I often hear people compare unwanted email to junk postal mail.  There is some validity to the comparison.  I know there have been times our home mailbox has been crowded (if not full) with offers that I never asked for.  At certain times of the year, we get catalogs galore, and probably half are from stores we’ve shopped.  The others range from alleged partners of those stores to the completely random.  This says nothing of the numerous offers from local businesses wanting me to paint my house, whiten my teeth, or dine at their restaurant, just because I’m within a given radius from one of their locations.  And there are different levels of personalization.  If you’re sending me something, you should know I’ve never been too fond of being referred to as “Current Resident“.

But I don’t find myself getting as angry about postal junk mail as I do about email.  Perhaps it is because I work with permission-based email for a living. Maybe it is the frequency or volume.  Maybe it is the types of offers being sent (I’ll guarantee my postal mailbox doesn’t get nearly as racy as what I see via email.)  But more likely, for me anyway, it is because I know that there is a significant cost associated with postal mail.  If I receive a big, glossy catalog in the mail from someone I have no interest in purchasing from, I know it set them back a pretty penny.  If they’re going to waste that on me, so be it. My only concern at that point is how to dispose of it (can I put that in curbside recycling or do I have to take it somewhere?)  I suppose I could be more environmentally conscious and ask them not to send to me any more (reducing the paper, ink, power and fuel needed to get it to me) but that’s seems like a lot of work.  There’s no “unsubscribe” button on my mailbox.  So, I take the approach of, “if I don’t buy anything, they’ll stop sending it.  And typically that is what happens.

But yesterday I received a piece of postal mail that really bothered me.  It was enough to make me throw the item down and select some colorful expletives to hurl at it (my wife can confirm that).  The item in question was a letter from our mortgage broker who, up until now, has sent fairly relevant mail about offers and trends in the market.  This one, though, was a long, rambling letter about how she has never embraced new technologies but had to learn to use text messaging to communicate with her teenage daughters.  I read through the entire thing, all the while waiting to get to the point where this had any bearing on me.  Was this leading up to an offer to sign up to receive texts when re-fi rates dropped to a certain level?  That would be cool, but no.  Was this a public service announcement about the dangers of teens using the technology inappropriately? That wouldn’t be entirely out-of-line with some mailings I’ve received from real estate agents and brokers who feel they are part of their client’s lives… but it didn’t go there either.  It ended without having a point other than that she had a new technology that she had to adapt to.
And I was mad that I had just wasted my time reading it.  And I wanted an unsubscribe link soooo bad at that moment.  Actually, I wanted a “report spam” button.  It was no longer enough for me to know that the mailing had cost the sender money to get it to me.  I had read this only because it came from someone I trusted to send me information relevant to me.

And this whole thing made me think about email (surprise!)  Email is so inexpensive that many marketers don’t bother with cleaning up their mailing lists.  They don’t check to see who is engaged and who is not.  Even if they do, many don’t do anything with the information (like attempt to re-engage with different offers, or cut recipients loose.)  And I find a lot of senders who don’t bother to figure out not only whether, but why their emails are relevant or not.
Too many people are tuned into the low financial cost of sending email that they don’t bother to think about the other costs associated with sending irrelevant or unwanted emails.  There is no barrier for complaining about an email.  And those complaints can hurt your delivery to those who actually do want it.  They can damage the reputation of your domain, making it harder to do business period.  And, yes, if there are enough of them, your ESP can terminate service.

So, do yourself a favor, and before your next campaign (regardless of how you send it), put yourself in the shoes of your recipients and ask “why do I care?”

Kris Dougherty | Deliverability & Operations

Last week we announced that we have integrated Cantaloupe.tv’s new VideoHere^TM online video platform with our own email marketing platform, giving marketers an easy way to add and manage videos within their email marketing campaigns. This platform also closely tracks which members viewed the videos and for how long.  Signup for the Webinar Today!

Learn how Delivra, one of the original email software and services providers, has integrated Cantaloupe.tv’s new VideoHere™ online video platform with its own email marketing platform, giving marketers an easy way to add and manage videos within their email marketing campaigns. This platform also closely tracks which members viewed the videos and for how long.

Facilitatiing the webinar is Carissa Newton, Director of Marketing joined by Andy Falkenstein of Cantaloupe.  Join them to learn how easy VideoHere will be and how it can effectively help you engage your audience!

When: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EDT

Watch the video below to see how it works today!

Have questions or want to learn how to get started?  Contact us at 317-915-9400 or at info@delivra.com.

Carissa Newton  | Marketing

Our own Neil Berman wrote in his recent MediaPost Email Insider column about lessons that email marketers can learn from the recent 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.  If it’s not too late, I’d like to add one of my own.

