Adestra

Virgin Media has recently been racked on the knuckles by the Advertising Standards Authority for not suppressing records that had moved addresses from their direct mail list. The issue came to light after numerous consumers complained that they were received past tenant’s Virgin Media mail.

As Virgin Media is one of the top 10 users of direct mail in the UK the ASA has ensured that Virgin would cease sending mail to old addresses ongoing. Although the issue was a data suppression oversight, I wonder how many fewer complaints the ASA would have received if Virgin Media used email to keep their database up to date.

For instance, to keep their database fresh and manage costs associated with ill targeted DM pieces, Virgin could have any direct mail pieces which are ‘returned to sender’ flagged so that they can dispatch an email to the consumer asking them to update their address details and communication preferences online otherwise if no email addresses are available the records should be suppressed automatically.

http://www.brandrepublic.com/DMDaily/News/922038/Virgin-Media-rapped-not-using-goneaway-suppression/?DCMP=EMC-DMDailyBulletin

Daniel Murphy, Client Strategy Consultant

Email deliverability is still an issue for companies, with an average of just 79.3% of permission-based commercial emails reaching inboxes – read more on our partner econsultancy’s blog

Steve Kemish Strategy & Services Director (Adestra) and Chair of the IDM Digital Council talks about B2B Lead Generation Online, ask your questions live @ http://bit.ly/C2Cy

Henry Hyder-Smith comments

Whether you believe the UK is heading for a deep and long recession, or think that we starting to see the glimmer of a recovery, what is certain is the devastating impact this difficult economic climate is having on many industries, and the digital marketing industry has not emerged unscathed. However, for an industry that is still in its infancy, email marketing is continuing to grow and bucking the trend. Read more here

We’re delighted to announce that Adestra and client Dennis Publishing were highly commended for the Diamond award at the IDM BPA’s. The Diamonds, which recognise the strategic contribution made by the winning programmes to overall business performance were awarded last Thursday.

More info here

Dennis Publishing

Henry Hyder-Smith, Managing Director speaks to Revolution Magazine on this topic.

We are delighted to announce that Adestra and client Dennis Publishing have been shortlisted for two IDM Business Performance Awards:-

•    IDM BPA Diamond 2009

•    Best use of email marketing

http://www.bpa.theidm.com/ for more info.

The Institute of Direct Marketing has appointed a new Chair for its IDM Digital Council. Steve Kemish F IDM, Strategy & Services Director at email marketing agency, Adestra, takes on the Council Chairmanship with immediate effect, and one of his first engagements will be to speak for the IDM Academy at Internet World on 29 April.

The IDM Digital Council is a body of senior digital marketing practitioners who draw on their collective experience to help steer the IDM’s professional services in the delivery of the highest quality qualifications and training in digital marketing. The Council aims to assist the IDM in the promotion of digital marketing excellence and to help in the education of undergraduates by acting as a bridge between Academia and the marketing profession.

IDM Managing Director, Derek Holder comments:

“We’re delighted that Steve has accepted the role of IDM Digital Council Chair. He has extensive, wide-ranging experience, outstanding strategic and personal skills and a deep-seated passion and enthusiasm to realise the potential of digital marketing. The perfect combination of qualities to ensure that the Council achieves its mission of helping the IDM deliver the most comprehensive, up-to-date and relevant teaching.”

Steve Kemish has over 10 years of digital marketing experience and has been a tutor for the IDM’s respected Certificate in B2B Marketing and Certificate in Digital Marketing for the last five. His session at the IDM Internet World Academy, Profiting from email marketing in an economic downturn, is one of 11 free, practical half-hour sessions, all tasters from full-length IDM one- and two-day courses and delivered at the exhibition by expert, practising B2B marketers.

About Steve Kemish

Steve Kemish F IDM, Client Strategy & Services Director at Adestra has over ten years of experience in digital marketing, both client-side and agency. He and his team work with clients to help them realise the potential of digital marketing and to help deliver results.

Passionate about using marketing principles to get the most out of the technology, when not with clients he is to be found speaking on the subject throughout the world on behalf of Adestra and the Institute of Direct Marketing (IDM), for whom he has lectured since 2004. Steve has worked with many brands on digital marketing, including: npower, Skype, ITV, Help the Aged, Oracle, Cisco & British Airways.

About the IDM Digital Council

The IDM Digital Marketing Council comprises senior digital marketing practitioners from client and agencies who meet regularly to share views and experiences on the latest trends and challenges surrounding digital marketing. The primary objective of the council is to assist with ongoing development of the IDM’s training portfolio thereby ensuring delivery of the most comprehensive, up-to-date and relevant teaching in digital marketing.

