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I get asked a lot if Delivra sells email addresses.  The short answer is NO.  We are a permission based email service provider - this means you can only send to opted-in email addresses through our system.  However, since I talk to thousands of people, some have experience with purchasing email addresses.  Allow me to share some of their wisdom:

If the price seems too good to be true, it probably is.
I've heard prices ranging from pennies to several dollars per email address.  What seems consistent is the cheaper the price, the less effective the emails are.  

Ask, "how are you going to send to the recipients?"
Apparently, there are companies who will sell you the email addresses but won't send to them.  This should be a red flag in my book.  It probably means the company knows the email addresses are bogus.  They don't care though because by the time you figure this out, they have already cashed your check.

If the company is going to send to the recipients, how are they going to get in the inbox?
Just because a company will send to the recipients, doesn't mean your out of the woods.  Yes, typically the emails they are sending to are opted-in.  But they aren't opted-in to receive emails from you.   These are generally recipients who didn't check or uncheck the box that says "Please send me emails from your affiliates".  This opens the floodgates for the recipient to receive emails from ANYONE.  Once they receive your email, they won't know you, and will typically mark your message as spam.  This hurts not only you, but also the sender.  Their IP reputations are usually so shot, the message won't even get into the inbox.

My open rate is WHAT?!
We've all heard the industry average open rate is around 20%-25%.  That's when you are applying email best practices.  Purchasing a list is definitely not email best practice.  So what should the open rate be for these types of engagements?  I've heard numbers ranging from 0%-2%.  And even though they opened it, it doesn't mean the recipient is engaged...more like enraged - which will lead to that person marking your message as spam (see above).  

I understand that companies want to grow their list.  There are lots of good ways to do just that.  I just don't think purchasing a list is one of those ways.  If you'd like to find out how Delivra can help grow your list (the right way), give us a shout, we'll be glad to help!

Here's a picture of some puppies I found on the internet:

The Delivra blog, eMailchatr, focuses on assisting readers to improve their email marketing efforts. One way to accomplish this is by better understanding your audience in order to create email messages that will appeal to them.

To help you organize your thoughts and create more effective email campaigns, it might be appropriate to create customer personas or profiles. To create a persona means to describe different members of the audience you are trying to reach, basically by creating a brief biography for them. The goal in creating personas is to have a better understanding of who your target audience is so that you can better market to them.

I'll provide an example. (Please note that I am not affiliated with the 6 Second Ab Machine in any way except that I used to own one and it gathered dust in my garage. The following is a fictional customer persona only to make a point. Thank you.)

Meet Cindy

Name: Cindy
Age: 35
Marital Status: Married
Kids: Raising a young son and daughter
Career: CFO of a Fortune 500 Company
Location: Midwest

As you can probably tell from Cindy's short biography above, she is extremely busy.  She holds a management position which proves to be demanding, with the added responsibility of raising two small boys. In addition, she is also responsible for taking care of her home and her marriage. Needless to say, she is busy and does not have a lot of time to dedicate to exercise. Therefore, being able to quickly pull the 6 Second Ab Machine from a closet and complete several sets of ab crunches would be of interest to her. She could squeeze in a quick ab workout in between everything else she has to do in her day.

This information could be priceless for a marketing manager in charge of creating an email campaign for this product. In fact, this customer persona offers insight into the majority of the target audience which makes creating a message based on this information very effective.

For some products or services, it may make sense to create several personas to portray the different members that make up the entire audience. Still, having a reference to rely on when creating an email campaign, can prove priceless.

Do you have other suggestions for creating customer personas?

Lavon Temple | Marketing

[Editor's note: this is the second in a series of posts celebrating the history of our company on the anniversary of Delivra's founding. If you missed the first installment, you can read it here.]

Like many American companies, Fred Delivra & Co. played a role in supporting the Allied war effort during World War II, and was profoundly changed by it, suffering both losses and triumphs. 

Iconic WWII-era "Doris the Deliverer" poster

The first loss occurred even before the U.S. formally joined the fighting. Fred Delivra's right-hand man, Alphonse Jones, suddenly resigned his post in December 1940 to fight alongside the British in North Africa. Jones had formerly been a soldier-of-fortune, and told Fred that he found the life of a deliverability manager too "passive" and "unfulfilling." Jones' adventure was short-lived, though; he disappeared during a German offensive in Libya in April 1941. 

