Q: Do I need to be concerned about my sender reputation when sending triggered email messages?
 
A: Absolutely.  Good sender reputation is critical whether you're sending transactional emails or commercial emails, and whether you're sending messages via ExactTarget's triggered email interactions or sending a traditional campaign to a list of subscribers.
 
Regardless of whether email is triggered to an individual subscribers or sent via a marketing campaign to many subscribers, senders with a good reputation get their mail delivered to the inbox, while those with a poor reputation find their mail in the junk folder…or worse.
 
Sender reputation is typically most affected by complaint and bounce rates. It’s no surprise that if you get too many complaints or have too many bounces, and you'll damage your sender reputation. You can avoid complaints by sending mail that subscribers have asked for and are expecting to receive, as well as mail that subscribers find relevant.  Triggered emails are often the most anticipated and relevant messages you can send; however, overwhelming a recipient with unrelated promotional content or an envelope field that doesn’t represent your brand can increases the chance they may complain about your message.
 
Bounces can be mitigated by building in a method of address verification into your address capture process.  Often, asking users to enter their address twice to verify that both entries match will eliminate typos.  And, ensuring that your content is compelling will help ensure users give you a legitimate address to begin with.

Phil Schott
Sr. Deliverability Consultant

With tax season at its annual April 15th climax, my attention has naturally been focused on one thought, and one thought only: I hope TurboTax got the math right, because frankly it would stink to be audited.  Never having been audited, I picture the process being about as enjoyable as an evening singing Alvin & The Chipmunks karaoke…with Celine Dion.

There is one type of audit, however, that I can whole-heartedly support—the email marketing audit.  I conducted my first email marketing audit on behalf of a client back in 2003, and honestly, neither the process nor the tremendous ROI upside has changed that much since then.  In a nutshell, to conduct an email marketing audit, you:

• Identify & map the different types emails that are being sent to customers, prospects, partners, and other constituents
• Interview internal staff and external partners who play any part in creating or delivering emails to your various audiences
• Document the systems—ecommerce, CRM, ESP, etc.—through which these messages are being sent
• Document the points of current integration between these systems, if any
• Document the email creation, broadcast, and reporting process
• Analyze the creative being used across all of the different message types
• Analyze any available performance data for the different message types
• Make prioritized recommendations on how to improve performance and streamline processes based on your findings

Does this email marketing audit process require a significant investment of time and effort?  Absolutely.  Is the ROI worth the investment?  Yes—but only if your organization is committed to turn the audit recommendations into reality. 

A thorough email marketing audit uncovers all sorts of “low-hanging fruit” opportunities for marketers.  The quick wins often range from improved design to verifiable delivery to the holy grail of one-to-one marketing—a consolidated view of all enterprise messaging at the individual subscriber level. 

Even more importantly, triggered emails that were once the shadowy purview of IT or e-commerce developers now appear clearly on the marketing team’s radar for review and optimization.  Examples of such triggered emails include:

• Welcome emails
• Automated replies (from customer service, HR, product, and other inquiries)
• Order confirmations
• Shipping alerts and confirmations
• Abandoned shopping cart notices
• Account alerts
• Registration confirmations
• Event reminders
• Membership confirmations
• Service notices (including those relating to service disruptions)
• Account expiration notices

If you know your organization is sending out any of these types of triggered emails—but your marketing department lack visibility into the creation, design & deployment—then it may be time to don your best blue suit and start auditing.  You’ll be surprised by how quickly you’re able to identify opportunities for improvement.

For more information on ExactTarget’s extensive email marketing audit services, please contact us.  For a more ideas on how to set up and conduct an email marketing audit on your own, check out Marketing Sherpa’s Email Marketing Audit Kit.   

Hats off to ExactTarget agency partner, Customer Portfolios for the terrific work they are doing to help Dunkin’ Donuts roll out its new Dunkin’ Perks™ customer loyalty program.

As reported by Amy Johannes in the January 23rd online


As reported by Amy Johannes in the January 23rd online edition of PROMO P&I, Dunkin’ Donuts will use permission-based email to keep customers enthused, engaged, and most importantly . . .  coming back to its stores and its website to take advantage of special offers.

