E-mail

For catalogers who want to retain contact with customers via a regularly scheduled, opt-in e-newsletter, there are several recommended strategies to be aware of, said Mark Priebe, president of Proximity Marketing, an e-mail services provider, during his session “E-Newsletters: Ways to Make Them Work” at the American Society of Business Publication Editors’ meeting held last month in Cleveland. While Priebe’s comments were earmarked for editors, his insights also will prove useful to anyone, including direct marketers, who want to produce e-newsletters for customers. Don’t assume that all recipients will read every word of every edition. On average, 57 percent of recipients skim e-newsletters for relevant

Opt-in e-mail campaigns continue to be a cost-effective way to generate sales and traffic to your Web site. If you execute your own campaigns in-house, the cost practically is zero. Even if you use an outside e-mail marketing firm, the cost to send each e-mail is miniscule compared to the cost of a mailed, printed piece. However, as consumers get more and more frustrated with inbox clutter and shady offers, it’s even more important that you ensure your offers are effective and provide value and/or interest to your customers or prospects. Otherwise, the cost to you may not be in simply executing the

Of 175 catalogers with e-mail programs, e-mail marketer Silverpop found that between March and May of this year, 75 percent offered e-mail signup directly on the homepage, while 3 percent used a pop-up at the homepage to collect e-mail addresses. Other data revealed by the study: * 75% offered an incentive to customers for providing their e-mail addresses * 45% of those catalogers offered sales and promotions as an incentive * 14% offered newsletters * 11% offered a catalog or other form of direct mail * 2% offered a prize For more information on Silverpop’s “2005 Retail E-mail Marketing Study,” visit http://www.silverpop.com/news/press/05_26_05.html.

“Most [consumers] who are going to use e-mail have already started, the trick is to find them and keep them,” said Chris Baggott, co-founder and chief marketing officer of e-mail marketing firm ExactTarget at the session”How to Multiply Your E-mail Marketing Returns with Proven Practices and Methods” at the Annual Catalog Conference held last month in Orlando, Fla. Additionally, each person who uses e-mail opts-in to only about six e-mail newsletters, and within that, most don’t opt-in for more than one of the same type, noted Baggott. So how do you get customers to sign up for and respond to your message instead of your

The Internet penetrated consumers’ inner sanctum faster than any medium since the black-and-white television; both reached 50 percent of U.S. households within eight years of being readily accessible, says DoubleClick, citing the 2001 U.S. Census in its paper, “The Decade in Online Advertising, 1994-2004,” released last Wednesday. And just how does that compare to other media used to reach consumers? Other data revealed by the U.S. Census: ¥ Nine years for 50 percent of homes to gain radios ¥ 17 years for personal computers ¥ 39 years for cable television ¥ 70 years for the telephone

“E-mails are just like direct mail pieces with a really short shelf life,” noted Neal Patrick, director of marketing for Lerner Direct, during the session “Sowing Seeds of Change: Getting and Tracking Online Results” at the spring conference of the New England Mail Order Association held in Cambridge, Mass., last week. So how can you improve the performance of a medium that drives three-quarters of its sales within the first 48 hours of its existence? Patrick, along with Nancy Reiser, vice president at list company Mokrynskidirect, offered the following tips in their joint session: * E-mails need a reason to exist. “Don’t just send e-mails to

While use of e-mail as a method of communication between business and the consumer continues to expand, customer satisfaction with this method of customer service remains low, according to a white paper released by eGain Communications, a customer service and contact center software provider. In order to better the customer experience with e-mail communication, eGain offers the following tips in its white paper: * Determine the optimum response time for your customers. Ask your customers how long they expect to wait for a response, set a response time based on their expectations and your capabilities, and then stick to it. * Send an automated response to

In the era introduced by the Can Spam Act, how can you make sure your e-mails aren’t immediately being filtered into a junk folder? Sender authentication recently has emerged as both an opportunity for direct marketers to identify themselves and a tool to identify illegal spammers. Stephen Guerra, e-mail communications strategist for Atlanta-based Silverpop, a provider of permission-based e-mail marketing solutions, answers common questions about sender authentication and how it works. Idea Factory: How will sender authentication help direct marketers? Guerra: Sender authentication will first benefit direct marketers by allowing them to clearly identify themselves when sending to Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Secondly, it will help the

With the start of the 2005, the Can Spam Act reaches its one year anniversary. As the year unfolds, it’s especially important to make sure your multichannel business is compliant. Bennie Smith, chief privacy officer at DoubleClick, offers the following tips on how to unify your e-mail campaigns and protect your customers’ privacy. - All e-mail communication to customers should be presented in a clear, consistent and standard fashion. This includes standardizing e-mail subject lines, headers and footers. Your e-mails need to clearly designate they are an advertisement or solicitation, as well as provide functional opt-out mechanisms, says Smith. - Multiple e-mail marketing databases of opt-in

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to boost response from your opt-in e-mail marketing campaigns, you’re not alone. Many multichannel marketers are chanting the same mantra — and with good reason. E-mail click-to-purchase conversion rates and number of orders per e-mail delivered by retailers and catalogers continues to increase, according to DoubleClick’s Q3 2004 E-mail Trend Report. But other e-mail marketing statistics are less encouraging. For instance, revenue per e-mail delivered is declining, as is median order size. Moreover, open rates for offers made by retail and catalog companies were the lowest among those categories tracked by DoubleClick — 30.8