On Friday, February 12, I tuned in to watch the Olympic opening ceremony.  I had already read online about the untimely death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, a member of the Georgian luge team who died following a crash in training earlier that day, so I wasn’t surprised that NBC opened its programming by covering the story.

But I was shocked that NBC chose to air the gruesome footage of the accident.  It was among the most horrifying, disturbing things I’ve ever seen.  I even tweeted my disgust with the network, because no journalistic principle required it to air the moment of Kumaritashvili’s death, and the standard disclaimer about “graphic” content just didn’t seem like enough here.  If you haven’t seen the video, I urge you, don’t.  It was that unnerving and unforgettable.

But then, on Friday, February 28, I tuned in to watch the closing ceremony, and was shocked once again.  This time, it wasn’t because of the video, which NBC wisely chose not to re-air.  Instead, I was shocked by my own reaction to the tribute to Kumaritashvili that was part of the ceremony.  When IOC President Jacques Rogge referred to the tragedy in his remarks, I found myself thinking, “was that only two weeks ago?”  Because it seemed like longer to me.  In fact, I had put the accident out of my mind until being reminded of it in that moment.

And this, for me, is the email marketing lesson: people forget stuff.

I’m not proud that it only took me two weeks to forget one of the most terrible and “unforgettable” things I’ve ever seen.  During those two weeks, it was crowded out of my consciousness by the hundreds of conversations I participated in; thousands of emails, tweets, and articles read; and dozens of other Olympic events watched.  Given the increasingly short attention spans of so many in our culture, I’m sure I wasn’t alone in letting the tragedy slip from the front of my mind.

So if I can’t remember the truly horrific thing that I witnessed two weeks ago, why would an email marketer expect me to remember a comparatively insignificant decision to subscribe to a mailing list three years ago?  (I’m talking to you, ancestry.com.  I haven’t used your service since 2007, but you suddenly started mailing to me a couple of weeks ago.  How am I supposed to recall whether or not I opted in to receive your marketing email?)

Permission is only useful to the marketer if the recipients actually remember giving the permission.  If you sign up subscribers, but wait months or years to start mailing to them, don’t be surprised if they forget about that long-ago transaction and complain about your email as spam (that is, if they address they gave you even remains valid after so much time).  For practical purposes, mailing a stale opt-in address is only somewhat less risky than mailing someone who never opted in at all.

Chris Broshears | Product Development

Don’t believe government jobs reports. Unless you don’t want a job…

Delivra is hiring. Businesses are hiring. Jobs are out there. But job seekers must be flexible and proactive to land a position.

I see many resumes weekly. They come in through our website form. How many of these job seekers follow up with a phone call or just walk in the door of our office to follow up?

The answer is almost none.

Want a job? Be proactive. Think like a salesperson. Your minimum attempt number should be eight times per company you contact. Then stay in touch quarterly.

Need experience to bulk up your resume? Be flexible. Delivra just filled four positions with flexible hours. This means less than thirty hours per week. No benefits. But all of these hires were recent college grads or yet to graduate and had no prior experience in their field.

This is a win-win for both parties. A low risk look-see for the employer and a foot in the door to gain experience and prove worth for the hire.

A reporter once asked the CEO of a major corporation how many people worked there. His answer was, “about 20 percent.” The competition is weak job seekers. The future is yours for the taking.

Neil Berman | President & CEO

I have been watching the debate shape up surrounding the emergence of social media, it’s surge to success, and how it relates to email marketing. The debate goes on where one camp believes social media will replace the need for email entirely, whereas another camp believes when combined effectively with email marketing, it can only increase it’s reach and results. I’m sure if you’ve read earlier posts by me, you can probably guess which camp I choose to sit in.

I saw an interesting video today on a blog I follow called, Social Email Marketing that really emphasizes that point well. Check out the video below and let me know your thoughts, which camp are you and why?

Recently, I was meeting with a social media consultant and talking about the ways social media can virally spread a message effectively to tens of thousands of people that might not have seen it before. This consultant’s response, “Email marketing is old school, social is the way to go.” Then proceeded to say, “I only use social to market my services, in fact I don’t see a need for email marketing.” Now in listening to this I have to say I was a bit taken aback…I mean don’t all web-based services require that you have an email address? Don’t all social sites require an email? Aren’t social sites now gathering email opt-ins and data to aid in this process? I get that this consultant should live and practice what is preached, but aren’t you missing a prime opportunity for additional reach and further engagement if you don’t integrate?

As you can see, I disagree with this theory. Over a dozen years ago, many were saying the very same thing about email marketing and how it would eliminate other marketing mediums. Interesting because I still get calls everyday wanting me to advertise with print publications. I still am asked to attend tradeshows. AND I am still approached to sponsor events. What’s the point in going through all this yet again? The point is today’s marketing is not about innovating and replacing older more traditional methods, but rather looking for ways to integrate and make shifts as changes in the environment occur. Social media needs to be treated with that same philosophy.