In the article, Joahannes notes that customers who opt-in for the Dunkin’ Perks program will receive e-mails twice a month with product news, store locations and special in-store and online offers. Members get offers throughout the year specific to their local market.

David Tryder, Dunkin’ Donuts manager of interactive and relationship marketing said, “We want to continue building relationships with our customers by sending them targeted communications and offers.”

Localized Promotion

One of the things I like about this program is that many of the promotions Dunkin’ Donuts sends will be specific to the Dunkin’ Perks™ member’s geographic location. I think franchise owners will love this! As I am reminded when I click on the “Perks FAQs” menu item (See My Perks Profile page below), “It's the easiest way for Dunkin' Lovers to keep up to date with everything happening at Dunkin'.”

 

And just in case a consumer needs help finding a Dunkin’ Donuts store where they can get their DD fix, a handy store locator makes it easy for me to find one.

The Dunkin’ Perks™ program was piloted in Albany, NY last year and went very well according to Nick Godfrey of Customer Portfolios.

As to how the one-to-one marketing program works, Godfrey said, “As customers use their Perks card, all transaction data is captured so we know what they are spending per visit, how often they are visiting their Dunkin’ Donuts store, and at what time of day they are visiting. This enables us to target customers with relevant, just out of reach offers. When customers change their behavior, they are rewarded. Everyone is happy. To that end, we consistently see over a 50% open rate for Perks’ emails!”

Godfrey added, “To ensure customers become accustomed to receiving and recognizing their regularly scheduled Perks email, all emails carry the same subject line: Dunkin' Perks Alert.”

The Agency Behind the Dunkin’ Perks™ Program

Customer Portfolios is the agency behind successful database marketing programs for many brands including Johnston & Murphy, Hat World/Lids, Unicef, World Travel Holdings, and Baskin-Robbins.  The firm’s “Lights-Out Marketing” solution enables organizations to execute highly targeted and triggered email marketing programs that are based on such specifics as the customer's segment, life cycle stage, and purchasing behavior.

It was the 1990s, and a young Angel Morales had just created an integrated email strategy for one of the nation’s largest direct-to-consumer enterprise solutions (Sigma).  I was so proud of it: my solution included integrated merchandising, automated remarketing, graphical transactional emails, etc.  It was an outstanding set of features…but little did I realize that it wasn’t a “solution.”  That was a lesson I learned the hard way during my first pitch…
 
Terrifying doesn’t begin to describe sitting across from a hardened CMO with two decades of direct marketing experience, who at the conclusion of my “super cool flash presentation” said “Yeah, all that technology is great but tell me how…”

• I can drive my highest value catalog customers to the website instead of the call center
• I can extend the lifecycle of my customers by 10%
• I can bolster my average order value and engineer my high value customer into brand champions
• I can recognize my at risk customers and retain them
• I can extend the value of my loyalty program into email
• I can leverage data appends to prospect new segment within my existing house file

THAT was the day I realized the value of email wasn’t in the technology, but in applying the technology to traditional DM principles.  While working at Sigma over the next seven years, I learned from the best… companies like Sears, Eastbay, specialty merchants like Zip Products, Chaparral Racing, Nancy’s Notions, Woodcraft Supply Corporation, and countless other merchants.  These companies – whose direct business was far more substantial than anything “online” – made me adjust my thinking and my approach to email.  And it was, quite frankly, a humbling experience. 
 
So fair readers, before we dive into ExactTarget’s new transactional eMail, mobile messaging, and other valuable (and cool) technology, let’s take a step back to basics and MAKE SURE we are using our rich customer data (such as RFML) to its fullest extent. We all have this data, but whether or not we use it is another matter…

• Are you deploying dynamic content/promos to reduce costs of retention?  Remember that not every customer needs / deserves our best offers!
• Are you using segments to target and send to disengaged customers?
• Are you using previous purchase activity to align successful historic promotions to new promotional emails (I respond better to free shipping than 5% off)
• Are you using dynamic subject lines in conjunction with dynamic content to align the message to the micro-masses?

