Business-to-Business Email Marketing

B2B Contact Databases Are Poor List Growth Sources

Friday, February 26, 2010 by Al Iverson

This morning, I took one of the numerous bits of B2B spam that I received, and I replied to the sender. This time around, it was a staffing services company, looking to help me with all of my staffing needs. He's ready and willing to help me with all of my staffing needs in the aerospace, transportation, and defense verticals, just to name a few.

In my reply, I asked him where he got my email address. "Through the company website," he replied. That's odd, I thought. My email address isn't published on our website. So I replied, saying exactly that. He replied with, "Have you ever heard of Zoominfo?" Sure, I've heard of Zoominfo. I've previously blogged here that it's a bad idea to grow your list by working with companies like Zoominfo, Jigsaw and Netprospex.

Why? Let's use me as an example. If this guy really did get my email address from Zoominfo, he bought a useless record. I'm not a hiring manager, I don't buy from spam, and I spend a lot of time tracking spam and spammers. I can't be the only one in that Zoominfo contact database who has no interest in receiving exciting, valuable unsolicited offers for help with my staffing needs.

After I informed the guy that if he bought my address from Zoominfo, he ought to try to get his money back, he changed his story. Now he's quoting my online bio at me as if this is somehow proof of an opt-in (buh?), and saying he's going to report me for harassment.

So, it's hard to say if this data really came from Zoominfo or not, as this guy keeps changing his story. But I get an awful lot of B2B spam, and people have to be getting my email address from somewhere. What do you think, dear reader?

2010 Marketing Budgets, Changes by Industry and Audience

Tuesday, February 9, 2010 by Morgan Stewart

Last week we released the Marketing Budgets 2010: Effectiveness, Measurement and Allocation Report done in collaboration with Econsultancy. We also released a 2-page brief on the study More Money, More Channels: Marketing Budgets in 2010.

Following a release like this, it is always enlightening to read feedback and questions that emerge in response to the data. Even better is when we can address questions or expand into related topics using data we already have available.

And such is is the case here. I ran across a comment last week on MarketingPilgram.com that gave us an idea. The comment? “I find summaries like this to be almost useless. It would be helpful to see results reported by industry-type.” Yes, ouch! Given that the report was already 50 pages long, we didn't include this information. But thankfully we can change that and Econsultancy has been kind enough to allow us to post this data on our site free of charge!

So now, when you register to download the research brief published by ExactTarget, you will also get a link to download a PowerPoint deck full of charts detailing the changes in marketing budgets by industry. There are over 30 charts in the deck broken out by channel (e.g., email, search, social, television), industry (e.g., retail, travel, publishing, etc.), and audience (e.g., B2C, B2B). Here's an example:

Clearly industry does play a role. Looking at retention email marketing budgets by industry, for example, we see huge discrepancies. While only 44% of travel companies plan to increase their email budgets in 2010, 71% of retailers plan to increase spending in this area.

Likewise, there is a significant difference in the changes in spending on mobile marketing depending on audience type. 66% of B2C marketers will increase mobile marketing budgets compared to only 44% of B2B marketers.

So Tom Kasperski, thanks for the comment and I hope you find the detailed information included in the additional charts valuable. Likewise, if anyone else has data they would like to see presented differently, please let us know by posting a comment!

Get the supplemental charts by registering to download our brief on the research project, More Money, More Channels: Marketing Budgets in 2010.

Big Players in B2B Deliverability

Monday, December 28, 2009 by Al Iverson

A client was asking the other day about B2B deliverability, how it differs from B2C, who the big players are, etc.

This isn't the first time the topic of deliverability in the B2B (business-to-business) email realm. Back in June, I answer the question, "Is B2B Deliverability Different?" In a more recent blog post, I link to information from Google about how they've become a very large host of B2B mailboxes.

