Industry grumblings claim that email is dead. I beg to differ -- it is simply growing up and expectations of its ROI are becoming more realistic. The Internet itself is only forty years old and the first record of a non-commercial based email system is roughly the same age. We did not see a viable commercial email service, Eudora, until 1988, only 19 years ago. Email as a whole is barely old enough to vote and is just now becoming integrated with print, television and search as a marketing tool. According to MarketingSherpa’s Email Marketing Benchmark Guide, 2005 saw 20-30% of all online budgets being dedicated to email. Over 80% of marketing professionals surveyed by Datatran Media ranked email marketing as one of the most important media for the year -- higher than any other online medium, including search. Email marketing is not going away. It is simply maturing, and many marketers are not properly prioritizing it anymore or know how to harness its capabilities.
Yahoo! and Hotmail brought email to the masses at no cost and it was received with open arms. The potential that this medium had for marketers was soon realized and has been evolving ever since. In January 2004, email saw its first attempt at regulation with the CAN-SPAM Act. Many joked that the CAN-SPAM Act did nothing more than say that you “can Spam.” Essentially, the act requires that your advertisement is clear and concise, an opt-out mechanism is offered, the subject line is not deceptive and your physical address is included on all communications. Within a couple months, the Act had its first two cases filed with the Federal Trade Commission. The two email operations that were brought up on charges piled up over a million SPAM complaints and were recognized as two of the largest Spammers on the planet, according to Spamhaus. More recently, legitimate marketers are feeling the sting of the CAN-SPAM Act. Yesmail, a well recognized email service provider, was hit with a substantial fine for not managing unsubscribe requests properly.
Legislation is not the only thing guiding the future of email. Programs like Bonded sender, TRUSTe, and AOL’s Goodmail all are making attempts to create a secure environment for email marketers to operate within. These programs are an attempt for the industry to police itself. Each program works similarly with the main goal of increasing deliverability and assuring the end user that the email they are receiving is from a credible source and not a Spammer. In theory, the programs should work and increase the confidence of email recipients. However, with so many different programs and no central authority to enforce the viability of these programs, they haven’t yet accomplished their goal.
With the definition of SPAM changing every day, marketers try their best to make sure their messages are relevant to the consumer. We personalize emails, ask consumers to opt-out, opt-in and then confirm. We model and segment our lists and are now integrating our Content Management Systems and personalization systems to facilitate a one-to-one conversation. With Web 2.0 technologies making a big splash in the online world, integrating this information into our email programs will certainly help marketers speak to customers more intelligently and efficiently.
Looking ahead, we can forecast some of the email growing pains like the introduction of Outlook 2007, email readers continuing to make it easy to mark messages as SPAM, pay-per-email programs and further legislation. All of which will cause the skeptics to say email will not make it another 20 years, but just as before, email will evolve as an important part of any marketing mix. With all the changes and idiosyncrasies that email has, every Internet Marketer needs to be sure that they are up to speed with current best practices and that they are working with a knowledgeable third-party vendor to help evolve with the world of email.
Need quick tips to harness the future of email?
Like the guys still decked out in their polyester suits, many email marketers are still behind the times. Understanding the history of email will help your company learn from where it has been and predict where it will go. Email’s roots are based in batch and blast campaigns but if you continue down that path, your conversions will suffer and your list will become outdated and worthless. Continuing to stay “stylish” and implement best practices will ensure a robust email initiative now and into the future. Here is a short-term picture of where email is headed and tips on how to implement the changes into your email campaign:
Increase Deliverability
Today deliverability is defined by the amount of email that is actually hitting your customers’ inboxes. It is no longer just subtracting the soft and hard bounces from the number of emails sent. With Email Service Providers making it easier and easier to mark messages as SPAM and email filters becoming trickier to circumnavigate, getting into an inbox has turned into an art. Creating and managing your own seed list with each distribution will give you insight into how each major ISP is handling your email and give you a starting point to resolve any delivery issues you may be having.
Easy Unsubscribe
Email lists do not grow on trees and need to be nurtured in order to pay dividends. When email was first introduced, sign-ups and subscriptions seemed as if they would never stop. But then they did! To combat this attrition many created difficult to use unsubscribe mechanisms to hold onto as many records as they could. In theory, this sounds like a good idea but forcing records to stay on your file will cause more harm than good. Reporting SPAM and blacklisting is becoming more and more prevalent among frustrated email subscribers. Keeping an aggravated subscriber on your file can send you down a path that only leads to recurring delivery issues. Creating a user-friendly unsubscribe process can help you learn why individuals are asking to be removed and can keep your email file clean.
Design for the Future
The changes for Outlook 2007 are turning out to be fairly significant. The biggest issue, so far, is that Outlook is moving away from using a web-based browser to Word to read email. Word doesn’t render HTML as cleanly as the old browser mechanism, but the only silver lining is that many emailers have long since done away with their image-heavy emails and moved to a text/HTML hybrid if not completely using text. Outlook 2007 is starting to gain adoption and will slowly begin to take up major real estate in the email medium, so if you haven’t made the change yet, you should begin testing how your emails are being handled in this viewer. EmailLabs, Preview-Pane Survey Findings Emaillabs.com - 4/2006 found 87% of users have either a version of Outlook or Lotus Notes that blocks or mangles images by default.
As email changes, a company’s approach to it must as well. Making ongoing minor changes now as email matures will not only keep you up-to-date, but it will also help emarketers avoid “ROI attrition” and keep the budget police away from your doorsteps.
If you have any comments or questions about any Aware InSites, feel free to contact us at
info@awarewebsolutions.com or call 800-783-8919.
Featured Resources
Federal Trade Commission
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 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.
Impact of Outlook 2007
Changes in Outlook 2007 have created quite a stir recently within the Email marketing world. No doubt, there are some significant changes, but I don’t think they are quite as drastic as some fear mongers are portraying. The recommendation has always been to code HTML to the lowest common denominator.
AOL Postmaster
This page is a reference point for guidelines concerning sending email to America Online. Check this page frequently to make sure that you are in compliance with all of our guidelines and avoid problems sending mail.