Not only is this the foundation of direct marketing, it’s also the foundation for next-generation web analytics strategies. In other words, we all have to build from the basics.
 
Remember, yesterday’s challenges are today’s excuses – and that’s largely all they are.  With ExactTarget’s Fall 2007 Release, we made it easier than ever to integrate.  WE host the data store, WE manage the import process, WE can automate data updates…all you need to do it to throw a file out onto an FTP directory (something a good “geek” can accomplish in a few hours!)
 
Executing on direct marketing basics will result in sizable program impact.  Interested?  LET’S TALK!  Send me an email and I can quantify program impact using the metrics you already have in house.  So let’s see how “going back to basics” bolsters your bottom line.

Welcome to 2008, where the “build” and “features” collide to create solutions.  Here at ExactTarget, 2008 should be an explosive collection of solutions for retail – led by our client’s business objectives and leading industry trends.  Over the next several weeks, I will be posting a flurry of solutions as part of a series on our Retail Email blog.

These will include solutions for:
Hidden treasures of web analytics
Automating abandoned basket emails
Automating check-out abandonment emails
New product alerts by product category (email and mobile)
Price drop alerts (email and mobile)
“In-Stock” notification alerts (email and mobile)
Advanced merchandising powered by SLI Systems, Endeca, Mercado, Celebros
Advanced cross selling powered by Certona, Aggregate Knoweldge
Pragmatic transactional email
Frequency capping by email intent

These programs used to be nearly impossible to execute for ANY Email Service Provider.  So what’s changed?  After a decade working with software companies (many of which were SaaS predecessors) I’ve noticed that there are two types of years: ”build” years and “feature” years.  At ExactTarget, 2007 was one of those rare years in history where “features” and “build” happen simultaneously.

As a “feature" year, it was noteworthy with lots of new “stuff” hitting the ExactTarget application, including enhancements to our:

• Dynamic merchandising solution – Point our application to your website and we’ll syndicate products, cross sells, more.
• Outstanding usability enhancements – Our award winning usability was taken to an even further extreme by streamline your ability to edit content in the context of the email itself
• New transactional email capabilities – All of the power of the ExactTarget email creation process, but with a convenient “single console” for marketers
• And a collection of features far too numerous to mention here!

But a “build year” is just as important.  It’s a year where we take a look at our architecture, our business model, our services organization and say “Will it support our vision for the future?”  Those of you who attended our user conference this fall got a glimpse of just how important that question is to ExactTarget, resulting in:

• A new data center in Las Vegas – This monster data center is up and running in a hot capacity.  This makes ExactTarget the premier ESP when your email is mission critical.
• Significant database re-architecture – It’s not just about performance, it’s about freedom.  From the ability to refresh segments that impact over 8 billion subscriber (last weeks stats), but enhanced security and flexibility
• Unparallel support for custom data — Your world is more than lists of subscriber.  My merchants have complex products relationships, web analytics data, transactional data (from brick and mortar, call center, online, etc).  In what is a remarkable effort, our product team put COMPLETE CONTROL of data into the hands of our customers.
• Support for mobile messaging, voice and RSS were released this year — Moving ExactTarget from the one-to-one emails of today and towards the one-to-one messaging of tomorrow.

The foundation laid in 2007 is sure to result in 2008 being a stellar year!  This is why you will see more innovative solutions from ExactTarget than ever before (and more than any other ESP). The end result will be more sales, to more customers, more frequently…

Friday - I like mine blackened - with some blue cheese crumbles.

 

While I have never been able to appreciate the comradary that waiting outside a Wal-Mart at 3:57 in the morning can produce, I would imagine it would be a lot like being in combat, which is why I don't do the "Gigantic, After-Thanksgiving Super Sale Blow Outs." A fear of a flaming, crushing death presided over by Earl, the Wal-Mart greeter. That is why I LOVE on-line shopping...and it looks like many of your customers do as well.

