Business-to-Business Email Marketing

Email Design Tip of the Week: Forwarding Emails

Wednesday, July 1, 2009 by Andrea Smith

This week, we’re going to tackle a commonly asked question:

Why does my email look broken when forwarded?

If you forward an HTML email using the forward button in your email program, it will often break the code, making the design display incorrectly for the recipient of the forward. Instead, use the “forward to a friend” link built into the email, if one is available. Using this link will send a clean email out of ExactTarget, and give you the option to type a personal message above the email. This link is either a button or text link marketers commonly place either in the top or bottom of the email.

How do I add a “Forward to a Friend” link to my email?

If you don’t have a “forward to a friend” link in your email, you can add it several ways. Either link the desired text or image in ExactTarget using the link choice “Forward to a Friend”, or use the substitution string “%%ftaf_url%%” as a link in an HTML paste email.

Example: <a href=”%%ftaf_url%%”>Forward to a Friend</a>

If you choose to have our Design Solutions team build a custom template for you, there’s a good chance we’ve permanently built in this link for your ease of use.

What if I don’t like the term “Forward to a Friend”?

Try something else! I like to recommend “Forward to a Colleague” for B2B clients, and “Send to a Friend” is becoming more prevalent, especially in retail email. As long as it’s appropriate to your subscribers, there are no hard and fast rules – have fun with it!

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!

Should You Provide an Incentive for Email Registration?

Friday, June 5, 2009 by Morgan Stewart

Marketers often use incentives to encourage registration on their website. Question is whether or not it is a good idea? (Actually, it was framed in terms of best practice, but this is one of those gray areas.) [See Your opinion is not “Best Practice”! (and mine isn’t either)]

As background, I dug a bit deeper into data from the 2009 Email Marketing List Growth Study to look at how marketers compared the performance of non-incented site registration versus incented site registration. There are significant differences between B2C marketers and B2B marketers. The numbers for B2C marketers are shown in the chart.

As expected, marketers report higher performance for incented registration for the number of new subscribers, but there is a tradeoff in the quality of those subscribers. Also as expected, the ROI is lower since there are costs associated with providing the incentives. The numbers for B2B marketers are better—they reports 43% higher performance in terms of quantity, but only sacrifice 7% in quality compared to non-incented site registration. So it is no surprise that incentives are used much more often in B2B email marketing than they are for B2C email marketing.

43% better quantity for 7% worse quality makes this is straightforward decision for B2B marketers. For B2C, the tradeoff of 24% better quantity for 18% worse quality makes for a tougher decision.

Recommendation

Often when companies turn to incentives to drive registration it is because they are compensating for poor strategy somewhere else. Non-incented site registration works if you have developed your value proposition and program messaging. If registrations are not happening without the incentives, then there is a problem with how the program is being sold to site visitors. This may be tactic placement on the site, but it is likely something more. If this is you, I recommend focusing on the value proposition of your program for a while by TAKING THE INCENTIVE AWAY.

Ask customers what they want, adjust, refine, and repeat as necessary. You will know you are on track once the stream of non-incented registrations picks up. At this point, open the subscription floodgates by adding the incentive back into the mix. Now the incentive is not the main draw, it’s simply a tool for helping get prospective subscribers off the fence!

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

Email Summit: Research Update from Stefan Tornquist of MarketingSherpa

Monday, March 16, 2009 by Jeffrey Rohrs

Stefan Tornquist, MarketingSherpa's Research Director, had the honor of kicking off this year's Email Summit, and he did so with 30 minutes of fast & furious email marketing insights.

The high level take-aways:

72% of consumers report a noticeable increase in emails from opt-in relationships over the past few months (MarketingSherpa has yet to survey B2B recipients, but assumes that this increased volume will hold true there as well).
Company churn is making it harder to grow in-house email lists because there's no staff or strategy stability.
As our own Morgan Stewart has hypothesized, overall benchmark stats are declining as marketers becoming for desperately frequent with their email programs.
Way too many consumers are still getting email without opt-in

Some good news:

More consumers--including Millennials (51%) agree that "Email is more important to me than the phone.
Email is still driving more online purchases than other online media

Some calls to action:

Marketers must be more clear in opt-in privacy & guarantees not to share email addresses--consumers will respond positively.
Go fix your opt-in form to expressly state that emails will not be sold or shared
Be more clear in value proposition for opt-in at time of opt-in (the quid pro quo I've blogged about previously)

And if you can only do one thing, Stefan recommends:

Introduce a "Welcome Series" for new subscribers as right after opt-in is the moment of greatest opportunity and response.
Conduct a "Transactional Email Audit" as this form of email communication with thrive and survive due to its importance to the recipient.
Start or upgrade your "Preference Center" in order to give greater control to subscribers (dare I say, SUBSCRIBERS RULE!).

