Email Marketing Best Practices

Delivra to Exhibit at the Retail Marketing Virtual Show

Monday, April 16, 2012 by eMailchatr Delivra Blog

On April 19, 2012 from 10:00AM - 4:00PM (ET), Delivra will be exhibiting and participating in the Retail Marketing Virtual Conference & Expo presented by Retail Online Integration. During the show, participants will get up-to-date, essential information about the hottest retail marketing topics for 2012. The show provides sessions throughout the day on key best practices and trends, straight from the experts. For more information about the show, the agenda for the day, or how to register - visit this website.

Delivra plans on exhibiting at the show - sharing information about our company and email marketing tools to the attendees. We will have several of our Delivra resources, such as success stories & whitepapers available throughout the show. Our Delivra email marketing experts will be manning the booth to answer questions and share their email marketing knowledge. So if you attend the show, be sure to pop by and say "Hi"!

See us At All About eMail Live!

Monday, March 19, 2012 by Neil Berman

Delivra is sponsoring All About eMail Live! - a one-day event for email marketers. This intensive workshop will allow you to join your peers and collaborate with an all-star lineup of industry leaders who will discuss the hottest email marketing trends, including best practices and strategies, acquisition, data management, email and social, rendering, and more.

It's being held at:

New York Marriott

http://live.emarketingandcommerce.com/agenda/

I'm moderating a roundtable at 1:30pm entitled: 2012 Email Marketing Best Practices.

We will be discussing the top trends and best practies for 2012 such as: data integration, relevant list building, content, content, content, mobile (design and messaging), testing and analysis and much more!

Look me up if you plan to attend...

Re-invent your email marketing results.

Friday, February 10, 2012 by Megan Glover

Gosh, it has been a while since my last post... but things have been a little busy at Delivra. And, there's one thing in particular making us smile.

For the past couple of months, we've been focusing on our own email marketing program. As a best practice, we believe it's very important to do a data clean-up every year, as well as evaluate all email content being sent. What was a relevant email schedule last year (or even last month) may not be so relevant anymore, and this is exactly what we found.

To ensure our data was clean, we did a re-engagement email campaign to our subscribers. This consisted of a few emails over the course of three weeks which asked email subscribers to update their preferences.

Once we had the data in place, we were ready to start drafting content and send schedules. One of our goals for this process was to do a better job incorporating highly relevant and personalized content in our emails.

Delivra's email marketing software has a feature called Conditional Content. What this feature allows us to do is create one email and swap out pieces of content or images based on data unique to the recipient.

For our own emails, we decided to use this feature to swap out Account Owner information. Many of our retail clients use this feature to swap out product information based on things like region, buying behavior, age, interests, occupation...the sky is the limit! Here's an example of what our email looked like:

Overall, the email "felt" good but ultimately, it's up to the data to let us know how we performed. Some of the basic metrics we look at:

Open Rate
Click-through Rate
Engagement Score
Unsubscribes

We look at these metrics compared to data collected from previous mailings, we call these baseline metrics. Having these metrics are super important when you change any aspect of your strategy.

Finally, we can't forget the ultimate intent of the email. Our goal for this particular email was to raise awareness about new software features and gauge interest among our client base. In order to collect this data, we created a unique form-submit landing page that funneled info into Salesforce, our CRM. As the clients filled out the form, they were immediately put in the appropriate campaign and their Account Owner was notified.

Such a simple user experience, and yet, it allowed us to gather feature interest and another layer of data to determine the success of the mailing.

So, what were the results of our efforts?

14% increase in Open Rate
Doubled our Click-through Rate
5% Conversion Rate for people interested in new features.

All of this goes to show that with a little effort and a lot of thought, you can take an existing list and re-invent results.

How long is your content?

Friday, December 30, 2011 by David Turpin

The other day, I went to the store and purchased exactly 3 items. What I received in return was a receipt that was 3 feet long. It got me thinking, when you get an email, how far down are you willing to scroll. I don't know what the email marketing best practices are for the maximum length of an email, but I know how far I'm willing to scroll - NONE! A lot of Delivra's customers use landing pages they have created in our system or anchor links to jump down to the relevant content.

Utilizing just these 2 things will increase your overall email clicks. After all, we are trying to get the best email engagement and at the same time prevent your recipients from getting carpal tunnel.

Here is a picture of some holiday puppies I found on the internet!

Stop the Holiday Card Madness!

Friday, December 23, 2011 by Guest Bloggers

Today's post is from Robby Slaughter of Slaughter Development, a business process improvement consulting firm here in Indianapolis.

Email marketing is absolutely crucial to your business. I get it. And it's the holidays, and you feel the need to use your email marketing platform to reach out to customers with a greeting.

