Recently in Best Practices Category

• Facebook remains the social channel of choice for marketers, with 81 per cent executing a marketing campaign on the social network in the last 12 months

• Twitter has cemented itself as an increasingly important channel for marketers, with 70 per cent implementing a campaign on Twitter in the last year

• YouTube and LinkedIn are an equally important part of the marketing mix according to those surveyed with 49 per cent (YouTube) and 45 (LinkedIn) per cent of marketers using these channels to reach consumers in the last 12 months

• Google+ and Pinterest are yet to become a fully integrated part of a marketers' digital tool kit, as only 30 per cent (Google+) and 13 per cent (Pinterest) of marketers reported having executed a campaign on these platforms

This post is part of a blog series leading up to Responsys Interact 2012 about how our customers are re-writing the rules of marketing. 

Q: You're in an industry where consumers are extremely driven by price and are presented with lots of options. How has this impacted your digital marketing strategy?

A: Because travel is a commodity, we're very value conscious and strive to be the low cost provider. As a result, most traditional marketing like print and TV is way too costly for us. But more importantly, we want to be top of mind when consumers are researching travel or ready to make a reservation - and the majority of the time, this happens online. With all of our online marketing, the primary focus is to be relevant to consumers. That means showing consumers the right Dollar Thrifty message at the right time and place. One of the ways we've been able to do this, while increasing the number of customer touch points, is through display retargeting.

Q: Dollar Thrifty has had some great results using Responsys Interact for Display. How have you implemented this and do you have any advice for marketers looking to test out display?

A: A traditional display ad campaign targets hundreds of thousands of people online and the number of those who convert is often relatively small. Display retargeting is a new way to leverage display ads in a very targeted manner and frankly, it's inexpensive and easy to implement.

We've used Responsys' display retargeting solution to move existing customers through the lifecycle - whether it's to show up for a rental car reservation or opt-in to receive special offers or promotions from Dollar Thrifty. Once someone has given us the permission to talk to them and they're already aware of our brand, display retargeting provides another touch point, moving them toward a purchase.  

We've had some great initial results. We did a test on our confirmation emails and the group of people who received the confirmation email AND saw display ads about our early check-in product were 22% more likely to show up at the Dollar Thrifty counter and get the car they had reserved online.

I would urge other marketers to test display retargeting. I've found it to be effective and very easily integrated into the overall marketing mix, especially if you're using the Responsys Interact Suite.  It just takes dropping a pixel into a batch of emails and doing the creative for display banners. If there's an offer or campaign where you'd like a bit more traction from your customers, display retargeting is worth testing and having in your interactive marketing toolkit.

Q: What are you doing with the other channels, such as mobile and social?

A: We have a mobile site where people can make a car reservation and explore our city guides, which include maps and tips on what to see, where to eat etc. We are also planning a mobile app, which will enable a more personalized experience for users on the go.  We want our customers to have a variety of ways to access and interact with Dollar Thrifty, so we're excited to be offering a number of mobile options. We also have active communities on Facebook and Twitter. We of course leverage our email campaigns to encourage customers to find Dollar Thrifty on their phone and social networks.

Q: One of the themes at Interact this year is about how marketers are 're-writing the rules' and continuing to innovate - is there anything or anyone in the industry who you think is particularly innovative?

A: I'm always watching marketers across a variety of industries to try and determine what bits and pieces of their strategy could work for Dollar Thrifty. We don't have the same budgets as everyone else, so I like to think about how we can do something innovative and do it the 'Dollar Thrifty' way.  In this industry it's crucial to be bold and test new things, and I admire companies who do just that.

Q: What are you looking forward to at Interact this year?  

A: I really like the strategy sessions with Heather Blank and I'm looking forward to learning what other companies are doing with their interactive marketing campaigns. Also, it will be great to network with some really bright people in the marketing industry!