 

Online sales numbers were up a startling 41% over last year’s $174,000,000 to provide a whopping $250,000 worth of spending by 13,300,000 on-line shoppers. Oddly, spending through brick and mortar actually dipped 3.5% - illustrating that crushing, flaming "death by shopping" may be waning in popularity.

 

 Holiday ecommerce Report - Week 3

 

The week of Thanksgiving saw some pretty outstanding numbers for ExactTarget customers:
You collectively sent over 315,000,000 emails (of which I received half of at my Yahoo address...);
You executed over 4,000,000 transactional emails;
You executed segment/group refreshes that impacted 8,000,000,000 subscribers (that's billion...with a "B");

 

It's numbers like this that justify our addition of a hot co-located data center (launched this year), one of the reasons why the über geeks over at Microsoft have been blogging about our architecture since 2005 and why Microsoft and ExactTarget have collaborated to enable email in their CRM offering.

SEND ME YOUR BLACK FRIDAY / CYBER MONDAY stories! I'm looking for fun, exciting, or terrifying tales that I can compile into an annonymous "Absolute Best and Worst of Black Friday". Winners, chosen at random from all submissions, to receive a 72” Kablakistan Plazma TV.

 

Since 1999, I’ve spent roughly $21,042, consuming on average 1.2 iced venti, 5-espresso shot, skinny, café mochas per day at an average price of 6 dollars, including tip (wow, I hope my wife isn’t reading this).

 

This would make me a “high value customer” to Starbucks. Should I shudder off the shackles of my Starbucks overlords and start going to other coffee shops, or stop drinking coffee entirely, it would negatively impact Starbucks’ business and could contribute to the collapse of Columbia’s economy at large. So what would Starbucks do if I suddenly stopped buying coffee from them? Would they know?  Would they care? What should they do about it?

 

This is a prime opportunity for behavioral engineering based on predictive purchasing patterns.  Huh?  Meaning that Starbucks knows my purchase patterns and my value to their bottom line, so how do they get me back on track if I stray? How does Starbucks identify at-risk customers and get them back into their predictable purchase models?

 

First, Starbucks needs a loyalty program…something that tracks purchases, ideally through all channels. This provides data on time between purchases, be it 90 days, 9 days, or in my case, 90 minutes. Thus, we have “average latency.”

 

Next, Starbucks would want to QUALIFY that average latency, articulating that enough transactions have occurred to say that our average latency is valid (known as “frequency”). 

 

Finally, Starbucks would look at recency.  When was the last time I purchased?  If it was yesterday, that’s great.  Starbucks knows I should have purchased yesterday and I’m following my anticipated pattern.  I am consistent, predictable and profitable. 

 

What happens when I deviate from my pattern? At what point do I become an at-risk customer? If you had a customer who purchased from you consistently once a quarter for two years and has been silent for the last six months, would you want to reach out to them?  What if instead of one customer you were able to identify as at-risk, it was hundreds, thousands? Identification is half the battle. 

 

Once you’ve identified the at-risk customers, send them a message or offer that will re-engage them.  Sometimes this is an easy process, corresponding with shifts in your merchandizing mix. Sometimes it can be a bit more challenging (like leveraging a data append to identify your customers who may have moved). 

 

The message is simple once the reason for flight has been established. Starbucks might send a message featuring my favorite drink…something that reminds me “mochas are tasty…caffeine is good.”  If a customer moved to a different city, a list of Starbucks locations in their new neighborhood would be more effective. If the customer doesn’t return in a month…that’s when the big guns come out and an email with an imbedded coupon good for a free drink or a direct mail piece with a dollar-off gift card is sent.

 

Remember, your customers are exactly that…yours.  Your job is to KEEP THEM ENGAGED. Stretching the life of your customers, even just a few transactions, will have SUBSTANTIAL impact to your bottom line.  Think about you attrition rate, think about your AOV, and do the math…numbers don’t lie.

 

By strategically leveraging email, you can begin to shape, refine, and redefine what your traditional customer lifecycle looks like.  For ExactTarget customers, this capability is point and click…very little effort to execute very intelligent marketing.

