Building great content and a relevant email is the easy part… the most difficult part is still acquisition. Building a great marketing list can be incredibly difficult. With high volumes of SPAM, consumers rightfully guard their email addresses and are hesitant in sharing it. Enticing someone to overcome this can be quite a challenge, so what’s a marketer to do?

In December, Red Herring announced ividence among their Global 100 innovation award winners. ividence is the first standalone acquisition email ad exchange, uses behavioral targeting technology to match email offers to the best records, so that list owners can “send less and earn more,” monetizing their lists with integrity while advertisers see a positive ROI.

Here’s an example email… the advertiser is Ford and the list manager is Connect with Life, a site that connects consumers with Real Estate, Home Maintenance and Auto dealers.

This isn’t simply a third-party advertisement. The content is carefully designed and closely matched to the audience to ensure the list manager isn’t at risk of losing the subscriber. Because the content is closely matched to the audience and vice versa, ividence is achieving very high click-through rates through a patent-pending scoring methodology, called @rank. The @rank is used to provide the highest quality record for the price a marketer is willing to pay.

The multivariate scoring incorporates:

• @brand affinity – This score measures how close a profile is to an industry or a brand. This index is used for targeting and pricing list segments and profiles.
• @campaign quality – This score is based on the performance of acquisition campaigns run on the ividence network. You can benchmark your campaigns against your history and the average market performance.
• @potential – This ratio reflects the number of emails that can be delivered to the right target over a period of time. It is correlated to the mechanism of permission marketing and marketing pressure.

Advertisers and list managers are both given insight into the statistics – a funnel diagram (the above example doesn’t show the optional conversion tracking) and a dashboard with all the key performance indicators.

Most importantly, subscriber data is kept private and not attainable from the publisher. ividence works hard to ensure that publishers are provided with great content that their audience will appreciate… and advertisers are exposed to relevant subscribers who will want react to the offer. ividence also works to achieve superior email deliverability.

Many of the technologies we work with are built to shorten the time needed to convert targeted audiences or to increase the conversion rate at each point where the funnel is leaking. I’m always surprised that we call it a funnel… it’s really more of a colander with great prospects leaking all over the place. Rather than working on the top of the funnel and driving more leads into a funnel filled with holes, where could you leverage technology down the funnel?

Here are some technologies… including some of our clients and sponsors who assist:

• Webmasters tools provide critical information to help you increase click-through rates on search engines. You’re already paying attention to how much traffic search brings to your site, but do you know what the click through rate is on your current rankings? Can it be improved?
• URL Shorteners like Bit.ly can provide you with the data you need to see how effective your social media strategies are. Did you know that Facebook filters the entries people see using their Edgerank algorithm… and it can result in little or even none of your social media efforts actually being displayed?
• Marketing automation companies like Right On Interactive are developing technologies that shorten the cycle and provide methodologies that help you score your leads so you’re able to communicate with them more effectively rather than batch and blast methods that may drive leads out the funnel.
• Email marketing companies like Delivra offer email and SMS services that can substantially increase response rates as well as educate current customers on how their products or industry – building authority, retention and acquisition opportunities with leads.
• Online Survey platforms like SurveyMonkey (who purchased our client, Zoomerang) can provide you with the intelligence needed to substantially improve your content marketing strategies. By improving your content, you’re able to more reliably target leads for acquisition and ensure that your customers are being serviced properly.
• Software proposal applications like Tinderbox allow you to streamline and improve your proposal process. By tracking your responses and understanding how to improve your proposals, you’re able to drive conversions quicker and more effectively… all while using less internal resources.

As you look at your Sales Funnel, where are your strategies leaking? Rather than trying to drive more and more audience, there’s a good possibility you’re not leveraging the customers and prospects you already have. It’s worth a look!

The problem, in my opinion, isn’t email. When email is utilized effectively, it’s incredibly efficient. Having a written, concise, communication that clarifies goals and processes makes it easy for people to act on those emails. I don’t think the UK company is helping itself by blocking a mainstream communication process that’s universally adopted. They could have simply set some rules of engagement in how they managed their email internally.

The problem is SPAM and the process whereby we subscribe to email. In 20 years, we haven’t changed anything in the email subscription process. Great emails by good companies continue to be blocked, while spammers continue to get email through. The impact on productivity (and the environment) is incredible.