Over the past several months companies have begun to incorporate Pinterest into their marketing efforts. We've seen brand curated pin boards, Pin it buttons popping up on brand sites, the occasional "Follow us on Pinterest" in the community bar of emails, and, in some cases, incorporation into other social channels. These are excellent ways to build up a presence and following on Pinterest. However, I've been impressed by the companies who've taken it to the next level by designing innovative and bold emails to drive engagement on Pinterest. A truly great example of cross-channel marketing! For example:

Luxeyard utilized email to promote their "Pin it & Win it" contest, which gave followers the opportunity to both win a prize and become a featured trendsetter to the LuxeYard community. LuxeYard successfully:

• engages their email subscribers to interact on Pinterest
• guides customers to name pin boards that are trackable for the marketing team
• encourages continued participation by recognizing their social influencers

Horchow has also taken an innovative approach by developing a Pinterest exclusive promotion and featuring it within their email campaigns. Horchow successfully:

• drives customers to the Horchow pin boards to discover the items that have been referred by featured bloggers, designers, & stylists
• explains Pinterest for new users

Zulily's recent email is another great example of incorporating some best practices for Pinterest in email. Zulily successfully:

• asks customers to "Follow us on Pinterest"
• tells customers about their pin boards
• provides relevant content for their audience to Pin
• creates incentive to engage on Pinterest ($15 credit)

Do you have more great examples of Pinterest in email? Tell us about them!

If you're not using a web analytics tool to inform and improve your digital marketing efforts, it's time to start. Information gathered through web analytics tools help marketers increase and retain website visitors, maximize revenues from advertising and eCommerce, improve click-through on email campaigns, increase search engine ranking, and measure attribution of user activities to conversions. What are you waiting for?

The simplest form of web analytics is for monitoring website traffic to discover where visitors came from, what they did on the site, etc. More sophisticated web analytics tools can also calculate ROI based on campaign goals, provide more detailed information about users and their past behavior, and even monitor related user activities on social media sites that impact conversions.

Web analytics tools with varying capabilities are available at prices ranging from free to tens of thousands of dollars. All of these tools provide web-based applications to analyze and gain insight into user behavior across different channels, including web properties, advertising, email, social and mobile. Choosing a web analytics tool depends on a marketer's specific requirements, level of sophistication and budget.  The tool must provide the appropriate abstractions to categorize and present the important information (and hide unnecessary details) in an intuitive, user-friendly and flexible manner.

The most widely used web analytics tools include Google Analytics, Adobe/Omniture Site Catalyst, IBM/Coremetrics and WebTrends. A comprehensive evaluation of these tools is available at http://web-analytics-review.toptenreviews.com, and below are the main categories used in this evaluation.

• Features - Each web analytics program offers a variety of features to help you understand your website visitors better. This section offers a top level view of several features that will be useful in measuring your website traffic.

• Traffic - Web analytics keep track of a large variety of very detailed information regarding who visits a website, what each visitor does on the site (what they click on, pages they view, etc.), and at what point they exit the website.

• Referrals - According to the Web Analytics Association, a referrer is "the page URL that originally generated the request for the current page view or object." Essentially, this is where your guest came from immediately before arriving on your website.

• Report Stat Intervals - Web traffic and other statistics are only useful if they are measurable, and that implies setting applicable date ranges. Whether you need yearly or monthly reports, or details down to the day or hour; it's important that your analytics provider is versatile with reporting dates and the accompanying stats.

• Events - According to the Web Analytics Association, an event is "any logged or recorded action that has a specific date and time assigned to it by either the browser or server."

• Visitor Details - Web analytics programs keep track of each visitor to your site. This information can be used to identify target audiences, develop campaigns, or learn what might work better to increase conversions. Detailed geographic information about where the visitor is accessing the website from is also available in most cases.

• File Exporting - After you compile stacks of data, what do you do with it? Most web analytics programs offer a variety exporting options to meet your specific needs.

• Tech Support/Help - Web analytics solutions can be very complex. Choosing which one to use on your site is only the first of many steps, so look for a solution that offers product support for a period of time following the initial purchase.

