A quick Wiki on the world's laws governing email suggests that four of the largest, fastest growing national economies and much buzzed about 'BRIC' countries have one thing in common: a lacuna of legislation or enforcement to regulate commercial email. Brazil has a short section in its Empresa Brasileira de Telecomunicações (Portuguese) on email published in 1999, but it is quite vague and lacks enforcement capabilities. Russia loosely addresses advertising email in Russian Civil Code 309. China has actually passed the most clear legislation on email with its 2006 "Regulations on Internet Email Services", which holds ESPs responsible and requires opt-in, as well as the placement of the word "AD" at the beginning of subject lines. However, India has recently passed an amendment to its IT Act of 2000, without addressing commercial email. Below is an overview of IT regulation so far in India.

Overview: The closest legislation relating to email in India is the newly amended Information Technology Act of 2000. It was previously ammended in 2006, and Indian lawmakers amended the IT Act again in December of 2008. However, the 2008 amendments have yet to be published in the Gazette of India and still do not address email. The law addresses the following, summarized by Justice Rajesh Tandon of the Indian Cyber-Regulations Appellate Tribunal:

-Tampering computer source documents

-Hacking with Computer system

-Loss/damage to computer resource/utility

-Hacking

-Obscene publication/transmission in electronic form.

-Failure of compliance/orders of Certifying Authority.

-Failure to assist in decrypting the information intercepted by Govt. Agency.

-Un-authorized access/attempt to access to protected computer system.

-Obtaining license or Digital Signature Certificate by misrepresentation/suppression of fact.

-Publishing false Digital Signature Certificate.

-Fraud Digital Signature Certificate.

-Breach of confidentiality/privacy.

Enforcement Effects: Interestingly enough, India's 2008 amendment to its IT Act has reduced the punishment for "cyber crime" from 5 years to 2-3 years and has made violations of the act bailable offenses. However, the amendment has apparently closed a lot of loopholes in the existing law. As India's economy develops, a stronger IT infrastructure and a greater presence in the online marketplace will come to fruition. Without enforceable email laws specific to India, the online reputations of companies with a global reach could potentially suffer.

Industry Self-Regulation: CAUCE India was founded in 1999 and later merged with CAUCE Australia to form APCAUCE (Asia-Pacific), a volunteer organization lobbying against unsolicted comercial email. APCAUCE is a division of iCAUCE. In a growing economy, Indian companies with a global reach are in the right position to develop functioning rulesets that are fair to both marketers and consumers. Many email marketing laws around the globe find their roots in industry-developed best practices.

Relevant Resources:

Department of Information Technology (IT Act 2000)

iCAUCE - International Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email

Cyberlaw India- Information on the IT Act, amendments, opinions, articles and resources from Mr. Pavan Duggal, a prominent India IT legislation advocate. 

IT Act 2008 (.pdf Actual Legislation in English)

For those who monitor and suppress against the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Wireless domain list, it seems that verizonwireless.com was removed from the list. Not sure why, but you should be aware of this in case you have customers in that domain who have never seen email sent to them because of the past suppression. This could cause complaints, unsubscriptions, hard bounces, and other issues.

Thanks to Abe Wagner Co-founder and VP of Engineering for Eloqua for noticing this.

 

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

We have a custom blog design to make our site a bit easier on the eyes and would love your feedback on how we can continue make it better in the future.

Please take a look and let us know what you think! I know the email signup form is broken right now, but if you find any other problems please add them in the comments below.

So not sure how many of you here have been following this, but Microsoft has made an announcement saying that the rendering engine will CONTINUE to be WORD in the next version of Outlook. This of course will continue to heavily impact how your emails will render or not render for several years (did I mention I use a MAC).

I make the assumption here that many already understand the issues with Outlook 2007:

• no support for background images (HTML or CSS)
• no support for forms
• no support for Flash, or other plugins (not that this is a big thing and I don't advocate it)
• no support for CSS floats
• no support for replacing bullets with images in unordered lists
• no support for CSS positioning
• no support for animated GIFs

This information obviously prompted an interesting grassroots use of social media (twitter) Fixoutlook.org where you can file a petition against this.

People like email-standards.org have been advocating a list of recommendation the Outlook team should consider and also posted some GREAT examples of what this will do to your email rendering.

The Outlook team themselves have even posted a response to all this titled "The Power of Word in Outlook"

Now, I know this might be a bit early in the development process and say specifically that this will hopefully NOT continue to happen, but my past experiences with a large company like Microsoft is that they will do what they want no matter how much of a cry is put out there. I for one am still not happy about their community involvment even over the past 10-15 years in email. Please visit http://www.fixoutlook.org and let the Microsoft Office development team know your thoughts.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

So my Chief Technology Officer/co-founder, Steve Woods, made probably one of the best posts I have seen this year about an overly used report that I too agree doesn't make much sense to produce anymore. Some of you who attended the Texas Online Marketing Summit (OMS) tour heard me giving a presentation that connected higher deliverability to understanding your customers Digital Body Language as Steve is discussing here.

