The Email Wars

Daily Search Engine Users Closing in On Email Users

(NOTE: I am blogging this for you in the back of a cab after a red eye, on the drive into Manhattan for meetings. Not easy)

According to a recently released PEW Internet study, the percentage of internet users who use search engines on a typical day has been steadily rising from about one-third of all users in 2002, to a new high of 49%. The number of those using a search engine on a typical day is pulling ever closer to the 60% of internet users who use email on a typical day.

Underscoring the dramatic increase over time, the percentage of internet users who search on a typical day grew 69% from 2002 to May 2008. During the same six-year time period, the use of email on a typical day rose from 52% to 60%, for a growth rate of just 15%.

Get the Pew Study PDF here

Read the rest of this article here at Mediapost

That’s right boys and girls… a new Email Marketing Guide in the Resources center @eROI. And not just one… but 3 new guides. And hold tight… wait for it… wait for it… wait for it… now - Look next week for the RESULTS of our latest email study there as well. 

I know you say this is TOO good to be true, like the Flowbee or the GoateeSaver, but it is not it is 4 for the price of 1 visit. I know these guys at eROI really go above and beyond to think about what is working in email marketing and how to share this knowledge with the world. One would think that they are a 3000 strong global force of Ninjas and Revolutionaries (we are but less that 60 with 2 offices) but alas we just like to make you smarter to do your job better. 

Now if we share like this with everyone can you JUST imagine what we share with our clients and customers? I would wager that some AWESOME ideas come out of here and some campaigns that rock. 

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Just a little email marketing food for thought that I saw last week from David Daniels, Vice President JupiterResearch (Dec. 2007).
274: Average number of personal emails weekly.
304: Average number of business emails weekly.
26%: Opt-in email campaigns as percentage of total inbox email.
74%: Email users with 2 email accounts.

These are some good numbers to get your head around. Look at how many business and personal emails we are dealing with each and every week. And then think about you are working against close to 600 other emails on average for the attention and the midshare of your subscribers. So you better make them impactful, relevant and worth our time.

The funny thing is that on average the typical person has 2 inboxes. One work and one personal. Now this is the typical number we have, but I would wager than many of you have even more than this. This is because we are not average. So stop thinking about what you would do or where you would read your emails. We are not marketing to the abnormal person, or are we? The answer to this really depends on who you are marketing to. Mothers (maybe 2), blue collar (maybe one), tech heads (maybe 4-5). But my point here is to think like them. Understand who your market is and act accordingly.

“For Tracy Mooney, a married mother of three in Naperville, Ill., the decision to abandon cyber-sense and invite e-mail spam into her life for a month by participating in a McAfee experiment was a bit of a lark. The idea of the Spammed Persistently All Month (S.P.A.M.) experiment — which fittingly started on April Fool’s Day — was to have 50 volunteers from around the world answer every spam message and pop-up ad they got. Mooney was game, especially since McAfee was giving a free PC to all participants. She told her story to Network World.”

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/070108-mcafee-spam-experiment.html?hpg1=bn

I have been reading over this study a few times now. It is well done and yet totally confounds my sense of thinking around keeping it short, driving home the point, telling me what to do, and being relevant. So if you have not read it yet it is the Alchemy Worx study that is reporting longer subject lines have a great impact on read to click as opposed to shorter subject lines that are just read…

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Email Preferred Communicator by Consumers For Business Dealing
According to the 2008 study of consumer attitudes towards email and online interaction with businesses, completed in May 2008 by research firm Ipsos for Habeas, Inc., 67% of consumers prefer email as a primary method of communications in their personal and business capacities, and 65% will continue to prefer email in the future despite the rise of online threats and the emergence of other communication channels and Web 2.0 applications.

http://blogs.mediapost.com/research_brief/?p=1720

Take our latest email marketing survey!

