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.

I had a great time attending and presenting at the Email Evolution Conference in San Diego last week. For starters, you can’t argue with the 80-degree warmer temperatures than I have at home in Minneapolis, but the content and expertise of the attendees at this conference was unprecedented.

Chad White of the EEC just posted his picks for the main takeaways from the conference. After reading this, I noticed a general theme throughout all of the takeaways – list growth and relevance. These two topics/concepts have really dominated the airwaves recently, and for good reason.

Also, list growth and relevance goals are very intertwined. Why? First, lists are made up of people, right?  Simple concept, but this is lost on many marketers. To effectively entice each person on to your list you have to be offering something (information, products, deals, community) that this specific individual is looking for and interested in. Common sense right? Perhaps, but then why don’t more marketers stick with this simple truth? More are interested in saying what they want to say rather than tailoring the pitch by audience.

The same thing goes for relevance. To communicate with people effectively, you have to first be able and willing to say something that each specific someone is willing to hear…and continue with that relevant information over time by interacting with them, watching how they respond and behave to drive the right messaging at the right time and medium.

In my presentation I mentioned that our internal statistics show that the size of a list is more predictive of response rate than any other measure, be it category (B2B/B2C), or industry (retail, news, travel, etc.). That isn’t to say that some senders with millions of addresses on their list can’t have great response rate, it is that they achieve that right by communicating to smaller segments of customers --- or really, smaller lists, and ultimately individuals.

Please see what I mean if you haven’t read Chad’s article yet. Whether it is rewarding loyal customers, as Pepsi has done, taking personalization advice of Scene 7 or authenticating your emails to protect your brand…at the end of the day it is all about making an appeal to an individual’s wants and needs. Didn’t the term “blasting” die yet?  Please let 2008 be the year.

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.

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.

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.

2008 is right around the corner. Hard to believe, isn’t it?

If you’re an email marketer like me, chances are you’ve started attending ‘08 planning meetings to nail down your email marketing program goals and objectives for next year. Aside from the usual suspects (i.e. increasing metrics, growing lists, and improving deliverability), we’re also planning new ways to incorporate all of the exciting one-to-one technology trends on the horizon. Are you?

Here are just a few of the hot topics from our latest ‘08 strategy sessions:

1. SMS.
   
   Recently I began working with a member of our Strategic Services team to fine-tune our ’08 email marketing strategy. If there’s one thing I’ve taken away from our meetings it’s this: SMS is the next “big thing.” A fellow Marketing team member actually just blogged about one use-case for SMS – campus alert systems. Check out her post to learn more about how universities are using SMS messaging to communicate with faculty and students in case of emergency.
   
   SMS is going to become more prevalent in 2008, so don’t get left behind. Why not use SMS to deliver your promotional codes, event invitations, or confirmation messages? Keep an eye out for our own SMS efforts next year!
   
   
2. Videos.
   
   If you subscribe to our newsletter, ExactTarget InSight, you’ve probably noticed an increased video presence. Hopefully you’re enjoying the segments (as our tracking data suggests you do!). We’ve got a hunch that most of our B2B readers are tired of the “same old same old” in their inbox and really enjoy these fun video clips. Whatever the reason, video in email (links, not embedding) is turning out to be a great way to keep our subscribers engaged.
   
   You can expect to see even more videos on our website and in your ExactTarget InSight throughout 2008!
   
   
3. Rendering.
   
   Sometimes it can be frustrating to tackle email rendering. After all, countless variables can affect how your messages render in a myriad of email clients and handheld devices. As we look to 2008, rendering is certain to be one of our top priorities. Will your email message still be effective if viewed on a BlackBerry, in Lotus Notes, or on Apple’s new iPhone? You won’t know unless you pay special attention to rending before you hit that send button.
   
   Naturally, it’d be wonderful if all email clients would render the same way and save us the headaches. But what are the chances? Well, I’ll ask Santa for Christmas if you will…

Of course, those are just a few of the topics on our radar for ’08. If you’re looking for more information on what’s going to be hot for email marketers next year, be sure to download 2008 Email Marketing Trends and watch December’s edition of ExactTarget Perspective.

