VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

Using the Fear Factor as an Advertising Motivator

I was on a VERY long plane ride to Greece this week, a ride that takes 15 hours from San Francisco, so my husband (who is also in the business) and I started chatting. I was in the process of telling him about a VERY memorable and frightening commercial I saw recently (it IS a long plane ride and yes we do have a life…) 

Cut to: A professional woman driving her sedan, on the phone chatting, curling her eyelashes in the rear view mirror, taking notes on her dashboard notepad, maddeningly swerving into other drivers on the road.

She then reaches into the backseat looking for something, while continuing to chat on the phone, swerving and swerving into her horrified fellow commuters.

She then says, “Oh, it’s my exit!!” and as if a young child playing Frogger saw an opening to quickly scamper into the next lane she frantically shoots her sedan across 3 lanes of traffic leaving 5 cars of destruction in her path.

It hit home. I’ve seen it a hundred times in reality.

Did I touch a nerve? A nerve we’ve all experienced? Perhaps some of us have even uttered some “less than pleasing” words to Ms. or Mr. Highway of Destruction?

Who was the advertisement for? You’re not going to believe it, United Healthcare. And it wasn’t for the Destructo Driver, it was for the aftermath of her carelessness.

Bravo, to United Healthcare for capturing the “Fear Factor” in such a quintessential way. We all think we’re great drivers, but what about the other drivers on the road, thank god for health insurance! Do you have a product or service that could benefit from the fear motivator?

Sometimes it’s good to revisit advertising tactics that we may unconsciously forget about. I revisited a book, albeit dated, which made me think about VerticalResponse and how we advertise and thought it might be great to evoke some thoughts for our readers.

Herschell Gordon Lewis, a famed direct marketing copywriter, author of The Art of Writing Copy, wrote about 5 great motivators: Fear, Exclusivity, Guilt, Greed and Ego Gratification. He writes that giving benefits that relate to one or more of these motivators is a required tactic in trying to sell something.

VerticalResponse has one by default. Many businesses need to have unsubscribes managed on their behalf because of federal legislation. They don’t have the time to do it themselves nor do they have the systems in place and want to be in compliance, VerticalResponse to the rescue.

Think about your own business, do you have a piece of software that might save someone’s hard drive from a nasty virus? Does your product protect pillowcases and pillows from millions of dust mites? Does your educational product help a child's speech pattern?

Look, this isn’t about scaring someone into buying, it’s about getting someone’s attention so that they read your message. 

Fear is evoked by a sense of protecting something valuable, so go ahead and grab their attention. THEN focus on the benefits of your product or service, that’s what it’s really all about.

Any good or service that you sell where the product that you have protects one’s business, home, or health and well-being is a good candidate for the “Fear” factor. And by the way, if what you’re selling TRULY accomplishes what you say it does, and you believe in it, It’s not hokey at all.

I’ll be touching on the other motivators so stay tuned.

Michigan and Utah - The Child Protection Registry- What does it mean?

There's been a lot of hoopla surrounding the Do Not Email Registries in Utah and Michigan. So I wanted to take a sec to break it down for you and then talk about what VR is doing about it. First of all, VR is VERY opposed to this idea. We are helping the Email Service Provider Coalition in the fight against these registries and it seems to be working. Michigan has postponed their registry because of the issues raised by the ESPC. We are now in the process of getting Utah to do the same. Stay Tuned.

What It Is

I went through about 50 searches to find the Utah's Child Protection Registry. Apparently you need to search on "Register Your Child Utah Child Protection Registry" and it comes up on the 3rd page! Anyhoo, it allows parents to list any e-mail address to which their children have access. Sort of like the Do Not Call list but worse. Thirty days after registration, it is illegal for anyone to send spam to the address if the e-mail advertises pornography, alcohol, tobacco, gambling or any product or service illegal in Utah.

With the Utah Registry you cannot send emails to a minor with the following content:

• Alcoholic beverages
• Tobacco
• Porn
• Any product or service that is illegal in UT (whether purchased by a minor or an adult), such as illegal drugs, prostitution, and gambling.

Senders in violation will face up to three years in jail and up to $30,000 in fines as well as potential civil penalties of $1000 per message.

