The Email Wars

We are all aware how our President has used email marketing in a way that none have done before. We all know that it made a big impact on the campaign results and many of us were excited to see how he would continue to use it as a messaging/connection platform moving forward once he was in office.

So you can imagine how impressed I was to get an email from him on this past 4th of July. It was a nice touch as I am not sure that I have ever/nor expected an email on our nations birthday, but it got me thinking a little about it and was it truly a message from him OR a marketing campaign moving the ball forward on his agenda.

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I love it when I see a company do a good job with keeping their subscriber base in the loop proactively to changes in their email services. When you decide to make a change to your IP, your sending domain, your ESP (Email Service Provider) or anything else about your programs that might make an impact on your delivery you need to make sure that you are clearly communicating these changes to all.

Why you might ask? Well it matters. With whitelists, adding to your address book, and many companies and individuals setting delivery rules around emails they get why would you not tell them.

Take a look at this example of how clear and simple they make it. They let you know the what, why, and how their subscribers need to know in order to help them continue to get the emails. Not only is it clear but they also provide a list of links to each email client in order to make this as educational and easy as it can be. Something you might want to steal if you need to do this for your own campaigns.

Now as great as it is, I did notice I few things I would recommend that they (or you) change to emails like this.

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This seems to be an ongoing conversation that many email marketers have each day. Now you will read that so many are okay with cleaning up their lists in order to have better performing email campaigns. But then on the flip side so many of them are nervous to break up with subscribers do to inactivity, poor conversion and even bounces in some cases.

Well welcome to the couch. I will let you know that it is ok. You will be fine. Your campaigns will perform better. You will not be fired.

But is there a better way to approach this as no one really (no matter what they say) is comfortable with the cleansing of a subscriber list. Sure there is. Here is how I might suggest you approach it.

First: Build your Campaign. Focus on two segments to test. I would push you to the win back campaign to get them reengaged. While taking the other approach of letting them know clearly that they can manage their profile or preferences (if you have a preference center) to find things that are more relevant to them. Maybe they only want to hear form you less and you have been pounding them outside of their engagement cycle.

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It has been interesting to see the sprouting of services like Whspr and the Other Inbox lately, as well as mailinator and others of the like, to give people disposable email addresses that expire in a certain set time period. I can understand the idea behind these (note The Other Inbox is slightly different from these others) but if systems like this continue to multiply is this not going to kill the value of an email address and thus change the dynamics of a relationship? 

With people concerned about the opt in and giving away the information to parties that they deem important enough to want to get content, alerts, studies, beta invites, etc from why would we want them to be able to decide when to kill a relationship except by using a valid opt out system? To me this is only going to pollute the database integrity of email marketers world wide and in the end dilute the ISP/Email reputation that most of us work so hard each and everyday to move forward.

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I read this past week that MySpace is working on a new email system to give all of it’s 125 million active email users an inbox inside of the social networking site. Now this could be a game changer if they are successful with this integration and launch. Why? Well if even 20% of the user that LIVE in MySpace use this new email client it will make all of us look at feedback loops (do they exist), rendering, white listing, and how emails are forwarded inside and outside of the space. Now also to consider is what type of social media sharing tools MySpace might integrate into this new email client. 

We should all keep our eyes on this as I would assume that the main comp Facebook could be working on something to stay in the features war as well. 

Read the news at the jump >>

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Interesting news in light of all the new email clients, services and more we see each week. Seems that we could be hitting the tipping point of too many email services and not enough users to justify the free model of email. To me this is a good thing. There are simply too many email services and ISPs. We need focus on the majors while supporting the fringe. 

News follows in the rest of the post for you. But in the end looks like Feb 15th is is all over for Lycos mail in the US and EU.

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From the Deliverability.com blog today – Important Notice:

“RIP: Sprint PCS Mail

If you use Sprint PCS for inbound email, you’ve probably noticed very little traffic lately. That’s because Sprint decommissioned the PCS Mail service as of 12/31/08. You still have access to send outbound mail through theirSMTP servers (which doesn’t make any sense to me), but cannot IMAP or POP the mail down to your email device from the sprintpcs.com domain. Mail sent after 12/31/08 has been bounced back to the sender.”

Read the rest at the source

Can you guess what words are going to be the “Marketing’ leading words to avoid in 2009? 

Wth the current economic crisis consumers require straightforward, honest advertising. According to entrepreneur the number one word to avoid in advertising for 2009 is ‘free’. Ads that include messages about a free product or service promotions can work well during an economic downturn, but consumers need to see the products perform well. Other words on the top 10 list include ‘guarantee’, ‘really’ and ‘opportunity’.

