A Five-Phase Approach to Email Marketing

By Albert Gadbut  |  More by this Author

The president and CEO of AcquireWeb, Inc. outlines how to apply best practices from permission marketing, brand management and direct marketing to email.

One of the biggest challenges associated with email marketing programs is establishing meaningful contact with customer targets in order to increase sales, while protecting and enhancing your brand.

Successful email marketing designed to drive sales and build brands requires adopting a methodology that includes more precise prospect targeting, better permission-based models, a better overall consumer experience and better quality lists.

More precise prospect targeting
Better targeting translates directly into better response rates. Accurate customer profiling, which looks at demographic information related to consumers, business industry type and company size, is needed to define the target market. Knowing more about the target company or individual leads to messages with a high degree of relevance and therefore, impact: the higher the relevance, the better chance that the intended message will break through the clutter.

Better permission-based models
Any customer or potential customer will be more apt to read an email from a trusted source. In building a permission-based email list, it is sometimes better to go beyond simple opt-in/opt-out where the customer gives the OK just once and use confirmed or double opt-in. While some marketers may see this as an unnecessarily high goal, double opt-in/opt-out reinforces the relationship with the customer, serving as a reminder that they have granted their permission, and improves the likelihood that the emails will be opened.

A better overall consumer experience
Marketers need to also keep in mind that simply inundating their customers with too many irrelevant messages will deteriorate customer relationships and counter any long-term loyalty goals. The emphasis needs to be on the quality of the experience. Relevance, personalization and segmentation all add to the overall user experience.

Better quality lists
And finally, list selection can make or break the success of any campaign. However, few list owners and managers understand how to best develop such lists. It is important to find a source that can provide accurate data. A highly targeted, accurate, permission-based list is a valuable asset– the more accurate the information, the better delivery of your messages.

Furthermore, a successful email marketing program should encompass a multi-phased approach that provides an unprecedented ability to reach a targeted group of prospects by combining data compilation, sourcing and analysis to produce real results.

The phases of this type of program include:

Phase I: Identify your target audience
Identify your target audience by using sophisticated technology and an extensive database to provide the most accurate customer profile. Then, based on this program, select your best prospects from a pool of permission-based individual contact records to find prospect matches for your profile. From this prospect universe, further hone your customer target list based on your particular preferences, such as campaign size, budget, geographic region or additional campaign requirements.

Phase II: Establish contact with your audience
Based on scientifically proven permission letters, establish contact with your audience by generating a permission letter and sending it to your predetermined target list, inquiring whether they would like to receive information and/or promotional offers from you. This tactic establishes a second level of permission based on responses received.

Message deliverability is confirmed by successful permission letter delivery, further insuring the success of your program. You may also establish links and tracking mechanisms on a multi-channel basis. As well, controlling your own creative assures consistent messaging and seamless integration with other multi-channel messages.

Phase III: Campaign in progress
Once you’ve sent out your branded messages to the target audience, test the creative based on geo-demographics and other target preferences, and package your message differently to subsets of your prospect audience. A reliable scientific approach is A/B split testing. Also, expanded creative options allow you to link to websites and provide offline methods of contact, and incorporate motion and sound for added appeal.

Frequency is your key to success. Studies show that by being in front of your target audience frequently, you are able to educate them while they are researching their purchases. Most importantly, you need to be there in front of them and trigger a response when they are actually in the market to buy.

Phase IV: Ongoing analysis
Throughout your campaign perform open, click and conversion sales analysis. Then, within your campaign, after enough responses are generated to do so, build and utilize a predictive model to refine your audience even further.

Phase V: Review program success and ROI
Finally, review the program success and ROI based on a post-campaign analysis with the data generated and/or an extensive match-back analysis. The reliability of this approach enables you to confidently expand your program.

And lastly, a key factor in delivering a successful email marketing program that builds brands and drives sales is selecting one that provides an affordable platform for marketers to test their campaigns in a controlled environment, making it possible to lower their risk and make any necessary adjustments to optimize their results.

Albert Gadbut is the founder of AcquireWeb, Inc., an innovator of email marketing solutions, and Acquire Marketing Services, a division of AcquireWeb. Read full bio.

Why E-Mails Bounce

In computer jargon, a bounced e-mail is one that never arrives in the recipient’s inbox and is sent back, or bounced back, to the sender with an error message that indicates to the sender that the e-mail was never successfully transmitted. But what happens when someone sends an e-mail out into cyberspace, and why do e-mails sometimes bounce back?When a user attempts to send an e-mail, he is telling his e-mail system to look for the domain of the recipient (for example, webopedia.com) and the domain’s mail server. Once the e-mail system makes contact with the recipient’s mail server, the mail server looks at the message to determine if it will let the message pass through the server. If the recipient’s server has predetermined that it is not accepting e-mails from the sender’s address (for example, if it has blocked the address for anti-spamming purposes), the server will reject the message and it will subsequently bounce back to the sender. The message will also bounce back to the server if the mail server on the recipient’s end is busy and cannot handle the request at that time. When an e-mail is returned to the sender without being accepted by the recipient’s mail server, this is called a hard bounce.

