up for a newsletter or to receive special offers by email. This first user-initiated action is what is referred to as opt-in. This first action of providing an email address then triggers an email to be sent to the email address provided in the web form submission during sign-up. The email triggered to the subscriber typically states the reader must click a link in the email body to activate the requested email subscription. This second action is designed to ensure that the actual owner of that email address is the one who provided the address, to provide proof by the marketer of user intent demonstrated through a second action, your intent to receive marketing communications from that specific brand. This protects the consumer and the brand. There are many great email service providers who can manage the double opt-in process and unsubscribe processing to ensure that your business can remain CAN-SPAM compliant.

Is Email Marketing Worth the Effort?

Without question, email marketing done correct (roughly translated CAN-SPAM compliant with email marketing best practices applied) is definitely worth the effort. The key to successful email marketing campaigns is to provide quality content that is of value to the recipients. Send to only those who have requested that information and provided you explicit permission to send them email marketing on your offers. Email marketing is a great way to move prospects through a sales funnel while staying engaged with your current and future prospective customers. The beauty of email marketing is its scalability and low cost of delivery when compared with offline direct mailing. Saving a tree or two along the way is just icing on the cake. Email marketing has the added benefit of being integrated with websites through landing pages and other mechanisms which can be tracked and measured against marketing investments. While done wrong, email marketing can tarnish your brand through SPAM association. Why not begin developing your Email marketing strategy today to grow top line revenue while increasing marketing ROI?

Learn how to develop an email marketing campaign HERE

4 Tips For Effective Email Marketing

Once you’ve selected an email marketing service provider you are ready to start sending out impressive email marketing campaigns. But, there is more to email marketing than just pressing ‘send’. The goal is to create effective email marketing messages that help achieve your goals.

In this article our email marketing experts share a few key tips to help improve your email marketing results.

Tip # 1. Effective Subject Lines

Choosing a good subject line is important. When your email lands in someone’s inbox, they will most often only be able to see the sender name and the subject. That is why your subject must pique their interest so that they want to read more.

It is also important that you avoid overly cheesy or gimmicky subject lines as those simply do not work on today’s consumer. The subject “This email will make all your dreams come true” will almost always be dismissed as spam. Whereas a legitimate subject line such as “Fall Sale Starts This Week” will get your reader interested.

One key strategy for subject lines is to keep it simple. Try to explain to the reader in as few words as possible what they can expect to find inside your email.

Also, make sure that the length of the subject line is no more than 55 characters long (the shorter the better). This will ensure that the viewer sees the entire line and none of it is cut off by the default settings of the email program they are using (ie. Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail, etc.).

Tip # 2. Don’t overload the reader with content

Make sure you are not bombarding your readers with too much information. The more topics that you bring up within the body of your email, the higher the likelihood the readers will forget most of what you’ve mentioned. If you focus your email to one topic, the reader will retain more on the topic given, and are more likely to respond to your email marketing campaign.

Tip # 3. Directing the Reader’s Eye

Help direct your customer’s eye to the most pertinent points by providing bullet points or by numbering items. This makes your content easier to read and makes it look economically structured. The more organized and concise the look of your content, the more the reader will feel they have the time to read it, and therefore are more likely to spend that time reading it. Using visual aids is also a great way to clearly illustrate your main points.

Believe it or not, your reader will be scared away from reading too much. It is important to give your reader the impression that your email is a quick read, and spacing can help you do this. Similar to the visual aids concept, spacing your email can have a profound effect on your potential reader. If your paragraphs are too tightly packed together, the visual effect is that your content looks too dense. In the same vein, if your spacing is too great you can lose your viewer because your email will give the impression that it drags on.

You will need to find a happy medium so that the email looks, and IS easier to read.

Tip # 4. Font Style/Format

Because of the vast number of email platforms available on the internet, choosing your font style/format is critically important. The last thing you want is for a subscriber to be unable to read your email because their email platform doesn’t recognize the font you’ve chosen for your email. Make sure that you select a common option like Arial, Times, or Verdana.

While the above tips will get you well on your way towards email marketing success, it is also very important that you do a bit of brainstorming and ask yourself what type of content your readers are interested in. After all, people are only going to read your email when they think it is worth their time, so make sure you give them something of value to keep them opening your email every time.

Learn how to effectively attract customer HERE