The shorter your subject line the greater your results

One of the factors determining the response rates of your campaign is the length of your subject line. Most email clients display less just 50 charters or less. If your subject line is long, it becomes more difficult for your recipient to judge what the message contains; so, the potential for deletion obviously increases. Keep your subject line shorter for optimized open rates. More about subject lines…

Why should you pay extra attention to your subject lines?

Writing a short and winning subject line offers you many advantages. Here are just three of them.

Break barriers to the inbox

One of the many components that offend the ISPs and trigger them to block your emails is the length of your subject line –which is why it is said ‘less is more’, ‘the shorter your subject line the greater your results.’

You gain the competitive advantage

In the current environment of “information overload” there are too many things that compete with you to grab your audience’s attention. When you have a winning subject line, you gain the competitive advantage by getting your email noticed.

Compels your recipient to open your message

The first impression is the best impression. If the first impression is boredom or irrelevance, the message will not attract your prospect. In email marketing encouraging your recipients to open the message is half the battle. If you have a winning subject line, it compels your recipient to open your message, thus, completing half your task.

Ensure winning subject lines

So, when you construct your subject line, make sure that it is a short attention-grabbing, curiosity arousing outer envelope-teaser, persuading your recipients to read your message. Do not turn your targets off by being deliberately promotional.

Here are some tips to help you craft short and winning subject lines

• Understand and appeal to your target’s self-interest
• Get your audience’s attention
• Speak directly to your audience – be specific
• Inject news into your subject lines
• Offer to teach the recipient something useful

Is your Email List clean and update?

Shrewd marketers devote a great amount of attention to crafting their email messaging campaign. They scrutinize the subject line, fuss over the content, and carefully monitor the timing of delivery. Once the perfect message has been created, it is just as important to focus on its successful delivery to the intended recipients. Unfortunately, it is likely that your current email address list has a number of significant problems.

Your List Has Old Addresses

Unfortunately, people change their email addresses all the time – when they switch jobs, move, switch Internet service providers, etc.

As individuals change addresses and maintain multiple working email addresses for multiple purposes, it is unlikely that they will make a point of updating you. Recent studies indicate that nearly 35% of Internet users change their email addresses each year, and this does not account for the multiple working email addresses being added every day.

Ideally, you are aware of this problem, and monitoring the percentage of your database that is bouncing. Every bouncing address is an unread message. After repeated testing, you may determine that some addresses are truly "dead" (rather than being a short-term bounce) and be tempted to remove these from your list.

Your List Has Typos

No list is immune from the introduction of typos. These errors tend to be introduced through three different mechanisms:

• User Caused
• Internal Entry
• Data Manipulation and Corruption

Your List Has Duplicates

Duplicate email addresses can result in disgruntled customers and database management challenges for your company. Obviously, it is unprofessional to email your customer multiple copies of the same message. Even though many duplicate addresses are the result of double entries by your customers, these very same people often become so irritated by receiving multiple messages that they unsubscribe from your list altogether. These "obvious" duplicates are easy to catch and most database managers can quickly do a scan of your list. Ironically, not all companies catch these duplicates, especially if they maintain several lists and forget to de-dupe between them.

So what now?

Now that you know your list has inappropriate addresses, missing addresses, typos, duplicates, what can you do? You either

• Improve your email validation routines
• Switching to double opt in
• Manually review all the addresses for accuracy
• Use a service provider to cleanse and update your database

E Mail Appending (Cleansing) by using Six Channels

Six Channels is one of the few companies that truly execute the standardization and customer email append in-house. By controlling the entire email append process in-house, we endow our clients the rapid turnaround, quality control and accountability they entail.

Don't Wait

You customer database is one of your most invaluable assets. To let it waste or drain is not the wisest way to do business. You should begin to think about your database problems and resolve to take care of it as soon as possible. Six Channels can help you reconnect with customers lost to dead addresses immediately, and ensure that your well-crafted email messages earn you the maximum return on investment.

What to Look for in a Quality Email Append Provider

Selecting the right company to append email addresses to your postal file is a big decision. Pick the wrong company and you'll wait weeks and weeks, pay too much, receive garbage matches or all of the above. Here are some things to look for when selecting the right email append or email Data Processing Company.

