This situation raises the question of whether the leader Research in Motion (RIM), with its BlackBerry offering, will be able to maintain its position or whether it is destined simply to become an also ran or acquisition target (the sector continues to mature).

The market, he believes, has to date been held back because “it is still too hard to set these things up and smartphones that use push are still too large and difficult to use for most”.

While the BlackBerry “remains one of the most attractive devices in the segment” and is “comparatively easy to use”, the advantage of going with a Microsoft Mobile 6 and Exchange 2007 combination, for example, is that there is no need to set up a separate back-end push email server, “although the settings on the phone can be daunting”.

Using RIM, on the other hand, does require the installation of a separate BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which means that there is “yet one more device to set up and administer, though the phone is still harder to set up than it should be”.

But the big test for RIM over the next two years or so will be the rising levels of competition in a market that it has more or less owned since the BlackBerry was first launched in 1999. Beyond the most dangerous of rivals in the shape of Microsoft, device manufacturers such as Motorola and Palm also have RIM solidly in their sights, as do mobile network operators such as Vodafone.

The mobile operator has, for example, just launched the Vodafone Application Service in conjunction with mobile workforce management and field service software supplier Dexterra to try and gain a larger share of the enterprise market for mobile applications access, another sector that RIM is pursuing.

As a result, although RIM is still currently the dominant player, with the biggest market share of the push email space, “whether it can hold this in the face of Microsoft is another matter. It poses a big threat.” This is not least because, while RIM may have a better understanding of the mobile environment at the moment, “Microsoft is getting there”

On Thanksgiving Day, a start-up called Berggi will launch a service that is intended to make accessing e-mail and sending instant messages easier on low-cost mobile phones.

Babur Ozden, chief executive of Berggi, said the service aggregates all personal e-mail and instant messaging clients into a single interface, for simpler access. And the service can be used on just about any handset, offering a less expensive alternative to corporate-based e-mail services from companies such as Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry handheld messaging device.

Berggi isn’t the first company to promise easy access to e-mail on cell phones. Mobile operators have been integrating mobile e-mail and IM clients into their phones for more than a year. And access to mobile e-mail Web sites, such as those offered by Google and Yahoo, has also been available through a mobile WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) browser that offers stripped-down versions of the sites, specially designed for mobile phones.

Experts say that two things have limited the adoption of mobile e-mail: ease of use, and price. Most consumers don’t even realize they can access e-mail on their phones. Anyone with a WAP browser on their phone, which is pretty much anyone who has bought a new phone in the past two years, could access personal e-mail from a WAP-enabled site such as Google, Yahoo or Hotmail. But accessing e-mail this way is cumbersome and requires users to type a mobile address and click through several menus to access the e-mail service.

So far, the functionality, which has been available for a little more a year, has been limited to certain handsets. But more handsets are being added.

(cnet.com)

How is List Rental Like Car Rental?

• The Company: There are scores if not hundreds of different places you can rent a car from. Most often, you get what you pay for. The same goes for list rental services. Some list rental companies are backed by well-known organizations.

• The Car (List): Sometimes you get a good car (list), sometimes you’re not so fortunate. If you are lucky, the car drives well, responds to corners, gets good gas mileage. Other times, you get the bad car with much sound around inside the car. Similar to email list rental, sometimes you get subscribers who are really interested in your product/services, more than likely - not.

Why is ListRental So Controversial?

The problem with list rental is that the subscribers are not nearly as engaged as those who find you directly and ask specifically to be included in your email marketing campaigns. To me, that is the biggest difference. From what I’ve seen, list rentals tend to have much lower open, click-through, and conversion rates. In and of itself, lower rates are not a cause for panic, but a damaged reputation is. In my experience, emails that are sent to rented lists have more complaints, are more likely to be marked as junk/spam, and have a higher unsubscribe rate. This is where you can run into issues.