I say, innovate and embrace. Make shifts based on needs and market demands, but definitely don’t look at any one marketing medium in a silo. Look at it as another opportunity to expand your reach and drive results, just in one additional way. Then take one last look and be sure to take the steps to ensure all of your chosen mediums are truly integrated. If you are advertising, mention your social media. If you are at an event, ask for permission to send email marketing communications. If you are sponsoring an event, use both or all mediums to maximize the opportunity. It’s not about what YOU want to do or what YOU think will be cheaper, it’s all about effectiveness and what will speak to your audience. I am an email marketer, but I also realize that using multiple mediums helps me blend and expand my reach. I create my strategy and then blend all of my chosen mediums into one cohesive strategy, and this approach is working for Delivra everyday!

Innovate and integrate and I guarantee you will see results! Have questions or want to chat more? Contact me at 317-915-9400, send me an email at info@delivra.com, or comment on this post. I’d love to hear what you think!

Carissa Newton | Marketing

Today we announced that we have integrated Cantaloupe.tv’s new VideoHere^TM online video platform with our own email marketing platform, giving marketers an easy way to add and manage videos within their email marketing campaigns. This platform also closely tracks which members viewed the videos and for how long.

VideoHere joins other video solutions in Delivra’s suite of email marketing solutions, but at a price point that makes it affordable for every marketer, according to Neil Berman, president of Delivra. “VideoHere is the kind of plug and play video integration tool that our clients have been asking for. The affordable system-starting at just $50 a month-is easy to use, feature rich, and provides insight into the success of each video.”

The integration with VideoHere enables Delivra’s clients to insert videos into their email campaigns with one-click, without the need for programming. Marketers can link video play buttons to a pre-built landing page developed by VideoHere or a marketer’s custom-built landing page. Marketers measure video performance with detailed tracking of video impressions, views, times completed, times shared, days viewed and drop off rate. The video player allows advanced sharing of videos via email, Twitter, Facebook and by embedded links on websites or blogs.  Watch the video below to see how it works today!

“Studies show that video email campaigns increase click-through rates by two to three times, shortening the sales cycle and increasing revenues,” said Stacy Billanti, president of Cantaloupe.tv. “In addition, with VideoHere a marketer is able to enhance their online search efforts and increase their social media footprint using online video.”

Have questions or want to learn how to get started?  Contact us at 317-915-9400 or at info@delivra.com.

Carissa Newton  | Marketing

Here’s the latest spin on why email marketers shouldn’t have to worry about opt-ins.   According to the CEO of one marketing database company, this time, it’s the economy.  Because, really, who can afford to follow best practices these days?  Desperate times, desperate measures, and all that.  Naturally, his company is there for you in these troubled times. Go ahead and read the whole thing, including (especially) the comments.  I’ll wait right here…

This is not the first attempt to defend the practice of sending unsolicited email, and the ensuing debate was divided along predictable lines.  In case you didn’t read all the comments, allow me to summarize the extremes of opinion:

“It’s about time someone spoke out against the ESP’s and their so-called best practices.  There’s nothing wrong or illegal about sending unsolicted email, and the ESPs are just hiding behind opt-in because they’re lazy.”

“No, it’s that people who send to purchased lists are irresponsible, unethical, immoral spammers.  And also stupid.”

Me, I’d rather stay above the finger-pointing and name-calling, and discuss this issue in the universal language all marketers can understand: money.

All parties involved in sending an email marketing message have a profit motive.  The marketer’s path to making money from email is clear…generate leads and convert them to sales.

The ESPs are in this business to make money, too.  Most of us get paid according to how much email we send.  So you might think our position would be, “the more e-mail the better,” regardless of opt-in.  However, if the mail gets blocked by ISPs and can’t be delivered, our customers grow unhappy and quit paying us.  So we establish minimum guidelines and promote “best practices” based on what we know works, in hopes that our clients listen, experience success, and keep paying us.

But what about the ISPs?  I’m talking about the companies that recieve most of the emails we send…AOL, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, telcos, cable companies…how do they make money off of email?

The ISP hopes that you’ll use their email service, so that they can serve up ads within your inbox while you check messages.  They get paid not by the end users of their service, and not by marketers and ESPs who send email to them.  Their revenue comes from the advertiser.

What eats into their profit potential on email is the cost of the servers and bandwidth to handle all that incoming traffic.  As an ESP, our technology expenses are huge, but I can only imagine what it costs to run the infrastructure behind, say, Hotmail.  All I know is, it’s expensive as hell, and we who send email to Hotmail are not the ones paying for it.

