EMAIL BENCHMARKING - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - 9-19-2017

Email Benchmarks

I love email marketing and that's why I write this blog.  It is one of the most powerful and compelling tactics we have in our toolkit as marketers and for the most part we do a SOUR job of leveraging it to our and our prospect and customers benefit.

Recently I saw a report from Digital Doughnut on Email Benchmarking and I thought it was worthy of a conversation.  

This report was based on a survey of 1,500 marketers, so it is self-reported data on what people are doing, what the trends are and how satisfied they are with their providers.

Here's what I think are the salient insights.

1.  We are SLOW learners.  The first "blast" email was sent in 1978.  Yet today, only 30% of email marketers consider themselves "leaders."  Only 9% rate themselves as extremely mature!

2.  We are still weak at executing personalization.  I've written about this before and did another look at my inbox this week.  Out of 155 emails only 5 companies used my first name in the subject line. My bank didn't even use my name!  I'm pretty sure they know it!  SOUR.

The good news is that as marketers we recognize the need to be more personalized - this is the top trend according to this study.  It just saddens me that we are so slow to embrace this and even though it is considered a trend, only 26% of respondents rank it as most important.

The One-To-One Future was written by Peppers and Rogers in 1993!  That's almost 25 years ago.

Now I know that was visionary in its time and we really didn't have the database and technological capabilities to be as personalized as we can today.  Now, however, there is no excuse. Even the most basic ESPs allow you to do some level of personalization. We can and should be much better.

3.  What do you need to know to be better?  I have spoken and written about all of this in past posts and you can find detailed specifics and best practices by reviewing these.  Now is the time to become a leader and insure you are executing all of the below at the highest level.

One note of caution on the first bullet - while I agree that you should be sending more emails on a regular basis, that doesn't mean more to everyone.  Be sure that the volume of emails is increased only if using personalization, triggering and relevant communication.  Your emails should include content that is delivered at the right time and is truly based on what your prospect or customer needs at that point in their customer journey, not what you want.  If you deliver on their needs you will always win over the long term in your customers minds and hearts and for your business.

Or course, if you need help, contact me!

EMAIL BLUNDERS - Anatomy of An Email Inbox 2-23-17

Hello again!

I've been errant in my posts as I have been out of the country and traveling back to Michigan from my few months in Florida.  I was fortunate to spend a few weeks with great friends in Panama where I saw some of my old haunts - I lived in Panama many years ago, so it was fun to go back in time.  Was able to dance with the natives as well as attend a Jazz Festival in the mountain town of Boquete.  It was an amazing and restful trip.  The city has grown immensely since I was there and is now an international gem with lots to see and do.  Highly recommend you add it to your bucket list!

BUT, time to get back to business.  I read a lot of what is published in the marketplace as a way to understand what everyone else is thinking and talking about as well as to validate the things that I continue to say in my posts.  I received an email this week that I thought was worthy of sharing and referring to as it aligns closely with my past posts.  

I used Marketo in my past role and have attended their conferences for several years.  They are a strong contender in the marketing automation space and a good tool.  Their recent post spoke of the Top Email Blunders, so I wanted to share this and expand upon their points, which are all valid and worthy of paying attention to. They completely align with my SOUR Email theme as the blunders they outline are all SOUR!  I continue to find it interesting that we are still even having these conversations in this day and age.  Good to see that I'm not the only one seeing these challenges that are simple to fix and should be standard strategic and tactical considerations for all email marketers.

Blunder #1 - Wrong Personalization

In my post on Jan 18th, I provided the example from Pet Meds where I ordered from them and had the product sent to my mom's home and care of her name, Jean.  I even sent them a message that they might have a database problem and that I'm not Jean.  Well guess what, they are still SOUR - my last communication from them is still saying "Jean" even though I tried to help them.