Jones' presumed death haunted Fred Delivra, and cemented his devotion to the Allied cause. When America declared war, he was quick to volunteer his services, but found no takers in Washington, due to suspicions concerning his ambiguous national origin. However, military planners soon found themselves in need of Delivra's legendary skills in pigeon training. The generals' forward-thinking prevailed over the bureaucrats' fears about Delivra's loyalty, and President Roosevelt personally requested Fred's services, which were gladly given. 
 

Fred Delivra, Little Freddie VI, and lady admirer at Dickin Medal ceremony, London, 1944

Delivra's pigeons proved unerring in their accuracy and targeting instincts, earning several Dickin Medals for "conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty." The success of the so-called "Minneapolis Project" resolved any questions about Fred's loyalties, and led to Fred Delivra working for the newly-formed Office of Strategic Services. Not everything about his role in the OSS is known, but according to documents declassified by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, we at least know that Delivra worked to secure communications between the Allies and the resistance in France and Holland. Also, British documents show that, near the end of the war, Delivra was working on a system of validating authenticity of messages carried by pigeons. Following the fall of Berlin in May 1945, Fred Delivra's proposed Pigeon Key Identified Message (PKIM) system was no longer seen as necessary, and was never implemented, but his design has been cited as an inspiration for the email authentication technology of today. 
 

Fred Delivra (back row, 2nd from left) at Yalta Conference, 1945

Fred Delivra also played an important role in the organization of the Yalta Conference in February 1945 to discuss the reconstruction of postwar Europe. Delivra was responsible for supervising messengers, telegrams, and translation, as well as snacks and afternoon tea. This latter role proved most valuable, as Fred's daring introduction of American-style orange soda was well received by Josef Stalin, and led to a softening of the Soviet leader's stance against the inclusion of France in the eventual occupation of Berlin. 
 

Propaganda Poster produced by Delivra Design Services, March 1945 (click to enlarge)

Meanwhile, back on the homefront in Indianapolis, Delivra's facilities had been quickly converted to wartime production shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when the nation's electronic mail needs shifted abruptly from commercial to military communication. A contract with the Office of War Information--the company's largest order to date--called for Delivra to establish a Design Services team to create propaganda posters to rally popular support for the war and to encourage conservation, productivity and vigilance. But with the men and pigeons of Delivra serving the cause of freedom overseas, it fell to a workforce of mostly women to keep Delivra's messaging factories in production, breaking a 40-year tradition of chauvinism, because of what Fred Delivra termed "patriotic obligation." Teletype operators worked tirelessly to relay messages between GIs and their loved ones back home, and to publish to the American forces the latest news from the States.

The acceptance of female employees in the work force, the diversification of services to include design, and the exposure of an entire generation of Americans to electronic messaging would lead, in the decade that followed the war, to unprecedented growth and prosperity for Delivra & Co., and for its founder, who returned to Indiana after turning down the ambassadorship to the newly-formed nation of Syria. However, Delivra has never ceased remembering the sacrifice of its employees who gave their lives in World War II: 
 

Naval aviator and Delivra employee Lt. Arthur Stone, 1920-1945

Army 
Buck Taylor
Christopher Bligh
Christoper Smith
Christopher Thompson
Giuseppe Amato
Patrick Donnelly
Salvador "Sonny" Juarez

Navy
Arthur Stone
Lawrence Douglass

Pigeon Corps
Aphrodite
Millie
Little Freddie IV
Zeke

Last known photo of Alphonse Jones in N. Africa, 1941.

The winds kicked up out of the south last week, bringing spring temperatures to most of the United States. The earth started its annual rebirth as flowers started peeking through the ground and people once again ventured outside.

Marketing seems to be going through a rebirth of its own, and the season is called mobile. The mobile season has marketers donning bonnets of marketing ideas and gathering baskets of cell phone numbers.

It's not surprising. Research shows that mobile marketing will play an increasingly important role for companies wanting to get messages out to consumers. More than 250 million Americans carry a cell phone today, and more than half of those phones have Internet access. The Direct Marketing Association believes that mobile will be the fastest growing app over the next five years.

Most marketers understand that they can no longer count on email as the only channel for communicating with a diverse customer base. Sure, customers may be able to read emails on their phones, but they are increasingly using Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Message Service (MMS) to send and receive information.

According to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), Americans sent approximately 1.8 trillion text messages in 2010. Another 56 billion multimedia messages were sent. So how can email marketers capitalize on this trend?

