There is a growing subculture emerging in the Email Industry.   This narrow subculture is built around the role of the Email Deliverability consultant.  These email folk heroes often hold “silver bullets” that dramatically alleviate problems caused by poor email deliverability.  Whether it’s resolving sender reputation issues, aligning sectors of your email program to meet legal compliance, or ensuring that all technical considerations are met, these masked magicians with assistants named Tonto can help.

There seems to be a critical knowledge gap that needs to be addressed.  Often the requests to hire an industry “folk hero” (consultant) originate from a marketer who wants to fully optimize the organization’s email program.  Factors that optimize programs include, but are not limited to, list quality and data collection, increased open rates, better ROI tracking, and achieving optimal inbox placement rates.  As much as marketers might want an optimized program, they often do not fully recognize the technology challenges of getting email delivered to achieve these desired results.   When that happens, for certain organizations, it’s time for The Email Deliverability Consultant: Email’s Lone Ranger.

A Marksman who gets his hands Dirty

Depending on the scope of the project, these consultants offer a wide range of deliverability services, including, but not limited to a deep understanding of list quality and data collection, email authentication best practices, setting up FBLs, bounce handling and infrastructure.  Consultants also commonly help with sourcing, installing and configuring optimal specs for both commercial and open source MTAs.  Frequently, the scope of the project grows into in-depth consulting on email engagement, response or retention campaigns or designing strategies that integrate complimentary marketing channels such as mobile platforms and social media.

Masters of Disguise

As we know, consulting by nature is a feast or famine type career.  And often, email deliverability consultants are positioned in precarious situations and exploited by bad actors.  Suspect senders often pump consultants for information on where to find responsive email lists or, even worse, ask about revealing key contacts at Yahoo, or other ISPs.  Deliverability consultants’ clients largely come from referrals and word-of-mouth.  That said, they live by a strict moral code of conduct, because they sometimes face important ethical decisions; at times, they must choose between a paycheck and literally firing a client. 

The Audit Process

The Audit Process is a “state of play” snapshot of the deliverability climate within the organization.

Usually, deliverability consultants will require answers to a set of detailed questions  and an analysis of overall infrastructure (technical setup) before any type of contract is in place.  During the audit, clients may seed consultants on different types of emails (marketing, transactional, etc) where they could begin reporting on items such as blacklist status, reputation, authentication tests, content, and inbox placement rates, etc. Consultants will then try to identify trends within the email list, such as attrition rates, opens, clicks, and sign up rates.   Some feedback is then given to the client, but deliverability consultants generally need to access additional data, such as bounce handling, FBL monitoring, send rates, and identifying email streams.

Contracts

A typical contract is somewhere between 30-90 days, with ongoing support in place.  However, most organizations are likely to add to the scope of services and have other goals in mind beyond deliverability.  These days, organizations that have prevalent stakeholders will go to great lengths to gain an edge over their competitors.  So, in many cases, an ongoing contract can grow out of the original short-term agreement.

The behemoths in our industry are companies like ReturnPath , Pivotal Veracity (Unica) and Goodmail which is widely known for certified inbox placement.  These companies collaborate extensively with established ESPs and large enterprises.  However, below I’ve listed a few other respected industry resources, the majority of which have over a decade of email deliverability experience.   Each has experience with organizations that range in size from ESP startups to F500 corporations.

In their work as Email’s Lone Rangers, these consultants can most often revive a company’s deliverability afflictions, so that key members of the organization can hop back in the saddle without too much damage done to its sender reputation. 

This article was inspired by:

· Jaren Angerbauer, DeliveryVision

· Andrew Bonar,Emailexpert

· Micky Chandler, Whizardries

· Greg Kraios, Den of Deliverability

· Laura and Steve Atkins, Word to the Wise

 

"Hi-yo, Silver, away!"

 

Fred Tabsharani

Port25 Solutions, Inc.

@tabsharani

If you haven't heard, Hotmail is looking at taking the old This is Spam button and bringing it into the 21st Century. Coming to a Hotmail inbox near you will be a new feature called "Sweep" which essentially does just that, sweep's unwanted email away from your inbox, but without the consequence of taking a negative hit to a senders reputation score.

