The Whitelist

The Age of Engagement

What’s your focus as an email marketer? If you’re paying attention, you know we’ve moved past the rule of relevance into the age of engagement.

We know the reasons for engaging subscribers: improve email delivery, increase sales, encourage social sharing. But what does it really mean to engage?

Let’s think about what it means to engage. Below is the word as defined by FreeDictionary.com:

1. To obtain or contract for the services of; employ: engage a carpenter.

2. To arrange for the use of; reserve: engage a room.

3. To pledge or promise, especially to marry.

4. To attract and hold the attention of; engross: a hobby that engaged her for hours at a time.

5. To win over or attract: His smile engages everyone he meets.

6. To draw into; involve: engage a shy person in conversation.

7. To require the use of; occupy: Studying engages most of my time.

8. To enter or bring into conflict with: We have engaged the enemy.

9. To interlock or cause to interlock; mesh: engage the automobile’s clutch.

10. To give or take as security.

What do all of these definitions have in common? One party engages another. One makes the first move, if you will, sets the stage, makes the move, initiates the invitation.

That is what we as an email marketing agency and you as an email marketer must have at the forefront of your thinking when ensuring your email marketing program is focused on engagement.

To engage is not to be passive, waiting for someone else to make a move. Nope. Engaging our prospects, subscribers and/or customers means we make the first move, in a way these prospects, subscribers and/or customers will react to.

Is your email marketing program engaging? Does it actively seek an interaction with the recipients? Is it designed to be a two-way communication, one mindful of the recipient’s time and interest?

If so, you’re engaging! If you think you could do a little better, call on ClickMail to help. We’re your engaging email marketing agency. And we’ll help you engage too!

(Heart) Your Subscribers…Today and Every Day

Today is Valentine’s Day, a day about love: love of spouse, love of family…and—for email marketers—love of subscribers.

Yep, February 14 is a great day to remember how much you appreciate these people who willingly get your marketing messages. In fact, every day is a great day to show some subscriber love! With email marketing, showing appreciation and consideration for your subscribers is so easy, there’s no reason not to do it.

With this blog, we’re at a disadvantage. You’re likely reading this because you came across it during a Google or Bing search for an email marketing agency or some tips for email your in-house email list. You didn’t sign up for it, and it’s not something you regularly expect to see in your inbox. As a blog, this marketing medium can’t very well show you any lovin’ beyond being useful and full of email marketing best practices.

Your email marketing program, on the other hand, can easily show some much-needed care and concern. After all, your subscribers signed up to hear from you. They expect to see your email messages in their inboxes and on their smartphones. Reciprocate with consideration. Offer them a preference center so they can tell you when and how they want to hear from you. Be mindful in your messaging, really and truly thinking through what the subscriber wants to hear vs. what you want to say. Segment your lists and thoughtfully message different segments in different ways. Study your web analytics for opportunities to market based on specific buying behaviors.

And above all, be engaging. There’s a reason an “engagement” is the stage before a marriage. For you, the engagement is the stage before the sale. Be thoughtful and loving of your subscribers, considerate of their needs, wants and desires, and you might find that lovin’ headed right back to you as increased ROI.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you, your family and your email subscribers from ClickMail, the email marketing agency with a heart.

Standard Email Metrics Why? Because It’s not all the S.A.M.E.

We see it as an email marketing agency just about every day: A marketing team tries to choose a new email service provider (ESP), yet is frustrated by the apples to oranges comparisons one must make in an industry that lacks standardized metrics.

That’s why we publish and keep up-to-date our Digital Marketing Solutions guide. And it’s the motivation behind our creation of the ESPinator online ESP selection tool.

Providing you with these tools ensures your ESP choice is the right one for your organization and its email marketing goals. Yet more standardization is needed and we applaud the Email Experience Council’s (eec) efforts to bring this about via S.A.M.E.

S.A.M.E. stands for Support Adoption of Metrics for Email. S.A.M.E. came about when the eec tasked its Measurement Accuracy Roundtable to create a set of standardized metrics for industry adoption. The standards were developed and a seal created that an email marketing provider like an ESP can use to promote both adherence to the standards and the eec’s auditing of the ESP to ensure that adherence.

For ClickMail as an email marketing agency vs. an ESP, the metrics don’t apply, but we will be adapting the new reporting structure and ensuring our data on the ESPs we represent and resell includes which providers have met the eec’s requirements.

And soon enough, with the eec’s efforts and the voluntary adoption of S.A.M.E. by email service providers, those ESP comparisons might start to look a little less like fruit salad and a little more like apples alone.

Learn more about S.A.M.E.

For Better Subject Lines, Test Big, Test Thoroughly

Loren McDonald of Silverpop is right on target with his article about subject line testing (Subject Line Testing: Tips for Getting It Right).

A couple of his tips really jumped out at us, however, as worthy of emphasizing.