Tips:

-  Use presonalization ALWAYS
-  Insure what you know about your prospect or customer gets integrated into your systems and used
-  Audit your database and emails to make sure there are no oddities and fix them when you are made aware of  them

Blunder #2 - Irrelevant Information

I've spoken about this in numerous posts as well.  Many marketers continue to "spray and pray" with their email programs using no segmentation, sending the same message and not using the plethora of information they have in their CRMs and legacy systems to truly provide relevant content to their customers.  My series of posts reviewing the practices of Beall's, Pulte and the local Tampa TV station highlight some of the good and bad examples of this.  

Marketo makes the point that almost 75% of consumers say they are frustrated with content that doesn't match their interests! We can do better!

Tips:

-  Use CRM and other data sources to know your prospects and customers

-  Leverage the capabilities of your ESP or CRM to use what you know to deliver correct personalized experiences

-  Always evolve - your systems should be learning, dynamic programs that are reviewed and adjusted as you gain insights about your prospects and customers - your job is never done!

Blunder #3 - Failing to Proof Read Your Emails

Really?  I know we are all busy and trying to quickly get things accomplished, but let's get real.  How does it help your credibility as a professional marketer if your emails arrive with errors, broken links, or poor grammar.  One of the cautions offered to identify spam emails is poor grammar and spelling.  Do you want your brand to be put into this category?  At my last company, I was fortunate to have a high "C" (DISC profile) running my email program.  She was fanatical about testing and proofing our emails before they went out and this paid off in quality. 

Tips:

-  Invest in the time and teams to insure you proof and double proof your emails

-  Check them in multiple ISPs for formatting and rendering

-  Check all your links, segments and versions and match to the recipients information

Blunder #4 - Incorrect Cadence

While I was President of .Com Marketing, I did many seminars and training programs on email marketing and one of the topics I always covered was cadence.  One thing I said back then was to ASK your members what cadence they wanted.  Today, I see B2B marketers at times providing their members some choice in when they receive content:  daily or weekly for example, but very rarely do I see B2C marketers doing the same.  More often than not, B2C marketers over communicate, thus becoming irrelevant and ultimately driving away their prospects.

Tips:

-  Ask your members at what frequency they would like to receive communications from you and then comply

-  Rethink and test cadence to see what drives performance, minimizes unsubscribes and engages the consumer

-  Know your customer journey and cycle time and adjust communications to that

Glad to be back in the saddle.  Use these tips to improve your strategy and execution.  Want to learn more? I am available for speaking and seminars.  Here's some of my upcoming events:

March 1, 2017 - Women In Consulting Leaders Network - Managing The Customer Journey 

5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

The Van's Restaurant

815 Belmont Avenue

Belmont, CA 94002

April 25, 2017 - International Association of Business Communicators - SOUR Email

11:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Location TBD

Atlanta, GA

July 27, 2017 - Southeast Builders Association - CRM Strategy - Leveraging Contact for Success

Time TBD

Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center

Kissimmee, FL

Here's a few more fun shots from my travels.

DATA QUALITY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 18

DATA QUALITY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 18

Some people call me a bit nerdy for a marketing executive and I think that is probably true.  I started
my career in market research and data analysis and it has carried through.  I have always been a bit of a whiz at using excel and data tools and have had the opportunity over the years to architect and heavily use data warehouses, data marts and large databases of information to mine insights and create strong analytics that inform actions.

Part of email marketing and CRM is leveraging this data for content and experience personalization. In order to do this well, it is imperative as marketers that we know and understand the data we have access to and insure we are using it correctly and effectively.

This typically isn't a top focus for marketers and is often left to the IT teams.  However, I have found that while these teams are good at setting up and building databases, they often don't have the insights on how that data is used.  Therefore it is imperative that marketers have a strong partnership with their IT support teams and insist upon and have input to things such as data dictionaries, field descriptions, field and data relationships and options.  Help your IT partners understand how you want to and plan to use the data they house for you and both of you will be more effective.

Here's a simple SOUR email that portrays how things can quickly go awry if you don't think things through and watch your emails in detail for things that sometimes you can't anticipate.