Michigan is on hold for now. That's the good news. They have postponed the implementation of their Registry until the issues raised by the ESPC (Email Service Provider Coalition) have been addressed. There are concerns about fee structures as well. They are trying to work out a timetable for future implementation. There is currently, as of this posting no risk to any sender.

In the event the MI Registry goes live you would not be able to send email to a minor with the following content:

• Alcohol
• Tobacco
• Porn or obscene material
• Gambling
• Lotteries
• Illegal Drugs
• Firearms

Michigan's law face similar fines and jail time, and may be liable to civil penalties of $5,000 per message or $250,000 per day of violation.

Why VerticalResponse is in Opposition

As i mentioned in my first paragraph we are not in favor of a "Do Not Email" registry. Here's why

• We are concerned with the security of the email addresses on the Registry
• There is no security audit of the system conducted by any third parties
• Many businesses are forbidden by their privacy policies from sharing their email lists with any third parties
• There needs to be more of an audited employee background check

Most notably, the FTC spent many months interviewing numerous constituencies in the email world, and hired independent email experts, prior to issuing a comprehensive report to Congress on the viability of registry-type solutions.  Their findings were conclusive: registries would not stop spam, and would very likely create greater risks for the individuals placing their names on the list. So we think that UT and MI should listen to us.

How You Get Minors Off of Your Email

While the fight continues we must offer solutions to appeal to these states. Unspam is the service that has been approved to scrub email addresses each month. The law in UT requires that every 30 days you clean your list of minors if your email contains any barred content. The service appears to cost about a half penny for each email address you pass through.

What VR is Doing for You in the Meantime...

Since Utah has gone forward with their registry we have been approved by Unspam to pass data on behalf of our customers. VerticalResponse is now working with Unspam's technical specs to enable you to scrub your data on a monthly basis. We need to be prepared for you in the event that the registries live. We should have more information for you about process, pricing and just how the whole thing works in the coming weeks. So stay tuned.

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I'm Giving Away an iPod Each Month for the Coolest Email Marketing Campaign

At VerticalResponse we love all of our customers, and we love the email marketing campaigns that you do, so much that each month for the next 5 months we're going to choose the email campaign that looked great, sounded great, had a great offer or article format and the account owner gets an iPod Shuffle.

Why am i doing this, other than the fact that I am an iPod junkie? (I have two and my personal playlist is the hold music running on an iPod at VerticalResponse.) Because all of you, our customers deserve a gift every now and then. And as you know we check out each campaign that goes through our system for Can Spam compliance and to make sure in your busy day you didn't make any mistakes!

So cheers and best of luck!

All New Salesforce/VerticalResponse Integration

Our new Salesforce integration is here! It will be displayed at Dreamforce but you can see more information on it beforehand!

Some of you salesforce customers may have heard about Multiforce, that's the new "black" for salesforce.com this season. What is Multiforce you might ask? Multiforce, salesforce.com's new on-demand operating system, allows companies like VerticalResponse to deliver all their business application in a single environment — the salesforce.com environment - with one data model, one sharing model, and one user interface.

What does that mean for salesforce.com users using VerticalResponse?

Now when you want to do an email marketing or direct mail campaign from within your Salesforce interface you'll see a different set of tabs, VR Email, VR Postcard and VR Stats, so you'll never have to leave the Saleforce interface to do your direct marketing.

This is the part that i am THE MOST excited about! Now when you want to do a saleforce "campaign" you can query BOTH Leads and Contacts with or without custom fields, build a list and attach it to a campaign in minutes. As salesforce users ourselves we too have wrestled with the task of running a report, downloading the list, re-uploading your list and attaching it to a campaign. So we wanted to solve that problem for everyone, AND WE DID!

So check out our new application, we'll be at Dreamforce in September showing it off!

Case Study: How WorkZ.com Increased Response Rates

Back in August 2004 my company VerticalResponse bought a small business content site called WorkZ. The site was made up of about 1500 articles and various categories about how to grow your business. Roughly 40,000 people had signed up to recieve the WorkZ newsletter.

