So, how does this tie to email marketing best practices? Well, I thought that instead of the traditional “predictions for email in 2009″ or “2009 email resolutions,” I’d frame this year in 4 words that best exemplify where I’d like all email marketers to focus their time and energy. (I know Chris suggests 3, but I couldn’t resist).

Relevant

Design

Choice

Test

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be expanding each of these words into full blog posts. However, these will not be your traditional “follow this best practice” type posts. We’ve all heard these terms before. Some of them may even be written in a document or on the whiteboard next to your desk. Unfortunately, for many, that is where they remain. My goal will be to give you concrete suggestions - transforming static, fluffy words into actionable goals that you can implement (and measure) immediately.

Please feel free to share (comments here or in subsequent posts) what your email marketing goals are for 2009.

DJ Waldow
Director of Best Practices & Deliverability at Bronto

Think about it: It’s next to impossible that everyone on your one big list has the same interests and motives - and inevitably people are tuning out. So, that’s why it’s time to get down to business, get to know your contact list and learn to “segment and succeed.” Below are 4 steps on how to get started now:

1. Review your sign-up process. Take a good, hard look at this process. Are you asking for information that matters, that you will use and that can help you better peak interest and get the results you want? If you’re not going to use fields, cut them. If you need fields, add them. Afraid of making your form too long? Consider a 2-part sign-up and incentivize your prospects to go the extra mile (i.e. give me your birthday and I’ll send you a present).

2. Ask and/or incentivize preference updates. The more information you have on your contacts, the better you can serve them. Tweak the data fields you’re asking for and then remind folks to update their information - this can be done on your web pages, as secondary calls to action in your emails and even in a solo campaign.

3. Send out a survey. Email folks requesting that they fill out your survey or call this out in a section on your web site. This is your chance to simultaneously get feedback on your emails, find out how your business is perceived and gather more pertinent contact-specific data.

4. Set up navigation paths in your emails. Perhaps the most fun, organic way of mining relevant data is to give readers options within your emails (in the navigation bar AND the email body) that will force them to take paths most relevant to them. Justin Premick refers to this as “window shopping.” Try price differentiation, product categories, etc. Then, segment those who clicked on specific links. Move them into different lists and target them accordingly in the future. Need some inspiration? Try out categorizing in any of Linda Bustos’s 13 suggested ways.

The good news is that you may already have some of this valuable data at your fingertips just waiting to be used. Gather it up, love it and start the New Year off by sending out the best targeted emails you possibly can.

Make improving relevance your #1 marketing resolution in 2009!

Kristen Gregory
Account Manager at Bronto

Twitter Question: Value of blog posts from now until new year. Is it worth doing any corporate blogging in next 2 weeks? Will anyone read?

As you can see from a non-statistically significant, fairly biased sampling of the Twitter replies, there was no clear answer.

So, instead of blogging about 2009 tips and predictions or Email Trends in 2009, I decided a nice way to close out 2008 would be to show off some Bronto pictures from the past few years (click on image). Enjoy…

DJ Waldow
Director of Best Practices & Deliverability

Unfortunately, while having many goals (aka, calls to action) may work for the sender, it can often mean a cluttered, irrelevant email in the eyes of the recipient.

Everything beyond the main call to action should serve as a compliment. If you are segmenting your audience, which you should be, you have the ability to send relevant information based on specific interests. In general, as the NFL proved, you will see a higher response if you send relevant, timely information to people who want it.

Following are some examples of marketers exhibiting this best practice (click the brand name to see the full email):

Banana Republic

In this email, BR ties two different product lines together with a unifying theme (the color black). The main focus of the email is very clear and at no point in the email does the message detract from that. Even the special holiday offer at the bottom ties back into the preheader, which ties into the body of the message, etc. This is cross-selling personified. Bravo, Banana Republic.

