Email Marketing on the Rise

I read an article this evening that was interesting, but not too surprising. It was a survey conducted by Direct Mag. They indicate that 72% of marketing firms are using email to communicate marketing messages. In addition, 55% are planning on investing more in that channel this next year.

I've heard some marketers in my space playing down the effectiveness of email over the past years. However, that just might be an indication of how they're using the channel that is hurting their performance. In today's email space, you have to deliver relavant content. The days of bulk drops with trick subject lines and image only creatives are past. If you're going to play in this space, you have to step up your game. With reputations closely monitored by the major ISP's, you'd be surprised at how quicky you can get blacklisted... but if you do it's likely because of poor practices.

I've found that over 75% of my lead generation is done in conjunction with telemarketing. You can seriously increase your campaign effectiveness and get a lift across the board by using an outbound effort along with your campaigns. With the new Do Not Call regulations adopted in the past few years, many marketers are hesitant to utilize this channel in the B2C space. As long as you ensure compliance with FTC-Telemarketing Sales Rule TSR standards, which requires an established business relationship, you shouldn't have any issues.

In a coming post, I'm going to give some thoughts on a project I'm testing with a client. The campaign will engage prospects with immediate phone follow-up after high-value content is viewed online. This should provide some really interesting insights for those interested in testing this type of technology. More to come...

You can read more about the direct study here...

Unsubscribe me!

It's every marketers nightmare... Your loyal following wants off your list and they want off now! As a responsible email sender, you have to make sure you're following the proper process and procedures with your list. Otherwise you risk regulatory and reputation abuse complaints. If you want to avoid being labeled a spammer or getting blocked by ISP's and other entities, It's imperative that you follow the guidelines outlined in the Federal CAN-SPAM act.



There are many different ways to handle your unsubscribes. When a customer or prospect requests removal, the most important thing is your compliance with their request. However, as a marketer, you should always want to know why they wanted off the list. Is there a certain type of messaging, that's really bugging them. I'm sure you've never sent the same boring content, over and over and completely bored your list into submission. In the new permission based world we're operating in, your prospects and customers want choices. Remember, at one point they opted-in to your list. There's a reason they want off now...

Keys to a Successful Unsub Process

1. Make it easy to understand, don't trick them into staying.

A colleague showed me an e-newsletter yesterday that required you to log in with your user name and password to change your permissions. Assuming you can remember your log in credentials, that's a serious pain in the ass. You've already pissed them off to the point they want off your list. Now your going to throw up some roadblocks to their success. Nice one... Keep it simple, they'll love you for it or at least not "unsubscribe from all" and maybe one day they'll possibly come back again. It's the whole, if you love them...set them free deal.

2. Give them options.

Allow your users to choose which messaging they'd like to receive from you. It's a new practice, most email service providers aren't providing this level of subscription management out of the box. You might have to craft this yourself using a check box form page. When you begin this process, categorize your messaging into different buckets. Newsletters, Core Product Offers, Affiliate Offers, Account Updates and All of the above. You'll of course need to soften the wording so it's friendly to your customers, but you get the idea.

3. Make sure your Unsubs stay off.

This is a big one, sometimes easier said than done. You have to have a bullet proof system for removal and delivery prevention. The good news is that the technology is getting better and easier to administer. It's never a good practice to delete records from your database. You'll likely need that information one day, even though you won't be purposely emailing them anytime soon. Keep your records, but make sure your process is tested and compliant. This is critical for CAN-SPAM compliance, once they've unsubscribed, you have to prevent any mail from being delivered to that email address within 10 days.

4. Provide adequate footer information.

When was the last time you received a spam message with footer information? Cialis tabs, Viagra, porn site? Did the footer contain anything? It's unlikely. They make it a habit of not putting footer information in. It's technically against the law.