Until an ISP (Internet Service Provider) steps up with a new methodology, the issue will continue. My recommendation would be for Google Apps to develop a permission registration process for marketers and manage the opt-in on their own servers. Companies like mine could register our domains with the ISP and turn off any communications that’s not allowed. Each time we opt-in to a newsletter, the opt-in would register with the ISP… not the ESP (Email Service Provider). The ISP wouldn’t need anything else… they could just block all email except the allowed publications.

Infographic by VisibleGains.

Delivra is an email marketing software and services provider that helps a variety of organizations execute email marketing campaigns. Delivra was named one of the Best Places to Work in Indiana in 2011, as well as the winner of the Indiana Company to Watch in 2010. Based in Indianapolis, Delivra has worked since 1999 with clients from all major industries including associations, business services, consumer products, education, entertainment/travel, financial services, healthcare/insurance, not for profit, publishing, sports, and ad agencies.

You can also join us in the DK New Media office on Friday for the show by registering here. We are offering 10 tickets, so get your ticket before it is too late!

The following is a future-vision of what email marketing will look like in year 2017 for practitioners, marketers and consumers alike.

The Name of the Game Has Changed

Fast forward six years and the term “email marketing” has disappeared from our vernacular entirely. Although lower than 2011, email marketing still produces a considerable ROI; however it is but one digital marketing vehicle.

In this future, the integration between social, mobile, location-based and home-based marketing is seamless. Individual messaging channels are irrelevant.

There are slight nuances to delivering effective messages through each of those marketing channels, but those differences are largely driven by well-documented consumer preferences not the delivery mechanism itself. The primary function of using these blended channels is the same as it was back in 2011: the distribution of relevant and timely messages. In other words, the goal was, and has always been, to put the right offer, in front of the right person, at the right time.

Because the terms email marketing, social marketing and mobile marketing were too restrictive and increasingly offensive to a marketing-weary consumer, they had to go. Welcome to the age of Digital Messaging.

The biggest changes in modern Digital Messaging was not how it was referred; it was the commoditization and consolidation of technology, the need for skilled labor, and the perception and empowerment of the consumer.

The Shift Was Rapid and Sweeping

In the year 2017, Digital Messaging Providers (DMPs) can easy distribute personalized marketing messages across devices, time and space. They now encompass real-time, adaptive communications which flow effortlessly across new channels, like interactive TV, and old ones, like point-of-sale. But the DMP’s offerings are not limited to the dissemination and tracking of digital marketing messages. They have made surprising advancements in data analysis and marketing automation.

The reporting and campaign production too is infinitely smarter and more efficient, it has gone far beyond opens and clicks and WYSIWYG editors. Think live, multivariate testing and manipulation, multi-sourced dynamic content assemblage, responsive delivery, and closed-loop, cross-channel ROI calculations to the 10^th power.

DMPs also offer robust methods of data collection. This rich data pours in from every interaction; from simple subscriptions on a mobile device to behavioral data collected from offline customer touchpoints.

But how did the DMP’s offerings evolve so quickly? Back in 2012, the Email Service Providers (ESPs) scrambled, Google-style, to keep marketers within their interface-and only their interface. A technology and intelligence arms race ensued.

The Perks of Lower Costs and New Power

What this Digital Messaging warfare meant to the everyday marketer was that the cost of digital messaging services began to decline substantially and the tools began to improve rapidly. This was obviously welcome news for the marketer but also for the Digital Messaging Providers, because sweeping consolidations and acquisitions took place that forever change the industry.

On a mission to incorporate every feature that marketers demanded, the Digital Messaging Providers began to acquire media monitoring and data scoring companies. They hired analytic masterminds and UI experts. They opened their applications up to the world and cranked out new versions every quarter. They were on fire.

The small and mid-sized DMPs could not keep up with the frantic pace and reduced revenue. They were either crushed or swallowed. Niche providers were relegated to add-ons. For a marketplace that was once flooded with hundreds of competitors, now only a handful of global behemoths remain.

Modern DMPs generate far less revenue-per-customer as they once did. However, their scale is so vast that, if it weren’t for their lobbyists and strict self-regulatory guidelines, anti-trust and privacy advocates would start to take an unhealthy interest in their activities.

They discovered new revenue too, top of which is generated from licensing the customer data they warehouse. This intelligence is offered to, and exchanged with, research firms and competitive marketing channels like paid search, direct mail, and digital display advertising.

The Rise of Craftsmen and Technicians

The comprehensive tools, offered by Digital Messaging Providers in 2017, are now within reach to nearly every marketer. However digital messaging programs are far more sophisticated. Skilled personal are the key differentiators between programs that generate poor, mediocre and exceptional ROI from Digital Messaging, but as history tells us not all specialists would make the cut.