If you're interested in getting some more of Stefan's insights, you can catch him on two of our recent Email Intelligence Webinars:

Stay tuned for more to come from MarketingSherpa's Email Summit '09!

ISO Text Messaging with mSYMPHONY

Friday, February 13, 2009 by RJ Talyor

Seems like the brain associates text messaging with teen-focused retail establishments, ringtones and wallpapers. In today's wired world, that's not the case.

In fact, many types of organizations (B2B marketers, financial services firms, and. . .arts organizations!) can use SMS--also known as text messaging--to promote their business.

Want an example? Take a look at the promotion Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra put together to support their Happy Hour Series. This just one of the ways that ISO is using ExactTarget SMS. If you're curious about how it works, dig your phone out of your pocket and follow the instructions on the top right.

Looking for more ideas? Check out ExactTarget's Field Guide to SMS. Thought starters abound.

One-to-one Marketing in Action

Tuesday, January 20, 2009 by RJ Talyor

Not only does ExactTarget enable organizations with innovative solutions for their one-to-one marketing efforts, we also use them in our own business-to-business marketing. Yes, I sound like the guy on Hair Club for Men commercials.

But if you're headed to the mPlanet in Orlando next week, make sure you stop past Booth 63/64. We're going to be showing off some cool stuff including our Text Capture and Text-to-Voice functionality. Trust me: you're going to want to see it.

Text Capture: works like this: subscribers can opt-in to an email list via text message. No more writing on clipboards or mail-in postcards. If you want to join an email list, just type in your email address and send it via text message.

With Text to Voice, you text in a keyword and get a voice message back. At mPlanet, you'll get a call back from Scott Dorsey. It's a quick and easy way to put some inflection and emotion into your marketing.

The best part? It's easy. Megan (on of the amazing MarCom team members here at ExactTarget) growls at me when I come up with new, crazy ideas that require a bunch of work. So when I suggested these campaigns be implemented along with our attendance at mPlanet, she gave me her best snake eyes stare. But nothing gave me more pleasure than when Megan got started on implementation.

And I quote her here: "That's it? That was easy." I made her repeat it, louder, so that everyone around could hear her admission. Sure, I'm just joking with Megan, but the point is that you don't have to have technical resources to implement cool technology with SMS, voice messaging and email.

Looking forward to demonstrating these tools to you at the show!

Go buzzword-free, I dare you!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 by Scott Roth

OK, here's the deal. I'm a marketer that markets to marketers. So, that means chances are pretty likely that if you're reading this, you are also a marketer. Which means in theory, we should be speaking the same language for the most part. So here's my promise to you - and the reason why I think you'll enjoy the contents that you find here: 2009 is going to be the year that I attempt to go completely buzzword-free in my communications. I know, buzzwords are everywhere so it's going to be hard to do, but here are two reasons why I think it's important.

Too many times, especially in the business-to-business space, marketers are their own worst enemy when it comes to communicating with their audiences. We spend too much time trying to use the latest catch-phrases and coolest new ways to describe things, that we often leave the intended recipient of our message scratching their head, trying to figure out what we were talking about in the first place.
Throwing out too many buzzwords in a single sentence just simply makes you sound like someone who is trying to compensate for something they really don't know anything about, even if you really do know a lot about the topic. I'm guilty of it, in the past, when I didn't really feel comfortable or wanted to make an idead sound bigger than it really was, I would fall into the trap of "inserting buzzword here" to try and make up for it. Not anymore, 2009 is a new year baby!

So, are you ready to join me on this journey to just cut to the chase? I'm ready to start sharing and collaborating on marketing ideas and strategies that don't get caught up in a lot of talk, but not a lot of action. We live in a pretty complex world, and hopefully this little slice of cyberspace will be a safe haven for sophistication, simplicity, and saying more with less.

