Email4Thought

Our UK office has moved!

Our UK office has moved and we're very excited!

Our new home is now in London so please make sure you update your contact details for us.

Address: 16-19 Southampton Place, Holborn, WC1 2AJ, London
Phone: +44 (0) 207 745 7124

View a map of our new location

Event: Do consumers get too much email?

On the 28th of April at 4pm the DMA's Email Marketing Council will be presenting a panel discussion at Internet World entitled 'Do consumers get too much email?'.

Session: 28th April 4pm

Do consumers get too much email?

As the recession bites, marketers are often pressured into sending more email. What will be the impact of this now and in the longer term?

• What is the impact of this on ROI?
• How do you cut through the clutter?
• Is the situation different for B2B?
• Will volumes change again when the economy improves?

Panelists:

Dela Quist, CEO, Alchemy Worx
Denise Cox, Newsletter Specialist, Newsweaver
Kath Pay, Managing Director, Ezemail
Simone Barratt, Managing Director, e-Dialog UK
Tink Taylor, Business Development Director, dotMailer

If you're coming along to Internet World and would like to meet up, drop me a line :)

The importance of a healthy domain

I originally posted this over at www.dmaemailblog.com

One factor which is often overlooked with regards to email deliverability is the health of a sending domain name. The actual 'from' domain plays a very important job when it comes to getting your emails delivered to your subscriber's inbox.

Apart from the (very important) basics, such as the power of brand recognition, there are many unseen factors to do with your domain name, which may be preventing your emails to be delivered as successfully as they could be.

The main things to be aware of are:

1: Authentication
2: Reverse DNS
3: Active sending 'from' address
4: Active Abuse@ and Postmaster@ addresses
5: Whether the domain is blacklisted

Let's take a quick look at each of these influencing factors:

1: Authentication

Authentication is a key factor to good deliverability and is growing steadily in importance and use.  The main types of authentication which need to be done on a domain are SPF, SenderID, Domain keys or DKIM. You can download a whitepaper by Return Path here which explains more about it.

2: Reverse DNS

Reverse DNS (RDNS) is a very basic, yet important factor in the health of a domain. Many ISP's will not deliver a message from a domain which doesn't have a RDNS and there are some blacklists out there that will put you on their list for this as well. You can check your RDNS at www.dnsstuff.com

3: Active sending 'from' address

Don't be fooled into thinking otherwise -the ISP's do check these, so make sure that your sending address is active and monitored. If it isn't, there's a good chance that not only will the emails not be delivered, but that you may get blacklisted.

4: Active Abuse@ and Postmaster@ addresses

Ensure both these addresses are active and monitored. ISP's, system administrators and blacklists all check to see if these are functioning addresses. It is also advisable to register the domain at www.abuse.net.                                                                                       

5: Whether the domain is blacklisted

This a very obvious thing to do, but you'd be surprised how many companies don't have it scheduled to do on a regular basis. A free service which allows you to do this is www.robtex.com.

Opt out/Opt in stats for Twitter

If either you or your company use Twitter then I recommend you check out TweetEffect. This allows you to not only have general stats as to your opt in and opt out numbers, but it also allows you to see which 'tweets' won you followers and which lost you followers.

Of course - this is just the beginning. Just like examining your link stats on your email campaigns, you can use this information to identify what type of tweets your followers like and which ones they don't like, which will assist you in not only reducing your unsubscribes (as such) but also hopefully increase your number of followers.

Currently Twitter is still a 'new' toy as such and everyone loves trying it out, but as with most marketing mediums, the rule of quality over quantity still rules. So, think twice before tweeting  - ask yourself are you adding value to your followers? Because if you're not -then there's plenty of alternatives for your followers to be following.

As a reminder you can follow Ezemail at @ezemail and me at @kathpay

Marketing Sherpa's Email Summit

For all of you who aren't attending Marketing Sherpa's Email Summit in Miami, there's an amazing amount of knowledge being passed through twitter from the sessions, on their hashtag #emailsummit.

You can follow it all here: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23emailsummit

A great authentication analogy

There's a great post on the Digital Body Language blog which compares authentication to immigration control and is a must read for anyone who hasn't as yet got their head around how authentication can help.

Here's the main concept of the post:

In many ways, this parallels the work of the fine folks who patrol our borders. They employ a variety of techniques and technologies to identify individuals who are not welcome to cross the borders, while allowing legitimate visitors into the country with minimal headache.

Let's look through a few of the approaches that are used.

