Praise for

The Truth About Email Marketing

“It’s refreshing to see an author address specifics instead of gloss over
generalities that can be boiled down to one sentence. Simms’ book debunks the
top email marketing myths in a readable and logical fashion.”
Tad Clarke, Editorial Director, MarketingSherpa Inc.

“Anyone interested in maximizing their marketing budgets should stop what

they are doing and read this book. Simms’ deep experience in email marketing is
widely evident in this very insightful and fact-filled book. Great insight into an area
of marketing that is often overlooked. Plus, its a fun, easy read...especially for us
marketers!”
Jeff Hilimire, President, Engauge Digital

“Simms has a great knack for simplifying the complex world of email. From the
novice email marketer to the email aficionado, The Truth about Email Marketing
provides insight and thought-provoking content that all of us can use in our email
and online marketing efforts.”
Aaron Kahlow, CEO & Founder, Online Marketing Summit

“Simms Jenkins expertly outlines a series of useful Truths to ensure effective and
highly optimized, permission-based email marketing programs. Take advantage of
Simms’ battle scars and set yourself on a direct course that unleashes the power
of this important marketing channel.”
Sam Cece, Chief Executive Officer, StrongMail Systems

“Doing email marketing right requires a lot more than coming up with a good
offer and hitting the Send button. Simms understands the unique challenges
and nuances that practitioners face, and shares many valuable insights and best
practices in The Truth About Email Marketing that can immediately benefit any
reader’s email program.”
Jordan Cohen, Senior Director of Industry Relations, Goodmail Systems

“Simms provides not only thought leadership and insight for the true marketing
professional, but he also gives the marketing novice a playbook for success in
email marketing.”
Michael Kogon, CEO, Definition 6
“Simms Jenkins is an extremely well-respected expert in the realm of email
marketing. In this book, he provides practical guidance to help you execute
strategic email marketing programs. This is a must read for anyone involved with
an email marketing campaign!”
Dave Williams, Co-Founder, 360i

“Simms Jenkins is a highly respected industry leader. He covers all the important
and essential elements of any successful email marketing program, in a simple,
easy-to-understand manner. The Truth About Email Marketing is a recommended
read for any marketer looking to understand the best practices and proven tactics
around email marketing.”
Greg Cangialosi, CEO, Blue Sky Factory, Inc

“Simms Jenkins uses plain language to explain the intricacies involved in

managing a profitable and respected email marketing program. Jenkins
articulates the strategies and tactics that help even skeptical customers trust
email marketing as part of a robust multichannel marketing strategy. This book is
a must read for any marketer wishing to have a respectful and profitable dialogue
with customers.”
Kevin Hillstrom, President, MineThatData, and blogger

“Simms gives us the whole truth and nothing but the truth in this fascinating book
about email marketing.”
Andrew I. Kordek, Manager, Email Marketing Transformation,
Fortune 50 Company

“To have had the chance as an early adopter of integrated email marketing
practices working with Simms starting more than five years ago, I can say that any
corporate or non-profit marketing professional who learns ‘The Truth about Email
Marketing’ will not only reap results from the wisdom of anti-spam, they’ll have
the assurance of doing what’s right in a fully informed way. In those five years of
first-hand observation of the ‘opt-in’ culture, I found that whether your audience
is local, national or regional, the most reliable book on accountable, ethical and
effective email campaigns is the one written by Simms Jenkins.”
Richard S. Kadzis, CAE, CoreNet Global
THE TRUTH
ABOUT

EMAIL
MARKETING

Simms Jenkins
© 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Publishing as FT Press Publisher
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 Paul Boger
Associate Publisher
FT Press offers excellent discounts on this book Greg Wiegand
when ordered in quantity for bulk purchases or Acquisitions Editor
special sales. For more information, please contact Rick Kughen
U.S. Corporate and Government Sales, 1-800-382- Development Editor
3419, corpsales@pearsontechgroup.com. For sales Rick Kughen
outside the U.S., please contact International Sales at Technical Editor
international@pearsoned.com. Mark Brownlow
Marketing Coordinator
Company and product names mentioned herein are Judi Taylor
the trademarks or registered trademarks of their Publicist
respective owners. Lisa Jacobson Brown
Operations Manager
Portions of this book first appeared as columns Gina Kanouse
written by Simms Jenkins on iMedia Connection Managing Editor
(www.imediaconnection.com) and are used here with Kristy Hart
permission. Senior Project Editor
Lori Lyons
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
Copy Editor
reproduced, in any form or by any means, without Karen A. Gill
permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover and Interior
Printed in the United States of America Designs
Stuart Jackman,
First Printing August 2008 Dorling Kindersley
Design Manager
ISBN-10: 0-7897-3794-9 Sandra Schroeder
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jenkins, Simms.
The truth about email marketing / Simms Jenkins.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-7897-3794-6
1. Internet marketing. 2. Electronic mail systems. I. Title.
HF5415.1265.J46 2008
658.8’72--dc22
2008022081
For Kelly, Sam, and Cal
Foreword by Mark Brownlow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Part I The Truth About Why Email Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

CON T E N TS
TRUTH 1 Email is a powerful marketing tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
TRUTH 2 Permission-based email marketing is not spam . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
TRUTH 3 Email marketing is extremely cost-effective, targeted,
and measurable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
TRUTH 4 Email is stronger than ever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Part II The Truth About Email Budgeting and ROI . . . . . 17

TRUTH 5 Don’t be cheap: email cuts other costs, so invest in it . . . . . . 17
TRUTH 6 Using email ROI to guide your budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
TRUTH 7 Keeping your email program alive when budgets are cut . . . . 25

Part III The Truth About Organizing an Email

Department . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
TRUTH 8 Deciding to outsource or bring in-house. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
TRUTH 9 Finding the right partner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
TRUTH 10 Getting the ball rolling with your email marketing partner . . . 37
TRUTH 11 What makes a good email marketing manager . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Part IV The Truth About Customer-Focused

Email Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
TRUTH 12 How to be relevant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
TRUTH 13 Making your first impression count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Part V The Truth About Creating and Growing a List . . . 53

TRUTH 14 It is not easier to ask for forgiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
TRUTH 15 How to create an email list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
TRUTH 16 Using lead-generation tactics to build your list . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
TRUTH 17 Complement email list growth with search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
TRUTH 18 Keep a clean list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
TRUTH 19 The benefits of a robust preference center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
TRUTH 20 Get more from your email list. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Part VI The Truth About Best Practices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

TRUTH 21 Length and your call to action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
TRUTH 22 Creating an email newsletter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
TRUTH 23 Establishing the right email frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
TRUTH 24 Personalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
TRUTH 25 Segment lists for more targeted emails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
TRUTH 26 Great Subject lines drive a strong response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
TRUTH 27 Consider the From line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
TRUTH 28 Test, test, test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 vii
TRUTH 29 Maximizing system-generated and automated emails . . . . . 115
TRUTH 30 Use your signature line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
TRUTH 31 Top to bottom advice for better emails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
TRUTH 32 Audit your email program annually . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Part VII The Truth About Getting into and Optimizing

the Inbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
TRUTH 33 The basics of deliverability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
TRUTH 34 Understanding rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
TRUTH 35 Creating email campaigns for mobile devices . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Part VIII The Truth About Measuring Email

Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
TRUTH 36 Know your email metrics, part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
TRUTH 37 Know your email metrics, part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
TRUTH 38 Remarketing for results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Part IX The Truth About Privacy and CAN-SPAM . . . . . . 155

TRUTH 39 Understanding the CAN-SPAM Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
TRUTH 40 A closer look at spam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
TRUTH 41 The varying levels of permission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
TRUTH 42 What your privacy policy should cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Part X The Truth About Automated Email . . . . . . . . . . . 173

TRUTH 43 Create a meaningful welcome message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
TRUTH 44 Creating an unsubscribe process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
TRUTH 45 The right (and wrong) ways to monitor replies to your
email campaigns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Part XI The Truth About B2B and International

Email Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
TRUTH 46 Delivering on business-to-business email campaigns. . . . . . 185
TRUTH 47 Best practices for international email efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Part XII The Truth About Where Email Is Headed . . . . . . 193

TRUTH 48 The impact of social media on email. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
TRUTH 49 The future of email marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Appendixes (on the book’s Website only) You can access the book’s
website at www.TheTruthAboutEmailMarketing.com
APPENDIX A Recommended sites, newsletters, and blogs
APPENDIX B Glossary
APPENDIX C Useful statistics
viii
Foreword

Ask online marketers to rank tactics by ROI, efficiency, or just about

FOR E WOR D
any other success measure, and email marketing normally battles
paid search for top place. Surveys show the returns easily outpace
those from any other form of direct marketing.1
Email drives online and offline sales for retailers and delivers leads
for B2B marketers. It strengthens customer relationships, creates
loyalty, and builds trust and awareness. And it does all this cost-
effectively using data-driven technology that lets you customize your
messages down to an individual recipient basis.
Email marketing is a proven success.
Despite this, email has never received a commensurate level of
respect or attention from the marketing media or from those who
hold the marketing purse strings.
Although email marketing budgets are predicted to nearly double
over the next few years2 to over US$2 billion in the United States, the
numbers pale in comparison to the resources handed out to other
tactics with a poorer track record.
Email marketing is an unloved stepchild.
But why?
To some extent, email is a victim of its own success. There is no
denying that email can be a very low-cost way of doing marketing.
This has led to a culture of underinvestment: “Email is ‘free’; email
doesn’t need resources to work.”
In addition, email marketing has brought success without too
much effort. It has been the packhorse of the online marketing
world, quietly getting on with the job without requiring too much
sophistication or care. Successful, but not very sexy.
As a busy and resource-pressed marketer, you might then ask
why you’d bother looking closer at email when it’s already doing an
adequate (and cheap) job?
Why indeed?

ix
 Email marketing has survived happily in its relatively unsophisti-
cated state partly because until recently, we’ve lacked the tools,
expertise, and insight to do anything different.
Today, even value-priced email marketing services and software
offer everyone access to the kind of clever tools and features that let
us refine and customize our messages to make them more relevant
to the recipient. The result is more responses: sales, downloads,
registrations, whatever.
We also have a far better understanding of such issues as email
design, email copywriting, targeting, and other critical elements in
the email marketing toolbox.
Together, these new insights and technologies give us the
opportunity to get even more out of email marketing. Surveys and
numerous case studies show the clear ROI benefits of investment in
more sophisticated and innovative email techniques.
So there is a clear upside to investing time, energy, and cash in
best practices and advanced email approaches.
Equally, there is a clear downside to continuing with the old
practices.
Email users are growing increasingly selective and short on
patience when choosing which emails to read. The quality bar is
rising. While the rewards for those who best meet user needs are
huge, those who continue with old-style email marketing are likely to
see their returns fall steadily.
The same users who reward good email marketing with attention
and action can also “punish” mediocre email marketing. They do this
not just by ignoring the messages, but also by reporting emails as
spam simply because they don’t want them anymore.
If enough do so, you can find yourself blocked from access to
millions of email inboxes.
Those who guard these inboxes—the Webmail services, Internet
service providers (ISPs), and IT departments—are also increasingly
picky about which emails they let through to their customers and
users.

x
 In the arms race against spam, legitimate marketing emails that
don’t follow best practices can end up as collateral damage—blocked
by the same antispam technologies designed to catch the less

FOR E WOR D
salubrious unsolicited email.
Changing email habits add their own complications. Consider
the growth of mobile email, for example. How do you build emails
that look good on small screens and catch the attention of busy
executives and consumers away from the office or PC?
Then we have new online developments: Web 2.0, social networks,
instant messaging, blogs, feeds, wikis, and so on. None will replace
email, but all potentially compete with email. Or complement email.
Or provide opportunities to make better use of email. (Or all three.)
The modern email marketer is charged with making sense of all
this. The aim is to reap the many benefits that email marketing
offers by building strategies and employing tactics that exploit the
medium’s potential while meeting the challenges previously outlined.
If that sounds like a daunting task, you’re in the right place.
With The Truth About Email Marketing, Simms Jenkins has written
a book that supports exactly this aim. In it you’ll find the background
information and insight you need to review your existing email
marketing efforts and make them better.
Much of the literature on email marketing deals with practical
minutiae. Though Simms also covers some of that, this book focuses
on two elements of email marketing rarely covered elsewhere.
The first element is the strategic and organizational background.
This begins with an understanding of the benefits that email
marketing can bring your organization and how you can build the
right framework for developing your program.
The second element is an explanation of the concepts behind
winning email marketing systems. In a dynamic online world, there
is only temporary value in giving specific instructions on the whats,
wheres, and whens of an email.
Simms “teaches you to fish” by arming you with the knowledge
necessary to continually assess and refine your strategy, tactics, and
emails in the light of both long-standing principles of best practice
and the challenge of an ever-changing email and online environment.

xi
 Your organization can gain so much from new and proven
approaches to email marketing. After reading this book, I’m sure
you’ll be nearer to achieving those gains.
Mark Brownlow, Ph.D.
Email Marketing Reports
www.email-marketing-reports.com
April 2008

xii
Introduction

IN T R ODU C TION
“What helps people, helps business.” —Leo Burnett, advertising legend

“Trying to assess the true importance and function of the Net now is like
asking the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk if they were aware of the potential
of American Airlines Advantage miles.” —Bran Ferren, Chief Imagineer, Walt
Disney Company

Email marketing is one of the most incredibly powerful yet

misunderstood mediums of the marketing world. Nearly all
businesses and consumers utilize it, whether it is to send or
receive content and offers.
Email marketing is a unique communication platform that blends
both art and science while delivering value to the subscriber’s inbox.
While many companies practice it, few get email marketing right. It
is part of our business landscape that requires constant grooming.
Change is the only constant.
I’ve been working in the interactive space for over ten years. During
this time, I’ve seen a great deal of money thrown into questionable
business models and unproven companies and executives. I’ve also
seen a lot of really bright people take chances in their careers and
launch game-changing companies.
Email emerged as the “killer app” of the Internet age. While there is
certainly more competition for buzz and mindshare today, email still
is the bread and butter of any online user experience. In telling The
Truth About Email Marketing, I had to make a lot of hard decisions
about what to include and what not to include. I hope this book
provides a range of key email marketing elements that will appeal to
and educate a wide audience.
This book should be the kind that sits on your desk and is
referenced, earmarked, and highlighted rather than passively read.
My aim was for this to be a guide in your email marketing adventure.
Whether you are a seasoned professional email marketer or are
brand new to the topic, this book is for you.
Now back to the two quotes at the top of this section. They both
speak to me in different ways. How they speak to email marketing is
revealing as well.

xiii
 My biggest complaint about email marketers (and often marketing
in general) is a fundamental one. Entire strategy and email
campaigns are often driven by achieving internal marketing goals,
rather than bringing compelling and helpful information to their
subscribers who gave them one of the most important things one can
provide in an online world: permission. If we remember to focus on
the subscribers first, the business goals will follow.
Email marketing has changed, as the Internet has, in a dramatic
fashion. And I’m just talking about in the past six months. It’s quite
challenging to wrap our heads around the impact of email marketing
in its short history. There are many levels to how email marketing
has changed businesses and consumer habits. Nevertheless, we can
clearly demonstrate email’s ongoing effectiveness and develop and
follow a set of core best practices that will ensure that effectiveness
continues into the future. Hopefully, this book can help you along the
way in this endeavor.
Just as the Wright brothers had no idea how their invention
would impact the future aviation industry, many of you marketing
professionals are shaping Internet history.

xiv
PART I: THE TRUTH ABOUT WHY EMAIL WORKS

1
TRUTH

Email is a powerful
marketing tool

1
 I often dread the situation in which people outside
the marketing industry or unfamiliar with email
marketing ask what I do for a living. Typically, the
second I mention the word email, I get an audible sigh followed
by a comment about spam, their overflowing inbox, and how I’m
contributing to the problem. As responsible marketers, we know
that this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Usually I’ll explain to these people how permission-based
email marketing works, and then they will realize that they have
signed up to receive and enjoyed at least one type of regular email
communication from a company without even knowing it was “email
marketing.” At that point, I’ll walk away from these conversations with
a smile and a feeling like I’ve made a little dent in the misconception
that all commercial email marketing is spam.
“Email is the fastest, most flexible, cost-efficient, personalized, and targeted
communication medium in the world today.”—Peppers & Rogers Group

The esteemed Peppers & Rogers Group captures the benefits of

email marketing in its quote. However, over the years, commercial
email marketing has taken its fair share of abuse. Nevertheless, it
continues to remain the most powerful, cost-effective marketing tool
for one-to-one communication and building relationships. Although
many are still catching on to email marketing’s benefits (which
may be why you are reading this book), countless organizations,
big and small, have discovered its potential to maintain extremely
relevant communication with prospects and customers. In fact, email
marketing spending is projected to reach $2.1 billion by 2012. And
with 97 percent of consumers and 94 percent of marketers1 using
email, its reach is undeniable.
You probably want to know what makes email such a great
marketing channel. Let’s take a look.

You get out more than you put in

Recent research shows that for every dollar spent on email marketing,
you can expect an estimated return of $462. If that didn’t get your
attention, maybe this will: Email marketing delivers the highest
return on investment (ROI) of any other Internet marketing approach
available. Furthermore, as I mentioned, email marketing is cost
effective, so you don’t have to start an email program by spending
2
 TRUTH
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
You can start small and build up a
Email marketing 1
more sophisticated email program delivers the

E M AIL IS A POW ER FU L M AR KETIN G TOOL

as you go. Even implementing highest return on
something as simple as an email investment (ROI) of
newsletter, which is generally used
for relationship building more than any other marketing
sales, has been cited as the single- approach available.
highest ROI action you can take to
improve your Internet presence.3
The options to grow from there are endless.

Anyone can benefit from it

Another great benefit of email is its versatility. Email’s low cost and
far reach make it accessible to just about any company. I like to
think it levels the playing field among businesses. Whether you are
a small business owner or a Fortune 500 company, you can enjoy
the benefits of email just the same. Some companies may not have
the money to invest in large advertising campaigns or other cost-
intensive initiatives, but everyone can afford to invest in a well-
planned email marketing program.

It helps you connect with customers

Let’s talk about brand loyalty. What are you doing right now to keep
customers and prospects engaged with your brand, product, or
service? Is it working? Can you be sure?
Email is a great way to establish brand loyalty. One mistake that
marketers often make is not thinking of email as a relationship tool.
If you are using email to send messages here and there, with little
strategy behind them, it likely won’t work well and won’t deliver the
type of return I mentioned earlier. The real benefit of email is in using
it over time to develop long-term relationships. After all, if you are in a
relationship with someone and you only drop that person a line every
once in a while and have nothing relevant to say, how long can it last?
Speaking of having something relevant to say, email allows you to
create and deliver communications specific to the interests of your
customers or prospects. You can tailor messages to interests on an
individual level and deliver them when and how that person wants
them. What other channel provides you with this option?
3
It is measurable
Do you wish you knew who saw your ad in that popular magazine last
month? Better yet, did those people take any action on it? Because
email is measurable, these are the kinds of things you can learn from
your campaigns (if done properly). The popularity of email is due
in part to the ability of marketers to learn from the metrics of their
campaigns and to use that information to change direction or make
improvements.

It can be very targeted

If you capture information such as gender, age, or interest from
subscribers, you have everything you need to create targeted and more
relevant email marketing campaigns. You can customize messages
to distinct audiences and provide them with content and offers that
match their profiles. In the end, subscribers get what they want, and
you gain better insight into what each segment responds to so that you
can continue to tailor and deliver more relevant emails to their inbox.

It is immediate and actionable

We’ve all heard the phrase “Timing is everything.” That being said,
email is immediate and actionable. Offering promotions via email
with a clear call to action can have an incredible effect on revenue.
No other channel allows you to reach customers directly in such
a short time. Because of its immediacy, email can work wonders
in quickly resolving issues or clearing unsold inventory during a
situation that requires timely and critical communication.

It works well with others

If the benefits of email on its own were not enough, integrating it with
your other marketing channels or efforts can really pack a punch.
Consider using email to drive traffic to your website. Maybe you have
a new white paper you are offering on the site and want to send an
email to drive traffic rather than simply waiting for your latest ad to
do all the work or for your prospects to stumble upon it. You can also
send emails to drive participation to special events—both
online and offline. These are just a few of the things you
can do to take email one step further. Give them a try.

4
 2
TRUTH

Permission-based email
marketing is not spam

5
 Let me start by saying that permission-based email
marketing is not spam. The only thing that the two have
in common is the method of delivery, and even then,
there are some distinct differences. Commercial email sent in
response to such a specific request, where explicit permission
has been granted to send that email is, by definition, not spam.
Spam is bulk email that is not requested, is unwanted, and is
thus sent without this permission. When someone decides to
opt in to receive email communications from your company, this
person is saying, “Yes, I grant you permission. I want to hear what
you have to say and offer.” No person in his or her right mind
would ever give this type of free reign to a spammer.
Email is about building relationships. When people trust you
and your brand enough to give you their address and ask you to
communicate with them, you’d
better not abuse it. Permission email Email is about
can quickly be seen as spam in the building
eyes of the recipients if you don’t relationships.
honor the trust they have given.
Legitimate permission email marketing and spam have been
erroneously grouped together as the use of email has grown
exponentially. Largely due to the availability and low cost of many
elementary email software programs, spammers quickly jumped on
this bandwagon and began to use email irresponsibly. But, to quote
an old saying, “You can’t throw out the baby with the bath water.” In
other words, just because the image of email as a marketing channel
has been tainted by those who have misused it doesn’t mean it is
ineffective or that all commercial email is bad. To say email marketing
is spam is a generalization that is just plain inaccurate. It is also
something that industry executives like me have to overcome every
day. By educating other marketers about the real truths of email
marketing, we continue to separate ourselves from spammers.
If you have used email as a marketing channel, you know that best
practices are the most talked about thing in the industry. They are
discussed and boasted about like status symbols among responsible
marketers. If you don’t follow permission email marketing best
practices, email simply won’t work in your favor. The marketers who
have had success with email have made sure that their programs

6
 TRUTH

are compliant with legislation and have taken the time to tailor their
messages to each recipient who has asked to receive them. These
2
best practices (including ones in this book) should be seen as a

PE R M ISSION -BASED EM AIL M AR KETING IS NOT SPAM

proven checklist to keep you on the right path.
Let’s look at some common conceptions of spam and compare those
to a well-rounded and permission-based email marketing program.

Opt-in? What’s opt-in?

Spammers could care less if you asked to receive their messages. As I
mentioned earlier, the best email marketers send only messages that
their prospects and customers have asked to receive. A well-planned,
executed, and maintained opt-in and confirmation process should be
in place for every email marketing program. This is the most important
distinction of a legitimate permission-based email marketing program.
It is wise to treat this permission like a contract. Be sure to remember
that an unsubscribe request ends that permission grant and, in effect,
the contract the person has entered into.

The guessing game

The people sending spam are not really concerned with sending
messages to invalid email addresses. In fact, they often guess email
addresses by sending to every possible combination of an address
based on the domain name, which results in sending to numerous
nonexistent or invalid addresses. And they’ll do so again and again
since legitimate lists often go bad with time, but these bad addresses
are removed by the permission emailer.
When starting or enhancing an email program, make list
management a top priority. The most successful email marketers
send messages only to valid email addresses. Keeping an updated
and well-maintained email list has important benefits. Not only will
you ensure delivery, but you’ll also get better results.

Opt-out? Are you kidding?

It’s the gift that keeps giving. And giving. Most spam messages
don’t give you a chance to opt out, and if they do, chances are you
will still keep getting irrelevant messages. Follow email marketing
best practices and the law—nearly every international body requires
opt-out as part of email-focused legislation. For the US CAN-SPAM
7
Act (see Truth 39), the most important thing is to make it easy for
your recipients to unsubscribe—and you refrain from emailing these
people again. Again, be sure to check out Truth 39 for all aspects of
the US CAN-SPAM Act you need to comply with.

Content? What content?

Spam messages lack relevant content. There’s often gibberish or text
that just doesn’t make sense. On the other hand, permission email
messages always offer something of value or interest to the recipient.
And no, I’m not talking about an opportunity to get a year’s worth of
the prescription drug du jour for the low price of $5.

Subject and From lines, oh my!

Another characteristic you’ll notice in spam messages is that Subject
and From lines are completely irrelevant to the true meaning of the
message or the recipient. In a study that my company conducted,
30 percent of spam had a misleading Subject line, and 80 percent
had a misleading From line. Would a responsible marketer ever let
this happen? Not a chance, especially given the power of legitimately
branded Subject lines. Of course, if you’ve read any of the spam
emails in your inbox, you’ve noticed they have deceptive content,
links, and intentions.

One-track mind
While spammers simply want to get instant results from an email
message (whether it be selling Viagra, compromising your financial
information, or putting a virus on your computer), your email strategy
as a responsible marketer should be to gain long-term brand loyalty
over numerous email campaigns that recipients have asked to receive.
There you have it: some comparisons to help make your case the
next time someone tries to tell you that all email marketing is spam.
Spam is no doubt still a problem when it comes to the image of email
as marketing channel. According to one recent study, two out of
every three email messages received by today’s business users are
spam1. However, with legislation in place and best practices
available to marketers, change is among us. Each year finds
the distinction between permission email and spam getting
clearer.

8
 3
TRUTH

Email marketing is
extremely cost-effective,
targeted, and measurable

9
 I’ve already illustrated that email is a powerful tool,
and I can’t stress enough that you can implement an
email program at any level, for any size company, and
with any budget. It’s easy to see why so many marketers continue
to devote more of their budgets to email each year. Of all the
benefits email brings to a marketing program, this Truth lists my
top four favorites.

Email is cost-effective
If you don’t have a big budget but Smart usage of your
want to start an email program, you
can. If you have a huge budget and email customer and
want to create the world’s most performance data
top-notch email program, you can doesn’t have to add
do that, too. Whether you spend
$20 a month or $20,000 a month
costs.
on email, you will still be able to
reach customers and prospects and measure your success. Of course,
as your knowledge of email marketing grows and its proven results
warrant an increased budget, making the investment to partner with
an expert email firm can provide invaluable strategic insight, ensure
your campaigns are as successful as possible, and help you take
things to the next level. Until then, optimizing your email campaigns
can be as simple (and cheap) as testing your From and Subject lines.
There are several low-cost and easy-to-implement ways to
maximize your use of email, such as segmenting and targeting
customers based on their purchase history or demographics.
Smart usage of your email customer and performance data doesn’t
have to add costs. Also, think about your current investment in
other marketing initiatives, such as paid search advertising. Email
can supplement those more costly campaigns and drive home a
supporting message without breaking the bank. In other words,
you don’t have to spend a fortune to enjoy the benefits of email
marketing.

Email can be easy to execute

Depending on the size of your business, you can choose to execute
your email marketing in-house or outsource it. Either way, actually

10
 TRUTH

executing email campaigns should not be overly daunting at most

levels (depending on the size and complexity of your email program).
3
If you don’t have the budget to outsource, there are a variety of

E M AIL M AR KETIN G IS EXTR EM ELY COST-EFFECTIVE, TA RGETED, A ND MEASURAB LE

easy-to-use, self-service tools that can help you create and deploy
professional, polished emails. These tools cater to small to mid-
size businesses that may not have the resources or knowledge to
design and code HTML emails or manage address databases. They
come with intuitive interfaces that are simple to use and typically
offer a lot of capabilities to help you maximize your campaigns. If
you are just getting started with email marketing or have a small
list (2,000 people or less), these tools are a great choice. Even as
your list and needs grow, you can continue to utilize many of the
products, services, and specialized companies that exist to take
your campaigns to the next level. The email marketing industry has
matured and expanded a great deal in the past three years, and there
is a company or product out there for nearly every situation.

Effective email marketing is targeted

marketing
True one-to-one email marketing means your marketing messaging
is seen and treated as unique communications with your subscribers.
Email marketing can target to a great extent based on a range of
variables. The approach is crucial, as you want to build an email
program that attempts to deliver value to each email subscriber. That
may mean you offer customized content selected by your recipients,
or it may mean personalized offers based on your audience’s buying
history or location. The point is you can target your messages in
email marketing with an ease and measurability not found in other
marketing channels.

Email is measurable
When you first start using email for marketing, it may be hard to
stop checking the results every hour or so to see who might have
opened your message, clicked on a link, or forwarded it. Like no other
marketing tool, email offers instant measurement. You’ll be able to
learn things about customers and prospects on an individual and
aggregate level. When you think about how little email requires you
to spend and how much you can learn as a result, it is invaluable.

11
Email can give you insight into what your customers like, what they
respond to, and what they seem to have little interest in receiving.
It seems so simple. Wouldn’t you invest a little to learn exactly
what your customers and prospects respond to when it comes to
marketing?
No other marketing tool allows you to get instant measurement
and quickly tailor your approach for better results. You’ll also be able
to look at results over time to track the behavior of each recipient or
of your audience as a whole. This will help you identify gaps in your
marketing approach and change
Wouldn’t you gears to improve them in the
invest a little to future. In addition, you’ll have the
learn exactly what information to document the results
that email brings. You’ll be able to
your customers use results to justify extra spending
and prospects and show your department’s
respond to when contribution to the bottom line.
What other tool lets you
it comes to do this with such accuracy
marketing? and so little effort?

12
 4
TRUTH

Email is stronger than ever

13
 Email gets its fair share of abuse, whether doled out by
the press or senior management (that is, if they even
know if their company is running an email program).
Every year, some commentators predict a downturn for email at
the expense of the latest new Web or communication technology.
It never happens because email continues to evolve.
Spending on email marketing rises each year, and analysts see
this continuing into the foreseeable future. The capital markets seem
to concur, as email-focused companies continue to be acquired or
taken public for hundreds of millions of dollars. Email is not dying—it
is evolving. Email is stronger than Spending on email
ever, and don’t be fooled; its future
is bright. Even though some may marketing rises
like to say email is on the way out, each year, and
those of us in the business know analysts see this
better. I can’t think back to a time
when email marketing was gaining
continuing into the
as much momentum as it is now. foreseeable future.
If some of the statistics I’ve
already shared didn’t do enough to convince you that email has
hit its stride, consider that major analysts from firms like Forrester
Research back the claim that email, when done right, is as strong of a
targeted channel as any marketers could hope to use.
Here is a look at what Forrester Research has to say:
“Despite concerns about declining attitudes toward email marketing, the
medium is alive and well. In fact, email lovers are some of marketers’ most
valuable customers. They spend more online, buy impulsively, pay for
convenience, and tell others about ads and emails they value. Marketers
should turn more of their customers into email lovers by tuning email
programs to their particular behaviors.”1

Industry groups
One of the things that points most to the growth and strength of
email (other than statistics like this: people who buy products
advertised in emails spend 138 percent more than those who don’t
buy through email2) is the significant growth of industry leadership.
Numerous industry professionals from some of the most well-
respected brands in the world have gathered to share their expertise

14
 TRUTH

with each other and with other professionals. This is why and how
email is growing and evolving as a marketing channel.
4
One of my favorite industry groups is the Email Experience Council

E M AIL IS STR ON GER THAN EVER

(eec). The email arm of the Direct Marketing Association, this is
an organization of global professionals driving email marketing
and communications practices. It is, quite frankly, what the email
world has been waiting for—an industry-specific group run by email
marketers aiming to solve email’s problems while also championing
the channel. The creation and subsequent progress of the group has
helped turn email into a thriving industry that can now fend for itself
with aligned goals and education efforts. Check out the eec at www.
emailexperience.org.

