In today's Email Insider column, "Statistics, Lies, and Mathematical Literacy", I wrote about some of the common errors that I see in email marketing on a regular basis with regard to the use of statistics. Honestly, it scares me a little when different statistical terms are used incorrectly. It concerns me greatly when clearly bad statistics about email marketing or direct marketing are published and not widely scrutinized.

I believe we could brush up a little. Not convinced?  Well try a few basic questions and see how you do:

1) What is the difference between "average" and "mean"? Mean and median? Median and mode?
2) Assuming a normal distribution, what percentage of cases fall within 1 standard deviation? Within 2 standard deviations?
3) What is a null hypothesis?
4) What is the name of the test for identifying significant differences?

I consider myself a "stats guy", having taken a lot of statistics both as an undergrad and in grad school. Even so, I am not embarrassed to say that the reference book used most often in my office is an old statistics textbook I bought at a used bookstore for $5.

Something similar, in combination with the book I wrote about in the article, "How to Lie with Statistics" should help you discern--and question when appropriate--the next time you hear something about averages and "significant" findings.

Some great insights on the mobile marketing front today from eMarketer. According to new research from the DMA, mobile users are more then twice as likely to respond to an offer via SMS than they are via mobile email.



eMarketer was quick to point out that this does not make text messaging the solution to all our mobile marketing challenges and highlighted findings from ExactTarget's 2008 Channel Preference survey.

"But even text messaging is not about to replace other marketing mainstays such as e-mail or direct mail. In fact, only 1% of US Internet users surveyed in February 2008 by ExactTarget (2008 Channel Preference Survey) picked text messaging as their channel of choice for opt-in communications. Instead, the medium is better-suited for targeting specific audiences, and as part of multichannel campaigns."

We will highlight more of our findings specific to SMS in an upcoming whitepaper on the subject. In the meantime, mobile marketing of all forms becoming increasingly common--and SMS and mobile email each play critical roles. In order to help clients serve "on the go" subscribers, ExactTarget recently announced the launch of text messaging capabilities. Managing these two critical mobile touchpoints--along with voice messaging--out of a single platform gives ExactTarget clients the ability to contact subscribers across all three mobile touchpoints in accordance with their individual preferences.

If you have not come across Dan Ariely yet, I suggest you become acquainted. Ariely is Professor of Behavioral Economics at MIT whose recent book Predictably Irrational is on the NY Times Business Bestseller list. I came across a recent presentation from him at a MarketingProfs event in Boston. He is a phenomenal presenter with both informative and entertaining content. 

There are a number of ideas that this presentation has spurred in me related to email marketing strategy. From the building and management of email lists, to execution of email marketing campaigns, there is something all of us can take away.

The biggest take away for me is to pay close attention to the balance between the financial world and the social world--that there is a complex relationship between the two that we can interrupt to help our organizations prosper. It's all about context and creating a perception of value.



I encourage you to take some time to watch this. It is a bit long, but worth the ideas it should generate. In addition, you can check out a site entirely dedicated to these ideas at www.predictablyirrational.com.

Reside is an ExactTarget client and sponsored the Route 1 to 1 event in Minneapolis. As part of the event, they conducted a survey of attendees and came up with some interesting results.

The average respondent indicates 2.5 marketing focuses for '08-'09, with the most common combination being "Drive Higher Sales" and "Engage Prospects".  However, for same-company respondees (representing 33% of the overall mix of participants), there seems to be a great discrepancy in identified focus.  A full 50% of these participants had a zero match to their colleagues when identifying their focuses for the year.  Of the remaining, those who matched their colleagues' identified focuses did so only half the time (49%).  Could there be room in the marketing department for clarity of focus and business objectives?

On the surface, these results may seem surprising. However, more often than not I see this issue where colleagues who work side by side every day do not have a common definition of success. I hear it already... "But WE don't have that issue!" Everyone says that. "Our objective is to drive revenue!"  Yeah, everyone says that too. But, do your objectives drive decision making? Are there clear standards for how decisions should be made?

Companies that do this well have a marked advantage over the competition. In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath cite one reason for Southwest Airlines success is the fact that they have successfully communicated objectives to the ENTIRE organization. "Be THE low cost airline." Followed by "Have Fun!" Everything they do flows from there. Faced with a question about adding in-flight meals? Nope, that is not in line with their objectives. Make jokes over the PA? Sure, why not?