1) Size of Database

Having a large database to match your data against is very important. It's difficult to tell however how many records a provider may have, so it's important to view their overall reputation and any statements from prior clients. This will affect the match rate.

2) Data Source

Does the append provider have a credible story for where the data has come from? Do they manage the lists for publications or do they have licensing arrangements with large web sites? It's often difficult to ascertain the source of the databases you wish to append against because the sources of data is often viewed as propriety information.

3) Match Rates

Higher match rates aren't always better. It's important to realize you want the highest match rates for quality data. That said, the major append providers typically can produce 17-25% match rate on a consumer file. Business-to-business files match closer to the 10-13% range and sometimes much lower. Be careful of append companies that promise the world.

4) Free Match Test

Many quality firms will perform a match test free of charge if you have a substantial order. This allows you to know beforehand how many matches you will receive on your file, without getting the matched data or being having to pay for it. Usually in this scenario the append provider will return a file with records flagged to indicate which matches were found.

5) Pay Only for Success

Quality append firms charge only for records that are successfully matched and deliverable. Successful matches have received the opt-out mailing and haven't removed themselves. You should not be charged for removals. The only exception is a minimum run charge, which typically ranges from $1,000 - $1,500 depending on the provider.

6) Guaranteed Accurate and Deliverable

The appends you receive should be guaranteed deliverable for at least 14 days from the point which they were matched. It's important to pay quickly and pick up your data so you can process your first mailing within this time frame. If any of the records you received generate hard bounces within guarantee window, your provider should refund your money for those records.

7) Fast Turn Around

Assuming everything is in order most append projects should can be performed within 3-4 business days. After this there is the opt-out mailing which can take an additional 3-4 business days. If a provider quotes you a long time for an append, the likelihood is, they are shipping the data out and sending it to multiple processors.

8) Date/Time/Origin Stamping

Does the append provider offer date / time / source stamping? This will come in handy in the rare event that there are any complaints. The provider can look up the record and offer precise proof of opt-in to the recipient and avoid any legal issues.

9) Competitive Rates

It's good to be careful here. In the world of email append the old cliche, "you get what you pay for" holds true. There are many companies willing to offer very low rates per match, but their data is seldom worth it. The best way to get a feel is to contact two or three firms and give them the number of records you have for append. Then let them bid on your project. To get the best rate it's also great to be able to say you are ready to go right away (and mean it).

10) Free Opt Out Message

You should not be charged for the opt-out message. This should all be part of the append cost-per-successful-match pricing. If you wish to send the opt-out message from your own servers you need to ask if this is possible. Some append providers allow it and others do not.

11) Professional Service and Follow Up

It's important to pay close attention to how you are treated from the very first call. Quality companies work very hard to answer your questions and respect your need to make sure their operation is legitimate. If anyone gets impatient or refuses to provide useful information this should be a red flag.

With that information in mind, you should be well-prepared to make some phone calls and shop around for your append provider. You may also wish to find an append company that can provide additional services after the sale. Be smart and do your homework.

Harness the Potential of Internet Marketing

By Bob Mitchell, Creative Director, eSalesData

If you're thinking of starting a business—or already have one—Internet direct marketing can play an important role in making it grow. Whether your business is brick and mortar, click and mortar or pure e-commerce, you increasingly will be expected to build customer relationships by understanding, engaging and providing individualized service to every customer. And a powerful way for developing these relationships is personalized Internet direct marketing.

Whether it's a timely email reminder, a suggestion for a bottle of wine for a special occasion or a prompt update of a crucial software program, customers value personalized service because it can simplify their lives, save them time and acknowledge them as individuals. For your company, a communications program that engages your customers' interest can help to differentiate your business from your competition so you can build long-term, profitable relationships.

Six Tips for Effective Email Marketing

While delivering customized messages to each individual customer was once too expensive to be practical, the Internet has rendered the incremental cost of contact insignificant. On the Internet, contacting 20,000 people costs no more than contacting 10,000 people. And each "contact" can be personalized.

