• The Email Experience Council (EEC) published a report (covered in Direct and ClickZ) which showed that a significant percentage of retail marketers are seriously lacking in fundamentals when it comes to e-mail. For example, almost a quarter of them send e-mails that are completely unintelligible when images are blocked and less than half used what the EEC deemed to be a “good” mix of HTML and e-mail. Existing workarounds, such as the use of HTML text and images, are not sufficiently used in e-mail design.
  
  
• According to a related survey from Silverpop (also covered in Direct) a significant portion of retail marketers are also failing to engage new registrants properly -  35% of the top 500 retailers failed to send any e-mail to new registrants within 30 days of signing up and nearly three quarters of them offered no alternative to customers wishing to unsubscribe, such as a choice of other subscription topics or a change in frequency.
  
  
• Similarly, according to a Return Path study (Direct, once again) 60% of marketers failed to send “welcome” e-mails to new registrants and a third failed to send any e-mail to new registrants within 30 days of signup. And, while 70% of companies asked for more than an e-mail address at sign-up, three quarters of them damage their brands by failing to use this information to personalize or customize their e-mail messaging.

• Another (slightly older) EEC survey (DM News) proves that most retailers fail to take advantage of the opportunities presented when someone unsubscribes from their e-mail marketing program. Only 66% use the e-mail opt-out process to engage subscribers in other options - 27% offered them an opportunity to change their topic and/or newsletter preferences and 23% allowed them to change their e-mail addresses, but only 16% gave them the opportunity to receive less e-mail and only 17% solicited feedback. Additionally, only 9% employ a one-click unsubscribe process, while another 35% are set up to but don't.
  
  
• Finally, the interesting results of an eROI survey (covered in MediaPost) include, among others, the findings  that only 30% of e-mail marketers use confirmed double opt-in as the standard for e-mail list management. Also, in the Thank You Page after the opt-in, only 29% reiterate the benefits of subscribing, 11% define the email frequency, 11% offer a promotion or coupon, 20% display white list instructions and 8% offer additional subscription options.

• Top Five E-mail Marketing Best Practices - The article outlines 5 best practices and tips on how to implement them including: make registration easy, create an effective promotional strategy, be actionable, offer opt-out alternatives, and be timely.
  
  
• What's New in E-mail Best Practices - As e-mail use changes in our lives and changes how way we work, so do best practices. This fluidity can make it a challenge to determine what best practices are really still the best and where to turn for accurate and up-to-date information. To help keep up with the trends and changes in strategies, this article points out some "best practices gone bad" in e-mail.
  
  
• Maintain Your Good Name - Getting permission is not enough! Your company's reputation as an e-mail marketer is "the main gauge Internet service providers and anti-spam firms use to determine whether to deliver e-mail messages, block them, or shunt them off into subscribers' spam folders."  The article goes on to detail the three main issues upon which your e-mail reputation rests and suggestions for how to maintain  them in proper form (spam-complaint rate, bad-address rate and the number of spam traps a mailer hits.)
  
  
• Make Sure Your Email Newsletter is Working - To determine whether you're using the best type of newsletter for your audience, you need to make sure you do three things. First, make sure your newsletter provides value in and of itself. Second, make sure your newsletter has enough of you via persona to make that relationship worth keeping. Third, make sure you provide value to people who want a relationship with you and they will be engaged at the psycho-cognitive and psycho-emotive levels.
  
  
• Using Customer Data to Create Relevant E-mail - E-mail is the best channel for sending the right offer to the right person at the right time but it won’t work for you if you blast irrelevant messages. Your e-mails will stand out from the rest if you address the recipient's interests in a timely way that provides value. The bottom line is that you have to tailor your messages for specific segments.
  
  
• Differentiate Your Brand with Goodwill Messaging - Goodwill messaging is the idea of using e-mail to build and sustain long-term relationships with customers, and not merely as a one-way stream of promotional messages. Where too much unwelcome e-mail begins to feel like late-night shopping channels, goodwill messaging is the throwback to the country store. Customers appreciate goodwill messages - the increased interactivity often translates into higher open rates, increased brand loyalty, and yes, even more revenue.
  
  
• Email Analytics Reveal Sweet Spots In Subject-Line Length - open rates climb when the subject lines are in the 50-character range or 80-character range. But, perhaps counterintuitively, they fall in the middle when the length is 60 or 70. The longer the subject line, the better chance a marketer has of presenting different concepts that may appeal to different consumers and boosting open rates. A more descriptive subject line can also build goodwill with consumers, since it can provide enough info to easily turn them on or off.
  

Finally, a MarketingSherpa study about design elements you can use to cut through the inbox clutter, including:

• Subject lines - Some have found that shorter subject lines get better open rates, while some say longer subject lines perform better in terms of open and click rates. Conclusion: use shorter lines if you're promoting a specific call to action and longer ones if you're focusing on relationship building and content.
  
• Different types of email systems - Service providers frequently change their display, content and filtering rules so regularly pre-test your campaigns in all major ISPs in order to lift deliverability & boost sales.
  
• Preview panes - 80% of at-work users and 70% of consumers use a preview pane so make sure your email is designed for that small frame. For example, put your most important content on top and stack the rest. 
• Old-school design elements - for example, using table-cells, which aren't stripped of color or text by ISPs, even if the email's recipient has images turned off, has helped one eretailer boost revenues by 380%!
• Right-side and top-of email hotlinks - Readers click more on right-side and top-of-creative links so add extra (4-5) hotlinks at the very top, even above the “please whitelist us” link. Hotlinks in the middle of a paragraph may be missed so move them to the edge of they copy.
  

Posted by Universal Ad