Join me this year as we explore straightforward email marketing, SMS, interactive, and one-to-one marketing strategies for a complex world - all with an occasional dose of humor to keep it real.

Take it From Us

Thursday, November 20, 2008 by ExactTarget Marketing

I Just Called…To Say….That Voice + Email is Powerful Punch

With all the buzz around channels like Voice and SMS, it can be tempting to implement new programs just for the sake of doing what’s hot. And let’s face it, that’s not so hot for your subscribers. So if you’ve been searching for a meaningful way to incorporate Voice into your own marketing campaigns, bravo!

Truth is, we’ve been looking, too. Sure, ExactTarget offers the integrated one-to-one platform to make sending Email, SMS and Voice from a single user interface a snap. But we’ve been known as a leading email company for years, and our B2B environment often lacks the promotional and urgent nature that’s so conducive for some emerging media.

So when R.J. Talyor, one of our Product Marketing Managers and Voice Expert Extraordinaire, approached us about conducting a Voice test for the Email Marketing Intelligence Webinar Series we’re hosting with MarketingSherpa, I was a little apprehensive. Would it add value for our webinar registrants? Would they be receptive to new channels of communication from ExactTarget? Can Voice make a measurable impact on the event attendance?

In short, all findings point to YES. I’m pleased to report that the Voice testing results from the first webinar were extremely positive. I hope you find the following information both useful and encouraging when considering how (and when) to add Voice into your own marketing mix.

Webinar Reminder Testing Goal: To find the ideal messaging mix to drive webinar attendance via reminders

Testing Approach
Registrant list split into three random groups to receive reminders the day of the event.

Email-Only Reminder Group
Voice-Only Reminder Group
Email + Voice Reminder Group

Test Findings

Email + Voice reminders drove the highest webinar attendance (43%)
Email-only reminder came in second (36.3%)
Voice-only reminder drove fewest attendees (29.6%)

We’ll be continuing to test Voice for the next few webinars, so sign up to see them in action and stay tuned for further results!

Cheers,
Ashley Sales
Manager, Marketing Communications

Time of Day: A Different Perspective

Friday, November 14, 2008 by Morgan Stewart

Yesterday, an article I wrote on the Best Time of Day to sent email was featured in MediaPost's Email Insider column. The post highlights an interesting new perspective that our friends at The Center for Media Design have provided on when, and how, consumers read email.

The key take away of this article is similar to the key take-aways of the whitepaper we collaborated on, namely, that the details of our consumers lives matter. As we develop an email marketing strategy, we need to keep in mind what is going on in our consumers lives. This applies not only to targeted email campaigns by way of delivering relevant content, but to delivering the right types of messages at the right time of day. Wondering if morning or afternoon is the right time to deliver your messages? Well, based on the insights from CMD, it may depend on the type of message. Newsletters likely make sense early in the morning (especially for B2B marketers) when people first login to their email client and have some uninterupted time to read your message. Direct response messages may work better in the afternoon or evening when subscribers are in "quick hit" mode.

To give you a taste for the depth of insight of their work, you can download two free reports from their site. High School Media Too provides a look into a day in the life of 15 teenagers, while Middletown Media Studies 1 is the first wave of this research that they have made available since it is getting a little old. Payment is required for the more recent and more extensive studies, but at worth the investment. BTW, if you can't tell, I am a big fan of theirs.

Business Contact Databases and Opt-in

Friday, October 24, 2008 by Al Iverson

For email addresses retrieved from services such as Zoominfo and Jigsaw, do opt-in requirements and CAN-SPAM requirements still apply?

Absolutely, yes. You need affirmative consent to be able to add an email address to your list, unless you want to be labeled a spammer, get blacklisted, and/or find yourself suspended from ExactTarget.

This applies regardless of where an email list has been obtained from and regardless of how an email address was obtained.

Contacts found on sites like Jigsaw and Zoominfo (and similar services) haven't opted-in to receive emails from you. If you take email addresses obtained from a service like this, and you add them to your list, they're going to report your mail as spam in very high numbers. It's going to get you blocked at ISPs. It's going to cause blacklisting issues.

I've talked to various clients and prospects on this very topic. Invariably somebody will say, "Hey, wait a minute. Jigsaw is just B2B lists. This is business contact info. This isn't B2C. I'm not sending mail to Yahoo."