Why are they doing this you ask? Well it is simple, many of us know there is a gray area in email that isn't outright spam, but isn't something you really care about as well like a personal note from your friends. Per Hotmail, Sweep is a virtual broom that lets you super easily "sweep" the mail you don't want out of your inbox into either folders or oblivion, leaving your inbox clean.

The great thing about the new “sweep” feature for managing gray mail is that Hotmail users can get the same result, i.e., not receive the gray mail they don’t want, but it won’t negatively impact the sender’s reputation score.

To be honest I still worry a bit here about this. Will it solve the problem of preventing ok email from being marked as spam if the users don't want it anymore even after signing up for it? Will users be more educated using this feature to know they could just as easily unsubscribe from within the email if they don't want it anymore? Could this new feature cause more confusion? perhaps...

What are your thoughts?

More on this

• PCMag
• TechRadar

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Whether there are dozens or hundreds, the email messages that arrive daily in your inbox vie for a share of your time and attention.  Because of persistent issues with spam, messages face continued scrutiny.  In order to appeal to subscribers, messages must be authentic, carefully crafted with a specific purpose in mind.  The question is, what kinds of messages will catch subscribers’ attention and resonate with them?

 

One type of authentic email messaging is laced with charitable goals and good intentions. Subscribers find the idea of charity emotionally appealing, and they will gain satisfaction when they know that proceeds from purchases of your product or service will ultimately benefit other human beings in need.  The wisdom of partnering with a charity and creating inspirational messaging cannot be overstated.  Charity-related messaging has a proven positive effect on overall brand awareness which transcends generic “sales event” campaigns.

 

The Higher Purpose

 

Buried deep within every organization is a sense of purpose.  That sense of purpose is a voice that reverberates through the minds of conscientious employees.  The voice should be a constant reminder to an organization which perpetually asks, “What is the higher sense of purpose for our company?

 

Created by Dr. Abraham Maslow more than 50 years ago, a sense of purpose is the highest form of self-actualization. Creating email messaging with a higher sense of purpose and aligning your emails with a charitable organization will allow you to develop intimacy with your subscribers.  Advancing, the focus is no longer on a conversation with your subscriber, but instead, there is a deeper connection because both brand and subscriber are working together to reach a common goal associated with a relevant charitable organization.

 

Respected Subscribers = Fewer spam complaints

 

By respecting your messaging, you respect your subscribers.  Rather than bombarding them with mundane “30% off Campaigns,” inform them about noble endeavors, events and/or goals your organization has genuinely organized with your charitable partner. With consistent focus on your charity, the spotlight moves away from your subscribers and gravitates toward your organization’s higher purpose.  In turn, your subscribers will naturally have a higher sense of loyalty and respect toward your brand. Cultivating this type of relationship between your subscribers and your brand will undoubtedly reduce spam complaints and have a positive effect on deliverability.

 

Case studies show that when companies link a purchase to a charitable contribution, awareness increases dramatically.  As subscribers become aware of your charitable intentions, the fewer spam complaints you will receive.  In turn by activating Social Media as an extended channel, brands will dramatically enhance the overall awareness of your efforts by offering greater exposure and endorsement. Charitable efforts yield emotional stories which ignite passion for brands.

 

Play Host and Connect Emotionally

 

Let’s recall that abundance comes from good feelings that result when each encounter in the universe is based on good intentions.  When an organization plays host to a charity, your brand is developing a higher esteem for itself. By extending appreciation toward the charity, your brand becomes a conduit between your subscribers and the charitable organization.  The intention of giving allows your brand to communicate via email on a higher frequency than competitors who are not linked to a charitable cause. Imagine when a few of your subscribers donate directly to your charitable partner through a direct link from your email.  What ensues is a mutually beneficial negotiation with your charitable organization which will actively pursue recipriocation because your subscribers made direct donations, attributable to your brand.

 

The Impact of Charitable Marketing

 

Besides the increased brand awareness, and impact on credibility and consumer perceptions, charitable marketing has also proven to help the bottom line. There are numerous case studies on charitable marketing, but one stat that stands out above the rest is this:  In a recent study by Cone and Duke University found that 87% of consumers said they would switch from one brand to another comparable brand based on its association with a charitable cause.  Also, when consumers were aware of a given company’s charitable efforts, they consistently rated the company more highly in terms of trust, endorsements, bonding, and innovation.