As an email marketing agency, we are adamant about encouraging our email marketing clients to test, test and test again. From the subject line to the call to action to the email design to every other variable, we know there’s always room for testing and tweaking to improve. And in email marketing, even a half of a percentage point improvement can translate into big percentage of increase in ROI!

While we encourage testing, in particular A/B split tests, we want to reiterate some of the advice Loren is giving here in order to improve not just your email marketing program but your testing itself too.

Test the big ideas first

You might want to test “20% off” vs. “save $20″ but Loren points out that sometimes you must take a step back and test a bigger concept first. It could be a price discount is outperformed by a different offer, say a selling proposition or benefit like getting promoted, saving time or losing weight. Test to determine the big idea first, then refine your testing to refine your subject line.

Test all the way through

Loren makes a really good point here, that a higher open rate might not reflect a higher conversion rate. One subject line might garner more opens, but another subject line with fewer opens might still garner more sales. Test all the way through to know what’s really happening, because you’re after more than opens: You’re after ROI.

Read the full article on subject line testing. And for help when you set out to do your own email subject line tests, turn to ClickMail to help you get the best results.

Are you headed to Vegas this week for MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit 2012? If so, you’ll be in good company…very good company.

Very good and very big company: Last year, 826 email marketers attended the event! And this year, the organizers expect an even bigger turnout.

Can you imagine? Almost 1,000 of your email marketing peers, all learning together, networking, sharing stories and making great connections that will last months and even years after the conference ends.

Really, if you’re not net planning on going, the question becomes: Can you afford not to?

Surely among those many hundreds of attendees you’ll find at least one of your competitors, if not more. Can you risk that?

We don’t think so.

Plus you’ll meet us in person while there. ClickMail will be at booth #39, offering the online ESPinator ESP selection tool, plus one-on-one consulting with our expert team.

Walk a Mile in Your Subscriber’s Shoes

You know the saying about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes? It’s meant to help you develop empathy for another person. You will understand where they are coming from if you walk a mile in their shoes, or “climb into his skin and walk around in it” to quote To Kill a Mockingbird.

Developing empathy for your subscribers might go much farther than a mile.

As I write this, I have just had a visit from a neighbor with cerebral palsy. It was a typical day for me, busy and crammed full. Suddenly I was forced to slow down, put off my to-do list, and pay attention.

It would be easy to avoid this neighbor rather than struggle to understand his speech and actions, communicating with him the best I can despite the hurdles. But instead it was hot cocoa and toast and me reading through his scrapbook and looking at his pictures. I put the neighbor first today, not the to-do list. My tasks still wait, but I was able to bring at least a little pleasure to someone by having some empathy for his need for company, his need to share and feel appreciated and welcomed.

Can you see your subscribers in this same way? Your to-do list consists of metrics you must meet and stuff you must sell. That can get in the way of having empathy for subscribers who might be tired or busy, or feeling unappreciated even.

Consider the single mom who works all day, parents into the evening, then tackles laundry after the kids are in bed. Can your email campaign show some empathy for her?

Or how about the busy executive with the weight of the world on his shoulders, with employees to watch over and a bottom line to maintain in a tough economy? How can your email marketing program take into account his plight and show him you care, understand and relate?

Showing empathy for subscribers might be as basic as offering a preference center to give them some control, or doing a survey to find out what topics they want to hear about. It could be testing to see if greater or lesser frequency of email is well received.

Empathy. It’s stopping to make hot cocoa and toast, taking time to look at some photos, so your subscribers feel appreciated. So they can feel like they mean more to you than a number that might convert to a dollar.

How do those shoes fit?

With all the channels available to us now as email marketers, we have a lot of communicating to do…which could trick us into thinking shortcuts are okay.

In business, shortcuts are often shorthand for “bad idea.”

Let’s consider our cross-channel marketing for a moment, for example. If you’re marketing to your customers via email, direct mail, Facebook/LinkedIn, Twitter and blogging, you might be tempted to copy and paste information from one place to another to save time. And why not, right? Who’s to say the Facebook fan is also an email subscriber?

Well, they might be, but that’s not really the point.

The point is, you’re more engaging when your communications are fresh and appropriate to the channel you’re using. If I get the same content from you via email as I do via Facebook, chances are I’ll stop paying attention to one or the other. And what’s appropriate in an email format is not usually appropriate in a Facebook format. An email will be a little longer and have a little more staying power. An email can sit in an inbox for a few days before a customer chooses to interact with it, even. A Facebook post will be much shorter and will have a lifespan of as little as 15 minutes.

Writing once, reusing everywhere is probably tempting because it reduces workload. But if it also reduces interest, is it really worth the time savings?

Be engaging, not repetitive. Be careful of the copy/paste.

Five Signs It’s Time for a New ESP

Business relationships differ from personal ones in a very big way: Sometimes it’s just time to move on.

Case in point: Your marriage might be for life and your kids are around for good, but your ESP could be a temporary relationship. As much as you might like your ESP, as long as you’ve been doing business with them, there still might come a time when staying with the ESP you know so well could mean a lower email marketing ROI.