I’m not quite sold on the concept of list rental. But…if you are going to rent, be smart about it. If you think about the first email as an opt-in vs opt-out, you’re likely to see a healthier list (with fewer subscribers).

That isn’t true anymore. It’s more harder to find people willing to part with their email address, two things happen.

1. Look for new and better ways to drive new subscriptions

2. Do your best not to lose those subscribers you do have

As such, list growth isn’t just about acquiring addresses. Your whole program bears responsibility for keeping these addresses happy so they stay with you. Indeed, the qualities that encourage retention also encourage new sign-ups.

“If you create content that stirs emotions, causes laughter or inspires recipients in some practical or meaningful way; they will probably want to share it with others in their life.”

Retention is key to list growth for a simple reason: if you have a leaky bucket, you plug the leaks before you add more water.

If a lot of people leave your email program, find out why and address the problems. Don’t just throw more good addresses in and hope this time they’ll stick around. Among the expert advice is a lesson, successful email is using transactional messages to encourage people to sign up to their promotional email programs.

You’ll find many people sensibly recommending you put marketing messages in transactional email (order confirmations etc.) But nearly all focus on the cross- and upselling opportunities…

You may tell them : “thanks for buying this book, why not buy the sequel.”

Based on the experience, perhaps it’s also worth thinking about plugging your newsletter and other email promotions. At the other end of the chain, there are things you can do to rescue those who would otherwise unsubscribe.

Even if you’ve followed all of my data capture advice, you still need to engage in list hygiene to ensure its quality. Without proper list hygiene, you risk losing contact with your customers, damaging your sender reputation and getting your emails blocked by the ISPs.

For example, if you continue to send emails to accounts that have been closed for some time (i.e. to “unknown users”), ISPs will take notice, which could lead to getting your email blocked. You also run the risk of getting in trouble with spam traps. Essentially, an unclean list tells the ISPs that you don’t care about your customers, or about following best practices. Maintaining a good reputation also requires that you respond to unsubscribe requests and bounce data immediately.

List hygiene best practices
The following activities are an essential part of a successful list hygiene program:

· Scrub your lists regularly.
Scrubbing your list is simply making sure that you are keeping it as clean as possible by running your list against a list of known bad domains and role accounts. While you should remove unsubscribes and relevant bounced email addresses immediately, you should also scrub your lists on a regular basis.

· Remove and/or correct bad domains.
Bad domains need to be removed or corrected right away. Closely review your failure reports, identify bad addresses and evaluate whether they are the result of a data capture problem or a non existent domain.

· Remove distribution accounts.
Mailing to a distribution account is never a good idea. Not only is it an unsuitable address for connecting with a customer (the equivalent of sending a letter to “occupant”), ISPs are looking for such behavior. Plus, it’s also sure to facilitate spam complaints from members of the list.

· Remove “spam” email addresses.
One simple step that can be easily overlooked is to remove email addresses with the word “spam” in them. These are most likely associated with spamtraps, which can lead to you getting blacklisted by ISPs or antivirus companies.

· Remove inactive addresses.
Review the email activity of your customers and compare open rates with the frequency of the email sent to them. One example might be, if you send a newsletter every two weeks and a customer hasn’t opened one email in the last six months, you should remove the address from your master list.

· Use data checkers.
You can avoid a lot of bad addresses by putting some common data checkers at the point of data collection on your website. These checkers can ensure that the entered email address is properly formatted before it is accepted into the database. Identifying the errors at the point of entry gives you the opportunity to have users correct the mistakes as they make them.

The importance of list hygiene cannot be overlooked as an essential email marketing practice. By employing the practices mentioned above, you can make great strides in improving your deliverability rates and safeguarding your reputation.

Historically, consumer newsletters, done right, have been a great way for brands to stay in touch with their market segment. Creating and maintaining engaging e-newsletters represents a fraction of the cost of printing and production associated with direct mail while retaining all its advantages. E-newsletters offer consumers branded lifestyle or news content in a timely, direct way, while providing related contextual offers tailored to readership interest in an interactive medium. Subscribers receive consumer education, research, and advice, alongside contextual offers from relevant brands.