Aside from Council Chair, Steve Kemish F IDM, other Digital Council members are:

Jonathan Bass, Managing Director, Incentivated Ltd
Julian Brewer, Head of Online Marketing and Content, Barclays Bank
Nick Broomfield, Senior Global Digital Marketing Manager, Diageo
Ewan Carpenter, Global Digital Marketing Director, Future Group, Glaxo SmithKline
Nick Emmel, Planning Director, Dare Digital
Tim Faircliff, General Manager, Consumer Media UK & EMEA,
Danny Meadows-Klue, Chief Executive, IAB
Julia Paviour, Online Business Performance Manager, British Airways Holidays
Damon Reynolds, Consultant, Pink & Fluffy
Dan Rosen, Head of AKQA Mobile, AKQA
Gavin Sinden, Digital Strategy Director, Equi=Media
Roger Sniezek, Digital Director, Nectar
David Walmsley, Head of Webselling, John Lewis Direct
Louise White, Group Marketing Director, Incisive Media

Find out more at www.theidm.com/digitalcouncil

Email marketing laws come down to three fundamental areas:-

•    Gaining permission
•    Opting out
•    Company Registration details

Gaining Permission

Permission has to be actively and knowledgeably given in order to send email marketing emails to customers. There is only one exception, when sending B2B emails, if you already have a business relationship with the contact you are legally allowed to email them, as long as you are offering similar products and services to those previously offered, until they unsubscribe from the mailings, or have previously ask you not to contact them.

The stronger the opt-in process, the better results you are likely to see. It is best practice have confirmed double opt-in; When a contact has signed up to receive your mailing an auto responder will send an email to that contact asking the recipient to confirm that they really do want to receive your email communication. As a result, you are likely to experience higher open rates, as the recipients have opted in twice to receive the email.

When sending an email campaign it is also best practice to explain to the contact, why you are emailing them, reminding the recipient what they signed up for and how you obtained their details.

Opting Out

The law states that every email should include an unsubscribe option, allowing contacts to withdraw their permission, this option should be easy to locate and simple to follow. Never hide the opt out link. Unsubscribe links that have been concealed or are difficult to follow are likely to incur complaints, frustrate the recipients, damage your brand and get you black listed by ISP’s. It is best practice to allow recipients to unsubscribe by just one click of the mouse.

The key to overcoming high unsubscribe rates is relevancy, ensure contacts are reading every email by making each email relevant to the recipient, if the email is not relevant, they are more likely to unsubscribe.

Company Registration Details

If your business is a private or public limited company or a Limited Liability Partnership, the Companies Act 1985 requires all of your business emails to include the following details in legible characters:-

•    Your company registration number;
•    Your place of registration (e.g. Scotland or England & Wales); and
•    Your registered office address

This allows contacts to verify the company’s identity, helping to build trust between the company and the contact thus increasing the likelihood of the recipient opening future emails.

Ensure that it is clear who the email is from, when it is sitting in the recipient’s inbox, as well as, making it obvious what the email is about in the subject line, this way emails are more likely to be opened and read by people who are interested in the content and are less likely to receive any complaints about misleading practices.

Penalties

Failure to comply with these requirements puts a company at risk of a fine.

The Enforcement of this is the responsibility of Trading Standards. The maximum fine for non-compliance is currently £1,000 (as of 1st October 2008), an additional daily fine of up to £300 per day can be imposed for any continuing breach.

Guarantee that this doesn’t happen to your company by following the email marketing laws, ensuring you have gained permission from every contact and every email contains the company registration details, and an unsubscribe option.

Jenna Lovell, Client Strategy Executive

Earlier this month Adestra presented at the Growing Your Own Business Event.

A lively exhibition ran alongside the conference with speakers from all aspects of growing small businesses.  My presentation focussed on profiting from email marketing providing the delegates with some key techniques to obtain a profitable and ever increasing ROI from email marketing.

Download the slides now

Adhering to email marketing basics is the first stepping stone to making a profit from this channel.

•    Data: clean confirmed opt-in data collection techniques.
•    Design: testing templates before sending to the multitude of receiving systems.
•    Content: relevant to the original sign-up.  Sending irrelevant emails is nothing more than spam.
•    Reaction: in its simplest terms, acting on unsubscribes and fatal bounces.

All of the above will result in good deliverability and conveying a relevant message to the right people at the optimum time.

A number of the following techniques we looked at should be part of a basic package from an email service provider, such as ourselves.  However, this is not to say such practices cannot be done ‘by hand’ for smaller companies with low volume lists.

A key aspect we covered was segmentation both behavioural and  demographics.  A simple example would be a multi-channel approach.  Using telemarketing to follow-up to recipients who have not interacted with (e.g. clicked) an email.  This is behavioural segmentation.

Also using the information held against each record to provide a targeted message.  Take for example location.  Recipients with a non-UK address may not necessarily be the target audience for a half-day seminar in London.  Instead of showing this on the email, such recipients see an alternative message, more relevant, based on what is known about them.

Both types of segmentation have been proven to boost results and operational efficiency when planning and undertaking email marketing campaigns.

Using your data to increase list size and quality can also be a key route to increased ROI.  This is all about perceived value.  Using a send to a friend form for example.  What is the incentive for your recipients to fill in the form?  This could quite simply be entry to a prize-draw for all completed forms.
Rewarding loyalty can work as a catalyst for user generated content, such as product reviews.  As well as increasing product reputation this can also work as a great route to cross- and up-sell.

Questions from the floor were varied related to the basics which were covered to more advance use such as video in email.

The presentation slides can be downloaded here

To discuss how you can improve your email marketing effectiveness contact your strategy consultant or account manager, or if you do not currently work with us contact us here.

Rob Amos, Client Strategy Manager.