Because the reporting is so robust and actionable, marketers no longer need in-house or outsourced marketing mathematicians to analyze data and make recommendations. However this data must now be applied and the programs must be optimized. The rockstars of the Digital Messaging industry now fall into two camps, craftsmen and technicians.

The craftsmen are those that create the plans and carry them out; be they thinkers, managers, or creatives. The technicians are those who diagnose problems, which range from deliverability speedbumps to integration hiccups, and rectify them.

Consumer Behavior and Perception

The consumer is now keenly aware of the numerous, yet relevant, marketing messages that swirl around them. This has forced marketers to convert, what once were, one-sided offers into customer-focused dialogues. These conversations take place on both a one-to-one level and amongst virtual crowds. They evolve over time as the consumer’s demographics and behaviors change and shift with cultural norms.

The data that is provided by the consumer, and extracted from their behavior, is now boundless. The marketer has seemingly unlimited insight into the mind of the individual as well as predictive models of their demographic classes. The marketer uses this information to deliver what the consumer is most likely to purchase now, and in the future, as well as predict their lifetime value and then allocate the appropriate resources.

Because the consumer is so conscious of behavioral marketing and concerned that the practice will ultimately become too invasive; a privately-owned global permission repository has recently been established, simply called Choice.

Choice is a cooperative, centralized data management and preference center that is both highly secure and omnipotent. It will afford the consumer the opportunity to control, exactly, what type of data is collected, and utilized, by the marketer and which messages they will accept, from whom, as well as how and when they will be delivered.

This is a free service to the consumer but the Digital Messaging Providers must license this information, which will ensure that they meet consumer expectations and comply with the Digital Privacy Protection Act of 2015.

The Reversal of Roles

In the year 2017, the Digital Messaging industry has all but inverted itself. In the early days of email marketing, the lion’s share of the cost, time and attention went toward the email marketing software. But now that the DMPs services have been commoditized, the true value of Digital Messaging is solely dependent on the talent that wields those tools.

This role reversal is also reflected in the relationship between the marketer and consumer. Marketers are now far more sensitive to the needs and wants of their customers and prospects. If they are to continue the conversation in the years to come, they have to be. And in exchange for their deeply personal information, the consumer receives tailor-made, high-value offers and experiences control over their privacy like never before.

From: [Product]
Subject: [Product] Version 2 Released!

Hello [Product] User!

We’ve been hard at work that last few months redesigning [product]. We haven’t seen you in a while and there have been some changes, so we thought you’d like to give us a second chance. We’ve redesigned [product] so that it’s { faster, cooler, prettier } and would love for you to give it a try again.

After you try out [product], we’d love your feedback! Click the feedback link.

Cheers,
[Founder name], Founder [Product]

Since no one seems to ever name their products based on what they actually do, I have no clue who you are. Do you know how many emails I get in a day? Week? Month? Since I signed up for your service? On top of that, I have 59 more unread emails in my inbox right now so the chances of me pausing to figure out what it was that your application was supposed to do is near impossible.

What about crafting a message that tells me who you are?

From: [Product]
Subject: We Listened to Your Feedback, Announcing Version 2 of [Product]

Hello [Product] User!

You may not remember us, but we remember you! You checked out [Product] a while ago. We developed [Product] to make [something slow] faster, [something difficult] easier, and [something cool] even better. After we launched, we received specific feedback:

1. It wasn’t fast – So we did { a, b, c } to speed it up.
2. It wasn’t easy – So we did { d, e, f } to make it simple.
3. It wasn’t cool – So we added { g, h, i } to enhance it.

Initial feedback has been really strong on the product’s latest version, and we’d really appreciate you giving us a second chance. In fact, if you don’t mind, we’d love you to respond directly to our team on [date] where they’ll be available at [someplace]. If you’d like to see a demonstration of the new version, you can see the 2 minute video [here].

[screenshot 1] [screenshot 2] [screenshot 3]

Your feedback was instrumental in these improvements, and we’d love additional feedback with the new version. To sweeten the offer, we’re giving all our folks who give us feedback [ a nice gift ].

Thank-you,
[Founder name], Founder [Product]

I hope you can see the difference! You can be both personable and personalized in an email that you send and still remind the reader of who you are and why they should respond to your offer. Even within a professional newsletter published on a great email marketing platform, you can add a nice note in the header or footer of the email reminding the email recipient how they know you.