(Incidentally, this is why permission from recipients isn’t, by itself, enough to get email delivered anymore.  Because permission is cheap.  Anyone can set up a free webmail account, and give their address to any mailing list, without it costing them a dime.  See, it’s not just spam that chokes the ISPs servers, it’s also the proliferation of bulk marketing emails that cost the end-user nothing to sign up for, but there’s a cost to deliver them, forcing the ISPs to look at engagement metrics to determine which are the emails people actually want.)

This is why, whatever we think about the morality of opt-out marketing, it’s only the ISP’s opinions that matter.  Follow the money: ESPs ability to deliver email depends on their servers, paid for by their money, which comes from advertisers, who need the end-users to keep using the ISP’s service, because it delivers the mail they want and filters out the mail they don’t want.  Their subscribers + their equipment + their money = their rules.

If you want your mail delivered, you’ll do what the ISPs want.  It’s your ESP’s business to know what they want, and help you conform.  And we know for certain that they don’t want emails sent to people who didn’t give you permission.

Chris Broshears | Product Development

Sometimes I feel like I have beat this social media trend into the ground, but just when I take a break, I see some genius marketing execution out there on some update or post.

For example, here is what I just received:

Which led me to this…..

Starburst has not only used social media to build their brand and fanbase, but now it seems they are integrating backwards and using it as a tool to build their email database.  Now I love Starburst and I am thrilled that I can simply buy a package with my favorite flavor in it, so of course I signed up for the coupon and was immediately able to print it out.  I’m curious to see what comes next……

The reason being, as integrated and seamless as their campaign felt in the beginning and the excitement I felt as a marketer seeing social media combined with email opt-in or list generation, I was deflated to see that there is no true “opt-in” language.  If they are planning to use this list to send email communications, they could very well be flagged as spam or ignored by the very people they were trying to reach.

What could they have done?  I would recommend that they add a checkbox with permission giving Starburst the authority to send me email communications.  Then, I might even take it a step further with elements from a profile form and ask them what types of communications do they want to receive?  Things like….

• Coupons
• Monthly News
• New Product Updates

I do have to say that Starburst has come really close though at full integration with their social media & online marketing.  If they take the steps for permission, they will have quite the database to continue building that following they seem to already have!

Carissa Newton | Marketing

Like just about everyone else, I’ve been watching the Winter Olympics. I am amazed at what athletes can accomplish on skis, skates, luges, sleighs and snowboards. After the slalom qualifications, my knees and back hurt for days in sympathy.

Watching the Olympics has also given me a greater appreciation for all the coordination that has gone on behind the scenes to make these events a reality. The scope is mind-boggling. The infrastructure and facilities for the nine Olympic venues in the greater Vancouver area and in Whistler cost the city of Vancouver nearly $6 billion.

As I watched the drama unfold at the games, it occurred to me there are several lessons from Vancouver 2010 that can be applied to email marketing.  Read my full article from MediaPost here!

Neil Berman | President & CEO

Photo by flickr user mattcyp88

Now that our user interface has had its recent facelift, it’s time that our online help pages were revised as well, for all the same reasons. For too long, we have relied on help content provided by our main technology partner, but that content no longer makes enough sense to our users since we’ve added new technology partners and made so many improvements of our own to the Delivra platform.

So we recently hired a technical writer to create an online help file that would be unique and proprietary to Delivra. Our writer was new to email marketing, so had some research to do before he could start authoring help content. One day, after he read about our clickstream- and purchase-tracking capabilities, he told me something like this:

“I had no idea that senders could see information about what pages I visited on their web site, or what I purchased from them after reading their email. That’s huge! I wish these companies I buy my climbing gear from would use something like this. Then they could send me information I want about their climbing gear, and quit sending me generic ads for things like jogging strollers that I’ve never bought and never will.”

He seemed genuinely irked to learn that such technology was available, but not being used by the companies that have him on their mailing lists. If they could detect what his interests are, and target him with emails relevant to those interests, they would have a much better chance of selling to him—he would welcome those mailings! Instead, those companies persist in using the “batch-and-blast” method of sending the same generic message to everyone who has ever opted into their list.

Often, when we talk about relevance in email, we in the email delivery business tend to focus on the deliverability benefits of engaged recipients. And it’s definitely true that more people opening, clicking, or forwarding your email means that ISPs are less likely to see your email as spam. But there’s another reason you want to be relevant: because your customers will appreciate it!

Figure out what your recipients do and don’t want, then give them more of what they want, and less of what they don’t. Accomplish that, and the engagement metrics affecting deliverability will take care of themselves.

Chris Broshears | Product Development

P.S. Delivra users will notice that the first segment of our new online help is live as of today. Covering the Members section of our application, it includes help pages for the new CSV import, which is now enabled for all of our clients who haven’t already been using it.