Horchow

I love this email from Horchow. When I look at the animated gif portion of this email, I fancy myself an interior decorator. I also picture what each of these product combinations would look like in my home. The landing page the email takes me to is even more fun and interactive - and concentrated on the same goal. The point is, Horchow had a focus for this email and built a marketing plan and landing page to support the concept.

Sometimes, however, the main point of an email can be lost when a marketer is trying to accomplish too much in an email, as Bluefly displays below.

Bluefly.com

This email invokes what I would call a “smushie” effect: pushing two entirely different emails together into one. Bluefly could have made it work, as it makes sense to cross-sell clothing to an audience interested in shoes, but they could have tied the two together be it through a single, targeted promotion or by showing how the shoes could compliment a Robert Rodriguez outfit.

To summarize:

• Maintain your focus. Develop a main point of the email and build out from there.
• Remember your audience. Segmenting your list based on interest, demographics, psychographics, and so on, should help you develop relevant content for the right audience.
• Keep it simple. Following the KISS principle, don’t over-complicate your message.
• Cross-sell sensibly. Establish a relationship between the products (or ideas) and maintain the main point of the email.

Feel free to share your thoughts below.

Kelly Lorenz
Account Manager at Bronto Software

Return Path’s recent email campaign for their webinar stepped through this entire process in one of the most effective ways I’ve seen in some time.

Invitation–>Landing Page–>Confirmation–>Reminder #1–>Reminder #2–>Event–>”Thanks” Followup

Invitation
Since I’ve already signed up to be on the Return Path email list, I was not surprised to see the November 24th message in my inbox. Why did this email rock?

• From Name: “Return Path.” Simple + Clear + A company I trust = Stood out in my inbox.
• Subject Line: “You’re Invited: ‘Unsubscribe Me’ Study Session.” Set proper expectations + Welcoming + Relevant topic = Open.
• Content: Brief description of the webinar (why it matters to me and a teaser on the study result) + PDF link to study + Webinar date/time/duration + “Register Now” call-to-action = Click-throughs (many).

Landing Page
When I clicked on the “Register Now” link in the invitation, I was provided even more compelling information about the webinar. The look and feel of the page was consistent with the email, the content was clear and concise. They had me. I registered.

However, this is where I’ve seen many companies end the process. They take the registration numbers back to their boss and say, “Wow! Look at how many people signed up!” The only problem is that on the actual day of the webinar, less than 20% are in attendance. So, what happened?

Meeting Confirmation
Many companies seem to forget this critical next email - the confirmation. Return Path sent me this follow up email less than 24 hours after I registered. Why did this email rock?

• From Name: Same as above.
• Subject Line: “Meeting Confirmation: Return Path Study Session: After ‘Unsubscribe Me’.” Notice that they led with the word confirmation. This popped in my inbox. Also, they included the company name to reinforce the brand and further stand out.
• Content: Brief copy ensuring me that my registration was successful; clear date/time/duration information (including an “add to calendar” button); presenter information and picture; webinar testing ability; button and link to join now. They pretty much covered all bases. Brilliant.

Again, this is where many marketers stop. But not Return Path.

Meeting Reminder #1
24 hours prior to the webinar, another Return Path email landed in my inbox. It was a carbon copy of the “Meeting Confirmation” with 2 subtle, but critical, differences.

1. Subject Line intro changed from “Meeting Confirmation” to “Meeting Reminder.” Nice. Simple. Relevant.
2. Copy was edited to, “Don’t forget! Return Path’s Live Q&A Study Session is tomorrow. All of the information you need to join the meeting is below.” The call-to-action told me exactly what I needed to hear.

Meeting Reminder #2
On the day of the webinar, yet another Return Path email landed in my inbox. The only difference from Meeting Reminder #1 was the copy - changed to “We’re Starting In 30 Minutes.” They again provided a clear call-to-action link and button to join the webinar immediately. Simple, relevant, and timely.