Situation
I have been spending the winter in Florida and was at my mom's house in South Florida for the holidays and realized I was out of the flea medication I use for my dogs.  I normally order from 1800PetMeds and have been a long term user.  So, I went in and ordered what I needed, but instead of having it sent to my permanent home address, I had it sent to my mom.

What Happened

The PetMed system somehow replaced my name with my mothers name when I input the new shipping address.  Now, both the personalized emails and the website experience are addressing me as "Jean" instead of "Sharon."

While I commend PetMed for a good job of both web and email personalization, they have missed the mark in terms of how their data is being updated and stored.  An example of someone who does an excellent job at that is Amazon.  My daughter and her boyfriend use my Prime account and so often we are all ordering different things at the same time with multiple billing and shipping options.  We have 13 different options in our address book and almost as many billing options.  They successfully allow us to manage all these and keep the data organized in our account.

TIPS

-  Try to think of all the alternate ways people might order from you and make sure your database can handle it. 

-  Have an audit process to check accounts and emails for anomalies and changes that can inform your teams of potential data issues like the one I experienced with 1800PetMeds.

-  Insist upon good data documentation for the data you have and use.

-  Build a strong partnership with your IT teams so they understand what you are trying to do.

EMAIL SIGN UP - Week 3 Update Jan 3

EMAIL SIGN UP - Week 3 Update Jan 3

Happy New Year to all.  Hope the holidays treated you well and all the gifts and new year cheer are in order (or at least returned for something you want!).

We are now in about week 3 of my email sign up tracking.  I'm working my personas with Bealls to see what is happening.  More on that below.

Pulte

Pulte still hasn't sent me anything since my original sign up for my Yahoo account, so I guess they don't want to sell any houses to that person or they have some deliverability issues with Yahoo that aren''t being addressed - SOUR email either way!  Although I did see a sponsored ad - more SOUR email.  Not only are they not using the information they have, they are paying even more to put ads in front of me when they could be talking to me personally!

They have sent me two emails to my Gmail account, but both are generic with no personalization. One was for a design center open house.  It was mailed 12/14 for the event on 12/15.  They probably could have provided a bit more notice.  Wonder how that open house did.  The second was for new homes in Fish Hawk Ranch.  I believe I did look at this community, but not sure and my profile doesn't capture the information I provided them (which was homes in the $300k range not a specific community). This community starts at the $200s, so I'm not sure if they just didn't listen or if this is just a generic community email that everyone received.  I did go look at the community again and even clicked on the email to see if I can influence their future emails to me.

Bealls

Under my Yahoo account which is a Millennial male, I've been looking at hoodies and water shoes.

My Gmail persona is looking for sexy nightgowns and sheets for the bed.

Bealls continues to send me at least one email a day, mostly promotional with limited personalization.  I think this is excessive.  I'd suggest some testing of timing and frequency to see if reducing frequency can impact performance in terms of unsubscribes, click throughs and ultimately revenue.  Check out this test from July 2015 where the overall winner was a promotional email sent once a week versus twice.  The learnings:

- always test
- know your customers and prospects
- segment for differing behaviors

They are sending abandon cart emails, so that is good.  They also are using some level of site behavior in emails, but it is not working properly as when I clicked on an email within my Yahoo account, it showed me the nightgowns I looked at when logged in under my gmail account.  I also looked at the sheets after the nightgowns, so not sure why it defaulted to the first thing rather than the last, or better yet, how about showing me all the items I looked at.  It appears the system is using cookies rather than a CRM that knows more about me specifically (at that email address) rather than just watching the computer clicks.

WFLA

Still no emails at all to my Yahoo account - boo for you!

Gmail is receiving emails, also delivered to my promotional folder.  Funny thing is that I am getting the weather alerts - two per day.  I can't tell why I am getting two and the headlines seem to be different in each.  Didn't think weather would change that much and that I needed to be updated twice a day.  Not sure what is up with that.