That's great. I feel you. But for the love of pete, please stop the holiday card madness!

You know what I'm talking about: the generic messages that just read "Happy Holidays from ABC Corporation!" Do you have any idea how many of those I'm going to receive today?

Answer: A half dozen or more.

Here's what I think when I receive a "seasons greetings" email from you that says little more than just "seasons greetings":

You've got email marketing software, but you don't know how to use it
You don't know what to say, so you're just copying everyone else
You count every email open as a "win", no matter how instantaneous the deletion.

Okay, that's a little brutal. Maybe I need to calm down a bit.

This is not a case of the bah-humbugs. I do like the holiday season. And I want to hear stories about what your company is up to. Maybe you are raising money for some important cause. Maybe your employees are taking some interesting vacations. Really, telling me anything beyond just general well-wishes is going to be interesting.

In fact: being interesting is the secret to email engagement. You can pique my interest in many different ways. Maybe it's a special offer. Perhaps it's a distinctive story. No matter what you choose to do, if you're different than every other message in my inbox, I'm more likely to read it.

If I could sum up all email marketing best practices in just one word, I'd choose "unique." If your message could only have been sent from your company, it's got a good chance of real engagement. Keep this in mind, not just for the season, but for your email marketing strategy year-round.

Happy Holidays!

Marketing Trust

Wednesday, December 21, 2011 by Chris Nelson

Who would have ever thought that clever email marketing could be destructive? By many estimates, last year saw more than 200 million spear-phishing email attacks. Worse, marketers are now a primary target of these attacks. Essentially, clever criminals are using YOUR email brand awareness and even the compelling calls to action that you painstakingly created in your email marketing campaigns to steal information and money from your customers.

Simple economics promises this problem isn't going away: on average, it costs about two bucks for a criminal to host a sophisticated, targeted, and successful spear-phishing campaign against your email list. Since we're stuck with this reality, it's time we view phishing as more than a technology problem: a customer who loses data as a result of a phishing attack associated with your brand is 75% more likely to never do business with your company again!

Safe and secure messaging is your only option. Delivra is fortunate to partner with the Online Trust Alliance (OTA): Your organization should too. Are you staying current with important security initiatives and helping to shape information policy in your organization? There isn't a need to bother with the technical details, but what about the critical "marketing operational" details? What elements of your brand identity are critical to maintain and protect? If you aren't telling your tech teams to watch those elements - who is?

Message Systems (another Delivra partner) teamed up with the OTA and produced a fantastic White Paper on Safe and Secure Messaging (check it out, it's worth the five minute read). This isn't a security white paper directed to technical folks - it's designed with email marketers in mind. Both the OTA and Message Systems focus on email marketing best practices, just like Delivra.

We take the trust you place in us seriously. Take the time to show your customers you value them by being careful with your own messages and security practices. Need help or more ideas about safe and secure messaging - or any other email best practice: just ask. Delivra values our relationship with you!

Infographic: Email Best Practices for the Holiday Season

Wednesday, November 9, 2011 by eMailchatr Delivra Blog

The holidays are quickly approaching! We want to help you prepare your email marketing campaign to get it in tip-top shape for the season. Check out this inforgraphic produced by Delivra and The Marketing Technology Blog for email best practices, appropriate open rates, and additional insight into segmenting and testing your emails for the best results.

Email Best Practices Holiday Infographic

Delivra is the New Email Marketing Sponsor for the Marketing Technology Blog

Friday, October 7, 2011 by eMailchatr Delivra Blog

Delivra is excited to announce that we are the Email Marketing sponsor for the Marketing Technology blog. The Marketing Technology blog works hard to provide the best resources and advice on marketing in new media. The Marketing Technology blog is accompanied with a weekly newsletter that offers unique content, monthly spotlight videos on Marketing Technology companies, a Twitter account, and a Facebook page.

In the next few weeks, Delivra will be offering guest blogs highlighting email marketing tips and best practices. Delivra will also be highlighted on the Marketing Technology Radio Show on November 4th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. Be sure to tune in!

Using Web Signup Forms

Thursday, October 6, 2011 by Stephanie Price

A great way to grow your subscriber list is to include an email sign up form on your website. Delivra offers the tools to create the form code needed for an email sign-up form that filters directly to your database with Delivra. They will then be subscribed to receive your emails.

What to consider when setting up your form:

1. Choose the demographics to be collected, such as first name, telephone, etc.

a. Only collect information you plan on using to personalize your emails or information to evaluate a mailing. Asking for too much information will deter people from taking the time to fill out your form.