Clearly, Google is a big player in this space. Meaning, a lot of the B2B mailboxes you send to are going through spam filters run by Google; just as if your recipients were at Gmail.com. What that means to you is that the same rules apply to sends to both those Gmail.com users and any B2B domains hosted at Google.

As I mentioned before, Yahoo, Hotmail and Google host mail for more than 264,000 domains, Google making up approximately 106,000 of those domains. (All three of these guys probably host mail for very many more domains than this; this is just a snapshot based off of last year's client list data. Meaning, if a domain doesn't show up on an email list, I don't know about it.)

That means you've got a huge chunk of the B2B email space hosted by top consumer webmail providers. Meaning that the B2C rules significantly apply to B2B senders, by the fact that the same spam filters are involved.

In the more specific B2B realm, there are too many players to list. Postini, Cloudmark, Barracuda, Ironport, Symantec Brightmail and MessageLabs are just a few of them. There are hundreds, maybe thousands more.

The way these filterers work is very similar to how B2C ISP spam filters work. They build a reputational view of you based on spam complaints, engagement, bounce rates, etc. They're a bit more invisible to some senders, as it's not always easy for you to know exactly what % of your mailing list might be behind a Brightmail filter, for example. But they still matter, very much so. In this combination of hosted service providers and appliance developers, getting tagged as a bad guy means you end up with delivery problems far and wide.

If you end up with a bad reputation as measured by Barracuda, and your mail is going to be blocked or filtered at the more than 85,000 customers that use Barracuda spam-filtering devices.

If Cloudmark determines the mail you send merits a bad reputation, you'll probably find it hard to successfully get to the inbox at any mailbox protected by any of Cloudmark's anti-spam solutions -- that's over 850 million mailboxes in 190 countries!

That's why B2C and B2C are more similar than you might have thought. Filterers handling either type of mail both look at your sending reputation, and treat your mail acordingly. Blocked at any of these providers on either side of things means that you're going to have issues delivering mail to a whole bunch of different mailboxes.

Embedded Channel - 2009 in Review

Monday, December 14, 2009 by Bryan Wade

It's been an amazing run in 2009 for the Embedded Channel at ExactTarget.   For those of you who don't know - the Embedded channel works with software companies that utilize ExactTarget's SOAP API's to go to market with their own email or sms products.

As I look back I realized we've grown the number of Embedded partners from 22 to 60 ISV's.   We have Embedded partners who offer Business to Business email marketing / campaign management software in the Print, Auto, SMB, MRM, Voice, Medical, Events, and eCommerce verticals (to name a few).   It feels like software companies are realizing that their customers want reliable and scalable email sending capabilities with the email tracking/reporting data to go along with the sending.   They've realized that building it all out is a daunting task, especially when you can partner to get to market quickly.

The most important thing that has happened in 2009 is the build out of the Embedded team within ExactTarget.   We've hired 4 new folks on the Embedded team alone and have plans to hire even more in 2010.   This gives us the people to support the Embedded program, which can be just as or more important then technology we offer.

Thanks to all for the great year and expect more from the Embedded team next year!

Bryan

The Next Season: Catapults 2010

Friday, November 20, 2009 by Teresa Becker

The interviews are done, "cat chats" successful, and tours have been given. The Catapult class of 2010 can breathe easy now that Finalist Night is behind them. Yesterday, over 20 top graduates from all over Indiana came together for a night away from school. After 6 hours at ExactTarget's headquarters, they all left knowing a little more about one of the fastest growing 1 to 1 marketing communications companies in the nation.

One of the highlights for the current Catapults was at the end of the night where we kicked back, relaxed, and shared stories about our first year here. Yes, there were some embarrassing moments and lessons learned... just ask Isaac...

It's amazing to look back over a year and to realize how much we've learned about the industry - The inner workings of SMS, Voice, Landing Pages, Email... it was all a foreign concept a year ago.

Out of all of the very talented and deserving potential Catapults that we met yesterday, we will be extending offers to have the chance to work at the leading B2B Email Marketing company.