Also, couldn't they just add "Sharon, here's your forecast?"  Wonder what impact that would have on their open rates?  I know I would feel better that they are addressing me personally.

It is also problematic to manage my content from their website.  Unlike most sites that you can log into, the "manage newsletters" link is in the middle of the page by the sign up instead of a universal log in at the top.  When I click on that, however it only shows me the newsletter I'm signed up for and doesn't allow me to edit it.  I can edit it from the emails I receive, but since I am not getting them in my Yahoo account, I don't have any way to see that.  Definitely SOUR email!

We should be MUCH smarter about how we run our email programs!  I'm just amazed that these companies aren't doing the simple things that are equating to lost revenue and opportunities. These are not small, unsophisticated organizations either and have the resources to do better.  Is it organizational structure, focus or lack of management vision and direction or some of all.  As a marketing leader, how much time and focus are you putting into the details of these programs?

EMAIL SIGN UP - Week 2 Bealls Dec 22

EMAIL SIGN UP - Week 2 Bealls Dec 22

So as I started to interact with my three test sites, I realized when I signed up for the email newsletter with Bealls, like with Pulte, that I hadn't really created an account.  So, I went in and did so for both my personas.  At this point, they did include the email opt-in with an "opt-out" option in case I don't want them talking to me.

Now is where things will get interesting.  In the account creation, Bealls is starting to learn more about me.  In addition to asking for my address and phone number, they are asking my birthday, gender, if I am a full time resident and how I like to shop with them - online versus in store or both.  I'm going to alter this a bit between the personas to see what happens:

Gmail - Dec 19x7, female, seasonal and online
Yahoo - Feb 19x4, male, full time and both

Having fun now!

Since signing up with Bealls, I have also been looking at different content under my two personas and based on what I originally input.  For my gmail persona, I have visited deals and pajamas as well as capris.  In Yahoo, I'm looking at men's Columbia gear and shorts.  I even added some camo size 34 shorts to my cart.  One thing that happened on my initial click is they prompted me to enter a ZIP code and attach my account to a store which I did.  They then presented me with circular deals for that store including holiday items.

All my home screens are exactly the same regardless if I am signed in or not at this point, so it appears Bealls is not using any web personalization to change my experience based on what they know about me and my browsing behavior.

I have also been receiving emails from them since I signed up last week.  In my Yahoo account, after that initial sign in, I've received 13 emails (since 12/13), about 1-2 a day.  I know it is the holiday season, but as I've said in previous posts, how much is too much and what impact will that have on unsubscribes?

Sadly, in my gmail account, all the emails from Bealls are landing in my spam folder - I had to go look for them.  I also have received only 3 emails in this account since the sign in.  So my question here is did Bealls purposefully send me fewer to that persona or is there some problem with deliverability.  Given that the three I did find landing in my spam folder, I suspect there is a deliverability issue.

Good news is some the emails are recognizing my browsing behavior and presenting me with relevant content when I open the email after I have browsed particular content on the website.  I went in and opened my special offer email that I received the day after I created each account and under the offer, each email presented me different product content based on what I looked at:  capris for Google and men's shorts for Yahoo!  NOT SOUR email - good job Bealls.

Another good thing Bealls is trying to do is to get to know me more, so a week after that initial email, they offer an email thanking me for being a part of their "list" - could be better wording, how about "the Bealls shopping family" instead?  They also offer me a discount on my next order for answering.

Bad news and a really simple fix - neither subject lines or body copy are using my first name or recognizing me personally in some way.

So here we go - my answers for both personas below:

Yahoo:
Departments of interest:  mens, deals (remember they already know I am a guy - should they have pre-checked that?)

Subjects of interest:  new arrivals and offers

More complete contact information - I'm using my Orlando area information, but not providing my phone number which they want for text messages. Now I'm wondering if they asked this because I didn't provide it on my initial sign up, but given they also ask below about my residence status, which I know I did provide, I'm wondering why they are asking the same thing again.