As you know, Digital Body Language has transformed the buying process over the last 3-5 years by creating a new buying process for considered purchase in the online world. Digital Body Language allows for better segmentation and targeting of online buyers by understanding or measuring their likes and dislikes, their habits, and seeing their needs. Digital Body Language isn’t just batch and blast - not just putting up websites or doing print. It can help tie to privacy and deliverability issues together and help you get better results from your email campaigns by understanding your recipients needs and wants. Digital Body Language can help you send a more relevant message to your customers thus changing your old batch and blast habits to becoming a more finely tuned campaign that will have deliverability.

------

Is Time-of-Day Sending Overhyped?

I can't recall the last time I waited in my inbox at 10:01 on a Tuesday clicking the "Send/Receive" button repeatedly eagerly anticipating the next edition of my favourite corporate newsletter. I'm not particularly bothered by what times emails arrive, as a recipient. I strongly doubt that I'm alone in that.

So why is the email industry enamoured by time-of-day sending optimization? I suspect it comes down to a combination of three factors:

1. Marketers are dying to find ways to improve their effectiveness at connecting with their audiences
2. As email service providers, we can easily build time-of-day sending control into our systems, and it seems like a compelling and simple answer to marketer's needs
3. Tactical metrics like open rates may even show a swing across emails sent at different times of the day, "proving" the effectiveness of this technique

--MORE--

http://digitalbodylanguage.blogspot.com/2009/06/is-time-of-day-sending-overhyped.html

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

From the Washington Post :

Alan Ralsky, a 64-year-old Michigan man that federal investigators say was among the world's top spam kingpins, pleaded guilty on Monday to running a multi-million dollar international stock fraud scam powered by junk e-mail.
Ralsky...and his son-in-law and chief financial officer Scott K. Bradley, 38, also of Michigan, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering and to violate the CAN-SPAM Act.

--snip--

Also pleading guilty in connection with the Ralsky case are:

John S. Bown, 45, of Fresno, Calif., the chief technology officer for the spamming operation. He faces up to 63 months in prison and a $75,000 fine.

William C. Neil, 46, of Fresno, who built and maintained a computer network used to transmit junk e-mails as part of the conspiracy. Neil is looking at as much as 37 months in prison and a $30,000 fine.

James E. Fite, a 36-year-old from Culver City, Calif., a contract spammer, who hired others to send spam. Fite is facing up to two years in prison and a $30,000 fine.

All five defendants are scheduled to be sentenced on Oct 29, 2009.

For further information, Laura Atkins has a post on her blog with links to other news sources.

Bottom line? CAN-SPAM, while rarely enforced, is still the law and if you knowingly and willfully break it, eventually you'll be caught. Let this portend, along with the other cases over the years, to anyone sending legitimate email that you don't ever want to end up in the same league (or court) as spammers so listen to your email staff and/or advisers when they lecture about the law!

So first, I'm not trying to take over my good friend Dylan Boyd's posts on The Email Wars where he regularly compares and comments on good and bad emails that he personally sees in his email box.

I think for this one, I just got excited to see one of my own customers succeeding with some simple, but yet effective tools (activty filters) and processes in managing their lists with the idea of quality over quantity. This typically is a difficult decision for many companies to decide to let go of their non-active customers, but as the year moves on I am seeing more and more companies seeing the benefit of doing such in controlled manner like this one.

What it was:

A reactivation email was sent to subscribers who have neither opened nor clicked Kings/Monarchs gameday alert emails after 2-3 weeks into the season. About 5 gameday alerts have been sent to subscribers when they executed the reactivation program.

In a nutshell, they wanted to make sure that they were delivering relevant communications to fans (= subscribers = recipients).

Why did like this so much you ask?

1. It was short and sweet. Not to much wording. Captures the attention (5 secs).Little images
2. Less than a page.
3. Not a lot of BIG images swung wherever it would hang. 
4. Gave the recipient a CHOICE (would make it blink if I could). Yes? or No?, O? or X?, Blue? or Red?
5. Has an option for mobile devices within the email

----------

----------

In the midst of my excitement, I called the person in charge of this and asked them to throw together their thoughts behind this campaign. I wanted them to have the ability to share the why's! Did it work for them? Why did they do it? What could they teach others who read this blog?

Here's what Ken Niwa their Relationship Marketing Manager at ARCO Arena had to say:

Reasons:

1. 82 emails in six months is way too many communications for even me, someone who works for the team
2. With Eloqua, (sorry about the pitch), we were able to automate the reactivation process

Success:

1. Inactive subscribers that we thought are dead aren't dead!. They clicked keep my active.
2. Felt comfortable sending 82 emails throughout the Kings season (34 for the Monarchs) since recipients are actively engaged (opening and/or clicking) or have asked to continue to receive gameday alerts
3. Minimized unsubscribe and complaint rates
4. Created a win-win situation --- we felt good about the high response rate (= 35.2% Email Group Open Rate) and fans were happy to receive emails from us.

I say kudo's to Ken and the Sacramento Kings/Monarchs for their diligent work and good choices.

We would love to see comments if you have them.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

The list master at SORBS announced that, due to contractual problems with the network provider, it may be closing soon. No doubt, you've experienced the love and/or hate relationship with the DNSBL over the years. Its largest receiver footprint was in the educational and non-profit email receiver space due to its no-cost and ease of use. The main point of contention senders generally have had with SORBS is the monetary penalty imposed to get IPs removed. Sender deliverability was affected depending on the mix of recipient addresses in the lists they used.