What we did for WorkZ

Alf, our Creative Director redid the look of the site and I spent hours and hours weeding out old articles recategorizing the artices to enable visitors to get to the content quickly and easily. For instance instead of "Make Money" we categorized by "Marketing>Email>Copywriting".

Then we launched and sent our first email newsletter. What happened next is startling.

ALL of our AOL addresses bounced. How could this happen, i wondered? ALL email marketing campaign sent through VerticalResponse is on the AOL whitelist! So i talked to the kind folks in the AOL Postmaster group myself and told them my horrifying news.

"Oh, WorkZ was blocked years ago because of complaints and lack of a feedback loop," they uttered. "But we'll give them one more shot if you are taking over the emailing of it."

So we got WorkZ unblocked. STEP 1 in increased response.

Then we looked at our overall bounce rate, and a significant portion of the list bounced. Why? Because the list hadn't been mailed in 4 months. Ouch.

So we cleaned out a portion of bad email addresses and now mail each week, like we told members we would. STEP 2 in increased response.

Now it was time to start to grow the list and get a better click and open rate. Our open rates were pretty low because people hadn't been used to getting and reading our content. Alf's idea to Tracy, our Marketing Specialist was to test the "from label" from "Weekly WorkZ" to just "WorkZ".

Testing the "from label"  increased response by a few %. STEP 3 in increased response.

The next thing we knew we had to do was to get NEW names on our list of business owners. So Alf asked Robert, our Marketing Manager to help him acquire new members. Robert works with various companies to include us in their registration process so Robert started to send Alf hundreds of leads per week who had legitimately given us permission to email them.

We also advertised the WorkZ newsletter to our VerticalResponse customers telling them that WorkZ was the place to go for informational articles on how to grow your business. This garnered thousands more new leads.

The response went up by 20% by getting new email addresses. STEP 4 in increased response.

And finally, Alf had the idea that perhaps some people deleted our email or passed it by, so maybe we could just email those people that never responded at all, a few days later.

Mailing the same content the 2nd time around gave us 30% more of a response. STEP 5 in increased response.

So here are 5 ideas that might help you to increase your response rate and clean your lists! Oh, and check out WorkZ, it's got tons of great information.

VR's Direct Mail Glossary

This glossary of direct mail terms we've compiled comes in handy for our users. Cheers!

Bleed
An image that extends off all four sides of the printed area without a border is considered a bleed. If you want the image to extend to the edge of the paper, then a portion is cut off the printed original to allow for the tolerance of the printing process.

Bulk Rate
This is the process of preparing and sorting mail to qualify for reduced postage rates. Bulk-Rate postage is lower than First-class, but Bulk-Rate has a longer delivery time.

CASS (Coding Accuracy Support System)
The CASS™ (Coding Accuracy Support System) improves the accuracy of carrier route, five-digit ZIP, ZIP+4, and delivery point codes that appear on mail pieces. This process is graded by the United States Postal Service®, National Customer Support Center (NCSC), and the results returned to mailers in order to provide useful diagnostics for correcting deficiencies.

CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black)
The standard color model used in the printing process. These are the colors referred to in four color printing.

Copy
Your copy is your offer or message.

Crop
Trimming portions from around the image in order to make it the proper proportion for your job.

Crop Mark
A small mark outside the printed area used to show how a print job should be cut.

DPI (Dots Per Inch)
DPI is a measurement of how many dots can fit into one inch. The more dots the sharper the image will be.

EPS (Encapsulated Postscript File)
EPS is the file format for high-resolution images that is often used when transferring an image from one program to another.

File Format
Each different type of file has a different file format. A file format specifies how information is organized. (Examples: .doc, .txt, .pdf)

Four-Color Process
The process by which full-color photographs and artwork is reproduced. Four halftones —one for each of the primary colors, plus black —are printed one on top of the other, creating the range of color that was in the original.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
A protocol or method used to transfer or copy files between computers over the Internet.

High Resolution
This refers to the resolution of an image indicating the number of dots per inch (dpi). The range can be from 300 dpi to 2,500dpi.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
This is a type of file that retains a higher degree of color. Uncompressed JPEG can be used for high-quality printing for postcards and other forms of direct mail.