Research and information

Also, clear evidence of the growth and increased interest in email
is more relevant and insightful research studies. The industry has
moved away from self-serving reports to more meaningful analysis
that most email marketers can use for their own betterment
regardless of whether they are a client of the vendor or a member of
the group issuing the study.
You’ll find that powerful email information is readily available and
usually free. Great blogs and websites are out there to make your life
as an advanced email marketer easier. So use them. Here are a few of
my favorites:

Q EmailStatCenter.com—I have to admit, I have a hand in this

website. I teamed up with the eec, mentioned earlier, to start this
site after realizing there was a gaping hole in the industry when it
came to gathering email metrics and benchmarks. The site offers
interactive marketing professionals a one-stop shop for anything
related to email metrics and features hundreds of up-to-date
statistics in more than 40 categories, ranging from frequency to
Subject lines. You might find this helpful when trying to answer
email-related budgeting questions or convince the CFO you need
that extra line item to enhance or start your email program. Check
it out at www.emailstatcenter.com.
Q RetailEmail.Blogspot—Anyone in the retail business should
deem this a must read. Consider its author, former journalist
15
 Chad White, your very own retail email industry analyst as he
dishes out daily thoughts on various retail email campaigns and
trends. Did I mention he is publishing this free of charge? Give it a
try at http://retailemail.blogspot.com.
Q Be Relevant Blog—I love this blog because it is written by
an actual email marketing pro who has real-world experience
from the client side. She offers up regular blog posts with an
international perspective and has her finger on the pulse of real
email issues and opportunities. See what you think of it at www.
b2bemailmarketing.com.
Q EmailMarketingReports.com—This is one of the most
authoritative email websites in existence, written by a Ph.D. with
no services or products to sell. The site provides practical email
advice, insight on industry developments, and aggregated email-
related articles. Visit it at www.email-marketing-reports.com.
Q TheTruthAboutEmailMarketing.com—More information and
resources are available on the book’s website.

So the next time you read an article or get in a

conversation with someone about the demise of email,
you’ll have a new perspective. It’s getting better with time.

16
PART II: THE TRUTH ABOUT EMAIL BUDGETING AND ROI

5
TRUTH

Don’t be cheap:
Email cuts other costs,
so invest in it

17
 If you’ve been reading up until this point, you already
know why email is more cost-effective than any other
type of marketing channel. But just because email is
inexpensive doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t invest in it. I’m not
saying you have to go out and spend thousands of dollars straight
out of the gate. I’ve already told you that email levels the playing
field among businesses because of its low cost. However, I am
saying that making an investment in your email program, whether
it is with dollars, strategy, or a combination of the two, may help
you cut costs in other areas.

Use email for test messaging and other marketing

approaches
Dedicating internal resources to develop and implement a strategy
(or better yet, taking some of your budget and spending it on email
marketing) can uncover insightful data about your customers that
may surprise you. An investment in email can help cut other costs by
giving you a glimpse of what’s working and what isn’t. If you properly
track email metrics, you’ll be able to learn what your customers are
responding to and what they’re
ignoring. You can determine which
Making an
messages and creative elements investment in your
they like or don’t like or which email program,
products they are more likely to buy.
whether it is with
Until you can justify a large email
marketing budget (I’ll help you
dollars, strategy, or
lay the foundation for this in Truth a combination of
6,) use your well-supported email the two, may help
efforts to help you save money
on other channels. Consider the
you cut costs in
following scenario. other areas.
You have a new product to launch and have spent countless hours
working on messaging. You finally get to the point where everyone
in the company comes to an agreement, and you are ready to take it
to market. Wouldn’t you rather test your messaging through an email
campaign before you invest thousands in an ad campaign that will
give you little insight into how well it was received? Not to mention,
going with email will allow you to make changes on-the-fly.
18
 TRUTH

Or say you have two potential

marketing messages for a new
Wouldn’t you 5
product or service. Email gives you rather test your

DON’T BE CHEAP: EMAIL CUTS OTHER COSTS, SO INVEST IN IT

the option of segmenting your list messaging through
to test both messages. What other an email campaign
channel offers this at such a low
cost and with such an immediate
before you invest
ability to analyze what performed thousands in
better? This alone can save you an ad campaign
thousands of dollars and ensure
your other marketing campaigns
that will give you
have been properly tested and little insight into
evaluated. how well it was
Directly cut operational received?
costs with email
While driving sales and building relationships get the most attention
when it comes to “showing off” email programs, one billion-
dollar company that manages outsourced government programs
demonstrates one of the smartest uses of email I’ve seen. This
company has successfully used the channel to cut other costs,
something I believe more marketers will be doing in the years to
come.
As a company that manages many back-end programs for the
government, it was utilizing many precious internal resources trying
to maintain a call center that provided payment status information
to inquiring Medicaid providers. Hoping to cut the cost of customer
service representatives, the company decided to implement a
weekly, personalized email message containing each provider’s
current payment information. The email was sent on the same day
and at the same time each week. This ensured that the providers
had the information they needed in an easy and timely fashion,
while allowing the company and its end client to save money and
resources on the decrease in calls that resulted from the email
program. Combine saving internal resources with a user-friendly
email approach, and you have the best of both worlds: saving money
and a subscriber base that gets the information it wants and needs.
Other companies have increasingly tapped email marketing to reduce

19
costs of traditional “transactional” (meaning related to your account
with the company) communications for invoices, statements, and
order confirmations.

Reduce other marketing costs

You can shave more dollars by reducing or eliminating costly catalogs
and instead sending emails to subscribers and directing them to an
online version of your catalog. The same can be applied to direct
mail, which is another expensive marketing item. Email is a natural
supplement or replacement for marketing communications previously
delivered through the post office.
This is a powerful example of letting email do the work so
that you can shrink costs and offer your customers more choice
and control over how they receive what can often be
critical communications. By taking this approach, the
environmental benefits aren’t so bad either.

20
 6
TRUTH

Using email ROI to guide

your budget

21
 Email has long been the red-headed stepchild of
marketing budgets. Because the cost relative to email’s
return is low, many companies make the mistake
of thinking that it shouldn’t get a big chunk of their marketing
budget—despite the fact that email carries more than its weight.
Email may even be so powerfully efficient that it is often a victim
of its own success. One highly respected analyst even said email
was so effective that its strong performance was potentially
harmful to its budget allocation.1
When you consider these statistics, it is hard to understand why
email gets such a small piece of the budget pie.

Q For every dollar spent on email marketing, marketers can expect

an estimated $46 ROI.2
Q Email’s ROI index is 70 percent higher than any other direct-
response marketing vehicle.3
Q 60 percent of business decision 60 percent of
makers said the Internet and
email are the best ways for
business decision
advertisers to reach them.4 makers said the
Q Email is delivering sales at an Internet and email
average cost per order of less are the best ways
than $7, compared to $71.89 for advertisers to
for banner ads, $26.75 for paid
search, and $17.47 for affiliate
reach them.
programs.5

It is hard to believe that, with industry data like these statistics, email
budgets still continue to pale in comparison to spending on other
channels. However, the great thing about email is that if and when
you want a bigger budget, having the right data to make your case is
not only possible, it’s pretty simple, too. By putting some metrics in
place and using the data you gain from email marketing campaigns
throughout the year, forecasting will help you justify increased
spending on email marketing in years to come.
I recommend that you follow these steps to help budget for email
based on return on investment (ROI).

22
 TRUTH

1. The first step is to establish goals upfront. Know what you want
to get out of your email marketing program, both on a campaign
6
and overall level. You’ll want to consider things such as the

USIN G E M AIL R OI TO GU IDE YOU R BUDGET

amount of revenue you want to generate, page views, in-store
traffic, conversions, retention, sales leads, email subscribes,
public relations, cross promotion, and more. The list can go on
and on. It is up to you to determine the goals that best fall in line
with your company’s marketing and overall business objectives.
It is scary how many people I come across that don’t know overall
company and email program objectives, much less specific
campaign goals.
2. After you’ve determined goals, create a monthly scorecard.
(See the scorecard worksheet on the next page to use for your
own program.) This allows you and your marketing team to
monitor the key email performance indicators within the context
of company goals (email specific and non-email specific) and
industry benchmarks. Since email campaigns are so fluid, the
goals in your scorecard are best evaluated and revised as an
ongoing exercise. If anything, this prevents surprises and ensures
the marketing or email team knows the score at all times. Your
scorecard can guide you on where to invest resources (that is,
which specific metrics you need to improve or can improve to
reach your goals or increase ROI or revenue). After all, what good
are your email metrics if they live alone on a spreadsheet?
3. Consider benchmarking against the industry. Benchmarking
internal stats against comparable industry metrics can be both
valuable and an exercise in futility. However, remember that
context is the key. You want to make sure you are in the same
ballpark as your industry on specific metrics like deliverability and
open rates, but don’t make drastic changes to campaigns based
on one research report that touted Tuesday as the best day to
send emails.
4. Focus on having some key return on investment data. Too often
email marketers obsess over open and click-through rates.
However, does it really matter if everyone included in your email
marketing campaign opened the message, but no sales were
generated? Tie your email marketing data and results back to the
goals you set in step 1. If your goal was to increase revenue by 15
percent, make sure your metrics show progress.
23
 EMAIL SCORECARD: Recommended Metrics for Success
Overall Success Industry COMPANY COMPANY
Goal Metric Average Current Desired
State State
a) Example - Revenue
Sales
a) ROI
a) Conversion Rates
a) Value of Email
Subscribers
(# of subs/revenue)
b) Total Email
Subscribers
b) Example – Unsubscribe Rate
Retention,
Loyalty
b) Customer Frequency
(average monthly
visits/average
monthly unique
visitors)
b) Customer Retention
(% of site visitors
returning to client.
com)
c) Example– Open Rate
Branding,
Awareness
c) Click-Through Rate
c) Deliverability

We recently did some research at EmailStatCenter.com and found

that most of the marketers surveyed had annual email marketing
budgets less than $50,000. Another interesting stat uncovered that
more than 20 percent didn’t even know how much of their budget
went to email. Starting an email marketing program with a small
budget is acceptable, but not properly supporting it and using the
data you gain to help grow budget allocation in the future is not.
Whether you are new to email or have been enjoying its benefits for
years, put these steps in place to grow your email budget
next year. Why not put more money into the channel that is
giving you the greatest return?

24
 7
TRUTH

Keeping your email program

alive when budgets are cut

25
 Say you’ve done everything you can to justify the
request for a bigger email budget, but the money simply
isn’t there. We’ve all seen the rise and fall of budgets
over the years. And, while everyone mentions that advertising
and marketing budgets are the first to be cut during any kind
of economic downturn, you can make the case for keeping your
email marketing program running. Why and how, you ask?
Remember that your customers want email communications
(they provided permission, right?) and depend on it. You’ve taken
the time to invest in email marketing, so stopping midway through
would be countereffective. With what other channel can you have a
personalized one-to-one communication platform that is not cost-
prohibitive to utilize on a frequent basis (hopefully not too frequently
though)?

Q Email is the perfect complementary channel— Email should

not be executed in a silo. Not only should email programs
be centralized, they should also be used to further broader
marketing efforts. Email is best when integrated into overall
marketing and branding efforts. By pulling back email efforts, you
would be diluting one of the most personal and direct methods to
achieve these high-level marketing goals.
Q Marketing plans and business strategies plans change—There
is no quicker and easier way to communicate with the people
most interested in your company
than emailing your opt-in list There is no quicker
with timely and relevant news and easier way to
and updates. When timing is key,
email is the way to go.
communicate with
the people most
Q Where else can you test
campaign concepts, creative, interested in your
and offers?—As previously company than
discussed, email provides an emailing your
unparalleled opportunity to test
creative elements, copy, and
opt-in list.
specific offers while also tweaking overall concepts and value
propositions before they are implemented across other more
expensive channels.
26
 TRUTH

Q Email gives you the data

you need to determine
Email should not 7
success—Most marketers can be overlooked as a

K E E P IN G YOU R EM AIL PR OGR AM ALIVE WHEN BUDGETS ARE CUT

gauge the success of their branding tool and,
campaigns within 24 hours and on the downside,
make adjustments as needed.
It is not a wait-and-see type of
as a branding
measurement approach that liability when email
goes along with other marketing campaigns behave
platforms.
badly.
Q Email is a branding tool—
While some views may vary,
email provides ongoing impressions and can impact brand
awareness and reputation (both good and bad). Email should
not be overlooked as a branding tool and, on the downside, as a
branding liability when email campaigns behave badly.
Q Email cuts other costs—Email is mainly seen as a relationship-
and revenue-generating tool. However, one of the most
underutilized aspects of email is for reducing costs from other
sides of the house. I’ve worked with several companies where
email marketing was the centerpiece of major cost-reduction
efforts. Think about the way email can minimize printing, call
center, and direct mail costs by stepping up to handle those
internal company newsletters or costly postcard direct pieces and
proactively provide essential information that can often lead to a
customer service call.

Email is viral
Effective email messaging can lead to your subscribers forwarding
the email to others and, in turn, assisting your marketing efforts. The
power of viral marketing is substantial, as the value of your campaign
can increase exponentially. For a message to be passed along, it
needs to be unique, compelling, and valuable.

The ROI argument

As discussed earlier, email’s extremely high ROI justifies the
consistent use of email marketing, regardless of an economic and

27
company situation. Assuming your email campaigns are fully tracked
and return a favorable dollar amount, there is reason alone for
email’s constant spot in the marketing mix.
There are many other ways to ensure your email budget
goes further, but now is the time to make sure you
champion these email assets internally and add to your
program’s value to all stakeholders.

28
 PART III: THE TRUTH ABOUT ORGANIZING AN
EMAIL DEPARTMENT

8
TRUTH

Deciding to outsource or
bring in-house

29
 When you begin budgeting, or once you have a budget
nailed down and know what you’ll be able to spend
on email, you’ll want to consider the many options
for outsourcing things like creative elements, strategy, and
execution, or keeping these and other important elements of your
email program in-house.
Some things outside email experts can help you with include

Q Strategy and best practices

Q Campaign management/delivery
Q Creative services
Q CAN-SPAM compliance/privacy issues
Q Inbox optimization and list growth
Q Program analysis and benchmarking
Q Message delivery/technology platform
Q Email design, copywriting, and content development
Q Legal compliance/privacy issues

Making a decision on outsourcing means you’ll have to do some

homework. This can be one of the most meaningful decisions you
make for the future of your email program. Some of the following
questions will help determine if you are ready for a strategic partner
to supplement your email program or if you should put resources
toward building your program in-house.
1. Is email becoming an important part of your customer and
prospect communications?
2. Do you depend on email to drive sales and update your
customer base about news, services, and promotions?
3. Do you and your team have the experience, expertise, time, and
desire to plan, execute, analyze, and optimize your email game
plan?
4. Is email marketing core to your business model and day-to-day
operations?

30
 TRUTH

5. Do you outsource other areas of your business, such as legal,

accounting, and advertising?
8
6. Do you partner with marketing agencies for other programs that

D EC IDIN G TO OU TSOU R CE OR BR IN G IN-HOUSE

you do not have the in-house capabilities to execute or ensure
the highest ROI?

Your options on how your emails are sent include:

Q Building and managing internal technology systems

Q Buying (or leasing via software as a service/application provider
model) an email provider’s platform to send your campaigns
Q Partnering with a firm that will handle the front and back end of
your campaigns

Most firms use an email service provider (ESP) or services firm to

send their email campaigns, rather than having the technology piece
in-house. The front-end campaign development and management
vary by company. Many favor a collaborative approach with their ESP
or agency, while some choose to keep everything in-house.
Several ESPs offer professional services, as well as campaign
tools. Many use a combination of these approaches. There is no
magic formula, so the right thing to do depends on your company’s
resources, goals, and needs.
There are still companies that take an ad hoc approach to email
marketing. Some create a little content, throw an image in the
file, and plug their database into the BCC fields of their marketing
manager’s Outlook program, which serves as their deployment tool.
Other companies are even less sophisticated: They put their entire
company’s mailing list in an email’s To field and fire away, thereby
exposing thousands of email addresses to potential spammers,
eager salespeople, and the overly curious. Of course, neither of these
slipshod methods allows for reporting from the potential treasure
chest of information available through email marketing. (Please note
that a read receipt does not count as reporting.)

The experts say…

Most email marketing experts will tell you to outsource at least
some aspects of your email program. Many mistakenly believe
31
that, by running their programs in-house, they will save money,
use internal resources more effectively, and improve sales with
the Jedi-like power bestowed by new software. But as their email
program grows, these companies also find that keeping track of data,
subscriber information, compliance, and strategy is too much for one
department to handle.
Remember, effective campaigns require resources. Both small
businesses and Fortune 500 companies should outsource their email
marketing efforts unless they have fully trained, dedicated in-house
experts who can manage the scope necessary for a successful
email marketing campaign. An effective team covers various skills,
including creative design, content management, copywriting, coding,
list and database management, strategy, and analysis.

Developing expertise takes time

If you’re still dubious, consider this: How many companies film
their own commercials instead of hiring a specialized ad agency or
production company to produce them? If you are not an expert in
something, you have two choices: Become an expert, or hire one. If
you want to remain nimble and responsive to market demands, hiring
an expert is often the best option.
Whether you choose to outsource email marketing or handle
it internally, you shouldn’t only acquire technical and strategic
expertise—you must also establish policies, procedures, and best
practices to ensure proper management and protocol. For quickly
growing businesses in particular, outsourcing elements of their email
marketing program allows them to focus on more important growth
plans and issues without diluting their own resources.
Neither money nor resources can automatically handle all the
requirements of a thriving email marketing program. Meaningful
customer relationships require time, investment, and a long-term
commitment. Because your customers are ultimately your bottom
line, they’re worth it. As the best way to reach them, email marketing
programs deserve the applied, specialized knowledge of experts.
As I’ve said before, email is inexpensive, but the more you invest
in it, the more you get out of it. If you have the budget,
outsourcing email—or at the very least, your email
strategy—can bring great returns.
32
 9
TRUTH

Finding the right partner

33
 If you do decide you’re ready for some help, you need
to determine what kind and why. Hiring someone to
conduct a broad audit of your entire email program
is very different in scope than seeking outside assistance in
analyzing your metrics, improving response rates, or evaluating
email templates.
If you aren’t sure where to start, a good first step in selecting a
partner is to focus on a fundamental piece of any email marketing
program: the strategy. Email strategy is often overlooked, but working
with a partner can give you a fresh perspective. Proper email strategy
often requires a step back from the daily rigors of the email process
and a holistic review of the entire email program. While many
marketing or email managers can barely lift their heads up from their
inbox, an outside email strategy partner is sometimes necessary to
bring the programs in line with industry best practices and ensure
optimization of internal and external efforts. Besides, who wants to
get left in the dust by the competition?
Hiring an email partner can be a complex process in and of itself,
so take a look at these key things
to consider and steps to take when A good first step
evaluating potential firms. These in selecting a
will help you determine the right partner is to focus
partner for any type of outside email
expertise (such as compliance or on a fundamental
deliverability), but I am going to piece of any email
focus them on strategy since it is marketing program:
the foundation of any successful
email program.
the strategy.
Dig internally and know what you want
Start by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your email
program. Hopefully, you’ve already defined the goals for your
program, but if you haven’t, you’ll need to get that ball rolling. Set
goals beyond “achieve an X percent open rate,” and include success
measures such as “generate Y in revenue” or “increase website traffic
by Z percent.” In working with clients, this process has uncovered
breakdowns in the clarification of email goals. I’ve seen quite a few
email managers who could not tell me what the end goal was for the

34
 TRUTH

email campaigns they managed.

If you or your key day-to-day
I’ve seen quite 9
personnel cannot speak to the big- a few email

FIN DIN G T HE R IGHT PARTN ER

picture goals of your email program, managers who
it’s a sign that you need help. could not tell me
The early stages of an email what the end goal
strategy project are probably
the most important part of the
was for the email
engagement and will set the tone campaigns they
with the firm you choose. If you managed.
don’t know what to ask for, be
prepared to be disappointed. The
more specific areas you can identify as the ones you want deeply
investigated (for example, newsletter layout, frequency rules, internal
policies, and procedures), the more you’ll receive in return. This will
help you develop a request for proposal as well.

Use referrals and reputation as a guide

Like selecting a doctor, lawyer, or accountant, referrals by existing
clients or peers are important, as is industry reputation. Be sure to
contact several client references from the firms you are talking to.
Not only do you want to gauge their satisfaction, but you also want to
try to get some additional insight into other key areas, such as how
much hand-holding the firm needed and whether they immediately
disappeared after the final deliverables were submitted. The most
relevant question is this one: Did they implement some of the
suggestions, and were they successful? That answer can often tell
you if your money will be well spent.

Avoid conflicts of interest

Ask potential finalists if their company is aligned with a technology
vendor or if it is part of a bigger parent company that has additional
service or product offerings. While this isn’t necessarily grounds to
eliminate a company, you need to be prepared to be upsold, and you
should immediately identify any conflicts of interest.
For example, if one of your key areas of focus is growing your
email database, a company that has a sister database company may
heavily push list rentals or something else that generates incremental

35
revenue for its company. Be sure to verify a company’s independence
so it has your best interests at hand and no hidden agendas.

For a niche project, use a niche firm

Generally, a company with a proven email practice is your best
choice. Traditional direct marketing firms may offer some interesting
segmentation or customer contact advice but may not be intimately
familiar with email deliverability issues or creative best practices. The
same goes for broad interactive shops. Most have generalists who
assist with email design or campaign management and are limited
in deep expertise in the email arena. Whoever you choose, make
sure the company has a deep understanding and focus on email
marketing. I have come across some great interactive shops that I
would recommend to any client building a microsite but would not
refer my worst enemy to for email marketing expertise. Like anything,
make sure you do your due diligence and end up with the great
partner, not just the right firm.
I asked one interactive executive for advice he would offer to
marketers considering an email partner. Klaus Werner, director of
e-commerce for Lowe’s, has hired firms several times in his career to
assist in email marketing. Werner provided this insight:
“One of the most positive takeaways I had from hiring an email marketing
consulting team is that they were able to help us focus on the right things,
prioritize our pain points, and bring a tremendous amount of thought
leadership and industry knowledge to the table. Without the consulting
resources, it would have taken us years to put together a comprehensive
email marketing strategy.”
Werner added
“As it is with most corporate environments, the teams are focused on
execution over 90% of their time, leaving 10% or less of their time to focus
on strategy and industry best practices. A quick way to remain competitive
and up to date on emerging technologies and practices is to bring a
capable SWAT team of resources to conduct initial reconnaissance, do an
assessment, help neutralize poor practices, and leave us better prepared to
handle future situations.”

You don’t know what is best for your organization until you
identify what you need. With the right steps, finding the
right partner can impact your entire email program in a
meaningful fashion.

36
 10
TRUTH

Getting the ball rolling

with your email marketing
partner

37
 After selecting a partner to help move your email
program to a new level, you are faced with actually
getting the ball rolling internally and making sure the
firm you selected is moving you toward achieving your goals. As
I mentioned in the last truth, I’m going to focus on the example
of working with a firm to help evaluate, create, and implement
strategy, although these steps apply to working with any type of
outside email expert on any type of engagement (whether it be
long-term- or project-based).

The truth hurts

Remember that you may—and should—receive some information
that does not paint your email program as high achieving as you had
thought. Be prepared to receive some tough love and accept much
constructive criticism. If your new strategy partner doesn’t offer that
or your team is not in a position to handle it, your money would be
better spent elsewhere.
Be prepared to
Know where your money is receive some
going tough love and
At the onset of the engagement, accept much
both parties should be very clear
on what deliverables will be due,
constructive
as well as a timeline for any and all criticism.
projects. Email strategy projects vary
in time, usually based on scope and availability of client resources
(for investigative interviews and document coordination). Email
strategy projects generally shouldn’t run more than three months,
unless the scope of deliverables and email program components
audited are extensive.
Pricing is usually based on an agreed-upon hourly rate, a monthly
retainer, or a fixed fee based on the projected time and deliverables
agreed upon in advance by both parties.

Execution
After your statement of work is signed, your new partner should not
disappear, only to resurface with a large document months later. Part
of the client’s responsibility is providing access to key staff and data

38
 TRUTH

that will help shed light on how this email program is performing. A
weekly team status call or report can help ensure that there are no
10
surprises. The client will have to manage the project, no matter how

GE TT IN G T HE BALL R OLLIN G W ITH YOUR EMAIL MARKETI NG PA RTNER

good your partner is, and you must face this reality to maximize the
results and learnings from the engagement.

Educate and sell internally

A crucial aspect of an email strategy engagement is internal buy-in.
Your program could suffer a blow if you don’t properly explain to
all relevant parties why a third party will be examining inner email
workings. Be sure to tell key stakeholders that this is not a reflection
of any disappointment with the team or admittance of failure on
anyone’s part, but only a neutral evaluation on ways to improve.
You need to get their buy-in to ensure that the findings will be
embraced or successfully implemented. Don’t forget to include other
stakeholders that may not be intimately involved in your daily email
efforts, such as your IT or sales department.

Making sense of it all

After determining strategy, be sure to have the firm come in and
present it to all individuals and teams that use email in any capacity.
This ensures that everyone is on board and on the same page when
it comes to implementing suggestions and changes. Having at least a
few senior management executives at the meeting will help reaffirm
your company’s commitment to email marketing. This should not be
a one-way presentation, so encourage participation. Be sure to come
prepared and ask questions on every front.

Follow-up
Your company would be best served having the email strategy
partner retained, at least on a minor basis, for a few months after the
initial project is completed. While most email consulting and services
firms should help articulate or clarify any of the information they
assembled after projection completion, the client will often find that
a deeper follow-up is needed. For example, if part of the project had
actionable items on how to improve your open rates, you may want
to keep the firm on retainer to help implement tests and ensure that
its findings are accurately put into practice.

39
 Also, be prepared to repeat the process at a later date. Business
needs change, as does the email marketing landscape. So it’s
important to review recommendations at regular intervals to ensure,
for example, that practices are up to date and reflect new realities.

Even if the Get to work

document Don’t let a 100-page strategy
document end up in a file that
uncovers some collects only dust. You paid good
flaws, get to work money for someone to dig deep
and use that into your email program and, better
yet, you’ll be held accountable for
information to making sure it gets put into practice.
make your email Even if the document uncovers
program even some flaws, get to work and use
that information to make your email
better. program even better.
Lynn Moss is an interactive marketing veteran currently at
Definition 6, with experience on both the agency and client side. She
offered up these closing tips for managing an email strategy project:
“As a client, be prepared to share information about how email addresses
are captured, what is stored on each customer or prospect, metrics on
all your email campaigns, as well as offline marketing efforts. The email
strategy vendor may suggest a new look and feel, new language, or more
ways to target users. Continue to test recommended changes in order to
optimize email campaigns.
As a consultant, it can be difficult to convince senior management
that the email marketing strategy should be given as much thought
as the marketing strategy. There should be dedicated resources,
and the strategy needs to continue to evolve.”

40
 11
TRUTH

What makes a good email

marketing manager

41
 So what do the people who actually manage email
marketing programs look and act like? Are they data-
driven specialists or Jacks (and Jills) of all trades
marketing professionals? Do they hit the Send button or drive
big-picture communication strategy? The answer is yes.
Like any job description, the role of an email marketing manager
varies from company to company and from day to day. As is the case
for most new media professionals, resumes vary, and there is no
“perfect” background in the same way that there is in the accounting
or legal worlds.
A large portion of the email marketing experts I’ve worked with
came from a traditional marketing background and learned email
and interactive marketing on the job. Most are seasoned marketing
veterans accustomed to leading branding and promotional programs.
Some didn’t seek out email duties: It found them, and they’ve stuck
with it.
A large portion
Some specific qualities include
of the email
Q Experience—Email marketing is marketing experts
its own brand impression, and I’ve worked
it shouldn’t be taken lightly. A
company’s reputation and brand
with came from
are largely affected by email, so a traditional
make sure you can show that marketing
you know what you’re doing. background.
Q Flexibility—Regardless of
company philosophy, anyone
who is best suited for a nine-to-five, punching-the-clock job
would probably find email marketing both unsettling and
unappealing given its fast pace and often chaotic environment.
Q Works well with others—Depending on the size of the
company, email marketing staffs usually consist of small teams.
Coordination seems to be the key. Whether managing agencies
responsible for design and deployment or synching up with
merchandising to make sure the right products get highlighted,
email marketing is in the belly of the beast—even if it lives in a
silo. Email usually touches key marketing areas like branding,

42
 TRUTH

promotions, and customer relation management (CRM). Learning

to live cohesively with these different groups is essential.
11
Whether email marketing is a sales, marketing, product, or

WHAT M AKES A GOOD EM AIL M AR KETING MANAGER

technology function, anyone managing email can expect to
interface with all aspects in their roles.
Q Big egos need not apply—Since email rarely gets the spotlight
and good email programs rarely get the credit they deserve,
don’t expect to be in the limelight. If you are comfortable living
in the shadow of sexier and flashier marketing programs, despite
knowing your email program will bring more value to the table,
you may just be a good fit.
Q Possesses a sense of adventure—In the email world, where
campaigns never end, testing is important but can often hit a rut.
Email marketing managers need to be adventurous and willing to
take the extra step. It may create
more work, but you should be Email marketing
excited about finding out what managers need to
works and fixing what doesn’t.
be adventurous
Q Lives for results—When it and willing to take
comes to email, managers
can’t hide behind pretty
the extra step.
artwork or a cool soundtrack
like other marketing folks. The numbers don’t lie, and constant
measurement, evaluation, and adjustments are a must. An
understanding of analytics and statistical principles is also
valuable.
Q Big picture and detail-oriented—Are you able to stay in tune
with the overall marketing goals (drive brand awareness, raise
revenue, and so on) but also keep track of the more mundane,
daily needs like reworking email subscription pages which could,
in turn, double email subscribers and put those bigger goals
within reach?
Q Willingness to stay on top of issues—Email marketing changes
fast, and an email marketing manager needs to constantly follow
and react to the dynamic email marketing environment. If you
stand still, you go backward.

