Forgiveness is Good, but Permission is Divine

By Stephanie Miller
VP, Global Market Development

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:

Categories: Response

Deliverability Benchmarks: A Spotlight on Europe - and the 15% of Email that Doesn't Get Delivered

By Margaret Farmakis
Senior Director, Response Consulting

The recently released Return Path Deliverability Benchmark report revealed that email deliverability problems plague marketers across the globe. European marketers, with an 85% inbox rate (messages delivered to subscribers' inboxes) are slightly better off than their colleagues in North America who only make it to the inbox 80% of the time. Europeans are a bit worse off than their counter-parts in Asia-Pacific who get delivered 86% of the time.

Here are some key findings from major markets in Europe:

+ In the United Kingdom, 89% of email made to the inbox. France did almost as well with an 88% inbox rate while Germany was in line with the European average at 85%.

+ For email being sent to the "spam" or "bulk" folder, the United Kingdom had the lowest rate at just 3% while Germany had the highest with 11%. France was right in the middle with nearly 5% of email sent to the "junk" or "bulk" folder.
+ A significant percentage of email was categorized as "missing" or not delivered at all. In both the United Kingdom and France 7% of email went missing. Germany did slightly better with just 3% in this category.

The report also looked at non-delivered rates (messages routed to junk/bulk folders or blocked all together) by Internet Service Provider (ISP) in France, Germany and the UK. Inbox placement rates varied significantly from ISP to ISP. In the UK, toughest inboxes to get into were Demon, BT Internet, AOL, Orange, and Yahoo!. In France, it was SFR, AOL, LaPoste, Yahoo!, and Orange and in Germany, it was Web.de, AOL, Yahoo!, Freenet, and GMX.

Categories: Email Deliverability | News | Response

Episode #13 of Reputation Radio is LIVE!

Our new episode of Reputation Radio is available on iTunes.

In this episode, we speak with Ken Magill of the Magilla Marketing newsletter and DIRECT about the current state of the email industry. Ken discusses how email industry insiders love to talk about advanced concepts while many businesses are still challenged by the basics. Why do direct marketing veterans still struggle to grasp the unique characteristics of email marketing? Which companies executing email right and which companies are getting it wrong? Ken answers these questions and more.

Is there someone in the email universe you think we should interview? Do you have a question about email deliverability or sender reputation? Call 206-350-5512 and leave a message. Or, email us: podcast@returnpath.net. We might use your question in a future episode.

Listen to episode 13 now and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss a minute of Reputation Radio.

Categories: Email Deliverability | News | Response

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

By Stephanie Miller
VP, Global Market Development

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.

Categories: Response

Poetic Advice: Please Respect Subscribers This Season

By Stephanie Miller
VP, Global Market Development


A poem from an AOL postmaster called Nightmares Before Christmas says it all (and in rhyme!).

You'd think that retailers who already send 5-10 non-targeted email messages a week (yes, that is sometimes more than one a day) would not have much room to grow in frequency this season.

You'd be wrong.

Our Return Path deliverability and reputation data is...

Categories: Email Deliverability | Response

Report from the UK: Acquisition and List Growth Advice

By Margaret Farmakis
Senior Director, Response Consulting

Last week, I attended the first in a series of email marketing customer lifecycle seminars to be held in London over the next 10 months by the DMA UK. This first session focused on the first stage of the lifecycle: acquisition and list growth.

The panel of speakers included Jeanniey Mullen, co-author of "Email Marketing: An Hour a Day" and founder of the Email Experience Council; a joint presentation from Marc Munier, Commercial Director at Pure360 and James Hamlin, Online Marketing Director at Seatwave; and Stephen Groom, Head of Marketing and Privacy Law at Osborne Clark. ...

Categories: Response

Report from the UK: 4 Email Tips Guaranteed to Stuff Your Stocking

By Margaret Farmakis
Senior Director, Response Consulting

With another Royal Mail strike looming just as the busy shopping season gears up, it's understandable for retailers in the United Kingdom to be in a bit of a panic. Having signed off months ago on glossy Christmas catalogues, marketing managers will be left wondering when customers will actually see the results of their hard work (and high printing costs). Will they remain in postal sorting limbo, will they ever be delivered and when? Online retailers will be worried as well: consumers are going to be less inclined to shop online if they can't have a guaranteed shipping or delivery date for their items.

As if this year wasn't hard enough on businesses trying to keep a positive balance sheet and stay upbeat amidst the dire financial and economic predictions, now this. So what's a retailer to do? Where can a retail marketer turn during a quarter so crucial to the company's bottom line? The answer is email. Now, more than ever. Here are three ideas for surviving, and thriving, the Christmas crunch ...

Categories: Response

Bootcamp Lessons for Every Sender

By Stephanie Miller
VP, Global Market Development

No matter how much time you spend perfecting your email marketing, it always comes down to the basics. After you validate all the infrastructure is correct, email marketing is pretty straightforward in concept. Simply: If you give subscribers what they want (a.k.a: helpful, relevant, timely information they can proudly act upon), then they will give you what you want (a.k.a.: revenue, response, loyalty).

Relevancy. That is perhaps the most over-used word in email marketing and deliverability. It's easy to see why increased relevancy will improve results - and help your messages stand out. Most marketing is ill timed, poorly targeted and un-interesting. Do the opposite and your messages will be welcome and earn higher revenue. You will have more loyalty, lower complaints and higher inbox placement.

So go ahead and do that ...

Categories: Response

Cool Email Idea: Secrets to Email that Gets Opened & Read

What: Secrets to Email that Gets Opened & Read

Who: BLR (Business & Legal Reports)

Why we love it: Oh, you just can't make this stuff up! "Banana Decimates Office." "Workers Test Poker Faces." "Invasion of the Robots." "Wanted: Lackey to the Stars."

The stuff of supermarket tabloids? No sir. It's HR Strange but True, the fast-growing, interactive e-zine from BLR, the plain English business compliance training and resource company. Conceived as a column for BLR's human resources website and e-zine, HR Strange but True was so popular that BLR gave it center stage as a stand alone newsletter. Following the best practice that even a little bit of content exponentially increases the value of an e-newsletter, HR Strange But True is grew super-fast - from 278 to more than 7,000 subscribers in just under a year ...

Categories: Response

How Can Non-Profits Send More Engaging Email?

By Bonnie Malone
Director, Response Consulting

Retailers aren't the only ones gearing up for the holidays -- it's a big season for non-profits too. But just how well do non-profits use email to connect with subscribers (and potential donors), engage them in a cause, and spur them into action? Return Path's new research study, "Telling Stories: How Non-Profits Can Create More Engaging Email Marketing Programs," focuses on answering these questions by measuring email use among 50 well known non-profit organizations.

Assessing the entire subscriber experience for 30 days, the study analyzes practices across a wide spectrum of organizations - from children, to health, to politics, animals, and museums. The study identified several areas of strength among these mailers, including 62% of organizations that sent a welcome message immediately upon subscribe (something only 40% of for-profit counterparts do), and a strong integration of social media elements.

However, there were a number of areas where non-profits fell short. ...

Categories: Response