New Year’s
Resolutions for Email Marketers
We want to wish all of our FreshPerspectives readers a happy,
healthy, and prosperous 2012! As we close out 2011, it’s a great opportunity to
set priorities for the coming twelve months. Whether you’re new to email
marketing or an industry veteran, consider these New Year’s Resolutions to help
ring in a banner year in 2012.
1) Integrate social and email – but do so
wisely. More to come on this topic in our January edition, so watch this
space… In the meantime, keep in mind that the secret to effective integration
is in the implementation. Adding social sharing buttons to your emails might
not be the best fit for all content or for every brand. Consider the context,
the nature of your content, and your goals for customer engagement, and proceed
accordingly. Also note that social media puts another company between you and
your customer. Be sure to consider the potential ramifications, given that
you’re sacrificing a certain amount of control of your marketing message by
leveraging a third-party platform.
2) Keep spamtraps out of your database! ISP
filters are becoming increasingly stringent, and anti-spam organizations are as
vigilant as ever. This is great news for consumers, but it can sometimes spell
trouble for even the most scrupulous email marketers. Spamtraps can enter your
database through any number of means, so take precautions. Educate yourself
(our Spamtrap
Primer for Upstanding Citizens is a good starting place), and implement the
necessary safeguards. Data
hygiene is a must. And consider Real-time
Email Address Correction Technology (REACT) to correct registration errors as
well as block spamtraps and other problematic emails at the point of
registration – before they even make it into your file. Keeping the bad
addresses out of your file on the front-end will save you lots of heartburn
down the road!
3) Grow your list. While reactivating
“lost” customers or converting single-channel customers into multi-channel
customers is far more cost-effective than acquiring entirely new customers,
customer acquisition remains a key component of any robust email marketing
program. There are a host of options available to marketers to drive customer
acquisition including online events (e.g. webinars), white papers and
informative content, paid and organic search, blogs, off-line
events/registration (e.g. in-store sign-up), and social media integration –
which leads to our next resolution…
4) Reconnect with “lost” customers. The
start of a new year is prime time for life changes – moving jobs, changing
schools, moving to new cities, etc. Keep track of your customers’ new contact
information with Email Change
of Address (ECOA) services. It’s analogous to the post office’s National
Change of Address service – but for email addresses. You can correct hygiene
errors and match your bouncing file with known change pairs (e.g. old and new
email addresses) to ensure better deliverability and improved ROI on your email
campaigns.
5) Don’t forget mobile. With 15% of email
opens occurring on mobile devices (Litmus, 2011),
it’s imperative that your emails are mobile-friendly.
6) Invite single-channel customers into the multi-channel
fold. Single-channel marketing is so 20th century and yet we see
lots of companies with single-channel marketing lists. If you have a strong
postal file, consider adding email addresses to those records through an email appending service.
Be sure to use a reliable and judicious vendor, as all appending projects are
not created equal. Appending can be a valuable tool, however, when implemented
with care. Conversely, a postal append
might be just the thing to augment an email-only list with multi-channel
marketing potential.
We hope your New Year’s celebration is the start to another
great year. We’ve enjoyed bringing you our FreshPerspectives Newsletter these
past 12 months, and we appreciate your readership!
All our best,
The FreshPerspectives Team
P.S. If you have a moment to spare in the midst of your
revelry, we’d love to get your suggestions on topics you’d like to see emphasized
in future newsletters. Please check out our Reader Survey, and make your voice heard!