Line Screen
The number of dot lines created per inch, or lines per inch (LPI).Low Resolution
This refers to the resolution of an image indicating the number of dots per inch (dpi). Low resolution can be from 72 dpi to 250 dpi.

PDF (Portable Document Format)
PDF is a popular way of formatting documents so they can be viewed and printed on multiple platforms without changing. PDF is developed by Adobe as a standard for the web and for printing.

Pixel
An image displayed on a computer is made up of lots of dots called pixels. A number of pixels displayed is referred to as the image's resolution.

PMS (Pantone Matching System)
PMS is the universal standard for printing color selection. Most printers have books containing samples of more than a thousand colors and mixing formulas.

Presort First Class Mail
This is the process of preparing and sorting mail to qualify for reduced postage rates.

Process Colors
Overlapping dots of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK) are used to simulate a large number of different colors to make up process colors.

Resolution
The number of pixels that can fit into one inch determines the sharpness and quality of an image. Computer monitors are 72-96 DPI while most printed jobs are 300 DPI or above.

RGB (Red, Green, Blue)
Computer monitors display color in RGB.

Standard Mail
This refers to the process of preparing and sorting mail to qualify for reduced postage rates. Standard Mail postage is lower than First-class, however Standard Mail has a longer delivery time.

UV Coating
This is plastic coating that is applied after the printing process. This yields a very tough, almost unscratchable surface that is the most durable.

VR's Email Marketing Glossary

This direct marketing glossary comes in handy for many of our users. It's just been updated and expanded with loads of new and helpful definitions.  Enjoy!

Direct Marketing Glossary

A/B Split

When a list is divided into two equal segments, each of which is tested for different offers as part an effort to determine which is more effective.

Above-the-fold

The part of an email or web page that is visible without scrolling. It is generally suggested that the most desirable offers and critical information be placed above-the-fold.

Auto Reply

When an email recipient is “Out of the Office” or “Away on Vacation” they often set up an automated reply message alerting the sender to this fact.

Bandwidth

The amount of information that can be transmitted over a network such as the Internet in a specific amount of time.

Blocking

When emails are prevented from reaching their intended destination, typically due to action taken on the part of the Internet Service Provider (ISP).

Blacklists

Lists of IP addresses belonging to organizations that have been identified as senders of SPAM (unsolicited commercial email). Blacklists are often used by ISPs as part of the filtering process that determines which IP addresses they prohibit from sending mail to their members.

Bonded Sender Program

Sponsored by IronPort Systems, the Bonded Sender program identifies legitimate email traffic. Originators of legitimate email can now post a financial bond to ensure the integrity of their email campaign. Receivers who feel they have received an unsolicited email from a Bonded Sender can complain to their ISP, enterprise, or IronPort and a financial charge is debited from the bond. This market-based mechanism allows email senders to ensure their message gets to the end user, and provides corporate IT managers and ISPs with an objective way to ensure only unwanted messages get blocked.

Bounces

A “Bounced” email indicates that an attempt to deliver an email to a particular address has failed. This may occur if the email address is no longer valid or the intended recipient's ISP and/or email servers were not functioning over a period of 3 consecutive days. (See following item for more information on specific types of “bounces”).

Bounce – Hard

An email address that is rejected for a permanent reason that cannot be resolved.

Bounce - Soft

An email address that is rejected for what is most likely a temporary reason, such as an overfilled inbox.

CAN-SPAM Act

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) establishes requirements for those who send commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask emailers to stop spamming them. Among other measures, the law:

1. Bans false or misleading header information. Your email's "From," "To," and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email.
2. Prohibits deceptive subject lines. The subject line cannot mislead the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the message.
3. Requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email.
4. It requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender's valid physical postal address. Your message must contain clear and conspicuous notice that the message is an advertisement or solicitation and that the recipient can opt out of receiving more commercial email from you. It also must include your valid physical postal address.

The CAN-SPAM Act also provides for penalties for a number of other offenses, which can be reviewed here: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.htm

Call-to-Action

Phrasing that encourages a reader to take action. For example, "Click here to register for the VerticalResponse newsletter." or "Get started with your free trial of VerticalResponse today!"