At eROI, staying on top of the latest in email marketing is always a top priority. In this new email marketing survey we ask you, our customers, “What are the elements of a great email?”
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Take the survey now
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To show our appreciation, all survey participants will be automatically entered to win one of a handful of iTunes gift certificates!

This survey should take just a couple minutes of your time, and we will share the results with you upon completion. At the end of the survey, be sure to download our new eROI Email Marketing Guide from our Resources Center, updated for 2008! You will be given a link to the guide upon the completion of the survey.

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Take the survey now
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Email Preferred Communicator by Consumers For Business Dealings

According to the 2008 study of consumer attitudes towards email and online interaction with businesses, completed in May 2008 by research firm Ipsos for Habeas, Inc., 67% of consumers prefer email as a primary method of communications in their personal and business capacities, and 65% will continue to prefer email in the future despite the rise of online threats and the emergence of other communication channels and Web 2.0 applications.

http://blogs.mediapost.com/research_brief/?p=1720

Great study from ReturnPath this past week if you have not read it already. But it hits on one of my favorite topics, the immediate trigger. So often when I am auditing a customer’s email marketing program it starts at of course the opt in. Great I signed up and then the first miss… the thank you page. Such an opportunity for a personalized cross sell, exposure to something else, and even just a simple “Here is what you can expect with your opt in”.

Then I watch for the thank you email. You had me at hello and now with your brand in my immediate conscious you have the opportunity to start talking to me or even training me to expect what arrives from you. This is an ideal time to set the standards of the from line and even give a little something-something where you can drive a special offer or even some proactive profile expansion with data you did not ask for at opt in. Progressive profiling of your opt ins works really well here as we are building a relationship.

But then on top of that many people/companies/brands miss the opportunity to drop that immediate trigger. A recent audit I did had a 2 week welcome email and I was already so detached from them. Even with a newsletter sign up you run the risk of a month between email touches. Stop the insanity and jump on the wagon. Get something out to them immediately, even if it is the most recent newsletter. Get them engaged and trained to get emails from you.

The benefit of immediate triggers holds many benefits for your program and the personalization effect helps to solidify the cognitive relationship you are trying to foster using email.

Read the Study after the jump>>

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Executive Summary

Image blocking has become pervasive, with approximately half of all email users suppressing images by default. However, email marketers have not fully adjusted to this reality and reflected it in their email design.

The two strongest weapons in their arsenal in the fight against image blocking, HTML text and alt tags, aren’t used nearly enough. Only 42% of the 104 top online retailers included in our study designed emails that were a good mix of HTML text and images, and only 63% used alt tags adequately or extensively.

Consequently, emails from 23% of the retailers reviewed in this study were completely unintelligible in an inbox environment–and there were some significant shades of gray among the 77% that were intelligible, because of lackluster HTML text and alt tag usage.

In addition to our observational study of retailers, the Email Experience Council and SubscriberMail, the sponsor of this study, surveyed 472 marketing executives in March. When it comes to designing for images off, only 47% of the survey respondents said that their company had taken action. Those actions ranged from adding alt tags or a “click to view” link to minimizing images above the fold.

Get the Full Study at the Email Experience Council’s Resources Center

Keep reading after the jump >>>

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This article was really not that large of a surprise. Considering the digital divide is alive and well, we all understand that not everyone is using email. And this begs me to ponder, do we want them to? Is it really that important that not everyone is using email? 20% seems like a big number but in the grand scheme of things it is not something that is going to slow the growth and use of email.

It talks about homes without connectivity and people who might not use it in a work environment. You have to consider that there are many people in jobs/roles that do not depend on email and do not have access to a computer in the work force. Really how many blue collar (not to be rude or insulting) use desktops or laptops in their jobs?

Which bodes well for the lifespan of all the other communication mediums that are in use like TV, print, outdoor etc.

But on the flip side… 80% is a huge number to consider having access to email and the internet. The flip side is what makes this industry so attractive.

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From the CNET News Blog: The digital divide is apparently alive and well.