 

And if anyone from Starbucks happens to be reading this…I’m pretty sure we can work a barter…world class email marketing software/strategy for one Starbucks franchise…in my living room.

 

Cheers,

AIM

 

Not for you, analytics amateur
The purpose of this posting isn’t to talk about adoption, it’s not to discuss the fact that many organization who have purchased analytics solutions aren’t using them, it’s not to point out the fact that if you are involved in on-line commerce you should have a dedicated web analytics resource (at least part time).  This is an article for the rest of you.

 

Many of my retail brethren “get it”.  You are looking at your reports…you are deciphering the difference between top product viewed and top product purchased, you are looking at and optimizing cross sell placement within your product detail pages, you are calculating GROAS on your search marketing spend.  In short, you are turning your investment in analytics into a finely tuned money making machine.  This posting is for you…because even you, my high end web analytics gurus – adopters and embracers – have one more step left…an opportunity tucked away in the minds of the industries big gun consultants, concepts usually reserved for those willing to pay top dollar to take their business to another level. 

 

Before we understand where we are going, let’s look at where we have been.  Like the first fish that flopped its way onto land, sprouted legs, and walked off to launch the Starbucks brand, Web Analytics is evolving.  In just 6 short years web analytics has gone from being a tool that simply counted visitors and hits, into being the life blood for many merchants.

If you haven’t looked at web analytics solutions lately, you will be shocked.  I have clients using web analytics to do product demand analysis, support product soft launches, assess ALL acquisition efforts (across the web, print, radio, tv), I’ve even got one customer who has laid their web analytics solution over their data warehouse to leverage cross channel purchase activity in the context of their web analytics strategy (or visa-versa).   They can even count how many hits they had to their homepage!! (yes, that’s a joke.  The jokes are bad,  but at least there are a lot of them).

 

Welcome to the Galapagos – here is your long tail
The most important result of web analytics Darwinian transformation from basic reporting into complex data analysis was the move from aggregate level reporting into a visitor centric data model.  Meaning, web analytics (starting with Omniture) started building a “visitor database”, where profiles started to be generated on individuals, persona’s started to take shape, and suddenly it wasn’t simply about “what” was happening on your site, it was “who” did that “what”. 

 

The other players in the space have all begun to catch up.  Every major analytics platform can now tell me that a specific person saw a specific product, on a specific date, and that they added it to their basket, but didn’t purchase.  The volume of data is great, but how do we bridge the gap between insight on the individual level, and the action that we should be taking?

 

We must first understand the data. The most critical thing to keep in mind is that while web analytics data is amazing valuable, it is by design limited in it’s visibility.  Huh?  Alright, most of you reading this are multi-channel…you have an extensive print operation, brick and mortar storefronts, you have loyalty programs, you have a lot of data.  This is where your understanding of your shopper’s TRUE LIFETIME VALUE resides.  It’s the fact that despite the fact that Leslie purchased $3,000 worth of product on-line last year, she returned $2500 worth of it and called customer server 36 times.  Your web analytics platform will have her flagged as a high value customer, but you know better.

 

We’ve been dating for a while, let’s get engaged
So, what is the value of web analytics?  Engagement.  Say it one time with me…E-N-G-A-G-E-M-E-N-T!  When someone visits your website, it’s for a reason, they have become engaged with you due to a product you carry, a promotion you are running, or brand loyalty.  Your job, Mr./Mrs. Retailer, is to use the fact that your customer has contacted you and to take an action (not literally contacted you, figuratively – a metaphorical “contact” based on the customer electing to visit your site). Action is the key…action is where the dollars are hiding.  To define action, you guessed it, we are going to look to the data.

