Last week I did an experiment. I tried to opt-in to receive e-mails from 246 different brands in the apparel and accessories market sector. All of the brands were large brands listed in the Brandweek Directory. Here are the results:

Out of the 246 brands attempted, I was able to sign up for unique e-mails from 71 brands. Some of this was due to that fact that multiple brands listed in Brandweek Directory all resolved to the same parent company's URL and in many cases they only had one e-mail sign-up for the entire line of products. The majority however simply did not offer an e-mail newsletter sign-up on their site.

Out of the 71 brands that did offer an e-mail sign-up, after seven days I've only received e-mails from 22 brands. Out of those, only two brands offered a double opt-in.

So, to summarize: less than 30 percent of all brands in this category offered any type of e-mail sign-up. Less than 30 percent of all who offered e-mail actually responded with a welcome letter on signing up. Less than 10 percent of those who sent a welcome letter provided a double opt-in. Or to put it another way: only 10 percent of all the brands examined provided an e-mail list with a welcome letter attached to sign-up. Less than 1 percent of all brands provided a double opt-in e-mail program.

Why do so many companies make such a lousy first impression when it comes to their e-mail strategy? Posted by: DTB at 9:52 PM  |  Permalink

DM News reports that more and more direct mail list managers are dabbling with online lead generation, particularly in email marketing. List brokers and others in the industry have been wary of the new medium, as its has been somewhat cannibalistic for direct revenues, and the campaigns have typically generated effective CPMs far lower than those to which mail list managers have been accustomed.

DM'ers Warily Test Email Marketing Waters Posted by: DTB at 9:29 PM  |  Permalink

54% of e-mail marketers don't know if their message is being delivered

Although e-mail marketers say their biggest challenge is getting their messages delivered into consumers' inboxes, more than half, or 54%, say they don't use e-mail delivery auditing tools to proactively improve results, JupiterResearch says in a recent report.

The report, "Delivery Auditing Tools: Tactics to Improve E-mail Delivery", says that many marketers rely on post-campaign methods to identify delivery problems, a strategy that does little to proactively determine the likely delivery success of campaigns.

It adds that the rate of non-use of delivery auditing tools rises to 65% among marketers who conduct their campaigns in-house instead of through an outside e-mail services provider.

Most Email Marketers Fail to Maximize Email Delivery Posted by: DTB at 9:28 PM  |  Permalink

Like many of you, I did much of my holiday shopping online this season. Though traditional retailers' sales saw modest gains offline, many reported healthy online gains. A Shop.org/BizRate.com 2004 study on consumers' online holiday mood found 91 percent of merchants saw online growth this holiday season. Seventeen percent experienced sales more than twice as high as a year ago. There are many reasons for the continued rise in online sales. E-mail is among the most powerful and interesting.

A 2003 Shop.org study found e-mail was retailers' number one online marketing tactic. Reviewing the messaging I received from some of my favorite brands was enlightening. In general, messaging accelerated from October through December and continued post-holiday with clearance sales. On average, most national retailers sent two messages per week.

Back to E-Mail Basics Posted by: DTB at 9:21 PM  |  Permalink

If you have one or more retail stores and you don't use e-mail to increase store traffic, you may be missing a huge opportunity. According to the USC Annenberg's 'Surveying the Digital Future: Year Four,' 75 percent of Internet purchasers say they shop online, then buy in retail stores.

Think about that.

Three of every four consumers go online, search for products or services, then visit a retail store to actually buy it. Instead of ordering quickly and easily online, they spend time and money to travel to a store and endure checkout lines. At first glance, this seems puzzling in an era when people are buying online in record numbers.
If you think about it, there are many reasons why consumers would research online, then purchase offline:
They need the item today, not tomorrow.

They want to feel the product before buying it.
They want the item gift-wrapped, which not all online merchants do.
They're buying other items in the same store or at the same mall, making it convenient to pick up what they found online.
They're not sure of the size and want to try it on.
It's impractical to buy the product online.

What you don't want is for the user to research a product on your site, then buy it at a competitor's offline store. Make sure someone researching a product online comes to your place of business, not theirs. How can you encourage online-to-store traffic?