Acquiring the right web analytics tool will have a huge impact on the success of a company's digital marketing initiatives. By considering the above categories and carefully evaluating various web analytics tools, a marketer can obtain a user-friendly and affordable tool that provides comprehensive insight into user behavior across a number of digital marketing channels.

The email marketer is challenged with finding a way to stand out in a sea of competing forces daily. Over the past year, the fad of using special characters within the inbox has begun to grow. This post will talk about the pros and cons of using special characters and provide tips for writing subject lines when setting up your campaign within Responsys Interact.

Pros of Special Characters:

--    Surprise and delight within the inbox

--    Witty plays on words using special characters such as hearts (♥), stars (★), skull & crossbones
(☠) and others

--    Potential to increase unique open rates

Cons of Special Characters:

--    When the size of the special character decreases to fit in the subject line, the character (such as skull & crossbones) could be harder to make out than the more simple characters of hearts or stars.

--    Depending  how your users are viewing your emails (high concentration of BlackBerry) they might not see the witty play on words and will most likely see a "?" or shaded square instead.

--    Overall performance increase is yet to be proven out with the use of special characters.

--    As the fad continues to catch on, your company isn't the only one trying to stand out in the inbox and now you are competing against a new sea of special characters.

--    Overuse can begin to feel spammy and will be ignored similar to exclamation points or ALL CAPS

Considerations for Deliverability:

For those special characters Responsys has launched and tested, we have not seen any deliverability problems with the major ISPs. However, for those users on corporate accounts using Postini, the campaign did move into their SPAM / BULK folders. Responsys strongly encourages testing internally as well as using a third party (Ex: Return Path) to confirm there are no deliverability complications and to confirm a safe SpamAssassin Score. If a high viewership of users is using mobile devices, do test across each of the mobile devices as well as ISPs to ensure the special character is rendering correctly. BlackBerry, Android and iPhone users will see the special character differently from each other.

When do you use a special character?

The use of special characters should partner with a promotional campaign instead of a transactional. The promotional campaign could play off of an upcoming holiday or new product, service, or team that is being launched. The special characters can add surprise and delight when delivering positive news or rewards for the user.

Examples of holiday related promotions leveraging special characters:

--    Shutterfly, 2/2: Steal their ♥. Steal our savings. Get an extra 20% off Valentine's Sale

--    Lancome, 2/8: Why We ♥ Fashion Week

--    Build-A-Bear Workshop, 2/10: We ♥ savings! Up to $10 off through Valentine's Day.

--    See's, 2/12: LAST DAY! Send your ♥ with See's.

Examples of new product, service or team being launched:

--    Free People, 7/5/2011: Rock ★

--    Sephora, 1/30/2012: A little ♥ for you

--    Baby Gap, 2/17/2012: DVF ♥ GapKids Exclusive Collection

Keep in mind when using the special character that it needs to be easily read by the user. The user needs to still understand who the email is coming from, what actions they need to take, and why this campaign is important.

--    Include the special character within the first 20 characters to ensure it is being seen whether viewed on a desktop or mobile device.

--    Allow the character to be an obvious replacement of a word (star, heart, love vs. starring, loving, raining, danger).

--    The special character can be used as a design element to start and finish the subject line.

--    Avoid using the special character in place of punctuation.

I look forward to seeing which special characters you might begin to leverage within your upcoming campaigns. Perhaps details on Talk Like a Pirate Day (☠), St. Patrick's Day (♣) or the new release of rain apparel (☂) might be arriving in my inbox in the near future.

In 2011, promotional email volume once again reached an all-time high. After a year of tracking the email marketing activity of more than 100 of the top retailers, we've put together this infographic that highlights trends that will help you define your 2012 email marketing strategy.

>>View the Retail Email 2011 Year-End Trends Infographic full-sized with sharing links. >>Read the press release

Being an email subscriber is a temporary commitment. Interests and circumstances change; expectations may not be met over time; email addresses are changed; perhaps other channels become preferred. And while things change, subscribers often don't bother to unsubscribe for various reasons, leaving marketers with inactive subscribers. What a marketer does next can have serious repercussions on their deliverability, in addition to depressing their email metrics.