43
Some advice from the trenches
Sold on hiring or becoming an email marketing expert? Not so fast.
Review these tips before you hit the job boards, networking events,
and HR department.

Q Gareth Morgan, director, relationship product management,

InterContinental Hotels Group, says: “Leave your daily planner
at home. This environment is about thinking on your feet and
making judgment calls on a regular basis. Leave your pride at
home. Email is out there for the world to pick at and comment
on. Unlike a website page, when an email gets sent, it is gone. A
mistake cannot be pulled down and changed. You live with it or
decide on a best course of correction.”
Q Jamie DiCarro, marketing manager, Heavenly Ham, says: “Attend
Webinars, seminars, and conferences to learn and share with
your peers. A lot of people are afraid to ask for help, but you’d be
surprised at how much we have to learn from one another and at
how much people are willing to share about their experiences.”
Q And don’t miss these final words of wisdom from a recruiter (who
also used to be a direct marketer) who helps companies find
these types of marketing stars. Wendy Weber, president, Crandall
Associates, Inc., says: “Employers are looking for email marketing
professionals who have a proven track record in leveraging email
to increase the customer base and retain established customers
while increasing revenue for their employer. As far as people
looking to get into email marketing, on the entry level, I would
recommend taking a course or program in interactive marketing.
The best course of action for someone already in direct marketing
to learn e-marketing is to learn ‘on the job’ within their
current employer before looking for an e-marketing
position outside the company.”

44
PART IV: THE TRUTH ABOUT CUSTOMER-FOCUSED
EMAIL STRATEGY

12
TRUTH

How to be relevant

45
 Before buying this book, you probably looked at the
title, thumbed through the table of contents, and
scanned the back cover. Am I right? Well, what if you
planned to read this book for valuable information about email
marketing but instead found it full of self-serving content and
advertisements from my company? You probably would throw it
to the side, and rightfully so. Sending irrelevant email messages
to your customers and prospects will yield the same result. I can
guarantee it.
Don’t get caught up in the greed. The results delivered by sending
the right kind of emails, at the right time, can draw some marketers
into the dark side of sending too many emails (most of which are
irrelevant to subscribers) hoping to get even more benefits. Quicker
than you can read this sentence, you can alienate recipients and kill
the power of email by doing this. If you learn nothing else from this
book, let it be this: If you are sending messages that offer little value
to recipients, every other strategy, tactic, or best practice you put in
place will be of little worth.

What is relevancy?
When it comes to relevancy, I’m not just talking about adding a
subscriber’s first name to personalize your emails. You should be
doing that anyway. I’m talking about using what you know about
subscribers to your advantage and letting it help you decide when the
timing is right to send. Generally, a relevant email is one that contains
something of value to the recipient (for example, a discount or useful
advice) and reflects what you know about that recipient (for example,
the content and timing are targeted to the recipient’s needs).
According to JupiterResearch, after cost factors, the most important
influence on purchase behavior is relevance. Showing users a product
they’ve previously considered leads to immediate purchases by
60 percent of respondents and deferred purchases by 58 percent.
Subject line personalization leads to only 9 percent of immediate
purchases and 8 percent of deferred purchases.
There are several aspects of relevancy. The content and value
proposition is the most important. This is how or why you decide to
act on the email, whether that is clicking on a link, calling a number,

46
 TRUTH

or going into a store. Without valuable content or a clear purpose

of the email, your message will likely be seen as irrelevant to the
12
recipient. Being relevant is also about timing, unique offers, and

HOW TO BE R ELEVAN T
doing everything you can to know what interests each recipient or
drives them to make a purchase. So put your data to good use. The
people who have signed up to receive content from you have taken
the first step. Now it’s up to you.
Here are some of the things that relevancy can do for your email
program:

Q Drive loyalty—If you are sending emails that differ in content

(and context) from what recipients signed up to receive, they will
disengage. On the other hand,
using email to send targeted If you are sending
communications can drive brand emails that differ
loyalty through the roof. in content (and
Q Impact delivery—Relevancy context) from what
not only affects brand loyalty,
but it can also impact delivery
recipients signed
of your messages. If customers up to receive, they
sign up for your email program will disengage.
expecting case studies,
coupons, or some other benefit
that you touted but instead get something else, they may report
you as spam. If enough people do this, you may find your future
emails blocked from delivery by ISPs.
Q Boost results and expand your audience—If you are sending
messages that are of value to recipients, they will be more likely
to perform the desired action (like buying something) or pass it
along to others. Let subscribers assist in your targeted marketing
efforts. This aids the relevancy factor since a message coming
from a trusted friend or colleague becomes that much more
relevant to the recipient of a forwarded email.
Q Help you stand out in the crowd—Chances are, if someone
signs up for your email program to receive the best deal on
buying widgets, and a competitor of yours offers a similar email
communication, the recipient has signed up for both of them. If

47
If you are sending you are sending the more relevant,
targeted offer at the right time,
the more relevant, you win.
targeted offer at
the right time, you Making it happen
win. Be sure to closely read the Truths
related to frequency (Truth 23),
Subject lines (Truth 26), personalization (Truth 24) and segmentation
(Truth 25), among others, as these provide the tactical keys to
implementing a relevant email that gets read and drives response.
A good relevancy benchmark is your email sign-up center since
your guide to consistent relevancy is what you promised to send
subscribers when they signed up. The next Truth outlines
how to make sure you cover all the bases and stay on
target.

48
13
TRUTH

Making your
first impression count

49
 Before we dive into building an email list, I want to
cover some simple rules for ensuring your email sign-up
process not only lures in prospects but also keeps them
subscribed—and happy.
My biggest beef with email marketers is that they design and
manage programs based on marketing goals and internal objectives,
rather than the people they hope will sign up and engage with their
brand. Let’s face it: Email programs that come across as created and
delivered specifically for the email subscribers’ benefits are few and
far between. As you set out to grow your subscriber list, rethink the
overall value your email program provides to your subscribers.
Your email program’s (and often Rethink the
your brand’s) first impression starts
with offering up a value proposition overall value your
to website visitors (or maybe a email program
catalog or in-store browsers if you provides to your
are a savvy retailer that collects
email addresses via call center
subscribers.
or in-store). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Be relevant and
deliver real, valuable, and unique information. Offer something that is
compelling enough to give your users a reason to read, respond, and
subscribe.
It all starts with the sign-up process, which is the permission
email agreement you make with opt-in database subscribers. This
essentially is a contract and, as with any contract, if you violate it at
any time during the email marketing process, there can be a penalty.
It can be disengaging (or, as some call it, being unemotionally
subscribed), unsubscribing, or falling victim to the dreaded “this is
spam” label whether you received permission or not.
Ask these questions to ensure your email sign-up form works for
both you and your prospects and customers.

Q What did you say you do?—Make the contents of your email
clear. If you are offering special discounts each month, tell your
subscribers. If you are dishing up best practices, make it obvious.
When it comes to email, no one likes surprises. Don’t just say,
“Sign up for our newsletter.” That doesn’t tell your potential

50
 TRUTH

subscribers anything. Offer up the benefits and a general

overview of what they will receive.
13
Q Can you show me what you are talking about?—Samples,

MAKIN G YOU R FIR ST IM PR ESSION COUNT

much like the snacks at gourmet retailers, can lead to a bigger
purchase and convert browsers into buyers. In email, it can
help seal the subscription deal or alleviate fears of potential
subscribers that they may just be receiving “a bunch of emails”
with little value. The Email Experience Council’s RetailEmail.
Blogspot found that only 12 percent of major online retailers offer
a sample of their newsletter(s) during the email subscription
process. You should feel confident about the value offered in
your newsletter or other email communication, so dish it up—
customers may take it.
Q How often will we be talking?—Spell out how often a subscriber
will receive your emails. Daily or monthly can make a big impact
on whether a user signs up. Don’t mislead them. Signing up
for a quarterly newsletter and receiving it three times a week
constitutes a violation of trust and, in this case, the subscription
agreement. Most companies do a poor job in this area. Notably,
retailers are missing the mark. RetailEmail.Blogspot’s findings
revealed that not even 7 percent of retailers give subscribers any
kind of idea how many emails to expect.
Q What’s in it for me?—An enticing reward can often help create
the email relationship and convert many would-be email
subscribers. The reward must be of specific interest or value to
your target audience only. Otherwise, you get people signing up
just for the incentive and who
will have no interest in your
emails. A strong and relevant
An enticing reward
initial offer/reward also provides can often help
an early indicator that there create the email
is real value in being an email
subscriber. Remember: Anyone
relationship and
can go to your website if all you convert many
are doing is cutting and pasting would-be email
your home page and putting in
an email template.
subscribers.

51
Q May I make a suggestion?—Let new email subscribers choose
some content and control over their subscription, whether it is HTML
versus text format, the frequency, the language, or just a nice menu
of newsletter and email offerings.
Q How well do you want to get to know me?—The amount of inform-
ation collected can often be the reason why (or why not) people
sign up for your email program. As a general rule, if you have more
than four to five fields of information, you may start to lose potential
subscribers. If you are not using the information for segmenting, just
ask for a first name and email address. Another alternative that I have
found to be successful is asking for just the email address as step 1
and then gathering more detailed information on step 2. That way,
you have fewer obstacles to capture the email address, and if the
customer provides more information in step 2, consider it gravy.
Q Why should I trust you?—Every company should have a privacy
policy. Make sure you make it accessible for your future subscribers
with just a simple link, as it can do the trick in confirming you are a
legitimate company with respectable privacy practices. RetailEmail.
Blogspot’s study found that almost 50 percent of major online
retailers address privacy concerns during the email subscription
process.
Q How easy is it for me?—Finding your email sign-up and ensuring
the process isn’t a laborious one is key to a strong first impression
and foreshadows what kind of experience the subscriber can expect.
Ensure your sign-up form can be found (and completed for the most
part) on your home page. A study by email service provider Silverpop
found that 80 percent of companies offered email sign-ups on their
home pages.
Q Can you please confirm that with me?—Signing up for an email
and not receiving a Web-based or email confirmation—or worse,
not receiving an email for a lengthy period—can be frustrating. A
confirmation email/page is a great spot to receive the actual coupon/
white paper that you were promised and engage the new subscriber
right away. Twenty-seven percent of companies in Silverpop’s survey
failed to send emails to new subscribers confirming
their registrations. This can be a catalyst for your email
relationship.

52
 PART V: THE TRUTH ABOUT
CREATING AND GROWING A LIST

14
TRUTH

It is not easier to ask for

forgiveness

53
 You know how it goes. You settle into a nice dinner with
your family or have just tuned in to the season finale of
your favorite TV show when the phone rings. It’s a sales
call. You didn’t ask for it, and it certainly isn’t happening at an
opportune time. Even if the salesperson is offering something you
might be interested in, you likely feel interrupted and frustrated
since you didn’t give out your phone number in the first place.
Email marketing is no different in this regard, and sending
unsolicited emails to people who don’t want to receive them
might get you a random conversion here and there, but it will land
you in hot water with the Internet service providers (ISP)s, ruin
long-term brand-loyal relationships, and damage your reputation.
Permission email marketing occurs when recipients have taken
action to explicitly request you add them to your email address list.
For example, your favorite restaurant is sending you permission email
marketing messages after you give them your email address. In this
case, the emails may contain menu items, specials, or unique offers.
Permission is the key to any good email program. Like I’ve said
a thousand times, email is about building a relationship that
will ultimately drive brand value and increase revenue. Sending
unsolicited emails to a prospect’s or customer’s already clogged
inbox will not get you very far. If you think that getting permission to
send email to someone is optional, think again.

Checks and boxes

True opt-in means your subscribers are opting in by choice and
checking a box on their own good will. Someone on your list who
simply has not opted out should not be considered an opt-in. Or put
another way, not unsubscribing or not checking the Do Not Send box
is not the same level of permission as someone who willingly checks
the Subscribe or Send Me Email options.
The first recommendation I have when it comes to gaining
permission to email a prospect or customer is to never precheck
a box for them. Say you visit a website for a company that sells
widgets. You want someone to call you about the company’s different
products, so you complete the contact form on the company website.
As you are about to click Submit, you notice a box at the very bottom

54
 TRUTH

that has a check in it indicating that you would like to subscribe to

the company’s email program for special offers and promotions.
14
Often times, website visitors don’t notice this box is checked and

IT IS N OT E ASIER TO ASK FOR FOR GIVENESS

are tricked into subscribing. This is not the way to run a responsible
email program. You need to put the potential subscribers in the
driver’s seat when it comes to email. Assuming they want email
communications from you and creating the extra step of unchecking
a box or, even worse, unsubscribing, won’t work in your favor or
theirs. You might get a bigger list but not a better list. If you are still
focused on list growth by any means, you can skip ahead to Truth 17,
and read what CBS SportsLine did in terms of making sure it had a
list full of active subscribers.

Single opt-in
When it comes to getting permission from your subscribers, there are
many ways and places it can happen. The most important thing to
remember is that all subscribers on your list must take some type of
action to indicate they would like to receive email communications
from your company. As long as your sign-up is clearly defined and
subscribers can easily understand what they will receive and when,
a single opt-in will do the job. A single opt-in occurs when users
provide their email address and are then automatically entered as
new subscribers. No verification or second step is required of the
subscribers during a single opt-in process. The best way to follow up
with this type of opt-in is to send an immediate welcome message.
(See Truth 43 for more on welcome messages.) This alerts you to
bad addresses and gives the recipients a chance to see your email
program in action while they still have your company on their mind.

Double opt-in
You may be wondering about double opt-in. This type of opt-in entails
a person subscribing and then being sent an email asking them to
confirm the desire to subscribe, usually by clicking on a confirmation
link in the email. Although double opt-in gained momentum years
ago, deliverability and usability issues with getting that confirmation
email to the inbox and clicked have caused many to move away from
it. In fact, only 3 percent of major online retailers use a double opt-in
subscription process.1

55
 Many clients using a double opt-in process have a black hole
of data for those who are not completing the second stage of the
double opt-in process. This means often there are many would-be
email subscribers who fail to complete the second step for one of
many reasons and, therefore, are not in the database but may not
know that. Ensure that you can identify where the “forgotten email
subscribers” data resides and make sure the second step email goes
out without a hitch.

Existing relationship with no opt-in

If you have a recent existing relationship with customers or
prospects, it is okay to send them a one-time message offering
an opportunity to join your email list. After permission is granted,
you’ll be able to email them again, but remember that an offline
relationship does not give you the right to email them. So get their
permission before adding your offline customers into your email
database.

An old list
If you have a list that has collected some dust and you’ve finally
decided to rev up the old email program, ask subscribers to reconfirm
or opt out. It is up to you to engage them again, but being honest and
upfront about your intentions is a good first step. It can often lead to
getting an updated user database as well. Here’s some language to
get you going: “We know you haven’t heard from us in a while, but
we are excited to say that we’ve made some improvements to our
email newsletter and want to begin sharing them with you. You are
subscribed already, but since you haven’t heard from us in a while,
we want to ask our valued customers and subscribers for continued
permission to email them about our great offers and news. If you
would like to continue to receive these email notices, please click
here to update your profile.”

Remind them
In addition to always including an easy way (in each message) for
recipients to opt out from your email program, include reminder
language in your header or footer such as, “You signed up
for this newsletter on our website or in our stores. If you
would like to opt out of future newsletters, click here.”

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 15
TRUTH

How to create an email list

57
 Building a list is one of the first and most important
steps toward a successful email program. You can take
several approaches—some work better than others.
I recommend building a list from scratch, or what many call organic
list growth. To start, offer the option to subscribe for your email
program on every existing touch point possible. You want to make
sure your email program is visible and easy to potential subscribers.
This may require using some political capital to ensure the email
sign-up gets the proper placement. Here are some areas to consider
for adding sign-up opportunities:

Q Website (on all pages, not just the home page)

Q Blog
Q Retail locations, especially at the point of sale
Q Business cards and email signatures
Q All direct mail, catalogs, and traditional advertising
Q Customer service calls
Q Your booth at trade shows and events
Q The last slide of your presentations
Q Marketing collateral, invoices, and print business communications
Q Forward-to-a-friend link on all email newsletters or offers

And here are some items to include in your email sign-up form:

Q The benefits of subscribing: what subscribers will get and how

often
Q Link to sample email content/archives
Q Privacy reassurances and link to privacy policy

You must tread carefully when dealing with previous customers,

prospects, and others you have had a long-standing relationship
with but may not have permission to email. It is okay to reach out
with a one-time email asking them to opt in to your list, but you must
not send future emails unless they specifically opt in and grant you
permission. It isn’t okay to just add those contacts to your email list.
Once you are offering sign-up at the places I’ve mentioned, it’s
time to get started with other approaches such as viral marketing
58
 TRUTH

campaigns, leveraging paid search advertising, lead generation, and

other tactics that will drive people to sign up.
15
Growth with list appends

HOW TO C R EATE AN EM AIL LIST

If you have put a lot of effort into building a marketing database but
don’t have email addresses for the people on that list, enlist the help
of a vendor to run an email append. The vendor will take your list of
names and match them up to email addresses. What follows is an
email on your behalf, asking for permission based on their current
relationship with your company. This is different from renting a list
and sending your own message to ask for permission. Remember:
With an append you already have a predefined relationship with this
audience but are lacking specific permission to communicate via
email, hence the one-time opt-in request.
This can be a cost-effective list growth tactic, depending on the size
of your list. However, it could cost you more than just dollars. With
this approach, proceed with caution and make sure the vendor is
reputable. The quality of lists delivered from vendors can vary greatly,
and an append where the messaging, purpose, and relationship are
unclear can damage your brand and existing customer relationships.
If you decide to take this route, ask for references, and look at the
types of companies on each vendor’s client list.
Here are some additional email append tips:

Q Check the privacy and list policies for any vendor you work with. If
anything seems odd or doesn’t add up, move on.
Q Don’t use the same Internet protocol (IP) address that you or your
email partner use for an append.
Q Test the deliverability and response rates before sending the
append to a broader list.
Q Work with ISP postmasters and gatekeepers to alert them of your
upcoming append. This can mitigate some risks, and a proactive
approach alerts you of problems you can learn from.

Renting or buying a list

Although renting or buying may be a quick option for instantly meeting
your list growth needs, I recommend against it in many scenarios.
Renting lists, for the most part, is a common and legitimate practice,
59
while buying email lists isn’t. Email lists that are for sale are, almost
without exception, spam lists constructed without permission or the
knowledge of the email address owners. Avoid these at all costs.
List rentals generally work where the email is sent on your behalf by
the list owner (you never see the actual addresses). Many reputable
firms can assist in this, but permission is the key issue. A reputable
list rental broker or list owner can be cost prohibitive, and often the
results don’t merit the fees. This comes back to the relevancy factor.
List rentals are filled with people who provided their email address
and permission to receive “third-party offers.” They most likely don’t
want your offers, or they would have signed up for them directly.
This can be a good way to access business-to-business (B2B)
prospects, particularly in technology markets. However, the key is to
use the rental list to get people to opt in to your house list, so you
don’t have to keep paying the rental fee to reach the same people.
You likely will have no prior relationship with the people on the
list you have bought, and they will not have asked to communicate
with you. List buying goes against what email is truly about—building
brand-loyal relationships. Any short-time gain can be offset by
damage to your brand and reputation, as most recipients will suspect
you are spamming regardless of whether they opted in with a third-
party to receive special offers and newsletters.

Co-registration
Co-registration is when email subscribers are signing up for a
newsletter at a specific site and during or after the process are asked
if they want to also opt in to partner email programs. Co-registration
was a major list growth tactic during the late 1990s dot-com boom and
bust but can still work if you find the right partner and can justify the
potential high cost of acquiring these new email subscribers. Assuming
that your partner is a company that shares customer demographics
with you, this can warrant a test (although it seems most programs
deliver more on the quantity side than quality). Building an email list
doesn’t happen overnight. Don’t take shortcuts—you’ll pay for it later.
Email is a great tool for keeping those people who aren’t ready to buy
engaged with your products or services. Give some attention
to building your email list—you’ll likely get it back in the form
of brand recognition, loyalty, and revenue.

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 16
TRUTH

Using lead-generation
tactics to build your list

61
 Generating quality leads is at the top of the list for most
marketers, particularly with business-to-business (B2B)
companies where one conversion of a lead into a client
can pay for an entire marketing program’s annual budget. If you
fall into this category, you are likely evaluated on the ability to
generate a certain number of qualified leads on a budget. Sound
familiar? You are probably also expected to groom current email
efforts into a well-rounded, award-winning program. So, why not
kill two birds with one stone?
Typical online lead-generation campaigns collect email addresses
from prospects that companies know are interested because they
acted on an ad, downloaded a white paper, or took some other
desired action. If you are offering something of value like a white
paper, a Webinar, or a research study, ask for email addresses in
return. You already know the potential subscribers are interested in
what you are selling or serving up, so why not use email marketing to
keep them engaged until they are ready to buy? The subscribers get
great content to help them make a decision or solve a problem, and
you get well-qualified leads. It is a win-win for everyone involved.
Assuming you’ve identified your target audience (if you haven’t,
you may have more problems than generating leads and running
an email program), you should be able to run ads in online search
networks, websites, and publications that cater to both your
industry and your desired demographic. I’m talking about well-
placed, contextually relevant ads that offer something to the readers
(potential subscribers) and encourage them to take action.
For companies focused on the consumer marketplace,
sweepstakes and promotions can also lead to list growth if done
properly. Often, marketers get caught up in the idea of a big, fancy
microsite and neglect to think about the long-term benefits of these
large-scale promotions.
The first, often overlooked step to building a list is to make sure
to send participants a confirmation/thank-you email shortly after
sign-up. The details of this email, beyond the slick storyboard design,
are important and should not be glossed over. Choose a logical From
line, Subject line, and email header and footer so that it is clear to
recipients who the email is from and what it is about. Lastly, test to
see what the email looks like without images. Many email clients
62
 TRUTH

have default settings that block images in the email. What’s a slick
design worth if people never open it or see only red Xs where your
16
company and brand logos should appear?

USIN G LE AD-GEN ER ATION TAC TICS TO BUILD YOUR LIST

My colleague and our director of client services, Brent Rosengren,
led a well-thought-out and immediate tactical strike to aid a media
giant’s sweepstakes, which was driving email leads for a global
automotive brand. He led this optimization of the company’s data
collection to save the day for all parties and make sure they collected
the data needed to leverage this massive promotion.
I asked Brent to outline his methodology and best practices for
not letting a lead fall through the cracks while delivering a superior
customer experience. Here’s what he said.

1. Ensure that all involved in setting up the program, even

third parties, realize its goal—Before you start designing the
microsite or promotional material and buy the media to drive
traffic, make sure the main goals of the program are clearly
defined. If the goal is to build or grow an email marketing
database, make sure that all the strategy is geared toward
effectively collecting emails and making it simple for the users
to sign up. Then ensure that you have clearly defined what will
happen next for the user and your marketing team.
2. Choose the appropriate method of collecting personal
information (PI)—Make it clear to consumers what is going to
happen with their PI once they click the Submit button. Here are
four methods generally used to collect an email address during
an online promotion.

Q Opt-in—An unchecked box is shown that contains language

clearly stating what it means by checking the box.
Q Opt-out—A prechecked box is shown that contains
language clearly stating what it means by checking the box.
Q No check box: clear information—Users must provide an
email address to participate in an online program, but the
language clearly states that the users should expect future
communication and can opt out at any time. This is often
used when the participant is getting something of value in
return.
63
 Q No check box: no information (implied consent)—The
user must provide an email address to participate in an
online program, but you are not stating how someone’s
email will be used. This is often the path of least
resistance, but it’s not a best practice because there is
no permission granted. You should not assume that your
participants know that they will receive emails from you in
the future just because they provide their email address
during a sweepstakes or promotion.

3. Make sure you cover your legal bases—Many companies have

an outdated privacy policy on their sites or don’t address data
capture or email marketing. If you are collecting any type of
personal information online and are intending to use it in any
way, internally or with third parties—especially email addresses—
you should clearly state this in your privacy policy.
In addition to the privacy policy, you should address the future
use of any PI collected in the specific terms and conditions of the
program or sweepstakes, especially if you are using the implied
consent method. Just because you address how email addresses
will be used in the terms and conditions section does not lessen
in any way the negative implications of the implied consent
approach.
When the participants know up front what your intentions are
with their information and they trust your brand, you are going
to cultivate a stronger, more valuable relationship with those
customers.
4. Identify all possible points of communication—Any time
you are driving traffic to your site, make sure to maximize your
investment and the participants’ time.
Q Make all microsite pages and forms standalone pages;
pop-ups often don’t work.
Q Make sure the main marketing goal and its messages
are well positioned above the fold on your pages and
are clear to the visitor. Also, be sure to supply alternative
actions (clicks) for the visitors in case they are not ready
to commit to the lead-generation part of the program.
While single-focused marketing messages work offline, the

64
 TRUTH

online medium offers the unique opportunity to explore

your program through a robust microsite or additional
16
content offerings. So be sure to include cross-promotional

USIN G LE AD-GEN ER ATION TAC TICS TO BUILD YOUR LIST

messages, offer site navigation, and supply other user-
friendly links. However, be wary of distracting users and
diluting your message with too much nonessential content.
Q If you’re collecting email addresses, make sure you email
recipients within an effective timeframe. Many companies
sit on this data for months, which can result in consumer
confusion; after all, who remembers if they opted in for a
promotion six months ago?

5. Examine the viral capabilities of the program—Web 2.0 is all

about using the social aspects of the web to your advantages.
What’s more valuable than having participants recommend
your program to their friends through a forward-to-a-friend (F2F)
email feature? Again, go through the viral functionality to ensure
it maximizes the effect of social marketing rather than hurting
your effort. Confirm that the viral messaging is as personalized as
possible from the participant to their friends. Clearly state to the
“friends” that their information is not going to be used in future
emails, but do allow them the opportunity to opt in. These are
free media buys that you should not overlook. Additionally, the
From line, Subject line, and other marketing messages should
be well thought out. Lastly, don’t forget CAN-SPAM compliance
issues (see Truth 39) on all aspects of your email program,
including F2F emails.
6. Ensure a pleasant user experience—Test before you launch to
ensure every aspect of the user experience is seamless. Doing so
helps your team identify what functionalities need to be improved
before you go live. A bad user experience can have a negative
effect on not only the single program but also the brand as a
whole.
7. Optimize—As with any online program, the ability to change,
edit, and add additional elements is quick and easy to implement
compared to offline counterparts. Do not just assume it can
be turned on and left as is, especially if running inefficiently.
Continually analyze and make adjustments as the program
matures and the metrics and consumer feedback stream in. If you
65
 are unimpressed with the numbers being driven to your site, you
can easily increase traffic by quickly setting up SEM (cost-per-
click) search campaigns that drive relatively low-cost leads right
to the program site.
By utilizing these seven steps, your online lead-generation efforts
will receive the extra examination they deserve, and you should have
mitigated the risks and captured as many prospects as possible.
Don’t forget the main goal of the program: to generate leads. But
also don’t overlook the user experience and the many ways that a
poorly executed program can cause more damage and negate the
program’s ambitions. The online marketplace is much more nimble
than traditional media, so don’t waste the opportunities that are
staring you in the face.
If you spend a lot of money and time on running a large-scale
promotion or sweepstakes, make sure it is well executed and has a
solid strategy behind it. If you are hoping to generate leads—and, in
this case, email addresses—make sure the content and incentive are
relevant to your audience, so members will take enough interest in
what you are offering to give you their email address in return. You
don’t want to be off target and get thousands of ill-advised
leads who just want the freebie but don’t care about your
future email campaigns, much less your brand.

66
17
TRUTH

Complement email list

growth with search

67
 Search has become email marketing’s right-hand
man in terms of acquiring targeted leads and driving
subscriber growth. In fact, according to Datran Media,
72 percent of marketers believe that search marketing is the most
complementary channel to email marketing.1
If you currently invest in search but are not complementing it
with email marketing, you may be missing the boat—in a big way. It
seems only natural that two of the biggest ROI-generating forms of
marketing today would work well together. Paid search marketing
(or keyword buys) has been one of the best lead generators for my
company and, as a very specialized firm, we want to market only
to the right target audience. Not only have our search programs
helped build our email database and lead pipeline, but also we have
received quite a bit of business through this channel.
Consider this scenario.
A portion of your budget is
If you currently
allocated for Webinars. You’ve been invest in search
tasked with hosting them at least but are not
once a quarter and have heard
the names of a few companies but
complementing
aren’t sure who to go with or what it with email
to look for in a vendor. marketing, you
So you do a search. After clicking may be missing the
on a few sponsored links and boat—in a big way.
researching some organic results
that the search returned, you have
a general understanding of what you need and table it until you can
meet with your team to share that information. At this point, the
companies that invested in paid searches have lost what could have
been their only opportunity to capture your interest. Their money is
spent and you are, well, gone.
Instead, what if you had clicked on the link and been directed to
a landing page that offered up a white paper describing the “Top
Ten Ways to Use Webinars to Generate Leads” in exchange for your
email address? You would likely provide your email address in return
for something that would make your decision a bit easier. And, what
if that company offered you a chance to sign up for its newsletter

68
 TRUTH

offering monthly best practices and

tips on Webinars? Would you opt in
By failing to 17
for that, too? You might. capture their

COM P LE M E N T EM AIL LIST GR OW TH WITH SEARCH

The point here is that you may be email addresses,
completely dropping the ball with you are missing
your investment if you aren’t doing the opportunity
everything possible to leverage
the interest of the potential buyers
to continue the
that search brings your way. When dialogue.
people click on a link, they are
saying, “I’m interested.” Are you saying anything in return? Wouldn’t
you also like to stretch that media buy a bit further? By failing to
capture their email addresses, you are missing the opportunity to
continue the dialogue. All of a sudden, the pay-per-click cost of $2.50
for that lead seems like a waste. If you could capture their email
addresses, however, that $2.50 suddenly becomes a marketing steal!
Just as in the preceding example, most of the people who find
your company through a search are likely in the research phase of
the buying cycle. They typically are not ready to buy immediately
but instead are testing the waters, becoming educated, and making
some comparisons. If search is the first step in getting recognized by
potential buyers or customers, shouldn’t email marketing be a next
logical step in keeping them engaged and informed until they are
ready to make a purchase?
Consider backing off a little when it comes to the hard sell to follow
up search. Don’t just go right into selling mode. Think of it more as an
opportunity to nurture prospects and move them along the buying
path. Taking prospects from search to a landing page where you can
offer them something of value in return for their email address will
allow you to extend your investment in search and grow your list at
the same time. As the prospects move along the path to buy, you’ll
be able to email relevant information, helping them make a decision
and keeping you at the top of their mind at the same time.
If your search ad brings visitors to a landing page where the goal
is for a quick transaction or listing of products related to the ad,
make sure your plan B (plan A is for a sale) involves capturing email
addresses. Remember: Many transactions take several site visits,

69
whether you are selling a low-priced DVD or an expensive video
camera.
One of my company’s clients used paid search to increase its
email addresses substantially. Its rationale was the right one—we are
investing heavily in paid search marketing to get its attention, and we
are utilizing email to build the relationship, which will hopefully turn
into becoming a customer. With this strategy, email and
search became the client’s acquisition and relationship
marketing platforms, while accounting for almost one-
quarter of all website traffic.