If you’ve been with the same email service provider for more than a year, consider these five signs that it’s time for a new ESP:

1. Your in-house email list has grown.

With over 100 ESPs to choose from, you’re going to find that capabilities differ among them. This includes scaling to meet your needs as your volume of email grows.

2. Your email deliverability has shrunk.

As strange as it sounds, the email deliverability rate you’ll get with one ESP is not the same as you’ll get with another. As an email marketing agency, we test different ESPs with the same list and we get markedly varied results. When even half a percentage point in improvement means more email ROI, having the highest possible email delivery rate is imperative. It could be your ESP isn’t keeping up with your needs, and that’s affecting your bottom line.

3. You’re ready to automate.

Triggered, event-based email marketing is the way to achieve the most targeted, relevant messages possible. If you’re ready to go that route and your ESP isn’t, it’s time to move on…not get left behind.

4. You’re ready to integrate.

Web analytics, CRM systems, social media, SMS…there are so many sources of customer insight and possible contact points that all need to be working in tandem for maximum results. Email marketing best practices alone will only get you so far. Integrating with other marketing channels is imperative. If your ESP is limited in integration capabilities, it might be time to shop for a new one.

5. You need some strategy.

In today’s economy especially, marketing budgets can be tight and staffs small. If you’re resources are enough to get the job done but not enough to add a strategic element to your email marketing program, you might need an ESP with consulting services available.

If you’re thinking maybe it’s time to move on to a new ESP, here are three ways to jumpstart your search:

• Plug your requirements into the online ESP selection tool, the ESPinator
• Download the 2011 guide to choosing a new ESP
• Head to booth #39 at MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit in Las Vegas this week to visit with email marketing agency ClickMail

Whether you do one, two or all three, you’ll be well on the way to moving on to the right ESP for your newly evolved needs.

What Happens in Vegas…Will Stick With You in a Very Good Way!

This is one time when what happens in Vegas need not stay in Vegas: MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit 2012. This time, we hope what happens in Vegas sticks with you in a very good way.

Taking place February 7^th through 10^th, the summit promises to be overflowing with email marketing expertise, experience and education…all designed to head back to your office with you, to be implemented in the coming months as you improve your email marketing program…and your email marketing ROI.

And if MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit 2012 doesn’t already promise enough new knowledge to tempt you, consider these three reasons, from ClickMail, your email marketing agency:

1. Get One-on-One Coaching!

Three of the email marketing industry’s best and brightest—ClickMail’s own Cameron Kane, Michael Kelly and Grant Johnson—will be on hand offering coaching and one-on-one consultation. That’s right. During this Las Vegas event, the real show stoppers will be the 12 different topics you can choose from when you want an expert’s undivided attention and advice. (Get the details and sign up for your private session.)

2. Get a Discount!

Register with our special email marketing agency promotion code, and you’ll save $700! To get your discount, enter priority code 185-ST-1003 at check out when you register for the Email Summit.

3. Get Connected!

Most important of all during this email event is meeting up with the folks from our email marketing agency. Be sure to stop by booth #39 during the Email Summit. While at the booth, plug your email marketing needs into our ESPinator to see which ESP gets recommended for you…and to be entered to win free prizes.

What’s not to love about three days in Vegas, especially when it all goes home with you?

Email: The Foundation of all Online Marketing

Although we’re an email marketing agency, we’ll be glad to see this month—and all of the 2012 predictions that came with it—come to an end. We must stay on top of the changes in the email marketing industry and the predictions help us to do so, but we are ready to get down to the business of email marketing ROI once again.

Why? Because one constant remains throughout all those predictions: Email is the foundation upon which your online marketing program is built, no matter if you’re switching from an ESP to marketing automation provider or putting extra resources into your social media campaigns. Email is the enabler to it all.

And that’s something we can all bank on by keeping our focus where our focus should be: constantly optimizing our email marketing best practices and programs, and further integrating our email with our web analytics and social media marketing.

Email is the starting point, the foundation, the enabler and even the glue. It’s also the preferred medium of your customers. According to ExactTarget, “56% of US Internet users interact with brands only via marketing emails, compared to 1.3% who interact only via Twitter and 0.7% by Facebook.” [ExactTarget, "Subscribers, Fans, and Followers: The Social Profile" (2010), emphasis added]

Emails not going away, and it needs your attention to make sure it’s doing all it can for you. The other stuff might be shiny and new but without the solidity of a well-functioning, optimized email marketing program, your other online and social media marketing efforts will fall short.

You’re already taking action to keep your email optimized: You’re reading this blog! For other resources that will educate you and strengthen your email marketing foundation, subscribe to our email marketing newsletter and definitely be sure to visit our booth at MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit 2012 next week.

Or just reach out to this friendly email marketing agency for some one-on-one email marketing consultation. We’ll help you lay that foundation brick by brick.