Advertising in e-newsletters with consumer trust and brand recognition should be an easy decision for savvy marketers. Using creative to brand and sponsor landing pages, e-newsletters often draw consumers directly to websites for immediate conversion. Because the newsletters are easy to forward, and the offers are unique, many e-newsletter campaigns receive the added benefit of a viral lift.

The benefits of inbox advertising to marketers are many. Participating brands can design their own ad creative and layout for the e-newsletter so brands have complete control over their image and branding while hitching a ride in a trusted consumer information source. Because e-newsletters can be tracked, brands are provided access to data on who is opening the e-newsletter and the offers within it. Brands can use this information to optimize their ads or change their campaign strategies based on direct consumer data.

Most advertisers think of email marketing as purely push tactics that can be added to other campaigns. But, an increasing number of strategists are realizing that running strategic, relevantly targeted campaigns within emails can drive tremendous benefit.

Inbox marketing campaigns have the benefit of being very cost effective, which in turn means strong ROI for performance marketers. Inbox ads are measurable, and unlike their other online cousins search and display, the underlying toolsets offer timely, real, data that inform better optimization because it is personalized optimization. It is this personalization that separates email from other marketing segments and makes it — when well-executed — a great branding vehicle.

With creative units that are similar to the branded web pages that consumers find familiar, inbox ads provide immediate, controlled brand recognition.

Inbox advertising networks are now creating the same media opportunities in their channel that companies like Advertising.com created in the display channel. How? By aggregating a significant amount of inbox ad inventory, opening it to a marketplace and serving the advertising intelligently. It can be targeted behaviorally and contextually. The underlying toolsets provide marketers with optimization and analytics.

When reviewing the surge of traffic that came to the site in the first few weeks, I found it fitting that a site about email metrics can shed light on what kind of specifics people are interested in within the email marketing world. Just like looking at one’s response metrics for a campaign, you need to take a step back and look at the big picture on what the data means.

The current buzz in the email industry based on popularity :

HTML vs. text

For several years, companies have debated the pros and cons of sending in HTML versus text only. HTML has always been the runaway favorite for its branding power, merchandising capabilities and ability to track open rates. The debate has taken a new angle with the increasingly complex issues related to rendering, deliverability and preview pane usage. I suspect this subject matter is also popular as it touches all aspects of an email team: creative, analysts, production, copywriters, strategy, etc.

Deliverability

Speaking of hot button issues, deliverability is all the rage these days. With fewer than 50 percent of marketers creating emails that render appropriately, this is deservedly so issues.

Usage

According to a recent Forrester Research study, email has reached almost universal penetration, with 97 percent of consumers and 94 percent of marketers using the channel. With this staggering number, how many marketers could be left on the fence deciding if they should dive into the email space?

The big takeaway from the interest in this type of research and related metrics is hopefully that CMOs and CFOs finally begin to invest in email accordingly.

Frequency

Twenty years from now, I suspect this will be a top five email conversation piece as well. However, it amazes me that as much noise that surrounds the number of emails sent by a company, there is little action or change to correlate with this key topic. First and foremost, try asking your subscribers how often they want to get messages from you. Also, test segmenting your non responders with a roll up of your messages that lightens the frequency of emails they receive. Just like three calls a week to mom might be too much, try pulling back on your list, too.

Authentication

My guess is this area is misunderstood and well trafficked as marketers seek information on what authentication really means, who should be utilizing it and how. This could be positive news for those offering services in this area as there is at least a curiosity in this relatively new niche of email marketing deliverability services.

What’s not on email marketers’ minds? Must Not!