 

Recognizing that your website is a vehicle for not simply transactional process, but shopper engagement, let’s look towards the data we should be exploring: 

Data Point	What are we looking for	What does it mean to you
Cart/Basket	We want to see not only who abandoned, but who purchased.  As importantly, what was in the basket/cart	Re-marketing fodder, a chance to put product back in front of customers/visitors in a relevant manner based on conversion.
SKUs	What were the top viewed SKUs for non-purchasing shoppers? What were the top viewed SKUs viewed but not purchased by customer who completed an order? What were top viewed SKUs vs. top purchased SKUS (indicating potential ship rate issues, or availability issues especially for you soft goods merchants carrying stylized products)	With the Cart/Basket abandonment we have identified the “who” we are targeting, the details give us the “what” are we going to put back in front of them.  Please see my other article on “MMM…Tasty /or/ That’s a high quality SKU” – covering the topic on assessing customer behavior activity to quantify the level of engagement the customer has on a SKU by SKU basis…put the product in front of them they are most likely to purchase..
Categories/ Departments	What were those top viewed department or categories?	If I’m not putting a product in front of engaged customers, I’m putting a category.
Value Added Pages	What value added pages were viewed?  Did they view my loyalty program?	Identify the level of engagement with my brand, customer looking at ship tables, customer service pages, loyalty programs pages carry a higher level of engagement with my brand..and are inherently more valuable.
Acquisition Source & key words	Where did they come from and what drove them to my website.	If they showed up to my website from Google looking for Nike Running Shoes, what product should I put in front of them to make the buy?
More	This is a primer…a blog posting, not a book.	Hmm…maybe I should write a book?  Marketing strategies in free form prose, or haiku…

 

So…now that you’ve identified the data, what are you going to do with it?  Most web analytics solutions can create a feed. 

Feed (Fe-ed verb)- A process resulting in an export of scenario driven data that includes all in the table above, in addition to any information that may have ever been captured about that customer in an conversion process (capturing an order, email sign up, catalog request, contest entry). 

 

Your job?  Turn the feed into dollars…so let’s assume that the web analytics company is going to push this data into an eMail Marketing Solutions provider, like ExactTarget.  Hey – imagine that…using ExactTarget as the example….hmmm….must mean we already support this!

 

Bringing a knife to a gun fight
I had the privilege of consulting with a major electronics retailer on their remarketing strategy…their goal was very simple.  Put the SKU that the customer was most engaged with, but did not purchase, back in front of them in a monthly email promo. 

 

The email itself was pretty simple.  It featured a large primary offer section (free shipping, yadda) and a grid of 8 products below it.  Now, this retailer’s strategy was to be a little sly…using dynamic content (a process in which content optimizes itself for the intended recipient)– the email would include product that aligned to general interest capture as demographic data (I like computers and digital photography – I’ll see new cameras photo printers, and multi-media laptops).  However one of these 8 featured products was special.

 

The featured product on the far left was using a new technology called Content Syndication (or Dynamic Merchandising - for our retail clients), which allows me to reach out to the customer website and request a specific product for a specific customer.  In this case, the request was very dynamic.  If the customer was a new customer (not in the DB as a converted customer – showing as a $0 customer), I would request content that included the SKU and a promotions code good for a 10% discount.  The website would return the product, with strike through pricing illustrating the discount, and hard coded message “Hurry, supplies are limited”.  If the customer was an existing customer, no promotion code was carried and the targeted product displayed with standard pricing.  In either situation if the product was NLA or back ordered, the  SKUs would be replaced with a default SKU.

 

UPDATE:  This is one approach of about 6 unique strategies for product inclusion in remarketing emails.  Other approaches are far more subtle, others overt…all have merit.  Your formula for success is based on your market, your segmentation strategy, and a hand full of other variables.

 

Is that sorcery…some kind of Voodoo? 
No, simply technology.  This uses a process that ExactTarget developed called Content Syndication.  It allows merchants to use their existing website logic to push products, categories, search results and much more into an email.

 

Many merchants use Content Syndication to put cross sells into emails, or  to power marketing managed transactional emails…really almost anything you want to accomplish.  There are some merchants who no longer worry about putting product into their email at all, allowing Content Syndication to reach out to your website to pull an “email specials” department directly …and best of all…your design and product availability rules are all maintained.