 

So, what’s the best way to align your brand with a charitable organization? Ask your subscribers!

 

The opportunity exists further to develop greater intimacy with your subscribers simply by surveying them? Whittle your list to four and ask your subscribers, which charity they would like your brand to be associated with?  Again, by allowing your subscribers to choose the charity, you are empowering them to make significant decisions about the future of your organization; which is the highest form of respect.  

 

This article was inspired by Melinda Krueger of Ogilvy One.

 

Fred Tabsharani

Port25 Solutions, Inc.

@tabsharani

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They say curiosity killed the cat. Apparently, no one is saying that loudly enough to stop consumers around the globe from clicking on spam.

Nearly half (43%) of email users in North America and Western Europe say they have knowingly opened or accessed spam – including clicking on links or opening unknown and potentially dangerous attachments, according to a new global consumer survey  from the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG).  Of those who open spam, about half (46%) did so intentionally – to unsubscribe, out of curiosity or out of genuine interest in the products being offered.  This is consistent with findings from the same study’s 2009, but not an increase in such behavior.

The  2010 MAAWG ‘Email Security Awareness and Usage Report’ was released yesterday (March 24, 2010).   Consumers were surveyed in North America and across Western Europe with a variety of questions from computer expertise and savvy, to their preferences of email.

Several of the findings are both shocking and disturbing.  Consumers seem generally unaware of the consequences of their actions, and a painful percentage continue to click on spam, knowingly, instead of deleting it immediately. Such actions help explain the gargantuan increase in botnet presence on the Internet and zombie’d computers continue to steal millions of bits of personal and confidential business information as a result.

Clearly, we as an industry have an opportunity to do more education for end users of email.  Several of us at Return Path will be working with the good folks at MAAWG and other industry associations to develop programs that we hope can be embraced by marketers as well as mailbox providers and anti-spam professionals.  We'll keep everyone informed of ways to participate.

In other findings, four out of ten users responding to the survey do click the report spam button (39%) or move spam to their junk folder (44%).   One in five say they report the message to the sender, if it’s recognized as a legitimate company.   These findings are pretty consistent between North America and Western Europe.  Younger users both consider themselves more experienced in terms of email security, but also more likely to engage in risky behavior like clicking on spam. 

Marketers know full well the pressure on response rates from the excess clutter in the inbox.   However, users who responded to the survey say that they use the senders’ name (73%) and the subject line (67%) to identify spam in the inbox.    Respondents also say that unusual language, the content of the email, the “from” name or address, and spelling mistakes and poor grammar are signs that an email may be spam.  This is true in all six countries included in the survey, although respondents in Spain and France are less likely to rely on these factors.

Email marketing is still a great opportunity and users surveyed do find marketing messages valuable.  They are just not as welcome as other kinds of personal email.  When asked about what various types of email they prefer, one-to-one communications still rule the roost. Messages from friends and family were ranked as ‘extremely or very important’ to 82% of respondents, but marketing email was only rated similarly by 15% of those surveyed.  Another 32% did view marketing mail as ‘somewhat important’.

Consider these findings in context with our shared goals:  To ensure that valued messages reach the inbox and unwelcome messages – especially the dangerous ones – do not.   Marketers, email service and technology providers, mailbox providers and security vendors all share this goal.

Please take a look at the full survey, and share your reactions and thoughts in the comments section below.

(Thanks to Neil Schwartzman of Return Path for his co-authorship of this post!)

In Inbox Reserve parts one and two, we discovered how socially centric preference centers and subject lines will lead to dramatically higher engagement and lower spam complaints. In part III below, we'll identify challenges that are inherent with acquiring a subscribers social data points and what the benefits are to your brand once harnessed.

Challenge:  Develop a Preference Center Marketing Program

The challenge for today’s brand marketer is to find ways to seductively charm subscribers to fully or partially divulge their social media credentials through an intuitive preference center.  Some subscribers will immediately acquiesce, while others will be more sensitive and allow the brand only a partial glimpse into their social networks.  For example, B2B focused subscribers may prefer to provide only credentials of their LinkedIn network and not necessarily Facebook or Twitter.  Future preference centers will allow you to prioritize which social networks you want linked to a given brand.

