Here at Delivra, we are excited to announce to our faithful readers that we’ve been selected by customer relationship manager (CRM) solution provider AddressTwo as its integrated email service provider.

AddressTwo is a great company that provides small businesses with technology and processes for managing sales, marketing and productivity.  With more than 1,200 users, the company eschews call center support and instead partners with local companies to provide hands-on support and a unique customer experience to small businesses.

“Delivra is a great choice for us because we have very similar customer service philosophies,” said Nick Carter, president of AddressTwo.  “I know that the Delivra email platform is reliable and I feel good knowing that I can talk to a real person at Delivra immediately if I need to.”

To read more about the Delivra and AddressTwo partnership, please click here to go to the full press release available on the Delivra website!

Not long after joining Delivra in September 2008, I embarked on a research project.  I wanted to sample the end-user experiences offered by competitors to Delivra and compare those to our own subscription/profile management tools.  So I set up a brand new Gmail account and immediately subscribed it to about three dozen newsletters.

The companies I picked were those I knew to be doing business with other ESPs.  I purposely picked a cross-section of well-known brands from across multiple industries: restaurants, hospitality, consumer goods, retailers, not-for-profits and service providers.  Without listing their names, let us just say that you’ve heard of most of them.  They were the only senders to whom I’ve ever given this new address.

That was over sixteen months ago.  Since then, I’ve only logged into the account three times.  The most recent of those logins was yesterday.   Care to guess how many unread messages I had?

To stop marketing email takes more than just never checking your email.

Now, we’ve preached here before about the importance of engaging your subscribers.  To review, those who operate mail servers take an increasingly skeptical view towards messages sent in bulk but not widely read or acted upon.  For this reason, there are people in the ESP community far more experienced than me who recommend regularly cleansing your subscriber list of recipients who don’t show–by their actions of opening, clicking links, or forwarding–any interest in your mailings over a long period of time.

Some of the sages giving that advice work for ESPs who handle the mail for the companies that filled my inbox with 1015 messages that I never read.  So I made a list and started tracking to see which, if any, senders had given up on me.  Surprisingly, only one company (hats off to you, ULTA) appears to have concluded that I was not interested and quit emailing me back in September.  The rest continued sending to me through 2010 in the vain hope that I might change my pattern of doing nothing with their messages.

Why, in the face of evidence and expert testimony that engagement matters, do marketers find it so difficult to let go of disengaged subscribers?  Cost may have something to do with it.  The costs of emailing an individual who has already opted-in are negligible compared to the cost of acquiring a new subscriber.  And while emailing uninterested subscribers en masse is known to impact deliverability, the methods used to by ISPs to determine things like throttling and bulk foldering are proprietary, making a true cost/benefit analysis difficult, at best.

Whatever the reason, this much I know…those senders will never have a less engaged subscriber.  They’re not going to make any money off of me, and if they send to enough inboxes with similar lack of response, they may find themselves penalized by receiving systems for sending mailings with recipient activity similar to spam.

It’s only been sixteen months, so perhaps some of these senders are on an 18-month list cleanup cycle?  I’ll report back in a few months on whether any more of them have decided to let me go.

Chris Broshears | Product Development

]]> http://blog.delivra.com/index.php/2010/05/the-least-engaged-subscriber/feed/ 0 http://blog.delivra.com/index.php/2010/05/html-only-or-multi-part/ http://blog.delivra.com/index.php/2010/05/html-only-or-multi-part/#comments Thu, 27 May 2010 12:00:00 +0000 admin http://blog.delivra.com/?p=2707

I read a question from a marketer recently who was asking if he should include a text message in addition to the HTML messages that he is sending and it made me realize that some of the things I take for granted aren’t necessarily common knowledge. The shortest answer to the question is “yes.” In general, HTML-only emails are seen by receiving systems as more “spammy”, so creating your message with both a text and HTML message (and letting the receiving system decide which to display) can help your deliverability.

You’ll also want to make sure that your text version is not too different from your HTML version. Don’t say one thing in the text version and another in the HTML. Also, keep them close to the same size. The more closely the messages match, the more friendly the emails will be treated.