Without these clear guidelines, people fulfill their roles and focus on their personal objectives--there is no compass to guide day to day decisions. This is not a moral statement... it's simply human. And... it provides a simple explanation for the results of Reside's survey.

For some practical tips on evaluating objectives for email marketing, check out David Baker's recent article on Mediapost.

Again, taking a fresh look at the mobile email survey I looked at a section where we asked for comments on why people liked mobile email more than email on a desktop or laptop and vice versa.  Here is a summary of the responses (with some representative quotes) from the 1,000 plus written responses we received:

People like mobile email because:

• It’s portable, not tied down
• Kills downtime
• “Wireless service faster than dial-up on my home computer.”
• “I don’t have a computer.”
• “You can check anytime and get rid of junk email”

People like email on a computer because:

• Easier to view/read (bigger screen)
• Easier to write (bigger keyboard)
• It’s cheaper (perception that mobile email is free -- compared to SMS which users pay for)
• Time – it does not take as long
• Easier to click and respond
• Access speed (for high-speed internet access users)
• Can open attachments
• Can leverage full computer functionality
• Can print
• Easier to search archives
• Easier to concentrate
• Does not drain the battery on my mobile phone

A couple weeks ago I dug deeper into a survey we conducted last year on the use of mobile email for a presentation at the Email Insiders Conference. In the course of that evaluation I came across an interesting trend that has not entered into discussions about mobile email--that there is a significant segment of users who maintain "mobile only" email addresses.

Most of the discussion on mobile email has focused on people who access the same email from their mobile device that they access from their primary email account. In that scenario, the mobile inbox simply becomes a different access point for email--people may read the same email on their mobile device that they read when they get back to home or office. Thus, maintaining the integrity of email rendering for the desktop/laptop computer is critical. However, now we see that there is a very large group of people who maintain mobile only email addresses that they never access from a desktop/laptop computer.

Here is the breakdown from our survey:

52% of mobile email users access same email account on multiple devices (Skews toward the BtoB Crowd)

• Tend to be younger (25-44)
• More technically savvy
• Employed full-time
• More affluent

48% maintain a separate mobile email account (Skews toward the BtoC Crowd)

• Tend to be older (45+)
• Retired and homemakers
• Less affluent

Unfortunately, we do not have information on whether people use these mobile only addresses when subscribing to newsletters and other commercial email, or if they are used primarily for personal communication. I suspect that when people have a choice, they don't give their mobile only address--but that is only speculation. However, for some less affluent consumers, mobile devices offer an affordable access point to the internet. For people who do not have regular access to the internet from home or work, this means that the primary email address these consumers maintain is mobile only, which would require us to think differently about best practices for collecting information from and emailing to these segments.

It's been a while since there was a good debate about whether emails should be sent with the brand or a person highlighted in the sender line. For a while, our founder Chris Baggott was a huge proponent of sending from individuals--logic being that people connect with people, not faceless entities.

Where the subscriber actually KNOWS someone inside your company, this may be true. However, a recent experience with Yankee Group made me very skeptical about adopting this approach across the board.

I registered for a webinar Yankee Group was doing this week and I never got the information on how to actually attend the webinar. Let me restate that... I don't know if I received it. I haven't received anything from "Yankee Group" or anything similarly logical. I can only assume that if an email was sent, that it came from an individual that I have still to identify in my inbox. Why do I suspect that? Because this week I started receiving the "Yankee Group Anywhere Newsletter" from someone named Emily Green. Worse still, the reply email address is not branded.  The domain on the email address is from the email service provider used by Yankee Group: Emily_Green@[ESP Domain].

Seems to me this is an example of a good idea gone bad. Sending commercial messages from an individual is a decent idea if you are confident the receiver will recognize the sending name. I get marketing messages from companies I work with that are "from" my sales rep. For example, one research company I work with sends email this way. I get their email--which is obviously produced and distributed by the marketing organization--from "Steve". I know Steve and I know who he works for. This tactic works since I always check emails from Steve. However, I don't know Emily Green. I do know the Yankee Group.

Moral of the story, make sure you send email from an entity--be it person or company--that your subscribers will recognize.

