With budgets still tight, how are companies managing to stay connected while bringing engaging and relevant messages to customers?  

Successful companies are learning that if they use interactive elements such as video, polls, FLASH and RSS feeds within their e-mail marketing campaigns, they see higher conversion rates and a stronger connection to their customers.

Video, if created properly, can really enhance your e-mail message and recipient interactivity. By using an enticing image with descriptive impact statements, recipients will be eager to click and link to the video. Include the file size, length of video or formats supported. Use flash video (FLV) whenever possible to achieve higher compression rates. 

• HOW TO: Create Online Video That Works by David Rich

Polls are a great way to entice recipients and engage audiences that want to be heard. Create topics or subjects that will resonate with your intended audience. Provide immediate results, along with associated support material, newsletters or additional links.  

• Best practices: Using polls in e-mail marketing by Karen J. Bannan

RSS feeds are another way to keep customers connected post e-mailing especially if your company has a blog, dedicated community or news section. RSS feeds provide the right amount of content to recipients on their terms making it the perfect connection outside of targeted e-mails.

• Newbie's Guide to Google Reeder - by Josh Lowensohn

In summary, once you have created an on-going e-mail campaign with customers, remember to include interactive elements and content that will continually engage your customers. Remember to measure the effectiveness of each campaign and refine where necessary.

Best,

Denice MacDonald

You’ve completed several highly charged e-mail campaigns and have come up short on conversion and high on complaints. Where to you go for help? You can use Return Path’s Sender Score Monitor tools to figure out how reputation is affecting your individual campaign results. 

Return Path’s monitoring suite provides real-time feedback on how your campaigns actually fare in the inbox. It also tells you why a campaign failed. For example, if you see that the campaign generated a high complaint rate, you should take steps to stop complaints by making sure subscribers understand what to expect from you and that you are sending e-mail that is of benefit to them.   

This includes segmented content by audience type, relevant and noteworthy links to resources or other valuable information along with other interactive functionality. 

Lastly, poor infrastructure hurts your reputation because it makes you look like a spammer. Or, at the very least, it makes it appear as if your system has been or could be compromised by hackers effecting both open rates and credibility. 

Resources: 

Sender Score Lookup (free) - A Sender Score is a measure of e-mail sender reputation.

Reputation Rules Series (free subscription) – Four week e-mail series on how “E-mail is a Relationship”.

Reputation Monitor - With Deliverability tools and services from Return Path, more of your e-mail can reach the inbox-which means more responses.

Webinar and Events – Includes both hosted and industry events.

More about Return Path: 

Since 1999, Return Path has helped some of the world’s most successful companies use email more effectively. Return Path began with the notion that there was a better way to do things: that email marketing didn’t have to be a war between marketers and consumers, that it was possible to do more with less, that the smartest email solutions were the ones that not only impacted your bottom line in the short term but also benefited your reputation for the long term. 

Sources and Excerpts: 

The aforementioned comments are abbreviated highlights from Return Path’s Reputation Rules Series. I highly recommend that you subscribe to this free learning and/or contact Return Path if reputation is affecting your e-mail campaign outcomes.

Best

Denice MacDonald

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the release of “E-mail Data Management Best Practices,” a document with a series of far-reaching privacy and data security recommendations intended for publishers, marketers and service providers.  

Focusing on protecting consumer privacy while improving effectiveness in e-mail marketing executions, the document was released at TARGUSinfo’s Online Lead Quality Summit. 

Some of the document’s key recommendations are: 

 √  Senders should send commercial e-mail only to individuals who have provided informed consent.

 √  A global unsubscribe mechanism should be implemented for all companies sending e-mails. Advertisers and marketers should authenticate their e-mails by publicly registering the domains from which they send the e-mail.

 √  A company cannot transfer a consumer’s permission to receive commercial e-mail to another company without the transfer being referenced in the new company’s e-mails. 

About the IAB 

Founded in 1996, the Interactive Advertising Bureau represents over 375 leading interactive companies that actively engage in and support the sale of interactive advertising. IAB members are responsible for selling over 86% of online advertising in the United States.

From my perspective, the IAB is a 'must-have' resource for any web marketer.

Best,

Denice MacDonald

As you know, e-mail was, and still is, the key component of ‘social interaction’ – yeah, it’s not wrapped as nicely as other social networking initiatives but it is still viable as an integral part of the customer/employee communication.  Not only is it affordable, it offers you an opportunity to stay connected – on your terms.

Here are a few great tips from the trenches:

REWARD: Identify e-mail forwarders and reward them – they are your best brand ambassadors.

PERSONALIZE: Personalized images can increase conversion by 50% - especially if a subscriber/recipient’s name is highlighted.

LIST SIZE: The larger the list, the less effective it is – lists typically become obsolete in six months (a big reason to keep up the database).

AUTHENTICATE: Insure that the program and your e-mail/domain meet standards to preclude spam issues or getting black listed - provide instructions on how recipients may add you to their white list.

EASY TO SUBSCRIBE: Create a preference center so subscribers can say how often they'd like to receive emails, what they're most interested in etc.

INCREASE OPEN RATES:  Scrutinize the “Subject Line” within e-mail campaigns.  Reason simply, most recipients (even if they know you!) will react to a subject line with a topic that offers subject matter that is relevant to them. Think long and hard about what that subject line should be.

INCREASE CONVERSION: The actual layout and design of the e-mail itself will determine open rates and ultimately conversion.  Consider less graphics and more text in the upper most portion of the e-mail real estate.  That way, one or two lines of text will appear in the recipients "Preview Pane" -- offering them a quick view of the e-mail content.  

I recently completed a project for a client that was a wrap-around before delving into a full blown web site revamp.  What did we do?  We customized several on-going e-mail campaigns to target customers based on product selection - cross-selling where appropriate.

Oftentimes, large manufacturers are hesitant to revamp their sites as the content inventory and collaboration between departments seems too daunting. (See recent blog: Who Owns the Web Site.)   Therefore, e-mail marketing is still very attractive to large organizations - especially if their client list is vast and diverse. It is a quick way to stay connected while measuring feedback and interaction within the campaign that will quantify and qualify strategy for the site revamp. 

Where to start:

Designing the template(s) is critical to the success of your campaign. Determine a specific content purpose offering subscribers/recipients value. This is also a good time to roll-out a new product, company annoucement or elevate new hires.

Next, determine the various audiences and segment content and interaction appropriately. C-level may want case study metrics while product end-users may want to see tools and testimonials.

Lasty, design for the various audiences. This may include segmenting the subscriber list to maximize ROI of the various campaigns.  If necessary, you can tweak the e-mail template(s) moving forward based on interaction.

This create-it-once/use-many-ways approach offers a unique way in which to stay in front of clients before a critical web site revamp.

Suggested e-mail programs worth reviewing:

ExactTarget (provides both web-based and self-service, rich media)

Campaign Monitor (great for organizations that want to pay as they go, includes great newsletter templates)

Arial Software (enterprise level solutions, large bulk etc.)

Great Resource:

E-mail Newsletter Best Practices by Larry Chase

Best Permission-granted E-mail Lists:

Hoovers

EmailLabs