Earning and maintaining customer trust and loyalty has become increasingly important for today’s brands. Indeed, whether it’s the result of a business scandal, data breach, company error, or a high-profile example of poor customer service, a loss of trust can transform how an individual perceives a brand, which can negatively impact customer engagement and, subsequently, it’s bottom line. 

The importance of trust is reinforced by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which was enforced from May 25 2018, in a bid to improve data protection and transparency across all industries and markets. For brands, these regulations will tighten up how they process and manage their data, which will include how they recover from damaging events, such as consumer data misuse and breaches. 

Whilst there are many repercussions that come to mind when considering the consequences of bad publicity – such as a dip in sales – there is often one overlooked consequence; the negative effect it can have on a brand’s email program. 

The impact of bad publicity on trust 

We know that bad press can have a significant impact on trust, but how can this be quantified and how does this impact an email program? Thankfully, due to email marketing’s ease of measurement, it is possible to determine the impact of negative publicity on brand reputation.

Take, for example, when ridesharing company Uber, was subject to a significant data breach in 2016. Usernames, email addresses and mobile numbers of customers were stolen during the breach. Following news of the hack, there was a visible decline in average email read rates. Indeed, before the data breach was announced, the company’s read rate was indexed at a score of 100, however, this reduced to 92% – a reduction of almost 1/10 –  following disclosure of the breach.  Deleted-after-reading rates also dropped by a fifth, whilst forwarding rates almost halved. The breach impacted Uber’s positive engagement in its email program significantly and it was clear that customers were concerned.

This isn’t surprising given that, according to a study from Ponemon commissioned by Centrify, 65% of customers affected by a data breach lost trust in that organisation, with one in four taking their business elsewhere. Meanwhile, the stock value of 113 companies studied declined an average of 5% the day a breach was disclosed. 

Misuse of customer data can also dent a brand’s image, driving down email engagement in the process. Supermarket chain Morrisons was charged £10,500 by the Information Commissioner’s Office in 2017 for breaking the law on how people’s personal information should be treated when sending marketing emails.

In 2016, the supermarket chain deliberately sent 130,671 emails to people who had previously opted out of receiving marketing-related to their Morrisons More card. The emails invited customers to change their marketing preferences to start receiving money off coupons, extra More Points and the ‘latest news’ from Morrisons. In this case, responses to Morrisons’ marketing emails were significantly affected following news of the data protection non-compliance and misuse of people’s data being publicised, with a fourfold spike in email complaints when the story broke.

The recent Oxfam controversy is another good example of how negative publicity surrounding a business scandal can impact email program performance. Before the story hit the headlines in January, the charity’s email marketing program’s average spam complaint rate was close to 0% however, following the bad press this rose to 1.8% in February – 10 times higher than the average complaint rate.

A loss of customer trust, whether it’s the result of a data breach or another event that has generated bad publicity, can have an economic impact on brands in many ways too. Firstly, there is a direct relationship between deliverability and campaign revenue. Higher complaints mean lower inbox placement, which makes email marketing campaigns much less ROI effective. 

Furthermore, the DMA has calculated that the average lifetime value of an email address is £28.56. Email addresses which complaint have to be suppressed, so there is an opportunity cost based on loss of future revenue. The DMA states that trust is one of the top three reasons that persuade consumers to share personal data with a brand (choice of marketing preferences and a clear privacy policy are the others). If they trust a brand, they are more likely to provide a primary rather than a secondary email address and, according to our own research, five out of six email opens are generated by primary addresses.

Coming back from negative publicity

Aside from the obligatory apology that should come when any negative event that impacts customer data occurs, businesses need to prove that they are transparent and honest with how they are handling their data. The good thing about GDPR is that this is going to be enforced, with non-compliance resulting in the possibility of very high fines. 

To repair relationships with customers following bad publicity, it’s important marketers are clear and relevant in terms of messaging. Email senders should remember trust is earned, not given. Whilst a company scandal or brand crisis will likely knock consumers’ trust in the short term if a brand remains open and transparent in the wake of these incidents, it’s likely they will recover in the long run. Ultimately, marketing audiences built on a strong foundation of trust will have greater longevity, and yield more value, than those which aren’t.

The post The Impact of Negative Publicity on Email Marketing Campaigns appeared first on PerformanceIN.

