Why Email Marketers Need To Confront the New Reality of Confirmed Opt-In
Why Email Marketers Need To Confront the New Reality of Confirmed Opt-In |
| Why Email Marketers Need To Confront the New Reality of Confirmed Opt-In Posted: 09 Sep 2016 06:00 AM PDT As some of you have found out in the worst possible way over the past month, Spamhaus is on a tear. If you aren’t familiar with Spamhaus, I suggest you do a little bit of Googling to find out about them. They are simply the most relevant blacklist in existence today. About a month ago, Spamhaus began “listing” senders who were using explicit opt-in (a pretty high standard in email marketing) as a method of address collection. There are different flavors of Spamhaus listings, but the one we want to avoid as legit marketers, is the SBL listing. Once added to the listing database, mail providers begin to pick-up this listing and use it to block those IP’s. An SBL listing is a pretty devastating thing to happen to any email program, and it in effect renders a halt to the email program. Doesn’t make much sense to send email when most of the recipient providers are just going to block it. Theoretically this rash of listings began with a series of “list bombs” that has grown. A list bomber goes to sign-up forms (it’s not a person, it’s a bot) and enters in email addresses they don’t own. The plan is to sign-up an address to so many places as to render it useless. Well, these list bombers have been targeting websites that don’t confirm email addresses. The address is entered, the email isn’t confirmed, and bam you have a full plate of spam. We won’t debate any of the specifics here about how so many of these list bombs actually contain spam traps, that’s for another day. We need to discuss how to avoid this gnarly fate so close to the holiday season. The ONLY way to avoid a Spamhaus listing is to double opt-in/confirmed opt-in all of your email addresses. I know that nobody actually wants to talk about this, but this is our new reality. Every day that you don’t implement confirmed opt-in is a day that your email world could come to a screeching halt. If they want to hit you for this, there’s not a great defense. You say you use explicit opt-in, and they say they received email they didn’t sign-up for. There’s no honor among thieves or list bombers. That’s the bad news. Let’s discuss all of the good things that are going to happen to you once you move to 100% confirmed opt-in.
I understand you may not want to consider this today. You think you are going to lose a lot of addresses (you probably will, but those people weren’t active and may have been hurting your overall inbox placement), leave potential revenue on the table, and generally wreck your program. That’s not true, and unfortunately you very soon may not have any choice at all For more tips when it comes to improving deliverability, download Email Deliverability: Guide for Modern Marketers.
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| Data Driven Marketing: 7 Trends To Change Your Customer Relationship Posted: 08 Sep 2016 10:00 AM PDT Your company can either put the customer at the center of the strategy or become ancient history. If we take a look at some fresh examples, we have Netflix understanding that the control literally belongs to the client and handing in the ultimate entertainment experience. Among other revolutionary products, Apple has done a lot for music with iTunes – which is already being replaced by Spotify. The paradigm disruption caused by Airbnb, Uber and other brands proves that disintermediation is a huge trend. Data driven marketing is about the customer journey and how to deliver them the most relevant experience. DDM allows to use available data to trigger individualized and direct communications that can be followed, measured and optimized. We collected seven trends in data driven marketing that intends to put the client in the center of strategy. 1. Hyper personalization: personalizing the consumer experience is mandatory. Every single online behavior leaves a track that can be transformed into data to be turned into information and deliver more relevant communications to the consumer as an individual. 2. People-based targeting: offering relevance depends on more than just customer online purchase behavior. Data from social media, browsing activities and offline purchase must also be taken into consideration. The identity-based marketing helps understanding the full impact of online campaigns, tracking in-store purchase that was influenced by online marketing. 3. Integration: no man is an island. In the next few years it won’t be possible to think of data driven marketing without plural teams and combined efforts. Marketing, IT, BI and commercial departments united to understand the data in the name of a better customer experience. 4. B2B & B2C converging: B2C marketing teams are starting to apply relationship strategies long used by B2B. In the meantime, B2B marketers are learning from B2C and using retargeting and other techniques to get to the leads as part of their cross-channel campaigns. 5. Multiscreen behavior: how much does your customer buy on the app or the website? Do they use more mobile devices or just the computer to look up products? How have they got to the website? Multiscreen behavior generates important data to understand the consumer’s profile and personalize the offering. 6. Redefinition of loyalty ideals: being mobile-friendly is no longer an option and free shipping is losing its effect. For omnichannel enterprises, options like easy return or click-and-collect strategies present new possibilities to achieve consumer loyalty. But before anything else, transparency and experience consistency in all channels are the main motivators to the purchase and re-purchase. We must induce the client to conversion. 7. Design e-user experience: usability is fundamental for companies that want to stay competitive. New users are less willing to persist in confusing interfaces. Testing is necessary in order to know – not guess– what works and what doesn’t: A/B and multivariate tests are an excellent choice. Data is the new money. Don’t save, invest on it. Or you will lose money. And it's precisely why you need to download the Modern Marketing Essentials Guide to Data Management.
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