For this concept to work, marketers must demonstrate to subscribers the value of this initiative. Those subscribers who opt-in will glean more value and insight through their network associated with a given brand, because knowing what transactions are taking place with their social networks is in most cases desired.  Once brands amass these nuggets of data; designers, engineers and email marketing specialists will collaborate to produce instinctive methods of engagement while furthering your brands credibility.

Brands must take a proactive approach with subscribers to induce them to release this essential data.  A strategic marketing program targeted towards this master preference center with strong calls-to-action should be integrated into your marketing mix.  This marketing program should primarily focus on the features, benefits and value of updating socially centric preferences.

 

Emphasize Value and Benefits

One way to galvanize a brands subscriber base is to highlight reasons “why” updating your preference center is so valuable.  In your email marketing program, dedicate sends that emphasize the real value of managing and sharing social media credentials.  Market your preference center through other channels as well. Read Stephanie Miller's stellar post on why earning permission is divine.

Future marketing programs for updating preference centers should illustrate value–based notifications of activity within a subscribers given network: For example, in the email message itself give subscribers the option to choose from a host of alert notifications such as:

• Alert me when a member of my network makes a purchase from this brand
• Alert me when a member of my network signs up to receive newsletters from this brand
• Alert me when a member of my network reviews a product from this brand

This type of socially centric messaging will echo well with subscribers and will develop an affinity not only your brand but just as importantly your preference center.  These notifications will go "prime-time" and will replace the current generic “marketing messages” we currently receive.  Messages of this nature could be an excellent resource for winning back dormant subscribers.  

Furthermore, your subscribers might want to be immediately notified if a person from their network reviewed a nearby restaurant?  By giving your subscribers “night-vision” into their social networks, brands will have a simpler time summoning subscribers to release this coveted information.   Benefits to brands include far fewer defections from list segments, increased engagement, an awakening to dormant subscribers and significantly fewer “spam complaints.”

Immediate Benefits to the Brand

Credibility- As discussed throughout this series, socialized messaging of this nature provides a more intimate user experience.  It permits a subscriber to feel that the message is about their social ecosystem first and about the brand second.  It authorizes subscribers and their network to indirectly promote your brand, through a more relaxed conversation. 

Reduced Costs- Socialized messaging, will significantly reduce a brands’ overall operating expenses, because of a higher engagement index, fewer spam complains and better inbox placements rates.  Socialized messaging will increase sender reputation which reduces message handling costs including more relaxed human filtering steps with a given brand.  

Validation through Engagement- The ability to quickly connect with your peers before clicking the purchase button will soon be the “de facto” model for how to validate a purchase through a given brand. Acquiring validation from your trusted network means that an emotional and financial investment has been made on behalf of your friends and colleagues.  With a swift chat session with members of their network, your subscribers will discern information about a featured product/service, which accelerates immediate gratification for the purchaser.  Building a subscriber centric brand will add considerable value to your existing customer base and through crosshairs will magnify brand integrity.  Your feedback on this series is valued.

Fred Tabsharani

Port25 Solutions, Inc.

@tabsharani

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

 

   

Sharing a good bottle of wine with friends is simply a much richer experience than consuming one alone. Additionally, a mutual appreciation for the same types of wines you and your friends consume creates a far more substantial sharing experience. In this two part series, I’ll explore why mutual associations with brands will dramatically increase open rates and drastically reduce spam complaints, paving the way for better deliverability metrics, engagement and brand reputation.

As marketers, we put too much pressure on our subscribers.  First, we insist they recognize the label on our wine bottle, (The From: Name) then we expect them to read our subject line, and subsequently we hope subscribers actually “taste” (open) the email and glance at what we’re peddling.  If we haven’t lost their attention by now, we continue to plague them by asking them to share the given email using a functionality called SWYN (share with your network).  If that isn’t enough, we still yearn for a conversion…..and it all gets to be too much, ultimately, perhaps, pushing the subscriber away. 

Messaging of this nature is still outbound.   

What lies ahead is a significant evolution in email marketing which will work in concert with social networks to “reverse engineer” the social characteristics of email and bring social directly to your inbox.