 

The take away?
This is an example (one of 30) on how leveraging data in your web analytics solution, combined with your eComemrce platform, and a robust email solution can be used to dynamically include highly targeted product within your email strategy.  The key concept being  - don’t guess about what product your customers are interested in, when your customer are telling you every time they visit your website.  Remember that your web analytics platform will tell you EXACTLY what products they interested in and, using qualitative/quantities SKUs level analysis, will tell you how interested in those product I am. 

 

And YES…you can do this.  Virtually every merchant can.  Data feeds are largely supported by virtually every web analytics solution. 

 

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!

I started this post and 8am. Now it's 6pm - and I'm just getting around to finishing it. But that's life at ExactTarget - busy, busy, busy!

Take care,

Nicole
Marketing Communications Associate
ExactTarget

 

At our recent user conference a customer asked me, “What’s the one thing I should consider in my email design to deliver a big win for the holidays?”. Essentially, he was looking for a silver bullet to make his holiday season filled with riches from his email program. Of course, design starts only once program direction, value proposition, list quality, relevance, deliverability and envelope fields have been optimized for results. A designer needs this cornucopia of program riches before planning the design.

While there isn’t one silver bullet, I suggest a design checklist that covers the six significant contributors to a high performance email. These are indeed iterative, so a smart designer will address in order.

1. Brand Synergy
Seamless visual recognition and essence of the brand across all media creates consistent brand impact. Immediate corporate identification in the email transfers this recognition into trust to engage and transact.

2. Intelligent Visual Organization.
Organize content to ensure primary engagement and response actions are visible above the fold and in preview panes.

3. Engagement Techniques.
Use graphic design techniques to engage the subscriber through a mix of emotive and rational imagery and layouts. Smart use of images, borders, buttons, links, charts, color backgrounds should be applied and tested.

4. Response Maximization.
Graphically entice the subscriber eye throughout the selling process, capturing their eye at the primary call-to-action.

5. Rendering Results.
Ensure your design efforts are viewed in the subscriber inbox as intended. Emails that are designed and coded with image-blocking, preview panes and email client/reader differences in mind will succeed.

6. Tested Quality.
Only comprehensive testing will validate successful rendering of design and ensure functional performance prior to sending to the subscriber inbox.

My advice for the holiday season is to design with your strategic program goals in mind, following these six steps to ensure the subscriber experience is fully-focused on delivering long-term value. There are no short-term silver bullets that bring sustainable riches if you compromise your subscriber relationship or marketing plan.

Melinda Baxter
Director, Marketing Services

Fair and Gentle Reader,

With as much joy and unadulterated enthisiasm as a child wandering their way down stairs on a snowy Christmas morning to see an ocean of presents drifting beneath the ornament laden bows of a festive blue spruce - I welcome you to the ExactTarget Retail Email blog. 

Emails are like sunbeams casting their radiant warmth into the inbox of each and every one of your customers.  Together we we explore the wonderful world of ...grrr....no...I can't do it.  This is NEVER going to be a warm and fuzzy blog.  That kind of nonsense frankly...well...it makes me a little ill.

 The reality is email is hard.  You are competing in an overly saturated communication channel where the constant screaming for inbox attention is as deafening as sitting in the first row of the Black Sabbath reunion tour.  The key thing it to rise above the noise.  Offer your customers something of value.

Now, you won't be seeing a lot in the Retail Email section about deliverability...nor email optimization...we have other bloggers taking care of those topics.  Oh no, my merchants...we are going to focus on the reason you send email in the first place...SALES. 

This blog is dedicated to driving the evolution of email into explosive new directions.  At times, you'll hear me steal a phrase or two from traditional database marketing, then we will change gears by talking about 1-to-1 merchandising, advanced transactional email strategies, automated customer life-cycle optimization, predictive analysis...and maybe even a great recipe for ceviche. 

Ultimately, we'll exchange some good ideas.  That's my goal with this blog...to inspire and be inspired, take some jabs at industry pundits, and learn a thing or two along the way.  Gosh, who knows, we might even make a new friend or two.

Cheers all,
Angel Morales, Director of Retail Strategies