Start by designing mobile campaigns that respect the customer. Unlike other marketing channels, mobile marketing demands customer attention almost immediately. Annoying customers by sending unwanted messages that interrupt their lives is a quick route to losing customers.

To find out what initial steps email marketers can take to ensure a good user experience, please click here to read the rest of the this Media Post article.

Delivra recently rolled out a Vision and Values statement for our staff.  These values are not new to Delivra, we've just never taken the time to properly write them all down and articulate them well.  This exercise was extremely valuable and we all learned a lot.

One of our favorite parts of our Vision and Values program is our employee recognition piece. We wanted to encourage everyone on the team to really own Delivra values by incorporating them into their daily lives at the office: for us - they aren't just words on a page. We call our employee recognition piece, Getting Caught Fred Handed. (If you are curious about Fred's background, you should probably do some research into the "real" history of Delivra - oh - and be on the lookout for more details of Delivra's history in the near future). There are three components: wall, desk, and hand. Simply, we put cash in the employee's hand, we give them a special Delivra version of a trophy for the person's desk, and we place an award on the wall - something unique and special to be viewed by others.  The only requirement for the piece on the wall is that it tells the story of what the person did to get caught Fred Handed. This way, new employees or even visitors can see what it takes to be successful at Delivra.

Our most recent person recognized, Kyle Holmes, was caught being quite the team player. It might surprise you to learn that his award primarily stemmed from working with one of our strategic partnerships and outsourced teams. Kyle forged some new communication paths and helped solve a long-standing and complicated problem. In short - it was awesome!  Delivra will reap the benefits of his efforts for some time.

This got me thinking - Delivra is your strategic partner in the Marketing department. Why not explore some new offerings and investigate how Delivra can help you get recognized. Take advantage of our Design Services to take your messages to the next level. Why not ask about Text to Subscribe and grow your list?  Either way, we'd love to be that partner that helps you stand out and get noticed. Drop your account manager a line or pick up the phone and give us a call - start the conversation today!

Chris Nelson | IT & Security

Today, we unveiled our Text-to-Subscribe feature, allowing marketers to quickly grow their email lists and giving subscribers a new and convenient way to sign up for emails.

The feature enables subscribers to join an email list by texting a keyword to a short code. Subscribers then receive a text message asking for their email address, along with a confirmation email, making the sign-up a double opt-in process.

"We are excited to use Delivra's new Text-to-Subscribe functionality. We see this as a tremendous resource to help anyone grow their list quickly, efficiently and the right way," said Kristen Bassick, Piece of Cake Social Media. "Delivra's responsiveness and ability to get my client up and running quickly have been excellent."

Click here to be directed to the official press release for more information regarding the Text-to-Subscribe feature.

Click here to be directed to the homepage where you can download a mobile marketing whitepaper.

Scenario: A businessman, eager to promote his services, collects the addresses of members of a network he belongs to.   He sends them an electronic message inviting them to check out a new product.  Some recipients take exception to the intrusion, leading to a vigorous debate about the businessman's ethics.

If you follow the email industry in 2011, you may recognize this scenario as the one that played out last month involving a businessman (Douglas Karr, CEO of DK New Media) and an offended recipient (Al Iverson, deliverability expert and anti-spam advocate).   The argument that followed, which began on Twitter and continued in a Magill Report article, was about whether DK New Media's email to Iverson's address--which Karr obtained through their mutual LinkedIn connection--constituted spam.

1970 Monty Python sketch about SPAM, the meat product

But theirs was not a new debate.  The question of "what constitutes spam" is older even than the use of the word "spam" to describe unsolicited commercial email, almost as old as the Internet itself.

In 1978, the word "internet" had not yet been made into a proper noun.  It was an adjective, used in technical papers as shorthand for "internetworking."  However, there was such a thing as email, on a network called ARPANET, which was the predecessor to the Internet-with-a-capital-I that we know today.  ARPANET was established by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense.  It connected ARPA-sponsored researchers at universities and private corporations.

