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Email Marketing |
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Email Marketing |
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DEVELOPMENT DISTRIBUTION CONTACT
STRATEGY TRACKING ASSET
MAINTENANCE ASSET
MANAGEMENT
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ASSET MANAGEMENT
The management of an email asset centers on
collection of new names, curbing the removals, staying away from
blacklists and making sure that the names are not stolen. Removal
Requests
Remove requests can also be a valuable
source for feedback. If a remove page is set up on a web site, it is
relatively easy to ask why they are removing themselves. To simplify
the process, this might include checkboxes to common responses, with
an open text box for ‘other’.
The reason for removal might include; [ ] The content of these emails are not applicable to my position. [ ] The material does not helpful. [ ] The material is not interesting. [ ] I have changed positions [ ] I am interested, but I get too many of these emails from you. At least half of the people removing
themselves from an email list, do so because they get too many. The
last comment on the checklist above might trigger another web page or
popup that allows the recipient to modify the frequency of their
emails. For example, it might say, “Rather than removing yourself
completely from our email list, would it be better to send you half as
many?” This will
require some technical coordination, but it is better than removing a
person completely from an email list. Blacklists
and SPAM
Blacklists and email filters are very bad things
to be placed on. A blacklist is a public posting of Internet addresses
that are known to send UCE (unsolicited commercial email) or SPAM. The term SPAM came from the 1970’s Monty Python’s Flying
Circus episode where a group of Vikings singing the word SPAM, over
and over. The early Internet user groups would refer to UCE as Spam
because it would come into an email address in the same manner, over
and over again. As a way
to combat SPAM, numerous organization have posted the IP addresses of
known organizations that send out unsolicited emails. All emails
coming in from these IP addresses can be subsequently blocked. A quick note: IP stands for Internet Protocol and
it refers to the numeric equivalent that domain name is converted into
before requests are sent back and forth across the Internet. It is the
true address that the common domain names are assigned to.
For example, www.microsoft.com
really refers to the IP of number of 207.46.197.101. Actually, a
company will buy a large block of these numbers where one domain name
can be sent to which every one is not busy. For Microsoft, the block
of IP numbers that they own is between 207.46.0.0 - 207.46.255.255.
Therefore, if Microsoft is alleged to be spamming, their single
IP, as well as their full IP block, might be placed on a blacklist. The blacklist of IPs are used by major Internet carriers to block (delete) all emails form those addresses. Basically, if the IP of your company or vendor is major blacklist, fewer emails will make it to the recipients. Because the emails are deleted and not bounced back, there is not way to tell that a large part of your emails are not making it through to the recipient. For this reason, it is always a good idea to check the major blacklists for your company’s IP addresses. Equally important, it is a good idea to periodically check the IP addresses of your email vendor, and any third party that they might use to distribute their emails. A sample of Spam organizations with blacklists are: SPEWS at http://www.spews.org/
(they have an IP lookup) CAUCE, The Coalition Against Unsolicited
Commercial Email at http://www.cauce.org/ SPAMHAUS at http://www.spamhaus.org/
(lists ISPs
with Spam Services and domain names of known spammers) SPAMSITES.ORG blacklist at http://www.sengir.demon.co.uk/checklist.txt NJABL.ORG
blacklist lookup at http://www.njabl.org/lookup.html Similar to a blacklist, most large
corporations will use software to filter out (delete) emails that are
determined to be coming from an undesirable addresses or contain
undesirable words. Because they can filter words, they go beyond the
restrictions imposed by a blacklist. ScanMail, by Trend Micro, is one
of the more popular, internationally distributed, email filtering
software packagers. By default, it sends an automated, weekly update
of alleged spammers and non-desirable words. While these are only
suggestions, most companies use the default lists and weekly updates.
As a result, the mail server automatically deletes emails with the
unacceptable words or domain names before the recipient has a chance
to see them. Comparable to a blacklist, once a domain name (i.e.
abc-company.com) is put on an undesirable list, it is extremely
difficult to get it removed to stop the filtering. SPAM Laws
There are numerous grass root efforts to stop Spam, some of which have influenced many State Governments, and the United States Congress, to consider passing laws. According to the website www.spamcon.org , there are 35 States that have laws, or proposals, that regulate unsolicited email (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia). A good summary of the State laws on Spam can be found at http://www.spamlaws.com/state/summary.html . Some laws are Spam specific while others have been extrapolated out of older telemarketing laws. Some awards only apply the "email service provider", which is the company running the mail server. The damages range widely, but are generally between $10 and $100 per each unsolicited email sent. In order to be in violation, there is a common thread of tests: 1.) It has to be sent to an address that
requested to be removed, assuming that the email copy allows for this,
otherwise, this condition is not applicable. 2). You cannot falsify e-mail headers, i.e.
making is look like it came from a different source, and you need to
identify the message's actual point of origin. 3). You need to have a working remove or Opt-out
process. 4). The commercial message must be tagged as
"ADV:" for advertisement, and adult material must be tagged
as “ADLT:”. In addition to the State laws, there are six
countries (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy and Norway) with
SPAM laws on the books. There are two SPAM Bills in the House of
Representatives and one Bill in the Senate. They are known as the
Anti-Spamming Act of 2001 (H.R. 1017), the Anti-Spamming Act of
2001 (H.R. 718) and the "CAN SPAM" Act of 2001 (S. 630).