Email offers will drastically change in the near future.  Next-generation emails will benefit from a deeper level of peer transparency. This new level of transparency will be earmarked by advanced or universal preference centers and highly intuitive sign up processes. By selectively capturing social media credentials of your subscribers, several layers of data points will become immediately available to harvest.  These socially focused data points will change ordinary subject lines to engaging peer notifications from a given brand.

Consider this:  you are far more inclined to “friend” someone on Facebook if you have mutual friends, correct?  And, you are more inclined to become a fan of a Facebook page if other members and colleagues of your social network are fans of that same page.  So, why not apply this same concept to email?

Industry statistics from Bazaarvoice illustrate that 74% of online shoppers who receive advice from their friends on social networks allow that advice to influence their purchasing decisions. Also this article by Shiv Singh supports that statistic with its discussion of when and why we trust our peers when determining types of online purchases. Furthermore, in a recent Purchaser Influence Survey by EXPO, featured today in emarketer.com, over 90% US Moms trust peer reviews more than manufacturer information. (Special Thanks to Anthony Schneider of Mass Transmit and Jeffrey Rohrs of ExactTarget for that snippet.)  With that said, we must reverse-engineer the current dynamic of outbound marketing based emails and bring our social networks to the coveted inbox.  At its core, should be a socially focused “über-email” program which acts as your brand’s private reserve.

Shoppers of a given brand instinctively want to know what “a subset of their trusted friends” bought online.  Similarly, shoppers also want to know what their friends think about those same products before they decide to purchase them.  Our marketing based email messaging should produce unbiased, first-hand knowledge of how our social networks “feel” about a product, not a subjective marketing message from your brand with ordinary subject lines.  Moreover, user-generated content is comprised of written and/or video testimonials of a product or service.  But, these testimonials which are often placed in an email, or on a brands landing page come from random people we don’t necessarily know. These testimonials although sincere in nature, don’t reverberate.

Reverse engineering social email

Would you like to know if any of your friends subscribe to the same brands as you do?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see which of your friends reviewed that new trendy restaurant on Yelp? Would receiving immediate notifications from peer actions with the brand build trust, directly after that review?

Currently, dynamic content in email allows us to customize a message to a particular segment or to an individual on your list, based on attributes in their profile.  We’ve learned that FedEx has as many as 144 attributes for a given record, which allows for granular customization of each email communication for each given email stream.  With increased Social Media data points culled together through an evolved master preference center adds an increasingly richer dimension for email marketers.  With these richer dimensions comes pinpoint information about your friends’ recent actions associated with a given brand. 

Savvy marketers will ameliorate the quality of such social media data points by dynamically inserting social attributes into a given email program. This concept completely reverses the current outbound system which is somewhat dysfunctional, because marketers still rely on subscribers outbound actions. The evolution of such a program will bring these messages to the inbox and will have far superior return on your email marketing investments, because this messaging adds increased value for the subscribers.  More value equals a more relevant email. With more relevant messaging comes drastically reduce spam complaints and dramatically increased open rates.

Let’s say you received an email from Barnes and Noble.  And, Barnes and Noble has been granted permission by you and many members of your social network, to publish information about actions your social network is undertaking with Barnes and Noble. Images of your friends may be dynamically and creatively populated in the creative, so when you open up your email, not only will you see friends’ images with links to their social media pages, you’ll also know which of them are subscribers, and which ones purchased that new Stephan King book Barnes and Noble is featuring.  What’s more is that the subject line will be highly engaging because it’s about your network “first” and not about the item being featured.

Part II of this series will discuss the challenges associated with this concept and why future marketing based subject lines will no longer matter. Subject lines will become highly relevant notifications, and how these “relevant notifications” will increase open rates and dramatically reduce spam complaints.

Fred Tabsharani 
Port25 Solutions
@tabsharani

 

"Permission is not enough; list engagement list is the key to deliverability. ISPs have stated they’re measuring such things as viewing time."

"Over-mailing = complaints = negative reputation at ISPs. Diversify less critical messages using Social Media. Save the good stuff for email."

"Drop the noreply@. Gmail’s begun testing turning on images for senders who have received two replies from a user; other ISPs should follow."