One corporation connected to ARPANET was Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).  In 1978, a new model of DEC computer was available, and a DEC marketing executive thought ARPANET users would find it particularly interesting.  All ARPANET-connected persons were listed in a printed(!) directory, so a DEC employee looked up all the West Coast addresses, typed them in, and sent them this message:
DIGITAL WILL BE GIVING A PRODUCT PRESENTATION OF THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY; THE DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND 2060T. THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY OF COMPUTERS HAS EVOLVED FROM THE TENEX OPERATING SYSTEM
AND THE DECSYSTEM-10 <PDP-10> COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE. BOTH THE DECSYSTEM-2060T
AND 2020T OFFER FULL ARPANET SUPPORT UNDER THE TOPS-20 OPERATING SYSTEM.
THE DECSYSTEM-2060 IS AN UPWARD EXTENSION OF THE CURRENT DECSYSTEM 2040
AND 2050 FAMILY. THE DECSYSTEM-2020 IS A NEW LOW END MEMBER OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AND FULLY SOFTWARE COMPATIBLE WITH ALL OF THE OTHER
DECSYSTEM-20 MODELS.

WE INVITE YOU TO COME SEE THE 2020 AND HEAR ABOUT THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY
AT THE TWO PRODUCT PRESENTATIONS WE WILL BE GIVING IN CALIFORNIA THIS
MONTH. THE LOCATIONS WILL BE:

TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1978 - 2 PM
HYATT HOUSE (NEAR THE L.A. AIRPORT)
LOS ANGELES, CA

THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1978 - 2 PM
DUNFEY'S ROYAL COACH
SAN MATEO, CA
(4 MILES SOUTH OF S.F. AIRPORT AT BAYSHORE, RT 101 AND RT 92)

A 2020 WILL BE THERE FOR YOU TO VIEW. ALSO TERMINALS ON-LINE TO OTHER
DECSYSTEM-20 SYSTEMS THROUGH THE ARPANET. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO ATTEND,
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT THE NEAREST DEC OFFICE
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EXCITING DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY.
In this retrospective by Brad Templeton, one can see several parallels between the 1978 DEC mailing and the 2011 DK mailing:

• The senders didn't think they were doing anything wrong. The DEC executive thought the ARPANET users would welcome hearing about a product designed with their needs in mind.  Karr believed his LinkedIn network would welcome hearing about goings-on at his company, or else they wouldn't be connected to him.
• The network operators were not amused. A DoD administrator called DEC's message "A FLAGRANT VIOLATION."  One university's system was taken down when the DEC mailing filled up the server's disk (at a time when disk space was much, much more scarce and expensive than today).  Then, as in 2011, system administrators viewed unsolicited commercial email as a serious problem.
• Recipients' reactions were mixed, but tended towards angry. In his Twitter defense of his actions, Karr cited his mailing's high engagement metrics as evidence that not everyone took offense.  And the DEC rep's actions were defended by at least one recipient as being more relevant than some of the birth announcements and other mail sent on ARPANET.  But generally, unsolicited commercial email then, as now, was poorly received.

This last point illustrates a common cause of confusion for marketers: there is not a universally-accepted definition of spam.  Attempts by governments to define spam for legal purposes have fallen short of the practical definitions used every day by ISPs in filtering incoming mail, and by recipients when deciding whether or not to click that "Report Spam" button.

Was Karr's message spam?  Legally, under the CAN-SPAM act, perhaps not.  But whatever you call it, it was a bad idea.  If you have to argue about whether you have permission to send to someone, then for practical purposes, you should assume you don't have permission.

Marketers who only send mail to explicitly opted-in addresses tend not to get drawn into Twitter fights over their practices.  And if your sending practices resemble those of DEC in 1978, then it's worth noting that their DECSYSTEM-20 mailing is widely regarded today as having been "the first spam."  Don't let your mailing be the next spam.

Chris Broshears | Product Development

I met with a prospective client recently.  They were using an entry level email marketing services provider.  By entry level I mean basic, easy to use, and cheap.  The prospect was sending two email blasts a week to everyone on their list.  One message to everyone each time.

They complained that sales were flat and they could not measure success of their email marketing efforts.

He challenged, "How can you help me?"  I replied, "Not sure I can."  Somewhat taken a back he asked why?

"Because you will have to completely rethink the way you're communicating to recipients," I ventured. "  And that means sending fewer emails, segmenting mailings based on activity history, and throwing out your 100% image laden designs."

"There's extra work involved on your end and you're going to pay Delivra more than your current supplier."

Short message:  Delivra can help, but the prospect will need to rethink tossing emails at the proverbial wall to see what sticks.  If not, our service won't perform any better than his current one.  It's the process that needs changing.   And its that data-driven email marketing process that Delivra can bring to this party.

We got their commitment and will start a real email marketing program next week.

Want to tilt your sales graph up and to the right?  Time to act!

Call us at 317-915-9400 or complete the contact form on our website!

Neil Berman | President & CEO