A couple of conversations today prompted me to take a fresh look at the "mobile email problem", as I have come to think of it.  After reading our whitepaper "Email Marketing for the Third Screen" a client asked, "But I am still not sure exactly what to do!"  Yep, you are not alone.

There are a lot of ideas out there about how to solve the problem.  Some are better than others.  Some are simply poor and short-sided... but I digress.  Fact is, all of the proposed solutions are nothing more than workarounds to a complicated and baffling problem derived from the fact that no common coding standards exist.  Optimize for one scenario and you mess up performance for another.  There is no simple quick fix.

Now that I have rained on everyone's parade, the larger question really is "What is going to FIX the mobile email problem?"  This question was raised in a discussion this afternoon.  The following is an edited response I posted to that group.  Enjoy!

The right answer is for mobile devices to adopt standards for rendering email such that current coding standards work.  This is similar to the standardization efforts that helped unify the internet.  Remember when the internet was littered with images like this?  Thankfully they are gone now.



The initial thought was to muster the email troops and lobby for the adoption of standards that would better serve the consumer.  However, the market forces against getting manufacturers to standardize how they treat email are simply too strong at the moment.  Consider that iPhone recently leapfrogged the entire industry in their ability to render email and now RIM (Blackberry) has Apple pegged as enemy #1.  How well these devices support mobile email is a huge competitive advantage and when you are talking about selling cell phones, you are talking about big, big bucks.  In several attempts to engage with people who could influence the adoption of industry standards I was met with head shaking and laughing, as if to say, "How naive?"

Fortunately, Apple has done more for creating the necessary pressure than any lobby could ever hope to do.  Their move with the iPhone was a huge step toward "rendering email properly". The pressure they have applied to the market to handle email and the online experience well (no matter how much one may agree or disagree about "how well" thus far) is already accelerating changes in the market.  RIM knows they are in a fight as they enter the consumer smartphone market.  They will need to update their enterprise mail server capabilities and get with the times... or get their teeth kicked in.  All Apple needs to do is drop their price to $100 for a smartphone and RIM drops out of the consumer battle.  Since the consumer smartphone market is is where the big money is in the coming years, it is imperative for RIM to upgrade the way they handle email and the web.  I believe that B2B trends will follow quickly... or else RIM will go the way of Lotus Notes to be only used when IT has already invested too much to pull out.

My belief is that this problem will fix itself through market competition in the next 2-3 years, which is faster than a lobby would probably have an impact. We have not seen the long term solution yet, but it is coming--the competition is fierce, and that is a good thing for our cause.  After getting laughed at realizing the economic forces at work, we stopped trying to beat the "thy must standardize" drum.

For now, mobile email remains a big challenge.  Only a select few have figured out solutions that are even halfway decent.  Nothing stellar.  There is the trade-off between desktop appearance and mobile rendering.  Where mobile is highly likely (e.g., travel alerts) then go with simple single column, boring old email.  If simply trying to accommodate for a mobile audience where readership is more likely to happen on a desktop, then then trying to minimize the distortion of email on the mobile device by using tools like Pivotal Veracity eDesign Optimizer for mobile devices and then leverage a click to view solution (where the landing page determines the type of browser and then renders the page accordingly). Unfortunately, that is still the best I have come across. 

ExactTarget is committed to investigating other alternatives.  Moreover, this is a personal passion of mine and there are many others at ExactTarget passionate about finding better workarounds.  We are optimistic that a decent workaround is on the horizon, but not foolishly so--there will not be a perfect workaround until standards emerge.  If you have ideas that you would recommend or like to try, let us know, we would love to work with you.

See this example for a good example of how to keep the quality of your email list high.  The grim reality is that subscribers tend to interact with your newsletters less as time goes by. This begs the question, why would you want subscribers who signed up three, four, or five years ago on your list?  There is a good chance these subscribers are just fluff and not driving much traffic to your site.

I received this excellent example from MediaPost. Instead of waiting until their list grows old and tired to clean it up, they keep their list evergreen by maintaining an annual subscription model. As you can see, my subscription is up this month and they recently started running these renewal reminders at the top of my daily email.