2. Decide if new sign-ups will get a hello message.

3. Incorporate a redirect URL once they click submit.

a. A redirect page could provide a thank you or a reward for signing up.

Are you a Delivra client and need step by step instructions on setting this up? Contact Support for more information. (support@delivra.com or 866-915-9465)

If you are not a Delivra client, click here for other email marketing best practices.

Email Marketing Overhaul: "While we're at it..."

Wednesday, September 21, 2011 by John Klein

My wife and I recently undertook a much-needed and long-awaited kitchen renovation in our home. Before we started, we asked advice from family members, friends, Google searches, etc. One interesting (and unfortunately prophetic) piece of advice: The four most expensive words in a renovation are "While we're at it".

Basically, the thinking goes, that as long as the house is covered in a fine layer of dust, and as long as there are contractors traipsing through it, we might as well get other work done too. The experts, or at least others who have gone through this will tell you of the importance to fight this urge, if you want to stay on budget, on time and hold onto the last vestige of your sanity during a renovation.

It got me thinking about our customers and how they might feel a similar urge to overhaul their Email Marketing program. What started out as an effort to follow Delivra Best Practices for list hygiene may creep beyond Email Opt-in and over into Mobile Email Sign Up or a review of email design.

Resist that compulsion to do it all at once! Yes, all of those things are important but they are most impactful when they are part of a larger, deliberate plan to improve results. Figure out where you want to take your Email Marketing Program and break it up into manageable tasks. Our Account Managers are here to help with advice or even a quick sanity check on how to get started.

Looking back... and looking ahead.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011 by Kris Dougherty

With the recent passing of the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, I find myself in a reflective state of mind.
I started my career at Delivra in April of 2003, in a small, shared office suite. My desk had seen better days, and was set up in the windowless room which also functioned as the break room. I remember wondering "what the heck is that smell?" every time someone would leave my area. I soon figured out that it was the mini-fridge. When someone would grab a soda, they wouldn't be in there long enough to notice the musty smell, but a few seconds after they closed the door, it would waft over to my desk. That was a simple fix. A quick wipe-down with disinfectant wipes did the trick.

My computer at the time was connected to the only printer in the office, which was set up locally but shared with others in the company. This meant, whenever someone initiated a print job, a pop-up would interrupt whatever I was doing. That was frustrating, but also easily fixed with the addition of an inexpensive network printer.

But the one thing I look back on in amazement was how we were handling feedback loops at that time. Every time a complaint came in from a user clicking the SPAM button in their ISP's email client, it came directly to me. I had to open it, and either click the unsubscribe link in the original email, or look up the recipient in our system and change their status to unsubscribed (which always reminds me of this comic strip).

That was not an easy fix. Our platform at the time had no provision for handling those automatically.

Thankfully, our volume at that time was low enough that it wasn't a tremendous burden. I operated this way for months before we were able to implement a process which would parse the headers and instantly handle the complaint.

But I'm glad I had that experience, because it helped me (a complete newcomer to the ESP world) understand more about the differences between a good campaign and a bad one. I started to see patterns between those campaigns generating high complaints and those that didn't. I saw high volume clients who spent a lot of time crafting their campaigns and making sure their permission practices were solid, and generated very few complaints. In contrast, I found high complaints often resulting from small campaigns sent by organizations who had sent to an old list, not identified their brand very well, or any number of things I quickly realized were outside of Email Marketing Best Practices.

I still have access to all of the feedback loop complaints (because our Abuse Desk must handle anything that does not conform to standard formats), and it's hard to believe how we've grown. Between constantly adding new feedback loops and the constant (incredible) growth in our sending volume, there is no way we could manually handle everything that comes in. The automatic processing has also helped us better monitor and watch for patterns, enabling us to more quickly respond (be it a client that needs additional training or someone up to no good.)

As for the office, the improvements have been just as astonishing as our growth. I'm proud and honored to be a part of such a great company.

Ooops! Done Right...Are you quick in sending mistake emails?

Saturday, August 27, 2011 by Guest Bloggers

I recently received an email from Gymboree, a retail store I often purchase gifts for my niece and nephew. The first email was a purchase confirmation. Normally, this type of email would be great for me, provided I had made a purchase. In this instance, I had not and I became a little concerned my information had been compromised. In any event, I promptly sent a response to Gymboree asking if there was an issue.

Here is the first email I received:

Within the hour, I received this follow-up email:

I was impressed with their email program after seeing this. Everyone makes mistakes and I believe most recipients understand this. Here are some of the things that made their response favorable in my eyes:

Quick Response: I didn't wait hours or even overnight wondering if my credit card would be charged.
Concise Copy: They didn't blame their ESP or an intern, but rather gave a simple explanation.
Reassurance: They articulated the issue and reassured me that my data had not been compromised.

