Email Users Want More From Marketers (and Their Inbox)

Subscribers around the globe know their importance to marketers, and would like to be treated accordingly. They have become more discerning about handing out their email address, and they look to marketers to customize experiences based on self reported data as well as insight passed through cookie-based technology and purchase patterns. Although there are some regional differences around the globe, the bottom line is that email marketing is welcome most when it’s used as a way to connect with customers, rather than just broadcast information.

These are some of the findings of a new global consumer attitude survey published by Return Path partner e-Dialog…

Tell me more

Categories: Commentary Research View Comments

Email Marketing Engagement Goes Well Beyond Permission

When it comes to engaging subscribers and understanding the relationship between engagement and permission, you probably have a lot of the same questions as attendees at a recent email deliverability webinar put on by Exact Target where I was a panelist along with Jamie Tomasello, Abuse Operations Manager for Cloudmark and Al Iverson, Director of Privacy and Deliverability. Chip House, also of Exact Target, moderated the discussion and shared some stats from the extensive Exact Target research bank.

We talked about the history of email filtering and how it has changed from a primarily content-based system looking to keep the bad stuff out, to a sender reputation-based system looking to get …

Tell me more

Categories: Commentary View Comments

Adopt an Innovation Attitude to Improve Marketing Results

Retailers (or any marketer or publisher) seeking higher conversion rates must adopt an “innovation attitude” to guide them amid a fertile landscape for new ideas, advanced technology and customer behavior learnings. So advised speaker after speaker at the Shop.org Merchandise Summit held earlier this month in sunny Huntington Beach, California. Despite the pleasant weather, attendees stayed focused in the conference rooms (strategically chosen for their lack of windows!). It’s clear there is a pressing need to optimize the use of both new and old technologies to create compelling customer experiences, especially in today’s socially connected marketplace.

Tell me more

Categories: Commentary View Comments

Get Ready: Congress May Expand Powers of FTC & Other Legislative Updates

Promoting self regulation of the email and digital marketing industries has been a hallmark of the US Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) approach to regulation. Catching and penalizing spammers has always been a central part of the agenda, but new privacy legislation introduced this year in the House of Representatives, along with a proposed provision to expand the powers of the FTC would both have significant impact on email marketers.

The DMA/Email Experience Council held a second annual webinar with the FTC to discuss these issues, which also included Tom Bartel, Return Path’s chief privacy officer and VP, Receiver Services. I blogged about all the details for the DMA/eec. …

Tell me more

Categories: News View Comments

Tribute to Stefan Pollard: Friend, Partner, Email Industry Stalwart

We add our voice to the many expressing sorrow at the passing of our friend and colleague Stefan Pollard, a longtime email industry guru and senior consultant at Responsys, a Return Path partner. A very moving tribute appeared in ClickZ, where Stefan was a columnist. The DMA/Email Experience Council has announced the Stefan Pollard eec Member of the Year Award for Excellence in Creativity and Contribution to be awarded annually at the Email Evolution Conference. …

Tell me more

Categories: News View Comments

Connect Email, Social and eCRM: Lessons from MarketingProfs Forum

Resist opportunity. How’s that for some counter-intuitive advice? In the wake of too many opportunities, too much data, and so many social networks, tools and conversations, how can marketers effectively set priorities, identify the most meaningful audiences and develop the necessary content needed to participate? This idea was posed by keynote speaker and Cluetrain Manifesto co-author David Weinberger. I believe the answer has to be in accepting that none of us can successfully test everything, so we must resist the urge to try everything, and at a micro-level embrace the fact that we will never be able to track, follow or participate in every customer or industry conversation. …

Tell me more

Categories: Commentary View Comments

Mailbox Providers Suggest Collaboration with Senders

In a panel presentation here at Mediapost’s Email Insider Summit, Yahoo! and Hotmail struck a very cooperative and collaborative tone for working with marketers and other senders as the two major global mailbox providers aim to expand their inbox products and spam filtering.

Carlo Catajan, Product Manager for Yahoo! Mail and Daniel Lewis, Sr. Product Manager for Microsoft Windows LIVE Hotmail both said …

Tell me more

Categories: Commentary View Comments

New MAAWG Consumer Survey: Half of Global Email Users Willingly Click on Spam

Have you ever wondered who in the world clicks on a spam email? Someone must be clicking, the thinking goes, or else spammers would have no economic incentive to keep blasting.

Turns out that we have seen the clickers, and they are us. Well, maybe not readers of this blog or employees of Return Path, but they are people like the consumers and business professionals on our marketing files and subscribed to our online services.

Nearly half (43%) of email users in North America and Western Europe say they have knowingly opened or accessed spam – including …

Tell me more

Categories: News Research View Comments

Forgiveness is Good, but Permission is Divine

Is it better to get permission up front for your email marketing program, or just beg for forgiveness later? This was a central question we discussed during my deliverability panel at the Marketing Sherpa Email Summit with fellow panelists Dennis Dayman of Eloqua (@ddayman) and Jared Hanson of Hewlett Packard (@hpnews).

The short answer is YES, of course it’s better to get permission. It’s always better to get permission. Permission is the first step toward setting expectations, creating relationships and keeping data clean. However, it’s only a first step. Permission does not give marketers a license to just send whatever and whenever – permission must be re-earned with every message. Lots of subscribers who gave permission also complain (click on the Report Spam button), which depresses inbox placement for all subscribers. They also unsubscribe or just ignore/delete.

What really matters is not that permission was granted, but that it is earned, every time a message is sent. If we adopt this attitude, then we’d make decisions like:

Tell me more

Categories: Commentary View Comments

Subscribers to Marketers: I’m Not Gonna Take It Anymore!

Here’s some more fodder to build your case for investing in your email program to build long term value, protect your revenue and demand generation success.

While 64% of consumers say promotional offers dominate both the email and traditional mail they receive, only 41% view them as must-read communications and another 22% say that they would definitely defect from supporting a brand in protest of irrelevant mailings, according to a new study out from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and InfoPrint Solutions.

Tell me more

Categories: Commentary View Comments