Life on the internet is exciting because it moves so quickly… new technologies, concepts and ideas pop up everywhere, all the time. However, there are also constants … both good and bad.

For example, this article, “Effective Email Campaigns for a Pure Retail Operation — How Our Test Site Boosted Sales by 49%” from marketingexperiments.com, was published in March 2004 – three years ago. Yet all the advice they give is still very relevant today. I wouldn’t be surprised if the test was repeated and the results were exactly the same.

However, the bad part about it is the retail industry’s email practices haven’t changed. I still get tons of emails from retailers as one large image, pushing sales and not adding much value to my life. So here I am, bringing this relevant article back to life, and specifically these 10 key points it cites:

1. Focus on value. Make sure the email offers a very clear benefit to the customer.

2. Avoid sales hype. Use a “personal” tone in your email messages without going overboard.
3. Use a strong subject line. Use something definitive, with helpful information.
4. Show your customers your authentic concern. Relationship is the key to repeat sales. “Letters” are much more effective at establishing relationships than “ads” or sales copy. The stronger your relationships with your customers, the less price-sensitive your market will be.
5. Avoid the “illusion” of customization. People know when their name is just a mail-merge field. Careful use of customization/personalization is okay.
6. You need to look at what is selling and you need to feature those items. And consider that the featured product is more than an offering — it is a proof of your value proposition.
7. Specificity is the key to successful marketing. If your offer is specific to the needs of your customers, you will see a much higher conversion ratio.
8. Describe your customer service. People are concerned about getting WHAT they ordered, and getting it ON TIME. Try to successfully address the needs and concerns of your customers.
9. Use an incentive. Give customers a reason to click through to your website. Or give them a reason to increase the size of their order.
10. Consider that the goal of an email is not to sell an item. It is to get a click. Structure every word to get them to click-through to the page that is optimized for conversion. Optimize the email to get the click; optimize the landing page to get the sale.

Bill McCloskey, over at Media Post’s Email Insider, today posted an inspiring article about the lack of passion in the email marketing industry. Ok – maybe that doesn’t sound inspiring, but as Bill points out in the article, there are very few people who openly admit they are passionate about email marketing… As one of those “passionates”, I felt I needed to speak up and be heard!

But after trying to comment in the blog and going through a run around of sign in/sign up pages (asking me for WAY too much mandatory info), I gave up and decided to post my response right here in our own blog = makes sense since this blog is all about email! So here you go:

Surprise from Canada! I AM totally passionate about email marketing (permission-based stuff, not spam) and I’m not afraid to tell the world! And when I tell people that I’m an email marketer, it’s true I often get the occasional funny look (read: oh you’re the reason I get so much *&%%#$#^ email!) It’s at this time I immediately ask them: “I see you look a bit stressed so tell me, what’s the first thing you do when you log on to your computer every day?” And then they almost always say: “Well, ugh, I check my email”…at which time I reply: “So either you’re a masochist, or would you agree there’s a love/hate relationship in the inbox?”…at which time they agree about the love/hate reality. I then close by saying…”Well, I (read: my company, www.cardcommunications.com) send those emails you love!”

Bill, I totally agree with you ~ people do love email as long as it’s permission-based email that is timely, meaningful and relevant. Long live email!

Carolyn Gardner

You probably spend a lot of time preparing your email: getting your company messages right, sending it out according to your calendar, analyzing your results… But do you ever stop and wonder about what the reader cares about? Do they remember you? Do they want to receive the messages you are sending?

Jeanniey Mullen, posted an interesting piece on the topic, including a partial checklist:

• Know what the reader expects. Your readers gave you their e-mail addresses because they were expecting something. A receipt, a whitepaper, a newsletter, or something similar. Does the next message you’ll send give them content they expect to see?
• Understand most readers forget quickly. In many cases, readers signed up for your e-mail list because they wanted access to something or as an impulse opt-in. If you wait too long before contacting them, they’ll forget why you were so important. Keep this in mind when timing your next e-mail.
• Where does the e-mail take the reader in the site? Knowing how deep in the site the e-mail links your readers is critical. Copy tone and content should match the destination page pretty closely. That way, the transition makes sense.
• Define success metrics first. Reader interest isn’t determined by the number of e-mail messages delivered. It’s derived from the click-to-open rate. Set a target before you send so you can benchmark yourself on success (25 percent is average).
• Look at the e-mail landscape. Just because it’s not a marketing e-mail doesn’t mean the reader doesn’t receive other e-mail from your company. Being cognizant of this is key to determining send frequency. It’s not about what your company’s policy is, it’s about the reader’s experience.
• Check out what your competitors are sending. It may not be your company’s e-mail that turns off the reader. It could be the volume of e-mail in the category itself. If the reader subscribes to financial advice e-mail from seven companies and you all send on the same day, the recipient won’t read any of them. This isn’t your fault, unless you knew about the bottlenecked delivery. But it’s your responsibility to find out what makes sense from a broader perspective.

Read the whole article

card’s founder and prez, Carolyn Gardner spoke at the February CMA Ottawa luncheon last week and afterwards someone came and asked us for some resources for determining an acceptable frequency limit for membership renewal emails. I told her I would look it up and get back to her – well it’s been over a week and I can’t find anything really useful on the topic.

So I’m asking if you know a good article or case study on the topic OR if you have any personal experience with using email for membership renewals and have some info to share, please post a comment or email me (krusk(at)cardcommunications.com)

Canada’s Privacy Commissioner is calling on the government to create anti-spam legislation, stating that “Canada is the only G8 nation without anti-spam legislation and is now cited internationally as the sixth-largest source of the nuisance and sometimes harmful e-mails”

Now I agree. Spam is definitely a major problem – both in Canada, and the rest of the world, however, I’d like to know how successful anti-spam legislation has been in other countries – my guess is not very, considering there is still billions of spam emails sent everyday.

Now don’t you think our tax dollars would be better spent educating people on spam prevention and how to recognize a phishing scam in the inbox? The problem is people are still falling for these things when they really shouldn’t be.

I’m not against anti-spam legislation – we probably should have some, (more specific than PIPEDA) but I think if people are able to avoid getting spam, and recognize it when they get it, this wouldn’t be as big a problem as it is today!

Original article from the Ottawa Sun