Four Stages in the Dialogue

The process of building successful customer relationships falls into four stages, which I call:

• The awareness stage — getting a prospective customer's attention.
• The permission stage — asking for their permission to stay in touch.
• The involvement stage — when the customer demonstrates involvement with you, normally by making a purchase.
• The loyalty stage — with repeat customers who tell their friends about you.

If you're just getting started and don't have any customers yet, you'll want to focus most of your efforts on creating awareness. If you already have a customer base, you'll need to balance all four stages.

"Young companies are wise to put time and energy into gathering customer data very early on in their development," especially customers' email addresses, says Adrienne Down-Coulson, senior director of client services at Netcentives Inc., a San Francisco-based loyalty and direct-marketing solutions company. "Without email addresses, they're powerless to retain those customers they've spent so much money to acquire in the first place."

Make it easy for customers to interact with your site on their first visit. Once you've gotten their awareness, ask for their permission to send them an occasional email. And let them know why you want to send them emails and what you'll be sending. Finally, make it equally simple for your customers to unsubscribe from your programs. Counterintuitive? Not really. Customers are much more inclined to give you permission and start becoming involved with you if they know that it's going to be easy to disengage if you don't "deliver on your promises."

A Retailer Asks for Permission

eCorps, a Denver-based online luggage and apparel retailer, works hard to ensure that its customers are engaged in a relationship and aren't just targets in a marketing campaign. As a consequence, eCorps is a believer in the importance of permission-based email. "We make it clear to consumers that they have the right to grant and take away email messages at any time," says Jon Nordmark, the company's chief executive officer and co-founder.

eCorps began developing a comprehensive, personalized e-mail marketing program early on. The company's launch was accompanied by a program to build its customer and prospect databases and then implement an effective strategy to contact the people whose names and e-mail addresses it had collected.

For eCorps, building relationships with customers via the Internet is much more cost-effective, efficient and measurable than conventional direct marketing. Andrea Butter, former vice president of marketing at Palm Inc., a Santa Clara, CA-based hand-held computer company, was the initial force behind Palm's successful Insync Online email marketing program. In the Dark Ages—the early 1990s—of online marketing, she, too, realized the power of asking customers what they want.
"Back then—this was before the Palm Pilot came out—Palm sold add-on software packages for handheld computers like the Newton and the Zoomer," says Ms. Butter. "Sales were so slow that I was actually able to read every single product registration card. And I was completely surprised how many customers took the time to write personal comments—about how much they liked our software, a problem they had getting hold of it or suggestions for improvements.
"It was just a treasure trove of input," she adds. "Here were customers who actively communicated with our company, and it was just killing me that I wasn't able to tap into that and turn it into a dialogue that would keep the customer's positive feelings about his purchase alive."

Today, the Internet makes such a dialogue financially feasible, even for small companies. The more customer information they have, the better. What's important is its relevancy.

Target Your Approach.

A highly targeted approach brings response rates that far exceed those achieved by using "mass mailing" email messages. "We've seen response rates go from an average of 3 percent to 15 percent when the communication is highly relevant to individual customers," says Ms. Down-Coulson.
Used properly, the Internet is a direct marketer's dream come true, transforming both prospects and casual buyers into long-term, loyal customers. Yet, online marketing differs radically from conventional direct marketing. It's no longer about the old model of "telling and selling." If you simply think of the Internet as a better, faster cheaper way to do traditional direct marketing, you're walking in a minefield. Privacy violations and spam accusations are a sure part of your future.

To communicate with your customers effectively, you must think service. Mr. Nordmark says that if you ask what customers want, they'll tell you. Listen to what they tell you and use it to deliver value and convenience and you've begun to build a solid foundation for lasting customer relationships.

"There's a saying that happy customers are your best sales people, and it's true. And the best time to begin communicating with them is in the honeymoon period right after the purchase" says Ms. Butter. "My advice to entrepreneurs would be to start communicating with customers the very moment they have a customer."
Direct customer communication and marketing should be a part of any company's plans. Apply the same old "broadcast" tactics of yesteryear and you'll be unpopular with your customers at best, and violating your customers' privacy and compromising the future of your business at worst. Internalize the new rules of Internet direct marketing and you'll be building the foundation for a thriving business

www.esalesdata.com