Click-through Rate (CTR)

An indicator of response to a given email message, as measured by the percentage of recipients that click on a link enclosed in the email. To determine the click-through rate, divide the number of responses by the number of emails opened (multiple this number by 100 to express the result as a percentage).

Content

The copy, graphics and images that comprise the presentation.

Contextual Link

A Web link incorporated into a line of text that is generally less awkward and space-consuming than a conventional link.

Conversion Rate

A metric which measures the percentage of people converted into subscriber or buyers out of the total population exposed to a particular campaign.

Copy

The text of the email, distinct from the graphics.

CPA (or Cost per acquisition)

A payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations.

CPM (or Cost per thousand)

In e-mail marketing, CPM commonly refers to the cost per 1,000 names on a given rental list. For example, a rental list priced at $250 CPM would mean that the list owner charges $.25 per e-mail address.

Database

A database is a collection of information stored in a computer in a systematic way, such that a computer program can consult it to answer questions. For email marketing purposes, a database is the software that stores your records or lists. Your database may be in the following forms: MS Excel, ACT!, Saleslogix, Salesforce, GoldMine, Outlook, Outlook Express, Netscape, Sybase, Oracle, and many other forms.

Confirmed Opt-in

“Confirmed opt-in”, also known as “double opt-in” or “closed-loop” in some circles, provides an additional layer of security by requiring that email accounts be both subscribed and then verified by a conformation email before they are added to the list. As a result, only those people with access to the account can respond to the confirmation message, greatly reducing the chance of abuse. For this reason, double opt-in is regarded as the gold standard for secure email marketing.

Email Campaign

When you build an email and send it to your recipients using VerticalResponse this is defined as an email campaign. Your campaign may be a newsletter or may consist of offers. Some marketers may define a campaign as a series of email messages using a common theme, but in the VerticalResponse system, any email sent is classified as a campaign.

Email Reader or Client

An application used to send, receive, store and view e-mail.

ESP

Email Service Providers (ESPs) are companies like VerticalResponse that provides a service of enabling a user to send permission-based email campaigns to designated users.  They are usually Application Service Providers (ASPs) who offer their services in an online fashion. There are also software ESPs as well.

ESPC

The Email Service Provider Coalition (ESPC) was formed to fight spam while protecting the delivery of legitimate email. The ESPC members have recognized the need for strong spam solutions that ensure the delivery of legitimate email and have been very active in the war against spam. VerticalResponse is an active member of this organization.

Font

A specific size and style of type within a type family.

Frequency

The intervals at which email marketing efforts are repeated: weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, etc.

Footer

Some emails include a “footer”. This is the area at the bottom of an email where you might find unsubscribe information.

“From” Line

The information that appears in the “From” line at the top of the email and typically indicates the identity of the sender.

Hard Bounced Email

A hard bounce is an e-mail message that has been returned to the sender because the recipient's address is not valid. A hard bounce might occur because the domain name doesn't exist or because the recipient is unknown.

Header

The header in an email is the part of the email that is not transparent to the recipient unless they have their “View Headers” turned on. This tells the recipient what servers the email is coming from and what programs are being used to generate this email. Headers contain information on the email itself and the route it's taken across the Internet. Recipients can normally see the "to" (identity of recipient), "from" (identity of sender) and "subject" (information in the subject line) headers in their inbox. You can modify these to influence their decision to open or delete an email.

Headline

The announcement recipients see when they open an email. Ideally, the headline expresses the company’s value proposition and encourages the recipient to read further.

HTML – Hypertext Markup Language

A “markup” language designed for the creation of web pages and other information viewable in a Web browser.

HTML Email

HTML email is simply an email created with HTML that allows for the display of images as opposed to simple text. Ninety five percent of all email readers have the ability to display HTML emails, which are more visually appealing and attention-grabbing than mere text.

House List

A permission-based list that you build yourself. Use it to market, cross sell and up-sell, and to establish a relationship with customers over time. Your house list is one of your most valuable assets.

ISP

An Internet Service Provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, Comcast and various local phone companies are common ISPs.

Landing Page

The page on a website where the visitor arrives (which may or may not be the home page). In terms of an email campaign, one can think of the landing page as the page to which the email directs the prospect via a link.