We are excited to bring on board the next class of Catapults who will represent ExactTarget!

Drip Model Marketing– Is that a leaky faucet or your email marketing software?

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 by Kristeen Hudson

Phrases like “drip campaign”, “automated email drip”, “drip email program”, and “drip email” are thrown around ExactTarget a lot. This is because ExactTarget is in the business of sending email, especially automated email drips. However, everyone may not understand what a drip campaign is. Let me tell you a little bit about the basics of drip marketing.

Drip marketing comes from the phrase drip irrigation, which is where crops are watered in small amounts over a long period of time. This same concept is applied to marketing and is called drip model marketing. Customers or potential customers are given small amounts of information over a long period of time.

The idea behind a drip campaign is that it takes between 3 and 30 impressions of a brand to make it sink in. When creating a drip campaign its important to have a consistent brand with varying messages to help develop the reputation of your company.

Drip emails are the most common type of drip communication, however there are other ways to communicate in a drip campaign. Some other options are - voice messages, SMS messaging, and direct mail.

Drip model marketing is a good way to help avoid always trying to sell a product and a good excuse to provide content that will engage subscribers. Think of this as a great way to nurture your potential clients. Drip marketing can be used for business to consumer or business to business email marketing solutions.

The good news is ExactTarget is one of the best email marketing software providers for creating automated email integration. To learn more about ExactTarget checkout their website.

Google's Kind of a (B2B) Big Deal

Monday, October 19, 2009 by Al Iverson

Google employees Tom Oliveri and Vivian Leung point out over on Google's blog that Google Apps has gotten very popular in the B2B email hosting space. Google Apps, if you're not aware, is basically private-label Gmail for your domain.

I've been using it to host my personal email domain for a few years now, and I love it. And I'm apparently not the only one -- Google says that "over two million business and 20 million users in over 100 countries and more than 40 languages" have adopted Google Apps.

What does that mean to you? It means that Gmail's spam filtering matters to you if you're a B2B sender. Lots and lots of companies use Google Apps for email, and the spam filtering is exactly the same as Gmail's spam filtering. (And engagement rules at Gmail!)

(H/T: Mark Brownlow via Tamara Gielen)

The Latest One to One Marketing Solutions With iLab - Omniture Test and Target

Thursday, August 27, 2009 by Jeff Cunning

iLab at ExactTarget is always rolling out new products, solutions, features, and functionalities for your benefit. Recent innovations include Impression Tracking for Dynamic Content or AMPscript, Outbound Text Messaging with a Shared Short Code, and International Text Messaging. Some spaces still remain so don't wait any longer to become our newest partner in innovation.

This week, we are excited to release Omniture Test & Target. And in iLab, it's not just another affordable email marketing solution--it's free! This new feature is a conversion product that allows marketers to test subscriber interaction with website design, content, navigation, and campaigns. Test results can be accessed in real time and used to target marketing offers, products, and content to different segments or individuals in order to create the most effective campaigns.

Whether it's B2B or B2C, access iLab today to sign up for Omniture Test & Target and take the next step in delivering the most relevant information to your subscribers!

Measuring ROI By The Square Foot

Tuesday, August 18, 2009 by Teresa Becker

I was driving along the interstate last week when I noticed a billboard alongside the road. In big, bold letters it read: "Measure Your Advertising ROI By the Square Foot". Suddenly the difficulties of advertising in print media took on a whole new light. Advertising on paper is a very difficult task. You can't measure impressions, you can't track data, and it's almost impossible to follow the path of your customers through the buying cycle. In the end, it comes down to a guessing game paired with a hopeful strategy. So what can marketers do to target their audiences and to track relevant information? I'm glad you asked.

Enter a One-to-One Digital Communication Platform. The hassles and difficulties of tracking impressions and leads no longer has to be a daunting process. You don't need to measure your effectiveness by the square foot - with business to business email marketing, you can measure actual conversions by clicks, leads, and impressions and take out the guessing games.