What type of info should you include in your footer, what's required by law? You have to include your entity name and valid mailing address and unsubscribe link for removal. In addition, I like to include what I call a list value proposition. Give them a reason to stay on board by telling them what they'll miss out on by removing. It's your last chance to convince them to stay. Keep it brief, but persuasive.

The best defense to keeping your list subscribed, is valuable relevant and timely content. If you can keep your list interested and your not jamming their box with crap, they'll likely stay engaged for years. Or at least until they get a new email account.

FTC Ban on Pre-Recorded Messages

The direct marketing world received a bomb-shell when the FTC made sweeping changes to the Telemarketing Sales Rule and drafted new policy on the use of Pre-Recorded messages earlier last month.

What surprised me the most was how the media latched onto this story and it was on every major news network for days. I personally never received many Pre-Recorded messages aside from the occasional one in Spanish. I guess someone has me flagged as being bi-lingual... I'm not. They need to do some list cleanup. The majority of the PRM's I did receive were on consumer surveys for Sprint, political messages and other transactional type messaging. However, these were few and far between. I don't ever remember receiving a Non-EBR (established business relationship) PRM Spam message on my phone.

This hits me particularly hard in how I market and interact with our customers. This is by far the cheapest marketing channel with the largest response of any other channel I'm using. In 2007, over 30% of my lead generation was produced from audio broadcasting to our house files. We could produce upwards of $100,000 in revenue in one week from these campaigns...

You could argue that email is cheaper to communicate, but the Audio Broadcasts can get up to a 3+% response rate. If you consider on email or direct mail, around 1% response is considered respectable depending on your strategy and list quality.

The Lawyers

There was clearly alot of confusion surrounding the use of the pre-recorded messages for at least one year. Our own Marketing Prevention Team otherwise known as legal suggested up to a year ago that using this channel was "illegal". Well, we now know it clearly was not... and technically still won't be as long as it's used properly.

I'll always wonder if my friend in legal was the one to call the FTC to inquire whether it was ok for our company to send these messages out... It's too coincidental that the first person to notify me of this ruling was him :)

What this means

There is no question, within a few months... this marketing channel will be considered less effective and more costly. I'm not worried, there are too many other opportunities. We need to shift focus, get ahead of the curve and figure out how to effectively market via SMS or other channels and push that lever until it breaks :)

The New TSR Amendments (courtesy of ftc.gov)

Specifically, the TSR amendments adopted by the Commission and announced today:

• Expressly prohibit telemarketing sales calls that deliver prerecorded messages, whether answered in person by a consumer or by an answering machine or voicemail service, unless the seller has previously obtained the recipient's signed, written agreement to receive such calls;
  
• Permit sellers to obtain the required permission for prerecorded message sales calls from a consumer in any manner permitted by the Electronic Signatures In Global and National Commerce Act (E-SIGN Act);
  
• Exempt healthcare-related prerecorded message calls that are subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) from the prohibition on telemarketing calls that deliver prerecorded messages;
  
• Exempt from the written agreement requirement all charitable solicitation calls placed by for-profit telemarketers (telefunders) that deliver prerecorded messages on behalf of non-profits to members of, or previous donors to, the nonprofit, but require that such calls include a prompt keypress or voice-activated opt-out mechanism;
  
• Require that, by December 1, 2008, sellers and telemarketers provide, at the outset of all prerecorded messages, an automated keypress or voice-activated interactive opt-out mechanism so that consumers can opt out as easily as they can from a live telemarketing call;
  
• End the FTC's current policy of forbearing from bringing enforcement actions against sellers and telemarketers who place prerecorded calls that meet certain specified conditions that would be inconsistent with the new requirements; but
  
• Permit sellers, as under the forbearance policy, to continue for one year after the rule's publication to place calls delivering prerecorded messages to consumers with whom they have an established business relationship, after which no prerecorded message calls can be made to consumers without their express permission.