It comes with great sadness that I have to announce the imminent closure of SORBS. The University of Queensland have decided not to honor their agreement with myself and SORBS and terminate the hosting contract.

I have been involved with institutions such as Griffith University trying to arrange alternative hosting for SORBS, but as of 12 noon, 22nd June 2009 no hosting has been acquired and therefore I have been forced in to this announcement. SORBS is officially "For Sale" should anyone wish to purchase it as a going concern, but failing that and failing to find alternative hosting for a 42RU rack in the Brisbane area of Queensland Australia SORBS will be shutting down permanently in 28 days, on 20th July 2009 at 12 noon.

Continued here ...

One of the key points in the report that’s worth thinking about is that people still have misconceptions about their true delivery rates; don’t account for blackholing and junk foldering in calculating the delivery metric. Is that their ESP giving them that mis-notion? or that companies are just still batching and blasting and not caring about their metrics?

The complete Goodmail/Pivotal Veracity Q1 2009 Email Deliverability Benchmarks report is available for complimentary download at http://www.goodmail.com

Twenty Percent (20%) of Business-to-Consumer Messages to Qualified Email Addresses Don’t Get Delivered

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. & PHEONIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Goodmail Systems, the creator of CertifiedEmail™ and CertifiedVideo™, and Pivotal Veracity, the industry leader in cross-platform email deliverability and optimization solutions, today released co-authored research that found 20 percent of legitimate marketers’ email messages were routed to spam folders or blocked entirely in the first quarter of 2009. Five percent of messages were found in spam folders, with even more – 15 percent – unaccounted for.

“Deliverability remains a major barrier to email marketing success. A study we conducted with Forrester Research last year found that fifty-two percent of marketers called deliverability one of their top five challenges,” said Peter Horan, CEO of Goodmail. “This data confirms that their concern is justified – legitimate marketers across a variety of industries, even those who adhere to best practices and follow the law, suffer widespread junk folder placement and instances of missing or blocked email.”

--MORE--

http://www.businesswire.com

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

CAUCE just posted a blog entry about C-27; we will be speaking to the Industry, Science, and Technology committee reviewing the bill this afternoon. The meeting will be webcast starting at 15:30 eastern (see the CAUCE site for details, and a copy of our presentation, available at 15:30)

There is broadband support for the bill, to which I will add one comment: CAUCE is very much in favour of this bill

The Canadian Marketing Association applauded the bill. “This is important news for legitimate marketers and good news for consumers,” said the CMA’s president and CEO, John Gustavson, in a statement. “Through rigorous enforcement and the backing of the federal government, we will now have a law that will help combat what has been an ongoing problem for legitimate companies that use the Internet to grow their business."

“I sense that there’s broad support for this legislation amongst all parties in the House” Michael Chong, the chair of the Industry, Science and Technology committee

“By and large there really (aren’t) any significant concerns” Tom Copeland, Chair, Canadian Association of Internet Providers

Federal Industry Minister Tony Clement says he's open to adjustments to proposed anti-spam legislation as long as they do not impede timely passage of the long overdue bill.

Clement said Canada had been a spam-safe country for too long, and that it is the only country among the seven major industrial countries that lacks a regime to protect Canadian consumers and businesses from being bombarded by unsolicited e-mail and other electronic spam messages.

As a Director with CAUCE I'm happy to share this news - Original source CAUCE NA

Cauce North America Inc.--The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (http://www.CAUCE.org)--Today announced at The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group meeting (MAAWG) that it has received additional financial support from Return Path Inc.

The viewpoint of computer end-users is often one missing from the anti-abuse discussions, CAUCE works to ensure they have a place at the table and these stakeholders' unique and vital perspective is considered when formulating policy to help stop Internet abuse. As well, CAUCE actively works to assist training law enforcement agents in the investigation of illegal spamming.

CAUCE, after a decade of purely volunteer ad-hoc operations, officially incorporated in 2007 and began to accept paid memberships from individuals and sponsoring companies and organizations to help defray operating costs.

"The ongoing, and generous financial support of Return Path by way of their renewed corporate membership in CAUCE will help us to continue to advance the interests of the true victims of Spam 2.0 (the blended threat of spyware, spam and viruses), the computer end-users" said CAUCE president Dr. John Levine

Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path inc. said, "Supporting the interests of consumers is vital to the health of the email ecosystem, and CAUCE is uniquely suited to work in this area. Return Path is delighted to support CAUCE in its ongoing efforts to create a clean, well-lighted place where consumers can feel safe and confident interacting through email."

"This renewed corporate membership will allow CAUCE to maintain a demanding travel and conference schedule in the coming months, including ongoing discussions with lawmakers and governments, The London Action Plan/EU Contact Network of Spam Authorities conference in Portugal, and of course, having representation at MAAWG" explained John Levine

Levine continued "CAUCE was actively involved in the Canadian government's Task Force on Spam in 2004-2005, the end-result of which was the recent tabling of Bill C-27 in the parliament of Canada; memberships such as that of Return Path Inc. allow us to continue to directly involve ourselves in the legislative process".