"Let the customer drive. From the onset and through Preference Centers let them dictate how much and what sort of email they want to receive."

"Stop marketing, at least occasionally. Actual content is likely to score better as ISPs look at engagement and complaints when filtering."

"Test, test, test. Day of the week, time of day, and level of personalization and segmentation will all improve engagement and pay dividends."

"Authentication will continue to be a major factor. Senders who have not adopted DKIM as their auth method of choice should do so this year."

"Just like DKIM, domain-level reputation is on the rise. For portability’s sake, make the From: and Friendly From as consistent as possible."

"Even though engagement, DKIM, and domain-rep may be on the rise they’re not the only factors. IP-based reputation still matters -- a lot."

"ESPs can do many things but your content and frequency aren’t among them. What/when/how you mail is largely dependent on your deliverability."
 

- Scott Hardigree | Indiemark | @indiescott

(The Deliverability Forum is a series of interviews I hosted with industry leaders and luminaries over the past few months.  It came to closure last week and I have shared the final post with takeaways and highlights from the Bronto blog.)

It is with a bit of ennui that I must close this series.  Many thanks to everyone who contributed to the blog posts over the last few months and gave their uncensored opinions around what they find valuable, in need of change or what interesting developments are in the pipeline.  As we began, so we will end - you may not have direct access to these industry leaders but I hope the conversations I've shared have given you insight into the minds of those who have direct influence over the email industry from a sender's and receiver's perspective.  And thank you for the comments and readership thus far.

If you missed any of the blog posts, they are laid out below in chronological order with a high level summary of the post and my takeaways for you as a reader to glean from the interview.  Also, I've included a "definition" section at the bottom of this post if there are any acronyms that you might be uncertain about.  Please scroll down to access it.

The Players:

The FTC (post) describes in the US government's own voice how spam is regulated and counteracted.  Ethan Arenson, the FTC Spam Coordinator, spells out the very serious consequences of not being CAN-SPAM compliant and where to go for their exacting interpretation of what exactly is required of all commercial mailers.  It also shows the government's willingness to help curb the problem of unwanted email by enforcing industry standards such as authentication in a non-legal but best standard way.

My take: While most commercial emailers are compliant with the law (especially if using an ESP such as Bronto), it remains in your best interest to stay cognizant of the law and have someone you trust and can defer to when you're not sure if what you're doing is legal.  Also, the FTC regularly updates the Act's provisions so make sure to stay abreast of the latest rules that are voted in by the FTC commissioners.  We are talking about law here with real civil and criminal consequences if broken.  You don't want to find yourself being accused of a federal crime wherein ignorance of the law won't hold much water!

Pivotal Veracity's (post) President and CEO, Deidre Baird, explains the importance of both authentication and user engagement.  Pivotal Veracity is neither an ISP nor an ESP, but rather a deliverability intermediary services company with deep expertise around content and email disposition.  Also, Pivotal Veracity is a partner of Bronto.  As the interview mentions, without a conscious eye towards the emerging shift in ISP deliverability patterns, specifically around user engagement and authentication, you'll find your program in trouble.

My take: As AOL puts it, "send relevant email to people that want to receive it!"  Are you doing everything you can from an infrastructure standpoint to ensure your email doesn't attract negative hits when being scanned and determined for acceptance by the ISPs?  And, once delivered, is the email being received well by your recipients?  If you can't categorically answer in the affirmative to both of those questions, you have some major homework to do or else risk your mail being deemed irrelevant and sent off to the bulk folder or bounced back.  Both cost money.

Razorfish (post) chimed in from a email content and strategy perspective.  Whitney Hutchinson, Group Director, Strategy and Account Services, sums it up nicely by hitting on these key points: engage your recipients with appropriate creatives, have a holistic marketing approach for the relationship management and take into account the "stacking effect" which is a result of the newly emergent communication technologies available to market to recipients through.  Email is now one of many.

My take: While email is now just one piece in a wide breadth of technologies (i.e., Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Wave, SMS, etc.), it is still the most important and most trusted conduit of content that recipients most engage with consistently over time.  It has proven itself as a reliable protocol, even older than the internet itself (history)!  But, recipients have become increasingly savvy with its adoption so making your content stand out amongst the sea of email users get is at the vanguard of a successful marketing program.