So, does Delivra provide the tools to do this? Yes. By default, Delivra will create a basic text component to your message when you import the HTML message you have created or uploaded to Content. Automatically included are:

• A link to an online version
• Your postal address associated with your list
• A valid unsubscribe mechanism for your mailings.

You have the ability to modify that to include any other text relevant to your mailing.

But did you know that you can create your content for text-only recipients at the same time you create your HTML content? Our Development Team built a beautifully simple (in terms of use) feature which allows you to not only save your text content along with the HTML, but to parse your HTML into text with the click of a button. And, if there is something that you wish to add (perhaps there was some text shown as an image that didn’t make it into the text version) you can modify it before saving.

If you have any questions about using this or any other feature, let us know.  We’re here to help.

Kris Dougherty | Director of Operations

When the American Le Mans Series stopped in Long Beach, Calif., May 21-23, the race’s email campaigns delivered conversion-to-sales rates that were two to three times higher and open rates 15 percent higher than last year’s campaigns, thanks to the assistance of email service provider (ESP) Delivra (http://www.delivra.com).

The American Le Mans Series is a sports car racing series based in the United States and Canada, consisting of a series of endurance and sprint races.  To keep in touch with fans, sponsors and sports media, American Le Mans Public Relations Director and Website Editor Ryan Smith uses email as his tool of choice.

To read more about the American Le Mans Series, click here for the full story.

For white papers detailing ways to drive your email marketing to the next level, go to http://dlvra.me/s/3etBx.

All of the fonts available in Delivra’s HTML Editor are web-safe and automatically include the font family.

The perceived level of professionalism in your email design can, among other elements, be heavily attributed to your use of font. The fonts you select for your design affect its readability and flow. Fonts should be used carefully in any print design, and especially in web or email design.

Web Safe Fonts: Why Should I Use Them?

Web-safe fonts are extremely common on most machines, whether they be Windows, Mac, Linux, whatever. Using web-safe fonts, you can assume that all of your recipients are viewing your email in the same font that you are. Be sure to include a font family as a fallback. For example:

<span style=”font-family:  Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif”>Hello World!</span>

The words “Hello World!” will appear in Tahoma. Should a recipient not have the font Tahoma on their computer, the text will display in Arial instead; if not Arial, then Helvetica, and so on.

If your brand manager demands you use a font that is not web-safe, you can always create that text in an image (although this isn’t a good alternative. Most email clients block images by default, so your recipients wouldn’t see your text unless they enabled their images).

How Should I Design with Fonts In Mind?
As a general design rule, it’s a good idea to use only 2-3 fonts per piece. More than that and your content will likely appear visually jumbled. If you have an email with 6 different lines of information, don’t write up each line in a different font and size. Sure – in theory, you’re making each line of text distinctive and eye-catching, right? Wrong! In reality, you’re making your content look like a scrambled mess. No recipient is going to look at your content and read all six lines of text at once. Try using a heavier, bold font as a headline and a simpler font for the body (and since Comic Sans is a web-safe font, you can even use that – but we’d advise you not to let your designers find out).

If you have a lot of information that you think is individually important, try to number the points of information by importance and design the text from there. It’s possible to guide your recipients’ attention to important areas using fonts, but it’s not so easy to make everything jump out at once.

Celeste Odell | Design Services

Growing a quality list of subscribers can be hard work.

One common mistake I see people make is a poorly thought out program where “opt-in is required to get x”.  These types of programs can be done right, but more often than not, the ones I see are geared only toward collecting as many email addresses as possible, and do not take into consideration the wants or needs of the recipient.

I see this frequently with websites that require an email address be entered (or an account set up) to gain access to anything from a photo gallery to a whitepaper.  More often than not, the information about how that address will be used is either buried in a linked privacy policy (am I the only one who reads those?) or isn’t present at all (which, to me, says “expect to get a lot of junk”)

And I’m not alone in being suspicious about adding an email address to such a form.  Slashdot recently polled their readers to ask how likely they are to enter correct data when prompted for this type of info.  Overwhelmingly, respondents admitted to entering fake information.