Use E-Mail to Boost Offline Retail Sales Posted by: DTB at 9:20 PM  |  Permalink

Part one of this series looks at the new technologies that help with e-mail deliverability, SPF (define) in particular. Another emerging technology is Sender ID. As with SPF, Rick Buck, director of e-media and privacy/ISP relations at e-Dialog, helped me understand Sender ID and how it differs from SPF.

Here's the scoop, in plain English.

An E-Mail Marketer's Guide to Deliverability, Part 2: Sender ID Posted by: DTB at 9:18 PM  |  Permalink

I admit it. Not too long ago, I understood the concept behind SPF (define), Sender ID, and DomainKeys, as well as the importance of them. But the subtleties of each eluded me. That was before Rick Buck, director of e-media and privacy/ISP relations at e-Dialog, was kind enough to translate the tech-speak surrounding these terms into plain English even a marketer could understand.

SPF, Sender ID, and DomainKeys are relatively new technologies on the cutting edge of the fight against spam and false positives. False positives, basically legitimate e-mail messages mistaken for spam, are one of the biggest issues facing e-mail marketers.

An E-Mail Marketer's Guide to Deliverability, Part 1: SPF Posted by: DTB at 9:18 PM  |  Permalink

Ensuring permission-based e-mail is delivered to recipients' inboxes requires an equal amount of effort on marketing and technical fronts. Last month's column looked at ways marketers can bolster delivery. This month, we focus more on the technology behind e-mail sending and ways to ensure your e-mail delivery doesn't resemble a spam attack.

Following, 10 tactics to help increase the likelihood your e-mail messages will be accepted by the receiving ISP and avoid future deliverability problems.

How Geeks Can Increase E-Mail Delivery Posted by: DTB at 9:17 PM  |  Permalink

E-mail marketing success includes ensuring your e-mail messages are delivered and have a shot at being opened. This requires competencies in marketing strategy, creative, technology, and more. This column looks at delivery improvement tactics easily implemented by marketers and other right-brain personalities.
Delivery issues include messages the recipient confuses with spam, simply misses, or doesn't recognize, along with filtering, blocking, and bulk-folder challenges.

Here are 13 tactics and approaches that increase the likelihood your recipients will get, and consider opening, your e-mail messages.

How Nongeeks Can Increase E-Mail Delivery Posted by: DTB at 9:16 PM  |  Permalink

Traditional proofreading techniques help you spot typos in e-mail. Spam content checkers also help. But e-mail is a different medium and requires more extensive quality assurance than print, just as publishing a Web site does. In response to my recent proofreading column, David Baker, VP of e-mail and analytical solutions at AGENCY.COM wrote the following:
Most companies wouldn't publish a new Web site without extensively testing it in different versions of browsers and operating systems. So why would they send an e-mail out to hundreds of thousands of people and not even know how they view it?

I couldn't agree more. As Baker points out, e-mail quality assurance has several aspects:

Functional: Is the e-mail constructed properly? Do images render? Are links correct, and landing pages rendered and directed? Is it coded properly?

Reception: Does it render properly in all tested e-mail environments? How does it look with image blocking? Does it represent a good mix of text and images in the preview pane?

Compliance: Does the e-mail contain all CAN-SPAM elements and any other required functions (opt-out page, brand standards, corporate links/language)?

Most marketers spend a lot of time in the creation and design phases, according to Baker, but then send badly coded e-mail that doesn't function properly and renders poorly when ISPs block images.

Proofreading Isn't Enough: The E-Mail QA Lab Posted by: DTB at 9:15 PM  |  Permalink

Prufread Those E-Mail Messages!

Don't worry. I'm not going to name any names or embarrass anyone. But I've noticed an amazing amount of typos in the business-to-business (B2B) e-mail messages in my inbox lately. Sometimes they're right in the subject line (as with this column's title)!

You'd never let a print ad appear with a typo in the headline. Yet an e-mail subject line is more likely to be read by prospects, who scan their inboxes as a part of their daily work, than is a print ad buried deep in a business magazine they may never get around to reading.

And if prospects read your e-mail, what opinion will they have of you or your message if it has glaring typos? Don't forget, e-mail is often forwarded and printed out for future reference or to be passed along to colleagues. Consequences of those mistakes may linger longer, and be more far-reaching, than anticipated.

Prufread Those E-Mail Messages! Posted by: DTB at 9:14 PM  |  Permalink