Layout

The arrangement of content within an email; designed to optimize the use of space while presenting the critical content in the portions of screen most likely to attract the recipient’s immediate attention.

Links

Text links, hyperlinks, graphics or images which, when clicked or when pasted into the browser, direct the prospect to another online location.

Load Time

The length of time it takes for a page to open completely in the browser window.

Look and Feel

The degree to which design, layout and functionality is appealing to prospects and fits the image the business is trying to portray.

Mailing List

A set of email addresses designated for receiving specific email messages.

Multi-part MIME Email

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an Internet standard for the format of email. Virtually all Internet e-mail is transmitted in MIME format.

Navigation

The means by which a user can click from page to page on a website and move around within a page.

Nth Sampling

When a subset of the list is constructed based on every Nth individual. For example, if one is doing Ninth-Testing, every ninth person on the list is sent an email.

Open Rate

The number of HTML message recipients who opened your email, typically measured as a percentage of the total number of emails sent, although calculation methods may differ. The open rate is considered a useful metric for judging response to an email campaign but it should be noted that open rates for text emails can’t be calculated. Also, some email clients, using preview panes, allow recipients to scan message content without actually opening the message, which is falsely calculated as an open.

Opt-in

Opting-In is the action a person takes when he or she actively agrees, by email or other means, to receive communications from an email marketer. There are different types of opt-in practices, some of which are more demanding than others (See also: Single Opt-in, Confirmed Opt-in)

Opt-out

Opt-out email marketing assumes the recipient wants to receive email unless they specifically ask to be removed from the list – in other words, “opt-out” or “unsubscribe”. If readers fail to state explicitly that they no longer wish to remain on the list, they can expect to receive messages until they make their desire known. Response rates tend to be lower when sending opt-out email, so be prepared for this result when you’re analyzing your campaigns.

Permission

The practice of only sending e-mail messages to those recipients who have agreed (or asked) to receive them.

Personalization

The practice of writing the email to make the recipient feel that it is more personal and was sent with him or her in mind. This might include using the recipient's name in the salutation or subject line, referring to previous purchases or correspondence, or offering recommendations based on previous buying patterns.

Phishing

In a phishing scam, a spammer, posing as a trusted party such as a bank or reputable online vendor, sends millions of e-mail messages directing recipients to Web sites that appear to be official but are in reality fraudulent. Visitors to these Web sites are asked to disclose personal information, such as credit card numbers, or to purchase counterfeit or pirated products.

Salutation

This is the area in an email where you address your recipient. Examples are “Dear Customer”, “Hello Larry”, and “Dear Member”.

SenderID

Sender ID is an e-mail industry initiative championed by Microsoft and other industry leaders as a technical solution to help counter spoofing—the No. 1 deceptive practice used by spammers. (See: Spoofing and Phishing)

Signature File

A short block of text at the end of a message identifying the sender and providing additional information about them.

Single Opt-in

Under single opt-in formats, businesses only mail addresses that have been actively subscribed to their list, typically by completing a web form, filling out a business reply card or sending an email to a specific address. Because the registration process is proactive, a single-opt in policy offers a higher level of security than the opt-out approach, but also has the following limitations:

• Since single opt-in procedure does not require email address verification, it is possible to register other people without their consent, merely by having knowledge of that person’s email address.
• A mistyped address or the entry of a bogus email account that happens to belong to someone else can result in a company mailing a customer who has not registered to receive messages.
• Single opt-in email policies are susceptible to spam traps. Spam traps are essentially email addresses or domains that have not registered to receive any email. Therefore, any messages they do receive must be spam. The problem for marketers comes when people deliberately subscribe spam trap addresses to their lists, or one is inadvertently added. This scenario exposes the mailer to blacklisting by ISPs or the organization operating the spam trap.

 

Soft Bounced Email

A soft bounce is an e-mail message that gets to the recipient's mail server but is returned undelivered before it reaches the recipient. A soft bounce might occur because the recipient's inbox is full and may be deliverable at another time or may be forwarded manually by the network administrator in charge of redirecting mail on the recipient's domain.