70
18
TRUTH

Keep a clean list

71
 Marketing teams put a lot of time and effort into
gathering information about prospects and customers,
so I’m surprised when they don’t take the time to
keep their lists clean, known as list hygiene. When using lists to
market with email, not having accurate data doesn’t just waste
resources; it hurts your reputation and can have a negative effect
on deliverability. Keeping your data current can

Q Saves costs—If you send to fewer addresses, your costs should

go down (especially if you are working with an email service
provider and paying cost-per-message fees).
Q Prevents stats from being skewed—By removing inactive
addresses or bounces from your lists, as well as sales@ or
news@ addresses, you send fewer emails but likely have the
same amount of opens and thus, a higher and more realistic
open rate.
Q Improves deliverability—Keeping a clean list keeps you from
looking like a spammer in the eyes of ISPs. In addition, you’re
not sending messages to disinterested recipients who could
potentially report your message as spam.

1. Identify addresses to remove immediately

List hygiene allows you to find and correct errors on your list while
keeping its integrity intact. Email addresses you need to remove are

Q Bounces
Q Addresses containing typos
Q Addresses missing @ signs
Q Addresses mistakenly placing the www after the @ sign

You also prevent a lot of these by correcting bad addresses at the

point of sign-up. One of the best ways to do this is by having two
email sign-up boxes and a method or device that can recognize when
the two email addresses are mismatched.
A bounce occurs when your email message is not delivered and is
returned to sender. Bounces can happen for a variety of reasons and
are usually categorized as either hard or soft. A hard bounce means

72
 TRUTH

that the email address is invalid or no longer exists. Remove these

from your mailing list—continuing to send to them will land you in
18
hot water with ISPs.

K E E P A C LE AN LIST
A soft bounce indicates that your message is rejected because of
a temporary problem with delivery. Reasons for this are numerous,
but it could be that the recipient’s mailbox is full, the server is down,
or your message is simply too large. In this case, you can try again
to send the message, but you should consider removing the address
from your list after several failed attempts. If you are sending on
a monthly basis, you should remove the address after two failed
attempts. If your frequency is higher, say weekly or daily, five or
more bounces should warrant its removal. If you keep getting a soft
bounce, there’s a reason.
If you fail to remove hard bounces or repeated soft bounces from
your email list, ISPs may eventually block your messages. Because
spammers try to mail to as many addresses as possible and often
“guess” or generate email addresses just to get a message through,
they frequently send to bad addresses or spam traps (addresses
created by ISPs to catch spammers). Once you are blocked, getting
back in good graces takes a lot of effort.
Another impact of not removing bounces is the effect it will have on
your overall reporting metrics. You might be inflating your list size/
send totals, but you will be hurting and distorting other metrics, and
you will not have a true read on your successes (or failures).

2. Check for inactivity

If you are running an email marketing program, you should be
looking at results over time. This will give you valuable insight into
the likes and dislikes of your prospects and show which recipients
are and are not interacting with your email messages. If you
notice that certain recipients have never responded to one of your
messages, it may be time to re-engage them or remove them from
your list. Before you do this, make sure you are looking at reporting
across time; don’t just delete people because they didn’t engage
in the past 2 of your 10 email newsletters. There is no exact rule
of thumb for how long subscribers should be inactive before you
pull them from your list. It all depends on the content and nature
of interest in your program. You also must consider seasonal

73
implications. You don’t want to remove subscribers for not interacting
with recent messages if you sell a product for which subscribers only
buy during a couple of seasons.

3. Reactive the inactive

Once you know who is asleep at the inbox, taking steps to remove
them can give your response rates a boost, but only if you do it in the
right manner. There are several ways to “reactivate” these recipients.
The first option is to send a message addressing their lack of
interaction with your previous emails and your plan to remove them
from the list if they don’t resubscribe. To make this most effective,
use the message to find out why they are not reading your messages
or offer some type of incentive or more targeted content in the hopes
they will resubscribe. Take action to keep them on your list and get
them engaged in your email program. If they don’t respond to this
message at all, chances are you’ve lost them.
Another, less recommended option, is to simply email these
inactive recipients to inform them that they will be removed from
your list if they do not resubscribe. This is effective if you simply want
to remove the inactive recipients and don’t want to take the time to
find out why or offer them something of value to stay.
One popular website, CBS SportsLine, decided to cut down
its list and remove inactive recipients to boost the quality and
decrease the quantity. The sports site sent a one-time mailing to
its email subscribers notifying them that they would stop receiving
future emails unless they resubscribed within a certain timeframe.
Reportedly, the site’s list shrank from seven to six figures.
While I wouldn’t recommend completely removing inactive
recipients for all clients, the power is in the quality of the lists, not the
quantity. Being an advertising-driven site, CBS SportsLine can now
command a higher premium for reaching its email subscribers. This
is based on the theory that these subscribers are active and engaged
users since all who did not respond to recent emails were put out
to pasture. The moral of this story is that an engaged and
responsive email database of 10,000 is better than a
100,000 list with few active subscribers.

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 19
TRUTH

The benefits of a robust

preference center

75
 Like an inviting hotel lobby, your email sign-up
experience should be welcoming and evident of
a forthcoming positive experience. If there was
something you could do to decrease the chance that subscribers
would opt out from your email program, wouldn’t you do it? After
all, getting them back after they have disengaged is a lot harder
than it was to get them signed up in the first place.
Luckily, there is something you can do and, surprisingly, not enough
marketers are doing it. It’s called a preference center. Rather than
saying, “Do you want to sign up for my email program,” you should
consider asking, “Do you want to sign up for my newsletter or my
weekly sales offers?” Giving the subscribers several choices on how
they would like for you to communicate with them is a win-win for all.
But the benefit doesn’t end there. Although offering preferences to
subscribers when they are signing up is a huge value, offering them
to subscribers who are attempting to opt out could help you keep
them on your list. An email preference center is the place (or should
be) on your website from which you can add subscribers and prevent
defectors, while also providing a seamless and CAN-SPAM-compliant
method of unsubscribing. For instance, the reason people decide to
unsubscribe may have little to do with content and more to do with
the frequency of your messages. Giving them a preference center
to define or edit frequency preferences (rather than unsubscribe
altogether) may change their mind.
Forrester Research found that the average company loses 30
percent of its email subscriber list each year.1 Although reasons for
this range from disinterest to delivery and hygiene issues, companies
are too often letting their users (or former ones, I should say)
unsubscribe without offering them alternative solutions.
Email service provider Silverpop found that 12 percent of
companies gave customers the chance to change their preferences in
addition to simply opting out.2 However, this means that 88 percent
of the companies surveyed are letting customers leave their low-
cost, high-touch form of retention without even offering them an
alternative!
Email preference centers serve many purposes but primarily offer
users a simple menu style to opt in and out of email newsletters. You

76
 TRUTH

can find the ingredients of a strong preference center in the bulleted

list that follows. And, like a good soup, remember to stir and season
19
based on what works and what doesn’t.

T HE BE N E FITS OF A R OBU ST PR EFER ENCE CENTER

Q Complete description of email offerings—This should include
titles of newsletters, descriptions of what they offer, and the
expected frequency of the email(s). It should include a function
where the subscribers’ current subscriptions are already marked
and made available to view. This is the bread and butter of any
preference center, so make it clear and concise, and don’t bog
users down with too much detail or forget to include overviews
on what and why they should sign up for other email newsletters.
Q Delivery preferences—Subscribers should have the ability to
choose whether they want to receive HTML or text versions (or a
mobile version if you offer one). Use this section to also remind
them to add your From email address or domain to their personal
email white list while their interest in your email is at its highest.
Q Sample of each newsletter—Your preference center should whet
the appetite of prospective subscribers. Give them a chance to
view a sample newsletter, either through a small pop-up window
or by using a larger rollover window.
Q Profile/email address change—Allow subscribers to quickly add
or edit their profiles, which includes their email addresses and
other data you should collect, even if you don’t require it for email
subscription. This also will allow you to segment your database
for better content and advertising opportunities. By allowing
additional data to be collected once the user is subscribed, your
users give you more profile data.
Q Unsubscribe all emails/a la carte—In addition to providing
unsubscribe fields, allow users to update content preferences
as their needs change. For example, if the subscriber has been
receiving auto information from a content site but has bought
the car, the subscriber might want to unsubscribe from the auto
newsletter but not from the sports and business newsletters.
Ensure that your Unsubscribe links and section denote whether
the unsubscribe applies to one email or all company emails.

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Q Promotional offerings—By offering a free product or service
with your email subscription, you entice customers to opt in and
increase user awareness when you first email them. This can be
especially effective when building an email subscription database
from scratch. Be savvy about how and what you cross-promote.
Q Viral component—Provide your new subscribers a chance to
forward your email offer or information about the newsletter to
their friends, family, and coworkers. Everyone likes to be an early
adopter, so make your subscribers feel like they are a vital part of
your community by encouraging them to help it grow. Consider
rewarding these active new subscribers and thanking them for
being valued subscribers or people who are spreading the word
about your company, brand, product, or service.
Q Privacy policy—Always have a link to your privacy policy on the
same page your subscribers use to subscribe, add/edit profile
pages, and so on. This is beneficial since it gives users the chance
to read your strict guidelines (or not) on personal information and
how you handle email marketing from a privacy standpoint.
Q Customer service/contact us—This is just as important as the
privacy policy. The Contact Us functionality is imperative, not
just for customer satisfaction, but also to keep you aware of any
possible subscription malfunctions or glitches that might not
otherwise have been known. Many websites and forms don’t
work, and the website owner is clueless. Of course, you should
test all aspects of your website and email preference center,
but still provide a quick and easy method for subscribers to
contact you.
Q Subscriber leaving/last chance/stay with us offer—Your
Unsubscribe link must be easy and functional, but that doesn’t
mean you can’t offer your nearly departed subscribers a carrot
for them to stay as subscribers or opt in for another newsletter
or service. If anything, provide a simple form asking why they are
unsubscribing before they click and leave you forever.
This type of feedback can help you refine and improve
your email program.

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20
TRUTH

Get more from your

email list

79
 No one likes to leave money on the table. However,
most email marketers are doing exactly that after
spending a great deal of capital and resources in
acquiring new customers and prospects. It costs 5 to 10 times
more to acquire a new customer via email than it does to retain
an existing one.1 So why are so many companies leaving their
best and most thoughtful work for the hard (and expensive) task
of acquiring prospects while their existing customers endure
many seemingly basic and generic emails?
Maybe it has to do with company goals or the general melancholy
that occurs from running ongoing retention campaigns. It shouldn’t.
As most marketing managers know, their best customers are already
in their database and buying things. While this is certainly not
an exclusive problem for online
marketers, it is amazing how many
companies are following this
It costs 5 to 10
trend. You’ve already done half times more to
the battle, so let’s examine some acquire a new
ways to ensure the relationship is
strengthened through email, not
customer via email
diluted. than it does to
Amazon.com pioneered follow-up retain an existing
email campaigns based on previous one.
purchases and no doubt generates
additional revenue through targeted and personalized emails based
on user behavior and demographics. Today, many companies include
contextual product placement in email newsletters and promotional
mailings, but most fail to take into account demographics or
purchase (or browsing) history when creating campaign messaging.
An example of a company doing an excellent job remarketing (for
more on this must-try tactic, please see Truth 38) is Overstock.com. It
bases follow-up promotional emails on recent purchase history and
adapts those messages to each recipient’s interests. Their emails
actually seem to be tailored for me (most likely using a sophisticated
analytics program), rather than typical promotional emails that
advertise things irrelevant to my interests.
Overstock.com even does what I am shocked most retailers
don’t. It sends special email offers related to previously abandoned
80
 TRUTH

shopping carts, meaning I get a further incentive to complete a

previous order. Of course, some retailers don’t want to embrace this
20
discounting strategy, but if it is in line with their brand and value

GE T M OR E FR OM YOU R EM AIL LIST

proposition, I don’t see why retailers wouldn’t send an email to follow
up with their customers after they abandon an order. Closing the loop
is about building a relationship rather than hoping to generate sales
through a one-time email blast.
Many small businesses and service-oriented companies are also
missing the boat on this opportunity. While sales forces and other
on and offline programs (such as search, direct mail, and so on) are
doing the dirty work of lead generation and customer acquisition,
many email communications programs stop once the person
becomes a customer.
Consider the scenario of a small landscaping company. (Although
this could certainly apply to many businesses, of all different shapes
and sizes.) There is an opportunity for the company to conduct
follow-up campaigns that go beyond a quarterly email mentioning
the best time to prune crepe myrtles.
Instead, it could segment customers based on these things:

Q Most recent visit

Q Size of average bill
Q Installation clients, but not maintenance clients
Q Maintenance clients, but not installation
Q Prospects
Q Major clients
Q Previous clients who have not had a service in the past 3, 6, and
12 months

Unique emails could be developed and tailored with custom offers

for each group. A couple who just moved into a new house and spent
$25,000 on a landscape installation may not care (or even may be
offended) if they received an offer for 10 percent off an installation.
However, someone spending $250 a month on maintenance may use
that email offer to pull the trigger on a long-planned project.

81
 The point is that recipients have different needs yet can be grouped
based on their history and potential future. This knowledge is most
likely captured, so why not use it?
One of the keys behind this, after developing your segmentation
strategy, is using campaign metrics to gain valuable insight into the
recipients’ level of interest. Just as with sales calls, recipients can be
grouped accordingly to a lead status. Using the landscaping services
company example, here are some suggestions for the kind of action
you can take based on the lead status of your potential customers.

Lead Status Action

They make a purchase. Schedule an appointment.
Follow up personally. (This is based
on them clicking on the Call to Action
They are close to buying.
link but not completing the form or
purchase.)
Send a follow-up email including a
10% discount offer within a week.
They are interested. (This is based on them clicking on a
link but not scheduling an appointment
or clicking the Buy Now–type link.)
Remarket in two weeks. (This is based
They are potentially interested. on them opening email but not clicking
through.)

Send a very different email offer in

They show no response.
four weeks.

While each campaign and company has its own dynamics,

strengths, and weaknesses, you should perform a basic audit of
campaigns to your most important asset: customers. Even if you are
already using these follow-up email marketing tactics and excelling
with them, it is always worth the time to maximize use of
email in effective communications to your customer base.
It is well worth it in the long run, both for increased revenue
and customer loyalty.

82
PART VI: THE TRUTH ABOUT BEST PRACTICES

21
TRUTH

Length and your call

to action

83
 When talking with clients and prospects, I get asked
many of the same questions about what works best for
email marketing. What works well for others may not
work for you. However, one general rule can be applied for most
email marketing campaigns: Keep your emails concise and to the
point.
With plenty of competition in the Keep your emails
inbox, on the web, and elsewhere, it
is wise to assume you have a limited
concise and to the
opportunity to catch and keep a point.
recipient’s attention.
Clients often ask me to weigh in on whether I think their emails
are too long and content heavy. I want to discuss two different
examples of how length and a clear call to action within the content
play an important role in determining your email message’s chance
for success. These are based on promotional emails, but the general
rules apply to any type of email communication. Let’s look at a
fictional scenario of two different emails with the same goal but
different approaches to length and call to action.
A well-known magazine publisher is hosting an upcoming event
aimed at gathering thousands of industry vendors, subscribers, and
thought leaders. This is the publisher’s biggest event of the year
and generates substantial revenue. There is a lot of pressure on the
marketing team to increase registration, and email is the team’s
main strategy for reaching potential registrants. The team decides to
send two different emails and see which one performs better. Let’s
compare the two.

Email 1: long copy

In the first email, the marketing team decided on long copy. The
marketing team members had so much information to share with
potential attendees and wanted to make sure that key points on the
purpose of the event, location, speakers, workshops, and date were
included. Hoping to capitalize on the attention of the recipients who
opened the email, the marketing team decided to put everything
about the conference directly in the message body. This would mean
less work and effort for the recipients who wanted to register or learn

84
 TRUTH

more. The email also contained an image that, upon clicking, would
direct recipients directly to the registration page.
21
The verdict:

LE N GT H AN D YOU R C ALL TO AC TION

Hopefully, you are cringing by reading this. I know I did while writing
it. The problem with this message is that the copy was so long that
the recipients likely got lost and didn’t see the clear purpose of the
email. Trying to give the recipients too much information backfired.
In addition, the call to action (registration link) was buried deep in
the email. To top it off, the fact that the link was an image meant that
it probably didn’t show up for many of the recipients whose email
filters block images.

Email 2: short copy

The second email tested by the team had much shorter copy. The
recipients were separated by size of company, and a targeted
message was sent to each list segment. Above the fold were key
pieces of information on the conference and a link to a website that
would allow recipients to register. The call to action and purpose of
the email were clearly stated above the fold. In addition, the team
decided to try placing the call to action in a few different places,
hopefully increasing the chance it would get some attention.
The verdict:
Obviously, the second email was the smarter choice. By keeping the
email simple, clearly stating the purpose, offering multiple call-to-
action links, and, most importantly, segmenting for higher relevancy,
the marketing team was on its way to increasing registrations and
revenue.
Here are the key takeaways.

Q Keep your emails succinct and your message on target to achieve

your goals.
Q If you have a lot of content, put it on the website and link to it
from the email.
Q You have a limited window of recipients scanning your email—
design accordingly.

85
Q Provide incentive for recipients to click through such as a creative
call to action beyond the standard “Click Here.” An example
would be, on a holiday email, “Get Your Christmas Cheer Here
(not to mention free shipping).” Doesn’t that stand out and
compel you to act more than a Click Here button?
Q Clearly define your internal goal. (If it is revenue, determine which
link is the driver and ensure proper and prime placement.)
Q Make the layout of the email easy for recipients to quickly act
upon.
Q Create an engaging Subject line that clues recipients in to the
purpose of the email.
Q Think about what shows up “above the fold.” If recipients only
view your email in their preview pane, can they see the call to
action?
Q Whether newsletter or promotional email, test it with some
nonstakeholders to see how they view and respond to the email.
Q Use the same call-to-action link in multiple places in the email
(text and image).
Q Prevent overwhelming the email with nonessential content by
minimizing distractions (images, corporate marketing, and the
like) that don’t further your goal.
Q Measure and compare the results. Don’t just focus on the
aggregate stats (opens and click-throughs) for the email, but
which links were clicked. When analyzing the data, use that
information for the next campaign. This means if most of the
people clicked on a graphic promoting a separate product or
service that wasn’t the feature of the email, 1) your call
to action wasn’t clear and 2) the heavily clicked-on
secondary image deserves its own email focused solely
on that product/service.

86
22
TRUTH

Creating an email
newsletter

87
 Although email newsletters generally feel like a
necessary evil for many marketing teams that produce
them, they are a great way to share relevant content
with email subscribers and also weave in a little promotional
nuance. Compared to more direct response promotional emails,
they can take longer to produce. It’s also much harder to measure
the ROI of a newsletter, since immediate sales are rarely the
objective. Newsletters are relationship builders, which means
there is revenue to be had, just not the immediate kind that
promotional emails often deliver.
Email newsletters generally provide specific content and differ from
promotional emails in that they are not “selling” anything. Financially,
they sustain themselves by offering advertisements or by delivering
visitors to the website where ads are displayed. An example would
be a daily newsletter from your local newspaper or preferred media
outlet that highlights the top stories of the day.
However, on the recipient side, email newsletters are often
preferred due to their less frequent nature and valuable (hopefully)
content. Content companies have long championed email
newsletters and monetized them in different ways. But many
organizations primarily use email as a tool for generating revenue.
That means online and traditional retailers often ignore the option of
a newsletter and stick to sending promotional emails.
The Nielsen Norman Group1 has reported that, when compared to
websites, newsletters have the emotional capability to create much
more of a bond between end users and a company. Implementing
a newsletter, in addition to your overall program, can deliver some
powerful results.

Q Build the relationship; don’t burn it—The primary goal of a

newsletter should be to enhance the relationships you already
have with customers and prospects. This is more difficult when
you have sales goals to achieve and use email primarily as a sales
channel. You must, however, provide a reason for your audience
to stay subscribed and believe there is value in providing
permission to receive email communications from your company.
Q Provide unique value of being a subscriber—While special
“email-only” coupons are of value (and great for acquiring new
88
 TRUTH

opt-ins), retaining a subscriber’s permission and interest is a

different challenge. A newsletter can remind them that there
22
is significance in being a subscriber. Remember, especially for

CR E AT IN G AN EM AIL N EWSLETTER
retailers, after a person completes a purchase, they might not
need your emails, especially the promotional ones. However, a
newsletter that offers product or service usage tips and news,
surveys, and general contextual content will help keep them on
the list until they’re back in purchase mode.
Q Soft sell—You don’t want to hammer away at one of your
most valuable assets (your mailing list) with constant offers,
“news,” and irrelevant sales propaganda. The soft sell is a
way to communicate various messages without being overly
promotional.
Q Cross promote—Email newsletters, when designed properly,
provide a powerful venue for cross-promoting, upselling, and
marketing additional capabilities and products, as well as sister
brands and partners. Whether with text or images, there are many
ways to do this. Use the right layout and messaging, and you can
achieve targeted cross-promotional goals. Even better, you’ll be
able to quantify these results and optimize in future editions.
The subtle background messaging in most newsletters should be
“Our products/services are great—buy them.”
Q Reduce your frequency (but not your marketing messages)—
Using many of the best practices mentioned here and getting
cross-departmental involvement, one of the major benefits
of an email newsletter is that it reduces the need for unique
emails from every department within your brand or company.
While getting buy-in on a newsletter is tough, your prospects or
customers win when they get less frequent email messages but
more valuable content. Remember: Your sales and marketing
team may not view it this way, but the user will thank you by not
unsubscribing. One client even used this rationale in pitching
the concept to his company. They were worried about internal
“email users” burying their subscribers with competing individual
messages. Instead, the company created a new email product
that combined disparate content and messages into one monthly
newsletter that accomplished all company and group goals while
keeping its email subscribers’ needs at the forefront.
89
Q Get paid—After you have built up an audience, a nice variety of
content, and some solid metrics to back up your success, revenue
for advertising and sponsorship of newsletters can serve as an
additional income stream. Many newsletters exist solely for this
reason, and it is usually unknown to the subscriber (when done
properly). Especially with niche newsletters that attract a loyal
audience, an advertiser may love the targeting and economics
of exposure to your audience. As long as the sponsorship/
advertising is CAN-SPAM compliant and done responsibly, the
subscriber may find this beneficial, while your investment begins
to pay off.

Nielsen Norman Group research has stated that email newsletters

that are informative, convenient, and timely are often preferred
over other media. However, the study found that only 11 percent of
newsletters were read thoroughly, so creating the right layout is key.2
Newsletters must be designed to facilitate scanning and a quick
read. Of course, you need to spend the extra time on the upfront
design, coding, testing, and tweaking to see what your users prefer.
Remember that this should not be an email version of your annual
report, but one that emphasizes brevity with a compelling and easy-
to-read layout.

Q Tease the articles and link back to your site, whether you are a
content- or retail-oriented company.
Q Your headline copy is crucial. Test some copy on Google AdWords
or through a small test on your list.
Q Monitor the stats and see what sections are clicked most often
and how that compares to your sales-oriented email campaigns.
Q Test different Subject lines, layout, and even a text-only
newsletter against an HTML version.
Q Establish a set frequency. Whether it is monthly or daily, let the
subscribers know how often they will receive your newsletter, and
don’t change the publishing schedule for each edition.
Q Let subscribers know what they are getting. The sign-up
form should articulate what the newsletter will entail
and how often it will be sent.

90
 23
TRUTH

Establishing the right email

frequency

91
 One of the questions I’m asked the most is, “How often
should we send email messages to our list?” Quite
simply, there is no simple and catch-all answer to that
seemingly easy, yet complicated (and loaded) question. However,
there are several rules of thumb to help you make an educated
decision regarding the optimal frequency mix for your email
marketing deployment calendar.

Not too much and not too little

“Well, no kidding,” you may think. While establishing maximum
frequency guidelines is a must (such as never more than two emails
per month, per user), you should also consider minimum standards.
Whether your list contains 500 or 500,000 people, you should be
mailing to it on a monthly basis at the very least. Not meeting this
minimum threshold puts you at
risk of diluting the permission the Ask customers how
subscribers have given.
often they would
Think about it: You may have
signed up for various newsletters,
prefer to hear from
updates, and alerts from trusted you when they
websites and brands, but if you opt in.
don’t hear from them for five
months, you may grow disinterested or—worse—forget that you
granted them permission to send email communications in the first
place. Infrequent messaging could lead to a rise in unsubscribes and
spam reports.
When you commit to sending at a certain frequency, make sure you
can deliver useful, valuable, and engaging emails on this schedule. It
is both about making sure your content is relevant and that you have
the internal resources to make it happen.

Never more than once within 48 hours

All bets are off on this one if the email is triggered based on breaking
news (such as CNN Breaking News Updates) or other timely content.
However, if you are sending a general newsletter or promotional
piece, abide by this rule or run the risk of generating unsubscribes
and low response rates.

92
 TRUTH

If you didn’t achieve the results you wanted on Tuesday, altering

the message and redeploying it the next day may get the VP of
23
marketing off your back, but it won’t change the way recipients view

ESTABLISHIN G THE R IGHT EM AIL FR EQUENCY

your email.
I won’t offer up any names, but I recently subscribed to an email
list for a regional retailer. The retailer sent me two emails in two
days. (One was for a women’s special, but that is a different story.)
I promptly unsubscribed and hope to never see an email from this
retailer again. The relationship (off- and online) it built with me was
hurt by too frequent email deployments. This is every email marketing
manager’s worst scenario.

Frequency segmentation
Many companies wisely use list segmentation to determine the
different types of content and offers to send unique email messages
to customers. You can also use this technique to determine optimal
frequency rates. While response from one group of customers may
be higher with mailings every week, another group may respond
better with a monthly frequency. So consider adjusting frequency for
different types of customers based on resulting metrics and insight
gathered from response analytics.
Better yet, quit playing the guessing game and ask customers how
often they would prefer to hear from you when they opt in. This saves
dollars on costly market research and segmentation and ensures that
your customers get exactly what they what.

Use your metrics

Frequency should not be as simple as, “We don’t mail to our
customers more than twice a month.” Just as with any marketing and
sales program, email marketing campaigns should be adapted based
on the response to each program. Email provides marketers with
more information than almost any other marketing medium. This data
should be used to evaluate and establish your frequency mix. For
instance, if 14 percent of users clicked on the Buy link in your email
but only 10 percent of them completed the transaction, wouldn’t you
consider the ones who clicked but did not buy to be your hot leads?
In the offline world, you would probably focus your sales resources
on converting this 4 percent.

93
 With email, you have it easier. Tailor a campaign to those folks
who have expressed an interest in your product or service, test the
creative elements and specific offer or incentive within, and then
send it about a week after their original click-through. Keep a close
eye on their response. Should you resend an email that soon to the
rest of your list? No. The point is to use your metrics as a map to
adapt the battle plan and convert the low-hanging fruit.

Rules should guide, not restrict

The key to establishing the right email frequency with your
customers, as in every aspect of email marketing, is to plan, test,
adapt, analyze, and refine. Each marketer will find that different
rules apply for different customers. If you are selling snow tires, you
need to be flexible on frequency and make changes according to
seasons, sending more email right before winter and relatively few in
the spring. If this applies to your company, you’ll want to ensure the
frequency possibilities and that they may change based on seasons
or other factors. Otherwise, you may get mismatched expectation
and subscribers getting more or less
The key to email than they intended, which
might lead to spam complaints and
establishing relationship issues.
the right email Although the guidelines I’ve
frequency with outlined should help you establish
your customers... rules for your organization, the
is to plan, test, key is to always be as flexible as
customers’ desires and
adapt, analyze, preferences are quick to
and refine. shift in this space.

94
24
TRUTH

Personalization

95
 Incorporating personalization, or adding content that
makes it appear as though the message was created
specifically for an individual recipient, is a great way to
connect with recipients, keep them engaged and, hopefully, drive
results in the process. The types of personalization vary, but long
gone are the days of blasting the same email message to your
entire database. We all know better than that. And we know that
customers and prospects expect tailored email communications.
If you aren’t giving them what they want, you might be missing
out, too.
Regardless of the approach, Customers and
personalization can be a win-win for prospects expect
both you and your subscribers. And
assuming you have the right data
tailored email
handy, it can be relatively easy. communications.
When you decide to begin, don’t stress over the data you don’t
have. Instead, first take the approach of looking at existing data and
metrics to determine where personalization might work well and
move you closer to the end goal. You may be surprised at the many
ways that what you already have in place can work for you. Later,
once you see the value in adding personalization, you may want to
consider capturing or reviewing additional types of data.
According to a survey by Responsys, 40 percent of marketers
restrict personalization efforts to the salutation of email messages.1
While this is a good place to start, there are many ways to personalize
a message. Let’s look at this approach and others.