Affecting every company collecting, processing and storing personal data from EU residents, the impact of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be far-reaching.

Marketing teams will likely be the first to be affected by these regulations as they are one of the main players when it comes to data processing in companies. Their data collection and processing strategies will have to be unambiguous and communicated to all users/subscribers. In other words, it will be prohibited to collect and use the email address of a consumer, without his or her agreement.

Recent research from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) indicates nearly two-thirds of organisations recognise that they will be ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ affected by GDPR. However, although awareness is generally high, there is still a lot to do in terms of preparedness. While 60% of marketers feel they are on course for GDPR readiness, 17% say they are behind in their planning, and even more worryingly, 15% have not implemented any form of plan at all.

Consent will be key

It’s worth noting that consent represents only one of several legal bases under which personal data may be processed under GDPR. Other bases include legitimate interest; contractual obligation; legal obligation; vital interest; and to administer justice.

Most marketers, however, are going to rely on consent for their data processing activities. GDPR has set the bar high for consent, which will have a huge impact on the industry. Transparency will be enforced as companies will be required to give customers choice and control over how their data is handled. Under GDPR, key requirements for consent are that it is unbundled, granular, requires a positive response, names third parties and gives recipients the power to revoke consent at any time. Marketers will need to have a complete understanding of how they collect personal data, how it is stored and how it flows throughout their infrastructure.

It will also not just impact European markets. Whether you are a European headquartered company, an overseas firm with offices and customers in Europe, or even if you simply have EU nationals in your marketing database, you will need to adopt new practices to ensure full compliance with this regulation.

Heavy penalties

Failure to meet these regulations could potentially be devastating. Not only will poor data handling reflect badly on the company and its reputation, but regulators will be within their rights to award eye-watering fines of up to 4% of a company’s annual turnover or €20 million, whichever is higher. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is cracking down on poor data protection and will likely make examples of brands that are identified as being non-compliant. Earlier on this year, the ICO fined Honda and Flybe £83,000 in total for the poor handling of people’s personal data. While not GDPR related, it can be seen as a statement of intent on the part of the ICO when it comes to what is acceptable and what is not when managing data. For a company of any size, the financial penalty that comes with GDPR could be business-changing.

To guarantee compliance, many businesses are now appointing a Data Protection Officer (DPO). In the past, it’s been fair to say that many organisations have not applied enough rigour in their approach to data protection, but it’s likely those with particularly sensitive data – public sector organisations, for example – will feel obliged to appoint a properly trained DPO. A DPO would be responsible for informing and advising the person in charge of data processing, as well as monitoring the company’s compliance with the new regulation.  

More regulations

This year, headlines and conversations have largely focused on GDPR, however, these aren’t the only regulations marketers need to be aware of. Far fewer marketers are aware of the new ePrivacy regulation that is being drafted. While GDPR replaces the old Data Protection laws, ePrivacy is more specifically focused on electronic communications and will ultimately replace the Privacy of Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) Act that currently regulates email and all other online marketing. There are major concerns right now that it will impose opt-in requirements for B2B marketing and telemarketing for the first time, as well as impose a requirement for explicit consent before cookies can be used.

There’s no doubt about it, marketers’ jobs are going to be heavily impacted by regulations next year. They will need to ensure they are as open as possible to customers about how and why they are collecting personal data and give them the choice of opting out. It will no longer be acceptable to send marketing materials to an email address that was provided when a customer downloaded a whitepaper without first obtaining explicit and unambiguous consent to do so. Being explicit – and being able to show proof of this transparency and consent – will be key.

The good news is that marketers can use GDPR to their advantage. According to the DMA, 39% of marketers believe GDPR will improve their customer offering and nearly half state changes would benefit consumers. The fact is, if email consent is harnessed in the right way, it can significantly benefit a company. By knowing that subscribers have positively opted into receiving emails, marketers are already communicating with individuals that are ready to be engaged.

GDPR is essentially enforcing processes that have been known best practices for years. Now enshrined by law, GDPR will come with its challenges but, ultimately, it will further raise industry standards and give marketers an opportunity to engage with individuals whilst respecting their privacy.

The post What Will GDPR Mean for Email Marketers? appeared first on PerformanceIN.

