'Net Features : wm-email

Simple Steps to Engaging Webinars

Administrator — Tue, 07 May 2013 18:23:00 GMT

:: By Heidi Wong, Bigcommerce ::

Webinars can be part of the marketing arsenal for even the most early-stage businesses, because it can build brand awareness, email lists and more. Software and delivery technology has changed, putting Web-based seminars within reach of a wider group of users. Despite these changes, though, one thing remains the same: Knowing your customers and what keeps them engaged.

Webinars can be incredibly painful to the audiences they are intended to serve. Reactions are polarized, ranging from “Oh no, are you kidding?” to “Oh, that's great!”

Getting to “Oh, that’s great!” is easier than you think, as long as you understand that Webinars are not about you; they’re about how your customers benefit from working with you. If your current or prospective clients are willing to give you 20-30 minutes of their time, they have to know they can walk away with something practical they can apply to their business or their world.

Whether you are a first-time Webinar host or a seasoned veteran, here are seven simple strategies that will keep your clients interested in hearing from you, and coming back for more.

1. The Webinar doesn't have to be about your product. The most common error many hosts make is designing the content of their Webinar in the service of the company rather than the customer.

In fact, a Webinar may be of greatest use to your audience when it speaks to the lifestyle in which your product is used. For example, I am a fairly new parent. Consequently, I find myself directly in the crosshairs of the “mommy marketing machine.” This group of vendors has Webinars down to a science. One store that sells baby goods in my hometown of Boston recently ran a Webinar on “how to deal with a disruptive toddler.”

What's interesting about this approach is the company is not talking about the products it sells, or any of the benefits related to those products. Instead, they are talking about where those products are used, and how they can be used to manage situations that are of particular interest to their target audience.

This cuts across all marketplaces. With that important shift in focus, attendees learn practical information. More importantly, they start to understand that your company has an expertise on which they can rely.

2. Make sure to host your Webinar at a time when your participants would like to attend. Take the restaurant market, for example. I’ve known Webinar hosts who wanted to make their presentations at two o’clock in the afternoon. For many restaurants, that is either the end of a high-demand lunch rush or planning and prep time before the earliest dinner crowds. It's unlikely that any of their targets would be available at that time.

In that case, an early morning session — say 9 a.m. on a Monday — may be the right choice. In a B2B environment, though, Monday morning wouldn’t be optimal. Friday afternoon, likewise, is probably a bad idea. People are either wrapping up the week or getting ramped up after the weekend.

You have to understand the market you're trying to reach and plan around their down times, when business or important planning is unlikely to be done. In my previous example of the baby goods store, Webinars can run as late as eight o’clock on any given evening. The hosts understand that by that time the baby is (hopefully) asleep, and the parents will be able to participate.

3. Webinars don’t have to be live. Consider the possibility of a video-on-demand feed. Again, know your customers, what they actually care about and when they can spend time with the material. Being able to access Webinars on their own schedule improves the chances of reaching the largest group of clients or prospects.

4. Remember your time zones. The point here again is to find a time that is convenient for your participants. That does not mean, unfortunately, that it may be best for you. Depending on which coast you're on, you may find that you’re getting up much earlier than you'd like or staying in the office much later than you'd prefer.

For a typical corporate environment, a Webinar that begins at one or two o’clock Eastern time is often a good bet. It gives the broadest swath of businesses across all US time zones an opportunity to work the Webinar into their lunch schedule, so that they can multitask and eat lunch while taking in the information.

And while we’re on the subject:

5. Understand that people will be multitasking during your Webinar. Participants are unlikely to be giving you 100 percent of their attention. There should be some mechanism by which participants can, for example, download a PowerPoint presentation or other slide deck after the Webinar to ensure they don't miss any important information. Making the Webinar available in a video-on-demand format can also be helpful here.

6. Consider something other than a “lecture” environment. To improve the participant involvement, I am a proponent of a more informal roundtable or workshop approach. I will often un-mute attendees and have them share stories. People enjoy talking about themselves and sharing relevant information. They feel safer asking questions in that setting. They can relate to other attendees, and get the benefit of hearing other people's questions rather than just getting a product sales pitch. It's more about sharing information in an online environment.