Post-Meeting Follow Up
Less than 3 hours after the webinar ended, I received the icing on the cake from Return Path - a “Thanks for Attending” email that included a recorded copy of the webinar, a PDF of the study, links to more Return Path research, blog/postcast sign up information, and ways to connect via their social network.

Return Path nailed it. Timing, From Name, Subject Line, Content, Design, and Call-To-Action. I’d recommend using this campaign as your guide as you create invitation, confirmation, reminder, and thank you for attending emails.

DJ Waldow
Director of Best Practices & Deliverability

For a raw, unedited play-by-play of the Summit, check out the Twitter conversation.

The Pledge
The pledge was a list of 7 (+1) email marketing commitments proposed by moderator Stephanie Miller (Return Path), Jack Hogan (Lifescript), and Brad Bacon (The Weather Channel). As Stephanie, Jack, and Brad stepped through their 45-minute presentation, they challenged marketers in the room (and those reading this now) to make several commitments related to their 2009 email marketing strategy. We were all asked to sign individually pledges promising the following:

• I will employ long term thinking and trend my campaign-level data.
• I will only collect data that I will use and I will use the data that I have. I will ensure that my sign up process is simple, clear and easy.
• I will send every subscriber a truly optimized welcome message that excites them about about my program and sets the stage for a satisfying email experience.
• I will make at least 30% of my total messages each month tailored to the subscriber’s lifecycle, interests, or status. Really tailored. No cheating.
• I will ensure that subscribers who opt out of my email messages will not receive another email that they don’t want. Period.
• I will give my subscribers choices about what they want, and how frequently.
• I will never place a hyphen in the word “email.”
• I will….(this one was left blank for *you* to complete).

Other interesting tidbits from this panel…

• Jack Hogan said that unsubscribe rates were high on their welcome messages. However, he was okay with this because, “if they don’t want it, we don’t want to send it.”
• Stephanie Miller quoted a recent Silverpop study:  67% know but don’t care that the “report spam” button hurts marketers.
• Brad Bacon admitted that due to their strong brand awareness, the Weather Channel had the luxury of high double opt-in rates and low unsubscribes/complaints. He said, “people want our content!” This makes it hard to justify improving their programs (although he admitted several areas that needed tweaking).
• Jack Hogan showed off the Lifescript branded “Hassle Free” one-click unsubscribe button that is located in the upper right of every message. (Aside: I wonder if this button is “bulletproof”). According to Jack, there has been nearly a 1-to-1 correlation between unsubscribes (up) and complaints (down). This keeps the ISPs happy and helps overall deliverability.

The Awards Ceremony
Next up were the Email Insider Academy Awards. The trio Lisa Harmon and Aaron Smith (Smith-Harmon) and Jessica Morris (Pottery Barn) rewarded several marketers in the Lifecycle Creative Awards.

The Challenge
The morning concluded with several email industry thought leaders discussing the “new tools for new age marketing.”  Ryan Deutsch (StrongMail Systems), Ed Henrich (Responsys), and Chip House (ExactTarget) led a Q&A aptly named “Are You Smarter Than a Thought Leader?”

They proposed a series of challenges for marketers as we head into 2009. Audience members were rewarded with a $5 Starbucks card for offering a compelling case for why they were wrong. A sampling of the statements are below:

• Ryan thinks: You should stop sending promotional campaigns.
• Ed thinks: You should use the tools you have and the tools will get better.
• Chip thinks: You should enable cross-channel purchasing opportunities via personalized email coupons.
• Ryan thinks: You should invest in a centralized database of record.
• Ed thinks: You should be talking more about PROCESS.
• Chip thinks: You should find ways to engage and capture customers via inbound SMS promotions. (I won a gift card for challenging this one).

Overall, the Email Insider Summit delivered on their promise. It was 3 days of marketers and email thought leaders converging to discuss the current state of email marketing and offering predictions for what’s to come in the near future. This Summit is one you want to add to your calendars for Spring 2009.

