Listrak: One To One Newsletter
"One to One" discusses email marketing intelligence and best practices for permission-based marketers. Each edition explores aspects of response-based modeling, segmentation, real-time reporting, testing, and message composition.
In this issue look at the latest deliverability issues, learn more about the "CAN-SPAM" legislation, discover Listrak’s newest features, get news from the Listrak frontier, and find out what makes Vinteractive Marketing's email sends out-perform the typical email campaign.
Best or Worst of Times? You Can Control Your Deliverability Destiny
For email marketers 2004 will present either the best of times or the worst of times. Deliverability will remain the number one concern for email marketers, but this year, their ability to implement best practices for subscription management, message composition and ISP relations will make all the difference. Marketers investing their resources to implement best practice strategies will reap the benefits of many of the devices put in place over the past several months by ISPs and corporate email administrators.
As always, Listrak is committed to providing the highest level of deliverability to our clients. Our pledge to this commitment will be found in a number of new deliverability services to be offered in Q2 of this year. Deliverability, however, is not a one-way street. Email marketing vendors, such as Listrak can only do so much to ensure the deliverability for their clients without those clients also taking responsibility. In many respects the rules of the game are changing and it's important for email marketers to understand those new rules. In order to achieve high rates of deliverability, marketers must embrace change in their current email strategies.
These strategies go beyond the basic direct response principles of writing subject lines that inspire clicks and creating campaigns with links “above the fold.” Deliverability strategies include educating new subscribers on the types of email communication that will be sent to them, how often or when the communication will arrive, and what email address you will be using to send the message. Along with education and preference, email marketers will want to ensure the hygiene of their lists, keeping their bounce ratio to an absolute minimum.
Along with measuring open, read and click-through rates, smart email marketers will want to measure their Spam Score to determine how it affects response rates and overall deliverability. This year Listrak has implemented a new feature called Spam Score, which is based upon the popular Spam Assassin architecture. This is a valuable feature that will help messages get past Spam Filters, such as Spam Assassin, which often falsely block permission-based email communications.
Another deliverability strategy is to ask new and current subscribers to add you to their personal whitelist, or accepted senders ' lists. Implementations of these lists vary by ISP and MSP (Mail Service Provider -- Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) however, it all boils down to the same principle: If you are on your subscriber's whitelist, your mail will make it past filters.
You know the rules—stick to the principles and best practices of email marketing and you'll be successful. To ensure your marketing efforts are not in vane, you will want to team up with email experts, such as Listrak, to help you achieve the highest deliverability rates available.
But remember—YOU can control your deliverability destiny.
Ross
Kramer
President, Listrak
Legislation - NEW EMAIL GUIDELINES UNDER CAN-SPAM
On January 1, 2004, the “CAN-SPAM” bill went into effect. Signed by President Bush, the CAN-SPAM law is poised to wage war against unsolicited commercial email. This law now governs how you—as a company—can communicate with your clients.
More than a scare tactic, the CAN-SPAM law brings serious punishment for those who infringe upon these federally regulated rules of conduct. Things such as falsified email headers and improperly labeled subject lines could be punishable with prison terms.
You, as an e-mail marketer under the CAN-SPAM law may contact people, at least once, with a campaign as long as you provide an opt-out mechanism and otherwise comply with the Act.
Harvesting e-mail is not illegal in and of itself. However, if in addition to harvesting names, you are caught not complying with another part of Can-SPAM, your fine can be much higher. Let us make it absolutely clear that we do NOT promote any form of email harvesting.
CAN-SPAM AND YOUR COMPANY
So how does this new law affect you? In a nutshell, the CAN-SPAM guidelines prohibit you from doing the following:
- Intentionally trying to deceive people by sending email from unauthorized computers and servers, or by hiding the true origin of your email.
- Using untrue or deceiving “Subject” lines and headlines, which do not clearly identify the content of the email you are sending.
- Using untrue or deceiving “From” information, which does not accurately identify the person initiating the email. (This means YOU, not an email application provider, such as Listrak.)
- Sending an e-mail that does not contain a functioning opt-out mechanism.
- Sending an email that does not contain a functioning return email address.
- Sending an email to recipient who has “opted-out” over 10 business days ago.
- Sending sexually explicit emails without the proper identification markings.