With email use worldwide set to top three billion users by 2020, it’s no surprise that businesses are recognising the value of email marketing. 

However, in order for email marketers to hit the deliverability sweet spot with customers, a certain degree of attention must be paid to mailbox providers (MBPs). Like any online trend, MBP usage varies globally and regionally, and with all MBPs stipulating different rules for deliverability, it’s vital that marketers understand the variations in criteria and tailor their email programmes to fit each MBP’s requirements accordingly.

Research shows that Outlook.com (and its corresponding Hotmail, MSN and Live) addresses dominate email marketers’ distribution lists in the UK, comprising between 35-40% of their recipients. Gmail and Yahoo run neck and neck for second place, with Gmail at about 13% and Yahoo at approximately 12.5%. Gmail is also showing huge growth in the millennial and Generation Z demographic, with close to 70% of younger people choosing this mailbox provider. Finally, BT comes in at fourth place, followed by Names.co.uk, TalkTalk, Virgin and BskyB, all of which have approximately the same number of registered email accounts.

MBP filter technologies and how to work around them

A key element of MBP criteria relates to spam filtering. While it would be ideal if there was a single algorithm that all of the mailbox providers use, there isn’t, which means Gmail, Outlook.com, and Yahoo! Mail all have their own unique spam filtering rules and services to help senders. MBP filters make decisions based on subscriber engagement, with each mailbox having different actions that could indicate low engagement levels, and subsequently files the email as spam. For example, Yahoo puts a heavy emphasis on URL filtering and complaints from users, while Outlook.com uses a SmartScreen anti-spam filtering technology that classifies messages based on email content and sender reputation.

To judge the success of an email programme and ensure that marketing emails are not being filtered into spam by specific MBPs, marketers need visibility so that they can differentiate between inbox and spam placement. There are also reputation measurement tools available, such as senderscore.com which indicates the health of an email programme and sender reputation. Having this actionable insight is a key step in nipping any reputation issues in the bud. 

List hygiene due diligence

MBPs also monitor email address lists. Sending just one marketing email to an invalid email address can cause havoc with spam rates, with a single Spamhaus listing having the potential to instantly halve programme performance. If marketers send to a large number of invalid email addresses and experience high bounce and spam trap rates, they may be stopped from reaching anyone on their lists. Indeed, if MBPs spot that a programme is generating a high number of bounce-backs, messages could be filtered or blocked altogether.

It’s therefore wise for marketers to have a strategy in place that guarantees only legitimate email addresses are added to the list in the first place. This can be achieved through using double opt-in, testing email addresses for structure (setting up a rule that only qualifies an email address if it has an @ sign in, for example) or real-time validation. Fundamentally, marketers need to think about how they can encourage new subscribers to provide a primary, live email address that will be much more responsive, therefore averse to being spam listed.

The legalities of email programmes

There are also legal requirements to consider when sending marketing emails. The EU Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations states that senders cannot contact users without their prior consent unless they’ve obtained the user’s email address in the course of a business transaction. MBPs are committed to keeping their emails relevant and secure for their users, so it is sensible for email marketers to only use email lists from a third party if the recipients have expressly consented to receive messages from third parties. Indeed, this will be a legal requirement in the advent of GDPR, which is due to be enforced next year and imposes a greater duty of care on marketers to ensure that consent is explicit, transparent and evident. 

Marketers often think that it’s possible to avoid spam filters altogether, however it comes down to how MBPs perceive sender behaviour. With list hygiene, content, reputation and legalities impacting the way MBPs filter email, it’s integral for marketers to learn how each MBP’s filter technologies work and have full insight into their email programme to avoid any unnecessary spam placements. If marketers are alert and monitor the performance of their email programmes to ensure there is consistent subscriber engagement, they will enjoy the benefits of strong relationships with each and every mailbox provider.

The post Know the Differences Between These Mailbox Providers for Email Marketing Wins appeared first on PerformanceIN.

In 2016 we saw email marketing evolve to become an even more effective marketing channel. From greater personalisation to a sharper focus on email data analytics, email marketers have been forced to adapt their email marketing strategies to ensure they stand out from the crowd. As we enter a new year, the big question is: what’s next for email?