Be on the lookout for subsequent blog posts over the next few weeks that will dig deeper into many of the topics covered at the Winter 2008 Email Insider Summit.

DJ Waldow
Director of Best Practices & Deliverability at Bronto

Updates to the Segment Builder

We have reworked the segment builder from the ground up to make it easier and more flexible. That flexibility provides you with the power to quickly create even more complex segments. On-the-fly segment and criteria size calculations allow you to wield that power intelligently and reduces mistakes.

Sending Frequency Caps

Ever since we brought Automated Message Rules (a.k.a. triggers) onto the scene we’ve been wanting to provide a way to allow marketers to impose frequency caps, that’s fancy talk for an Email Traffic Cop. No more waiting, you will soon be able to limit how many emails a contact can receive in a given day, week, or month. So easy.

A New Email Editor

Every couple of releases we improve our editor. Well, we’ve upgraded to a new editor that is far better than our last. Along with the updated editor, we’ve created a one-stop page where you can quickly edit text and html versions of the message. Consider some of your time saved.

All the Little Things

We’ve had footers all along, but why no headers? Good question, and no worries, we’ll be bringing them in with this release. Want to get the most out of Bronto? How about a feature scorecard so you can see what you’re using and what you’re not. And what about more help than ever? Yea, we have that too.

We’ve still got a lot to do, but I hope that has you as excited as me. Stay tuned, we’ll keep you filled in on all the details!

Adam Covati
Product Manager at Bronto

Don’t forget: follow the action in real-time on Twitter (#EIS).

The morning started off with Jim Sterne, Founder and President, Web Analytics Association discussing cross channel measurement and attribution of email. Some highlights:

• Marketing is about communicating value.
• Marketers think about the channel (email, store, web, etc); consumers just care about the company.
• Everything you do has to be about the customer. Has to be your “reason for being.”
• The “Critical List”: Know the value of an email address. Measure everything. Test everything. Use email as a leading indicator. Segmentation is the key.
• If you are responsible for email at your company and your job ends at the click-through, your company is in trouble.
• Email becomes a marketplace listening post - the testing ground for what will work in “slower channels” (radio, TV, etc…).
• Beware of the “Hippo” (HIghest Paid Opinion, aka the boss). Best response is, “Great. We’ll test that.”
• Test in order to statistically prove: Watch behavior, then respond to it.

Next up was “Email as a Social Media Tool.” This panel included:

Jay Stevens, VP, Online Marketing, International, MySpace
Karla Venell, Manager of Database and Email Marketing, General Mills
Brian Whalley, Community Director, Our Stage

Some of the key takeaways:

• Social Network Drugs: LinkedIn–>Facebook–>Twitter
• From Push to Pull to Sideways: Direct Mail, Email = Push; Search, RSS = Pull; Social, User-Generated Content = Sideways
• Jay of Myspace: “I laugh at the idea that social media is killing email. We’re the biggest users out there.”
• Important to not only identify influencers, but reward, empower, and engage them.

One of the more engaging speakers of the conference thusfar was Bob Frady, Vice President of Direct Marketing at Live Nation. I’ve heard Bob speak before and one of the things that I love about him is that he is very raw. He tells it how he sees it.

Bob’s presentation included many nuggets such as:

• His least favorite phrase: “Think like a marketer.” (This was followed by some choice words).
• Most email metrics mean something to us (as email marketers), but not to senior management.
• Email data is tactical, but management wants strategy.
• The promotion metrics - metrics that mean something to senior management.
• Don’t get “email goggles” - email is important, but it is not everything.
• Email is not always directly measurable, but it is an influencer - influences conversions in other areas.
• If you are not speaking your CEO’s language, you are only hurting yourself.
• Email statistics are pieces of lumber, not a house.
• If you can’t put it in a context that means something to your management, your efforts will be marginalized.