My most successful Webinars have been when I was doing the least amount of talking. I’ve seen the best satisfaction responses, best conversion rates and best reviews when panels of customers talk about their experiences. Of course, not everyone is comfortable doing that, but it’s often true that your best reactions may come when you speak the least.

7. Make content relatable — tell a story. This takes us all the way back to our first point: the Webinar doesn’t have to be about your product or your company. This takes practice. You have to become a good storyteller.

Interestingly, some of the best people I've hired and trained to do this kind of work have been standup comedians. I honestly believe that the best Webinars are more of a cross between a talk radio show and a performance than a lecture. It’s “edu-tainment.” You have to entertain your participants to keep them involved.

Again, people are usually multi-tasking during a Webinar. They are checking their Twitter feed. They are answering emails. They're on Facebook looking at pictures from the weekend. You have to give them a reason to stay and pay attention.

Webinars are about more than just content. The content has to be relevant to their world. You can talk very pie-in-the-sky, but ultimately you have to offer real-life applications that make sense to attendees. Provide ideas that participants can emulate and apply to their world. That's the only way that people will leave your Webinar thinking, “Oh, that’s great! That was actually worth my time.”

Heidi Wong is Senior Manager of Distance Learning for Bigcommerce. She can be reached at heidi.wong@bigcommerce.com

Fight Phishing with Return Path

Amberly Dressler — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:49:00 GMT

The reputational cost to a brand as a result of a phishing attack is approximately $1900 per infected user, according to a Cisco report. Can you afford that?

Return Path, an email intelligence company, recently announced a solution to help brand marketers combat phishing attacks (and save face and money) from all email domains by offering visibility into fraudulent email appearing to originate from a company’s own sending domains. Complementing traditional authentication-based solutions such as DMARC, the new Anti-Phishing Solution provides companies with visibility into the entire spectrum of phishing attacks against their brands, Return Path reports.

“Phishing remains a serious threat to online trust and the reliability of the email channel, and efforts like this from an Anti-Phishing Working Group member company represent important progress toward eradicating it,” said Foy Shiver, Deputy Secretary-General, APWG.

Return Path tells us there are essentially two fronts where phishers wage war: from a brand’s own domain, and so-called “lookalike domains” – close variants of brand names – entirely unrelated to the brands to fool the brand’s customers. Return Path gives this example: These phishers will create a dot com address using a ‘1’ instead of an ‘L,’ which often look similar at first-glance. These non-domain phishing attacks, which are the most prevalent type of attack, pose a serious and significant threat to consumers and the brand’s online equity.

Traditional authentication-based solutions, such as DMARC, offer visibility into fraudulent email appearing to originate from a company’s own sending domains, according to Return Path. However, it is estimated more than half of all phishing attacks actually originate from the “lookalike domains."

“This is a monumental breakthrough in the fight to protect companies and consumers from phishing and other forms of email brand abuse. Our clients have reported that more than half of phishing attacks against their brands appear to come from domains beyond their control. Now brands can detect and mitigate attempts to use their names to deceive consumers through email regardless of where the messages appear to come from,” said Ken Takahashi, general manager of Anti-Phishing Solutions at Return Path. “Phishing is a security problem, but solving it isn’t a conventional security challenge, it’s a big data challenge.”

Email Campaigns Get Collaborative at MailChimp

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:25:00 GMT

Email marketers understand the numerous company departments that must be involved with each and every campaign send - including business executives, sales personnel, designers and marketers.

These Web professionals collaborate on content, segmentation tests and pretty much everything else you can think of - but are they really... collaborating?

Email service provider MailChimp has launched a set of new collaboration tools to make the whole process of creating, and ultimately sending, an email a far easier, more seamless process for multi-person digital enterprises.

Email marketers can now include comments (personal messages) when sending tests to others within their organization. When those comments are replied to by test message recipients (by replying to the email itself), they appear within the new Comments tab within the MailChimp interface. MailChimp users also now have access to comment notifications (which arrive through email) as well as inline collaboration - both of which are ideal for those that need to be kept in the loop on each and every change that's occurring.

In an effort to make sure that suggested changes are successfully completed, MailChimp also included a "Completed Tasks" feature which helps to organize comments and feedback.

In the future, Mailchimp indicated they will even offer the option to send notifications via their native mobile app.