All of these Bills were pushed off to Committees for review in the
spring of 2001 with no recent changes as of early 2002.
The current status of these laws can be followed at http://www.spamlaws.com/
or http://thomas.loc.gov/. The Federal Trade Commission has become involved
in the fight against SPAM as they receive about 15,000 complaints a
day from consumers. The largest offenders are those sending chain
emails and pyramid scams. In the fall of 2001, the FTC launched a
sting operation that snagged seven spammers. The FTC also advises
recipients of excessive or illegal SPAM to contact their ISP (Internet
service provider) and forward the spam to the FTC at uce@ftc.gov. LATE BREAKING NEWS!!! November 21, 2003, Washington DC - The House of Representatives passed the Senate Bill S877, with Amendments. Dubbed as the CAN-SPAM Bill, its formal title is "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003." A copy of the Senate Bill 877, as amended by the House of Representatives, may be found at http://www.iMarketingStrategy.com/CAN-SPAM-BILL.htm . Related Story: read a summary of the CAN-SPAM Bill at http://www.iMarketingStrategy.com/CAN-SPAM.html. Seed
Lists
At the campaign level, a seed list is a special
group of coded email addresses that are inserted into an distribution
list to make sure that an email, and all of its version, are sent out
at the expected date and time. At the asset level, a seed list
included to make sure that no entity uses the email list for
unauthorized purposes. A seed list is created by adding an email address
that is received by, or forwarded to, a unique email box. At the
campaign level, this would include one email address for each panel
and version. It would also be advantageous to have two seeded email
addresses per panel and version with one at the top of the list and
the other at the end. Double seeding will give an indication of how
long it take for each segment to be delivered. At the very least, one
email address should be inserted in each of the panel versions, even
if it is the same address. Sometimes
it might not be possible to insert seeds at the campaign level because
the email lists are transferred directly from the data warehouse to
the vendor. In this instance, the vendor will usually offer to insert
the seed list into each panel and version before sending the email.
Typically, the same list will be used across all emails. Email seeds should be directed to recipients with
different types of mail clients (i.e. different versions AOL and MS
Outlook). If all the seeds are being to one common email box, and one
person could open them using different email clients on the same
computer. This would also make it easier to record the results from
the incoming seeds. Maintenance of the seed list involves the
assignment of the seed email addresses, verifying the receipt for each
campaign, the date, the time and the format (HTML or plain text) of
the email that was viewed. Validation would also have to be made with
respect to what was intended to be sent and what was actually
received. At the asset level, deep seeding, or permanent
seeds, needs to be created to verify that the list is not being used
by an unauthorized entity. In turn, the seed manager would be
responsible for the security of the asset and be responsible for
monitoring the unexpected receipt of permanent seeds. To do this
efficiently, all email seed addresses (campaign level and asset level)
should be only used for the seed program. Otherwise, it would be
difficult to determine when the unexpected email is daily Spam or
unauthorized use of the email list. New
Email Address Collection
The collection of new email addresses
should be an active part of the asset management program. Without
this, the email asset would slowly dwindle to nothing as the requests
for removes continue to erode it away. As a starting point, it is a
good idea to estimate how many email addresses could be gathered for a
particular type of customer. The is referred to as the email universe.
For example, if the desired customer base is the executive officers of
the Fortune 500 companies, the email universe would be about 5,000.
This estimate assumes an average of 10 executives per company, with
each having an email address. For
foreign markets, a factor might need to be applied for persons not
having email addresses. After estimating the email universe, a
collection plan with goals should be created for the accumulation of
new email addresses. The growth rate should be constantly monitored
and checked against the removes to arrive at a net growth rate. When collecting email addresses, all attempts
should be made to determine if the individuals are capable of viewing
HTML documents. As mentioned earlier, an HTML email can produce a
response rate significantly greater than a corresponding plain text
email. Over the past few years, an increasing number of individuals
actually know if they can see HTML in their emails. Despite this
growing awareness, caution should be taken when asking the question.
For example, it is better to ask “Can you see pictures in your
emails” , rather than, “Can you see HTML”. Email
Syntax
There are numerous ways to collect new email addresses. On of the obvious sources is on the customer order form. If the company has telemarketers, the telephone representatives can collect email addresses, however, they should be trained. Many people are not aware of the proper syntax that is required for all email addresses, confusing it with a web address. The basic format of an email is a series of numbers or letters followed by an @ sign, followed by some more numbers or letters, ending with a dot “something”. Several characters on the keyboard are not recognized in email addresses, if they occur to the right of the @ sign. This includes the following: !