Happy holidays, and here’s to a great 2008!

Till Next Time,
Megan Sabine
Marketing Communication Specialist

Animal lovers are a breed of their own (sorry, best pun I've got at 8am). Last weekend I joined a group of self -proclaimed animal enthusiasts for a National Disaster Animal Response Team (NDART) training workshop hosted by The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

What's that, you say? Think Hurricane Katrina, Southern California wildfires, Kansas flooding. NDART teams can be deployed anywhere animals are caught in the aftermath of a natural or man-made disaster or emergency.

Yes, this is an email marketing blog. Patience, friends.

Non-profits face many of the same questions as for-profit B2B and B2C organizations. Is email worth the investment? Can it show any real ROI? Can it really spread awareness and drive action?

I have to give HSUS props for their email marketing program. Just check out just a few ways email engages website visitors, increases issue awareness, and delivers transactional email communications:

- The Humane University email newsletter (eScoop)
- Pet Tips, Action Alerts, and Seal Watch email online opt-ins(complete with explanations of each type)
- "Email this page" website functionality to raise issue awareness
- Triggered transactional emails for training & event confirmations
- And much more!

And it gets better. Yesterday I visited the NDART site and had the the opportunity to opt-in for SMS messages. Major kudos for leveraging one of the latest one-to-one marketing technologies before most for-profit companies!

Take care,

Nicole
Marketing Communications Associate
ExactTarget

If you send email to Yahoo subscribers, chances are you’ve heard of the recent rendering issues within Yahoo Classic. The email experience council’s RetailEmail blog helped identify the issue and the workaround to prevent it, while Pivotal Veracity confirmed via their testing that the coding solution listed there is indeed correct (so if you’re looking for the solution, make sure to check out the blog!)

Since we’re primarily a B2B email marketer, only 5% of our list is comprised of Yahoo addresses. However, as we prepared to send the September InSight, we figured it was a significant enough number to segment out Yahoo subscribers and include a targeted message about rendering to help combat the problem.

After creating a group called “Yahoo Subscribers” we did a simple A/B split using our random sample tool. For the “Group A” version of the Yahoo Message, we changed the “View as a Webpage” header at the top to read: Trouble viewing this message in Yahoo? Go here to view as a webpage. The “Group B” version included text within the body of the email that read: Trouble viewing this email in Yahoo? Click "View as a Webpage" found in the header. This was the only variable element in the email newsletter.

We sent the two versions off into the wild and waited to see which version generated a higher click percentage on the “View as a Webpage” link. And then we waited…and waited…and waited.

In truth, neither version generated many clicks on the “View as a Webpage” link. Certainly, the number was not significantly higher than any other email we send. In fact, rather than noticing an increase in clicks, we noticed that the overall performance of the email was pretty lackluster.

As we sat puzzling over the results, a member of our team pointed out that we rarely segment and send by domain – let alone segment out a commercial domain such as Yahoo. This revelation led to many more questions: Are our metrics low at just Yahoo? Or all commercial domains? Is it an isolated incident or a trend? Since we’re primarily a B2B sender, is it even worth the effort to try to find out?

For us, the consensus is that finding answers to these questions is a worthwhile endeavor – if for nothing else than to reconfirm that what we’re doing is working. So this month, we segmented our list by domain even further and are keeping a close eye on the performance of InSight. If the results of sending to commercial domains end up statistically significant enough to show that what we’re doing isn’t working, we’ll need to do some evaluating and testing about the envelope fields, calls-to-action, etc.

We’ll make sure to share the results of our tests with you if they’re significant. But the most exciting part about the Yahoo exercise is a reminder that we can find inspiration and direction for our email programs in the most surprising places – whether or not we’re looking for it. So the next time you find yourself wondering “What should I try next” or “Is it worth testing?” stop for a moment. Take a deep breath. The answer is almost always yes.

Cheers,
Ashley Sales
Manager, Marketing Communications