By doing this, MediaPost keeps their list fresh, response rates up, and keep themselves out of trouble often associated with mailing to old names (such as hitting dead inboxes that most ISPs monitor). Many fear that by adopting this approach, they will drastically cut into the size of their list. This is not completely unwarranted, but it is short-sighted. Despite the annual subscription approach (which by the way has worked for print subscriptions for years) MediaPost is able to keep the size of their list up. According to Mediapost's media kit, circulation for the EmailInsider newsletter is 58,000... pretty impressive for a high quality B2B email list.

When starting a new email marketing strategic planning engagement, we often rely on a combination of tools to help assess a client's value proposition.

What is working now: For established senders, we start by looking at historical results. What has worked in the past and what has not? What types of links draw the most traffic? Etc.

What is working for others in the space: This is where competitive intelligence tools come into play. Email Analyst allows us to look at the email messages that competitors are sending and it provides insight on the traffic that those emails may be driving through an overlay of traffic data from Alexa. This provides incredible insight into what appears to be working for competitors. Thus, it provides good insight into messaging components that the client may want to consider.

Identify and validate key messaging components: Combining the learnings from the prior two steps, we come up with the key messaging components that appear to be on target for the client's audience. We then develop a survey around those key messaging components to validate which components subscribers want most.

Set the value proposition: The last step in the process is to codify the value proposition. Using all of the data gathered through these three steps, the key learnings are distilled into a single, straight forward value proposition that is used to guide future messaging and list growth initiatives.

There are several advantages to this approach... but the most compelling advantage is that it aligns your program with the expectations of your subscribers.  In a marketing channel where the subscriber rules... this is a huge step toward ongoing success.

If you didn't see it already, ExactTarget and Email Data Source announced a partnership in November.  Check out the press release.

Since then, I have been getting questions about how to use competitive intelligence to improve your email program.  Here are just a few of the ways we use competitive intelligence.

1. In strategic planning, use competitive intelligence to monitor what appears to be working for your competitors.  Email Analyst allows us to look at the email messages that competitors are sending and it provides insight on the traffic that those emails may be driving through an overlay of site traffic data from Alexa. This provides incredible insight into what appears to be working for competitors. Thus, it provides good insight into messaging components that the client may want to consider.
2. Look for positive trends in subject lines. Wondering if terms like "Free shipping" are overused? Are they really taboo? Competitive intelligence can help you assess different terms and phrases you are considering using in your subject lines. With Email Analyst's view into site traffic data, you can also get a feel for whether or not these "taboo" phrases really are taboo! (Hint: they probably aren't if your sender reputation is good)
3. Track the frequency and cadence of competitors email programs. 
4. Evaluate the in-house vs. 3rd party email mix of your competitors. Many companies drive traffic to their site through links in 3rd party emails. A competitive intelligence tool allows you to see which emails are driving traffic to your competitors sites... and it allows you to look at the links (content links, text ads, banner ads, etc) that are driving the traffic. Moreover, it allows you to figure out who your competitors are partnering with early on, and allows you to develop a counter-strategy.
5. Track where your brand is showing up. This is especially important when working with affiliates. Bill McClosky, founder of EDS, told me about meeting a prospect who asserted that their affiliates were not, absolutely not, sending email on their behalf. A quick search in Email Analyst proved that wrong... something like 30 emails had been sent in the prior month that drove traffic to the prospects website... all affiliates.
6. Identify new partners. By searching for key phrases and terms that are used in emails, you can identify like minded companies that are leveraging similar phrases and, thus, may be targeting similar audiences. Sure, some of these will be direct competitors... but some may be future partners!

The difference between doing email appends right and doing them wrong involves changing one significant step… the outbound message.  Instead of the outbound message containing a link to opt-out, the outbound email marketing message should have registration as the primary call to action. This approach to email appends is called "opt-in" email append.

ExactTarget was one of the early proponents of this approach and we have now real life experience with this approach under our belts.  Opt-in email appends have been very successful in delivering highly responsive subscribers without the headaches and pitfalls associated with opt-out appends.  However, the challenge is in getting a significant number of people to convert on these outbound email invitations.

Success in converting opt-in email appends involves defining your value proposition. It involves having a compelling reason for subscribers to register--selling your program to the prospective subscriber. All of which is based in the bedrock of marketing success... a good strategy combined with strong campaign execution.

