E-mail

Assume you’ve done a great job at growing your e-mail list. You’re beating industry averages, and the annual net growth of your file — after removing bounces and opt-outs — is 50 percent. You’re happy! Your boss is happy! Ah, but that’s only part of the formula for e-mail success. An indifferent audience is the death knell for catalog marketers. You want an active and involved audience. There are many bad practices that can harm your programs. If you make one misstep, your customers and prospects may give you the benefit of the doubt. If you make several, however, you’ll lose them. And, you have just

Image suppression is a fact of life today. The Email Experience Council not long ago conducted a study of 1,000 business and consumer e-mails during the past year. It found 21 percent of the e-mails reviewed appeared completely blank when images were turned off or stripped inside a variety of e-mail clients. Include readable text in your e-mails that supports any products or promotions featured. Include a link to the HTML version of your e-mails at the top of your message. Tip the odds of success in your favor and create a great experience for your recipients. Don’t run the risk of customers immediately

The last I checked our last reader poll asking catalogers whether their sales were meeting, beating or missing projections, it looked somewhat encouraging. When asked if at this point of the year multichannel marketers were on plan with original forecasts for the year, 59 percent of our readers said they were either on plan or ahead. Even better news showed that none of you were missing its numbers badly.
There are still 41 percent of you, however, who are slightly below plan, so let’s see what we can do to move those numbers up by the end of the year. Here are six tips

Continuing our coverage of the recent webinar presentation, “Top Ten Things You Need to Know About E-mail Creative” given by Jordan Ayan, CEO of e-mail service provider SubscriberMail, this week we focus on tips Ayan provided the audience on links and calls to action; type, images and rich media; viral opportunities and more. 1. Make links a part of your message. Stressing the value of links and giving the consumer a “call to action,” Ayan advised the use of several tactics in e-mail messages. Among examples of links that “call to action” the consumer, Ayan finds these effective: * Create a sense of

A recent Direct Marketing Association (DMA) survey on multichannel marketing in the catalog industry shows that all catalogers use both their catalogs and Web sites to generate sales. Nearly nine out of 10 also use e-mails to reach customers. E-mail provides them with an easy method for order confirmation, shipping notices and customer service follow-up. But are you sure your e-mails are making it into customers’ inboxes? Is your brand protected from criminals who send fake e-mails in your name and use your company’s good reputation to defraud consumers? Strides Made, But Problems Persist While enormous strides have been made in recent years to combat the

In a recent webinar presentation, “Top Ten Things You Need to Know About E-mail Creative,” Jordan Ayan, CEO of e-mail service provider SubscriberMail, offered an assortment of tips for creating e-mail marketing campaigns. This week, we bring you part one of his presentation, which focused on subject lines, speaking to the customer and copywriting. Next week, we’ll bring you the second part in which Ayan addresses links and calls to action; type, images and rich media; and viral opportunities. Subject lines are part of the creative process. Providing tips for the audience to avoid the “Oh no, I didn’t read that, I thought it

When leveraged properly, transactional messages can strengthen customer loyalty, provide a complete view of the customer lifecycle and increase sales, says e-mail and database marketing provider e-Dialog in a recent report, How to Optimize Transactional E-mail Messages. Today, e-mail messages serve several purposes, including facilitating, completing or confirming a commercial transaction the recipient previously agreed to enter into with the sender. These messages include warranty, recall and safety or security information; customer service notices; subscription/membership status or account information; information related to employment relationship or benefits; and confirmation of delivery of goods or services, including updates or upgrades. Transactional messages receive very high

In the ongoing struggle for e-mail marketers to have their messages land in consumers’ inboxes rather than in their spam filters, it’s been widely assumed that message content is the main reason ISPs filter legitimate e-mail marketing messages. But the findings from the recently released Lyris EmailAdvisor study may go a long way in changing the mind-sets of many e-mail marketers. Message content is not a major cause of deliverability challenges for most e-mail marketers, according to the Lyris EmailAdvisor ISP Deliverability Report Card for the first fiscal quarter of 2007. More than 1,705 unique e-mails were tested against the widely accepted Spam Assassin

While the sophistication of high-end e-mail marketing tools can be a bit daunting, virtually any cataloger can find an e-mail marketing package that will increase sales without breaking the bank. “Although it is often taken for granted, the power of e-mail derives from its ubiquity,” says David Hallerman, a senior analyst at market research firm eMarketer and author of “E-Mail and Word-of-Mouth: Connecting With Your Best Customers.” He notes that about 90 percent of U.S. Internet users are regular e-mail users, “clearly an audience that has attained critical mass. Although spam makes it harder to reach customers’ inboxes, e-mail’s personal impact is unmatched

E-mail is an important part of any marketing program worth its salt. But most aren’t taking full advantage, by overlooking important advancements that can make a huge difference — not only to the program, but to your bottom line. Here are some ideas to help you make the most of your e-mail program. It boils down to four simple rules. I’ve chosen some examples that demonstrate how to fine-tune your e-mail program and sell effectively. 1. Grab recipients’ attention — and get them to open your e-mail. Consumers’ prior experience with you and their affinity to your brand certainly are factors in motivating them to open