To examine the state of inactivity management, we subscribed to the email programs of over 100 major retailers using fictional personas. We opened and clicked on the emails we received until one day we stopped--and let 40 months pass...

At the end of that more than 3-year period, we found that the majority of retailers were still sending emails, many of them at exactly the same frequency that they mailed their active subscribers.

According to Return Path research, only 81% of all permissioned email worldwide make it to the inbox, with the remainder either routed to junk or undelivered. Poor list hygiene and management of inactivity levels are big contributors to the reduced deliverability, which translates directly into lost revenue.

In order to consistently achieve high levels of inbox placement, marketers must develop a comprehensive plan to address inactives. This report will cover all the necessary steps to creating such a plan.

Download the Email Engagement & Deliverability Study from Responsys for free.

For tips on clever ways to avoid that preview pane paralysis see Amy Hamilton's post Designing for the Preview Pane.

The latest iTunes email came as a surprise to me because I was a little bit disappointed when I saw it. I had to remind myself these are the people behind iPods, iPhones and iPads. Apple's branding online and off is something companies recognise as being ahead of the curve. 

However, my opinion completely changed when I viewed the same email on my iPhone. The email was strikingly more impactful. It's crazy how much of a difference it makes to the observer.

Obviously, these emails were made to be ideal for smartphones because they hold much better on smartphones. In theory the only thing that has changed is the composition and size. But optically, the calls-to-action stick out more, the email navigates better (especially with a side rail on the right-hand side), and it's much more rigid--even the compact word count suggests this message is for a smartphone device.

To be successful, marketers' email designs must constantly evolve to meet the shifting needs and behaviors of consumers and adjust to email platform changes. Best practices are always changing, so we have assembled the 2011 Email Design & Coding Recommendations, which addresses the emerging design impact of smart phones and Facebook Messages on email marketing campaigns.

The first of its kind, this 26-page guide offers marketers valuable design recommendations for HTML, mobile and text emails, including specific best practice coding guidelines, to ensure marketers' emails meet the needs of consumers, perform well on mobile devices, achieve higher inbox deliverability rates, and optimize the user experience via email, mobile and social channels.

The Email Design & Coding Recommendations include advice on: •

• optimizing HTML email components such as the preheader, navigation bar, recovery module and footer, among others.
• mobile-friendly file sizes, email widths, button sizes and landing pages.
• elements to include and leave out of a text email, and how to handle calls-to-action.
• HTML and CSS coding to avoid and fixes to rendering issues caused by Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook 2007 and 2010, and the iPhone and iPad.

Read the press release, which includes comments on the email coding environment and on the impact of Facebook Messages.

Download the 2011 Email Design & Coding Recommendations from Responsys for free.

Sent: Wed 4/06/11 2:37 PM
Subject Line: Accept our apology, SHIPPING is on us!

There has been a flurry of site enhancements in the retail space. Companies are optimizing their sites for mobile, adding video, and increasing social media sharing opportunities. Customers benefit from a better experience, and businesses see revenue return on their UI investment.

But sometimes along with upgrades, come growing pains.

Saks Fifth Avenue recently added new features to their site and evidently experienced some issues. See how they turned the situation around with the following apology email and  free shipping offer.

A mistake can lead to surprising outcomes.

I learned this when I worked at Yahoo! in global direct marketing. The price of a service was listed incorrectly an HTML acquisition email, and I owned the email program. Great.

I got approval from one of our founders to send out an apology email to the original email recipients--explaining I'd made a mistake on the price. (In the meantime, I'm envisioning 11 million people demanding the incorrect price or the press attacking our partner at the time, SBC, for the incorrect price.) Plus, great way to have a meeting with one of the founders.

The unexpected happened. The apology email wasn't a promotional email, but the apology email resulted in the same amount of orders as one of our typical acquisition emails. Why? The stats indicated the subject line was strong: Apology from Yahoo!" This makes sense; the subject line is direct and short and an apology from a major company? Intriguing. Subsequent orders? Probably a combination of the additional touch point and the novelty of an apology email (this was about 8 years ago).