Laura at Word to the Wise recently expanded on this as a reason why companies find their lists riddled with spamtrap addresses.  And she’s right.  If you’re collecting email addresses simply as a requirement for access to something, you can expect fake entries.  And commonly used false addresses have a way of turning into traps.  And traps can hurt your deliverability and endanger your relationship with your ESP.

There are simple steps that you can take to avoid this problem:

• Set the right expectation: Allow the sign-ups to see exactly what they’ll be getting (and do it there on your form).
• Give them a choice: “Yes, I’d like to receive tips and other information via email.” or “No. I’m only interested in the whitepaper.”
• Require confirmation: The greatest tool to avoid adding traps is a good confirmed-opt-in process, requiring the recipient to take action before receiving further emails.

Granted, if your primary goal is to send to as many email addresses as possible, you’re not going to like that advice.  But why in the world do you want to waste your time and money sending to fakeaddress@leavemealone.com?

Take some time and think about how you’re growing your list.  And if you’d like advice on designing (or redesigning) your program, give us a call.  We’re glad to help.

Kris Dougherty | Director of Operations

The Tower of Babel, according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower built at the city of Babylon.  According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, participated in the building. The people decided their city should have a tower so immense that it would have “its top in the heavens.”

However, the Tower of Babel was not built for the worship and praise of God, but was instead dedicated to the glory of man, to “make a name” for the builders: “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:4). The Book of Genesis then relates how God, displeased with the builders’ intent, came down and confused their languages. The result was that the people of Babylon scattered throughout the earth.

Fast forward to 2010, when technology, aided by a profusion of satellite and fiberoptic communications advances, has brought the world back together with the ability to communicate instantly anywhere on the globe via the Internet.  Has technology enabled man to resurrect another Tower of Babel? Are we to repeat biblical history? My preacher posed this question yesterday at Sunday services.

To quote George Santayana (1863–1952), philosopher and essayist, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Translation services, hoping to counteract the fragmentation of the world’s languages, are error-prone and fail to deal with colloquialisms and nuance.  Meanwhile, the Internet’s governing body is advancing a plan to allow domain names in all languages, instead of just using just the English alphabet.  So far, human effort, even in the Internet era, has failed to overcome the confusion of languages attributed to ancient Bablyon.

Therefore, Delivra continues to receive inquiries about support for email content in langauges other than English.  Our software is able to send mail using the UTF-8 character set, which represents all of the world’s langauges.  Until mankind returns to a universal language, that will have to do!

Neil Berman | CEO & President

“How can I grow my e-mail subscriber list?” It’s a question I get all the time. There are a few different ways to grow your list.  We’ve talked about those ways before. A few examples include: Have a subscribe form on your website, Facebook, Twitter, blog, and a “Subscribe Now” link/button in any e-mail that goes out.  Another consideration is…snail mail.

Check out this direct mail piece that I received in my mailbox. That’s right. Snail-mail to grow your opt in e-mail list. Who would’ve guessed it?  It’s a mail in rebate for a maintenance medication for my dog Roxie. This direct mail piece is accomplishing two things. First it’s promoting an additional purchase from my local vet’s office (I blocked out their information) and second it’s collecting my e-mail address for the manufacturer.

There are a few things I want to point out here:

1. Mail-In Rebate vs Direct to Website- I would encourage people to go the website and sign up there instead of having them mail this back to you. That way as soon as they sign up they receive a welcome e-mail with a link to the coupon to print out. Driving people to your website to sign up will prevent a significant lag time from the time someone mails this in to the time they receive their first e-mail. In your sign up form on the website you can even ask a question or two to help segment and target future mailings. For example, do you have a dog or a cat?

2. Relevant Content- I love the offer. For me, saving a dollar per dose is a good deal. Make sure you are really rewarding your prospective list member. One caution…don’t make the deal too sweet. Great deals can become viral and make their way all over the internet, which may be a good problem to have, but make sure whatever your deal is that you can handle it. Remember the KFC Grilled Chicken coupon fiasco last year? Watch out for that.