Once the e-mail has been accepted by the recipient’s mail server there are still ways for the message to be rejected. The mail server has to determine if the recipient (for example, webmaster@webopedia.com) actually exists within its system and if that recipient is allowed to accept e-mails. If the recipient’s address does not exist on the mail server, then the message will be rejected because there is no one to deliver the message to. If the sender misspells the recipient’s address (for example, qebmaster@webopedia.com) then the system will recognize this as a nonexistent address and bounce the message back. If the recipient exists but does not have enough disk space to accept the message (i.e., if his e-mail application is filled to storage capacity) then the message will bounce back to the sender. Some mail systems predetermine a maximum message size that it will accept and will automatically bounce the message if it exceeds that size and some mail systems predetermine a maximum amount of disk space the user is allowed to occupy on the server. When an e-mail is returned to the sender after it has already been accepted by the recipient’s mail server, this is called a soft bounce. Some mail servers are programmed to accept incoming e-mails and store them for further analysis without initially checking to determine if the recipient exists or is even capable of receiving the message.

Occasionally, a network failure at the sender or recipient end will cause an e-mail to bounce back to the sender. Typically, a bounced e-mail returns to the sender with an explanation of why the message bounced.

Internet Grammar Concerns

With new technology comes new jargon, and often it takes years before we can agree on the proper spelling and usage of words that seep into our vocabulary from common usage. The proliferation of words that have sprung up since the development of the Internet is a prime example of this phenomenon. While for some words there are generally-agreed-upon spellings and usages, there are others that are used with less standardization and therefore vary from publication to publication.  Most stylebooks and dictionaries agree that the words “Internet” and “Web” (when referring to the World Wide Web) should always be capitalized because they are proper nouns. There is only one Internet and only one World Wide Web. However, not everyone agrees on other Internet terminology. According to the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook, “Web site” is always two words, but there are others who spell it as “Website,” “website,” or even “web site.” Some consider it acceptable still to use “website” only when writing informally. While the AP stylebook dictates that there is no hyphen in the word “online,” others spell the word as “on-line” whether used as an adjective or an adverb.

Key Terms To Understanding Internet Grammar:Internet A global network connecting millions of computers. More than 100 countries are linked into exchanges of data, news and opinions.  World Wide Web A system of Internet servers that support specially formatted documents. e-mail Short for electronic mail, the transmission of messages over communications networks. The messages can be notes entered from the keyboard or electronic files stored on disk.

Webster’s Dictionary capitalizes the noun form of “E-mail” but uses the lowercase “e-mail” when using the word as a verb. The AP style is to use the lowercase “e-mail” for all instances. In almost all cases where the e is short for the word electronic, you will see the usage of e-. Some examples include e-mail, e-commerce, e-day, e-business, e-learning, and many more electronic words.

Still others spell the word “email” with no hyphen or even the capitalized “Email.”

The best strategy an organization or publication can adopt when dealing with Internet jargon is to choose one “house style” and be consistent with that style and follow the guidelines of a specific dictionary or stylebook. For now, until all dictionaries and stylebooks can agree on standardization, all of the spellings and usages are correct. In reality, there may never actually be a standardization of Internet jargon as the nature of the Internet invites a lack of standardization. Anyone with the know-how (or the money to pay someone with the know-how) can run a Web site and spell words any way he or she chooses without regard to editorial consistency.

Did You Know…

According to the Chicago Manual of Style, one should never write .Www. (www with a capital W) just to honor the beginning of a sentence.

Email Marketing

If you have a website, chances are you have a form asking visitors to subscribe to your email list. Those subscribers are interested in your company and want to know more about what you have to offer.

It’s easy to take this key group of customers for granted, especially if you aren’t looking for signs that they’re tuning out your messages.

You can gauge your campaign’s success by looking at these seven key email marketing metrics:

• Delivery
• Opens
• Clickthroughs
• Funnel navigation
• Conversions
• Unsubscribes
• Spam complaints

Did You Know . . . ?