Your Passport: this is key to your identity, and it is one of the main pieces of information used by the border agents to identify you. In the email world, this is best represented by your IP address. Most of today's deliverability systems use your IP address as the basis of your reputation. Don't share it, any more than you would share your Passport.

Retina Scans: There are more advanced ways of identifying who you are, often involving advanced technology, such as retina scans. Adoption varies, and there's usually a bit of setup and registration you would have to do. In the email world, similarly, there are advanced technologies for identifying who you are, such as DKIM and SPF. Certainly worth doing, however not universally adopted yet.

Criminal Record: Having a clean record is definitely a good thing when you interact with the folks at the border. The same holds true in the email world, one of the key things to look at is an email reputation score that provides the closest thing to a "criminal record" of the IP address you are using. If you are using a partner to manage your emails, be sure to have a look at this.

Police Background Checks: the border guards can obtain a lot of information on a potential visitor by doing a police background check. In the email world, you can run scans and tests of your emails in a similar vein to a background check, flagging anything suspicious or problematic. In the real world a criminal record can be tough to erase, but in the email world, if you see something flagged, there's a good chance you can fix it. Use a Return Path or Pivotal Veracity scan to see what gets flagged before a major mailing, and learn from it.

Visa Stamps: These tell the border guards a lot about where you've been and whether you have been accepted or rejected. Similarly, in the email domain, most major ISPs offer Feedback Loops to indicate whether emails have been rejected, and that there was a complaint. You can then better understand the issue and quickly resolve it. If you're not taking advantage of these, you're missing a key source of information.

Read the full post here

B2B: Science or magic? Getting email timing right

This month's issue of B2B Marketing online published the following article:

 Email experts Skip Fidura and Kath Pay of the DMA Email Marketing Council, give their insight into optimum times for email delivery

One issue that confronts all email marketing is the problem of timing. As with so many things in life, timing can be everything; the creative can be exquisite, the contact list immaculate, but if you contact potential customers at a time when they're hurriedly flicking through a heaving inbox, or at a time when procurement is far from being a priority, all hard work will be undone in a crushing instant.

In spite of its importance, timing is not yet an exact science. B2B marketers also suffer a bigger headache than B2C marketers because identifying the right time requires consideration of a far greater number of variables. B2B email marketing demands an understanding of some general timing principles true for all campaigns, as well as an understanding of the factors that are specific to marketing to businesses.

Read the full article

Twitter, B2B and email marketing

I originally posted this on the DMA Email blog and as it has been picked up and retweeted everywhere, I thought that I would also post it here.

Some great ideas for using Twitter and email marketing for B2B

Reading and hearing a lot about Twitter of late and not sure what all the fuss is about? Sure, there are some sceptics out there - but I believe that all the hype about Twitter will settle down at some stage (remember the RSS hype a couple of years ago and how it was supposedly going to replace email?) and find its worthy position within the digital marketing mix in many companies.

However, understandably, many companies are still not sure how they can take advantage of Twitter especially in the B2B realm. To our rescue comes Chad Horenfeldt of Anything Goes Marketing.

Read the full post here

Ps If you are on twitter, then be sure to check out and follow me @kathpay and @ezemail.

Take Return Path's European Email Marketing Survey

If you're an email marketer in Europe, then please take this quick survey to help our friends at Return Path benchmark perceptions among European email marketers.  Your answers will help to develop new products and training that help email marketers improve response and revenues.  The results will be shared with you.

Survey:  http://bit.ly/gby6k

Event: Ready Steady Email

A Joint DMA and IAB half day workshop

This half day workshop is an educational networking event where participants will gain an insight into email marketing and all of its key elements.

    * You will gain all the best and most up-to-date advice on the benefits of email marketing.
    * Learn about strategy, creative, implementation, results and reporting to produce great work.
    * Networking time with speakers and delegates on a one-to-one basis.

The event will include interactive sessions and a competition where participants will consider and develop a brief prepared by leading industry figures who will present prizes for the best work.

After the workshop visit the Technology for Marketing and Advertising exhibition taking place at Earls Court 2.

Who should attend:

    * Ideal for all new staff.
    * Marketing managers planning to introduce email marketing to their marketing mix, or looking to develop a more coherent approach to their email marketing.

Date:     Tuesday 24 February 2009
Time:     8.30am - 2.00pm
Venue:     Earls Court 2, London
Cost:     DMA/IAB members: Standard £45.00 + VAT (£51.75)
             Non members: Standard £60.00 + VAT (£69.00)
CPD:     3.5 hours can be claimed by CIM and IDM members

Read More