About CAUCE

The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email CAUCE North America was formed in March 2007 from a merger between the original CAUCE in the United States and CAUCE Canada, combining the strengths of the two sibling CAUCE organizations. CAUCE NA, as an all-volunteer consumer advocacy organization, has moved beyond its original mission of encouraging the creation and adoption of anti-spam laws to a broader stance of defending the interests of the average Internet user. CAUCE NA is led by a combined Board with a cumulative century of experience in the field of Internet advocacy.

CAUCE NA represents the interests of Internet end-users to the following organizations:

* The Anti-spyware Coalition (ASC)
* The Anti-phishing Working group (APWG)
* Digital Phishnet
* Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
* Internet Governance forum
* The London Action Plan / EU Contact Network of Spam Authorities
* The Stop Spam Alliance

About Return Path
Founded in 1999, Return Path helps commercial email senders get more email delivered to the inbox. Our tools and services give senders the insight and resources to diagnose and prevent email deliverability and rendering failures by improving and maintaining their email sending reputations. Our Professional Services division then helps our client improve ROI and response by creating consistent and compelling subscriber experiences across the email customer lifecycle. Return Path runs the internet's most widely used third-party whitelist, the Return Path Certification Program. Return Path also invented the Sender Score, an email reputation measure based on data contributed by ISPs and other receivers of large volume email into the Return Path Reputation Network. We offer free access to our Sender Score to any sender, receiver or consumer of email at our reputation portal: http://www.senderscore.org Information about Return Path can be found at http://www.returnpath.net

With all the different technology Obama's administration has been using during his first months in office (including Twitter, Facebook and blogs), their heavy use of email as a communication channel is no surprise. However, it was surprising to see their email updates subscribing to Goodmail's CertifiedEmail service. I saw the following on David Axelrod's announcement yesterday driving traffic to Obama's latest international diplomatic speech in my Yahoo! webclient.

(If you don't use Yahoo!, the Learn More link above takes you here.)

Now that the White House has implicitly backed one of these services, it will be interesting to see if this has any affect on the rest of the email industry. If it's good enough for the President...

GovDelivery, the White House's ESP, is hosting the services. It would be interesting to see if this new addition helps drive down what I could only imagine being a plethora of phishing or spam attacks claiming to be from Obama and his staff. Also, the email is very image/link light so it would seem this effort was less around enabling users to take immediate action and more about reinforcing the identity and inbox delivery of the email.

So this past week there was some internal discussion at Eloqua and on some of the industry lists asking the question, "Does having the company's brand name sending the email or the first name of recipient of the email in the subject line hurt or help opens". The discussions and "evidence" were ramped from all sides where some people showed improvement in email opens and other debated that doing such is a sign of spammers.

This of course had me wondering how the average user of email would view these ideas. So, time to ask the wife who is always right.

Here is her response (BTW, I am in the EU for a few weeks)

-----

I'm sensing a trend.  You travel, then I get an assignment.  (Better get me a good souvenir!) 

Here's my response to today's question:  How do you feel about personalized email?  Stick with me for a minute...

When I first meet someone, I call them ma'am or sir.  I use phrases like "excuse me," and if I can't get their attention, I might venture as far as a gentle tap on the arm.  Calling someone by their first name is something that seems inherently personal to me, and I think it should be reserved for the building of a relationship, not just a passing encounter.  For example, I don't like when I go to a restaurant with someone and they call the waiter/waitress by their first name.  They're virtually strangers to one another, and it's only the name tag that gives their first name away.  It seems assuming and insincere, if a quick interaction during lunch at Chili's can be looked at like that.  (I know, I know.  You're totally shaking your head at me right now.  You know you do that, right?)  Well, I'd say that's how I look at personalized emails.  My name was picked from a list. The sender of the email doesn't know me.  They don't know my preferences, my family, my habits.  It feels like the sender is trying to fake a personal connection with me. It's not until we've established a relationship, either as a friend or colleague or customer, that I'd actually feel genuinely comfortable with someone calling me by my first name.  Now, I'm certain that I could come up with worse offenses than this, but you gave me a specific topic.  In keeping with that, here's the short answer.  I don't care for personalized emails, but it wouldn't top my "complaints about email" list.

That's it for now.

xoxo - wife

PS - My friends and family don't ever write my name in the subject line.  Marketers know that an email that contains my own name in the subject line is a red flag (junk mail alert!) to me, right? 

------

Now I haven't had much time to chat with my wife this week on this subject, but what I would like to point out to her is that many email lists or companies she's deals with probably do have preferences on her. Now the question is are they using them? Probably not as well as they should be or is it possible that she doesn't fill out the entire form or preferences?

As she pointed out, I do call people by the first name in restaurants or stores, I'm guilty, but if they are wearing that name tag then obviously they want me to say hey Dave vs. sir (which I hate when kids call me that these days). I also believe this is a difference in the person's wants as well. I, as many of you know me, am by NO means shy... My wife is a little more reserved. So maybe that alone is a determiner in whether it's a good thing or not to be personal RIGHT out of the gate.

My opinion? Using personalization in the subject line when properly done can't hurt you in delivery, but if your already using the FROM with branding maybe you don't need it in the SUBJECT line if your company brand is strong and known. If your a small brand or need some strength, then try out the subject line.