The one decent thing out of this entire ordeal is the fact that the FTC is granting a grace period so we can adjust our strategies. We have an established business relationship with our customers, so we'll have one year from the time of the ruling 08/08-08/09 to adjust and put all new measures in place.

Adjustments I'll make in the coming months:

• Ensure we implement the opt-out mechanism in all messages, we already include that at the end. It appears we have to move it toward the beginning of the message. Compliance required by 12/1/08
  
• Develop an opt-in strategy that we can implement on the front-end and with our offers and lead generation partners. It has to be a clear optin, can't be embedded in the privacy policy.
  
• Craft message copy so we don't raise customer concerns / complaints in the next 10 months while these changes take effect.
  
• Increase our usage of transactional messages. We can use these messages to increase teleconference and webinar attendance, deliver account updates and other transactional messaging.

It's been a great ride... There were definite opportunities to improve and make Pre-Recorded messages even more effective, however I'll have to focus my attention on email and live events which are producing at an incredible rate.

The Encore Effect

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to help with another book launch via email. Mark Sanborn, who wrote "The Fred Factor" published a new book on 9/2 called "The Encore Effect. I had the chance to help develop the email offer in conjunction with my collegue and fellow gentleman Douglas.

I was introduced a few years ago to Marks earlier book The Fred Factor by a collegue (Kelly) who gave me a copy to checkout.

During this book campaign, I had the chance to tell Mark about my friend who introduced me to his first book. After inquring about the experience, Mark called Kelly to thank him for supporting his projects. It turns out, Mark sent Kelly an autographed copy of the book.

It's always nice to make connections that end up benefiting those that you build relationships with. I'm a networking junkie...

In appreciation for how great this guy is... checkout his new book The Encore Effect

Marketing Musings

Why I love Breakfast

I had breakfast this morning with a friend and trusted collegue. We were talkin' shop, you know the typical stuff... Lead Generation, Conversion, Nurturing. These topics might be boring to some... but those words are like porn to a marketer...

Anyway... As we were discussing what I've been working on, he said "you should start a marketing blog" and talk about all the tricks of the trade. Ok, my first thought was... I can't give away all my dirty little secrets. I've got a few tricks up my sleeve after all these years, so I guess I can share a few things. It'll help me get some street cred (that's what ballers call credibility). As I publish more and more of this content, it will allow me to grow additional opportunities and demonstrate my expertise in this area. That's how this whole blog thing started for me.

What do I know anyway?

Well, for one thing... I've been working for years to build relationships with a database of 3 million users, all represented by different brands. It's like a candy store for marketers because I'm dealing in so many mediums. I've been running email, direct mail, audio broadcasts and call center campaigns for about a dozen different brands. You might think I have a large team of marketers, designers and copywriters... Wrong. Our leads produced 20% of company revenue last year we still have trouble adding an additional head count. That's a whole other story...

As my network has grown, I find alot of business owners and marketing people that don't even realize that they're looking for help in this area. They might be producing hundreds or even thousands of leads each week. What's the follow up strategy? How are you nurturing these leads? You mean to tell me that you're leaving that up to your sales people?

Consulting

The opportunity in this space has spawned a marketing consultancy that I started earlier this year called Urban Response. I haven't bothered to build a site for that company, I've been focused entirely on building a website for my other company. More to come on that one.

It's been a lot of fun, it's allowed me to expand from the consumer worlds into the B2B space and expand my horizons. I need to have my hands in lots of things, otherwise I get bored easily and I can't grow. I'm now working on drip campaigns and programs for a few exciting companies experiencing massive growth.

Why I hate red tape

It's made me realize how much I love working in the small company world. I'm able to actually get things done without "re-prioritzing my quarterly goals", getting executive commitee buy-in or developing proposals that aren't considered because the commander in chief didn't think of the idea or it's out of focus. How can you grow unless you try new things?

Fun Quote

I found this quote earlier in the week... It goes nicely with this post...

"Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown.“
--George Shinn - Owner Charlotte Hornets