How do Your Email Metrics Compare?

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:52:00 GMT

The reason that email marketing has remained a mainstay in the digital promotion toolbox is that, besides it working really well for almost every size enterprise, it is incredibly measureable. And when you can measure it, you can manage it (and monetize it, too).

When marketers have an opportunity to measure something (anything) they are going to compare their performance to that of the competition. So how do your email campaigns compare?

The latest study from email marketing automation provider Silverpop (the 2013 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark study) takes a deep look at key metrics including most notably open rate and click-through rate in multiple industries around the world.

OPEN RATES: As it relates to unique open rates, vendors of consumer products fared best with a median open rate of 25.4%, followed by Financial Services (20.9%) and Computer Software (20.4%). It's interesting to see how the best and worst (top quartile/bottom quartile) in each business category performed as well.

CLICK-THROUGH RATES: When it comes to the CTR metric, there's an almost disproportionate divide between the top and bottom performers. The median click-through rates for Consumer Products (3.3%), Education (2.8%), and Retail (2.7%) were the clear industry winners but again, it's important to take a close look at the top and bottom quartiles to see just how wide ranging the performance is among email marketers.

Weather-Based Email Triggers

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:30:00 GMT

Does the weather affect how much you sell on a given day? Well of course it does - your customers wouldn't be human if that weren't the case!

When it rains, sleets, snows, hails, or is exceedingly hot, you can count on buyers staying in the dry and temperative moderated spaces of their offices and homes. Thanks to technology however, slow sales periods as a result of weather issues, can - at least in part - be mitigated thanks to an interesting new technology from Email Aptitude.

The email strategy and technology firm's EA Rainmaker technology, built for e-commerce retailers, enables marketers to create email triggers that will automatically deploy emails to customers in areas where a pre-defined weather condition/event is going to take place. A campaign can be set to trigger an email based on an immediate weather change, or set to “forecast” mode, in which the marketer can indicate the cadence of deployment and how far out to look at a local forecast. Only customers living in a specific city where the determined campaign logic is set to occur will receive the email.

“From rain to snow to flurries to thunderstorms and actual temperature fluctuations – an email manager can now trigger and merchandise emails in advance that are tailored for an extremely targeted user experience,” said Kimberly Snyder, Director of Strategy, Email Aptitude.

The EA Rainmaker feature is one of many provided by Email Aptitude. The solution provide also offers page and category abandonment auitomation through its Archetype IQ feature, a light-box email capture trigered by real-time mouse gesture and velocity dubbed BounceExchange, a gender prediction feature, coupon-code appending, and even some competitive intelligence tools.

Email Links Increase Traffic on Travel Sites

Allison Howen — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 19:45:00 GMT

Email has been a good marketing tool for the travel industry, according to a new report from iPerceptions.

The Voice of Customer (VoC) analytics provider has released its Online Satisfaction and Experience in the Hospitality Industry report for Q4 of 2012, which reveals that hospitality and tourism sites have seen significant growth in traffic from email links – up from 1 percent in Q1 2012 to 9 percent in Q4 of 2012.

While search engines still drive the most traffic to these type of sites (35 percent), the report shows that traffic from email links is on the rise. This is especially true for first time website visitors, as 11 percent of these users accessed a hospitality or tourism website via an email link in Q4 2012.

“It’s important for marketers to be aware of this change in user behavior, but at the same time realize that it only tells one side of the story,” said Nancy Wiesenfeld, director of insight at iPerceptions. “As with any change in user behavior it is essential for companies to look at both attitudinal and behavioral data to fully understand what is happening and accurately measure campaign success. Companies can combine behavioral data with Voice of the Customer attitudinal data to find out why customers did what they did. With this powerful combination of data, marketers can continually adjust marketing campaigns to improve effectiveness.”

It is also important to note that the study found loyalty programs may be losing popularity amongst consumers. This is because the number of loyalty program members for hospitality and tourism sites saw a slight decrease in Q4 of 2012 – down to 77 percent from 78 percent in Q3, and an even greater drop from 81 percent in Q4 of 2011.

CRM for Sales: Tylr Mobile Connects the Inbox to Salesforce

Allison Howen — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:19:00 GMT

New technology from Tylr Mobile is helping connect salespeople’s inboxes with CRM data while on the go.