3. Clearly Stating Your Intentions–”By providing your e-mail address…you are requesting receipt of  pet care tips and special offers from ABC Company” Don’t forget to tell people what they are signing up for long term. It’s not just for this one coupon.

Just so we are clear; I’m not an expert at direct mail pieces. I do know it can be pretty costly. Will it be worth it to grow your e-mail list? I don’t know. You have to determine what an e-mail address (of a customer who is engaged) is worth to your business. If it was my business, then I would treat this situation like e-mail. Don’t just send to a bunch of people you don’t know, send this offer to customers that have spent money with you before that are not currently on your e-mail list. I am assuming that is what was done here. I have purchased these products before through my veterinarian’s office but I am not on the drug manufacturer’s e-mail list. Now I receive friendly reminders when to administer the monthly medicine and when I need to purchase more.

Want more ideas? Give us a call (866) 915-9465 and ask for your free e-mail situation analysis. Or, do you have some ways that have helped you grow your e-mail list organically? Share your ideas here!

Rachel Rewerts | Account Management

Over the years I have worked under numerous marketing models in which the marketing team was charged with creating a marketing plan and strategy, implementing that on time and under budget, and then presenting all of the STUFF that went along with that work.  For one major campaign that I worked on, I actually had a marketing VP ask us to present to our sales team a 90 slide PPT (professionally designed and animated) illustrating all the stuff we created for them.  Needless to say, that VP is no longer with that company and I am sure they haven’t completely altered that way of thinking.  However, for years that is what the company expected of marketing.  Show us your STUFF.

In fact, I would venture a guess that there are numerous marketers that still manage their discipline that way.  Here’s how I know, this is a true story I heard recently of a marketing team that did just that for years….

Over the course of 10 years, the company built a marketing department.  The team had directors, managers, designers, and much more.  In fact, I’m told they could produce brochures and stuff better than any printer around.  They had closets of chotchkies (you know all those cool fun giveaway items with your logo on them) and gift baskets.  They had shelves of marketing collateral printed and ready to go.  They even had enough tradeshow booths to run a show all their own.  The team grew and grew and reached just under 15 employees.

They were very good at creating STUFF.  However, I’m not sure they accounted for a turbulent economy and never thought a company that built that much around marketing would eliminate the entire team.  They did!  Want to know why?!?  Well, the company had to make cuts because of the economy and because this marketing team was more concerned with timelines and stuff and not results, they were perceived as a mere line item and cut.

So you may ask what is the point to all the storytelling today?  The point is this:

You MUST hold yourself accountable as a marketer to bring true value to your company.

And no, I don’t mean value in meeting a timeline or coming in under budget.  Those items should be assumed.  What I am talking about is tying every marketing activity to the results….are you tracking ROI on what you do?  Here at Delivra, I manage our marketing and make sure it is measurable.  I hold my self accountable to bring results to the company and if I am not bringing results, then I adjust my tactics and plan.

Here’s a simple way to think about it:  All marketing efforts can pretty much be tied to three things-brand awareness, lead generation/nurturing, and client retention.  Everything you do should have an end goal of supporting one of these three areas.  Measure the ROI on each tactic that contributes to those areas and you will very clearly begin to see which activities bring the best results.  That’s one of the reasons I have always liked marketing technologies like email marketing.  They make it easy for you to track results in real-time and make sure you are getting the return.  For every dollar your company spends on marketing, your ROI should not only recoup that dollar, but multiply it!  Here’s an interesting stat….

Email marketing will generate an ROI of $43.52 in 2009. DMA (2009)

Are you able to illustrate ROI to your company in a way that makes you and your function indispensable?  Are you able to create, manage, and adjust a marketing plan off of more than a gut feeling?  If not, then you should definitely look into measuring results through ROI tracking and looking at marketing as a way to boost your brand, generate leads, or retain clients.  Plain and simple.

Here’s a helpful calculator that may help you. I’d love to hear what you think….Comment today!

Carissa Newton | Marketing