Simple mistake. Simple response. A reassured customer will continue doing business with them, simply because they were quick to respond and put me at ease. Remember, much like I have said in the past, mistake emails aren't always necessary. However, when you send a mistake with customer data or purchase history included, a quick response is sure to put them at ease. Are you practicing some of these steps when you make a mistake in your email campaigns? If not, I think remembering to keep it simple is one of the best ways to ensure you don't lose subscribers through the course of a mistake.

This is one area I know the Delivra team can help! Follow their best practices, consult them when you have a question, and learn from the years of experience and insight they can provide.

Guest Blogger | Carissa Newton

Carissa overseas the marketing and new business development efforts at Oak Street Funding, including marketing planning, strategy, lead generation, communications, and public relations. Carissa has over 17 years experience in a variety of industries including financial services, insurance, technology, and motorsports. She has been a student of online marketing since its inception and continues to hone her skills by building and implementing successful online strategies for the companies she works with.

Getting the Most Out of Your Email Marketing

Wednesday, August 24, 2011 by David Turpin

A lot of people think that my job is just to sell our software. What a lot of people don’t know until they talk to me or one of our other Business Development Managers is that our job is to make sure you get the most out of your email marketing. That’s not just selling software, but often times it’s applying best practices and leveraging your overall marketing and branding strategy.

For example, I was talking with a potential customer a week ago and she wanted to know what we could do to increase her subscribers (she was contemplating purchasing a list of email addresses). I advised her that she wouldn't be able to send purchased email addresses through our system (or any other “reputable” email service provider). I took some time to look over her website and noticed a few things:

1.) NO WHERE was a subscribe option on her website

2.) When opting out of her emails, there was no profile form asking what I wanted to opt out of…so I could only opt out of receiving everything

3.) She had multiple brick and mortar stores and had no way of capturing email addresses in store

4.) The only place she was getting subscribers was at point of sale

After spending some time consulting with her the things we would do reach her objective of increasing and keeping subscribers, she agreed that we would be a great fit for her company and we are now in the process of implementing the recommendations. It’s great to get a customer, but it’s even better to EARN a customer.

The Dreaded Unsubscribe

Wednesday, August 10, 2011 by Lavon Temple

You work hard to get people to sign up for your email messages because you want them to read the important things you have to share. No one likes to see their subscribers leave them. However, if a subscriber decides to unsubscribe, you will want to make sure you follow email unsubscribe best practices (a couple listed below) to make it a peaceful separation. If not, they could always be hitting the SPAM button. (Ah!)

Unsubscribe Button Location. Make sure the subscriber is able to easily locate the unsubscribe button. Don’t make them search for it because instead of going on the hunt, they are more likely to look for the easier option: mark as spam.
Easy Process. Don’t make it extremely complicated for someone to unsubscribe past the unsubscribe button. The easier the process of unsubscribing, the more likely a subscriber will do it.
Offer Options. If subscribers have access to a preference center, they may change options rather than unsubscribe from a mailing altogether. Give them the opportunity to opt-down instead of opt-out.
Pause Option. Instead of unsubscribing from your mailings, the subscriber may appreciate the option to pause your mailings for a brief period. Adding this option to a preference center could decrease the number of people unsubscribing from the list.

What other unsubscribe best practices do you think are important?

Lavon Temple | Marketing

More Helpful Website Tips

Wednesday, August 3, 2011 by Lavon Temple

Delivra's blog, eMailchatr, is committed to offering email marketing advice, best practices, and expertise. However, this blog is also intent on sharing information based on other business related topics.

A website is often times considered the hub of a company. The main location for potential customers to quickly go in order to see a variety of information about your business. Therefore, it should be a well-designed, easy-to-use tool for visitors.

In a previous blog post, I mention three tips to ensure a reader has a great experience on your site. Below are a couple I'd like to add to the list.

1. Simplicity. Some companies really overdo it with the amount of information they try to add to their site. To start with, most prospects skim through a site. Make your website clean and organized, making it easier for navigation.

2. Mobile. More and more people own smartphones. Consider creating a mobile version of your website for those users accessing your site while on the go. Creating a mobile version makes it easier to see and navigate through your site on their mobile devices.

Any other helpful website tips you can think of?

Lavon Temple | Marketing

More Helpful Website Tips

Tuesday, July 19, 2011 by Lavon Temple

In a previous blog post, I mention three tips to ensure a reader has a great experience on your site. Below are a couple I'd like to add to the list.

Any other helpful website tips you can think of?