ReturnPath's (post) President, George Bilbrey, still believes email is the "killer" app.  ReturnPath, while not an email sender or receiver, hosts a suite of services ranging from ESP to ISP products and plays a significant role with its liaison relationship between both senders and receivers.  He poignantly breaks down the exacting metrics ISPs use to measure user engagement (i.e., open rates, click rates, spam complaints, panel votes, etc.) along with the idea of domain reputation.  ReturnPath is a partner of Bronto.

My take: Authenticate, watch your complaints and make sure your domain reputation is healthy.  Yahoo! and AOL have already moved over to using domain reputation as a determining factor for deliverability - so to even ignore those two at this point with their combined estimated 142.4 million unique inboxes is perilous.  ISPs are fighting off spam and user interpreted unwanted email; don't let your mail take on these smarmy characteristics.

Cloudmark (post) occupies a very distinct space in the email industry as being a provider of anti-phishing, spamming, virus and other threat vector services to ISPs only.  Jamie Tomasello, Abuse Operations Manager, posits that authentication doesn't actually imply good mail but rather mail that is verified as coming from the declared source.  Interestingly, she adds that user engagement is not a net positive measurement - you can have negative user engagement as well depending on what the user does with your mail that is perceived by the ISPs and companies such as hers when it's not wanted.  Permission is tantamount.

My take: Bronto and many other responsible ESPs require permission based marketing as the only source of email addresses senders can email to.  Why?  Because it shows the true intent of the recipient to actually want your email; they've taken an action that is clear and deliberate to let the sender know they want the email.  By assuming recipient desire and emailing recipients who haven't given permission is casting a large net that will cause deliverability issues.  Think about it.  When was the last time you marked an email as spam or deleted it when you didn't knowingly sign up for it?  That's what I thought.

LashBack (post) rounded up the series as the final contributor with James O’Brien, Director of Marketing.  LashBack is dedicated to monitoring unsubscribe requests, suppression list abuse and whether an unsubscribe mechanism exists.  This directly ties into CAN-SPAM compliancy as well as being inline with email marketing best practices - when a recipient communicates to you they don't want your email anymore, you should honor this request without question or judgment.  Also, LashBack is putting together the first Email Compliance Summit which should be highly anticipated by senders and ESPs who want to stay on the cutting edge of unsubscribe policy.

My take: With the unsubscribe mechanism being one of several ways a recipient can directly and easily communicate intent with the email sender (others being complaints lodged with the respective ISP or direct email to the sender's role accounts), it is a very useful metric to measure the impact your mail is having on recipients.  Are you sending too much?  Too frequently?  Not targeted enough?  It's the job of the marketer to find that sweet spot where relevancy, recency and frequency are met with the recipients to not drive them to unsubscribe from your mail.

Definitions:

• CAN-SPAM: Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003 is the law the federal US government enacted to combat spam and other unwanted and malicious email.

• FTC: Federal Trade Commission is the arm of the federal government in charge of enforcing and maintaining the CAN-SPAM Act.

• ISP: Internet Service Provider of which the largest B2C ISPs are Yahoo!, Hotmail/Live, Gmail and AOL.  Email provider or receiver.

• ESP:  Email Service Provider such as Bronto.  Email senders.

• SPF: Sender Policy Framework is a type of email authentication that is path based and validates the sending entity.

• DKIM: DomainKeys Identified Mail is a type of email authentication that is encryption based, validates the content of a message hasn't been tampered with while in transit and can be tied back to a sending domain.

I hope that the Deliverability Forum and this wrap up have helped you with your deliverability programs.  Still have questions?  Comment below and let's keep the conversation going.