The technology, dubbed WorkinBox, is essentially an iOS app that connects to Salesforce. The mobile email solution allows salespeople to prioritize emails from customers and prospects, focus on important opportunities and access relevant customer information. Moreover, the technology allows users to turn messages into actionable tasks and update salesforce.com as they work. According to the Tylr Mobile blog, the first version of WorkinBox focuses on making sales professionals more productive and responsive to their customers.

“We help you focus on your priorities by organizing your inbox by account, opportunity or key contact,” the blog states. “We help you be responsive to your customers by giving you access to email templates, files and relevant CRM information. Create tasks from your email, remember what you commit to your customers and manage your activity list on the go. Spend your time selling, not doing data entry – WorkinBox helps you update your CRM as you work.”

It is also important to note that WorkinBox is built on a secure mobile work platform that is able to handle unique sales processes at different companies and is easy for IT to configure, deploy and manage. However, those interested in trying out WorkinBox won’t be able to download it in the app store yet, because the service is currently in beta and only being released in private deployments to pilot groups and companies leveraging the Salesforce platform. That said, those interested in trying WorkinBox, as well as have an iPhone and use Salesforce, can sign up to join the beta trial.

“The way we work on the go is broken – every mobile app is a silo, and email is the biggest silo of them all,” said Ryan Nichols, CEO & Co-Founder, Tylr Mobile. “Someone needs to bring all these silos together to help people get work done. That’s what we’re building here at Tylr Mobile.”

Merchants Fail to Capitalize on Purchase-Related Data

Allison Howen — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:25:00 GMT

Site and shopper data is very valuable to merchants, so why are many not taking advantage of it?

A recent Bronto Software and RSR Research report reveals that even though there’s plenty of consumer intent data produced during each stage of the buying process that could help retailers drive more sales, many fail to take advantage of these opportunities due to poor data collection processes and a lack of integration between marketing and e-commerce platforms.

The report, “Harnessing the Power: How Retailers Collect and Use Purchase-Related Data,” surveyed 85 retailers with online shopping carts in February 2013, and revealed that there is data and email disconnect across retailer segments. The survey took a look at retailer data collection and email practices during the pre-purchase, in-purchase and post-purchase stages. During the pre-purchase stage, most consumers conduct research before making a purchase by first visiting retailer, manufacturer and product review sites to compare products and prices. That said, 47 percent of retailers surveyed said they do not collect product-level site browsing data that can be associated with a specific email subscriber.

Moreover, in-purchase activities move shopping behavior from browsing to the transaction, which gives retailers opportunities to upsell, cross-sell and build repeat business. However, the survey found that 22 percent of retailers are not currently exchanging data between their email service provider and e-commerce platform, which limits their ability to drive more revenue with in-purchase and post-purchase email campaigns.

The report also examined retailer email opt-in, abandoned cart and transactional practices during the in-purchase stage, and found missed opportunities for retailers to more effectively grow subscriber lists and improve email targeting.

In fact, once the purchase is completed, retailers have the opportunity to persuade consumers to take an action, such as making their next purchase or writing a review. The survey, however, found some retailers are still failing to take advantage of this opportunity, with only 24 percent claiming to customize campaigns for active purchasers beyond typical transactional communications of order and/or shipping confirmations.

“Retailers have a lot to gain from consumer purchase data, but the RSR survey shows many still struggle to make data actionable and they’re missing out on revenue opportunities,” said Jim Davidson, Bronto’s manager of marketing research, who worked with RSR on the report. “Those retailers who close the gap by integrating marketing and e-commerce platforms are reaping the rewards through stronger customer loyalty and a greater share of revenue.”

eWay Direct Gets Fathead

Amberly Dressler — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:10:00 GMT

Fathead’s wall graphics (you’ve seen the commercials, think Green Bay’s Clay Matthews coming out of the wall), are big, but the company’s customer acquisition goals are bigger.

In order to generate highly qualified online customers and prospects, Fathead turned to eWay Direct whose Certain Source 2.0 B2C customer acquisition solution is designed to help companies deliver profitable online, tablet and mobile prospects and customers.