You should also consider the amount of subject line real-estate you have to give to this if you want to do it and DO NOT EVER use the email address in the subject line as a personalization if your DO NOT have the recipients first name. Spammers do that...

If your looking at answer the same question, try some A-B split testing. Try some emails with personalization in the SUBJECT and some without. See where your brand and customers stand when it comes to that. Then give them what they want.

I should go through my wife's Inbox when I get home just to see how many emails contain a personalization in the subject line.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS:

• Deliverability continues to get worse
• Social media is fundamentally changing how people use email
• Email marketing must adapt for new technologies and the mobile future

View >>

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

It is reported today that Hotmail usage is being blocked by the Chinese government. Chinese censors blocked access to Twitter and other popular online services on today, two (2) days before the twentieth anniversary of the crackdown on democracy protests in Tiananmen Square which cost hundreds of lives.

This however isn't something new folks. Online access is typically restricted during sensitive times.

I am UNSURE and really don't believe this effects email delivery to HotMail in that region, but it will potentially effect opens and click-through's if your tracking that way because users can not access the websites.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Check out this GREAT article from David Baker, vice president of eCRM Solutions at Razorfish.

The market is forcing marketers to address more complex questions than most have the bandwidth, resources and budgets to address. There's a lot of talk about retention marketing these days. In down times many organizations constrict, focusing on retaining customers, maximizing profits and controlling expenses. In good times, companies tend to think about new acquisition options, testing new channels and expanding reach in the marketplace. Two years ago the major goal of most companies we talked to was growing their consumer/b2b database. Today, it's about making money with what you have....

--MORE--

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=107072&lfe=1

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

My good, trusted, and long term friend David Romerstein (Romer) did an excellent piece discussing why your email was blocked and what to do about it on the Cloudmark blog. You should check them out...

BLOCKED EMAIL PART 1: “WHY ME?”

Everyone’s had it happen. You forward a joke to a friend or coworker, email a possible new vendor requesting a quote, or send out your daily/weekly/monthly newsletter and, a short time later, you get back that dreaded notification: “Subject: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender”. Your first reaction is probably indignation. “I’m not a spammer,” you think to yourself, “so how dare they block my email!” Believe it or not, the receiving ISP probably doesn’t think that you’re a spammer.

BLOCKED EMAIL PART 2: “NOW WHAT DO I DO?”

In Part I, we talked about a few of the possible reasons that your email might be blocked. Today, we’ll talk about things that an individual end-user can do when they receive one of those dreaded bounce messages. Several of the tips here will also be relevant for small businesses.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

For a few of us in the industry, this slipped by us.

The Links:

• http://www.windstream.com/emailinfo/announcement.aspx
  
• http://windstream.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/windstream.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=413
  

Summary: 

• After May 15, 2009, you will no longer be able to use your @alltel.net e-mail address.
• Windstream has created a new @windstream.net address that is ready for use today.
• Messages sent to your current @alltel.net address will also be copied to the new @windstream.net address until May

What's going on?

The Alltel.net domains and email addresses have changed to the Windstream.com domain.

Why?

Alltel, based in Little Rock, Ark., will morph from a full-service phone/Internet company into one that concentrates on wireless assets. It has spin off its old-fashioned wireline business (DSL), merged it with regional telco Valor Communications Group, and created Windstream. This is similar to how Sprint Nextel spun off its regional wireline business, now Embarq.

How does this effect you?

Well you need to send a re-confirmation email or postal mailer out to any customers you have on these domains to get them to update their new email address in your systems. Here are some examples.

	Current Site	New Site
	www.alltel.net	www.windstream.net
	news.alltel.net	news.windstream.net (effective 3/11)
	business.alltel.net	business.windstream.net
	home.alltel.net	home.windstream.net
	authmail.alltel.net	smtp.windstream.net
	pop.alltel.net	pop.windstream.net
	webmail.alltel.net	webmail.windstream.net
	ftp.alltel.net	ftp.windstream.net (effective 3/18)
	alltel.net	windstream.net

To help you through this transition, Windstream has created a new @windstream.net address that is ready for use today. Your new address will be the same as your existing address, except that we've simply replaced @alltel.net with @windstream.net. For example, joecustomer@alltel.net now has a new address of joecustomer@windstream.net. As a further benefit, messages sent to your current @alltel.net address will also be copied to your new @windstream.net address until May 15.

This does NOT mean that you go into your database and just change people's domains on their email address. It is rumored that NOT all address/aliases will change.

This is also a good time to send a re-confirmation on why that person signed up for your email's, what their current preferences are, what you have to offer them as they stay on (by updating their email address), and maybe even offer them other newsletters of emails they are currently not on.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Remember the t-shirt from this blog post? Well, the fact of the matter is my wife does rock...

I've bugged her to do a blog post for me for a few months now and recently must have come across something that finally peaked her interest. While at my last conference the most popular question seemed to be about the uses of social media and video in email marketing. I decided to pose the question to the wife, stay-at-home mom extraordinaire.

Here's her email reply to me:

------

So, you asked for a blog post from me, but I'm hoping you'll settle for this email, because, well, I don't have a blog.  I'm too busy reading all of them to actually keep up with one of my own.