In fact, with a platform like this, you can Integrate Email, CRM, and Web Analytics, helping you to spend your marketing dollars even more wisely and giving you the power to make informed marketing decisions.

Don't throw your marketing dollars to the wind. In this economy, it's more important than ever to make sure your marketing dollars are giving you the best return - a Digital One-to-One Communication Platform will help you track your ROI without the guessing.

Be Prepared: Grow Your Email List

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 by Shelly Griffin

Last week I talked about surviving the digital communications storm and starting with the basics. When it comes to list growth essentials, it is truly amazing to see business after business without the most basic need for an email marketing program - an email sign-up form on their website's home page.

We work with one company that was definitely planning ahead when it comes to email marketing. In fact, they signed with ExactTarget a full-year before they opened their doors for business. Their focus during that time? Buildling their email list! This small Midwestern winery wanted to gather information about their clientele to build a strong and targeted email list.

Take a moment to look at your website through your subscribers' eyes. Can you find your email sign-up form in 10-seconds or less? 30-seconds or less? 5-minutes? Find some more great list growth ideas from Kevin Nuest, "5 Do’s and Don’ts To List Growth From Non-Incident Site Visitors".

More Permission Failure - Friend Requests

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 by Dawn DeVirgilio

Being an avid participant in the social media sphere - I’ve found myself subscribing to more and more email. (So much for email being dead!) I generally keep a separate email for these opt-in’s and check in once a week to see what cool things other companies are doing with their email marketing.

Randomly a B2B opt in email started coming in to my personal account from a company who I had NOT opted in to. I started doing some sleuthing on how they acquired my email address.

We had two things in common:

The company was in Fort Wayne, Indiana - my hometown
They were in the communication/advertising industry

Then one of the emails advertised an event. Since I don’t live in Fort Wayne anymore – it wasn’t relevant to me. But as I was making my daily social media check-ins - Twitter, Facebook, LinkenIn - I noticed someone’s status promoted the event. This was a person I had accepted into my network, not because we were actual “friends” but because we had similar things in common. The SAME two things in common from the list above.

I had solved the case. This company received my email because I had added one of their employees to my social network.

But did that constitute opting into their email campaign? Just as my colleague (and true social media friend) Al Iverson has said, giving someone your business card does not imply permission. The same should be said for all your friends, connections, and followers in your social network. By adding you into my social network, the only one to one communication I’ve opt-in to is that you communicate to me personally, thru that network.

I'd be interested in your thoughts. Does adding someone to your social network equate to opt-in permission? Does it matter what network you’ve accepted them on (LinkedIn vs. Facebook)?

Top Email Marketing Publishers

Monday, July 6, 2009 by Morgan Stewart

The following list contains the most frequently referenced publications about email marketing as determined through the 2009 Inside Email Marketing survey of 351 email marketers conducted in March 2009. Rankings are based on the number of times each publication was mentioned in response to an open-ended question asking, “Please provide the names of the three specific resources you reference most frequently to learn about email marketing?”

#1) MarketingSherpa

According to website traffic data from Alexa, Marketing Sherpa doesn’t generate the same traffic that ClickZ and Mediapost do. However, when it comes to a trusted source for information on email marketing, Sherpa tops the list. Sherpa’s latest Email Benchmark Guide is the 6th they have published. Their longstanding commitment to the email space along with their focus on independent research, benchmarks, and real world case studies has helped them become the ‘friendly native guides’ they aspire to be (hence the Sherpa name) to many email marketers.

#2) Email Experience Council

Better known as the EEC, the Email Experience Council is the email marketing arm of the Direct Marketing Association. This global professional organization strives to enhance the image of email marketing and communications, while celebrating and actively advocating its critical importance in business. Content is largely produced by its membership through member roundtables and advisory committees that consist of a virtual who’s who of industry professionals and email marketing companies (and yes, ExactTarget is a very active member).