 

The most common blunder people make when the topic of a computer virus arises is to refer to a worm or Trojan horse as a virus. While the words Trojan, worm and virus are often used interchangeably, they are not the same. Viruses, worms and Trojan Horses are all malicious programs that can cause damage to your computer, but there are differences among the three, and knowing those differences can help you to better protect your computer from their often damaging effects. A computer virus attaches itself to a program or file so it can spread from one computer to another, leaving infections as it travels. Much like human viruses, computer viruses can range in severity: Some viruses cause only mildly annoying effects while others can damage your hardware, software or files. Almost all viruses are attached to an executable file, which means the virus may exist on your computer but it cannot infect your computer unless you run or open the malicious program. It is important to note that a virus cannot be spread without a human action, (such as running an infected program) to keep it going.  People continue the spread of a computer virus, mostly unknowingly, by sharing infecting files or sending e-mails with viruses as attachments in the e-mail. A worm is similar to a virus by its design, and is considered to be a sub-class of a virus. Worms spread from computer to computer, but unlike a virus, it has the capability to travel without any help from a person. A worm takes advantage of file or information transport features on your system, which allows it to travel unaided. The biggest danger with a worm is its capability to replicate itself on your system, so rather than your computer sending out a single worm, it could send out hundreds or thousands of copies of itself, creating a huge devastating effect. One example would be for a worm to send a copy of itself to everyone listed in your e-mail address book. Then, the worm replicates and sends itself out to everyone listed in each of the receiver’s address book, and the manifest continues on down the line. Due to the copying nature of a worm and its capability to travel across networks the end result in most cases is that the worm consumes too much system memory (or network bandwidth), causing Web servers, network servers and individual computers to stop responding. In more recent worm attacks such as the much-talked-about .Blaster Worm., the worm has been designed to tunnel into your system and allow malicious users to control your computer remotely. Key Terms To Understanding Computer Viruses:virus A program or piece of code that is loaded onto your computer without your knowledge and runs against your wishes.Trojan Horse A destructive program that masquerades as a benign application. Unlike viruses, Trojan horses do not replicate themselves worm A program or algorithm that replicates itself over a computer network and usually performs malicious actions blended threat Blended threats combine the characteristics of viruses, worms, Trojan Horses, and malicious code with server and Internet vulnerabilities . antivirus program A utility that searches a hard disk for viruses and removes any that are found. A Trojan Horse is full of as much trickery as the mythological Trojan Horse it was named after. The Trojan Horse, at first glance will appear to be useful software but will actually do damage once installed or run on your computer.  Those on the receiving end of a Trojan Horse are usually tricked into opening them because they appear to be receiving legitimate software or files from a legitimate source.  When a Trojan is activated on your computer, the results can vary. Some Trojans are designed to be more annoying than malicious (like changing your desktop, adding silly active desktop icons) or they can cause serious damage by deleting files and destroying information on your system. Trojans are also known to create a backdoor on your computer that gives malicious users access to your system, possibly allowing confidential or personal information to be compromised. Unlike viruses and worms, Trojans do not reproduce by infecting other files nor do they self-replicate. Added into the mix, we also have what is called a blended threat. A blended threat is a sophisticated attack that bundles some of the worst aspects of viruses, worms, Trojan horses and malicious code into one threat. Blended threats use server and Internet vulnerabilities to initiate, transmit and spread an attack. This combination of method and techniques means blended threats can spread quickly and cause widespread damage. Characteristics of blended threats include: causes harm, propagates by multiple methods, attacks from multiple points and exploits vulnerabilities. To be considered a blended thread, the attack would normally serve to transport multiple attacks in one payload. For examplem it wouldn’t just launch a DoS attack — it would also install a backdoor and damage a local system in one shot. Additionally, blended threats are designed to use multiple modes of transport. For example, a worm may travel through e-mail, but a single blended threat could use multiple routes such as e-mail, IRC and file-sharing sharing networks. The actual attack itself is also not limited to a specific act. For example, rather than a specific attack on predetermined .exe files, a blended thread could modify exe files, HTML files and registry keys at the same time — basically it can cause damage within several areas of your network at one time. Blended threats are considered to be the worst risk to security since the inception of viruses, as most blended threats require no human intervention to propagate. Combating Viruses, Worms and Trojan Horses The first steps to protecting your computer are to ensure your operating system (OS) is up-to-date. This is essential if you are running a Microsoft Windows OS. Secondly, you should have anti-virus software installed on your system and ensure you download updates frequently to ensure your software has the latest fixes for new viruses, worms, and Trojan horses. Additionally, you want to make sure your anti-virus program has the capability to scan e-mail and files as they are downloaded from the Internet. This will help prevent malicious programs from even reaching your computer. You should also install a firewall as well. A firewall is a system that prevents unauthorized use and access to your computer. A firewall can be either hardware or software. Hardware firewalls provide a strong degree of protection from most forms of attack coming from the outside world and can be purchased as a stand-alone product or in broadband routers. Unfortunately, when battling viruses, worms and Trojans, a hardware firewall may be less effective than a software firewall, as it could possibly ignore embedded worms in out going e-mails and see this as regular network traffic. For individual home users, the most popular firewall choice is a software firewall.  A good software firewall will protect your computer from outside attempts to control or gain access your computer, and usually provides additional protection against the most common Trojan programs or e-mail worms. The downside to software firewalls is that they will only protect the computer they are installed on, not a network. It is important to remember that on its own a firewall is not going to rid you of your computer virus problems, but when used in conjunction with regular operating system updates and a good anti-virus scanning software, it will add some extra security and protection for your computer or network.