CAN-SPAM (and opt-in permission requirements) still apply in the B2B realm. Keep in mind that B2B filters like Postini, Barracuda, MessageLabs, and others, they all work in a manner very similar to how ISPs work. They receive spam reports from unhappy recipients, people forwarding spam, or people clicking on a "report spam" button in an Outlook plug-in. They look at reputation measures in much the same way that ISPs do. And they will block you for spamming, just like the ISPs will do.

In the B2B world, it can be harsher on you when this happens. If you're blocked at Yahoo, you know specifically that you're blocked at Yahoo. But, if you're blocked by Postini, you're blocked by the thousands of companies that use Postini as their spam filter. It becomes a much broader issue, one that can be a lot more difficult to investigate and resolve.

The moral of the story is, when you're getting a person's email address from somebody other than the user of that email address, then you shouldn't be emailing them. You don't have permission from the user of that email address, and if you add them to a list, and send them email, you're spamming.

Contact databases are a useful tool, but not for email list building.

(This blog post was re-purposed from a question I received during a Q&A panel I participated in back on September 17th for MarketingSherpa.)

Another B2B Data Point: Yahoo

Thursday, August 28, 2008 by Al Iverson

Did you know that Yahoo hosts email for over 127,179 domains? And the list of 127,179 domains comprises just the ones I know about. Those aren't all consumer domains. Yahoo has Yahoo.com, Rocketmail.com, Ymail.com, and all the various Yahoo domains for different countries, but they make up less than 600 of those domains. What else do they host? Sure, there are a lot of vanity (personal) domains. But, you'll also find that they host email for graphic arts companies, realty agents, investment bankers, sports teams, insurance agencies, online electronics retailers, medical clinics, and for many other companies big and small.

What does it all mean? It means that if you're a B2B sender, Yahoo is going to be significantly represented in your list.

This is yet another example of how B2C permission and sending requirements still apply to you if you're a B2B sender.

B2B Marketers Live in a B2C World

Tuesday, August 26, 2008 by Al Iverson

Occasionally I talk to somebody who opines that because they don't send to Yahoo, they don't need to follow Yahoo's rules. The point is rarely that simplistic, but it does usually boil down to this: "I'm a B2B sender. All of my lists are B2B recipients only. My lists are comprised of nobody but business professionals, for example. Yahoo or Hotmail's sender guidelines don't apply to me, do they?"

Yes, they do apply. And here is a great data point as to why:

Mark Brownlow of Email Marketing Reports checked his own B2B lists. What did he find? 11% were Gmail, 4.6% were Hotmail, and just about 8% were Yahoo. That's almost a quarter of his list. And they are all B2C providers, with the typical B2C rules and requirements that senders have come to know and love: Keep complaints low. Subscriber engagement matters. Opt-in permission rules.

Mark's list makeup is typical. There's nothing too surprising there. The take-away here? B2C rules matter, even in a B2B world.

Why Recipients Call Your Mail Spam

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 by Al Iverson

I get this question often: Why are my emails being reported as spam? I comply with CAN-SPAM, I send only to people who opt-in, and I think I'm doing everything right. What's going on? How can I possibly still be identified as a bad guy by the ISPs?

Well, here's why. Tamara Gielen capably summarizes the recent MarketingSherpa/Q Interactive survey that talks about why recipients report mail as spam. According to the survey, the top five reasons people report a message as spam are as follows:

Didn't sign up to receive email from sender (52%).
Email received was not of interest (41%).
Receive too much email from the sender (25%).
Receive too much email from senders in general (20%).
Found email offensive (15%).

What does that all mean? It means that respecting subscriber permission is still the most important thing you can to do prevent spam complaints. But, it also means that permission alone isn't enough insurance against spam complaints. You need to ensure your emails are useful (#2 - speaks to subscriber engagement), ensure that your sending frequency is appropriate (#3), never buying or selling lists (#4, the tragedy of recipient dilution), and that you never send emails that are so far off the mark that you upset your subscriber base (#5).

Regardless of why recipients report your mail as spam, ISPs still count those votes against you. That's why it's up to you to ensure that you're doing all the right things, if you want to remain a sender in good standing. Failure to observe these best practice guidelines means you're far more likely to find your email blocked, filtered, or delivered to the junk folder.

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