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May 27 2003

Publisher's Note: Insights from The ClickZ Email Strategies Conference in New York, May 19-20

If you haven't been to a ClickZ Email Strategies conference lately, I encourage you to attend. The recent conference in New York was a wealth of knowledge on e-mail marketing, featuring practical advice as well as a look ahead to the future of e-mail. Here's a quick run-through of what I found most valuable at the conference:

1. 'Plan-->Create-->Target-->Test-->Deliver-->Measure-->Improve'
2. 'Think Strategic -- Define Your Goals and Metrics Up Front'
3. 'If your e-mail is not delivered or opened, did you really send it?'
4. Summer Reading List: Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace by Laurence Lessig
5. My Favorite Session: 5 Experts/5 Minutes

1. 'Plan-->Create-->Target-->Test-->Deliver-->Measure-->Improve'

Sounds simple, doesn't it? But you'd be surprised how few e-mail marketers actually follow these steps with their campaigns. David Sousa from emailLabs did a great job of laying out and explaining each step in the process --not only the how but also the why.

Most valuable tidbit? His focus on 'ROI (Return on Investment) drivers, primarily key factors in list quality which help determine the success or failure of your campaign. He hit on some of my favorites, including:

• Recency -- I am in total agreement with Dave here. In recent campaigns for a large B-to-C client, I've found recency (how recently they joined the list, updated their profile or clicked on a link an e-mail) to be the most accurate predictor of engagement (opening, reading and taking action) in a campaign. Not rocket science, but not everyone is looking at this.
• Acquisition of data -- another critical factor. David has found, as have I, that single or double opt-in house names perform better than names acquired via other methods (appending, third-party rental lists, etc.)
• David estimates that a quality list can increase your ROI by up to 15-fold -- just one more reason to choose wisely which e-mail lists you send to.

2. 'Think Strategic -- Define Your Goals and Metrics Up Front'

This sage piece of advice came from Al DiGuido, from Bigfoot Interactive, and touches on something many e-mail marketers neglect to do.

Al also spoke about registration/preference pages and recommended (as I do and have been for years) that the following information be included:

• How often they will receive e-mail from you -- this can be accomplished via disclosure (daily, weekly, monthly) or by giving the registrant the option to chose for themselves (if your system supports this)
• What format they prefer (Text or HTML) -- best to offer the registrant a choice
• What topics they want to receive about -- this is key. Email permission is explicit and defined, just because I want to get the latest industry news from you does not mean I want to receive e-mails from third-parties you rent my name to. You need to give people options to receive different types of information from you and to let them tell you if they want to receive third-party promotional e-mails.

3. 'If your e-mail is not delivered or opened, did you really send it?'

This play on one of my favorite old philosophy clichés is from Christopher "Sparky" Knight, with EmailUniverse.com, who presented a ton of practical advice for getting your e-mail delivered, opened and clicked-on. It was a wonderful review of standards and best practices mixed with conventional wisdom. Here are some high-points:

• Keep your HTML e-mails under 16-28K (my standard has always been no more than 30K) -- What I didn't know is that many ISPs will block e-mails over 40K; and anything over 100K may be discarded as a klez virus
• It's trendy to send an HTML that looks like text -- you get the advantage of tracking open rates while appeasing your readers who prefer text but who have software that can read HTML
• AOL isn't perfect -- Most everyone knows that AOL versions 6.0 and under only read plain text and rich text formats (no HTML); but did you know that for deliverability you should keep your HTML files to under 27K for AOL 7.0 and under 40K for AOL 8.0?

4. Summer Reading List: Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace by Laurence Lessig

This book was recommended highly by Hans Peter Brondmo, Digital Impact Fellow and Keynote speaker at this conference. This book lays out in detail one of Hans Peter's key points: that changing code is the most effective way to change behavior, and that this is how the spam issue will be resolved. Hans Peter theorizes that by requiring a secure identity in the e-mail we'll be able to quickly and easily track e-mails back to the senders and monitor their performance and behavior over time. Spammers would be identified and shut down. It's an interesting proposition; I'm looking forward to getting the book and learning more.

Hans Peter made another good point with regard to unsolicited e-mail: organization complexity, not technology, is the obstacle to fixing the spam problem. I think any of you who, like me, have been involved in internal battles to stop otherwise reputable organizations from sending unsolicited e-mail would agree. I would add in 'lack of understanding of the medium' as another big part of the problem; too many offline direct marketers refuse to recognize online as a different medium with different rules (much as fax and telephone have different rules thatn USPS mail due to federal regulations). His prediction: Spam is a bug that will be fixed. I hope he's right.

5. My Favorite Session: 5 Experts/5 Minutes

For me, this was the best session of the conference. Rebecca Lieb, of ClickZ, was asking the questions and using a stopwatch to give each of her five panelists one minute to address them. They covered a variety of topics and the value-per-minute was higher than any other session due to the fact that (a) the questions came from attendees and (b) there was no time for fluff. Here are a few of things they covered:

• Handling e-mail deployment in-house -- "If you're thinking about doing it in-house, think again...it's no game, you need a full-time staff of technology and privacy people...it's more than hardware and software" stated Al DiGuido, Bigfoot Interactive. The rest of the panelists agreed with him.
• Identifying targeted third-part e-mail lists --  'Take a step back...what is the lifestyle you're looking for?' was the advice of Jack Aaronson, The Aaronson Group. The question gave some very specific demographics and asked how the panelists would go about finding a targeted e-mail list. The feeling was that while some e-mail lists come with detailed demographics, others do not and you need to 'think outside the box' a bit and use different criteria (like lifestyle, offer, and quality & type of person likely to respond to the offer) to find a good match. Identifying e-mail lists is not the same as identifying USPS lists.
• Getting white listed/avoiding blacklists - The best point on this topic, aside from the obvious 'double-opt-in-don't-spam', was made by Brian Cusack of iMakeNews.com;  he recommended being pro-active about building relationships with ISPs and blacklist owners, so you already know these people and they know you when problems arise.
• Finding the Best Price on Email Services -- Many of the panelists talked about how you get what you pay for the and the lowest cost may not provide the best value. But Michael Mayor from PostMasterDirect had an interesting perspective; he feels like the price is about to go up, that e-mail services are very cheap now and it's a situation that cannot be sustained. So if you're looking to buy, now may be a great time to sign a long-term deal.
• On handling people who reply to your e-mail communication even when it clearly says 'Do not reply to this e-mail' -- "It's communication! Don't ignore the replies!" was the exasperated response of Declan Dunn, AdNet International. All the other panelists agreed with Declan; there's no good reason to discourage communication via replies. There are programs now that can automatically sort out 'unsubscribes' and filter other comments into a folder while sorting out 'out of office' and other automated responses that don't need to be read. There's no reason to try to stop people from replying, it's a natural response to your having sent them an e-mail. 

Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you have to say. Feel free to contact me with any thoughts or questions about this publisher's note.