Could it be that its OK to show the human side of your business?

I do know this. Because of this experience, a good blueprint for a mistake: Take responsibility. Look for solutions. Apologize. (And as quickly as possible.)

How will you communicate with customers in the event of, well, an unexpected event?

I'm obsessed with what's new in online marketing. On a regular basis, I check out my favorite brands' email creative and websites (going to shopbop.com is research), and I also participate in online customer surveys.

Generally, online surveys aren't considered a marketer's sexiest vehicle, but they're clearly one of the most insightful. The online survey format has become streamlined over the years, but the hook to complete a survey is getting really stale. How many times have we seen, "Complete this survey for your chance to win__________?"

But this recent survey invite from Hulu caught my eye (click image to view):

Why this matters.

Through the invite, Hulu makes a viewer feel:

• Effective - I can help make a difference
• Empowered - I have control over the "prize" and future video ads
• Involved - I've become part of the Hulu ecosystem by providing feedback
• Important - I received a message from the Hulu CEO (with contact email)

What's in it for Hulu?

Engagement. Hulu has:

• Given advertising clients more information about their product, service, messaging, or advertising
• Provided viewers with a better understanding of a particular advertiser
• Reminded viewers they stream video ads for charitable organizations

Win (advertisers) + Win (viewers) + Win (non-profits) = Triple Win (Hulu)

Now, how are you bringing sexy back to your online surveys?

• The law applies to anyone in Canada.  You do not have to have a .ca address.  You could use any email address and be in Canada, or live in Canada.
• The recipient must give explicit consent to receive messages.  The consent must spell out the purpose and expectation of what will be done with this consent.
• This means "opt-in" and not "opt-out".  This is a big change for those familiar with CAN-SPAM.
• There is a provision for "implied consent" which is tied to an existing business relationship.  This relationship is defined further than we've previously seen in CAN-SPAM.  An existing business relationship is defined as the sender and recipient have done some business together in the two years before the message is sent, or an inquiry was made by the recipient in the six months before the message is sent.
• Consent must be refreshed every 2 years. (An important point)
• Senders must identify themselves, provide unsubscribe information and an address.  There must be an email address which recipients can contact to remove themselves from further mailings, and it must be active for at least 60 days after the message is delivered.
• Unsubscribe requests must be processed within 10 days.
• Cell/Text/SMS messages are included in the act.
• Penalties range from $1 million for individuals to $10 million for businesses.

• Move a call-to-action above the fold
• Create a primary message focus by expanding the hero image through to the left rail, or by bringing down the font size in the left rail so it's more obvious that it's a secondary message
• Use a unified headline and copy treatment (as well as HTML text for body copy)
• Clean up a bit of the cluttered imagery at the bottom

1. A top nav would be a great start. My suggestion: Wines, People, Notes, Clubs...at the minimum.
2. Including a few secondary messages that drive people to the site would be key, i.e. a small promo similar to what's on their homepage to entice people to write notes about the wines they're drinking now. It's a no-brainer; the promo is already built!
3. From an inbox perspective, I'd also change the "from" field to bottlenotes vs. The Daily Sip. They have "Daily Sip" in the subject line itself, so use the opportunity to promote the name bottlenotes in addition to The Daily Sip.

• Text-only welcome emails are becoming increasingly antiquated. More than 89% of retailers sent HTML welcome emails, up from 78% in 2007 and 69% in 2006.
• The role that welcome emails can play in ensuring future deliverability of emails is growing. More than 68% of retailers used welcome emails to ask new subscribers to add the sender to their address book, up from about 62% in 2007 and 49% in 2006.
• The number of top online retailers making their emails CAN-SPAM compliant rose significantly. Nearly 71% included both an unsubscribe link and their mailing address, up from 58% in 2007 and 52% in 2006.
• While 15% of welcome emails include a forward-to-a-friend link, none of those studied included a share-with-your-network (SWYN) link. We expect many marketers to adopt SWYN this year, including adding it to their welcome emails.