They also asked for my residence status, a piece of information I already provided -SOUR - doesn't look like they have systems fully integrated.  They should only ask for additional new information unless they want to re-verify it in which case, they should pre-populate this field.

Gmail:
Departments of interest: women's, markdowns and shoes

Subjects of interest:  style, comfort and offers

More complete contact information - I'm using my Tampa area information, but not providing my phone number which they want for text messages.

Now I'm also making things a little interesting and seeing if I can confuse them, so I am looking at shoes under my Yahoo account (even though my preferences don't ask for that and I have told them I am a guy).  I will at least look at guys shoes to see where that goes.

Next week we will look at the other emailers I am watching, but some lessons so far:

-  Use the information you have and don't be repetitive
-  Extend your presonalization to the web experience
-  Deliver-ability is a big issue that needs to be watched and addressed and is clearly a missed opportunity if you aren't careful.  Bealls needs to go talk to Google and see why their emails are getting lost as well as tell their customers what to do to make sure the emails come through
-  Use browsing history to impact what is in emails.  Good practice here from Bealls, although some of the sale emails don't appear to be using this
- Create an ongoing dialogue with your prospects and customers and use that to offer even more personalization as you get to know them better
- Use members first name in subject line and body - a simple best practice that way too many emailers fail to do with regularity.

Overall so far, we will give Bealls a "C" for their email programs, mainly for the deliverability issue with Google.  While they are doing some good things, there is definitely opportunity for improvement and when the email doesn't even reach the inbox, all those good things have no impact.

PERSONALIZATION - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Dec 5, 2016

Today is my birthday.  Birthdays are personalizations that are the easiest things to know about someone and use to delight your email members.  As part of my topic today, I thought I would do an inventory of my inbox to see who is not being SOUR and using this information about me to catch my attention.

Now granted, it is only a little after noon as I am starting this, so some companies may still reach out to me, but the sad truth is that I haven't seen too many messages recognizing my birthday.  Compare this to my Facebook friends who have been pinging me all day; 75+ and counting.  If companies want to have a relationship with me, shouldn't they act more like friends?

So who did treat me like a friend?

Overstock.com - said happy birthday and offered me 10% savings.  They even used my name in the subject line and in the body copy and thanked me for the relationship.

Southwest Airlines - also used my name in the subject and I liked the engagement - subject line was intriguing:  "we brought the party to your inbox."  It made me want to know what they meant, so I opened it, then it had a birthday theme and invited me to "take a swing at the pinata for some birthday fun."  Again, highly engaging and made me want to click (which I did) to see what I would get.  So I actually got a pinata which I could swing at with my cursor.  I did and broke it open after several hits for a happy birthday song (in audio - the swinging and hitting of the pinata had audio effects too).  I could do it again for more birthday wishes.  Only did it twice, but looked like I could go on for a while if I wanted lots more birthday wishes.  GREAT JOB delighting me Southwest on my birthday.  Now that is a true friend!

UPDATE:  A few late arrivals came from Macy's and Best Buy - thanks for thinking of me!

Not so good:

Hilton Honors - offered me a "gift" so made me think it might be about me, but was really just a regular seasonal email related to the holidays.

Starbucks offered me 1/2 off a Frappucino but it had nothing to do with me, my birthday or if I ever bought a Frap from them.  I haven't recently, so clearly they aren't using much personalization to talk to me.

And that's it.  Everyone else was into their normal "spray and pray" routine - thinking about holidays and how to drive business in this most important retail season.  Given that my inbox contained over 100 emails, the fact that only 2 companies took the time to recognize this simple fact about me is just plain SOUR.

What gets me most is that the tools we have available allow us to delight daily with simple and sophisticated marketing communications that show we know and care about our prospects and customers, but as email marketers we fail to do so in a big way.  So many of us are so far from being great email marketers, it just makes me sad and SOUR.  We can do so much better.