CAN-SPAM AND YOUR EMAIL APPLICATION PROVIDER
There are also several rules governing Third Party emailers, such as Listrak. As a vendor and responsible corporate citizen, Listrak has taken measures to conduct business within these rules. We will also continue to avoid sending SPAM by employing effective techniques to review and monitor information being sent by our servers. Most importantly, we will take all lawful steps to make sure your email campaigns continue to reach their destinations.
There are many important facets to the CAN-SPAM law. To protect your interests, make sure you thoroughly read the CAN-SPAM law and stick to its guidelines. To download a copy of the CAN-Spam law, click here http://sherpastore.com/store/downloads/canspamlaw.pdf .
Recommended
Reading : CAN-SPAM Guidance: Q&A with the FTC
+ Official Recommendations Report for Emailers
http://sherpastore.com/store/page.cfm/2134
Tech Know - New Listrak Features
Spam Score
Deliverability is the #1 concern of email marketers today. We take deliverability very seriously and that's why Listrak has developed Spam Score. Use the Spam Score feature to quickly scan your permission-based email-marketing messages for words, colors and graphics that often send up red flags to Spam filters. When the scan is complete, you will receive a Spam score—based on the Spam Assassin rating system— which will help you determine whether your message is in danger of being blocked by Spam filters. Listrak's Spam Score feature will also provide recommendations that will most likely increase your message's deliverability rate.
You can view your “Spam Score” today by clicking the “Spam Score” button in the Author and Send Email page.
Alternate Browser Link
In response to an ever growing amount of graphically offensive unsolicited commercial email, large ISPs such as AOL and MSN have started to block images by default. In addition, Microsoft's Outlook 2003 blocks images by default. Other ISPs such as Yahoo give their user's preference on whether or not to display images.
Generally we have seen that most email recipients will enable the viewing of images and links in their email programs, however, Listrak has created a feature to automatically add an alternate link at the top of each campaign so that all recipients can view your campaign in its intended format.
This feature is also helpful for recipients running older email clients such as Outlook 97 or older versions of Lotus Notes. For more information on this new feature consult the Help documentation on the List Settings page.
Enhanced Welcome, Goodbye and Double Opt-in Messaging
We have significantly improved the way we send and track automated messages. Listrak has enhanced the capabilities of our welcome, goodbye and double opt-in messages. You now have the capability of sending HTML versions of welcome, goodbye and double opt-in messages. Additionally, you now can set the From Address, From Name and Subject of your automated message. Attachments are also supported as is the built-in Listrak HTML Editor and HTML Template System for authoring automated messages within Listrak.
A new enhancement that everyone will enjoy is that automated messages can be tracked just like normal messages within Listrak. Now you can see who is opening, reading and clicking through on your automated messages.
Don't forget – you can also check the Spam Score of your automated messages. You will want to make sure that your automated communications are getting through the spam filters.
For more information on these new enhancements please see the Automated Messages section within the List Settings page.
Enable Personalization within Preview and Spam Score window
This feature was always enabled and available, however, it usually provided little value for most Listrak users. The premise behind this new enhancement is that by employing our personalization engine you can, in effect, change the content of your message, and thus change your message's look and feel as well as its Spam Score.
The personalization preview window is now set to “No” by default which is best for most Listrak users unless you are doing complex personalized campaigns.
For more information on this new feature consult the Help documentation on the List Settings page.
AOL Abuse Reporting & AOL White Listing Service
Chances are if you are doing any kind of B2C email marketing a significant portion of your list will be comprised of AOL addresses. Recently AOL has enacted some changes regarding whether or not it will accept an email campaign. Primarily AOL uses the “Report as Spam” tool built into the AOL application to gather user “complaints.” AOL then uses a ratio of 1 complaint per 1000 messages sent to determine if it will accept delivery of your campaign to their subscribers.
We have an active relationship with AOL and have enhanced Listrak to include two new features that will help improve your deliverability to AOL. The first new AOL-specific feature is the AOL Abuse Report. This report will detail to you each AOL complaint that is generated from your campaigns. In addition we will automatically remove each AOL subscriber that uses the “Report as Spam” button.
For those Listrak customers that have proven over a two-month time period that their campaigns produce less than 1 complaint in 1000 messages sent to AOL, we are happy to offer White Listed servers for your use. Please contact jlozzi@listrak.com for more information on this new service.