But are these words that are going to cause you any issues? Well they could depending on all sorts of factors. Now I am not telling you to NOT use these words, but think about them in a larger context around your overall brand and efforts for the year ahead. A quick win can cause long term issues with trying to devaluate your offers and brand in email.

Copy is important in the subject line and in the body of your email. As Indiana Jones was told… Choose Wisely.

It is cool to see how Comcast is sharing how your email delivery works better with a higher Sender Score rating. We watch our IP Sender Scores all day long using ReturnPath and I love to see this sort of ISP transparency. I would hope that more ISPs could share how this impacts email delivery in 2009.

It just goes to prove that email reputation and best practices do make a difference.

View the info here

Yahoo!7 in Australia has launched the new Yahoo inbox as Think Outside The Inbox. It shows how easy it isto have your friends upfront and the rest – well elsewhere. As Australia is struggling with broadband this is cool to see a video ad that pushes them.

A cowboy tells you all about it in a video.

I had to use that title for this post as I know that many of you out there are always jaded when it comes to list rental campaigns. Now I am not talking about buying lists, but partnering with other like brands or list managers that have double opt in lists where they have allowed subscribers to opt in for emails from like or relevant brands. 

Now here are 4 reasons why I dislike them (yes I changed my mind from hate).

1. They often will not perform to the expectations. Many brands expect these lists that are so well found and segmented to give them the same reach and performance from their own lists. This will not happen, ever. These are lead generation campaigns and if executed right can drive new subscribers to your lists and even sales/conversions. But don’t expect miracles. 

2. They are not from your brand. And they should not be. They should be sent from the brand that has the relationship and contain your offers. Many times they are sent from that brand and the disconnect with the user is bad for all. They can result in more list attrition from the list owner in the end if done wrong. 

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Well it has been one year since we released KillROI into the wild. He has been infiltrating agencies, high rises, corporate offices, and maybe even your office. He has been sitting, waiting, listening, and silently fighting the war on spam and good emails leaving your desk. 

We have begun to get reports, via photos, from places that he has been deployed. It has been like a secret mole from the Cold War days being activated by a call to action that only he knows. Yes, it is time. The holiday season bring so much email into our collective inboxes and that might have just been the impetus of his awakening. 

I ask you, if you have seen him around your desk, office or in your travels, to capture photos of him like we recently received and send them into us. We need to know of his exploits and his travels. 

If you have not found one yet, there are two ways to find out how to have one deployed. First please visit this site to learn about his battle and help him take on the fight. Then drop me a comment on this post and I will reach into the isolation cell (which has been locked since last December) and see if there are still some rumbling around. If I hear from you with a compelling comment, I will attempt to safely ship one of the remaining soldier of goodness to your clutches.

Also, if you are subscribed to our newsletter, then you will learn of his next exploits around December 17th. So subscribe to get the next installment. Trust me… It will be worth it.

Often brands have a hard time just saying no to email. Even when they ask at a preference center and at purchase. So when you ask for preferences, remember no means no. Even if you have a pre-existing business relationship as they did with him with a gift card, you need to honor your word when it comes to email. Or else you just might find someone posting your act here or on another blog.

A reader named James forwarded an unsolicited email from Circuit City that we had to post because it’s just so chipper about the fact that they’ve resorted to emailing him out of desperation. It cheerfully proclaims, “Now you’ll be the first to hear the latest news,” before informing him that he’d been “chosen” as one of their “best customers” to receive news that they deem relevant to him.

James says:

I’m sure you can surmise that I never signed up for email alerts to anything from Circuit City. I merely use their website to manage my (rarely used) Circuit City card. It’s good to see they still have the customer in mind.

The best part of the email is where they inform James that, in the future, he’ll get advance notice about “grand openings.” Isn’t that sweet?

Well it seems that the battle with the watchdogs is not only on the ESPs and clients but also on the ISPs themselves now days. Interesting take on this and wondering how Microsoft and Verizon are going to handle this. Will they shrug it off? Or will they take it seriously as all of us do? 

Microsoft is listed fifth in the Top 10 list of the worst spam service ISPs compiled by Spamhaus.org.

Spammers are advertising links to sites that “peddle fake pharmacy products, porn, and Nigerian 419 scams” on Microsoft’s Live.com and Livefilestore.com sites because they know that the Microsoft sites won’t get blocked by antispam groups, writes Brian Krebs on his Security Fix Blog at the Washington Post.

Spamhaus has been alerting Microsoft to the problem for some time, but to no avail, Richard Cox, Spamhaus’ chief information officer, told Krebs. Other security companies, including McAfee and Marshal, have also been warning about increases in spam and scams on Microsoft-hosted sites.

Read the full article and the comments >>