#3 (tie) MediaPost Email Insider

Mediapost was founded in 1996 and has strong online and offline presences. Mediapost’s Email Insiders column features approximately 4 columns per week on email marketing distributed through daily newsletters and hosted on blog. Articles are written by industry experts, including the authors of two of the top 5 independent blogs identified in our survey and yours truly.

#3 (tie) ClickZ

ClickZ is has more than 12 years under its’ belt as a resource for online marketers. It. covers a number of topics from email to search, analytics, media buying, and online marketing trends. The publisher features approximately 3 columns per week on email marketing written by various industry experts broken into 5 categories: B2B Email Marketing, Delivery, General, Email Marketing Optimization, and Trends.

#5) MarketingProfs

MarketingProfs has evolved over the past 8 years from a site where ideas could be exchanged between marketing academics and professionals to a full-fledged online publisher of marketing insights covering topics from email to public relations and social media. About 1 how-to article per week is published on email and an email marketing case study is published about once per month. They also host several online seminars on email each year.

Disclaimer: ExactTarget is an advertiser, sponsor and/or partner of many of the sites listed in these survey results. Our affiliation with these sites did not play into their rankings—rankings were based solely on the responses of 351 respondents to an open-ended question contained in the survey fielded in March 2009 by ExactTarget and the Email Marketers Club.

B2B Deliverability: Different?

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Al Iverson

I helped one of our sales folks out on a call today, and the topic was the world of B2B Deliverability. "We're entirely B2B," the prospective client informed me, meaning that deliverability to individuals at various companies is their primary concern, not deliverability to the top B2C (consumer) ISPs and webmail providers.

Truth be told, Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft host a ton of inbound email for many thousands of B2B companies. Yahoo, Hotmail and Google host mail for more than 264,000 domains. A big chunk of those are small-to-medium sized companies who have outsourced their email handling to one of these mailbox providers. And they pretty much have the same spam filtering systems on the B2B side as on the B2C side.

On the spam filtering hosted service or appliance side, you've got companies like Postini, Barracuda, MessageLabs, Cloudmark, Frontbridge (Microsoft), Brightmail and many others. Probably Postini has the broadest reach, though it's not always easy to tell from the outside how big any of these providers really are. They probably all claim to host a bajillion mailboxes, but what really matters is, what percentage of subscribers on *your* list are hosted behind these various filters. That's the kind of thing we can tell with our domain intelligence data, helping you to understand that if you have a delivery issue at a Postini, it's likely to impact X% of your list.

After you figure out what the top domains and spam filters are (relative to your own lists), it's a simple matter for us to set up specific monitoring for those domains, or even just for any domain with over Y recipients and a Z% block rate.

That's about the only difference between B2C deliverability and B2B deliverability, what domains you look at when you're doing deliverability testing and whom you contact when an issue is revealed. Lots of people I talk to don't realize this - they don't know that 1500 domains on their list are all hosted by Postini or are behind a Barracuda filter. When you dig into it, you find that same commonality of hosting on your list that you find for B2C senders.

And the B2B filterers work pretty much the same way the B2C filters work. That means your sending reputation (and ability to deliver mail through these filters) is governed primarily by complaints and bounces. The usual things that, when they spike, indicate issues with permission.

Just like I talked about in regard to Yahoo, your deliverability is not governed by us having "a relationship" with an anti-spam filtering vendor. We do maintain good relationships with quite a few vendors and I talk to many of them fairly frequently. Helping them test things, discussing the bigger picture of how to improve permission practices, showing them how ESPs prevent and react to spam issues, answering questions about our client practices, etc. But it is important to remember that it is exceedingly rare that we would ever have the ability to call one of these guys and "tell them that your mail is good" because that's not how the process works.

Showcase Your Expertise in Email Marketing!