For anyone interested in reducing the number of AOL “Report as Spam” complaints here are three ideas you can implement today:
- Have
a clear “From Address” and “Subject Line” – If an AOL
user can quickly determine who you are they are less likely
to report your message as Spam.
- Educate
your email recipients at the point of acquision on how, when
and who will be contacting them via email. Tell them how
you will use their email address – newsletter, coupons,
promotional, etc. Tell them when they will receive email campaigns
from you – daily, monthly, quarterly, etc. Tell them who will
be emailing them so they can add that address to their “AOL
accepted senders” list. Doing these three things will greatly
improve your deliverability to AOL.
- Provide a clear and easy way for AOL users to opt-out at the top of your email campaign. Keep in mind that AOL users are generally less tech-savvy than other Internet users. Make sure that you are providing an opt-out means that appears to be safe and easy to use.
News Flash - GET FREE TICKETS TO TRAVEL COMMERCE 2004!
Listrak™ is giving away FREE tickets to Travel Commerce 2004 in New York City . This event will be held April 19 – 21. This is your opportunity to network with thousands of Interactive Travel industry decision-makers as they showcase their newest tools and technology. To receive your complimentary tickets from Listrak, contact John Lozzi at 717-627-4528, ext: 308, or jlozzi@listrak.com.
P.S.—When you're at Travel Commerce, be sure to stop by the Listrak booth, #200.
LISTRAK ADDS HELPDESK STAFF
This month we welcome Matt Elliot to talented support staff. Matt brings over 8 years of technical and Internet related support experience to Listrak including positions at Argonne National Laboratory and Thomson Learning. Matt is very excited to start working with current as well as new Listrak customers. Matt is originally from the Chicago-land area and along with his wide has two daughters with one more on the way.
Email Showcase - Vinteractive's Personalized Preferences
One of the great things about being an email marketing service
provider is that we get to see lots (LOTS!) of email campaigns.
Beyond just seeing the creative we also get to see the results.
A few months ago we dug through a few thousand email campaigns
looking for trends in open, read and click-through data. What
we found was compelling.
Listrak customer, Vinteractive LLC, based in Northern California , was producing successive retention-based email campaigns with open rates averaging 60% (as high as 78%). Vinteractive also achieves an average click through of 8% (as high as 25%).
What makes Vinteractive emails out-perform the typical email campaign? We found the answer by talking with email-marketing strategist and Vinteractive company founder, Bryan St. Amant.
According to St. Amant, the ability to initially receive and consistently maintain high email open and read rates consists of a two-part formula revolving around the subject line and body content.
The first half of Vinteractive's email marketing equation is to encourage the subscriber to open their email. “We tested subject lines and found that personalized subject lines out-pulled non-personalization by 40%,” says St. Amant. This technique of using the subscriber's first name in the subject line helps to cut through the clutter and adds to the personal relationship companies are trying to foster.
Other elements Vinteractive commonly uses in their winning subject lines include a clearly stated offer—which is now a federal law—and the use of a time limit expiration, which often attracts impulse buyers.
This is great information. And you've probably heard it before. But according to St. Amant, if you really want to win the email game, you've got to couple an effective subject line with body content that is preference based.
Preference based email contains only that information which directly appeals to the likes and interests of the subscriber. Sending information that has not been asked for all too often proves detrimental to future mailings. “If that initial email matches the customer's preferences, and each consecutive email matches their preferences, open and read rates will stay strong for the long haul”, says St. Amant. “ If the content is not what customers are interested in, they won't be as inclined to open the next message you send them.”
The team at Vinteractive does a lot of behind the scene work to make sure their emails are preference based, and it's paying off. “One of the reasons we picked Listrak,” says St. Amant, “is because they offer the most preference applications for a low price.” One example of this is Listrak's extremely extensible profiling engine which allows an unlimited number of profiling or preference options.
Founded in 2001, Vinteractive markets primarily to the Vineyard Community of Northern California and is currently expanding their reach to companies both nationally and globally. To learn more about Vinteractive's powerful preference-based email marketing practices, visit their site at: www.vinteractive-marketing.com . Be sure to click their resource room for insightful white papers regarding email testing, measuring campaign success, growing your preference based email list, and more.