Tonight you asked me if a marketing email that contained a video would be appealing to me.  Sorry, my forward-thinking husband, but I've got to say no.  Quite honestly, most marketing emails that I receive are deleted before I really even look through them.  I find that most of them either:

1. Are not targeting the types of things I would be interested in, or
   
2. Are slamming me with so much email it becomes bothersome.  (You know, like the neighbor kids that ring your doorbell incessantly even though you've told them time after time you're not coming out to play?  Yeah, bothersome like that.)
   

It's unfortunate for them, really, since as the mom and wife (a.k.a. buyer of the household) I've got some good spending power behind me.  Anyway, when a marketing email does manage to catch my attention (usually with a good subject line that peaks my interest), I scan it for the item I might be interested in, similar to how I'd scan a book or an article.  I'm looking for specific content, and I don't often take the time to read through the email from start to finish.  A video wouldn't allow me that option.  Since you don't know what a video will contain next, you're forced to watch it in its entirety. Either that, or you could choose not to watch it at all, and realistically, that's the route I would go.  I mean, really, who chooses to watch a commercial?  (Isn't that what a marketing video really would be? A commercial?  An infomercial at best, I suppose.)  Isn't that why they invented TiVo?  To skip over the commercials?  Marketers, in my humble opinion, would be better served by taking the time to truly listen to what their customer wants and then trying to give them a good deal on the product they're interested in.  If you can do those two things, and catch me with a good email subject line, then I'm far more likely to actually purchase the product.

*An hour later.*

Okay.  I'm back after a little more thought on the subject.  I stand by what I said earlier - chances are, I wouldn't watch a generic video sent to me in an email by, umm, let's say American Airlines.  (Only choosing them since they send me TONS of email.  Snooze. Give me some good prices, American Airlines.  Then we'll talk.)  That is, unless they specifically targeted a location that I was truly interested in traveling to in the video.  I probably wouldn't watch a video from Oh My Crafts (which, by the way, sends me INSANE amounts of email with "BIG SALES!" for just about every occasion under the sun. Hello?  Oh My Crafts?  You can't extend every sale and expect us to be pleasantly surprised.), unless it was a "how-to" video on my latest crafting project.  If a video is something that marketers are considering, from my point of view, I'd rather an email (again, with a punchy subject line) letting me know that a selection of videos are available for viewing at my leisure on their website.  Then, I could choose to watch only the videos that interest me - I wouldn't have to watch the pre-selected email video about maybe, Costa Rica, if I would indeed rather travel to Paris again.  (Hypothetically speaking, of course.)  Now, I know nothing about all of the email/website technology available, but wouldn't allowing people to click into a website garner more information for the marketers?  Is there a way for the marketers to track the video I choose to watch so that they can then market more specifically to my interests?  I don't know.  That seems to make more sense to me. But, I'm not a marketer - I'm a shopper.

*Another afterthought.*

If you were going to post a video to a website (again, if that’s as effective as I think it could be), maybe it needs to be for a limited time.  Or, at least “featured” for a limited time before it’s sent to a less accessible archive, or something of the sort.  If I knew that I only had a week or so to watch a video of interest, I’d be more likely to immediately click over to view it.  If I knew that it would be available indefinitely, I’d probably choose to procrastinate (again, hypothetically!), and then it would move to the bottom of my priority list, and then, POOF!  Somehow your catchy little video falls off my radar.

I guess what I’m saying is this:  if a marketer isn’t careful, he’s going to get an introduction to my delete key far more often than he’s going to get my attention, or in this particular case, get me to push the play button.

So, it seems that if I did have a blog of my own, I'd need to learn how to edit my asides in a more effective way than by using parentheses.  They're a little overwhelming at times.  But, now you know what I'm thinking.  Hope I gave you the information that you wanted, babe.

Love you.

xoxo - wife

---------

To be honest and without any direction from me, this is the sort of thinking I was expecting from an average day user/mom of email. Not to many have time in their day to watch that many video emails. We already complicate marketing emails with to much information and frequency to the point where they become useless to many like my wife.

We all know what will happen if marketers get a whiff of the potential here. A good chunk of them will try this technology and cram even more information into an already overloaded email and not take the time even understanding its impact on the user. Are we REALLY ready for video in email? Most of us haven't figured out marketing best practices on what we have already in our hands.

1. Keep your emails short and sweet. Don't make them a full page.
2. Be clear on what the email means to the reader by using clear subject and from lines 
3. Run your points clearly and in the beginning of your email.
4. Don't lead the email with a large image. They are blocked default. 
5. Send the prospect to a website for the multimedia experience and full message. Also allows for better activity tracking v.s opens and clicks off an email which as most here know is hard to measure (Digital Body Language)

What sorts of questions do you have for my wife? Post your questions in the comments or Q&A section. We will see if she's interested...

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

A group of spammers targeting college students was recently shutdown and is facing a minimum of 10 years in prison. Goes to show how authentication, accreditation and a little bit of common sense are becoming critical for the general public to not find legitimate mail guilty by association from all the exploitative mail being sent.

I also wonder what the colleges are instituting now as measures against spam in the future. Every inbox, and thus receiver, has the same problem of fending off unwanted or even illegal mail. But, if they get overzealous in protecting the university's inboxes, I foresee a lot of legitimate mail getting hung up in the filters. Especially if the mail college students send around today is anything like that in my former academic years.

