What's happening in Feb

A few events of note to talk about in the second half of the month;

* EEC's Email Evolution Conference running Today and Tomorrow (Feb 12th and 13th).
* MAAWG will be held in San Francisco, hosting their 12th General
Meeting (members only) from Feb 18th to 20th, at the Mark Hopkins
* Online Marketing Summit is taking place in San Diego from Feb 21st to 23rd
* MarketingSherpa's 3rd Annual Email Summit will be in Miami on Feb 24th to 26th

Happy Networking.

The Five Rs of Email (Day 5)

Day five… Lets start with a quick refresher on the Five R's of email; Reputation, Recognition, Readability and Relationships have already been covered, but what happens when they are all put together and used efficiently... you get the final R - Relevance.

Why is it important to be relevant?

Sending relevant email is going to lead to increased delivery rates, higher comapign metrics and conversions and lower junk mail reports. This is shown in research conducted by JupiterResearch that states; "tactics that improve relevance (e.g., life cycle marketing, behavioural targeting, triggering) deliver substantially higher improvements in revenue and net profits than do broadcast mailings."

In summary; By following the five R's of email users will send relevant and targeted emails that are going engage your subscribers due to the fact that you have taken the time to build a trusting Relationship, send messages that are easily Recognized, and have taken the necessary steps to maintain a positive Reputation by sending messages that are easy to understand and Read.

I hope you have found this useful, leave me a comment on any of the topics you would like more detial on or have questions about.

The Five Rs of Email (Day 4)

So far I've covered the first three R's to email by talking about Reputation, Recognition and Readability. These three items are the foundation to the Relationship that you build with your subscribers. By building trust, brand awareness and an appropriate response from your readers, hopefully one that allows for direct interaction with your messaging members will reward you with higher levels of participation.

Relationships in email marketing should be view in a similar fashion to that of personal relationship building; using welcome programs and dynamic personalization your program should deliver a highly customized, virtually unique experience to each of your users. The medium of email allows for a direct, virtually instant and measurable understanding of your subscribers. With these things in mind you need to consider how your program can capitalize on the feedback provided by your users to expand and build your program ongoing.

For more on relationship building check out; Using Email to Build Trust and How to Make a Positive First Impression.

The Five Rs of Email (Day 3)

After looking at Reputation and Recognition, Day three of "The Five Rs of Email" has us looking at Readability.

 

According to the Wikipedia "Readability is defined as reading ease, especially as it results from a writing style... In the reader, those features affecting readability are 1. prior knowledge, 2. reading skill, 3. interest, and 4. motivation. In the text, those features are 1. content, 2. style, 3. design, and 4. structure"

 

Lets start by answering these these two questions;

 

1 - How easy is your message to read?

 

Messages should be engaging and easy to read, something that everyone will understand and that is tailored to your audience.  Using an overlay or mapping tool to locate hotspots in your messaging is also something that will provide insight and understanding into how your members are interacting with your messages.  

 

2 - Is this the proper tone for my readers?

 

A message directed to a the average B2B list should use the appropriate business terms, definitions and tone as expected when dealing with users.  Respecting the length of your messages and the number of images being displayed in a corporate environment should also be considered when developing your messages. These messages should have the expectation that your target audince know their business and the terms commonly used within the industry.  Messages should provide Relevance, expand sector knowledge, save time and help the ever important botton line. 

 

While communications from a consumer service industry can and probably should be slightly more relaxed with their communications...  for example; L33t speak may be appropriate if your targeting gamers.  Knowing your audience and speaking their "language" will help them relate with your brand and build a Relationship with your brand.

 

Don't alienate your readers with language that is unsuitable for your brand, or the audience your trying to reach.  Relate to them and they will reward you with loyalty and interactions.

The Five Rs of Email (day 2)

Yesterday I talked about Reputation and how this is used to determine if your email is going to be successfully delivered to your intended recipient. Additionally here are a few other articles that you should review; Monitoring Your Reputation and The best way to build reputation on new IPs?

I also mentioned that today I'd talk about 'Recognition'. Getting a subscriber to recognize your mail and it will get opened. Easy enough? Wrong. Many marketers are still failing at this and it causing a number of issues... like opt-outs and spam complaints.

So how do you increase recognition of your messages?

Start by selecting the proper email 'Alias' for your messages (left side of @ sign), it should be something that instantly recognizable to a user, something that relates directly to your brand. It also needs to be something that is not going to be easily confused with the average spam message many people receive (avoid generic names like; offers@, support@ and news@). This should also build awareness and heightens recognition with users as they interact with your brand (try Brand@, BrandOffers@ or BrandNews@). This is key for mailings to AOL where only the email address is shown and the display name is hidden in the inbox view.

Consistency should also be a key aspect of your messaging and branding. This way a user can add one from address to their address book and it will safe list (images/links enabled) for all of your publications.

Past studies have shown that upwards of 73% of people surveyed reported spam simply based on the “FROM” address, showing a strong indication that recognition in the email address is key.

Tomorrow I'll talk about 'Read-ability', and how this should be incorporated into your messages.

The Five Rs of Email (day 1)

There are a number of factors that effect your delivery on a daily basis, and I'm going to talk about five of them, surprisingly they all start with R. Over the next week I'll be talking about each and how these can effect and enhance your programs.

Reputation - What is reputation and how does it effect email?

Reputation is described in the dictionary as 'A specific characteristic or trait ascribed to a person or thing'.

Many ISPs are building complex data reputation models based on your past email behaviour to predict future trends and response rates of their users. ISPs are tracking things like; Bounce rates, complaint rates and third party opinions (IP and URL Block lists) when building these indexes of mail. Over time many of these systems accuracy and predictions will be able to take formulated actions on your past behaviour and deliver mail to the inbox/bulk folder or block future communications from each IP.

Keeping an eye on these key indicators (bounces, complaints, unsubscribe, opens, clicks) of your program will help you monitor and avoid issues from occurring within your program. Watching for changes in any of these metrics can be an early warning sign of problems to come. Taking corrective actions early will lead to a strong and successful program.

Start by building a Positive First Impression when communicating with your users, by building Recognition, Relevance and a strong foundation for the Relationship your building with your subscribers.

Tomorrow I'll be discussing 'Recognition', so don't forget to check back.