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Joel Book

On January 20-22, 2010 hundreds of top email marketers will gather in Miami for MarketingSherpa's 5th Annual Email Summit & Expo. It's the world's largest email conference and will feature Best Email Marketing examples of how email is being used for Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer 1 to 1 Marketing.

If you'd like to be a featured speaker at this conference, now is your chance. MarketingSherpa is looking for B-to-B and B-to-C email marketers to share Case Studies and best practices from their own recent real-life tests and tactics.

But don’t delay. Speaking proposals are due by Friday, July 24^th. Click here to submit your speaking proposal.

What Kind of Presentations are Selected by MarketingSherpa?

MarketingSherpa is looking for actual email marketers (i.e., not email marketing software vendors or agencies) to present Email Marketing Campaign case studies that show what they did, how they did it, and what results they achieved. So if you’re an agency or service provider, encourage your client to speak at this important event.

If you’re an agency or service provider, consider moderating a panel of multiple email marketers that are focused on “proven” advanced tactics -- see MarketingSherpa’s list of suggested panels below (or make up your own).

If you want to see an example of the kind of email marketing case study that gets rave reviews at MarketingSherpa Email Summit, check out the following ExactTarget Recorded Webinars that feature Johnston & Murphy and Dreamfields Pasta. Both of these case studies were presented at last year’s Email Summit.

And one more thing to remember -- All speakers get their own free ticket to the Summit!

International Legal Compliance: Don’t Spam

Monday, June 29, 2009 by Al Iverson

I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice.

I get a lot of questions about spam laws both domestic and international. I study various email, privacy, and spam-related laws out there, so I tend to be the one that people ask first when they have a question. All fine and good, I'm happy to share what I've read. But I'm not a substitute for the real thing; ultimately, anyone with legal questions needs to consult with an attorney qualified in the area of concern.

A lot of my advice boils down to "don't spam," and that's for a reason. If your processes are truly opt-in, you're not spamming, and you're not likely to run afoul of any relevant email permission-related regulations. "Don't spam" works well as an answer to almost any spam law-related question.

Here's a few examples:

What does CAN-SPAM mean to me?
It means you shouldn't spam. Spam may be legal, but it also allows ISPs to block it, and all competent ISPs block as much spam as they possibly can. Your mail is not likely to deliver well if it's spam.

What does the new Canadian spam law mean to me?
It's hard to say exactly, because the current version under consideration has not passed yet, and may not be the final version. But, whatever comes, "don't spam" is likely to be the right advice. If you send mail only to recipients who ask for it, I would be surprised if you were not in compliance with the new Canadian law.

How will the new Dutch B2B email restrictions affect me?
As long as you don't spam, they won't affect you negatively. My understanding of the new requirements is that they close a loophole that allowed treating B2B addresses different than B2C addresses. It was already against the law to send unsolicited commercial messages to B2C addresses. Now, any mailings to B2B addresses must also be sent only to recipients who have opted-in.

Keep in mind that no such distinction between B2B and B2C ever existed in ExactTarget's policies. Whether you are mailing consumers or businesses, your recipient lists may only be comprised of email addresses where the owner of that address has specifically told you that they wish to receive email from you.

It's June 16th - Are you registered for our List Growth Webinar?

Monday, June 15, 2009 by Liz Farrelly

It's already the middle of June - I can't believe it.

Want to know what made me stop and realize that? I was updating our graphics on ExactTarget 3sixty and realized that our next webinar was fast approaching. Just recently, we released a great whitepaper about list growth. And now, you can learn more about the results by signing up for a webinar with our very own Morgan Stewart! Joining him will be Tamara Gielen from Email Marketers' Club, and they are going to be highlighting the whitepaper, but also answering questions about creating successful, ROI-generating lists, that are also CAN-SPAM compliant. Want more info? Keep reading below for details and registration information:

When:
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 2:00 pm EST

Presenters:
Tamara Gielen, Founder, Email Marketers' Club
Morgan Stewart, Director of Research, ExactTarget

Description:
Get the inside scoop from ExactTarget’s Morgan Stewart and Tamara Gielen, founder of the Email Marketer’s Club, on developing a successful list growth strategy with examples and insights from experienced B2B and B2C marketers.

