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Take the UK Client Email Marketing Survey

I'm sure you'll agree that email marketing is one of the most effective and efficient channels, well worth promoting and developing.

So, if you're a UK marketer, then you can help us support the UK DMA with its important research initiatives and receive a free copy of the final report.

The National Client Email Marketing Survey is an initiative undertaken by the DMA Email Marketing Council.  The client survey seeks answers to a mixture of response rate data and attitudinal questions, the outcomes of which compliment the National Email Benchmarking Report produced on a quarterly basis.  

Participating in this survey will help make the 2009 Annual National Client Email Marketing Report one of the most up to date resources for email marketing research.

Want a copy?  Then, please help us by completing the survey.

Survey guidelines:

• Ensure you insert your email address in the first box so you can receive a free copy of the final report
• Where a % is asked for, please enter numeric values only.
• If you do not know the answer, please leave blank.
• You are able to go in and out of the survey as many times as you like by pressing save, then when you are completely finished press the submit button

Take the UK Client Email Marketing Survey now

Study Finds US Marketers Risk Unsubscribe Woes

One out of five US email marketers send additional emails to subscribers after confirming an unsubscribe request, according to the new study Keeping the Subscriber Experience Positive After “Unsubscribe Me”  from Return Path.  On the surface, one of the most essential and basic requirements of all countries’ legislations, appears to be ignored by some very well known brands.

Furthermore the study found that  11% of the companies studied emailed subscribers more than 10 days after confirming an unsubscribe request - a violation of the US federal CAN-SPAM Act. 

Scary information - it appears as though these brands  are not giving the unsubscribe process the necessary attention it needs.

I think that there’s a lesson to be learn for all marketers – test your unsubscribe process today. Test, not just the unsubscribe link – but all offline and manual methods as well. Remember, by testing and ensuring those who unsubscribe can do so – easily - means that you are also minimising the risk of complaints, which will hurt your deliverability.

Seriously, I'm not addicted...well...maybe...

AOL's fourth annual email addiction survey results are in. It's USA based, however, it reveals some very interesting results, including 69% of users read their emails in bed, 25% on a date and 15% in church. Some other results are:

• 69% have multiple email accounts, which has increased by 17% from last year
• 46% of particpants admit to being addicted to email - up by 15% from last year
• 51% check their email four times a day and 1 in 10 check it more than ten times per day
• 62% check their work emails during the weekend
• 23% check their email as soon as they wake up
• 11% check their email as soon as they get home

Mobile Email has some very interesting results - showing some serious addiction:

• 16% check their email from a mobile device
• 55% upgraded their phones last year so they could check their email whilst mobile
• 41% of mobile users sleep with their mobiles near them so they know when a new email comes in
• 78% of mobile users check their emails whilst on holidays

Email etiquette is also addressed and apparently there are issues with signoffs and spelling.

• 68% said that emails containing spelling and punctuation errors annoyed them
• 74% said they excuse errors when emails are sent from a mobile device
• The majority of signoffs are 'thanks' (44%) and 12% use 'sincerely'
• 'Cheers' irritated 13% of users and 'xoxo' 25%.

You can read the full results here: http://www.CrazyForEmail.com Originally Posted: DMA Email Blog

Labels: email report, mobile email

Sneak Preview: Subject Lines - Length Does Matter

Alchemy Worx are about to release their new whitepaper on Subject Lines, in this week's Infobox, and it has some very interesting (and possibly quite controversial) findings. The study was conducted on 646 subject lines across 205 million messages earlier this year. By repeating the strategy behind MailerMailer's Email Marketing Metric Report (2008), they were able to achieve the same findings as MailerMailer, however, when analysing the subject lines in more detail, the results became very different. Some of the findings in this report are:

• Shorter subject lines optimise open rates
• Longer subject lines tend to optimise click and click-to open rates.

They also analysed not just the number of characters, but also the relationship between the number of words within a subject line and its open and click rates and found there to be similiar results. The report also then goes onto look at why this would be so and discusses what I think to be the most interesting finding in this study - that the longer the subject/the more words which are used, result in the 'right' type of people opening the email i.e the subscriber is given enough information to be able to determine whether the email is relevant to them and hence is more likely to take action and click through. For a sneak preview of the whitepaper, before its release later this week, you can download it here: http://www.alchemyworx.com/subjectlines-lengthiseverything.php Originally Posted: Be Relevant

Labels: subject Lines

Q3 2007 Email Marketing Benchmark Report

The latest national Email Marketing Benchmarking Report from the DMA reveals an improvement in delivery rates, suggesting a better understanding among ESPs of the issues surrounding deliverability. Delivery rates for the third quarter of 2007 (July – September) stood at 84% for acquisition and 88% for retention. The increased focus on deliverability is supported in the report with the majority of ESPs citing deliverability issues as their most important concern. “It’s very encouraging to see that issues surrounding deliverability are being addressed. However, there is still room for improvement,” says Richard Gibson, Chair of the DMA Email Marketing Council’s Benchmarking Hub. According to the report, the proportion of ESPs reporting that their clients are not segmenting their campaigns at all has decreased significantly since the beginning of 2007, with only 15% now reporting single segment campaigns compared to 50% in Q1 2007. This has had a positive effect on response rates with open rates at nearly 20% and 30% for acquisition and retention respectively and unique clicks up to 9% for acquisition and 11% for retention. However, opt-out rates have risen sharply this quarter, particularly for acquisition which is up one percentage point on the last quarter. This could be attributed to a number of factors including differences in strategies and the relevance of the data that was used. For more information please visit www.dma.org.uk

Labels: Benchmark Reports