About 20 percent of all U.S. heads-of-household have never sent an e-mail, and about 20 million households, or 18 percent, are without Internet access, according to a study released earlier this week.

Read the full article

How New CAN-SPAM Rules Affect Marketers

The FTC has just announced it has approved four new rule provisions to the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. MarketingSherpa’s Senior Reporter Chris Heine discusses the changes with Jeff Mills, Director of Sales and Strategy at eROI. Listen to our podcast to discover how these changes will affect email marketers and what they’ll have to do differently to be in compliance. The provisions are expected to take effect this summer.

http://podcast.marketingyak.com/flash/can_spam/index.html

Over 500 marketers were surveyed about the subscribe/unsubscribe process. While these processes are improving, they have yet to reach what we would call exceptional.

You can get the whole PDF in our resources section (Quarterly Studies tab)/ but the call outs below are not in the PDF.

High Level Thoughts:
- Email marketers are not matching up other marketing efforts like they should. Email, search, DM, Print, Call Centers, and sales teams need to get on the same page.

- Email marketers are not monitoring feedback loops and complaint rates. Are they counting on the ESP to do it? Many ESPs like eROI do this, but some do not. Does yours? Or does your program if you run it in house?

- The thank you page, prime visitor real estate is being wasted. There are so many opportunities to be testing the thank you page with Progressive Profiling and offers. As well as setting expectations.

- Not surveying subscribers at opt out. Remember high school when someone wanted to break up? Didn’t you ask WHY are you leaving? This still holds true. Exit surveys are key to finding out why you have churn.

- Not allowing frequency changes. Subscribers should have access to change preferences of frequency just like they can manage a profile with your programs. Do they want to hear from you monthly, weekly, daily, as things that are important to them change? Listen before you speak.

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According to a new report released by trade group Shop.org, conducted by Forrester Research, online sales excluding travel are expected to hit $204 billion in 2008, an increase of 17% over last year. The top three categories will be apparel at $26.6 billion, computers at $23.9 billion and autos at $19.3 billion, according to The State of Retailing 2008 Marketing Report.

Online commerce is expected to account for 7% of all retail sales in 2008, and will top $300 billion in five years, the report said. In addition, 53% of online retailers’ marketing budgets are spent on customer acquisition compared to 21% spent on retention.

The top customer acquisition tactic for online retailers is paid search, which accounts for 35% of new customers on average, according to the study.

The second highest source, attracting 18% of the new customers, is Organic Web traffic. Affiliate programs and e-mail were tied for third place, accounting for 7% each, according to the study.

Though paid search is the top acquisition tool, e-mail to house files is the top online marketing tactic as 92% of online retailers said they use it. 79% say Paid search will be an increased priority this year.

Nearly half of online retailers said they send print catalogs and 46% said they plan to make them an increased priority in 2008, the study said.

Online retailers report popular promotional tactics in this order of preference:
85% say they use free shipping with conditions, with it, the study said
82% use percent-off promotions with saying they use it
69% prefer dollar-off promotions
68% like gift with purchase
67% support online-only sales

For more information, please visit direct magazine here.
http://directmag.com/news/online-sales040808/

If you are in the financial services industry it looks like you are now embracing the internet and the use of email marketing and email outreach at a fast pace (see article below). At eROI we have seen more and more inquiries and new accounts from this industry sector. But along with growth and use come understanding and reputation.

It is not that they are in a bad place, BUT there has been so much negative email floating out there around these industries that they need to be both cognizant of the junk as well as aware of what approach they are going to take to use email as a channel of outreach.

What this means is they need to research who might be spoofing their brand, what is floating out there about them, and decide HOW they are going to talk and interact in the email channel. It is something that cannot be entered into lightly. Reputation, setting clear communication policies and plans, as well as TELLING the customer what they are going to send is going to lead to success if the below projected use growth of 17.8% annually is going to be in their favor.

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