Perhaps more importantly, how were the 8 million student email addresses harvested in the first place? Mailing to random addresses would certainly have set off alarms on possible DHAs and have been stopped at the inbound servers. PII leak? Insider job?

Full story here.

Thanks to Sue Walsh over at AllSpammedUp for the original post.

As you may know, there are two laws currently being discussed in Canadian legislative assemblies:

• Senate Bill S-220 - a private member's bill with private right of action & criminal remedies
• Parliamentary Bill C-27 - tabled by the government, with private right of action, coordination between various enforcement agencies, civil remedies. My colleague and fellow CAUCE board member Matt Vernhout gave a nice break-down of this law, here

Both bills have been given two of three readings in their respective bodies, and referred to committee. This is the normal course of procedure prior to a 3rd and final reading and vote, after which they are sent on the the other legislative assembly for two reading, committee and votes.

It is too early to predict the outcome of either of the competing bills, or how/if they will accommodate one-another, but I am told the bills will survive the House rising for the summer break, provided the government does not fall, i.e. if there is an election.

In Canada that is not a given, we have elections at somewhat irregular intervals (the Government can call one, but there is a limit of four years or so between them) since we have a kind of Mexican Stand-off (that phrase does have a new sub-text these days, come to think of it), with a minority government situation wherein the Conservative government, with slim majority, cannot survive a failed vote of confidence, should the other three parties (the Liberals, the New Democratic Party, and the Bloque Quebecoise) decide to vote them down.

That said, the Liberal Party (the most likely successor to a Conservative government) just recently had a leadership convention, and will need time to get their platform and strategy together (and need to settle down a little nannygate imbroglio), so, failing higher priority legislation, it looks to my eyes as if C-27 will be the winning horse in this race, and little insider birds up on Parliament Hill indicate the end of the year for passing the bill, and early next year for implementation.

Huzzah!

Email is the easiest marketing communication channel to track and measure - so much so that all the metrics and information available can actually complicate the matter. Interpretation of the information may be different, calculations may vary and some can't even figure out where to start because the sheer volume of information available is more than they can comprehend.

One measurement that experts refer to is an Engagement Quotient. This is typically defined through a mathematical formula that results in attributing a score or rating to each individual recipient in your database allowing you to identify those that are most interested and engaged with your email program, those that are the least engaged and everyone in between. Depending on the number of recipients in your database, your access to database administrators and the amount of free time you have this could prove a daunting task.

You want to start measuring engagement but aren't able to execute on the individual level? Start by calculating a Segment Engagement Quotient (SEQ). This will give you a benchmark for success measurement when determining how programmatic changes or tests are impacting your recipients engagement. Here's the formula:

Segment Total - Unengaged Segment Total    X 10
Segment Total

• Segment Total:
  Total number of valid email addresses identified in the segment. This number excludes bounced addresses and unsubscribes.
  
  
• Unengaged Segment Total:
  Subscribers in the segment identified as unengaged. For monthly mailers we would recommend definition as anyone in the segment that has not opened or clicked a message in 6 months.
  

If the Segment total is 10,000 and the unengaged total is 2,000 the calculation would like this:

10,000-2,000   =     8,000   =   0.8   X   10   =   8
10,000                    10,000

So your Segment Engagement Quotient would be an 8/10.

By Stephanie Miller

VP, Global Market Development

The new chairman of the US Federal Trade Commission took office with the Obama administration in January. However, Chairman Jon Leibowitz and many of his key deputies have been with the agency for years, so much of the work continues seamlessly. In a DMA/Email Experience Council webinar last week, Peder Magee, Esq., FTC Privacy and Theft attorney in the Bureau of Consumer Protection said, "The FTC is bipartisan and works on consensus. Typically things are done with unanimous vote. We've had a fair amount of consistency from where we've been."

For now, that stance seems to suggest that the self regulation of the industry is working. Magee noted that some concepts "transcend the medium" when it comes to self regulation. "Transparency, prominent notice, use of personal data, and providing the ability to opt out easily" all are areas the FTC continues to watch....

--MORE--

http://www.returnpath.net/blog/2009/05/ftc-comfortable-with-email-reg.php

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

In the past, we have discussed in much detail the ways in which email is examined for spam and phishing properties. Some of these emails and properties are contained in the things you might send out to your targets...

The AllSpammedUp blog recently did another good post on what's typically in these technologies to stop potential bad email from being received. It also explains that typically a combining effort of anti-spam technologies might be in order for some organization trying to protect it's users. It also shows how some of the older ways of stopping spam via content filters can cause issue.

To be honest, I would have loved to see this article address more detail towards the latest behavioral filtering technologies more commonly used today like Sender Score from Return Path.

----

Anti-Spam Products Are More Than the Sum of Their Parts

When you boil the spam problem down it becomes quite simple - someone is sending you emails that you don’t want to receive.  This makes the anti-spam solution a simple one too - stop unwanted emails from arriving in someone’s email account.  However, actually achieving this is a very complex task.

Any anti-spam system that is worth using will contain a range of preventative measures and features that are used to determine whether an email is likely to be spam or not.  As a complete solution they can be very effective, but taken individually and their weaknesses become more apparent.  Here are some examples...