Once you have your strategy for enticing prospective registrants, follow the steps outlined in my previous post about opt-in email campaigns.

The thing that clients like about this approach is that they only pay for emails that are likely to perform. It can take a while to get past the reality that this is not going to add a million email addresses to your list, but that shouldn’t be the point. There are only two business models that can drive revenue from an unresponsive email address—list brokers and email append vendors. By working with these providers on opt-in programs, you eliminate waste and ensure that you will get email addresses of real, live people that are likely to respond.

Yes, this puts a premium on the associated costs and makes pricing more complicated.  Don't expect to pay $0.50 per email address acquired through an opt-in append.  Things like the loyalty of people on your house file, the strength of the call to action, the size of the input file, and anticipated conversion rates may be considered in determining costs. But at the end of the day, this is in the best interest of the client as it avoids the issues typically associated with opt-out email appends and the overall quality is much, much higher.

The Silver Bullet?

Companies looking at email appends are typically looking for a fast and efficient way to grow their lists.  Don’t buy into the promises of a quick and easy solution to grow your list. To be completely cliché “If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.”

Done right, email appends can be effective—but they still take time, careful planning, good execution, and financial resources.  It is not the silver bullet that most people imagine when they latch on to email append as the solution to their list growth woes.

• Done wrong, as is the case with opt-out email appends, we have found that these initiatives are more time and cost intensive as other list growth tactics.
• Done right, in the case of opt-in email appends, we have found these initiatives to be at least as time and cost intensive as any other list growth tactics.

Given this reality, 9 out of 10 times, I prefer to invest the same time and resources into other proven list growth methods.  A couple consistent winners are:

1. Make sure that there are compelling opportunities to register for email throughout your website. This is basic, basic stuff… START HERE.
2. Integrate search campaigns with email registration. Search campaigns should be integrated with email registration efforts. Capturing email addresses on landing pages is the first step. Aligning the call to action on your landing pages with specific search campaigns is the second step. For example, visitors from brand keywords should get a different call to action than visitors from direct in-category keywords or competitive keywords.
3. Integrate with offline efforts. Provide an incentive as part of your existing direct mail or print advertising efforts to register with your company online.
4. Partner co-registration. Find like minded companies that you can cross promote. You include a signup space on their page and vice versa.
5. Tradeshows are huge for B2B marketers. This is no secret, but there is often a significant effort involved in collecting all those business cards and then getting those contacts to opt-in to your program. Do the due diligence and get these systems in place.

If my inbox is any indication, list growth was a common goal set for this year.  In the past week, I have been asked for information on email appends and other list growth tactics by several clients a day.

Most email append providers offer what we call an "opt-out" email append service.  The process looks something like this:

1) Client provides a file containing street addresses of customers or prospects that is matched against a database. Where a match to the client's list is found, the email address is appended to the record.

2) An email is then sent to the individuals on the newly created list with the option to opt out. (Interestingly, many email append companies advertise the low number of opt-outs that are received... but more on that in a minute)

3) After allowing some time for people to opt-out (typically a week), two files are returned to the customer. The first file is a list of successfully appended and delivered emails. The second is a list of opt-out emails to be used for suppression.

Cost

We have worked with several third parties on email append projects with clients. Pricing is competitive in this industry with rates from reputable email append providers starting around $0.50 per appended email address with significant discounts based on volume. Pay attention, since there are hundreds of companies that advertise significantly lower rates. If someone quotes you rates starting at $0.05, or even $0.10, per email append... RUN!

Issues with Opt-out Append

1) Those low opt-out rates are not a good thing.

One prominent player in the email append space advertises, "Less than one-fourth of one percent choose to opt out." No one should be impressed by this since opt-out rates are always low.  The industry wide average opt-out rate is about one-tenth of one percent. So, quoting one-fourth of one percent suggests that their average opt-out rate is 2.5 times higher than the industry averages.  Not good!

2) Quantity, not quality.

The opt-out approach to email appends provides no incentives for the email append provider to ensure that the names will be responsive. They get paid by the address they provide back to you, regardless of whether or not the address is responsive. While reputable providers do have an interest in repeat business and referrals, which is some incentive, the fact still remains that you pay for the email addresses you receive back at the end of this process. The only requirements are that the email address is deliverable and they did not opt-out to a single email sent to them as part of the process.  These are embarassingly low thresholds. In my experience, addresses acquired through opt-out append are less responsive than new registrants from other sources. At least part of this can be attributed to “recipient dilution”, which you can read more about in Al’s recent post. At the end of the day, you just end up paying for a lot of deadweight.