Subject lines
Personalizing Subject lines is something marketers have done for
some time and continue to do. However, over time, spammers also
began to use first-name personalization in Subject lines to catch the
eyes of recipients and persuade them to open messages. Of course,
this diminished its effectiveness but is still worth testing to your
recipients.
In addition to testing the person’s first name in the Subject line,
you should look for other ways to personalize the Subject line,
which often is the key determining factor to getting an email read.

96
 TRUTH

For example, Amazon.com may send a promotional email offering

a discounted rate on books, but it could personalize it for the
24
recipient who has expressed an interest in history with a Subject

PE R SON ALIZATION
line saying, “Special offer on our top-selling history reads.” Comb
through your existing data and find a unique way to use Subject
line personalization. I have also created a campaign for a major
automotive interest where the Subject line has the make of the
recipient’s car in the Subject line. This gets people’s attention, which
is the first step in any email message.

Salutation
At this point, almost every marketer personalizes the salutation of
messages. First name is a data field you most likely capture during
the email subscription process, so if you aren’t doing it now, put it to
good use.
Although this is a simple way to personalize, make sure you test
before you send to ensure personalization is working properly.
I speak from experience. The first email message sent from
EmailStatCenter.com went out with broken personalization. Instead
of seeing the intended “Hi John,” each recipient saw “Hi <first
name>.” The lesson was painfully learned after 800 email marketing
professionals received the email. Even the most seasoned email
marketing professionals make mistakes, but testing can help you
avoid the same fate. It’s worth noting that you may have some
subscribers in your database who lack first names. Ensure that there
is a default salutation (like friend or valued customer) for those folks.

Demographics
Chances are, you gather some type of demographic information on
subscribers. These are fields like age, geographic location, gender,
and so on, and these are ways that you can segment and personalize
to help meet the goals relevant to your business.
For example, subscribers are likely providing a mailing address or
state when signing up for email communications from you. This can
make it easy to segment and personalize by geographic area. A travel
agent could send offers for Caribbean cruise deals to subscribers
in cold climates and something more appropriate to those living in
warmer areas. Chances are, a travel agent would have better luck

97
selling a Caribbean cruise to someone living in upstate New York in
December than to someone living in Mexico. This is a great example
of using demographic data at the right time of the year to increase
the relevancy to the recipient.
Using demographics to personalize messages can seem simple,
but try to think outside the box and beyond the basic data fields to
identify unique ways to connect with recipients and, ultimately, meet
your end goals.

Buying history
If your data goes deep enough to help identify targets and
segments based on buying history, use it. This not only allows
you to personalize offers, but it also gives you an opportunity to
reward loyal customers and encourage repeat purchases. iTunes is
a great example of using data to encourage additional purchases. It
recommends music based on songs previously purchased to each
user. Include this type of information combined with a discount in an
email, and you’ve definitely increased your chances of making a sale.

Call to action
Personalize the viral call to action to entice your subscribers to
market to their friends on your behalf. For example, if you’re selling
diamonds and send an email campaign to female subscribers, do
something different than simply saying, “Forward to a friend.” It may
be more effective to say, “Jane, wouldn’t your husband want this
email as a reminder for Valentine’s Day? Forward it to him.”

Content
I’ll talk about this more in the next Truth, but more in-depth
segmenting allows you to personalize the overall content of your
email messages in a variety of ways. For example, a major retailer
sending an email about a new line of winter sweaters could send
the women on the list only information on the women’s line. It could
also segment those women based on those who live in cold climates.
Taking it a step further, the retailer could look at the women’s buying
history to incorporate similar items they might buy. The
options for personalizing content are endless and can get
pretty complicated, but doing it right can result in happy
customers and increased sales.
98
 25
TRUTH

Segment lists for more

targeted emails

99
 Prospects and customers have different needs and
wants. They are in different stages of the buying
process. Some are repeat customers, and some are
new. Some are just looking around and end up finding something
they didn’t know they needed. You shouldn’t take the same
approach for marketing to these different groups. Segmenting
your list based on the desired outcome of a campaign, user
actions, and other factors will make your email communications
more relevant and efficient.
Segmenting, or splitting, your list is the practice of splitting your
audience into two or more groups and sending each group a different
email. This can have a positive effect on your open rates.
According to research from senior analyst David Daniels of
JupiterResearch, untargeted broadcast emails, with no personalization
or segmentation, have an average open rate of 20%, click-through
rate of 9.5%, and conversion rate of 1.1%. On the other hand, cam-
paigns that integrate website click-stream data (data from how your
website visitors behave) for targeting perform even stronger. They
post impressive averages, including 33% average open rate, 14%
click-through rate, and 3.9% conversion rate.1
Segmenting emails does the following:

Q Aligns marketing messages with your audience’s current profile

and past behavior
Q Allows you to test marketing messages and offers among
different groups, which in turn can help you learn more about
your customers and prospects, not to mention what campaign
aspects hit home
Q Deliver the right content at the right time to move prospects
througsh the buying process
Q Increases relevancy and, as a result, open and click-through rates
Q Helps minimize opt-outs
Q Puts the email and web analytics data you possess to good use
Q Moves you closer toward a one-to-one-based email program and
away from broadcast or batch-and-blast type deployments

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 TRUTH

Segmenting isn’t always easy. You can choose to get very

sophisticated, which can be difficult and expensive but brings high
25
ROI. Or you can begin incorporating simple, low-level segmentation

SEGM E N T LISTS FOR M OR E TAR GETED EMAILS

(like using gender to segment), which also brings benefits and is
offered by most email tools. The more you put into segmenting, the
more you get out of it, but it is okay to start with a simple approach.
Luc Vezina of Campaigner shares this tip for the segmentation
beginners: “If you don’t have a lot of data, you can start with
something simple like the number of months a contact has been
subscribed to your list. The important thing is to make sure that list
segments are aligned with your overall email marketing goals.”
If you aren’t sure where to begin and feel overwhelmed by digging
into your list to determine how you might segment it, start with
something simple. Here are some criteria you can use to segment:

Q Customers versus prospects

Q Long-standing, loyal customers versus one-time, transient buyers
Q Location and industry
Q Gender and job title
Q Users who open or click on your emails versus those who don’t

As you become more comfortable, you can build on what you’ve

learned and segment based on more advanced criteria. However,
some of the options listed here may require you to integrate your
email database with your website analytics or Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) application.

Buying history
Taking a look at the buying history of subscribers shows you a lot
about their interests and can uncover opportunities to up-sell or
offer complementary products. If you know someone who bought
a color printer from you last month, sending an email offer for 20
percent off ink cartridges this month might not be a bad idea. If you
are a business-to-business (B2B) company, you can look at those
subscribers who bought your product or service previously but
dropped off after the contract expired or haven’t purchased from you
in a designated time period.

101
 Be wary of training your customers to buy only when they receive
incentives and special offers. Using their transaction history doesn’t
have to mean sending coupons. Consider utilizing an email that
highlights new products or services or even press about your
company. Staying on their radar can work when email is building and
strengthening relationships with your customers.

Interests or preferences
If you’ve set up a preference center (see Truth 19), segmenting
your list based on the interests of your users is easy. For example,
an online music retailer might send an email notifying subscribers
interested in jazz music when a new CD is released. Setting up a
preference center is a surefire way to move toward targeting email
messages and offers. It works for your subscribers by allowing them
to choose what kind of content they prefer to receive. It also gives
you with a gold mine of data to use for segmenting.

Behavior
Retailers have pioneered behavioral targeting, which can lead to
some interesting segmentation. By segmenting users who performed
(or not) a specific action, like abandoning a shopping cart, retailers
can potentially recapture the sale by following up with an email offer
that further entices the users.
Any type of business can segment using behavioral targeting. For
example, B2B companies can look at whether a user registered for
a white paper but then never opened the email that contained it.
Any business should explore click-stream data to enhance email
segmentation. If you knew that prospects visited your site, wouldn’t
you like to send them a relevant email to them to complete the
purchase? Campaigns that target based on website user click-
stream data generate conversion rates that outperform nontargeted
broadcast campaigns by nearly 4 to 1.3
Most marketers fail to effectively segment email campaigns
because of the extra time they have to invest. Most of
us invest time and resources in building a database,
marketing’s biggest asset but then don’t use it to our
advantage.

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 26
TRUTH

Great Subject lines drive a

strong response

103
 It may seem like a very basic part of an email message,
but the Subject line is arguably the most influential
piece of copy when it comes to getting subscribers to
open and read emails. And that
isn’t all. Seven in ten U.S. Internet
users said they judged From and
The Subject line is
Subject lines when deciding arguably the most
whether to report an email as influential piece of
spam.1
copy.
From my experience, most
companies do not give enough attention to effective Subject line
creation. I find that Subject lines are often written right before the
email deployment and are not tested for success, much less thought
about in a strategic sense. It’s hard to believe considering that the
Subject line of an email message is what many of us use to determine
whether we open or delete it. Forrester Research discovered 52% of
emails reviewed in a study used Subject lines to describe the email
content yet gave no indication of the value recipients would get as
a result of opening the messages. Clearly, we all can improve in this
area.
Although I’m going to cover several aspects of a strong Subject
line, remember that recognition (the recipient recognizing you and
your company) and content (the value included in the email) are
the two most important things when it comes to getting someone to
open a message from you.
Here are some of my favorite tips for creating an effective Subject
line.

Q Length—Short and sweet Subject lines work best. Our research

shows less than 50 characters is the general rule of thumb, and
this seems to be getting shorter as time goes by. Business-to-
business (B2B) companies often need less than 20 characters
due to the fact many readers review emails on their PDA or
mobile phone. In fact, new research has indicated that many busy
professionals review emails on their phone and delete anything
that doesn’t seem essential. This places more emphasis on
Subject lines to do the initial selling and prevent messages from
being deleted on a handheld. Be aware of how your audience

104
 TRUTH

reads emails, and consider adding a limit to the characters that

can be used in the Subject line for your email team to follow as
26
you create new policies for your email program. You are going to

GR E AT SU BJEC T LIN ES DR IVE A STR ONG RESPONSE

do that after reading this book, right? It really makes an impact,
based on the clients’ track records we work with that have
instituted such a policy.
Q Brand—Brand recognition is a key factor in getting your emails
opened, and a strong brand name often lifts your open rate.
However, don’t take this asset for granted by assuming it always
works. Test brand recognition in your Subject line to see if that
lifts response rates. If your company has many departments or
individuals that send emails, often the collective Subject lines can
be disjointed. If possible, try to get your employees on the same
page when it comes to incorporating your brand.
Q Content—Strong offers and giving the subscribers a tease of
the valuable content they’ll find in the email generally work well.
Mundane Subject lines such as, “Monthly Newsletter” do little to
indicate what is in the email or offer a reason to open and read
it. The email users see some intrinsic value to being subscribers,
so pique their interest by highlighting the biggest benefit of each
message in the Subject line. While there are no magic words
that label you as spam, you generally want to avoid using ALL
CAPS, exclamation marks, and the word “Free.” In general, any
Subject line sounding like spam may be perceived as such by
the recipient’s spam filter, even it isn’t picked up by the ISP or
corporate spam filter.
Q Call to action—In promotional emails, subscribers are expecting
a unique or valuable offer, so include the offer and call to action
in the Subject line. For example, if you are running a special on
Valentine’s Day gifts, and that special expires today, you might try
“Last Chance—Valentine’s Day Special Ends Today.”
Q Personalize—As I mentioned in Truth 24, personalization
in Subject lines can be effective. Additionally, look for other
personal data to use, such as the recipients’ hometown
or birthday to further increase response rates. Including a
subscriber’s first name in a birthday email from a national
restaurant chain increases open rates. Test it for yourself.

105
Q Test—Great copy in a Word document might not look as strong
in an email client’s Subject line. A key promotion warrants two
Subject lines tested, rather than placing your bets on a gut feeling
or the first copy that springs to mind. Given the Subject line’s
influence on campaign success, consider testing every Subject
line. Would you really want to waste a campaign by sending it
to your entire list without first testing the effectiveness of two
different Subject lines on separate segments of your audience?
Q Honesty—Make sure your Subject line is a good indicator of the
content within the message. Misleading Subject lines are not only
frustrating for recipients, but they are also often a violation of
national antispam legislation, such as CAN-SPAM in the United
States.
Q Be wary of roadblocks in measuring opens—When it comes
to gauging the effectiveness of a Subject line, an open rate
is a strong indicator. However, open rate is also an imperfect
measurement given that some people have an email displayed
on their Outlook preview pane and don’t actually click within
the email to open it. Simply previewing the email in the preview
pane counts as an open, even if the recipient doesn’t read it.
Of course, this can skew your results. Likewise, some people
choose not to display images in email (or have their settings
preset to block images), so even if those readers do open your
message or preview it in the preview pane, the views don’t
count as an open because the images are turned off in the
message. Everyone loves to talk about open rates. However, a
50 percent open rate means nothing if you didn’t generate sales.
Likewise, a 10 percent open rate with a high conversion rate
might be considered a winner. Refer to Appendix C,
“Useful statistics,” on the companion website (www.
TheTruthAboutEmailMarketing.com) for industry
benchmarks.

106
 27
TRUTH

Consider the From line

107
 With any form of direct communication, your
relationship with the person on the other end of the
phone, in the return address of an envelope, or in the
From line of an email has a lot to do with the initial response
(or lack thereof) and ultimate success of that communication
effort. To open an email message, the recipient usually needs to
recognize the person or company sending it. In fact, 56 percent of
email respondents cited knowing and trusting the sender as the
determining reason for opening an email.1
Commercial email campaigns might show any of the following in
the From line:

Q A person within a company (CEO)

Q A department within a company (customer service)
Q A company/brand name
Q A descriptive name (name of newsletter if unique and compelling)
Q Name of a product (for example, Palm Treo)

While companies that have well-known executives (generally in the

business-to-business, or B2B, space) have success including an
executive’s name in the From line, consumer-oriented companies
should leverage their brands in the
From line and be consistent in doing If your company
so. If your company is a household is a household
brand name, you have little reason brand name, you
to consider using something else in
the From line. have little reason
Choosing a From line should be to consider using
an exercise in understanding your something else in
relationship with the recipients. the From line.
Think of which part of your business
recipients most identify with and
recognize. Of course, you want recipients to notice the person or
brand in the From line to spur them to open the message, but you
also want to ensure they don’t report the message as spam. In
fact, 73 percent make the decision to click on the Report Spam or

108
 TRUTH

Junk button using the From line,

according to the Email Sender and
You want 27
Provider Coalition.2 recipients to

CON SIDE R THE FR OM LIN E

Follow my tips for From lines, notice the person
and you’ll be well on your way or brand in the
to one of the most integral parts From line to spur
of a successful email marketing
campaign.
them to open
the message, but
Q Let the Subject line do some of you also want
the work. As discussed in Truth
26, your Subject line can and
to ensure they
should do the job of setting up don’t report the
the content and purpose of the message as spam.
email. That being said, the From
line should simply show who
sent the message. When crafting a From line, keep the Subject
line in mind and make sure the two work well together.
Q Don’t forget the From email address. I’m not speaking of the
display name. The From email address is important since some
email clients only show the From email address and not the
display name. Also, some people review the address in addition
to the display name before deciding to open a message.
Including the email address also aids in deliverability, so be
careful not to change your From address if at all possible since
people often add the From email address to their white list or
safe sender list.
Q Of course, make sure your company domain is listed in the From
address, rather than the email address of your email provider,
advertising firm, freelance contractor, or a team member’s
personal account at AOL. You may find that odd advice, but many
email addresses in the From address are not connected to the
actual brand/sender. Since spammers and phishing schemes
utilize this method, make sure you are not in the same boat as
they are.
Q In some cases, if you are working with an email service provider
and using its domain to send, its company name may appear in

109
 the From address, and there may be nothing you can do about
it. If this happens, at least make sure your company name or
brand is included before the @ portion of the From address. This
is an important question to ask upfront prior to working with a
company that will send emails on your behalf.

Remember transactional emails

Transactional emails such as order confirmation or shipping
notifications (please see Truth 29 for details on this important part
of an email program) should follow the same rules laid out here for
your From lines. IT departments often set up transactional emails,
which can spell trouble for marketers who want consistency and
cross-promotional messaging options. Be sure to apply any
changes you make to your main marketing and newsletter
campaigns to these transactional messages.

110
28
TRUTH

Test, test, test

111
 Of all the available marketing approaches, none could
possibly give you the benefit of testing the way email
does. I’m not surprised that most email marketers
aren’t taking full advantage of the benefits that frequent email
testing can provide. They think it takes up too much time to
truly pay off. However, even making a small investment to test
improves results.
In a study by JupiterResearch, marketers who tested email
campaigns were almost twice as likely to attain conversion rates of
3% or better. Email marketers who utilized testing also achieved a
68% improvement in return on investment (ROI) over those who
didn’t test.1
So, you’re probably wondering what to test. There are as many
ways to test an email message as there are benefits. To put it simply,
if testing can impact response
rates and improve your recipients’ If testing can
experience, you could and should
test.
impact response
Most testing works by taking
rates and improve
a small sample of your list and your recipients’
dividing that sample into two experience, you
segments, called A/B Split testing.
For example, if your list was made
could and should
up of 9,000 recipients, you would test.
take a random sample of 900
recipients from the overall list and
divide it into two groups. You would then send different versions of
your email to each list to find out which performed the best. Knowing
this, you would send the most effective one to the remainder of your
list. There is no mathematical equation for figuring out how much of
a list you should use for testing, but a good rule of thumb is to pick a
sample of at least 1,000 recipients but, of course, the sample should
vary based on your list size.
Consider testing some of these elements.

Q Subject lines—I’ve already mentioned that Subject lines have

a big impact on email metrics. However, random testing won’t

112
 TRUTH

give you game-changing insight that you may be looking for.

To get the big picture, test Subject lines regularly, especially if
28
you want to improve open rates. Whether testing broad Subject

T EST, T EST, TEST

line techniques (such as short versus long Subject lines) or two
specific Subject lines against each other, you should test Subject
lines in every campaign, if possible.
Q Email creative/design—Trying to keep up with all the latest
email clients and their filtering rules can make implementing new
creative, or your email design, challenging. When you have a new
creative concept, you want to test it to ensure it displays properly
and is well received by your audience. Testing new templates and
creative concepts is a cost-effective method of gauging interest
before going live with a campaign. Giving marketing creative a trial
run in email doesn’t just apply to online marketing campaigns but
can also be applied to traditional advertising campaigns. I learned
this while working at Cox when our head of marketing had the
novel idea to test all creative messaging, from billboards to display
ads, within our email campaigns before launching them. While
it isn’t necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison, you can use
email to test responses to different creative and then apply the
lessons learned to other channels before it is too late. (Have you
ever had to get a billboard ad taken down in 12 hours? It’s not an
easy task.)
Q Viral calls to action—Most email marketers woefully underutilize
the power of viral email marketing and use the generic “tell a
friend” button provided by their email tool. Consider comparing
that with more compelling copy that provides a call to action such
as, “Share what you want for Christmas with your family.”
Q Frequency—Afraid you may be sending too many emails?
Compare high- and low-frequency recipient groups to find out
which frequency helps or hurts response rates.
Q Day of week/time of day—Studies on the best day of the week
or time to email vary by industry and are often irrelevant, so
why not conduct your own mini-study to determine the time
and day of the week that generates the most responses for your
campaigns?

113
Q Type of recipient—If the subscribers on your list vary in type, you
may want to consider segmenting based on their demographic
information. For example, one easy way is to differentiate the “at
home” addresses (such as Aol.com) from the “at work” addresses
(such as @company.com).
Q Subscription process/full email subscriber process—Anyone
with an email sign-up form should conduct a monthly test to
ensure all Subscribe, Unsubscribe, and Contact Us links or forms
work. Take the time (or have the summer intern do this task!) to
act as an email subscriber and make sure everything is working
properly.
Q Complement your paid search efforts—Utilizing Google Ad
Words is a quick and easy way to test Subject lines. For an email
campaign promoting widgets, two search ad groups featuring
widget-related keywords should be tested with different ad copy
that mirrors the proposed Subject lines. Whichever one gets
more clicks on Google is a safe bet to gain a higher open rate.
It can work both ways, where strong Subject lines often make
compelling search ads.

What’s stopping you?

Like I said before, marketers sometimes fail to test simple but
important elements of a message, such as Subject lines. Usually,
this is because of poor timing or lack of resources. If you have time
to test but not time to implement your findings, don’t worry. If your
list is too small to run a test to
Testing is the different groups, at least look for
patterns across time. Bumps in
first step. The performances might be associated
knowledge you with particular offers or types of
gain can help you Subject lines. Testing is the first
maximize future step. The knowledge
you gain can help you
email messages. maximize future email
messages.

114
29
TRUTH

Maximizing
system-generated and
automated emails

115
 Most email marketers have enough going on with
their daily campaign responsibilities that they rarely
have time to review the smaller elements of email.
However, automated messaging, those pesky, system-generated
confirmations or auto responders that your IT group probably
controls, deserve their own email audit.
There are several simple ways to optimize these emails for
improved response rates, delivery, and overall marketing messaging.
First, these are the types of emails that fall into the automated
messaging bucket:

Q Email subscription confirmations/welcome emails

Q Confirmation of sweepstakes/promotional entry
Q Order confirmations and tracking/shipping notifications
Q Customer service automated replies
Q Confirmation of changes to subscription or member/site profile
Q Email containing a login name or password requested by a user
Q Automated customer surveys
Q Emails sent through a forward-to-a-friend (F2F) tool

You may think that these emails are nonmarketing, boring messages
that have nothing to do with email campaigns. These emails often
get higher opens and more attention. If given the right strategic
attention, they can pack more power than you think. Here are
features and best practices you should include in these underrated
emails:

Q Test and send HTML automated emails. Don’t always send

automated messages as text-only since HTML automated emails
can ensure branding across the board. If you have doubts about
how an HTML version of an automated message will render or
function, test it.
Q Deliverability matters—everywhere. In some cases, the
automated welcome message (if you send one) may be the first
email new subscribers receive from you. Ensure they have any
necessary white list/safe sender information to make sure that
this email doesn’t become the last.

116
 TRUTH

Q
Include basic header and footer information.
Personalize when data is available. Automated messages
29
should include first name, at the very least, if possible. It is

MAXIM IZIN G SYSTEM -GEN ER ATED AND AUTOMATED EMAILS

especially important to include personalization in all purchase
confirmations, as this data is obviously accessible.
Q Utilize cross-promotional efforts. For most companies, cross-
promotional offers and incentives should be included in the
body of all automated emails. They should be tested and rotated
frequently, and copy should be consistent with the rest of the
language in the email so it does not feel forced. There are often
different laws for transactional and marketing emails (definitely
when sending in the United States), so if you do cross-sell, be
sure to retain the basic transactional purpose of the message.
Q Control your Subject and From lines. I have seen Subject lines
with a long series of numbers and some that are completely
blank. The From line is essential for any message to be read.
Ensure your brand is in the automated From line even if the
From line email address is different from that of your other email
campaigns.
Q Customer care contact information is essential. Ensure automated
emails have links to any relevant customer care pages. Offer a
general email and phone number for customer care within these
emails to make it easy for your subscribers.
Q Avoid “do not reply” language. Language such as, “This email
address will not accept responses” can alienate potential
customers, as well as existing ones. You should have a redirected
email address for replies to automated messages.
Note: Per new CAN-SPAM provisions, unsubcribers need to be
handled from replies as well as links.
Q Monitor replies to automated messages. Double check that
replies to automated messages are being read and passed on to
the appropriate department. Some subscribers use the Reply To
button to unsubscribe or buy products. Make sure the customer
service groups that handle these replies are passing them on to
the correct group for action.

117
Q Use separate IP addresses. A best practice is to send system-
generated emails from a distinct set of IP addresses that
differ from those used for higher-volume email marketing
campaigns. If deliverability problems exist, it will most likely
be on the marketing side due to the high volume, large lists,
and promotional content. Separating the two helps isolate any
delivery-related problems and keeps system-generated emails
from being affected.
Q Include links to the email subscription/preference center and
content regarding email subscriptions available. Your recipients
may not be aware that you offer other email subscriptions.
Q Include site navigation in all system-generated emails—that is, if
you want your email subscribers to visit your site.
Q Include search boxes within system-generated emails. This can
drive incremental traffic to your site.
Q Include any links that are pertinent to the type of automated
message. For example, don’t just say your item has been shipped;
include a shipment tracking link.
Q Don’t bet your message on images showing up. Ensure that key
information, including calls to action and your Unsubscribe link,
is not all in one or many images. Image suppression essentially
makes your email worthless and potentially illegal (if the
Unsubscribe link doesn’t show up).
Q Play it safe and ensure all system-generated emails are CAN-
SPAM-compliant and include unsubscribe information and a
physical address. Adding these requirements to the email usually
covers all your bases.
Q Get creative. LinkedIn does a great job with its automated
messages (for example, when someone sends you a LinkedIn
request) by teasing random stats at the footers of its system-
generated messages.

Although system-generated emails often fall to the bottom of a

marketer’s to-do list, they can have an enormous impact on both
response rates and user loyalty. Don’t let these automated
messages dilute all the other email marketing efforts that
you work so hard to maintain.

118
 30
TRUTH

Use your signature line

119
 To me, email marketing success has always been about
the little things—a well thought-out footer, a perfectly
placed contextual cross promotion, or a convincing
Subject line that has been tested and proven to be battle ready.
So it may come as no surprise that I have always spent a good
deal of time ensuring my personal email signature was just right,
while also analyzing the email signatures of others that flowed
into my inbox.
Email signatures are placed below the content of any personal
email and are readily available for creation and use in almost all
email clients. Originally, their primary use was for providing basic
contact information, but like email marketing, they have slowly
morphed into a more sophisticated one-to-one marketing message.
Email signatures vary wildly from person to person, company to
company, and often by position. However, often, we miss some great
branding and direct-response opportunities in our business email
signatures.
Let’s look at how to elevate your email signature into a value-
added marketing message that can be seen by everyone you email
with directly (not to be mistaken
with company email campaigns).
Often, we miss
Contact information some great
While this is the most prevalent branding and
item included in business email
signatures, it should include basics
direct-response
on how the recipient can contact opportunities in
you in the future, your title/role in our business email
the organization, and your website
URL. While the email address of
signatures.
the sender can be found in the From line, many people want to add
you immediately to their contacts, so make it easy for them to export
or cut and paste all contact info into Outlook. This is of particular
importance for those in sales. What good is an email dialogue
where a subtle or overt sales pitch is the focus but follow-up contact
information is hard to find or not included?

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 TRUTH

Consistency
It is surprising to receive emails from different individuals from
30
the same company with different colors, company information,

USE YOU R SIGN ATU R E LIN E

and overall styling. While it is difficult and maybe draconian to
enforce companywide (at least in large organizations) standards on
something considered personal like email signatures, it is wise to
encourage consistency. After all, you don’t want disparate marketing
messages to be seen every time someone in your company
communicates with a potential customer.
Fonts and background colors may seem trivial in email signatures,
but they do reflect your company’s image in email communications.
Plus, some images, signature fonts,
and colors can be blocked and
render horribly in the inbox and
Some signature
make a strong impression—just not fonts and colors
the kind you are seeking. render horribly
Company overview/ in the inbox and
branding position/tag line make a strong
I am continually amazed whenever impression—just
I receive emails from high-level not the kind you
employees at world-renowned
brands and their email signatures are seeking.
fail to include a single thing about
their company. While this may reflect personal or company modesty,
I find it to be a missed opportunity given the amount of money big
brands spend on creating awareness. A brief company overview
(think elevator pitch—one wants to avoid warlording, which has
been coined for bloated signatures) with a tag line or brand value
proposition should be essential to any business email signature.

Marketing focus/awards
On a rotating basis, savvy marketers change cross promotions
and timely advertising messages in their offline, email, and search
campaigns. Why not implement this in your signature as well? If a
company or product has received a recent award or currently has a
major promotion, a simple description link can be both appropriate
and relevant. This can also indirectly engage recipients in viral
behavior.
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Newsletters/blogs/events
Almost without exception, companies today offer email newsletters
and, to a lesser degree, blogs. Include links to these relationship-
building tools. However, it’s best not to promote a noncompany blog
in your business signature unless it is industry-focused.
One of our clients does an exceptional job of including upcoming
events in individuals’ signature lines. If your primary revenue
depends on such an event, it is a best practice to include these in all
your customer touch points.

Compliance
According to WebSurveyor, which polled 1,082 organizations, almost
84 percent said they received no training or information from their
organization about the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act1 (see Truth 39). From
personal experience, I’ve found that almost 99 percent of personal
email solicitations fail to include any type of reference to providing an
opt-out.
This law is not solely the grounds of broad email “campaigns,”
but also of sales individuals sending out one-to-one emails that
are essentially email’s version of cold calls. Anyone who uses email
to seek new business should include a basic reference in or below
the email signature on how to opt out of future emails from that
company. The implementation of removing individuals one by one
from its sales force is not an easy thing but something that should be
closely evaluated by almost every company with a sales force.
Whether you are an account coordinator, VP of sales, or a customer
care representative, it would be wise to rethink the way you
interact with all recipients in your day-to-day emails. Your
email signature is a perfect place to start.

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 31
TRUTH

Top to bottom advice for

better emails

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 The devil is in the details, and that applies for
email marketing as well. While industry topics like
testing, deliverability, and design often command
more mindshare among marketers, the little noticed usage of
headers and footers in each email is a crucial component of your
campaigns. Therefore, a correlating evaluation of how you utilize
these sections is worth your time on an ongoing basis.
Let’s take a look at elements of a strong email header and footer
and how you should evaluate and optimize these key pieces of email
real estate. Remember: These are suggested items to consider, but
you don’t want to distract your readers from your core message.

Q Unsubscribe/subscription change/preference center—Let’s

start with the big one. It’s hard to find antispam legislation
anywhere in the world that doesn’t require a clear and working
Unsubscribe link in commercial emails. The usual placement
is in the footer, as you don’t necessarily want the Unsubscribe
option to be the first thing your subscribers see. In addition to or
combined with this requirement, marketers should offer a chance
for the user to change the format of their email subscription
to text from HTML (or vice
versa), opt in to other email Remember that
newsletters, or change the
frequency of their deployments.
some people
Also, remember that some may have been
people may have been forwarded your
forwarded your email, so give
them an easy way to subscribe
email, so give
as well. them an easy
Q Viral/forward—Not that your
way to subscribe
“Forward to a Friend” button as well.
should live exclusively in the
header/footer, but this is an easy and consistent place to receive
word-of-mouth marketing from your subscribers. Remember also
to integrate it into the message body and think outside the box
when it comes to the copy. For example, “Forward to a Friend”
may not be appropriate in a business-to-business (B2B) email
that touts an exclusive offer.