SPAM, UCE

SPAM or Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) is unsolicited email, particularly of a commercial nature. Sending email to people who have not requested to receive messages from you will likely result in SPAM complaints.

Spoofing

E-mail spoofing involves forging a sender's address on e-mail messages. It can be used by malicious individuals to mislead e-mail recipients into reading and responding to deceptive mail. These phony messages can jeopardize the online privacy of consumers and damage the reputation of the companies purported to have sent the messages. Spoofed e-mail often contains phishing scams. (See: Phishing)

Subject Line

The email subject line is the line that appears in an email client indicating the topic of the message. This is the line used to entice the recipient to open the email and read further.

Targeting

The ability to serve messaging to the users most likely to be receptive to the message, based on their geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral characteristics.

Teaser

A message, or part of a message, designed to arouse curiosity and interest and cause the reader to explore further, but without revealing too much detail about the offer being promoted.

Timing

Scheduling the email campaign to reach the audience at the most opportune time for it to be read. Timing might be seasonal (for example, vacation or school), dependent on holidays, etc. or mailings might go out on a standard schedule. Even the day of the week and what time of day the mailing goes out are important considerations: for example, a Friday afternoon mailing may be great for retailing customers, but bad for business-to-business customers.

Tracking

Collecting and evaluating the statistics from which one can measure the effectiveness of an email or an email campaign.

Type

A size or style of typewritten or printed character. For example, a serif type (or typeface), a sans-serif type, 10 point type, 14 point type.

Unique Forwarders

The number of unique individuals who forward an email. When the number of unique forwards is totaled, each person that forwards a particular email is counted just once, no matter how many times they forward that message.

Unsubscribe

When the owner of an email address unsubscribes, this indicates that the individual no longer wishes to receive emails from your organization. People can unsubscribe either by clicking the "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom of each email sent through our system, or by replying to the email with the word "Unsubscribe" in the subject line.

Up-Selling / Cross-Selling

Presenting customers with an opportunity to purchase products, services or accessories that are related to items in which they have shown an interest or purchased previously.

Usability

A measure of how easy it is for a user to complete a task. In the context of Web pages this concerns how easy it is for a user to find the information they require from a given Web site.

Value

The overall appeal and usefulness of the product or service to the prospect.

Viral Marketing

Elements and functions included in a communication that encourage and allow recipients to pass the offer along to others, thereby leveraging the marketing effort ("tell a friend," "please forward," etc.).

Viral Forwards

The number of referrals sent.

Viral Responses

The number of recipients who received the referral, opened it and clicked on a link.

Whitelists

Whitelists are lists of commercial emailers (including ESPs) who have been approved to send mail through the ISP. The ISP requires a list of IP addresses that email will be sent from, and in some cases a test period where the commercial emailer will be approved or rejected.

How Often Should You Email?

We get this question all the time, should it be twice per month, twice per week, once per quarter?  Truth is that we don’t have a perfect answer. What we do know is that it all depends on the relationship you have with your recipients.        

Over-mailing your recipients is a very effective way to…hello...lose subscribers! An annoyed recipient is one step away from becoming an unsubscribe and you really don’t want to alienate your subscribers.

Under-mailing your recipients can be as equally dangerous, especially if you’ve spent a lot of time and money to convert new leads to subscribers. 

In addition, the sooner you get your recipients to add your "from address" into their address book, the better your chances will be for ensuring that your emails are received in the format you sent it in. You may also find that you waited to communicate with them too long and by the time you've emailed them, they’ve moved or changed email addresses. The result? Your hard work to capture new subscribers has left you with a “Bounce”.

Here are some suggestions:        

• Hit ‘em quick – As soon as they subscribe, make sure you email them and begin your communications relationship with them to get them used to seeing your email.

• Do what you promised - Did you tell people that they’d get a weekly newsletter? Email them weekly so they expect it.

• Keep it relevant - If you promised “useful” tips, give them information they can’t get anywhere else. Go ahead and put offers in the email if you must, but the main objective should be to deliver a piece of valuable information that helps your recipients in some way.

• Keep a schedule – If you get too busy and can’t get your email out on time, don’t lag more than a few months in emailing your subscribers. They may forget they signed up and unsubscribe or worse yet complain to their ISP about you.