What are you waiting for?!? Register now!

Effective List Growth Webinar

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 by Morgan Stewart

Tamara Gielen, founder of the Email Marketers' Club, and I will be presenting highlights from the 2009 List Growth Study in an upcoming webinar Effective List Growth: Insights from the 2009 List Growth Study. If you have already downloaded the whitepaper, you know that it is full of charts and analysis of current trends in email list growth. Believe it or not, less than one half of the charts we created from the study made it into the final whitepaper.

During the webinar, we will provide actionable strategies, examples, and tips for growing and nurturing your most precious asset--your subscriber database! We'll also have a time for Q&A. If you have a question you would like to submit in advance, leave a comment or send me an email at mstewart(at)exacttarget(dot)com.

Register here!

Details

When:
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 2:00 pm EST

Presenters:
     Tamara Gielen, Founder, Email Marketers' Club
     Morgan Stewart, Director of Research, ExactTarget

Duration:
     1 hour

Description:
Join ExactTarget’s Morgan Stewart and Tamara Gielen, founder of the Email Marketer’s Club, as they present highlights from the 2009 Email List Growth Study whitepaper. Get the inside scoop on developing a successful list growth strategy with examples and insights from experienced B2B and B2C marketers. You’ll learn:

Keys to developing a sustainable list growth strategy
How to find the right subscribers for your list
The hot new tactics you should consider trying in 2009
What both B2B and B2C email marketers around the world consider the best list growth strategies
Which list growth tactics you should approach with caution

If you’re ready to create a successful, compliant, ROI-producing list growth strategy, be sure to attend this information-packed webinar. Sign up today!

Permission Failure: Exchanging Business Cards

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 by Al Iverson

I received a B2B spam email today. That’s not too remarkable. I get anywhere from four to eight of them a day. The volume is irritating enough that I log them, and I always reply and ask where they got my email address from. (Some day, I might even “out” some of the worst offenders, highlighting their lack of permission for the whole world to see. And to shine an uncomfortable spotlight on those awful “business contact database” selling companies, who sell B2B lists.)

This time, I got a reply back to my query. The sender indicated that I gave them a business card at a conference.

Okay, so it’s somebody I’ve actually met. That’s fine, that’s good. I give out a lot of business cards at conferences. People always want my business card, and often ask me if it’s okay to email me a deliverability question or two at some point in the future. Time permitting, I welcome deliverability questions via email, and answer as many as I can.

But, just because I gave you my email address, how does that mean that I wanted to be subscribed to your company’s newsletter? A competitor company, even. Think of how poorly considered this is, on multiple levels. Wanted mail is well delivered mail. Did I want this mail? No, I didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t expect it. Also, do you think it’s wise to obtain competitor email addresses at conferences and sign them up for your newsletter? Do you really want to broadcast what you’re doing, directly to your competitors?

The real issue here is the logical leap (or lack of one) from “you may have my contact information” to “please send me your newsletter.” I stated the former by handing over my card. I did not state or even imply the latter. So how does somebody make the logical leap from contact info to permission? I’m not seeing it, because there’s a step missing: Asking me if I wanted to receive your newsletter. That’s what permission is all about. Ask, don’t assume.

In this case, the guy assumed. And that assumption was a bad one, and it colored my opinion of him, and his company’s permission practices, accordingly.

I’m sure somebody somewhere will take a different point of view and suggest that gosh, this email was really targeted (or should have just been targeted a little better), and then it would have been fine. That’s untrue. “Properly targeted” spam is still spam, and the proof is in the spam complaints. Send mail to people who don’t want it, even if it’s on topic, and it garners spam complaints. It’s that simple.