3) "Opt-out" is not permission.

Why is this important? Because lists that are not permission-based result in higher unsubscribe rates, higher percentage of people clicking this "This is SPAM" button, and lower open, click-through, and conversion rates. These factors lead to problems with your online reputation, and thus, your ability to get your email delivered. Just because someone does not unsubscribe or report you as SPAM the first time you send an email to them (as part of the opt-out append process) is no indication that they will not do so later. The best predictor of someone reporting you as SPAM is the level of permission you obtained when they were added to your list. "Opt-out" lists, while legal under CAN-SPAM, do not meet the demands of most ISPs receiving your email, significantly increase the likelihood that your email will be blocked, and make it much more difficult to get your email unblocked.

"But all the email addresses are 'double opt-in'!" is a common protest when we bring up this point. Well, yes... maybe at some time they double opted-in for something. But, they never opted-in to anything for you! Permission in marketing is non-transferable.

For that reason, ExactTarget is a permission-based ESP. All ExactTarget clients sign an agreement agreeing that the lists they provide are permission-based and are not permitted to send to opt-out lists using our system.

4) Opt-out append leaves a negative impression with some recipients. 

I have yet to find a way to measure the financial impact of the negative impression that is left in the minds of unwilling recipients of appended emails, but there is no question that there is a dark side. Forrester provides excellent insights based on a survey they conducted in August 2004. "Nearly 50% of likely email subscribers wouldn't mind and would read appended emails from a cataloger. However, appended email blatantly offends between 25% to 39% of consumers, depending on the type of business sending it. And it has hidden risks. About 20% of consumers say that even though they read appended emails, they find them annoying. Another 12% say that although they don't unsubscribe, appended emails annoy them."

5) Results are spotty at best.

MarketingShepra's 2007 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide indicates that of marketers who have tried email appends, more than half said it either didn't work or it wasn't worth the effort.

Part II coming soon... email appends done right!

Another compliment to the fine work the folks at Apple are doing to push the mobile world ahead. I am not saying the iPhone is perfect, but it is putting a lot of pressure on competitors. I suspected that they caught the other smartphone manufactures off guard, and the folks at Fortune seem to agree. BTW... this post came out the same day as my last posting on the iPhone. I promise I did not see it before I wrote my post. :)

Tom O'Brien of MotiveQuest also has a great post on how the iPhone has changed the meaning of cool.

The hoopla has started to calm down, but the impact of the iPhone is becoming crystal clear now. The battle between Apple and RIM is shaping up. B2B marketers hoping that business users are only using Blackberries need to take note. Optimizing your email for mobile rendering on the Blackberry is not going to be the long term answer.

Furthermore, other smartphone manufacturers continue to release phones that seem to be a direct response to the iPhone. Samsung's F700 and the LG Voyager are just a couple of the more notable recent releases.

It seems that iPhone’s full support of HTML on the web and email has fundamentally changed the definition of “mobile internet.”  Where users had grown accustomed to having limited functionality on their mobile devices, the iPhone responds with a clear message, “you don’t need to settle.” iPhone delivered a user-friendly experience that makes huge strides (however imperfect) toward providing a web and email experience that mimics a traditional computer.

Whether or not Apple caught the other manufacturers off-guard or not is a moot point now.  Fact is, that many of the leading mobile manufactures, such as Nokia, Samsung, and Ericsson had joined the dotMobi bandwagon prior to the iPhone release. The folks at Apple recognized error of the dotMobi approach, which essentially creates two distinct online worlds--simultaneously creating both a fractured marketing experience and administrative nightmares associated with running parallel sites. Instead, Apple developers facilitated access of the traditional web and email on a mobile device... and by doing so, set a new standard.

In bypassing the dotMobi movement, Apple has done a service to all online and email marketers by creating demand for mobile devices that have full internet functionality, and by showing that it is possible. Email marketing professionals should praise this accomplishment. I believe it is a critical first step toward a solution to the current challenges associated with mobile email rendering.