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 TRUTH

Q White list—What good is a great email campaign if no one

gets it? One way to ensure your users will continue to receive
31
your emails is asking them to add you to their address book or

TOP TO BOTTOM ADVICE FOR BETTER EMAILS

personal white list. Here’s a sample of the right kind of copy:
To be sure that you always receive My Company’s
Newsletter, add the email address newsletter@company.
com to your address book or personal white list.
Q View as Web page/printer-friendly—With the possibility of
image blocking, broken links, and other email-mangling issues,
the header and footer are other spots to let users view your
email as a Web page or to display a version that will print neatly.
The printer-friendly version may sound old fashioned, but many
executives like to hold a copy of a newsletter or special offer and
read it later. Why not go the extra step? Here’s an example of
copy:
Please click here for a link to a printer-friendly version.
Q Cross promotion—Cross promoting other newsletters, products,
or services is a must for almost every email campaign, but a
subtle and effective way to do this is in the header or footer.
Q Customer service/contact info—Allow your email campaigns
to be even more cost-effective by letting your users find how to
contact you via email (instead of a costly toll-free number) or
even better, provide a frequently asked questions (FAQ) section
that links from your customer service footer. As part of most
antispam laws, you must also provide a physical address.
Q Archives—Some users may be craving more information from
you and your emails, so provide an easy-to-find link to your
archived collection of emails and newsletters. This also drives
additional Web traffic and should collect more leads in a B2B
environment.
Q Search—Speaking of users digging for more information or
products from your company, let them search for exactly what
they are seeking. You can provide a search box or button in the
footer and keep the one-to-one interaction with your subscriber
intact without losing them to Google.

125
Q Web navigation—The sole purpose of many email campaigns is
to drive traffic to your website. So it goes without saying (even if
that is not your purpose) that part (or all) of your email header or
footer should mirror your website navigation.
Q Advertise in this newsletter—Some newsletters are cash cows
(DailyCandy, for example). Even if you are not generating revenue
but would like to, why not include an easy way for someone to
find out how to sponsor your newsletter?
Q Privacy policy/legalese—This is not a fun one, but it’s essential.
A privacy policy (don’t forget to include email-related policies)
often reassures users that their data is in good hands. Users may
not even read it, but linking from your email builds trust and is
the responsible thing to do. For more information on this, please
refer to Truth 42.
Q Copyright information—While this is not practiced often, your
resource-intensive and praise-worthy designs and copy deserve
the same treatment as your website. Copyright notices can
discourage a shady blogger from stealing your content or design
and repost as their own.
Q Partner recognition—Some design or email firms offer (don’t
let them dictate!) a discount if their email-related services are
promoted in your email campaigns. The ubiquitous “Powered By”
feature near the footer is often a way for the marketer to shave
some costs while letting an email design or deployment firm get
added exposure.

In summary, tweaking your headers and footers won’t dramatically

alter your email campaigns right away, but they will provide handy
information for the recipient as well as cover your bases on many
fronts. Don’t overlook these foundation pieces to a key
email marketing program, and be sure to revisit on an
ongoing basis.

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 32
TRUTH

Audit your email program

annually

127
 It can be easy to get caught up in the metrics of your
campaigns or studying conversions by segment of your
email database, but you also should frequently look at
the big picture. Giving your metrics, general program approach,
and strategy a once-over will help you identify and tighten up any
gaps and make improvements. I recommend an annual audit of
your successes and failures. Since this can be a timely process
(but well worth it), I’ve outlined some basics for you.
Deciding what to audit can be a bit overwhelming but is a critical
first step. I recommend taking a look at these components:

Q Usability—Usability is an often overlooked area of email market-

ing messages. By reviewing all aspects of your emails from the
user side, you can gauge the basics of what is and isn’t working
from a functionality standpoint. Take a look at your messages and
put yourself in the shoes of the recipient. Ask questions such as
these:
• Are my messages easy to navigate?
• Is the call to action clear?
• Is it too copy heavy and distracting?
• Are my messages image heavy? (Remember: Some email
clients turn off images.)
• Do I clearly state the purpose of each email in the Subject
line?
• Am I trying to fit everything into the email, or do I offer a link
to the company website?
• Is the content relevant? (Am I segmenting?)
Q Antispam compliance—One of the most frequent questions we
get from our U.S.-based clients and prospects is, “Can you make
sure we are CAN-SPAM-compliant?” The basics of compliance
are fairly easy and essential to review and audit on an ongoing
basis, especially in light of ongoing changes to the rule (such as
FTC’s changes in summer 2008—see Truth 39). If you have not
already done so (and you really should), sign up for some of your
company’s emails with personal accounts, and go through the
motions as a recipient would to make sure you truly are compliant
in practice, not just in theory, to the governing spam law.
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 TRUTH

Q Privacy policy—This is never a sexy subject but one that has

ramifications that go beyond email marketing. Although I
32
recommend this as part of the annual audit, you should have

AU DIT YOU R EM AIL PR OGR AM AN N UALLY

a plan to revisit it throughout the year. Make sure your privacy
policy does these things:
• Puts customers at ease
• Clearly states your intentions for the use of customers’
personal information
• Is legally-compliant
• Links to neutral sites such as TRUSTe
• Offers a way to contact you with privacy issues or complaints
Q Campaign portfolio—Tough love happens in email marketing,
too. An often-overlooked conversation that email marketers have
is, “Should we get rid of this email, or why have we not eliminated
this underperforming email with no synergy to our strategic
goals?” On the other hand, maybe it is time to consider adding
new newsletters, promotions, or just plain innovative email
campaigns. If you aren’t sure that a certain type of email (such as
a newsletter) is bringing value to your subscribers, ask them what
they think. A survey of recipients can go a long way in helping you
decide what to ditch, keep, and adjust.
Q Creative—How do your emails look? Are they time-intensive
beauties or clunky cut-and-paste templates? An email design that
just looks appealing isn’t enough. Auditing these key aspects of
creative will ensure it not only looks good but contributes to your
success as well.
When doing a creative audit, consider these things:
• Is your call to action or value proposition displayed above
the fold in a preview pane (as well as below the fold)?
• Is the ratio of images to text overwhelmingly different? In
other words, do you have too many images or not enough
visual appeal?
• Are you properly and consistently displaying and using your
brand?

129
 • Do you have templates in place to ensure various email
senders in your company are staying true to your brand and
overall image?
Q Integrating email—If your email marketing team is not involved
closely with the traditional marketing team, is that a good thing or
a bad thing? That depends, but you can’t overlook the importance
of ensuring some kind of consistency in your email efforts with
your overall brand and marketing programs. Email is only one
aspect of how customers and prospects interact with your brand.
Take a look at email as part of the bigger picture each year to
ensure consistency.
Q Testing—Are you testing to make your email efforts better? Why
not test a campaign and its various components before sending
blindly to your house list? In addition to the usual testing of
creative Subject lines, testing out new email concepts is a great
way to get real user feedback and response data before devoting
additional resources to new ideas. Also, having test results
instead of just going on a hunch is the best way to get buy-in from
the boss (see Truth 28).
Q Relevancy—Its ability to deliver relevant and targeted marketing
messages is what makes email so appealing. Review metrics to
determine if you are hitting the relevancy mark. Are recipients
responding to your messages, and are they taking the desired
action? Are you offering them preferences so that you can tailor
content to meet their interests? There are so many different ways
to make your emails more relevant to recipients, so get to it!
Q Start fresh—Like most key areas in your business, it is productive
to be honest with yourself and review what is working and what
needs to be improved. With email marketing always changing,
why not use an audit as a reason to evaluate your overall
strategic and tactical email marketing operations? If you
are reading this book, you have made a commitment
to improvement, so this shouldn’t be much of a stretch
either.

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 PART VII: THE TRUTH ABOUT GETTING INTO AND
OPTIMIZING THE INBOX

33
TRUTH

The basics of deliverability

131
 Deliverability, the metric that measures your success
at getting email delivered to the end recipient, has
become a key component of email marketing and
something that must be evaluated and adjusted on an ongoing
basis. With the potential financial and legislative implications
of spam, Internet service providers (ISPs) and businesses alike
are constantly attempting to protect their users. Unfortunately,
they also block and filter legitimate commercial email messages
(called false positives) in the process.
If you don’t think deliverability is something you should be
concerned with, consider that permission-based emails are reaching
consumer inboxes about 75 percent of the time.1 The takeaway here
is that your audience, on average, is not getting a quarter of all your
emails. That is a significant amount of lost opportunity, and one
that deserves attention. Ask yourself: What am I risking by ignoring
deliverability issues and, better yet, what rewards might I be missing?
Do these things to ensure delivery.

Q Stay proactively focused on ensuring that key communications

are being received by arguably your most valuable audience: the
people who gave you permission to market to them.
Q Align yourself with delivery best practices, which the ISP
gatekeepers will notice and, hopefully, reward you with a
successfully delivered email.
Q Know when, why, and where your emails are being blocked so
you can adapt future campaigns.

When it comes to deliverability, there isn’t an exact science behind

the collective process. There is no to-do list or magic potion for
perfect delivery rates, but the more you know, the better off you’ll be.
That being said, there are several reasons an ISP or corporate filter
will block your message from being delivered.

Q You have a poor reputation. (The sender IP address has a history

of poor email sending practices.)
Q Your content isn’t deemed as relevant, which often leads to
complaints issued about your messages. (Someone has clicked
Report This as Spam.)

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 TRUTH

Q
You repeatedly send to hard bounces on your list.
Your messages contain spam-like content.
33

T HE BASICS OF DELIVER ABILITY

There are some specific things you can do to improve and ensure
deliverability.

Know where you stand

The first step is understanding if your messages are getting to the
inbox. This is where you dig into your bounce logs within your metrics
and utilize your email partner’s knowledge and connections.
There are affordable deliverability monitoring services that have
seed addresses at all major email providers and can tell you if your
emails are getting through. Don’t rely on the “delivered” metric in
the campaign reports you get from your email marketing service
or software. This number does not account for most of the emails
filtered out or blocked. You can get some clues by looking at opens/
clicks by domain. If you have a 30% average open rate but that rate is
0% for Hotmail addresses, you have a deliverability problem!

Consider these best practices

Email deliverability can be a complex topic, but remember that the
most important thing you can do is to implement general email
marketing best practices. In particular, do these things.

Q Make sure you keep a well-maintained and clean list. Remove

hard bounces from your database.
Q Only send email to those who have explicitly requested it and
offer a working unsubscribe process.
Q Comply with all relevant antispam legislation.
Q Send relevant emails at a responsible mailing frequency.

Get authenticated
One way the industry is solving the spam problem and helping
legitimate messages make it to the inbox is email authentication.
Authentication is essentially email’s version of caller ID. Its purpose
is to connect and validate email senders and ISPs who hold the
“keys” to consumer inboxes. It is growing in importance (the Direct

133
Marketing Association [DMA] guideline calls for email marketers
to adopt and use identification and authentication protocols) and
adoption and aims to do the following:

Q Allow recipients to identify and reject email sent purporting to be

someone it isn’t and prevent rogue marketers from sending spam
or phishing scams that misrepresent legitimate brands.
Q Allow email users to better trust the legitimacy of the emails they
do receive.

Implementing authentication might require some help from your IT

department or email marketing partner. However, it is worth it as ISPs
increasingly see authenticated email as a positive sign and are more
likely to deliver your email than if you do not authenticate.

Review content and prevent spam complaints

If your email shares any common features with spam, it runs the
risk of being filtered or blocked as spam. How do you know if you
look like spam? Your email marketing partner or service should offer
tools that flag any risky words, phrases, or coding in your email. If it
doesn’t, a quick search online will find some inexpensive third-party
services that do the same job.

Maintain strong coding

Spam filtering of permission-based email often occurs as a result
of poor HTML coding as opposed to the actual content. Therefore,
the quality of email code and its compliance with the relevant HTML
coding standards are important and worth reviewing frequently to
prevent deliverability issues.

Regularly evaluate and follow email best practices

Email deliverability can be a complex topic. Remember that the most
important thing you can do is implement and exhibit email marketing
best practices. Make sure you keep a well-maintained and clean list,
remove hard bounces from your database, offer a working
unsubscribe process, comply with antispam laws, and
maintain a responsible mailing frequency.

134
 34
TRUTH

Understanding rendering

135
 Once your message makes it into the inbox, you’ve
got another challenge to overcome, and it goes by the
name of renderability. This fancy-sounding term refers
to how your email displays as intended in all the different email
clients and Webmail interfaces.
Most marketers prefer to send HTML emails because the images
within make the message more attractive to readers and reinforce
branding. This is a strong benefit of one-to-one email messaging.
However, many of the more popular email clients (or inbox providers),
such as Gmail, Outlook, and Hotmail, suppress images in HTML
emails by default. This means that instead of the image you expected
recipients to see, they’ll see a big red “x” or similar indicator that your
images have been suppressed. If you put the email’s call to action or
most of your branding in an image, the recipients might not see it. So,
it is extremely important to know what your email messages look like
when they reach your recipients.
Most email clients offer users the option to alter their preferences
to routinely display images from selected senders or from all senders.
So if you have a good relationship with a recipient and that person
wants to receive your email messages, image suppression can be
turned off. However, assuming that your recipients will do this won’t
put you in the clear yet since you can’t be 100 percent sure they’ll
actually alter their email program’s preferences to allow images to be
displayed in email. That being said, there are several things you can
do to ensure that your HTML emails look as close as possible to what
you intended, regardless of which email client the recipients use or
whether images are allowed.
Rendering issues go beyond image blocking, affecting other
idiosyncrasies of different email clients and Webmail interfaces.
There are many minor items when designing and coding your email
that can impact how your email renders. These are among the many
reasons why most designers generally detest creating emails.

Know what’s going on and test exhaustively

Start by evaluating your email subscriber list closely to get an idea
of the breakdown of email domains used by your subscribers. For
example, you may have 25 percent of your subscriber list using Yahoo
mail and 20 percent using Gmail. This will give you a good picture

136
 TRUTH

of which recipients you’ll need to test and which ones deserve extra
special attention.
34
Most research shows consumers use a wide array of email inbox

UN DE R STAN DIN G R EN DER IN G

providers. Of course, your subscriber usage will vary, but most
reports generally show Yahoo, MSN, Gmail, and AOL (usually in that
order) as the top four email providers.
I’m sure you’ve downloaded a Web-based email client before, so
you know how easy it is to set up testing accounts with each of them.
If you are a B2B marketer, chances are that you’ll be sending more
emails to Outlook or Lotus Notes users, so you’ll need to have those
installed on a computer for adequate testing or use a rendering/
delivery service. From there, you’ll want to test messages in each
email client, make adjustments for proper rendering, and test again
until you get it right.

Know what to do when images are turned off

One in five emails is invisible and ineffective due to blocked images.1
Since you can’t be sure that HTML emails will be viewed with the
images displayed, you’ll want to take some precautions to ensure
that the integrity of your message won’t be lost when the images
disappear. Many marketers make the assumption that, if an email
client blocks images, the message will be automatically converted to
the text-only version. However, this is not true. When the images are
turned off, the email client will simply display the rest of the HTML
without the images, which can lead to a variety of rendering issues.
If your entire message is an image, recipients who direct their email
client to block images will see nothing other than an indication that
an image has been blocked.
Make sure the text within your Make sure the text
HTML email message gets across within your HTML
both branding and your intentions
without the aid of images. In
email message
particular, ensure that headlines gets across both
and links are also available in pure branding and your
text form. Start spending more time
creating compelling text that will be
intentions without
just as effective with images as it is the aid of images.
137
without. Creative minds often direct the most attention to the most
visual aspect of the message instead of to the written portion.
Again, testing will help to work your way through this problem.

Offer an alternative
Including a link to view the email as a Web page gives recipients
another option for viewing the email message as you intended and
outside of their inbox. With the number of disabled images and
mangled HTML increasing over the years, many marketers have
started to offer this alternative to recipients. Recent research shows
that 78 percent of companies surveyed include links that recipients
could use to view the message as a Web page, compared to 59
percent who did so in 2005.2

Embrace the preview pane

According to MarketingSherpa, when offered a preview pane, 64
percent of people use them as their default setting.3 You probably
know from your own inbox the importance of placing the most key
elements of your email (such as the call to action) “above the fold” so
that they are seen in the preview pane. Recipients often decide what
action to take (if any) based on what they see in the preview pane.
In addition, 26.6 percent of online customers surveyed
use their email’s preview pane rather than view an email in
its entirety.4

138
 35
TRUTH

Creating email campaigns

for mobile devices

139
 Sixty-four percent of business decision makers
surveyed said they regularly view emails using a mobile
device.1 However, with the increased adoption of the
iPhone and other smartphone devices, such as the BlackBerry
and Treo, mobile email usage isn’t just for busy executives. Low
cost and the desire to keep up with the “next cool thing” are
stretching the typical mobile demographic to include everyone
from students to soccer moms. Today, the average smartphone
user is2

Q Between 18 and 44
Q Self-employed or a full-time employee
Q Affluent
Q Highly educated

While this may not be surprising to you, tomorrow’s smartphone user

may be completely different. In fact, a study by Exact Target shows
that the intent to purchase a smartphone among retired people,
homemakers, and students is significantly higher than is the current
use of a smartphone among these groups.3
If you own a smartphone, the way you use it is probably in line
with the average person. Most smartphone users are checking
mobile email as a way to stay informed and on top of their inbox.
They typically react to urgent messages rather than comb through
special offers or deals from their favorite retailer. According to
JupiterResearch, 18 percent of email users use their mobile devices to
sort email.4
This has also been called email
triage, which means most people People who read
delete nonessential emails and flag
the ones that deserve a response for their email on
when they are back at their desktop mobile devices are
or laptop. So your goal should be to giving you half of
make it through this mobile gauntlet
and hopefully get responded to
their attention at
later. However, keep in mind that best.
as the demographic widens, user
habits will change, too.

140
 TRUTH

Unfortunately, there are no widely adopted standards when it

comes to email marketing on mobile devices. There are a couple of
35
different schools of thought when it comes to creating message that

CR E AT IN G EM AIL C AM PAIGN S FOR M OBILE DEVICES

will render in the best way possible.

Text only
Some experts recommend text-only messages. These same people
also argue that text-only messages, on average, yield a higher
click-through rate than HTML. The benefit with this approach is
you know that whether the email is viewed on a smartphone or an
actual computer, it will render properly, and the links will function
as intended. However, many disagree with this approach, because
sending text-only messages is limiting for the marketer. With this
approach, you can expect fewer stats (remember: only HTML emails
can provide open rates), branding, and design opportunities.
Testing is a recurring theme in this book and email campaigns. To
know your audience, you must test to see what works best.

Multipart MIME
Another alternative is to send messages as multipart MIME. This
is a combination of text and HTML that lets the email client decide
which version to render. The problem with this is that some mobile
devices that are unable to render HTML try to render it anyway. But
this leaves your subscriber with a grossly distorted version of your
email. However, HTML rendering capabilities of mobile devices
are improving rapidly. Apple’s iPhone is setting standards that are
being followed closely. And the makers of popular corporate email/
smartphone device BlackBerry announced HTML email capabilities.
With these two options, you have to decide if the benefits of
sending a plain-old text message and knowing it will be readable
outweigh the benefits of having an email render as you intended on
a desktop computer or laptop with the chance that it might not look
great on that user’s mobile device. Of course, you should take some
best practices and tips into consideration.

Q Keep it simple—People who read their email on mobile devices

are giving you half of their attention at best. Get to the point
quickly and make sure your brand is immediately recognizable.

141
 Make your message and calls to action early in the email and your
Subject line clear and short. That may be your only opportunity to
capture your mobile subscriber audience.
Q Think about the screen size—Use the “above the fold” rule that
you use for the inbox. Screens on a handheld are often small, and
since you are working with a small space and a limited time to
capture attention, you’ve got to make the most of that real estate.
Q Know your audience—What portion of your list reads their
emails on a mobile device? Do you know? You should. Knowing
this will help you make a decision on how you approach emails to
mobile users. You’ll be able to segment them and act accordingly.
If you don’t know, consider a (brief) survey. If you are just
beginning to build a list, or if you have a preference center, ask
subscribers when they sign up. (Refer to Truth 19 for more.) As
adoption continues to grow, this will save you time in the long
run. Think of it as an investment in the future. Another way to
capture this segment is asking in the preference center where
users view their emails. You could offer up these choices, which
can provide a great deal of insight: home, work, mobile device.
Q Be cognizant of the fact that designing your email for mobile
users involves sacrifices—There’s no point in doing this unless
you’re sure about your audience. Otherwise, you’re sending
mobile-optimized email to an audience who is actually reading
your email on a PC.
Q Add a link to view on a Web page—Similar to your overall email
rendering best practices, offer links to a Web-based version of
the email as well as a mobile-optimized Web page. You may
choose to use copy such as “Click here if you are viewing this on a
mobile device.” If you find, through analyzing your list,
that a large portion of your audience reads emails on a
wireless device, this is an option you should definitely
consider.

142
 PART VIII: THE TRUTH ABOUT MEASURING
EMAIL PERFORMANCE

36
TRUTH

Know your email metrics,

part 1

143
 Email reporting data is generated from your email
software tool or partner that is managing the
campaigns. The data can be overwhelming in its sheer
volume, providing a view to many marketers that looks more
like a maze. Because email marketing metrics are available
immediately and can be aggregated for a historical view of
performance over time, its data rivals any kind of marketing
analytics in the marketplace today.
While there is no direct statistic for measuring the influence on
building your brand or strengthening the relationship with your
audience, there is a metric for almost everything else. Let’s look
at some key things to consider when analyzing and utilizing your
campaign metrics. (If some terms are unfamiliar, you can refer to the
Glossary on the book’s website.)

Q Goals—Many email marketers are not looking for the right

information. Establishing your goals upfront will help you zero
in on the most valuable metrics. For example, if your email
campaigns consist primarily of newsletters, the goal may simply
be to increase click-throughs to drive traffic to your website and
enhance the value for advertisers. When you send promotional
email messages, a mailing may have a specific revenue or
profit goal, measured down to the level of each click. Every
piece of reporting you analyze needs to be viewed based on
these initial goals. Then you can dive deeper into the more
specific campaign reporting.
Once you’ve set out these Establishing your
goals, you’ll be able to create goals upfront will
a monthly scorecard to help
keep you on track. A scorecard
help you zero in on
provides an opportunity for the most valuable
your email/interactive team metrics.
to monitor the key email
performance indicators in the context of company goals (email
specific and nonemail specific) and industry benchmarks. Since
email campaigns are so fluid, the goals in your scorecard are
best evaluated and revised as an ongoing exercise. If anything,
it prevents surprises and helps you realize if changes to certain
types of mailings are making an impact over time. If you made
144
 TRUTH

a significant creative change to your newsletter in Q1 and the

average for your open or click-through rate dropped over the next
36
quarter or two, you might have a problem.

K N OW YOU R EM AIL M ETR ICS, PART 1

Q ROI—So many different successes can be achieved with email
marketing, and marketers need to know what to look for before
they can ultimately measure success. In addition to reviewing
specific response-oriented metrics, the final judge of a campaign
can often be metrics such as revenue per click, value of each
email address, revenue per campaign, or profit per email.
Observe ROI metrics judiciously.
Q Comparing to industry benchmarks—Many email marketers
are unaware of how their metrics compare to industry averages.
While you don‘t want to place too much emphasis on this,
every email marketing team should be cognizant of how
it fares when compared to others in the industry. The site
EmailStatCenter.com (created by my company with the Email
Experience Council) aggregates various reports and data, which
can be easily monitored. Most ESPs provide benchmarks to
their clients as well. Everyone wants to know how their stats
measure up; the information is there, so use it. Just don’t place
too much emphasis on any one report, as you are comparing
apples to a fruit cocktail. Specifically, seek out benchmarks that
are as relevant to your company as possible. For example, if you
work in finance, place more emphasis on click-through rates for
that industry, rather than the average click-through rate for all
industries. This way, any deviations from the average will help
you identify potential problems.
Q Open rates—Open rates are determined by a snippet of code
in HTML emails that tracks when your image(s) shows up in
someone’s inbox. Marketers love this metric, but you shouldn’t
bet the house on this often misleading stat, which is not available
on text messages. I tell clients to take it with a grain of salt—an
open does not mean someone necessarily “read” your email.
It could have appeared in a recipient’s preview pane for a
moment and then was deleted. Ongoing challenges to determine
valid open rates (for example, the default setting for Gmail
and Outlook disable images in HTML emails) have rendered
this stat even more unreliable. Falling open rates in past years
145
 further support this. Regardless, be wary of placing too much
emphasis on open rates, as they only indicate that the recipient is
potentially interested in your email or company. An open doesn’t
mean users scanned your email thoroughly or, more importantly,
acted on it. Absolute open rates may have little meaning, but
changes in open rates through time or comparisons of open rates
between two versions of an email do tell you something and are
very useful. A high open rate combined with a low click-through
rate can be a red flag that your campaigns need help. The interest
may exist with your brand, product, or service, but the low click-
through rate shows that your message wasn’t very compelling.
Q Clicks—This can mean unique clicks or total clicks. These are
both important and distinct. Unique clicks tell you how many of
your recipients clicked on a link in your email, while total clicks
can demonstrate if subscribers were clicking on multiple links or
responding more than once.
Q Click-through percentage of opens—This metric can be
insightful, but with the inaccuracies of open rates, not conclusive
of interest. Of all the recipients who technically opened your
email (it doesn’t mean they read it), how many of them chose
to click on a link? This can be an indicator of recipients who
were interested in the email (opens) and then clicked on a link.
Therefore, this can indicate how effective and compelling the
message is overall, since your open rate is often more reflective of
your brand and Subject line.
Q Bounces and unsubscribes—While not the positive type of
metrics one would like to highlight, these are important when
monitoring complaints and list issues. Bounce metrics are critical
for highlighting list quality issues (Truth 18 has more details on this
topic), and unsubscribes can show a negative pattern that needs
to be addressed. An increase in unsubscribes could correlate to
an increased frequency in deployments or a change in content
or topics, or it could reflect the seasonal or cyclical nature of your
business. After all, when users unsubscribe, they are effectively
ending their one-to-one interactive relationship with your
company, and you want to spot this type of trend before
it becomes a major business issue.

146
 37
TRUTH

Know your email metrics,

part 2

147
 In the first part of this Truth, we covered what metrics
to review and why. Putting these metrics to work is as
important as knowing what to monitor. In part 2, we
look at using these metrics to your advantage.

Q Measuring success frequently—Email campaigns get the

majority of response in the first 72 hours, but with the immediacy
of real-time metrics, a regular
pattern of monitoring and A simple rule is
pulling data should be
established. A simple rule is
to check once
to check once within 24 hours, within 24 hours,
again 7 to 10 days later, and again 7 to 10 days
finally, quarterly/annually as later, and finally,
you compare campaigns across
the board. According to an quarterly/annually
EmailStatCenter.com survey in as you compare
late 2007, over 95 percent of the campaigns across
individuals surveyed said that
they measure the results of their
the board.
email campaigns. When asked how often, 57 percent indicated
that they measure results 24–48 hours after deployment.
However, only 18 percent indicated that they measured results on
an annual basis.1
Q Remarketing/sales qualifying—This is one of the most
significant and underutilized areas in the email stat world.
Companies spend thousands of dollars (usually much more) on
using lead generation data from areas like telemarketing, direct
mail, and search marketing, but it is often left alone to rot in
spreadsheet purgatory when it comes to email campaigns. Since
almost every email deployment platform provides the email
addresses (or more) of recipients who clicked on a link, you
must use this information for future marketing (including email
campaigns). These are your strong leads, and these responders
warrant their own follow-up campaign if they did not complete
the desired action. Don’t forget the sales power of email in
addition to its knack for relationship marketing.

148
 TRUTH

Q Looking at specific links—Aggregate click-through metrics can

serve a purpose, but the real benefit of click-through data can be
37
in determining which links were successful and which were not.

K N OW YOU R EM AIL M ETR ICS, PART 2

A healthy look at specific click-through stats can provide insight
about proper placement of links and the success of each type of
link (sales/cross promotion/privacy policy). This understanding
can help you edit the layout and link structure of messages, so
consistently keep your creative team in the loop on these results.
Q Monitoring key external and internal issues—Metrics can help
ascertain frequency issues (declining response rates may indicate
you email too often), irrelevant content (if unsubscribes have an
uptick), and user feedback (by
reviewing reply volume). Use this Metrics can
data to help identify a growing
problem before it escalates into help ascertain
a major concern. frequency issues,
Q Forwarding/viral marketing—Is irrelevant content,
there a buzz factor for the email? and user feedback.
One measure of the buzz factor
for your email is how many people use the forward-to-a-friend
(F2F) feature. While recipients who forward using their own email
client and not a forward link won’t show up in your viral stats, you
still should pay close attention to any increases in this important
metric. If forwards rise, you may be on to something and should
model other campaigns after the viral feature that generated
additional interest.
Q Attracting new subscribers—This is connected to the previous
viral marketing point, with the key takeaway being this: Did this
email generate new interest and subscribers? Did your audience
(and your message, of course) help acquire new subscribers
to your emails? Don’t forget to always add a Subscribe button
on your emails regardless of the fact that your emails are going
to an opt-in audience. While some vendors have a metric that
can correlate new subscribers from a specific email campaign,
don’t fret if you don’t have this feature. Look for a bump in
daily acquisition rates that correlate to your email deployment.
Consider coding the sign-up link landing page so you know the

149
 new subscriber came from an email or recommendation. The
numbers will likely be small from each mailing, but they add up
and don’t cost you the way other acquisition marketing can.
Q Testing—The depth and timeliness of email reporting allow
marketers to have easily accessible data at their disposal. Use
this data to determine the best Subject and From lines and the
best copy for viral links, as well as for testing creative and specific
offers.
Q Acting promptly—Most marketers don’t take full advantage of
email reporting, and because of the depth of email metrics, it
is easy to fall behind and leave much of the numbers unseen
or underutilized. By looking for the right insights in a
campaign’s report and adapting future mailings based
on this data, you can make immediate improvements to
your email marketing efforts.