Start today, ask yourself:

-  Am I using the persons first name in every correspondence?
-  What little things can I do to know my prospects and customers better and use this to show I care? Like Southwests birthday Pinata game or just by simply recognizing what you know about your members?
-  How can you use behaviors and engagement to send more relevant emails?
-  How can you build and leverage your systems to empower your email marketing and customer relationship management systems to help you have a real relationship founded on familiarity and connections.

Let's be better!

TIMING AND FREQUENCY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - SOUR eMail - Oct 6, 2016

People who have worked with me have heard me talk about timing and frequency of emails many times.  Some of the culprits that soured me the most were the book stores.  What are they thinking?  I don't know about you, but I am a prolific reader, both for pleasure and for work but I certainly don't go to the bookstore every day or even every week and sometimes not even every month.  However, it would never fail that I would get emails from the bookstores that I subscribed to every single day.

Did they really think I had the time to read these or that I wanted to?   With email open rates consistently hovering around 20 to 25% and click through rates far less than that, (2 to 3%), we can do better. What happened, which is what happens I suspect, to a lot of emails is they became disinter-mediated from my attention.  I patently ignored them and ultimately unsubscribed from those emails as they were just filling up my inbox with little to no value.  No more waste for me and no more money for them.  SOUR eMail

I took a look at my email box over the last few days and here's what I see.

Loft

Between sender "Loft" and "Loft Card" I have received 7 emails as of 7 am this morning (I know I will receive one more today!) since October 3rd - that is 2 per day (not counting the "sponsored" email).  Now, I love clothes, like I love to read, but do I really need 2 per day?  I can't even tell you the last time I walked into their store or went to their website and I haven't been compelled by their subject lines (another topic coming) to open.  Even, the "Free Shipping + 50% off everything" one is losing out on my attention because I get too many - SOUR eMail!  Loft, you can do better.

I also wonder why they aren't coordinating their lists and emails to reduce both their workload and my irritation.  Most Email Service Providers (ESPs) have automated resting rules that let you set a standard of how many emails you send a day, but if you are using different accounts or have different teams working on these programs, this is being overlooked.  For all of you Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) and marketing leaders, have you developed an email marketing strategy and systems to support this?  It appears from my inbox that this is not happening with Loft and many others.

Side note:  Look at the image below - this view is from a search in my inbox for Loft - you can see that Loft is not titling their documents, so the content I see includes "untitled document" as the description.  SOUR eMail and a big missed opportunity to tell me something of value.

Not to just pick on Loft, here's a few more:

-  Costco - 1 per day

-  Secret Escape - 1 per day

-  Rugs USA - every other day (a little better)

-  White House, Black Market - 1 per day (plus one from WHBM Outlets - again I ask, CMOs', where's your strategy?)

-  VRBO - so far only 1 in 4 days (Yes, I don't take a vacation all the time, not that I wouldn't like to!)

Discount Contact Lens

So who is doing better?  There is a dearth of examples of someone doing well in frequency and timing, but I did have one this week that exemplifies the right way to make email relevant and impactful.  Here's why:

-  I know the brand and they know me

-  They know that I am a customer (good connected databases) and it has been about 90 days since I ordered my last supply of contacts

-  They aren't sending me emails in between my need period (i.e., running out of contacts)

-  They make it personalized by including the exact brand I order

-  They are making the title relevant, telling me they know I am running out

-  They aren't leading with a deal, but are using it to make sure I convert and buy from them (I normally do check for others with a better deal when I'm ready to order - who doesn't like to save money if we can?)