In this case, I know I wasn’t the only person who received this mailing, and I know that some of the other recipients were similarly unhappy about it. I guess I’m not alone in thinking that a business card exchange doesn’t equate with opt-in permission.

As with Email Marketing, Voicemail Marketing Requires Permission Also

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 by Phil Schott

If you haven't heard, in addition to email and SMS marketing, ExactTarget also offers voicemail marketing.

While I'm well versed in permission practices regarding email, I didn't know too much about how permission applies to voicemail marketing. So, I attended Vontoo's Permission-Based Voice Marketing Webinar recently to learn more. I picked up some valuable information I thought was worth sharing.

Just as email marketing is governed by the CAN-SPAM law, voice marketing here in the United States is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission's Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR).

Today, the TSR stipulates that voicemail marketing messages must have an interactive means to opt out that has to be revealed to the recipient at the beginning of the call—i.e., press * to opt-out at any time. In addition, the recipient must have the option to opt out at any point during call.

If a recipient opts-out, the marketer must add the recipient's phone number to their Do Not Call list.

If a voicemail marketer leaves a recipient a voicemail they must provide a toll free number for opt out and the process must be automated so that recipient doesn't have to speak with a live person.

Also restricted by the TSR are the days and times that voicemail marketers can contact consumers. Voicemail marketers are only allowed to make calls from 9am to 9pm local time Monday through Friday and from 9am to 8pm on Saturday and Sunday.

The TSR currently states that voicemail marketers can market to anyone with which they have a business relationship. Beginning September 1, 2009, voicemail marketers will be required to obtain consent before calling, even those consumers with whom they have a business relationship.

Any call whose purpose is to induce the purchase of a good or service is covered by FTC regulations.

There will still be some calls that can be made without prior consent, including:

Informational Change Calls
Service Calls
Appointment Verifications
Reminder Calls
Notification Calls
Event Announcement Calls
Update Calls

B2B calls are not governed by the FTCs rules; however, ExactTarget requires that clients practice permission-based voicemail marketing at all times.

Voice Marketing Reminder: Oh How I Miss Thee

Wednesday, March 25, 2009 by Nicole Ross

I got some bad news last weekend. No, I haven't lost my job (ExactTarget's growing like a weed actually!). And no, I don't have an incurable disease (that I know of...).

But my hair salon is tightening budgets, restructuring their contracts with the stylists...and - wait for it - axing their Voice appointment reminder program. UGH.

My heart skipped a beat when they told me. It was all I could do to smile politely, give a compassionate head-nod as they bemoaned the down economy, and walk out the door after they delivered the news.

(and no, this isn't what I look like now...)

Granted, my salon isn't an ExactTarget client, so I'm not sure who's been coaching them on the value of Voice. But apparently they didn't make a good enough case.

Which is crazy because of all the business that need Voice marketing capabilities, a spa/salon is near the top (at least in my life). When you set appointments 6 months out, it's pretty hard for clients to remember them. And the prompt day-ahead Voice reminders were just what I needed to make sure I showed up Saturday at 2PM for a trim. See, now I'm getting all wound up.

Still skeptical about Voice marketing? Check out our new Field Guide to Voice to see just 15 of the many real-world species and use cases for this emerging channel. You'll learn about the different breeds of Voice marketing messages, what diets they need to thrive (a.k.a. data types), and what B2B and B2C habitats commonly host each species.

I'm not unsympathetic to tightening budgets -- but I do get sad when I see companies sacrificing emerging 1 to 1 marketing programs that have the power to bring big long-term business gains to save a quick buck.

So if you're thinking about cutting 1 to 1 digital marketing programs to save a nickel or two now, just consider what you're sacrificing down the line.

Plus, now there's a 50/50 shot I'll forget my next haircut appointment....blast, blast, blast.

Nicole
Marketing Communications Associate

The ExactTarget Blog

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