150
 38
TRUTH

Remarketing for results

151
 Amazon.com is the hallmark of using metrics to drive
revenue. It consistently uses data collected about its
users to personalize offers and make its content more
relevant. We could all learn a little lesson from Amazon.com. If
you are collecting metrics on your website and email campaigns
but not using the data to remarket to recipients, you could be
missing out big time.
I like to think of remarketing as low-hanging fruit because so many
marketers fail to do it, and making it work for you isn’t that difficult.
So dust off those Web analytics and email results and let me help you
uncover a gold mine.
Personally, I can say that I’ve Remarketing is
often received an email and, being
enticed, decided to click on the
something that
link within and possibly make a any email marketer
purchase. But I often abandon that can do.
purchase at the last minute. The
desertion can be for a variety of reasons: I’m not sure if I need it,
someone knocks at my front door, I spill coffee all over an important
document—you get the drift.
The key point here is that if you are the marketer who sent me the
email offer and I took the initial steps toward the desired action of
purchasing but didn’t, wouldn’t it be great if you could then remarket
to me by sending another, better offer?
Even if you don’t keep track of Web analytics and don’t know what
email subscribers are also doing on your website, you can still take
advantage of remarketing. Consider looking at the way recipients
are interacting with your messages and then using that information
to move them along the path to conversion. Let me give you an
example.
I recently worked with a long-time client, CoreNet Global, the
world’s leading professional association for corporate real estate and
workplace executives to do just that. It wasn’t the “sexiest” campaign,
but it was recognized as the best email campaign by the American
Marketing Association and Direct Marketing Association, so it was
attractive enough to win a nice award from two prestigious groups.
CoreNet Global’s goal was simple enough; it was simply trying to

152
 TRUTH

drive attendance to its annual conference in Atlanta, Georgia. But

this conference happened to be a big revenue generator, and the
38
client came to us for advice on how to get more registrations out of

R E M AR KE T IN G FOR R ESU LTS

the same list it had already mailed to but had not gotten the desired
response from.
We started by looking at the metrics from the last campaign
CoreNet Global sent to promote the event and then grouped
recipients into segments based on how they interacted with that
email. Prospects were segmented from customers and, within each of
those, we ended up with three different groups:

Q Those who clicked on any link in the email but did not register
(responders)
Q Those who did not open or click (nonresponders)
Q Those who registered from the initial email campaign

From this point, we temporarily suppressed all these groups from

the client’s other email communications and began a remarketing
campaign. The responders (meaning those who clicked but did not
register) received targeted messaging focused solely on converting
them to registrants. Additionally, any registrants were sent a thank-
you email following registration that had valuable information
detailing specifics about travel to Atlanta, the agenda, where to stay,
and so on.
The primary messaging associated with the remarketing campaigns
and the thank-you emails, designed to prompt viral forwarding,
hinged upon a special, email-only incentive of an additional savings
on registration that was not offered through any other marketing
channel.
It worked. The remarketing email campaigns produced an average
open rate of 40 percent and an average click-through rate of 21
percent. These represented a 78 percent and a 250 percent increase,
respectively, over the preregistration email messages the client had
sent the previous year, during the same months. In total, the creative
optimization of existing templates and email strategy outlined
produced 133 online registrations. At an average registration cost of
$899, the revenue produced was just under $120,000. Taking into

153
account the costs associated with the redesign and implementation
of the remarketing campaign, CoreNet Global achieved a return on
investment of $38 for every dollar spent, for a staggering 3,886
percent return on investment (ROI). Now, just think if they hadn’t
been open to a new approach. What if they hadn’t maximized their
existing data?
Remarketing is something that any email marketer can
do. If you have an email program and are keeping up with
metrics, you are likely sitting on an opportunity to get
better results.

154
PART IX: THE TRUTH ABOUT PRIVACY AND CAN-SPAM

39
TRUTH

Understanding the
CAN-SPAM Act

155
 The CAN-SPAM Act is U.S. federal legislation describing
the legal requirements that must be fulfilled by
senders of commercial email. Enforcement of the Act is
largely the responsibility of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Surprisingly, an eye opening report stated that 81 percent of
marketers are unaware of the CAN-SPAM Act.1 While this fact is
mind boggling, it is also frightening, since violations of the Act
can be punished by large fines and even jail time.

NOTE Prior to publication of this book, the Federal Trade Commis-

sion (FTC) approved New Rule Provisions Under The CAN-SPAM Act.
We advise you to visit www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/05/canspam.shtm for
more information.

Violating CAN-SPAM can happen to any size company—from a

small business to a Fortune 500 company. If you are executing email
campaigns, compliance to the CAN-
SPAM Act is mandatory. This isn’t The CAN-SPAM
hyperbole. It is evident today that Act is U.S. federal
CAN-SPAM violations can happen
to not only small companies, but
legislation
to prominent ones as well. If you describing the
thought that the FTC was just going legal requirements
after low-level spammers, think that must be
again. Kodak Imaging Network,
formerly Ofoto, was cited and fined fulfilled by senders
more than $25,000 (100 percent of commercial
of the proceeds from the offending email.
campaign). What did it do wrong?

Q Failed to contain an opt-out mechanism

Q Failed to disclose in the email message that consumers have the
right to opt out of receiving further mailings
Q Failed to include a valid physical postal address, as required
by law

Remember: CAN-SPAM provides penalties for up to $250 per email

spam, with a cap of $2 million that can be tripled for aggravated

156
 TRUTH

violations. Who wants to have their

marketing budget (or personal
If you thought that 39
bonus) go to the FTC? the FTC was just

UN DE R STAN DIN G THE C AN -SPAM AC T

Compliance is a legal matter and going after low-
thus, you should always consult a level spammers,
lawyer to ensure full compliance. think again.
That being said, CAN-SPAM covers
various requirements, which I
would recommend any marketer take the time to read. However, in
particular, each email campaign must do the following.

Q Use a relevant and accurate Subject and From line. Don’t mislead
in any shape or form. Spammers practice this trick all the time.
The best and most straightforward From line is your brand name.
The Subject line should provide an accurate teaser or description
of the content within the email. The Subject line and messaging
should be in sync.
Q Include the physical address of the sender. This should be
standard in all your email footers. If you can’t include this, you
have no business sending out commercial emails.
Q When appropriate, include disclosure of your email being
an advertisement or business solicitation in the body of the
email. If your email is part promotional and part informational
(transactional), take the high road and include a commercial
email notice to be safe.
Q Most importantly, have a very clear and functional Unsubscribe
link. This has to be automated, or the unsubscribe requests must
be manually processed within ten days. You must also provide
simple instructions on how to be removed from future mailings,
not just provide a URL. Remember: Once a user unsubscribes,
you’re not allowed to email that user again.

The key is to make sure unsubscribe requests are promptly removed.

To ensure your unsubscribe process is fully functional, test and
confirm unsubscribes through a personal account on an ongoing
basis. This is surely one of the most important aspects of your email
program that must be valid and completely operational—with no
holes.
157
CAN-SPAM and International Legislation
One major thing to note is what separates the U.S. CAN-SPAM
Act from its international spam-related laws: permission. The U.S.
legislation, signed into law by President George W. Bush, does not
necessitate the need for permission to be CAN-SPAM-compliant.
This means you could get spammed by hundreds of companies you
have no relationship with, but as long as they are compliant on the
legal front (as defined earlier), they have not violated the law. They
would fall into the hall of shame in the email marketing best practices
world but not be on the wrong side of the fence in the legal world.
The important thing to remember is that the CAN-SPAM Act covers
only the legal definition of spam in the eyes of federal authorities.
It does not change how users, ISPs, Webmail services, and others
define or treat email they consider to be spam. If your only concern
is compliance with the Act, you will be in trouble on other fronts. For
example, some ISPs classify spam by frequency or irrelevant content.
Most international laws surrounding email marketing require
permission in addition to some similar components to the United
States, mainly focusing on unsubscribes. This is hardly a perfect
system for combating spam, but it at least defines a few mandatory
rules for permission marketers to play by.
For more detailed information on the CAN-SPAM Act, you
can visit the FTC’s CAN-SPAM website (currently located at
www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/spam/index.html).

158
40
TRUTH

A closer look at spam

159
 Spam is one of the biggest blights in today’s world of
Web 2.0. It is a problem for consumers, companies, and
legitimate marketers who use permission-based email
marketing to communicate with customers and prospects. Of
course, ensuring your permission-based message gets recognized
as a relevant email means that you must be aware of what
spammers are doing. After all, you don’t want your messages to
be seen in the same light as spam, right?
So what does spam look like these days? To paraphrase Supreme
Court Justice Potter Stewart’s take on pornography, “I know it when
I see it.” Spam, thankfully, is at least to some extent regulated, but
most of us can still recognize it when it lands in our inbox.
The FTC defines spam as “unsolicited commercial email.” The CAN-
SPAM Act further defines ands clarifies what makes an email illegal.
(Although some spam is technically not illegal—if you are unsure
of the CAN-SPAM Act and what makes spam illegal, read Truth 39.)
Remember that there is spam as defined by legislation and spam
as defined by the ISP gatekeepers. It’s better to stay on their good
sides, right? Well, spammers have grown more sophisticated, just
like permission email marketers, and have many new tricks up their
sleeves.
As my wife was cleaning out
her inbox recently, she asked me
Spammers have
about the purpose of some spam grown more
she found. Upon a deeper look, I sophisticated, just
was somewhat puzzled. Some of
the spam did not have any links,
like permission
promises to increase vitality, or email marketers,
even pledges to triple her income and have many
from home. Many of these spam
messages appeared to be odd prose
new tricks up their
that made no sense and had no sleeves.
product to sell.
So we decided to catalog and analyze a week’s worth of spam to
see what spammers were really trying to achieve. We evaluated spam
that came into our work, Hotmail, Yahoo!, and Gmail accounts. What
we found won’t eliminate spam, but it is interesting when comparing

160
 TRUTH

it to the best practices followed by practitioners of opt-in email

marketing.
40
Some spam emails were seemingly of the one-to-one variety (the

A C LOSE R LOOK AT SPAM

“Dear Sir—I need your help with a transaction” types), while others
were large-volume spam messages pushing some kind of product.
Yet, many were of the aforementioned flavor, the nonsensical
ramblings that had no links and seemingly no purpose. Some emails
started off with an offer (golf or pharmaceutical product) but then in
the second half featured dark and often disturbing prose, as if written
by a 13th-century serial killer. Many also inserted brief snippets of
current and accurate news stories into the body of the emails.

Spammers have come a long way

My team and I looked at the assembled results from the
perspective of comparing the spam to typical big-brand email
communications that incorporate best practices and analyzed the
collection of spam based on the following aspects:

Q Did it make sense?

Q Did it include a call to action (Click Here, Call This Number)?
Q Did it include links?
Q Did it include an Unsubscribe link or contact information?
Q Did it have a misleading Subject or From line?
Q Did it ask for money or assist with a transaction?
Q Was it part of a phishing scheme?

Our informal study revealed some interesting finds:

Q 32 percent did not appear to make sense at all.
Q 71 percent had a clear call to action.
Q 77 percent featured links.
Q 43 percent had an unsubscribe link or contact information.
Q 30 percent had a misleading Subject line while 80 percent had a
misleading From line.

161
Q 3 percent asked for money or assistance with completing a
financial transaction.
Q We received zero obvious phishing scams.

We were surprised to find that so many (32 percent) of the spam

messages had no clear agenda and did not make sense. The same
goes for the many spam emails that did not contain links or a call to
action.
Almost half had Unsubscribe links or contact information, as
required by CAN-SPAM. We did not confirm that they were functional
(the real key to the CAN-SPAM law), but there appeared to be other
types of deceptive links. Many of the spam messages also featured
the same contact information while having different products and
From lines. This means one spammer was working overtime for
several clients.
The relatively straightforward Subject lines were somewhat of a
shock, but the large percentage of shady From lines was not. Fake
names did not even match assuredly fake email addresses (for
example, Martin Smith [glenn_rollans@holiway.net]).
The leading industries (when able to be determined) represented
by the spammers were these:

Q Pharmaceutical—(Hoodia for Your Health!)—17 percent

Q Mortgage—(Special Refi Rate!)—8 percent
Q Education—(Get Your Degree Today!)—8 percent
Q Job opportunities—(Double Your Income—Work from Home!)—
6 percent
Q Stock market—(Hot Tips!)—5 percent

So legitimate email marketers, stay the course, and don’t

let spammers one-up you with their distracting and
confusing messages that may be competing with legitimate
ones in your customers’ inboxes.

162
41
TRUTH

The varying levels of

permission

163
 Most experienced and legitimate marketers who use
email marketing will tell you they practice permission-
based email marketing. Who wants to be grouped in
with the spammers pitching pharmaceutical panaceas or seeking
your stateside assistance with a financial transaction?
However, in practice, there are many large brands and companies
who define “permission” at their convenience instead of the intended
status of recipients, but it is the recipients who should hold the cards
on who they receive emails from.
A recent car-buying experience that took place largely on the
Internet shed much light on how many companies view email
marketing and their “right” to do so,
regardless of your relationship with
them (or lack thereof). After sending
Real permission
email inquiries to many dealers, email marketing
I found that I was added to their works best when
“newsletter” database, despite the
fact that I had no communication
true permission is
with them, outside of the initial given and there is
email. These were poorly executed no wiggle room to
email campaigns, but the bigger debate when/how/
and more important issue is their
interpretation of permission. None if permission was
was implied or given. Making truly established.
matters worse, the unsubscribe
process involved sending an email to an address that did not work.
So technically, this dealership not only is way off on best practices,
but also is violating CAN-SPAM.
Permission is defined by Merriam-Webster as the act of permitting
and formal consent. The same definition applies to email marketing,
although the concept of explicit permission is taking it one step
forward, and what is the best practice standard in the opt-in email
marketing world. The most straightforward and nondebatable way
to embrace permission marketing is to officially and unequivocally
obtain permission. Yet, many marketers take the liberty to stretch
this into a more open-ended and vague marketing relationship.
All email marketers should be aware of the potential downsides

164
 TRUTH

to this strategy, which can include but are not limited to alienating
customers, killing relationships with prospects, getting into trouble
41
with ISPs, and more.

T HE VAR YIN G LEVELS OF PER M ISSION

When it’s okay to send email
The following list outlines some appropriate situations where true
permission is obtained:

Q Opt-in form on your website.

Q Opt-in form in your store or at events. (Remember to have
a privacy policy handy, just like you have available on your
website.)
Q Opt-in form on a partner website. Co-registration works well if
it is clear what the users are opting in to receive. Misleading
partner sites will result in a lose-lose situation. You will pay for
the registration, and then the recipient will unsubscribe or not
respond to your emails.

So by adhering to these not-so-complicated standards, you will be

in the good graces of following peer best practices and industry
standards. Remember: Your job isn’t completely done when you gain
users’ permission and store the data properly. You must be CAN-
SPAM-compliant.
Real permission email marketing works best when true permission
is given and there is no wiggle room to debate when/how/if
permission was truly established.

Is there a gray area?

Is it ever acceptable to email customers or prospects who have
not granted permission for you to do so? Bear in mind that email
marketing is like dating; if you have met the person before or have
been introduced through a friend, chances are better that you will hit
it off.
The following table shows three common situations that might
arise where a marketer might be tempted to send an email even
though explicit permission hasn’t been given.

165
Situation Stance Solution

The email address This is firmly in do- Consider stronger

of a prospect is not-email territory. You placement of
provided to your have no relationship your opt-in email
company by a with this person, much registration form on
third party. There less any permission your website and in
has been no that has been your store—if you are
direct contact or granted. If you mail a brick-and-mortar
conversation with to this category, be company—along with
this recipient. prepared to be called a some aggressive
spammer—and to have Google/Yahoo
your brand taken down search campaigns
a notch or two. You’re with landing pages
also breaking the law. that capture email
If you did a list rental addresses.
for this scenario, the
list owner could send
on your behalf.

A prospect’s Nothing has been Typically, these are

email address has granted, and no out-of-reach people
been obtained business relationship unless you have other
through some exists, so this recipient contact information.
customer touch is a stranger to you. A phone call or direct
point (for example, Do not contact this mailing asking them
a call center, prospect via email. to register for your
email inquiry, or However, if customers email promotions
sales call), but send an email inquiry or newsletter—a
there has been to your company, you compelling reason/
no permission can contact them back offer is key—on a
granted via email. But you don’t unique landing page
specifically have the right to add is a suitable option.
to email the them to your email list. Very aggressive types
prospect. may choose to send
an email asking
these people to opt
in for future email
communications.

166
 TRUTH

Situation Stance Solution 41

A person signs It is not appropriate Some companies

T HE VAR YIN G LEVELS OF PER M ISSION

up to receive to send promotional choose to include
your monthly emails to this person. light promotional
newsletter, but information in their
you want to send newsletters, and
this individual that is one way to
promotional solve this problem.
emails about However, keep
upcoming sales or the main purpose
new offers. of the newsletter
informational. Also,
make sure your
newsletter offers a
link to the preference
center, where
recipients can opt
in to receive other
types of messages
from your company
and you can highlight
your promotional
email subscription
option in your
ongoing newsletters
so someone can sign
up if interested.

Why risk all the hard work you have done for a quick shortcut that
most likely won’t be fruitful? Your opt-in house list will be the best-
performing audience. So stick with it.

Additional resources
If you are unclear of where your email marketing campaigns stand in
this area, you should initiate a complete and focused audit of your
permission-based email operations and CAN-SPAM compliance.
Outside eyes usually uncover a lot more than internal
ones. A specialty email firm is your best bet to ensure full
observance of these essential email marketing practices
and requirements.

167
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 42
TRUTH

What your privacy policy

should cover

169
 Online privacy policies are something most marketing
managers disdain or, even worse, overlook. But they
are crucial on many fronts. Just like buying a house,
the paperwork piles up, and most people want to move on to the
more exciting part of the transaction. But a website without a
privacy policy is a dangerous thing to build.
Even if your website has a privacy policy, does it cover key things
related to your email communications? Many websites do not
contain privacy information related to this critical component of
their customer and prospect communications. This is a dangerous
line to walk if you want to ensure your company is in line with best
practices for email and privacy issues. It’s also important since a link
to a privacy policy or reassurance
on privacy is a key element in an Even if your
optimized email sign-up form. It
builds trust and encourages people
website has a
to feel safe giving you their email privacy policy,
address. does it cover key
Here are some key things things related
to consider when creating or
evaluating your privacy policy and
to your email
email marketing programs. communications?
Q Cover your bases legally—With CAN-SPAM and international
spam legislation, it is better to be safe than sorry. I admire
companies that state point blank that they are CAN-SPAM (and
other international spam law) compliant.
Q Address how to unsubscribe—Clearly explain the process
to unsubscribe and the difference between promotional and
transactional emails if your company has ongoing emails that
are essential to servicing its account (such as billing and renewal
emails) and why they will be sent even if you opt out of other
email communications.
Q Don’t water down your privacy policy with too much
legalese—Of course, it is a challenge for any marketer to get a
legal team to do, but it is imperative that your privacy policy be
clear to any grandmother or Internet novice. There is no sense in
making the policy confusing when you are trying to accomplish
170
 TRUTH

transparency with it. If the policy doesn’t make sense at first

glance, you are asking for trouble.
42
Q Deal head on with phishing and other email scams—Especially

WHAT YOU R PR IVAC Y POLIC Y SHOU LD COVER

if your company is a major brand or potential phishing target, it is
best to address this in your privacy policy and potentially have a
separate section for consumers to review so that they can make
sure their privacy is safe in your hands. This should include a
definition of phishing and how it can differentiate between real
and imposter emails. The potential fallout on not doing this is
having your recipients stop opening or responding to your emails
because they are unsure whether or not the emails are legitimate.
Q Address the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act
(COPPA)—This act requires the consent of a parent or guardian
for the collection of personally identifiable information from
children under age 13. A proactive stance deals with this sensitive
subject as well.
Q Talk about links to other sites—Many email communications,
especially newsletters, link to sites other than their own. You
should address proactively that if users click a link to another site,
then your privacy policy does not govern the other sites. This may
seem like common sense, but it’s important to state it clearly. It is
also important to disclaim responsibility for the content on other
sites. In some countries, Germany in particular, you can be held
liable for the content you link to unless you specifically disclaim it.
Q Include how you collect and treat your data—This could
relate to vendors who manage customers’ email list or manage
campaigns. Since most, if not all, companies use reporting
metrics to analyze their campaigns, you should disclose this. It
can also be reassuring to the public if you note that you never
share email addresses with third parties, assuming that is your
practice.
Q Provide links to neutral and trusted third parties only—
Include a link to the FTC, Better Business Bureaus, or TRUSTe
site for further information, especially if you are accredited with
any of them. The privacy policy works both ways—to protect
yourself and your users. By including third-party information, it
can provide a mirror to demonstrate that you are in line with your
industry and generally accepted business practices. 171
Q Provide contact information for privacy policy issues or
complaints—Make sure customers feel that you are there for
them. Make an email address or phone number available on
your site. If nothing else, this information lets visitors know this
is not just boilerplate language but a resource for their benefit, in
addition to the company’s.
Q Have your legal and marketing teams review your policy at
least twice a year—Your company would also be well advised to
hire an outside firm to bring a set of unfamiliar eyes to find holes
in your policy. I routinely uncover privacy policies that have dates
that go back years, meaning they have outdated policies and
statements. This practice is dangerous in a fast-moving industry.
Q Plan for the worst—Have a contingency plan in effect in the
event of any accusations of privacy policy breaches. While
hopefully this will never be implemented, it always pays to
have emergency-related plans lined up in advance. And, in my
book, a customer accusing you of privacy policy violations is an
emergency, whether or not it is an accurate claim.

In one client engagement, my team at BrightWave Marketing

evaluated a major industry’s privacy policies. We were shocked to
see how many well-known, large companies failed to include many of
the basics, including an easy-to-find-and-read privacy policy. A large
number of the companies failed to even touch on email marketing
privacy issues, despite the fact that they all use email as a major
customer channel.
The goal here is not to panic or scare your boss or customers.
Instead, the goal is to better assess these items and reflect on how
your privacy policy should be edited to incorporate your email
marketing efforts. Since so much time, effort, and resources are put
into your messaging and branding, why not offer the same attention
to this decidedly unsexy part of your online presence?
You will be thankful when your privacy policy is
addressed—then you can move on to the more exciting
parts of a digital dialogue.

172
PART X: THE TRUTH ABOUT AUTOMATED EMAIL

43
TRUTH

Create a meaningful
welcome message

173
 Confirmation or “welcome” messages are one of those
automated elements of an email program that often
gets overlooked. Surprisingly, I’ve found that many
marketers don’t even send these emails and, of the ones that do
send them, some wait until weeks after the recipient subscribed.
Sadly, these companies are missing a great opportunity to
showcase the level of customer service they provide, while also
taking advantage of a time when they are likely still top of mind
for subscribers.
Welcome messages are not difficult to create and, when properly
created and executed, provide a personal connection after the
technical step of registration.
Subscribers like to know that the Subscribers like
process worked and, like bringing to know that the
cookies to a new neighbor, feel
welcome.
process worked
That being said, the best welcome
and, like bringing
messages do these things. cookies to a new
Q Are timely—To make the most neighbor, feel
of a welcome message, don’t
wait any longer than 48 hours
welcome.
after users have subscribed
to send it. In fact, there is no
reason to wait since technology is available to make automating
these messages seamless. Remember that each minute that
passes before you send a welcome message moves you farther
from the memory of the subscribers.
Q Confirm sign-up—Take advantage of the confirmation message
by reiterating the benefits and thanking the users for subscribing.
If the subscribers signed up for a newsletter, send them a link to
the last edition so that they can get a taste of what’s to come.
Q Offer an incentive—Remember to include subtle marketing
that features an immediate offer or incentive to provide new
subscribers with a feeling of value and recognition for engaging
with your company. Especially for retailers, including a discount
or special offer in this message often compels the recipient to
make a purchase. Take advantage of this time when the recipient

174
 TRUTH

is engaged. Often times, savvy shoppers will sign up for an email

program, expecting to get a special offer that would drive them to
43
complete a purchase. If you are not a retailer, perhaps offer up a

CR E AT E A M EAN IN GFU L W ELCOM E M ESSAGE

white paper or link to a “best of” edition. Don’t waste this golden
opportunity.
Q Are proactively CAN-SPAM-compliant—This is a chance to
proactively show subscribers that you take CAN-SPAM compliance
and the use of their private information seriously. The message
should include a physical address, an Unsubscribe link (in the
event that users mistakenly signed up), a link to your preference
center (if you have one), and, of course, a link to your privacy
policy. Transactional emails are categorized outside of the realm
of CAN-SPAM, but I recommend being fully compliant to stay
completely out of any legal gray area. It makes fundamental
business sense to ensure your entire email program is CAN-
SPAM-compliant, not just one side of the house. Of course, ask
your legal team for its opinion.
Q Capture your brand—Often times, this type of message is sent
by a department other than marketing. It all depends on the size
and structure of the organization. Make sure that marketing has a
say in the content of these messages and that your brand is well
reflected and consistent throughout.
Q Include personalization—Show subscribers that you want to
gain loyalty and build a solid relationships with them by taking
the time to personalize this message. Although it may seem
minor in the eyes of a marketer, simply including first-name
personalization can set the tone and impact the subscriber’s
perception of your company. If you gained other information
during the sign-up process, consider also using this to customize
the welcome message.
Q Boost deliverability—Confirmation emails can provide a
deliverability bonus. Use these messages to request that the
subscribers add you to their email client’s white list.
Q Are tested and revisited regularly—I know I’ve already covered
the importance of testing all messages, so I’ll keep this brief:
Don’t forget to test and revisit confirmation emails. They are just

175
 as, if not more, important than other elements of your email
program. Since this is the first message a subscriber gets from
you, it needs to be on point. You never get a second chance to
make that first impression.
Q Are acted upon—If you send a confirmation email and it
bounces, for goodness sake, please remove the address from
your mailing list. Not doing so is a surefire way to decrease
deliverability. On the same token, if someone unsubscribes by
clicking on a link in the confirmation message, make sure that
you promptly remove that person from the list.

If you haven’t been sending confirmation emails to subscribers, there

is no time like the present. Use these tips and get started. On the
other hand, if you are sending them, take another look to ensure that
you’re maximizing the potential
Since this is the of these often overlooked email
messages. For example, consider
first message a a series of welcome messages
subscriber gets before putting new subscribers
from you, it needs into the standard stream of email
messaging. New subscribers are
to be on point. nearly always your most responsive
segment, so you can
exploit that by sending them your best offers, with greater
frequently to begin with, before falling back into standard
messaging.

176
 44
TRUTH

Creating an unsubscribe
process

177
 I hate returning items to stores. However, when you
have a painless experience (and they all should be),
you leave with a positive and lasting impression during
a potentially negative exchange. (You are saying you don’t like the
clothes, toaster, DVD after all.) Maybe you will even shop there
again. Unsubscribing from any email newsletter or promotion
should be viewed in a similar light.
An efficient and easy-to-follow unsubscribe process is key for
maintaining your company’s reputation among Internet service
providers (ISPs), prospects, and customers. Requiring subscribers to
jump through hoops to be removed from your mailing list will either
result in them clicking the Report Spam button instead or finishing
the process but leaving with a negative opinion of your company and
brand.

NOTE At the time this book went to press, the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) has approved new rule provisions under the
CAN-SPAM Act. An email recipient cannot be required to pay a fee,
provide information other than his or her email address and opt-
out preferences, or take any steps other than sending a reply email
message or visiting a single Internet web page to opt out of receiving
future email from a sender. For up-to-date information on this ruling,
visit www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/05/canspam.shtm.

The first piece of advice I would give you is to make the process as
simple as possible. A complex, laborious process just won’t work in
your favor.
There is no reason for making the unsubscribe process difficult, and
with the new CAN-SPAM additions, your legal counsel would certainly
agree with this sentiment. Make the opt-out both easy to find and
easy to complete via a simple web form or by replying to your email
message. Don’t require that subscribers log in or provide personal
information to opt out. This will only frustrate them and make a bad
impression. Often, the same people who opt out will return at a later
date. They may have simply changed jobs or lost some interest in the
subject matter at hand. Their lack of interest could be just temporary,
so don’t alienate them.

178
 TRUTH

The two most simple unsubscribe

options are to offer a Click Here
Make the opt- 44
to Unsubscribe button or give the out both easy to

CR E AT IN G AN U N SU BSC R IBE PR OCESS

recipients the option to reply to find and easy to
your email with Unsubscribe in the complete.
Subject line or body of the email.
Either one will work, and both require little effort on the subscribers’
end. However, take note. If you automatically unsubscribe people
when they click on the Unsubscribe link in your email, it’s easy for
them but might cause some problems for you. Sometimes you may
end up with accidental clicks or clicks caused by antispam software.
In this case, you won’t have the chance to address the subscribers’
real problem and retain them with options other than a total
unsubscribe.
On the other hand, you can offer subscribers the unsubscribe
option and a link to a page where you can also offer alternatives
if they change their mind. For example, the page could allow the
subscriber to reduce the frequency of emails or to opt-out from only
certain types of messages from your company, rather than completely
unsubscribing all together. Whatever options you offer, the subscriber
should still only need to click once more to follow through with the
unsubscribe.
Now, the second piece of advice I would give you is to make sure
the process works. You should frequently test every scenario in the
process to ensure it is both effective and user-friendly. Also, give
recipients some type of confirmation that they have been removed
from your mailing list. Think about your own experience—don’t you
want to know that the unsubscribe took effect and worked? This can
be a confirmation on the Web page letting people know they will no
longer receive messages from your company or it will take up to 10
business days to be removed but that you are sorry to see them go
and hope that they will return in the future.
This last piece of advice seems so obvious that I shouldn’t even
say it, but you would be surprised how often I get emails after
unsubscribing from mailing lists—even from some of my favorite
retailers. Once people unsubscribe from your list, for goodness sake,
please don’t email them again. I understand that it may take a short
(very short) time for the unsubscribe to take effect, but continuing
to mail to these people will not only irritate them and impact your
179
 reputation it is also a violation of
Once people CAN-SPAM.
unsubscribe from U.S. law (and most national
your list, please antispam laws in place around
don’t email them the world) requires that you cease
future email messages within 10
again. business days of the unsubscribe
request. (See Truth 39 for more on
U.S. CAN-SPAM.) Keep in mind that this is just the legal requirement,
but the best practice is to remove immediately. Once people stop
wanting your emails, sending them more simply encourages them to
report you as spam, even if you’re still sending these emails legally.
I am baffled by the law-breaking emails I continue to get from
major retailers and brands that I electronically divorced from. One
major big box chain continues to send me emails despite repeated
unsubscribe requests. I don’t think they have malicious intent, but
someone is dropping the ball big time here.
Here are more tips on creating a top-notch unsubscribe process.