“Lead generation can be costly, and often has a negative impact on email performance,” said Jake Mahoney, senior media manager, Fathead. “We’re excited to use CertainSource because it lets us avoid potentially damaging leads and allows us to focus our efforts on quality prospects and customers.”

Fathead is among many other top brands to choose eWayDirect, including Publishers Clearing House, Alex and Ani and John Wiley.

Autoresponders 2.0 from GetResponse

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 08:00:00 GMT

Email marketing provider GetResponse has released several enhancements to its Autoresponders feature.

The new product, aptly named AutoResponders 2.0, actually replaces GetResponse's previous “Follow-Ups” feature. The new feature includes two categories (different types of autoresponders) – time-based autoresponders (also known as drip campaigns) and event-based autoreponders.

GetResponse’s time-based autoresponders enable marketers to create unlimited messages per cycle, schedule delivery of multiple messages on single days, schedule messages for immediate delivery or with a delay, specify the number of hours to delay, specify the day of the week and more.

The event-based autoresponders mimic the logic of one-to-one email correspondence as they can be triggered in response to user behavior. Some of those behaviors include clicking a link, opening an email, changing a custom field, completion of a goal, even birthday messages.

“To be successful online, SMBs need to build customer relationship with consistent, relevant and regular communications,” said GetResponse Founder and CEO Simon Grabowski. “With Autoresponders 2.0 marketers can use automation to maintain ongoing 1-to-1 communication effortlessly.”

The Five Myths of Lead Generation

Administrator — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 18:30:00 GMT

By Jeffrey Cody, Senior Marketing Manager, Campaigner®

Myths, folk tales and urban legends make for entertaining storytelling, and can even teach a lesson or two. But when it comes to the real business of lead generation, myths and misperceptions can cost you money and customers.

Myths about lead generation can lead to faulty practices and missed opportunities. Below we bust five of the most common myths about lead generation. Use our tips to debunk bad practices and craft strategies that will deliver the happy ending of leads that convert to customers.

Myth #1 - It’s all about cost per lead

Many marketing departments focus on achieving a certain number of leads at a certain cost per lead. Lead efforts should instead be focused on cost per acquisition, cost per upselling the customer, and cost per lifetime value of a customer, all worked backward into the lead generation effort. It’s easy to build a campaign that will create thousands of leads for a nickel per lead but you run the risk of none of them ever converting. You can lose thousands of nickels, frustrate your sales team and not get anything out of the program.

For example, if you have a model that says you think your best close rate is $50 per lead to get a program done, you might find an opportunity where $1,000 per lead closing at 80 percent and is worth 50x per customer. Instead of a hyper-focus on cost per lead of the campaign consider a comprehensive formula that measures the true return of your efforts.

Myth #2: Lead scoring revolves around lead source

In recent years, the emergence of marketing automation tools have led sales teams to believe that they can create millions of leads and score them initially based on “lead source.” Using these tools, sales & marketing teams score leads and then realize that they no longer like the lead source. They then change the scoring, raising or lowering the base lead source score, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The right way of measuring a lead should be around explicit and implicit information provided by the lead at initial sign-up. You should focus less about the source, but rather on job title, industry, the number of sales reps, or budgets. After all, if you didn’t think the source was worthy, you wouldn’t have started there to begin with. You can then follow those attributes all the way through the sales process and build a lead scoring profile. For example, you may find that CEO leads come in and close or it may be deals of a certain sales size that have a high close rate.

The inverse is when you find a certain job title that doesn’t close well, takes a lot of the sales people’s time, isn’t a high-revenue deal, has a high rate of churn or has high support costs. You can use these profiles as a part of your lead scoring to help you improve your targeting to reach more of your best leads and to assess whether to continue certain types of campaigns.

Myth #3: Landing pages produce the most leads

In the past, marketing departments used single-page Web forms with minimal information to get more out of their lead generation efforts. Prospects would be driven to these pages and forced through a call-to-action gateway before they could access any other information. There are times when this is the right action, but often good prospects, who may be more qualified than the average lead you are capturing, are turned away because they are unable to find the extra information they are seeking.