The Marketing Technology Blog and Delivra have produced this infographic to help you plan your email season accordingly, providing our email best practices checklist, a calendar on open rates, and additional means of testing and segmenting your customers.

If you’d like to use this infographic, simply copy and paste the following:
<a href="http://www.marketingtechblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Email-Practices-Infographic.pdf"><img src="http://cdn.marketingtechblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Email-Practices-Infographic_1000.png" alt="" title="Email Best Practices for the Holiday Season" width="640" height="2160" /></a><br />Infographic from Delivra, an <a href="http://www.delivra.com/">email marketing company</a>.

Here’s a great video explaining the service:

Nick developed the service to first identify when a tweet was generated at a nearby location in addition to the foursquare check-in – a nice validation that the user is nearby. This is a great idea, providing a message at the time and place where it’s relevant. There are so many different applications for this.

A Clear Offer

You may have heard the term “the gamification of couponing” as a way to describe the Groupon phenomenon. We all know people like to score deals, but an official service like Groupon requires parting ways with about half of your already deeply-discounted price. We blogged about taking matters into your own hands to create a Groupon-like promotion. Here’s an example of this in action. Discounting more heavily than usual and limiting it to a little more than 24 hours helped trigger orders.

Link It Up!

Are you a headlne or an image clicker? Different people gravitate towards different types of content. You can always test to see what link type draws the most actiivty from your particular audience, but the best tactic is to provide options of the same link. The headline, the image, the product description and the Shop Now button all link to the product.

The Psychology of Shopping

Language that includes a product guarantee or easy return policy sets the tone for worry-free shopping. Color can also play a key role. Orange, for example, creates a call to action.

A Little Something More

If a customer is engaged enough to open your email, they might also like you on Facebook. Providing links to your blog or social profiles invites customers to engage beyond the purchase.

Always Testing

In the past, we’ve tested send times, subject lines and more. As we tested this new discount tactic, we also experimented wth list segmentation. We took a list of customers with an order history for callus treatments with the rest of the the Dr. Todd’s email list. In the long run, you can save money by sending the right content to the right contacts.

The Results

• The customers with an order history of similar products had an 11% lift in open rate. The click through rates are even more compelling – the general list earned a 16% click rate, while the segmented list earned a whopping 72% click through rate.
• And the sales? We analyzed 6 months of data and determined that Wednesdays were the highest performing sale day. The Wednesday of this email launch, sales increased 91% over the average Wednesday.
• This strategy is one part of an overall email marketing plan. Since we upgraded Dr. Todd’s from a generic email template to a custom, optimized email program, website traffic driven from email has risen 256%.
• The volume of conversions of that traffic to sales has increased an astounding 388%.

See the email online here.

It’s quite an impressive toolset, combining the ability to market using Foursquare, Twitter and Gowalla with Facebook Places on the way. Now that Google Places is adding check-in, I’m sure that’s on the horizon as well!

Here are some highlights from the Geotoko site:

• Build Promotions On Multiple Location-Based Platforms – With Geotoko’s easy-to-use campaign wizard, you can create engaging location-based promotions for Foursquare, Facebook Places & Gowalla within minutes.
• Live Visitor Tracking & Heat Map Technology – Get access to powerful real-time location analytics, analyze user check-in behavior and gather competitive intelligence using Geotoko’s Heat Map technology.
• Manage Multiple Locations In One Place – Easily upload and manage thousands of locations on one powerful platform. We’ll automatically match your locations to venues on Foursquare & Facebook Places.

Now that Microsoft’s Search Engine, Bing, has hit the market, don’t forget to register your business there as well! Bing has quite an extensive Business Listing Center. One quirk with the system I found was that I couldn’t put a suite number because the address must be cleansed and geocoded… suite numbers don’t play well.

If you do a search on Google for coffee shop Indianapolis, before any search results come up a map appears with all of the local coffee shops in Indianapolis.

Getting on this map isn’t a matter of popularity, it’s simply a matter of registering for Google Local Business. Registering and identifying your location on Google Local Business puts you on popular Google Search engine results where a map is displayed – as well as puts you on the map with Google Map searches.

There are a ton of options available as well – uploading photos, coupons, phone numbers, hours of operation, etc. The validation process is pretty simple… Google makes an automated phone call to the business number you’ve supplied to ensure you’re real. If you have an automated phone system, you can opt-in for Google to mail you a validation card. Once you receive the card, just log into your account and enter the verification code.

What are you waiting for? Put your business on the map today! Did I mention that it’s free?