Q Include an Unsubscribe or Opt-Out link in the footer of an email.

Q Make sure every email message has an Unsubscribe link.
Q Keep a master suppression list of all opt-outs (and make sure it
can’t be compromised).
Q Make sure that your email marketing team is aware of the
suppression list and puts it to use with every mailing.
Q Keep a backup of your suppression list.
Q Don’t make the Unsubscribe link an image, since many email
clients suppress images.
Q Show former subscribers that you respect their right to opt out by
this one-step process.
Q Be ready to handle unsubscribe requests that come in through
replies to your message.
Q Coordinate with your email agency or provider about
how to handle unsubscribes.

180
 45
TRUTH

The right (and wrong) ways

to monitor replies to your
email campaigns

181
 In my speeches and client visits, I regularly preach
that email needs to give more than take. That means
marketers need to go beyond using email to hit their
numbers and push products and services. Make it meaningful,
unique, and, above all, relevant to the recipients. Those key
ingredients should be part of the desired customer relationship
formula. Yes, they are all buzzwords, but they’re ones that should
direct all aspects of your email program.

NOTE Sending a reply message requesting to be unsubscribed

from commercial email is, at press time, a pending new provision to
the CAN-SPAM Act by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). For up-
to-date information on this ruling, visit www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/05/
canspam.shtm.

I recently examined a rarely visited, but key component of the

“right email mix”; the reply-to feature of broadcast and targeted email
campaigns. My goal was to find out what happens when I replied to
permission-based emails from an array of disparate companies that
fill my inbox with special offers, business-oriented services, purchase
confirmations, and industry newsletters.
A week’s worth of replying to commercial opt-in email messages
reveals a great deal about how companies treat (or mistreat as it
appears) their subscribers. During the test week, I received more
than 40 opt-in emails from a range of companies, both big and
small. These included business-to-business (B2B) emails, industry
newsletters, consumer-oriented promotional emails, and even a
presidential candidate’s campaign newsletter.
The results were shocking. The perception that email is an easy
one-to-one communication tool may be the problem, as most
companies evaluated could not close the communications loop or
even receive responses from their subscribers, much less reply to
them.
Here are some highlights of my test week.
Q I received only 6 human replies out of 40 replies to emails I
signed up for. The responses were received within 24 hours and
sufficiently answered my questions. While I won’t reveal the
companies that failed to reply, I will give a pat on the back to the

182
 TRUTH

companies that did respond, as they are a diverse lot reflecting

the nature of the emails I replied to.
45
• Sam’s Club—The giant warehouse unit of Wal-Mart.

T HE R IGHT (AN D W R ON G) WAYS TO MONITOR REPLIES TO YO UR EMA IL CAMPA I GNS

• Slatin Report—A commercial real estate newsletter.
• Thin Data—An email service provider, or ESP. (It should
be noted that I replied to other ESP newsletters as well
but received no response from them.)
• Thrillist—A daily email geared toward men. Think Daily
Candy for men. (It should be noted here that not only did
I get a prompt reply, but I also got it from the CEO.)
• Zoo Atlanta—One of the nation’s top zoos. (This
organization shall receive the quickest reply award, as
I received a reply six minutes after I replied to its email
newsletter.)
• UPromise—A savings network for parents to save money
for their children’s college education. (The company
immediately sent an auto reply saying it would reply
within 24 hours, and it did.)
Q Three replies were automated messages; two of them stated that
the email address did not receive replies, while one auto reply
said I should expect a response within 24 hours (which I did).
Q Six replies immediately bounced. These were direct inquiries
upon receiving the emails and were questions that related to the
desired action/purpose of the email. For example, one email was
from a major airline confirming a transaction and highlighted
hotel and rental car offers. My reply was asking about the rental
cars, and it bounced immediately. This is certainly not an effective
cross-promotional effort in my book.
Q I didn’t receive any type of response from the remaining 25 emails
I replied to. Interestingly, some of the email addresses that were
displayed upon clicking the Reply button hinted at my fate, although
in the body of the email, none mentioned that replies would
not be answered. These included notread@companyx.com and
nonhuman@companyz.com. On the other hand, one reply email
address was email.service@companyz.com, but I found that address
proved to be in name only, as I received no reply.

183
Avoiding common “reply” pitfalls
The first place to start is to identify where replies go and audit this
process from the subscriber side. Most email managers may not be
able to tell you what happens during a response, and this appears
to be a major problem. I know from strategic engagements that
this is often the case since many in-depth operational reviews have
revealed an information black hole when it comes to knowing where
replies go and who handles them.

What may be lurking?

First and foremost, unsubscribe requests are likely in the batches
of replies that each email campaign receives. If these requests
bounce or aren’t received and removed, you may be violating the
law. Ironically, one email newsletter I asked to be unsubscribed from
featured content about email best practices.
What may grab the attention of more marketers are the missed
sales opportunities occurring when replies to emails go unanswered.
More than 25 percent of my replies requesting more information on
a product or service went unanswered. Not everyone will complete
the action you desire, such as clicking on the Buy Now link, so
this is simply an inexcusable way to let revenue disappear. It also
isn’t just about missed sales; it is about the missed opportunity to
share a dialogue with subscribers.
If email wants Email is your chance for a two-way
to take a place conversation, but it won’t happen if
your return address goes nowhere.
at the big boy’s You may miss out on things like
marketing table, testimonials, notifications of errors
marketers need or mistakes, feedback on content, or
suggestions for improvement.
to ensure their
If email wants to take a place at the
campaigns big boys’ marketing table, marketers
are designed need to ensure their campaigns are
and executed designed and executed properly from
properly from the the subscriber’s side, going beyond
the Send button and the
subscriber’s side. sales and marketing point
of view.

184
 PART XI: THE TRUTH ABOUT B2B AND
INTERNATIONAL EMAIL PROGRAMS

46
TRUTH

Delivering on
business-to-business (B2B)
email campaigns

185
 The goal of most B2B emails is to acquire leads, but
most miss the mark and do more damage than good.
B2B email campaigns generally look and feel the same
to me. Many show up looking like long-winded, copy-heavy, direct-
mail solicitations. Some have one giant image with marketing-type
jargon. Most don’t understand what may attract the right buyer and
how to deliver real value and relevancy to the inbox.
The goal of most B2B email campaigns is to acquire leads, often
accomplished by a white paper, Webinar, or case study, all of
which require registration to obtain or attend. Make the path to the
registration page an easy transition from the email.
B2B email often seeks to accompany “leads” through the sales
cycle or keep the product/service top of mind until people are ready
to buy.
For some high-level, business-focused email campaigns, the goal
is not to get an immediate click or lead, but to get the email read and
forwarded to the right person. Think about selling high-cost software
or IT equipment. Few people will buy a $200,000 piece of equipment
based on one email message. But if done correctly, your campaigns
can get noticed by the right decision makers, and the real one-to-one
dialogue can begin.
Getting your email noticed and read can be a matter of feeding the
ego, particularly on senior executive-level messaging efforts. Make
sure you acknowledge the importance (real or perceived) of your
audience members and their time.
Here are some best practices for B2B email marketing.

Q Know your audience—If you are mailing to IT network adminis-

trators, an image-heavy newsletter probably won’t be well
received. Instead, send a text-only message. Follow the cues
of what your audience likes, and don’t take a one-size-fits-all
approach.
Q Mobile email triage is real—Escape the mobile email gauntlet.
An increasing number of business executives use their mobile
devices/PDAs to perform email triage. This means that if you have
a weak message or your email lacks compelling or immediate
value, the busy exec may delete your email while in a meeting.
186
 TRUTH

On the flip side, a unique email with a relevant purpose may get
saved for attention later on when he or she returns to the office.
46
Q Make it easy for the mobile audience—Include a language such

D E LIVE R IN G ON BU SIN ESS-TO-BU SINESS (B2B) EMAIL CAMPA I GNS

as: “Click here to read on your mobile phone.” This approach is
becoming more commonplace on B2B emails and may help you
escape mobile email rendering snafus.
Q Don’t Underestimate From and Subject lines—Emails from a
CEO to a fellow executive tend to resonate. Combine this with
a short Subject line that can break through the clutter while
demonstrating a reason for the users to read the email.
Q Keep it short and sweet—Whether it is read on an iPhone
or laptop, make your message count; make sure it gets read.
Subscribers will skim and delete long emails without clear calls to
action. Make your value proposition obvious to the people who
will browse over the email looking for a reason to read (or delete).
Q Don’t oversell—Too many promises, customer raves, or pricing
information may overwhelm your audience and diminish the
opportunity to have people click on a link where they can find
more details of what’s being offered.
Q Provide value—Remember that you are aiming for the long-term
win, not just a quick click-and-disappear act. Since building a
relationship is important in B2B emails, you must offer something
of value and deliver an email that keeps the relationship moving
forward. It could be as simple as aggregating industry content
links and including them in your newsletter.
Q Respect the audience’s time—Frequency is a significant issue
for all mailings, but if a business subscriber doesn’t respond to
the first two messages, it doesn’t mean you should send to them
even more frequently. (See Truth 23 for tips on frequency.)
Q Test—I received seven different emails from a lead-generation
company in the span of five minutes this morning. The emails
contained decent messaging and links to at least one relevant
case study. To paraphrase a popular movie: They had me until
hello occurred seven times. Do some due diligence before sending
an email, as these campaigns do more damage than good.
Q Offer something unique—White papers can often work, but
they are everywhere. Provide access and perks that are gold to

187
 the C-suite audience. For example, one client was attempting
to register business executives for an annual event and tested
pricing breaks versus admission to a VIP event. Remember: The
B2B audience usually isn’t spending its own money.
Q Remarket—I had major success with one client recently
by creating follow-up campaigns based on how each user
responded (or didn’t) to the initial campaign. Using metrics can
guide you to a better and more relevant strategy.

A B2B email campaign is different from a consumer campaign. Let’s

look at the three major differences.

Q Tone—Don’t spend countless hours writing flowery prose.

Instead, spend time testing the right mix of design, messaging,
and calls to action. Your tone should be much like it would be in
a face-to-face meeting with prospects: direct, professional, and in
a manner that makes your audience want to do business. Don’t
waste time building up to the pitch. State why you are sending
the message and what’s in it for the recipients.
Q Message—The message should clearly articulate the purpose
and value to the subscribers while making it easy for them to
identify and act on any call to action. Don’t bog them down with
too many cross-promotional or secondary marketing messages.
Allow them to scan the email and find out what’s in it for them.
Q Measurement—Your main measurement analysis should not be
based on opens and clicks but on how many leads are generated.
Careful attention should be paid to forwards and any additional
email subscriptions generated from the campaign. A high open
and click-through rate combined with a lack of leads could mean
you put up too many barriers to capture the lead. Ensure that your
landing page and relevant gateway pages (for example, the white
paper sign-up page) are easy to find and use. This may take some
coordination beyond a typical email manager.

B2B email campaigns need continual tweaking and

refining. If opens and clicks are high but leads are low,
you need to examine your landing pages for possible
conversion barriers.

188
 47
TRUTH

Best practices for

international email efforts

189
 Thinking of taking your email program to another
country? If you are planning to open up your email
messages to an international audience, there are some
key practices that you should follow and not overlook. Some of
them are more obvious than others, but you may be surprised at
the differences you might not have considered.

Language and translations

Language is likely the first thing that comes to mind when marketing
to an international audience. However, it is a little more complicated
than simply writing the email to match the area’s native language or
having someone translate your message into another language. You
need to consider that some countries and regions may have more
than one language that is widely spoken. Also, the actual dialect of
that language may differ among various regions within a country or
among different countries. For example, the French spoken in Canada
is different from the French in France. Make sure to capture location
and language preferences during sign-up to avoid a language barrier.
Mark Brownlow, who runs EmailMarketingReports.com for a global
audience from Austria, provides these tips on translation. If you want to
take a campaign and translate it for other languages, consider whether
you might want a country-specific campaign instead, rather than just
translating an existing campaign meant for a different country.
If you do choose the option of a simple translation, keep these
things in mind.

Q Good translations are not easy. Get them done professionally, not
by someone in the office who happens to speak English and the
destination language.
Q You need a translator who is a native speaker of the destination
language and is familiar with the topic area and the culture of the
market you’re addressing.
Q If you can’t get that in one person (very unlikely), ensure that
the translation is proofread by someone in your business for
technical accuracy and by someone with marketing experience in
that country for cultural marketing nuances.

190
 TRUTH

Q Language has local influences. If you translate your text into

German, for example, get it checked again before using that text
47
in Austria or Switzerland.

BEST P R AC TICES FOR IN TER N ATION AL EMAIL EFFORTS

Lessons from abroad
Denise Cox has one of the most unique views of any international email
marketer I’ve met. Cox, an email marketing veteran with European
email service provider (ESP) Newsweaver, is an American born and
bred marketing expert who now operates from Ireland. She shared with
me her best practices and tips on international campaigns:

Q The biggest challenge for marketers is to approach global

marketing, particularly in Europe, with the view that you’re not
dealing with a single regional entity. For example, while there is a
collective of European countries, the European Union (EU), you still
need to approach each country within the EU with a view to local
customs, languages, and approaches to purchasing. This applies to
any country around the world. It also applies to English-speaking
countries—they have differences in the language and customs.
Q Most international audiences are already doing email marketing.
Q 54% of the European Union have access to the Internet.1
Q A recent JupiterResearch report highlighted some of the similar-
ities and differences between the U.S. and EU email markets
(www.jupiterresearch.com/bin/item.pl/research:concept/1103/
id=99795/ Findings included). Though overall sophistication
is about the same, the use of tactics such as segmentation is
slightly lower in continental Europe. UK and EU marketers have
dramatically smaller lists than their U.S. peers, and European
marketers depend more on geographic data.
Q Email is already a big part of marketing efforts by European market-
ers. A current Forrester2 study reports that in 2007, European firms
spent €1.5 billion on email marketing—and the budget will increase
to 2.3 billion by 2012. The trend, similar to the United States, is
toward using email for retention (52%) over acquisition (26%).3

Legislation
In October 2003, the European Directive on Privacy and Electronic
Communications (2002/58/EC) entered into force. With this directive,
191
the sending of unsolicited communications via email became more
strictly regulated across all European Union (EU) member states. The
basic principles are the opt-in approach: businesses to gain prior
consent before sending unsolicited emails for direct marketing. This
consent must be explicitly given, except where there is an existing
customer relationship. The directive also includes prohibiting the
disguising or concealing of the identity of the sender and offering an
easy-to-use and free-of-charge opt-out process.
Each EU country has implemented its own interpretation of opt-in
versus opt-out. For example, the UK and Ireland have delineated between
the business email address and the individual person’s email address,
which includes partnerships and sole traders. The business address can
be sent the messages on an opt-out basis, and the individual or natural
person’s email address on an opt-in basis unless there is an existing
relationship. In Austria, it is a fairly strict overall opt-in policy.
It is fine to think globally and put in place plans to make your
products and services available on an international level. But in
putting together your campaigns, you will find that you should think
locally and segment out and personalize your email marketing
mailings to suit the region you are deploying to. That way you’ll get
the best results possible.

People are people no matter where you go

It’s clear from all this activity that the inbox for Europeans is as busy
as anywhere in the United States. No one wants junk emails in their
inbox. You’re going to have to work as hard to engage with your
target audience wherever they reside.
Europeans love their email just like Americans do. They like email
that is targeted, timely, and relevant. Europeans, in particular, value
their privacy, so email marketing efforts have to be done carefully,
without being invasive. Everyone in the world likes to receive emails
that they’ve given permission to receive and that they find useful or
are from a company or brand they trust.
Ensure that you are up to speed with each country’s
nuances and best practices. Your audience will thank you
by staying engaged.

192
PART XII: THE TRUTH ABOUT WHERE EMAIL IS HEADED

48
TRUTH

The impact of social media

on email

193
 “Social media is killing email.”
“Email falls prey to Web 2.0.”
Maybe you’ve heard these sentiments or read articles
about how email is being edged out by social media websites
like MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn. It’s no doubt that these
sites have gained tremendous popularity over recent years. But,
if you’ve taken notice and are wondering, “What do I do now
that email is dead?,” let’s take a step back from the hype and,
hopefully, put your mind at ease.
I remember when really simple syndication (RSS) began to pick up
speed and seemed to enter its tipping point in gaining widespread
popularity. There was an uproar in the industry, and I saw similar
headlines in the news. There were countless articles with titles
like, “RSS Kills Email” or “Bye Bye Email.” But, in fact, email wasn’t
replaced by RSS at all, and today we are facing a similar situation
with social media.
Email marketing has been called the original social networking
tool, and I could not agree more. If you think about social networks
in general, email plays a large role
in them. LinkedIn, as an example, Email marketing
relies heavily on email to keep
its users connected. In fact, large
has been called
portals (which provide email the original social
addresses to millions) are morphing networking tool,
into social networks, with email at and I could not
their core.
agree more.
It’s no doubt that social media
has picked up steam in capturing
the attention of Internet users across the globe. However, there
is a lesson to be learned here. Instead of thinking that email is
out, try considering the role that email can play in these new
marketing mediums. As new approaches and channels emerge, we
should be thinking of new ways to incorporate and leverage email.
Advancements will always crop up in marketing, and it is our job to
change perspective on where email falls within them.
Research shows that younger generations indeed may prefer to
communicate through social networking websites and might not use
email as often as they once did. But, we all know from experience
194
 TRUTH

that communication preferences

change as you age, and it’s likely
Instead of thinking 48
that the younger generation will that email is out,

T HE IM PAC T OF SOC IAL M EDIA ON EMAIL

increase email use once they get try considering
real jobs. Think of it this way: Social the role that email
networks are islands, requiring
membership for access. Email is
can play in these
universal. Everyone you know has new marketing
an email address, but not everyone mediums.
you know has a Facebook account.
That is email’s huge advantage.
Either way, new methods of
communication require us to evolve and think outside the box.
In particular, try to learn which parts of your audience are more
receptive to a social network strategy and focus accordingly, in the
same way that you don’t try to reach people who have no Internet
access via email. With that being said, here are some ways you can
embrace social media and weave email into it.

Q If your company has a Facebook page, capture email addresses

on it.
Q Promote your newsletter and any benefits to your email offerings
on your LinkedIn profile.
Q Use these sites to communicate less urgent or regular news.
Q Test your marketing messages, calls to action, and creative
elements on social networking sites. I did when promoting this
book and found it beneficial.
Q Use email to drive traffic to new social network initiatives or to
existing social network sites and features. (This will
give you a chance to measure the effectiveness of the
overall effort.)

195
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49
TRUTH

The future of email

marketing

197
 From reading this book, you’ve likely gathered that
email remains the workhorse of interactive marketing,
and I predict it will be given more attention and credit
in the years to come. Here are my parting thoughts on the future
of email marketing and what we will see down the road.
Email and search marketing will continue to be the nuts and bolts
of any interactive marketing campaign. Without proper usage of
these targeted and measurable platforms, online goods and services
don’t stand a chance of competing against hungrier and savvier
players. Expect budgets to increase to reflect this continued reliance
on email for sales and marketing.

Email’s ROI brings rewards

As marketers dive deeper into analytics and segmenting and attempt
to get more out of email, we will see email program managers get
increased budgets, respect, and hopefully bigger titles or raises. I
also predict that email teams will grow in size and stature. Large
companies, Fortune 500 companies especially, won’t be able to
successfully manage sophisticated email programs with a team of
one to three people like I often find.

Asset check
I think most marketing teams don’t realize what a company asset
they have in their opt-in email subscriber lists. Retailer’s catalog and
direct marketing teams view their lists as valuable business resources
with financial implications tied to it, and they are generally not filled
with people who have granted permission to contact them. Treat
your email program like its own business, and start with valuing your
inventory—your email subscriber
basis. Your own email program may Treat your email
be worth more than you thought. program like its
Don’t get me wrong. Of course, I own business, and
am not even remotely suggesting
that you rent or sell these assets,
start with valuing
but in building value, goals, and your inventory—
benchmarks for your team, start your email
placing a real monetary value on
those email opt-ins.
subscriber basis.

198
 TRUTH

The hand-off
Email creative will finally be handed off to in-house designers
49
experienced in crafting effective emails or email specialty firms rather

T HE FU T U R E OF EM AIL M AR KETIN G
than design generalists or interactive firms with no desire or strong
experience in email. What works on a flash or microsite doesn’t work in
email. Marketers will make better decisions about outsourcing portions
of their email program when internal expertise or resources don’t exist.

Bye bye, batch and blast

Finally, the future will see the true end of marketers batching and
blasting out emails. As email becomes more pervasive, most
permission email marketers (beyond mom and pops) will have
no excuses for not using (or at least attempting) A-B list splits
and moving away from 12 monthly newsletters to the same list,
every time. Whether you are paying $20 a month or $20,000, the
opportunities exist equally for moving to more progressive and savvy
campaigns that deliver unique value to the inbox.

Integration abounds
Marketers have made progress in Finally, the future
integration, but it’s about time that will see the true
email and all forms of marketing
become more integrated. In the end of marketers
future, email will be integrated more batching and
heavily with other direct marketing blasting out
channels—for example, you might
click on an email and get a phone
emails.
call from a sales team, or consumers may get a direct mail piece that
drives them to a landing page where they’ll receive a special offer in
exchange for subscribing.
It is also my hope that traditional advertising will finally wake up
and notice that it is effective and smart to drive traffic not just to
websites, but to email preference centers.

Going mobile?
Mobile email campaigns will grow in popularity and shouldn’t be
ignored as a strategy, so figure out where you fit in on the mobile
front. Mobile comes up more and more in discussions, but I have yet

199
to see many traditional email marketers embrace mobile. I think that
is going to change in the coming years, though. I expect that more
marketers will start testing the waters to determine the effectiveness
of mobile and its place in overall strategy.

What about RSS?

RSS remains strong in delivering news and content to a dedicated and
advanced audience. It will continue to be a low-profile sidekick to email
and a strong platform for the right audience. I don’t see RSS becoming
the phenomenon that social networking and blogging are, but existing
users will continue to embrace it, while a small percentage of newbies
will find their way to RSS feeds for the first time.

Video and audio

Not common today because of filtering, video- and audio-enabled
email will slowly but surely find themselves in the inbox on a more
frequent basis. There is a great demand for this, but the technology
has not caught up yet with the deliverability challenges.

Relationships versus direct response

More attention will be focused on relationship-building email
with cross promotions, rather than direct response emails only, to
help overcome deliverability challenges and more fully exploit the
advantages of email.

Get dirty with details

Interactive teams will be forced to be pay more attention to the
details of their email marketing program. The quality bar rises all
the time, both in terms of competition from other emails, delivery
challenges, and other marketing vehicles. Those who rest on their
laurels will get overtaken and left behind.

In the end
Despite the latest, greatest thing in the online space, chief interactive
officers will not forget email marketing and the three Rs it drives:
retention, relationships, and revenue. As we move forward to the
many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead, I predict
that the truth about email marketing will be known to more
people, not just those of us who live and breathe it.

200
REFERENCES
FOREWORD

R E FE R E N CES
1 DMA, The Power of Direct Marketing: ROI, Sales, Expenditures,
and Employment in the U.S., 2007–2008 Edition
2 JupiterResearch, U.S. E-Mail Marketing Forecast, 2007 to 2012

TRUTH 1
1 Forrester Research, 2007
2 DMA, 2007
3 Jakob Nielson, 10 High-Profit Redesign Priorities, 2007

TRUTH 2
1 Nucleus Research, 2007

TRUTH 4
1 Forrester Research, Email Marketing Comes of Age, 2007
2 Forrester Research, 2007

TRUTH 6
1 David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer, Strong Spend
Ahead for E-Mail Marketing, Jan. 8, 2008
2 Direct Marketing Association, 2007
3 Direct Marketing Association, 2006
4 JupiterResearch, 2007
5 Shop.Org, The State of Online Retailing, 2007

TRUTH 14
1 DMA/EEC’s RetailEmail.Blogspot, Retail Email Subscription
Benchmark Study, 2007

TRUTH 17
1 Datran Media, January 2008

TRUTH 19
1 Forrester Research, 2006
2 Silverpop, Retail Email Marketing Study, 2006

201
TRUTH 20
1 eMarketer, 2005

TRUTH 22
1 Nielsen Norman Group, Email Newsletter Usability, 2006
2 Nielsen Norman Group, Email Newsletter Usability, 2006

TRUTH 23
1 Responsys, The State of Personalization, 2006

TRUTH 25
1 JupiterResearch, 2006
2 JupiterResearch, December 2006

TRUTH 26
1 E-Mail Sender and Provider Coalition, and Ipsos, December 2007

TRUTH 27
1 Return Path, 2007
2 Email Sender and Provider Coalition, 2007

TRUTH 28
1 JupiterResearch, 2005

TRUTH 30
1 WebSurveyor, 2006

TRUTH 33
1 Lyris, Q2 Email Advisory Report Card, 2007

TRUTH 34
1 Email Experience Council, January 2007
2 Silverpop, 2007
3 MarketingSherpa, 2007
4 MarketingSherpa, 2007

202
TRUTH 35
1 MarketingSherpa, in partnership with SurveySampling, 2007
2 Exact Target, Email Marketing for the Third Screen, 2007

R E FE R E N CES
3 Exact Target, Email Marketing for the Third Screen, 2007
4 JupiterResearch, December 2007

TRUTH 37
1 EmailStatCenter.com, First Annual State of Email Metrics Survey,
November 2007

TRUTH 39
1 WebSurveyor Corp., March 2006

TRUTH 47
1 Forrester Report, European Email Marketing Spend Hits €2.3
Billion in 2012, (August 2007)
2 ECTAS, Q2 2006 Benchmark Survey
3 E-Consultancy and Adestra Report, Email Marketing Industry
Consensus, 2008
4 Internet World Stats, www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm
5 International Telecommunication Union, www.itu.int/osg/spu/
spam/law.html

203
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Like any new journey, writing this book has been both uniquely
challenging and rewarding.
I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the many people who
afforded me this opportunity and helped to make it a reality.
When Rick Kughen of Pearson contacted me to inquire about
my interest in writing a book on email marketing, the idea was
fresh in my head. Rick and his exceptional team at Pearson guided
me through this new process and endured my many questions
and comments. A first-time author could do no better with this
professional and friendly group, led by Rick.
Brad Berens, through an introduction by mutual friend Rebecca
Weeks, became my first editor in October 2004. He and his team at
iMediaConnection.com were gracious and inviting as I dove in head
first with industry writing. It proved to be an important ingredient in
BrightWave Marketing’s early success and continues to be a vehicle
for us to spread the gospel of email marketing to a wide audience.
Thanks for the opportunity!
Being in the service business, you develop thick skin rather quickly.
However, almost without exception, BrightWave Marketing has been
extremely fortunate in partnering with a select group of people and
companies that put their email program in our hands. Special thanks
go out to them, especially the folks who have been with us since
the early days. I can’t thank you enough for your confidence and
business.
The team at BrightWave is a close-knit and unique one. They were
patient with me while I frequently retreated to my office bunker
to work on this book. Most importantly, they continue to provide
incredible strategic and tactical guidance for our clients.
Kudus to Mark Brownlow, one of the workhorses and leading
thinkers in the email marketing world. I greatly appreciate your hard
work and insight during this endeavor. This book is certainly better
because of your involvement and shared knowledge.
Thanks to the many other people quoted and included in this book
or those who offered feedback on this concept. I could not have done
it without your valued opinions.

204
 One of the biggest thanks goes out to Jenn Harrison of Inked Public
Relations who served as my project manager, among other duties,
during this process. Jenn provided me with structure and focus during

AC KN OW LE DGM EN TS
a time when that seemed impossible. Jenn, thanks for being the glue
on this project. Without you, it surely would have fallen apart.
A huge thank you goes to my family. To my parents, thanks for
providing me with the foundation that made this sort of project
possible. You always made it clear that nothing was out of reach
while advising me to proceed with caution. Thanks to my sister, Bryn,
for being a loyal supporter throughout the years.
My grandparents have always been very involved and important in
the many stages of my life. I appreciate their wisdom and guidance. I
have also been blessed to have amazing in-laws who have provided
helpful advice and meaningful encouragement. Thanks Rosanne,
Wayne and Laura!
To my wife Kelly, for your continued support that goes above and
beyond the call of duty. Your counsel and partnership have always
proven to be incredibly valuable, while your patience has been a
crucial ingredient to our combined success. Thank you for believing in
me while also steering me in the right direction when needed.
Finally, to my sons, Cal and Sam, for being the inspiration for much
of what I do!

205
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Simms Jenkins is chief executive officer of BrightWave Marketing,
an award-winning email marketing services firm specializing in
the strategic optimization of email marketing programs. He has
extensive relationship and interactive marketing experience on both
the client and agency side. Jenkins has led BrightWave Marketing
in establishing a large and diverse client list, including top-tier
brands such as ACS, BellSouth, California Casualty, CoreNet Global,
Lowe’s, Sports Illustrated, and Ted’s Montana Grill, as well as leading
advertising and marketing firms.
Jenkins is regarded as one of the leading experts in the email
marketing industry, and the expertise of both Jenkins and BrightWave
clients have been recognized and featured by a range of prominent
media outlets, including Bloomberg and The Atlanta Journal-
Constitution. Jenkins and his column for iMedia Connection, a leading
interactive marketing and media publication, have been called one of
the top 21 information sources for email marketers. In 2007, Jenkins
facilitated a major industry partnership as BrightWave Marketing and
The Email Experience Council joined forces to launch EmailStatCenter.
com, the first centralized online repository of statistics and research
specific to the email marketing industry.
Prior to founding BrightWave Marketing, Jenkins headed the
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) group at Cox Interactive
Media, a unit of media giant Cox Enterprises. Jenkins serves on the
eMarketing Association’s board of advisors and is a board member
of Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AiMA). Jenkins is a
graduate of Denison University in Granville, Ohio, and resides in
Atlanta with his wife and two sons.
Jenkins’ company website is www.BrightWaveMarketing.com and
book website is www.TheTruthAboutEmailMarketing.com.

206
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