• Retailers beware! – Most retailers email more frequently during the holiday season, and that’s ok. As a matter of fact, this is what consumers expect and even in some cases need for the shopping season. But don’t neglect them in the summer months, you may lose them as a result.

• Pick a day - Tuesdays and Wednesdays seem to be popular days to mail for many businesses, but your best bet is to “test” emailing one day versus another. Don’t totally discount emailing later in the week, weekends or on Friday, especially if your event is happening on the weekend and you’d like to send a reminder. We have many event customers and realtors that email closer to the weekend for the event or in the case someone may be looking at properties on Sunday.

Here’s a real world case study for you: A VerticalResponse customer who had a seasonal software program used our service and neglected to regularly email their customers from May through September. In October when they heavily promoted their software, they had quite a few angry customers who unsubscribed and complained about receiving the email.  They also lost many customers due to bounced email.

BOTTOM LINE: In order to keep your list clean and responsive, you’ll want to keep your bounce rates and unsubscribes low. An opt-in subscriber is a valuable asset, so do what you promised, keep the email regular (however you define that) and keep it relevant. You’ll have a happy recipient who can’t wait for your email.

Acceptable Bounce and Unsubscribe Rates

Understanding the bounce and unsubscribe rates of your list is as important as understanding the click and open rates.        

Bounces and unsubscribes are a natural part of email marketing and will occur even with the cleanest and most targeted lists. That said, for every bounce or unsubscribe you receive, that is one less person reading your newsletter. As a savvy marketer it's important to understand what steps can be taken to reduce these percentages for future campaigns.

Understanding Your Bounced Email

Bounces can occur for a variety of reasons: people move, change jobs, change their ISPs, etc. and they don't always remember to update their account information with their newsletter providers.        

The frequency in which you mail can also have an impact on the number of bounces you receive. An average bounce back rate for a list that is mailed regularly (at least once per month) can range from 2% - 5%. An average bounce back rate to a list that is mailed less regularly can range from 5% - 13%. In addition, we've seen bounce back rates for first-time mailing lists as high as 20 - 30%.

Here are a few tips to keep your bounce rate low:        

• Mail at least once per month – this helps to solidify your relationship with your subscriber base, especially the ones who've just recently signed up.

• Provide offers or newsletters that your recipients will miss if they change email accounts.

• Offer your recipients a way to update their email address and other account details somewhere on your website.

• If you do get a bounced email, call or mail your customer a postcard to let them know their email bounced and you'd like to get an updated one.

Evaluating Unsubscribe Rates        

No matter how enticing your offers are, or how targeted your lists, you will still have subscribers who choose to opt-out of your mailing list. Don't be offended, it happens to everyone. The key is keeping your unsubscribe rates as low as possible for the mailings that you send out. This is often where email content is most important because a bored or confused recipient is one step away from opting-out.

A "good" average unsubscribe rate for a list that you communicate with regularly can be somewhere between .2% and .75%.        

If you haven't communicated regularly to your list, your relationship with your recipients may become fuzzy, at least from their perspective. To avoid this scenario, send newsletters or offers at least monthly to keep your company fresh in their minds. If you tend to mail less than once per month you can expect to have unsubscribe rates between 2% - 5%.

Here are a few tips to keep your unsubscribe rates low:        

• First and foremost, only send your emails to recipients who have agreed to receive offers from your organization. This is a no-brainer!

• Send offers or newsletters at least once per month so your recipients are used to receiving your email and you don't lose touch.

• Only email the content your recipients requested. Over-mailing your customers can result in list fatigue, which can in turn lead to an increased unsubscribe rate.

• Most importantly, provide value in your messages. Be the trusted authority on a certain subject, continually offer great deals to your customers, and announce exciting news or updated product information.

Maintaining a high level of email deliverability is something all marketers strive for, it's what we strive for ourselves, and we see this as a two-pronged approach. First, the data collection methods must follow "best practices" to ensure that all subscribers have provided their consent to be contacted via email. Secondly, companies need to align themselves with Email Service Providers who are experts in the fields of ISP Relations and Deliverability Monitoring.