I'm always surprised when I hear the following from a client:
"Well, our revenue's off a bit off so we decided that we'd email to
our entire database including really old addresses and some
addresses we're not sure how we acquired. I knew it'd cause
problems and I told them it would, but my boss, the (insert big
title here), said we had to do it."
If you ever find yourself in
that position and the boss isn't listening to you, hopefully
they'll believe the message from experts at Yahoo, Earthlink,
McAfee, ReturnPath, and elsewhere who contributed to our latest
whitepaper,
Letters to the...
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I'm not a fan of offering incentives to entice folks to sign up
for email programs. Why? Because you're bound to have
folks sign up who are only, or more, interested in your incentive
than they are in getting your email.
The subscriber signs up, gets the free swag and then they do one
of the following:
1. Unsubscribe
2. Unsubscribe by hitting the "spam" button
3. Stay on your list, but don't ever open, click, or
convert
4. Stay on your list and become the bestest, most engaged
subscriber EVER!
One, two, and three are more likely to be the case, in my
experience.
Admittedly, I don't have any...
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Taking responsibility for one's deliverability is something
every sender should logically do. Not only is it in your best
interest as a sender, but there are many variables that are beyond
anyone else's control but the sender's.
The sender typically provides the method of opt-in for
subscribers, builds the emails and communications, loads subscriber
lists into ExactTarget, segments subscriber data, and hits the
"send" button. Seems to me that the party responsible for the
aforementioned, the sender, has a vested interest in monitoring how
all that hard work pays off.
Not monitoring your...
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Project Honey Pot describes themselves as, "...the first and
only distributed system for identifying spammers and the spambots
they use to scrape addresses from your website."
Basically they're one of the good guys trying to rid the world
of spammers by detecting and exposing them through the use of
spamtraps.
On Wednesday, December 9, 2009, they received their billionth
spam email message. To mark this momentous occasion they
reviewed five years worth of data and shared some of their
findings, including:
- Monday is the busiest day of the week for email spam, Saturday
is the quietest
- 12:00 (GMT)...
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I read a great post today by Ken Magill entitled,
Let's Play the Email Blame Game!
As usual, Mr. Magill's material is frank and sensibly presents the
notion, dare I say fact, that bad things happen when you stray
from email marketing and deliverability best practices. And,
wait for it... Often, there's no one to blame but
yourself.
Amongst the cardinal sins mentioned in the post is that dusting off
the house file and sending to really old addresses will get you
into trouble.
Although not mentioned in the post, another holiday treat for
receivers (and subscribers) is the thought that if...
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I was working with a client today who asked what an acceptable
number or rate of spam complaints was and thought I'd share my
response.
The goal should be to send mail that subscribers aren't going to
complain about. Send mail that subscribers have signed up for
and want to receive.
Despite best efforts and the best and most engaged subscribers,
it's highly unlikely that no subscribers will complain about a
campaign that's sent. That's just part of email
marketing. We understand that and so do receivers which is
why some of them publish complaint rate thresholds.
What's acceptable then? We...
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If you're an ExactTarget client using SMS to enable
targeted 1 to 1 communications you should have received an email on
October 1, 2009, informing you of a change to industry
regulations.
Here's what the email stated:
Beginning October 1,
2009, industry regulations state that the phrase "Standard
Message charges apply" is no longer acceptable as standard
messaging in SMS communications. For all digital advertising
formats and message flows, one of the following phrases must be
used in its place:
Message and Data Rates May Apply
Msg&Data Rates May Apply
Msg&data rates may apply
Msg&data rates may...
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One of the most frequent questions that we in Deliverability
Services get asked is how to keep Comcast blocking from
recurring.
Comcast aggressively blocks mail they deem their users don't
want--even more so than other receivers. Right or wrong, they
have filtering in place that they believe is effective and offers
their users maximum protection from spam and unwanted mail.
Ultimately, their obligation is to meet the needs of their users
and not necessarily to meet the needs of senders.
The two biggest reasons Comcast blocks mail is because a
sender's mail earns too many complaints or because...
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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...
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Lately I've been receiving marketing emails from a large
marketing advocacy group. The problem is, I don't recall
signing up for them. However, given my line of work and
ExactTarget's likely
association with this group, it's not beyond the realm of
possibility that they would send me messages. So, I've been
unsubscribing from the messages using the included unsubscribe
link.
Yet, I keep receiving more messages from them.
Odd. It appears that every time I unsubscribed from one of
the five emails I've received that it was from a different list of
theirs.
I happened to Twitter about my...
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Gmail's
Priority Inbox isn't doomsday for email marketing for several
reasons. First, it's got to be widely adopted and it's too early to
tell just how many are going to adopt.
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