Chris Wheeler
Director of Deliverability at Bronto
@ChrisAWheeler

The preference center is a highly intriguing, untapped resource for Email Marketers and could be used in a variety of ways.  It has the potential to establish critical ground rules with both newfound and dormant subscribers.  When subscribers are awarded mission control to continuously manage their preferences, the amount of information that marketers can glean is truly unlimited.  During last week’s Email Insider Summit, Greg Cangialosi spoke about a “master preference center” which, in essence, puts the subscriber in complete control of different online messaging streams.  Additionally, subscribers would be able to divulge their social media and mobile credentials within the preference center.   By adding social media and mobile to the preference center, users garner an added benefit: they can proactively engage with your subscribers within the “online” marketing channel they prefer.  As Jeannie Mullen points out in her recent Web 3.0 column, subscribers now receive emails through a plethora of online channels. Optimizing the preference center will make for a more satisfying subscriber experience.

Balanced Online Messaging

When it comes to email, we understand the basics. How often do you, the user, wish to receive emails?  What email format do you prefer? However, to get to the next level of online messaging, we need to move beyond basic queries and product of interest questions.  The key to reaching the next level lies in adhering to your subscribers’ wishes and preserving a “balance of online messaging.”  To achieve the goal of balanced messaging, give subscribers social media and mobile preferences as well.  For example, subscribers may prefer to utilize Twitter for customer service inquiries, while other subscribers may choose to receive more “entertaining” messaging via Facebook.  I envision a preference center design, where subscribers can populate a matrix of radio buttons or checkboxes and choose the type of messaging and preferred online channel.  Tweetdeck's latest version is a good example, where the "notifications" tab allows clients to choose the level of detail on each type of message stream.  Perhaps in the future, we'll see more formal messaging dispatched through email instead, which underscores why the vision of a master preference center is so significant.    We’ve learned that subscribers engage with brands through various different online and mobile channels.  Engaging them through their preferred method will pique their interest and ultimately entice them to orbit your brand successfully.

Mini Surveys in the Preference Center

If we continue to explore the potential of a well-structured preference center, we will discover a way that marketers can induce a higher level of participation, intimacy and engagement.  To do this, marketers can devise a “mini survey” (just one or two questions) that updates regularly with relevant and timely questions.  The survey would be integrated into preference center itself.  By adding a mini survey to poll your subscribers, you’ll increase the attributes for a given record in a database, and thereby allow future messaging that is more detailed relevant to your subscribers’ needs and interests.  We learned last week that FedEx has 144 attributes associated with each subscriber.  FedEx utilizes this wealth of information to tailor their marketing to the needs of individual subscribers, which will increase intimacy and engagement.

When your subscribers develop their profiles via the "mini survey," they become "active" subscribers.  In doing so, they give you permission to ameliorate their experience with you even more.  By asking leading questions that will result in a more profound relationship, you will allow your subscribers to modify their behavior and attain a greater degree of engagement with your brand.  Leading questions can invoke a higher level of brand awareness, and the use of time sensitive questions will enable you to increase that level of engagement with your brand sooner rather than later.  For instance, pose questions such as, "How likely are you to purchase from us the holiday season?"  Or, something along the lines of "Do you anticipate making a purchase from use within the next 90 days?"  (Make sure to phrase questions in a sensitive manner, so that they will not alienate your subscribers!)  Questions like these effectively create a sense of urgency and may give you greater insight as to what types of promotions you can successfully "initiate" with each active subscriber.  

Detailed Information: A Prerequisite for Customized, Detailed Messaging

Now, if a newly active subscriber has been dormant since immediately after answering your leading questions, you should take steps to re-engage that subscriber.  When this situation arises, you have a valid excuse to send a re-engaging or “reminder” email with a single survey question that will lead the subscriber to a preference center landing page, without necessarily prompting a smattering of complaints.  A strategy you might consider is utilizing  the preference center as the landing page of choice when formulating re-engagement campaigns. In that case, installing follow up questions there can help you in your mission to engage subscribers.  Using these methods should significantly reduce your spam complaints in the event that the subscriber chooses to end your relationship.

Inevitably, preference centers will get more sophisticated over time, and as Morgan Stewart of ExactTarget quoted Amazon’s chief scientist, who opined, “The future of marketing is based on how we enhance the digital experience of a subscriber and provide more detailed messaging by asking the subscriber for more detailed information.”  You may wonder, “How can I ask my subscribers for more detailed information without seeming intrusive and drawing spam complaints?”  If that is your question, preference centers hold the key to a successful mission with your subscribers. 

 Fred Tabsharani

 Port25 Solutions, Inc.

@tabsharani