@
#
$ %
^
&
*
_ In addition, blank spaces are not permitted
anywhere in an email address (to the left or right of the @ sign). The dot “something” at the end of an email address will
generally have two or three letters. This is called the Top Level
Domain (TLD) and the most common are: Com for commercial businesses Net for networks (typically businesses) Org for organizations Edu for education facilities Mil for military Gov for government There are 239 two digit TLDs that are used
to signify different countries. For example, .ca is for Canada, .uk is
for the United Kingdom, and .cn is for China. To complicate things more, many foreign countries
will combine a three digit TLD with the two digit country code. Hence,
an email address of brent.dreyer@abc-company.com.uk becomes possible.
Furthermore, recent legislation has been passed to allow a new set of
TLDs, some of which are more than three characters. The new TLDs are
intended for registration by the following groups: For now, however,
90% of most emails will end in a .com, .org, .net, .edu, .gov,
and/or a country. The new TLDs are an exception to the norm, but they
will continue to grow in popularity. Without basic training, telephone representatives
will enter erroneous email addresses that will bounce. Ideally, an
error-checking program would be installed to accept only valid email
syntax. Typographical errors would be reduced if it were required that
the email addresses were entered twice. Creative
Email Collection
Another source of new email addresses is
from order forms, surveys, registration and reservation forms. In an
online format, it is easy to gather this information, including formal
opt-ins to receive marketing information. In paper format, it is more
important that there is physically enough room for the email address
to be entered. Too many times, a form is designed with the email address box
the same length as the phone number box. Invariably, this is too small
and email addresses will be truncated or squeezed illegibly into the
space allotted. If an email address that cannot be read, it is of
little or no use. Trade shows, conferences and seminars can be
another good source for new email addresses. The easiest way to do
this is through the collections of business cards. In fact, there are
inexpensive scanners (i.e. http://www.cardscan.com/)
that are specifically designed for digitizing the information on
business cards and recording it in a database. To this extent, all
corporate participants attending these types of functions should be on
a mission to collect as many business cards as possible. If the
opportunity exits, consider setting up a fishbowl for business cards
with a prize offered from a drawing later in the week. All direct marketing campaigns can be designed to
have a parallel purpose of collecting email addresses. This would
include public relations and press releases. For the collection of new
customer email addresses, the marketing efforts would be extended into
the prospecting campaigns. In either case, a new email address from an
existing customer is just as valuable as an email address from a new
customer. Packaging and package insert promotions (PIPs)
can be used to collect and verify the email addresses of existing
customers. With the appropriate design and copy, both of these
channels can be used to encourage the remittance of am email address.
The message might offer a promotion, or be as simple as “don’t
forget to give us your current email address,” printed on the
outside of the box. Along similar lines, when an order is sent in the
B2B marketplace, it is often shipped to different location then it was
ordered from. This lends another opportunity to collect a new email
address. From a functionality standpoint, having the ‘ship to’
email address would allow them to be notified when a parcel has left
the warehouse. Another method of collection new email addresses
to ask customers to ‘Refer a Friend’. If this technique is used,
it could easily be construed as Unsolicited Commercial Email (Spam) to
contact a customer’s friend, without their prior approval. While the
first communication to might only announce that a friend referred
them, a lot of Spam emails use the same tactic. This ambiguity is
removed if the first contact is actually made by the friend, inviting
them to sign up with their email address. To accomplish this in a
controlled environment, an email can be generated on the website
“from” the customer and “to” the friend. Special web sites, or pages, can be constructed
for the sole purpose of collecting new email addresses. Typically,
this approach will use a survey with the results to be emailed, or a
calculator with the answers to be mailed, or a contest for a
promotion. A commonly used approach offers a subscription to a
newsletter, alert or other ‘valuable’ market information. Market
statistics and industry benchmarks are also popular, but the
information must have some value or the recipients will remove
themselves as quickly as they signed up. Techniques for email addresses collection can get
very creative. To that extent, it would not be too difficult to
capture the sender’s email address on all emails coming into a
company. The utility of these addresses would depend upon the size and
type of business, but it could generate thousands of email addresses,
quickly. A less intrusive means would be an auto-responses to every
email coming into a company, announcing a new service, or offer a
promotion item in exchange for an email address. To test the
receptiveness of such a program, it could be limited to one department
(i.e. sales). If effective, the message in the auto-responses could be
programmed to change on a regular basis.
An even softer approach would be to automatically attach a
one-line offer, below the signature line, on all corporate email. Next Section - EXECUTIVE UPDATES
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Copyright 2003 - Brent J. Dreyer, at bdreyer@iMarketingStrategy.com |