E-mail

Those e-merchants who can save customers time and/or make online shopping easier are in line to build customer loyalty, writes Ken Burke, founder and chief executive of MarketLive and author of “Intelligent Selling: The Art& Science of Selling Online.” Following are four action steps to take: 1. Offer advanced search. “Searches that use Boolean operators and multiple keywords can be powerful ways to allow experienced users to find what they want more quickly,” Burke writes. And it can incentivize shoppers to visit your site vs. a competitor’s site. 2. Send e-mail confirmations. Detail what they bought, total cost and shipping data, Burke suggests. 3.

Almost 50 percent of consumers said that e-mail had at least some influence on their online purchases this past holiday season, a 10 percent increase from 2004, according to the Annual Holiday E-mail Consumer Survey, released in January by e-mail marketer Return Path. Comparatively, the survey showed 42 percent of consumers claim e-mail had no impact on their online holiday shopping habits. Other data revealed by the survey: * 50 percent of consumers took advantage of e-mail promotions. * 41 percent used e-mail to comparison shop. * 31 percent got gift ideas from e-mails. * 29 percent went to a retail store as a

E-mail marketing spending will grow at an annual rate of 4.5 percent for the next five years, according to a recently released report from Jupiter Research. Analysts for the research firm expect marketers to spend $1.1 billion on e-mail in 2010, up from $885 million last year. Other information revealed by the report: ¥ Spam e-mails per consumer should drop 13 percent annually to 1,640 pieces in 2010, down from 3,253 pieces last year. ¥ E-mail delivery rates should surpass 90 percent in the next few years, up from an average of 88 percent currently. ¥ Incorrectly blocked e-mail will cost marketers $92 million

These five best practices, offered recently by The Direct Marketing Association (DMA), are intended to improve the likelihood of permission-based e-mail being delivered successfully to a recipient’s inbox -- and being read by the intended recipient. 1. Encourage customers and prospects to add your legitimate sending e-mail address to their personal”approved list/address book” and provide up-front instructions on how to do so in registration pages. Being an approved sender yields higher response rates and generates fewer complaints and blocked messages. 2. Carefully consider the content and presentation of marketing messages, as recipients are increasingly labeling any e-mail communication that’s irrelevant to them or looks

E-mail is a double-edged sword. Done well, it’s a powerful business tool. Done poorly, it causes serious problems for individuals and organizations alike. “E-mail has not only changed the way we do business, it’s begun to define how we’re viewed as professionals and people,” says Janis Fisher Chan, author of “E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide -- How to Write and Manage E-Mail in the Workplace” (Write It Well, 2005, $21.99). “The words we write are very real representations of our companies and ourselves. We must be sure our e-mail messages are sending the right messages about us.” In her book, Chan offers practical

E-mail marketing is effective only if it reaches its intended recipient’s inbox. The Direct Marketing Association and e-mail marketing firm Bigfoot Interactive, in their white paper,”Authentication, Accreditation and Reputation--for Marketers,” offer three keys to ensure your e-mail marketing efforts arrive at the intended destination. 1. Maintain good e-mail list hygiene. E-mail address providers often blacklist entities that send e-mail to too many non-existent addresses, the white paper’s authors state. Spammers often randomly generate e-mail addresses to send to, resulting in many addresses that aren’t real. Address providers do acknowledge there is a lot of churn in terms of consumers changing e-mail addresses, but it’s generally

When investing in your e-mail marketing campaigns, it pays to do a little testing. Here are two testing tips from Refinery, an interactive and search marketing agency. 1. Subject lines. Make them not only intriguing to recipients, but also benefit-oriented and related to the e-mail’s featured products, suggests Refinery in its white paper “Give Your eTail Sales Tactics a Tune-up.” One of Refinery’s b-to-b clients reported that it found far greater success with benefit-oriented subject lines than with promotional subjects. For example, instead of using a subject line stating: “Sale on Workboots,” try “You’ll Save Money on Rugged Workboots This Week Only.” “With their

E-mail provides a one-to-one marketing medium that allows you to deliver a message directly to individuals, speaking to their specific interests, needs and desires, notes Mike Adams, founder and president of e-mail marketing software provider Arial Software. In “Permission Wave,” a guide to effective permission-based e-mail marketing, Adams explains how you can learn a lot about your customers by asking just a few questions via e-mail. He gives the following example: Say you’re a coffee merchant with 100,000 subscribers to your e-mail newsletter. Ask three questions in three separate e-mails. First ask your subscribers/customers what they purchase your products for and provide four possible

You don’t have to invest money in any fancy online technologies or vigorous list scrubbing services to see a measurable improvement in your e-mail marketing efforts. Anne Holland, publisher of Marketing Sherpa, a Warren, R.I.-based company that publishes research reports, case studies and e-newsletters on marketing, advertising and public relations, remarked that sometimes the best fixes are the easy ones right in front of your face. At List Vision 2005, held last week in New York City, Holland offered the following solutions to some of marketers’ top e-mail challenges: Challenge: Companies report 20 percent to 40 percent non-delivery of e-mail. Solution: In addition to delivery tracking, implement

Internet service providers (ISPs) and legitimate e-mailers should develop a comprehensive e-mail authentication and reputation strategy, noted several speakers at the E-mail Authentication Implementation Summit held last week in New York. The need for such a strategy is illustrated by statistics revealed by Craig Spiezle, director of technology care and strategy for Microsoft, in his session”Authentication Identity Crisis.” Spam now represents 75 percent of all e-mail, and 95 percent of all phishing attacks are made from spoofed or forged e-mail addresses, he said. Tips and trends revealed at the Summit included: * Marketers should implement some form of e-mail authentication in time for the holiday selling season.