--MORE--

http://www.allspammedup.com/2009/04/anti-spam-products-are-more-than-the-sum-of-their-parts/

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

NOTE: This is NOT LEGAL ADVICE - just my own personal interpretation and understanding of the proposed law. Please read this law yourself and also have your council review it for your protection. Reposted with permission from EmailKarma.net

Recently the Canadian Government introduced the Electronic Commerce Protection Act [ECPA] (aka: Bill C-27), an Anti-spam act that covers; email communications, unauthorized installed applications and the alteration of data during transmission between senders and recipients. This post will only deal with the Email portions of the Electronic Commerce Protection Act, and does not include information on installed software or data alteration.

What is the Purpose of the ECPA?

The ECPA is a law designed to promote and protect electronic communications while discouraging the abuse of these resources that threaten to; impair the reliability, efficiency of electronic activities, prevent additional costs to businesses and consumers, protect the privacy and the security of confidential information and strengthen the confidence of Canadians in the use of electronic means of communication and commercial activities. This enactment also makes several amendments to related laws; the Competition Act, Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the Canadian Radiotelevision and Telecommunications Commission Act and the Telecommunications Act.

What is considered a Commercial Electronic Message under ECPA?

The ECPA defines a commercial electronic message as an electronic messages that consists of: the content, the hyperlinks, the contact information, where the purpose is to encourage participation in a commercial activity that;

(a) offers to purchase, sell, barter or lease a product, goods, a service, land or an interest or right in land;
(b) offers to provide a business, investment or gaming opportunity;
(c) advertises or promotes anything referred to in (a) or (b);
(d) promotes a person, including the public image of a person, as being a person who does anything referred to in any of (a) to (c), or who intends to do so.

Also the ECPA clearly states that An electronic message that contains a request for consent (READ: Confirmed opt-in notices) are also considered to be a commercial electronic message. The ECPA also lists several types of excluded communications like; responses to customers service enquiries and applications, law enforcement, public safety, the protection of Canada, the conduct of international affairs or the defence of Canada and personal communications.

Who is governed by the ECPA?

After reading through the act, it looks like every corporation registered under a Federal or Provincial licence for the purposes of Commercial Activity are going to be effected by this law. I also understand this covers Non-profits, co-ops, sole proprietors and partnerships.

What are the Requirements for Marketers under the ECPA?

When sending commercial email you can only send to a recipient has consented to receiving it (express or implied - def'n below) and the message complies with the purpose of the ECPA described above. All messages being sent must;

• Clearly identify the person who sent the message and the person (if different) on whose behalf it is sent - Add your physical postal address and company name to all emails
• The messages must provide a method where the recipient can readily contact the person(s) responsible for sending the message (MUST be active for 60 days after the messages was sent) - Enable replies to go to your customer service and stop using No-Reply
• Provide a working unsubscribe mechanism (more below) that removes an address within 10 days - the faster the better.

An important thing to note is that the ECPA states that an electronic message is considered to have been sent once its transmission has been initiated (by the sender) and that it is irrelevant if the intended recipient address exists or if message reaches its intended destination. This reference makes bounce management even more important for mailers to monitor and clean from your list. When your working with your clients/members/subscribers and asking for their consent there are several things you should remember and incorporate into the process (I've talked about these types of things before);

(a) Clearly state the purpose(s) for which the consent is being sought
(b) Clearly identify the person(s) seeking consent
(c) Clearly define any other prescribed information about how data is collected and plans to be used.

How are express or implied consent different under the ECPA?

The definition of Implied Consent when the person(s) responsible for sending the messages has an existing business relationship or an existing non-business (def'n below) relationship with the recipient. While the “existing business relationship” means a business relationship (within the 18-month period preceding the day on which the message was sent) between the person to whom the message is sent arising from;

(a) the purchase or lease of a product, goods, a service, land or an interest or right in land
(b) the acceptance by the person to whom the message is sent of a business, investment or gaming opportunity
(c) the bartering of anything mentioned in paragraph (a) between the person to whom the message is sent
(d) a written contract entered into between the person to whom the message is sent and any of those other persons in respect of a matter not referred to in any of paragraphs (a) to (c), if the contract is currently in existence or expired within the 18 month period
(e) an inquiry or application, within the six-month period immediately, made by the person to whom the message is sent

A non-business relation is clarified to include a person that made a donation, a gift or performed volunteer work with; a registered charity, a political party or organization, or a person who is a candidate for publicly elected office. This Non-business relationship also covers membership in a club, association or voluntary organization. These relationships must have occurred within an 18-month period preceding the day on which the message was sent.

What do I need to know about managing unsubscribes?

The unsubscribe mechanism must specify an electronic address to which the unsubscribe notice may be sent or provide a hyperlink by means of which the recipient can provide their opt-out notice. Providing both options an email unsubscribe and a landing page unsubscribe is highly recommended.

Are there penalties for Violating the ECPA?

Yes, significant monetary penalties have been set out within the act. The maximum penalty for a violation is $1,000,000 in the case of an individual, and $10,000,000 in the case of any other person.

Where can I get a copy of the Bill C-27?

You can find Bill C-27 here (pdf - I recommend you download the document - right click and save link as)