Slightly off topic here, but I feel like I am on a hidden camera show right now.  Trying to log into my Sprint account, I have been informed that Sprint has upgraded their security policy.  To verify my identity, they ask me to answer questions about relevant items such as:

1. The make and model of my car.  Okay, so how does Sprint know that? And how is it relevant really to my cell phone usage?
2. The address I live on when I purchased my car.  Even a bit more freaky... again, how does Sprint know that?  Moreover, this appears to be evidence that cell rates are too high.  If they have money to build databases that store that information, then they definitely have too much money.
3. Select from a list of properties "Which of the following properties have you PREVIOUSLY OR CURRENTLY owned?"  Maybe I understand this one, I have been a customer of Sprint for a while, tracking historical addresses makes some sense... I guess?
4. What month and year I purchased the aforementioned home? I have no idea... that was three houses ago!! I just went back and checked my tax records from 2000 and for some reason I can't find the month I purchased the home.  It was summer, I think.  I remember it was a really hot day when I moved.  In fact, I remember vowing never to ever to move again that day. Oh my, I broke that vow, how can I be so dishonest with myself? Okay, you got me there... I don't know when I bought that house and I am getting depressed thinking about it. If all else fails, go with option C.
5. Pick from a list of streets I never lived on.  Apparently C was incorrent because they have more questions for me. All of these street names look familiar. One of the streets listed was from an appartment I rented in college in 1993! Some great memories from that apartment. Gee Sprint, thanks for taking me down memory lane. It is clear you know me better than I know myself.
6. The name of the seller of a home I purchased 7 years ago.  Am I really expected to know this? It was just some guy, I dunno his name, I never even met the person.  I dealt through an agent.  You are asking me questions I don't even know the answer to.  From memory lane to flashbacks of my calculus final.
7. The names of people that have lived with me.  You have got to be kidding me. You track my roommates??  Roommates? I hated some of those people. They weren't even Sprint customers. How (and why) are you doing this to me?

I work in the industry where we analyze data to provide relevant marketing materials to customers. Things like email address, gender, occupation, and interests. But, this type of completely over the top use of data is the stuff that gives the privacy mongers ammunition. There is a balance. If data is relevant and helps you identify me as who I claim to be, or helps you provide me with information I want, that is one thing. To chronical my life and track it for the past 15 years is WWWAAAAYYYY too much. If we want Washington to stay out of the online privacy world, companies need to use a bit more common sense. Don't make people feel like they are in an episode of the twilite zone.

I just received an email from Sam's Club. For some reason I started receiving these emails a couple weeks ago. I never signed up with them--no permission. I have, however, registered to receive email from Wal-Mart. I assume that Wal-Mart shared my email address with Sam's Club, even though Wal-Mart's privacy policy does not state that they will do this, nor does the email newsletter preference center allow me to manage my Sam's Club email preferences. 

Initially, I let it slide.  I even got interested in doing some last minute online shopping today and clicked through on a link in today's email from Sam's Club. I did my shopping and at checkout I was faced with the following, oh so friendly (yet somewhat expected) message: "You must be a logged in member to purchase." Well, you guessed it, this means becoming a member of Sam's Club, membership fees and all.



What I don't get is why? Of course, I understand how Sam's Club works, but I am a Costco member. I don't want to pay another membership fee to Sam's Club. My why refers to WHY engage in such horrible practices?

• Sam's Club started emailing me without my permission
• WalMart shared my data in (seeming) violation of their own privacy practices
• I am not a Sam's Club member, it seems like they should have checked into that first
• Sam's Club won't let me buy online without becoming a member of their club
• Why put both brands at such risk??

There is a lesson here for the rest of us. The allure of a "bigger list" is always looming. Companies often see taking on their sister companies' lists as one way of growing their list. This is what Sam's Club apparently did, they simply took the WalMart list and called it their own without ever asking me if this was what I wanted. If this is something you are considering, know that lack of planning around three areas is likely to get you in trouble:

1. Do the people you are bringing into your program from a sister company WANT to be in the program? Simple solution... run an opt-in campaign. Tell the people you are inviting how you got their name, what you plan to offer them, and ask for positive opt-in.
2. Does the audience you are inviting even make sense? Sam's is sending me emails and I can't even buy from them until I become a member. In other sceanrios I have seen, the target demographics of the two sister companies are completely different... why send email to people who aren't likely to (or worse... can't) buy your products. It is a ROI loser!
3. Don't violate your own privacy policies. CAN-SPAM is one thing, violating your own stated policies is, at minumum, a PR nightmare waiting to happen. At worst, it is a legal nightmare. 