Just as telling from my research was the least viewed category: spam. I would like to think this is because all marketers are fully compliant with CAN-SPAM but with 81 percent of marketers unaware of CAN-SPAM. I am afraid this is not the case. Let’s hope we see a trend in CAN-SPAM compliance for all email marketers.

]]> http://email-interception.com/top-email-trends-revealed/feed http://email-interception.com/make-your-email-strategy-facebook-friendly http://email-interception.com/make-your-email-strategy-facebook-friendly#comments Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:47:37 +0000 admin http://email-interception.com/?p=35 With the younger generation using online social networking and texting more than web-based emails for communicating, marketers need to adjust their strategies.

If you really want to get young people’s attention, you need either to send them an SMS or post a message to their “wall” on Facebook. Don’t believe me? My daughter went off to Skidmore College last fall. I emailed her several times a week without ever getting a response. In November I created a Facebook profile (for research purposes I swear!) and within 30 minutes she had posted to my wall — “Dad?! Facebook?!”

Now just consider for a minute the implications of this trend for MSN, AOL and Yahoo. For the first time this past October, UK internet visits to social networks overtook visits to these types of web-based email services. Detractors may point out that social network users engage those kinds of sites differently than they do email, but that’s the point. Social networkers engage the MySpaces and Facebooks of the world in a much more intense fashion than they do their Gmail and Yahoo mail accounts.

As I see it, this trend is a clear indicator that over time social networks may eat into the web-based email providers’ dominance of the internet market in the United States. And should the traffic fall to these sites, we should expect to see advertising revenues fall as well. So the impact of changing behaviors around email may have a domino effect on the entire economics of the web.

For marketers using email to communicate to customers and prospects, the challenge appears even starker. How can you engage consumers in the longitudinal fashion of email in the very different world of social networks?

First and foremost, these marketers need to recognize that relationships shift from top-down to peer.

Social networking users closely — sometimes obsessively — tend their lists of friends and will quickly exclude those friends who cease to be useful or at least amusing. Marketers wishing to use social networking to complement email, therefore, need to create online profiles for themselves that allow them to interact with interested consumers. Ideally, these profiles should represent the brand as a real person, someone who has a reason to talk to the public, such as a brand manager or customer service manager gathering feedback. The profiles must be honest in the sense of responding to what consumers ask, not blindly spitting out the company line. A marketer could, of course, simply re-purpose emails to insert into social networking sites, but that marketer would end up talking to an empty room.

As I pointed out in my prior article, those in Generation Y tend to use email much the same way they use a DVR. They’ll read the message on THEIR time, not the sender’s — which brings us to SMS. If you really want to get someone’s attention from the Generation Y group right now, texting him or her is a much better approach. The very interruptive nature of text messages is seen as their real benefit. And let’s face it, cell phones are ubiquitous among the younger generation — 82 percent of college-age kids with phones used SMS in the past three months, according to mobile entertainment provider Limbo. Even the lowest-cost cell phone today offers SMS functionality.

One of the advantages of text messaging has been the ability to get it on the go. After all, people carry their cell phones with them everywhere. Email has been tied to a much less mobile type of device — the computer. However, the proliferation of smart phones like Blackberries and Treos has added a mobile element to email that didn’t exist on a large scale until recently. And as email goes mobile it gains a distinct advantage in that it crosses both the fixed and wireless worlds. SMS is simply wireless, and thus more limited than email. Accordingly, those in Generation Y might migrate to email when their abundant free time gives way to a career-type job.

Additionally, from a commercial perspective, a regular cell phone is viewed as a much more personal device than a computer. Think about it for a second. How many companies have you freely given your cell phone number to? On the other hand, you probably frequently provide companies with whom you do business your email address.

Similarly, social networking suffers from a timing perspective. Consumers check their Facebook accounts when the time suits them, which may conflict with well-timed marketing programs.

So, realistically, I don’t believe email is headed toward extinction any time soon.