Lavon Temple | Marketing

Simple Preferences

Wednesday, July 13, 2011 by Megan Glover

Email preference centers, also called subscription centers, were once an optional feature of an email marketing program. Now, they have become almost mandatory. Best practices, however, still lag.

"For many of the customers we're working with right now, it seems like preference centers are an afterthought," said George DiGuido, VP-marketing at digital agency Zeta Interactive.

These are missed opportunities, since research demonstrates that preference centers can boost the success rate of an email marketing program. For instance, an Email Experience Council white paper released in June 2010, "Manifesto for E-mail Marketers: Consumers Demand Relevance," found that those users who visit an email preference center are more tolerant of more frequent mailings. According to the white paper, when asked "When is the best time for companies to send e-mail?" about two-thirds (65%) of respondents who were interested in a more personalized preference-oriented experience answered, "Whenever the company has something important to say." The online survey, handled by Forrester Research, polled 1,033 adults in the U.S. and U.K.

"The punch line is, [buyers] demand preferences and preference center management, and there is a clear connection to buying behavior when it is delivered," said David Daniels, CEO of the Relevancy Group, an interactive marketing consultancy.

Gerry Widmer, general manager of BlueHornet, a business unit of e-commerce solution provider Digital River, said using preference centers can reduce the rate of opt-outs. "We've seen lots of studies that show the two reasons people opt out is because of frequency and irrelevant content," he said. "Preference centers address both of those concerns."

And yet marketers are still having trouble figuring out what to include in a preference center, how to get email subscribers to visit them, and how often they should be updated.

Bottom Line? Every marketer should make it a priority to build an email preference center. Click here to read the rest of the BtoB article by Karen Bannan that features our new Director of Marketing, Megan Glover!

A Quality List?

Tuesday, July 12, 2011 by Lavon Temple

Many of you have heard from email experts and resources that having a quality list is essential in order to get the most from your email marketing program.

What exactly does a quality list mean?

Here are a couple of ways (from A to D) to define a quality list:

1. Acquire Subscribers. There are a number of ways to obtain email addresses, including: text-to-subscribe. For other best practices in acquiring subscribers, check out this Successful Strategies for Building Your List whitepaper.

2. Be Proactive. Regularly ask your subscribers to update their preferences. Updated preferences assure you are sending the most relevant messages to your subscribers and they are receiving the information they desire.

3. Clean Your List. On a regular basis, take the time to manage your list. Cleaning your list means to regularly take a look at those subscribers who are no longer engaging with your mailings.

4. Don't Purchase. Don't purchase a list of email addresses just to increase your list size. Instead, use best practices to organically grow your list and email people who are interested in receiving your message.

Lavon Temple | Marketing

Delivra Dish: Email Marketing Mistakes

Friday, May 20, 2011 by Lavon Temple

Email marketing can be tricky and there are a number of best practices and helpful tips to remember. All of these can help your email marketing efforts immensely, but you may not always be able to remember them or know where to easily find these tips when it comes time to implement them. The Delivra blog named eMailchatr reminds you and shares great resources from the industry to help you to continue learning about email marketing best practices.

HubSpot has recently shared the MarketingSherpa Dirty Dozen: Email Newsletter Mistakes Nearly Everyone Makes - a report explaining some of these mistakes and how you can avoid making them.

To download the report, click here!

Spring Clean Your Email

Thursday, May 5, 2011 by Lavon Temple

As spring approaches, many of you may be getting ready for the big spring cleaning of your house - restoring it with freshness after a long, cold winter. During this time, you may want to also take that fervor for cleaning to your email marketing provider to add freshness to your email marketing campaign as well.

Garage Sale. During the spring cleaning session at my house, I was always instructed to make a pile categorizing those items that I didn't use anymore so they would be part of the garage sale in the summer. Do the same with your email list; segment out those people who have a zero engagement score in regards to your emails. Then form a re-marketing campaign to encourage them to come back. If there is still no engagement, delete them from your list altogether.

Repairs. Spring cleaning is usually a good time to make repairs around the house you ignored during the cold weather. Do you need to make some repairs to your email marketing campaign as well? Check out these email best practices to see if there are some things you should be doing differently and need to fix right away.

Power Clean. Spring cleaning is different from any other type of house cleaning. Usually you jump in with both feet to scrub everything in the house from floor to ceiling. You get every dust bunny in every nook and cranny until the place shines. Look over your email messages with the same effort. If you have been sending out the same emails for several months now, it's probably time to clean things up. Send out a completely revamped email to your subscribers and see what kind of response you get.

Would you like more tips about how to spring clean your email marketing campaign? Contact us today! Call 866-915-9465.

Lavon Temple | Marketing