Inbox Reserve Part II: Future Subject Lines will Reduce Spam Complaints

As outlined in Part I of Inbox Reserve, “Why Email must Reverse
Engineer Social Now,” future engagement metrics and delivery patterns will be
based on how subscribers’ social networks interact with a given brand.   Disclaimer:
The strategies outlined below are congruent and/or complementary with advanced
“opt-in” best practices.  It is safe to
say that behavioral targeted messaging may not achieve the same level of
granular social activity that a contemporary preference center would.

Inbox Reserve II:
Socialized Subject Lines

Using fresh social data points gathered from an advanced
preference center, future marketing based messaging will place your friends’
names or actions in the subject lines of emails associated with a given
brand.  These personalized subject lines
are a key tool for increasing your brand’s ability to engage subscribers,
dramatically increase open rates and manufacture a better delivery reputation.  When you have targeted promotions that build
value around this concept, connoisseurs of your brand will flock to this preference
center.  Once there, they can opt-in to
receive real-time notifications (or weekly digests, if they prefer) that tell
them when members of their social ecosystem have taken “definitive” action
involving a given brand.  Moreover, once
permission is granted, subscribers will also see their friends’ images
dynamically inserted into a well-designed email creative. They’ll be able to
click on the images and ask their friends’ opinions of a product before making
a purchase.  Here are two “plain”
examples of future subject lines based on social activity within your network:

·        
Real-Time-Notification:   Mark from your network just
purchased     Sees Candies at 30% off…

·        
Weekly Digest:              14 members of your network purchased                                      Sees
Candies? Find out who!

Inbound, highly transparent subject lines of this nature are
inherently credible. Their success further supports the theory that curious
subscribers are also the most engaged. 
Informed subscribers who choose to receive these types of messages are
far more likely to engage because these notification are about your network first and the brand second.  Therefore, these
subject lines seem more valuable and relevant to the subscribers.

Ever get a notification from Facebook that a certain friend
of yours commented on your status?  You
are much more likely to react positively to that message as opposed to a “brand
first” subject line offering you a product at 30% off.   Moreover, you are less likely to click the
“report spam” button because you are more loyal to the people in your network.

Reduced Spam Complaints

The most compelling reasons for brands to earn network
permission from subscribers is that it dramatically reduces spam
complaints.  Socialized email
notifications are important because they prioritize a subscriber’s network
first and the brand second. First, it’s far more palatable for a subscriber to
open an email message with a friend’s name in the subject line and a friends’
picture in the creative because it creates a perception of relevance and allows
for a far more customized experience. For example, if I were a subscriber and
received such a message, I would probably refrain from clicking the “report
spam” button because my main focus is on my network.  Secondly, personalized subject lines will
cause your open rates and engagement index to skyrocket, enhancing your brand’s
deliverability reputation.  ISPs will
take notice of reduced spam complaints and brands will begin to see a higher
inbox placement rate, resulting from more positive actions taken with this type
of email. 

Notifications and creatives of this nature are packed with
relevancy.  Testimonials from members of
a social network will influence subscribers’ purchasing decisions, which will
drastically diminish the chances of a user clicking the “report spam”
button.  The benefit is increased engagement, as network buddies chat
about potential purchases. This leads to more delivered mail to the
inbox.  Second Disclaimer: 
It’s important that we try not to associate this concept with Facebook page
suggestions, simply because there is a monetary investment element in place
here.  Members of your social network invested quality time in making a
determination about a product or service and gave explicit permission to opt-in
and receive exclusive messaging of this type. 
So, it’s unfair to be skeptical because of earlier social media
spam-related growing pains. 

In Part III of Inbox Reserve, we'll discuss the challenges brands will have in leveraging an advanced preference center and share some of the immediate benefits to any given brand; which include added credibility, reduced costs and subscriber validation. 

Fred Tabsharani

Port25 Solutions, Inc.    

@tabsharani

Last 5 posts by Fred Tabsharani

• ESP Forums: A Scarce Commodity - June 28th, 2011
• Email Delivery Policy Management: And, the Highway Patrol - May 31st, 2011
• Email Mythology Part II: Gods of Deliverability - April 19th, 2011
• Email Mythology, Part I: Goddesses of Email Deliverability - March 21st, 2011
• Queue Prioritization: New Rules of Engagement - March 8th, 2011