Day 3 begins shortly. Sessions include:

• A Call To Arms: How You Can Truly Move the Needle on Email
• Developing the User Experience (Lifecycle Creative Awards)
• New Tools for New Age Marketing

Can’t wait for the blog post summary? Follow the action in real-time on Twitter (#EIS).

DJ Waldow
Director of Best Practices & Deliverability at Bronto

Also, you can follow the action in real-time on Twitter (#EIS).

David Baker kicked off the conference with his list of the 12 most powerful words: Guarantee, Proven, Discovery, Love, Safety, Easy, Health, Results, New, Save, Money, and You.

Stephen Geer, the Director of Email and Online Fundraising, Obama for America, captivated the audience for nearly an hour as he gave insights into the strategies of the Obama New Media Team. Interesting points:

• 3 goals were Messaging, Mobilization, and Money
• Obama Mantra: Respect, Empower, Include
• Single biggest day of fundraising in the history of politics was day after Governor Palin’s acceptance speech
• Stephen wrote many of the “From Barack” emails. This was unprecedented as he is not a speech writer.
• Deliverabilty was an issue (not many details here). They sent a ton of email, but the volume varied by state, by individual, by data point
• When asked about “Election Day Overkill” (3 knocks on door, 5 phone calls, 4 emails), Stephen said it was not an issue…as long as you voted.
  
• Favorite quote: “2 years of not sleeping is a really long time.”

Next up was the “mom panel” as it quickly became known as. The official title was, “Consumers Speak: Mom’s Open Up about Email: A panel of Moms gives a top researcher of consumer media habits (and you) their ideas about online consumption and how email plays a part in their lives.

Moderated by Mike Bloxham, Director of Insight, Ball State University Center for Media Design, the panel consisted of 4 moms, ages 25-36 with 2+ children, and income above $100K. Some takeaways:

• Frequency of emails is like kids going, “Mom, mom, mom, mom…”
• One woman said that the computer is a “time sucker.”
• They are loyal to marketers who make it simple/quick - “send me an offer and let me purchase. Don’t have time to navigate, jump through hoops. Make it easy.”
• Some other fun comments were posted on Twitter.

The moms were a tough act to follow, but the “Marketers Speak” panel proved to be another great one. David Baker moderated this group of top marketers:

Brad Schleif, Specialist, E-Commerce, Northwest Airlines
Sal Tripi, Director of Operations, Publisher’s Clearing House
Vincent Cheung, Chief Customer Officer and SVP, 24 Hour Fitness

Some of the key quotes included:

• “No segment is too small.”
• “Send less email, more relevant.”
• “Personalization and segmentation on steroids.”
• “Make data actionable - personalized experience.”

Day 2 is starting now. Looking forward to the 9AM Keynote by Jim Sterne, Founder and President, Web Analytics Association (I sat next to Jim at dinner last night. Amazing story about how he met his wife). Also, at 9:45, Brian Whalley (Bronto client from OurStage) will be on a panel discussing “Email as a Social Media Tool.”

Finally, for the real-time, raw, filter-free commentary on the Email Insider Summit, tune into Twitter.

DJ Waldow
Director of Best Practices & Deliverabilty at Bronto

DSW and Zappos may have their issues, but now there’s a new kid on the block, a certain ShoeSteal.com.  And the name of their game is SPAM.  Check out this “Welcome to ShoeSteal.com” message I received in one of my personal accounts the other day:

Shoe lover that I am, I have never heard of this company before now, so I obviously have never opted in to receive email marketing from them.  They must have obtained my address via a shady co-registration site or rented/purchased list. Judging from their site, they look pretty brand-spanking new, so I imagine the latter scenario is most likely.  List purchasing is a big no-no, but list rental is a common tactic new businesses (or businesses new to email marketing) like to use to kickstart their programs – and it’s a practice that we here at Bronto advise to use only with extreme caution.

ShoeSteal.com may have some great deals, but I won’t be shopping there any time soon.  Spamming is no way to start a relationship.

Julie Waite
Account Manager