The challenge, then, lies in marketers behaving more strategically to match the characteristics of these channels. That means that email marketers need to begin to explore SMS as an alternative to email for certain types of messaging (particularly alerts and time-sensitive messages) and to certain demographic segments (Generation Y). And they need to approach social networks on a more personal level. The point is to get your message to its intended recipient. You shouldn’t care whether that happens via email, SMS or through a social network.

You should care, however, how that message comes across. Spend time with the channels if you haven’t done so already. See what works in terms of fitting the space and what doesn’t. Successful marketers will adapt not just messages but also entire programs to these channels. Unsuccessful ones will simply waste young consumers’ time.

]]> http://email-interception.com/make-your-email-strategy-facebook-friendly/feed http://email-interception.com/make-your-emails-first-impression-count http://email-interception.com/make-your-emails-first-impression-count#comments Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:25:25 +0000 admin http://email-interception.com/?p=34 Use this 9-step checklist to ensure your email sign-up process not only lures in users, but also keeps them subscribed — and happy.

My biggest beef with email marketers is that they design and manage their programs based on marketing goals and internal objectives rather than their end users. Since my company keeps the lights on by working with marketers to create, optimize and manage their email campaigns, I need to be careful where I tread, but let’s face it: Email programs that come across as created and delivered specifically for the email subscriber’s benefit are few and far between.

Your email program’s (and often your brand’s) first impression starts with offering up a value proposition to your website visitor (or maybe a catalog or in-store browser if you are a lucky retailer that collects email addresses via call center or in-store). Be relevant, and deliver real valuable and unique information, offers or something that is compelling enough to give your users a reason to read and respond — and subscribe.

It all starts with the sign-up process, which is the permission email agreement you make with your opt-in database subscribers. This is a contract and, like with any contract, if you violate it any time during the email marketing process, there can be a penalty. In this case, it can be disengagement (or as some call it being unemotionally subscribed), actually unsubscribing or the dreaded THIS IS SPAM label, whether you received their permission or not.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to ensure you treat your email sign-up form/preference center like a binding contract:

What did you say you do?

Make it clear what the email will consist of. Don’t just offer up “Sign up for our newsletter.” That doesn’t tell your potential subscribers anything. Offer up the benefits and a general overview of what they would be receiving.

Can you show me what you are talking about?
Samples, 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 any fears of potential subscribers that they may just be receiving “a bunch of emails” with little value.

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 or not. Don’t mislead users. 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.

What’s in it for me?
An enticing reward can often help create the email relationship and convert many would-be email subscribers. It also provides an early indicator that there is real value in being an email subscriber. Remember, anyone can go to your website if all you are doing is cutting and pasting your home page and putting in an email template.

May I make a suggestion?
Let your new email subscribers choose some content and have some control over their subscription, whether it is HTML vs. text, the frequency, the language or just a nice menu of newsletter and email offerings.

How well do you want to get to know me?
The amount of information collected can often be the reason why (or why not) people sign up for your email program. KnowledgeStorm in a 2007 study found that 72 percent of buyers felt the “amount of detail in the overview” was a major factor in deciding to register for emails. Remember the general rule is that with more than four to five fields of information you may start to lose potential subscribers. If you are not using the information for segmenting, than just ask for a first name and email address.

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.

How easy is it for me?
Finding your email sign up and ensuring the process isn’t a laborious one is key to your strong first impression and foreshadows what kind of experience you should expect. Ensure your sign up form can be found (and completed for most) on the home page. Silverpop’s 2007 study found that 80 percent of companies offered email sign-ups on their home pages.

Can you please confirm that with me?
A frustrating experience off the bat can be signing up for an email and not receiving a web-based or email confirmation — or worse, not receiving an email for a lengthy period. Tying in with the incentive aspect, your confirmation email/page is a great spot to receive the actual coupon/white paper 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.

Use this guide to kick start your email sign-up process and list-building efforts for 2008 and ensure the value is going to be delivered in your future email campaigns.