-  When I clicked, it sent me to a landing page with the offer and a reorder button (button could have been higher on the page)

They could be a bit better though:

-  They use sponsored emails to find potentially new customers (but appears they likely aren't screening out their current customers from these, so perhaps a waste of money)

-  When I clicked on the sponsored ad it just took me to their home page rather than a specific location to make it easy for me to respond and see the promotional details

Timing and Frequency

Today's Sample: 291 emails
Overall Grade: D
Top Performer:  Discount Contact Lens - Grade A-

Today's Tips to Improve Your Inbox Anatomy and not be a SOUR eMailer:

-  CMOs and marketers need to have a much more thoughtful and strategic approach to their email programs
-  Database structure and where your data resides across business units and channels is critical to success
-  We need to do a much better job of using the data we have to send fewer but more relevant emails:  collect only the data you need, consolidate it into one database and leverage it to send the right message at the right time to the right person
-  Use resting rules to automate the limits of emails being sent
-  Make sure any landing pages you use are relevant to the reason you are sending the email and make it easy for the recipient to take the action you want
-  Think about your product and frequency of purchase - what is the right communication cadence?  Too many of us over communicate through email.  Test a change to your cadence and measure against open rates, click throughs and ultimately ROI.  Don't forget to consider the opportunity costs of the team members time executing unwanted emails and how they could be better deployed to higher value activities.

The goal of email marketing is to stay relevant, serve our customers and prospects needs when they want and need us and ultimately deliver revenue and ROI to the company.  Email marketing is one of our highest ROI channels, but could it be even better?  Stop SOUR eMail  Let's get smarter about how we execute in this valuable channel before it becomes less so due to our bad practices.

Sources:
MailChimp
MainStreetROI

PERSONALIZATION - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - SOUR eMail - Oct 3, 2016

Today starts the formal beginning of the next phase for me.  I've never been a prolific writer and am certainly not a pro at it.  But, I am a career marketer with opinions and thoughts and as I decided to go down this new path in my life, I wanted to find something that I was passionate about, could engage with regularly and perhaps would be something that people are interested in.

As a digital marketer since the beginning of the world wide web, I've been developing and deploying email marketing programs and campaigns.  This goes all the way back to the late 1990's when I set up the first ongoing email communications programs for Certified Vacations Group, a now defunct business (a casualty of 9/11 among other things), that operated vacation products for major brands such as Delta Vacations, Continental Airlines Vacations, Marriott Villa Vacations and more.

Our tools back then were not nearly as sophisticated as what we have today and our data and analytics were nowhere near the predictive modeling, triggers and other dynamic tools we routinely use now.  Since then, I've deployed email strategies for home builders, travel partners, restaurants, home services and more using tools like ExactTarget (now a part of SalesForce), Bronto, Market First, Marketo and others.  What really amazes me even after all these years is how poorly we still do with email marketing.  Thus the birth of Sour eMail.  Like sour milk, these things just don't sit right!

So look for my regular posts on the Anatomy of an Email Inbox where I will use my own (and I hope others will begin to submit to me samples of theirs) to showcase the really dumb things we do with email and how we all should endeavor to be better.

I think this is hugely important to all marketers, from the c-suite to those writing copy and deploying these communications.  We all read the statistics on the importance of email marketing.

-  91% of consumers check email on a daily basis
-  people who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more
-  89% of marketers say email is their primary channel for lead generation

The reality is that email marketing well done is powerful and beneficial to the recipients.  BUT, email marketing done poorly is just, well, SOUR eMail.

Anatomy of an Email Inbox

Thoughts for today, October 3, 2016

Personalization

Today's Sample: 18 emails (midnight to 7 am)
Overall Grade: D
Top Performer:  Kohl's - Grade B

When virtually every Email Service Provider (ESP) allows for personalization, why is it that only 1 of the 18 emails that reached my inbox included my first name in the subject line?  Only 4 of the 18 had my first name in the body.of the email.  That means that 78% DID NOT use personalization in their communications with me today.

While no one rates an "A" in today's batch, Kohl's gets top honors for not only including my full name, but my loyalty account information and points balance.

SOUR eMail!

Email statistics show that marketers who use personalization in their subject line see 26% more opens!

We can be better!

This is not a hard thing to do and is worth the time and effort.

Today's Tips to Improve Your Inbox Anatomy and not be a SOUR eMailer:

Insure your sign up forms ask for a first name
Include the first name in the subject line and in the body of your emails

Are you leveraging personalization to win the inbox?

Sources:
OptInMonster
Capterra Blog