As for Sam's Club and WalMart. You need to update your privacy policy... especially if you want my trust as you so emphatically claim in your privacy policy:

We realize that making purchases at Walmart.com, or any other web site, requires trust on your part. We value your trust very highly, and pledge to you, our customer, that we will work to protect the security and privacy of any personal information you provide to us and that your personal information will only be used as set forth in this Policy. This includes your name, address, phone number, email address, and credit card or checking account information, in addition to any other personal information that can be linked to you, personally.

 

EmailStatCenter.com recently released findings from a survey they conducted in September and October of this year on the State of Email Metrics. The survey consisted of 345 respondents, with 55% coming from client side marketers and the remaining 45% coming from agencies and ESPs.

The study provides some decent insight into the challenges that marketers are facing today.  List development, time constraints (which can also be interpreted as resource constraints), and strategy/planning are all areas highlighted both as challenges and as areas for near term focus. 

All of these are critical areas.  We continue to test new list development strategies and will be providing some updates on this topic soon.  Time and resource constraints... building out metrics and making the business case for getting email the attention it requires is a critical first step. Beyond that, recruiting experienced talent in this area is tough.  Strategy and planning is near to my own heart, so I'm glad to see this on the list.  It also makes sense given the considerable growth of our Strategic Services practice in the past two years which focuses the vast majority of its attention on strategy and planning.

Interestingly, another area many indicated as an important near term focus was “metrics and measurement”.  Not that this is interesting in itself, but it puzzles me a bit to see this as the second highest near term focus area (behind list development) and then to see testing ranked lowest in near-term focus.  There are three explanations I have thought of for this:

1) Marketers do not want to start testing until they have better metrics and measurement in place.  If that is the case, I applaud that effort.  The stronger the metrics and the more closely aligned to bottom line business goals those metrics are, the better a program can be optimized through testing.

2) Testing simply is not that appealing.  Given the focus on strategy, planning, and metrics, this does not make sense.  Even with the best plans in place, those plans need to be verified (see my recent post of Marketers Intuition). Moreover, metrics are only good for two things: a) convincing management that we are doing a good job and, b) improving the program—which requires testing new concepts.

3) Past testing has not resulted in the promised results.  Let me be the first to admit that this does happen.  Marketers run tests all the time that do not result in huge gains.  I have run many AB subject line tests during my email marketing career that left little to be desired.  I have also run tests that have blown the doors off a business.  Sometimes it takes 4 or 5 tests to get the knockout, case-study worthy test results.  Not every idea is a good one, but we can't get the huge improvements unless we are willing to fail now and then.  That is precisely why we test!

Kudos to MarketingExperiments for another great study on why we need to adopt testing.  Last year, they printed one of my favorite studies from all of last year, "Marketer's Intuition Tested".  This week, they put out a follow-up to that article with "Marketer’s Intuition Revisited".

This years study covers a broader array of topics, but these are very basic, yet telling, studies.  First, they poll a group of marketers on which of several options they tested performed better and then they show us the results.  Needless to say, the marketers were wrong... a lot. 

It always astounds me that we can be so wrong so often, and yet it is still hard to get organizations to adopt a testing culture.  Yes, testing is time comsuming, yes it takes effort, yes it is simply a pain in the hind end.  The list of excuses is long and well established.  Nevertheless, if you are serious about improving your program, sooner or later you will need to start validating the "intuitions" (or dare I say "best practices") your program is based on.

If you haven't read the latest case study from CareerBuilder.com, I encourage you to look at that too.  CareerBuilder.com's testing resulted in an 88% increase in conversion.  The kicker, we worked with them for 2 years prior to test our various "intuitions" and we could barely move the needle.  By testing several of the different program components that we had been working with for years into a single, well-designed test, we finally got the results we were looking for.

Testing works.  I promise that a well designed test will improve your program.  If you need help deciding what to test or where to start, drop me a line... I love this stuff!