This is common when prospects find your site via a search engine. The path is determined by the type of link they click – organic or paid. The organic link would have led to your website where they would have found the information, but the paid click leads them through this forced funnel. You should treat the same person who could randomly have picked either path with the same amount of respect, especially since people want more data before giving up personal information. Educated consumers often become your best customers, so make it easy for all prospects to access information about your solutions. When you provide equal access regardless of link type, you will have shorter sales cycles, fewer frustrated leads and a better reputation.

Myth #4: Drip campaigns are a necessity

Never run a drip campaign for the sake of checking it off on your campaign list. Every time you send an email out you are welcoming prospects to unsubscribe and if they unsubscribe you have lost the ability to ever communicate with them again. Worse, you could provoke them to cancel your services, increasing churn. It is essential to find a balance between having a drip program because you know you need one (and you know it can work) and risking that really critical information, such as a product enhancement or a special promotion, may not get delivered to them because they unsubscribed four emails back.

A good strategy for drip campaigns is to adopt a “less is more” approach or a triggers-based approach. In this way you maintain communication so that prospects remember you but minimize the risk of them unsubscribing or canceling your service.

Myth #5: The Marketing team is controlling the communications stream

To make the most of lead generation, you need to have a communications plan that includes sales and marketing. Let’s say you have a free trial on your website or sign-up form and it requires sales intervention to follow-up. The marketing team creates a drip email campaign to keep the lead engaged for days zero through 30 of the trial period. But your plan has a flaw.

Your 12-email, 30-day drip campaign is not the only way prospects are getting communication. No matter what, the prospect will be contacted by the sales team. You have a controlled process in place but without considering the dynamics of the entire process you risk frustrating or losing a prospect.

In conversations with a salesperson a shift may have occurred in the prospect’s need, but your drip marketing program doesn’t reflect that need. As a result, your messaging may annoy, misinform the prospect, or lengthen or kill a sales cycle. When it comes to planning lead nurturing communications, less can be more. Use your automated tools to personalize campaigns based on real time information. This will ensure targeted, relevant messaging that helps turn a lead into a customer.

Myths and legends make for good conversation but cannot provide a sustainable foundation for engaging your customers. Knowing the difference between fact and fiction and using that knowledge will enable you to build a solid and sustainable lead generation process that delivers results.

Email Insights for Small & Mid-Sized Businesses

Allison Howen — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 18:05:00 GMT

A new report from iContact is shedding light on how small and mid-sized businesses use email as a marketing strategy.

The Small and Midsize Business Email Marketing Survey 2013 Report, which was commissioned by iContact and was conducted by Edge Research, reveals email is still among the most popular digital marketing strategies. In fact, the report found that 56 percent of businesses plan to increase their use of email marketing in 2013. On average, businesses currently spend 15 percent of their marketing budget on email.

Moreover, the report found that businesses are more likely to integrate email and social activities than any other marketing channel. Sixty-four percent of businesses, for example, coordinate their email marketing with their social marketing strategies.

“Email marketing has been and remains a primary marketing lever for businesses,” said Vice President of Digital and eCommerce Marketing, Geoff Alexander. “Social media and other marketing channels have only increased the effectiveness of email marketing.”

Additional insights from the report found that 92 percent of businesses use email to share information about new products and services, while only 72 percent use email to advertise sales and promotions. Furthermore, the study offered some valuable information on subscriber numbers, revealing that most businesses (62%) have email lists of 10,000 or fewer subscribers – with the median list size being about 3,500 subscribers. That being said, 24 percent of small and mid-sized businesses have 1,000 or fewer subscribers, while 21 percent have more than 10,000 subscribers.

Triggered Messaging Triggers Positive Results

Allison Howen — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:15:00 GMT

Triggered messaging is the newest trend in email, because a new report from Epsilon reveals that this marketing technique has seen 73 percent growth year over year.

In fact, the Q4 2012 Email Trends and Benchmark report shows that triggered messages accounted for 5 percent of total email volume. The reason for the growth in triggered messaging is most likely due to its effectiveness, because Epsilon’s report found that triggered messages obtained 70.5 percent higher open rates and 101.8 percent higher click rates compared to other messages that were sent out in Q4 2012.

It is important to note that the triggered message benchmarks were compiled from more than 360 million triggered emails sent by Epsilon in Q4 2012 across multiple industries. The report tracked campaigns deployed as a result of an action or trigger such as Welcome, Abandon Shopping Cart, Thank You and Anniversary.

"Utilizing triggered messages is a proven strategy to maintain subscriber engagement,” said Judy Loschen, vice president of digital analytics at Epsilon. “More marketers are realizing the many benefits of triggered messages, as is evident by the continued increase in volume. However, more is required to predict and meet the needs of your customers and subscribers. Marketers must create a full 360-degree view of the individual consumer and a strategy that takes a personalized approach. It requires a blend of data, analytics and creativity to achieve success.”

Epsilon's quarter analysis was compiled from 7.3 billion emails sent by the company in October, November and December 2012 across multiple industries and approximately 170 participating clients. Other highlights of the report show that non-bounce rate remained strong at 96 percent, while open rates increased by 0.6 percent quarter over quarter and 10.6 percent year over year. Additionally, click rates stayed the same as Q3 2012, at 4.5 percent.

Moreover, the report’s Email Activity Segmentation Evaluation (EASE) found that for the third consecutive quarter, more than 50 percent of the average brand’s opt-in email list had no activity, while only approximately 28.3 percent of subscribers in an average email file had opened or clicked a message in the most recent three months.

"In Q4 2012, 63 percent of the average email file was unengaged with marketers' email programs," said Loschen. "This presents a huge opportunity for brands. Marketers cannot assume that their task is complete after they receive an opt-in to their email program. To continue to drive long term value from each individual subscriber, marketers must constantly work to engage them."

Preview Email Campaigns for Greater Performance with Pinpointe

Michael Garrity — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 18:30:00 GMT

The inability to know how all of an email’s recipients will see the content once it’s been sent has to be one of the greatest challenges for email marketers, as they have to try to devise a newsletter design that will work effectively on the myriad of browsers and devices that their subscribers will be opening them on.

In an attempt to solve this dilemma, the cloud-based email marketing company Pinpointe recently released a new Email Campaign Previewer tool and spam checker for mobile and desktop clients that helps mid-sized businesses, including e-commerce sites, get a glance at how their emails will appear to a variety of different types of users after they’re sent.

Email Campaign Previewer will render and verify an email’s design for optimal display across over 50 desktop and mobile clients, including the iPad and Android devices. This allows email marketers to identify any potential readability or HTML coding issues, both of which have a considerable impact on email response rates. According to Pinpointe, previewing your emails will not only improve response rates, but overall email marketing ROI, as well.

Marketers using Email Campaign Previewer will be able to preview an unlimited number of email designs and disable images if they present a problem; meanwhile, Pinpointe will analyze their HTML email code and provide them with detailed feedback on any incompatibilities or rendering issues it may have with certain clients, along with a corrected code that the marketer can use.

Get a Better Newsletter By Curating Content

Michael Garrity — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 23:00:00 GMT

Coming up with good content for your email newsletters can be a real pain for busy business owners, and even some marketers, but it’s such an integral part of many online marketing campaigns that it certainly can’t be abandoned altogether.

Luckily, for those Web professionals with a stockpile of email addresses and no idea what to send to them, the content curation publishing platform Scoop.it has integrated with the email marketing platform MailChimp to make it significantly easier to devise and send out “highly relevant and engaging newsletter campaigns.”

So now, both Scoop.it and MailChimp users, alike, can take advantage of this new integrated solution, which allows them to utilize the curated content from Scoop.it’s topic Web pages to quickly create brand new email newsletters that they can send to customers, prospective customers or key influencer contacts in their MailChimp mailing lists.

This means that Scoop.it customers will be able to select email as a distribution channel for their curated content, while MailChimp users can find and choose new “value-adding existing content” to put in their newsletters; plus, they also have access to the search and social discovery features that are already built into the Scoop.it platform.

“We know that creating successful email campaigns is all about delivering quality content,” said MailChimp COO Neil Bainton. “But that can be difficult for many small businesses who are pressed for time, as it is. We are excited that Scoop.it’s integration with MailChimp offers our users an easy way to pull together interesting and valuable content for their email campaigns.”

And just to make sure that everyone can take advantage of this new workflow integration, it’s been included in the free version of Scoop.it and can be combined with the “forever free” MailChimp plan, thus creating a totally cost-free all-in-one content curation and email newsletter solution. It’s been included in Scoop.it’s premium plans, as well.