Email continues to be one of the most widely used methods of communication, which means businesses are under pressure to improve engagement and interactions with their subscribers. Here are our top four ways marketers can improve their email marketing strategies in 2017.

Combine segmentation and split testing

Email marketing segmentation – the art of splitting your email lists into different groups based on similar characteristics – can help marketers create more targeted campaigns, which, in turn, increases open and click rates. Segmenting is becoming more important for email marketers as recipients increasingly demand more relevant, personalised communications with brands.

Implementing split testing alongside email segmentation is also important when attempting to optimise an email campaign. By taking a random sample to test the success rate of specific email features; for example subject lines, marketers can identify those that have the best results before pushing these emails out to their wider lists.

Segmenting and testing allows businesses to continuously understand and target audiences on a more granular level. For example, businesses can identify target groups based on email activity, engagement rates, demographic data, subscriber preferences etc, and conduct sample tests to gauge what works and what doesn’t so that they are constantly pushing their ROI higher.

Personalise, personalise, personalise

We’ve heard for a while that a one-size fits-all approach to marketing no longer works. Customers want to feel as though a company or brand truly understands them and that means that marketers need to go above and beyond with personalisation. Modern-day marketing is about focusing on each customer as an individual instead of just another email address, and designing a programme that enables brand to get closer to marketing to their customers as individuals with every email. This requires an insight into subscriber and personal preferences around the types and frequency of communication.

The ultimate goal of personalisation is true 1:1 communications where every recipient receives emails that are specifically tailored to reflect their individual needs and interests. A basic starting point would be email subject line personalisation, however, other factors, such as personalising content, recognising the reader’s choice of device, adapting the tone of voice to their preference, considering the emotional impact of each email and knowing the right time and frequency to send emails are key in helping businesses tailor each message to increase engagement and help craft long-lasting relationships.

Harness external factors

While there are ways to optimise businesses’ chances of emails landing safely in a consumer’s inbox and catching their attention, there are less controllable external factors that can affect the success of an email programme. Taking into account elements such as economy and season can make the difference between an ignored email and a boost in read rates and deliverability.

Take the weather, for example. Research has shown that there is often an interesting correlation between the weather and spam rates. When there are periods of warm weather and other activities competing for attention, user-marked spam rates increase. Landmark events, such as Brexit, the presidential elections, the Olympics and London tube strikes, are all affecting consumers’ life, which can have a significant impact on their email habits.

It’s also worth noting that external factors can have a negative impact on subscriber engagement. DMA research has shown that one in six respondents would register a spam complaint against an email if they had a negative in-store experience or if the brand had recently suffered negative press.

Brands that understand how these events can impact email engagement and adapt their email strategy accordingly, using the right keywords and timing, will see their deliverability and read rates increase substantially.

Use AI to automate processes

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning aren’t often associated with email marketing, mainly because email marketers’ skills in creativity and strategy are often integral to a campaign’s success. An AI system simply can’t emulate human creativity and social perceptiveness.

However, well-known email and marketing service providers are starting to incorporate AI into their platforms to analyse data more efficiently and identify trends; something that businesses currently do manually. AI should start to play an even bigger role in the campaign execution process by helping to automate segmentation and match subscribers with the most appropriate content for them. Long term, this automation would take the hassle out of time-consuming tasks and allow marketers to focus on more innovative aspects of marketing.

Ultimately, marketers need to ensure that their email marketing strategies are aligned with recipients’ current and future demands. As more people read on-the-go, emails need to stand out and build engagement straightaway, and the best way to do this is to add context, personalise where possible, and consider external factors. Combine this with the use of tools that can automate a lot of the time-consuming targeting and marketers will find that they have an efficient, successful strategy that recipients will respond to.

The post Four Steps to Deliver an Outstanding Email Marketing Strategy appeared first on PerformanceIN.

With a new year in motion, there are always plenty of people keen to offer their predictions as to what will be ‘in’ and what will be thrown ‘out’ over the next twelve months.

David Marcus, vice president of messaging products at Facebook, has gone as far as to claim that 2016 will ring in the death of the phone number as messaging services such as his company’s continue to revolutionise the way we communicate with one another. It made a change from the annual – and apparently inaccurate – declarations that “email is dead,” at least.

There’s more than enough evidence to suggest that email’s use as a marketing tool has plenty of life in it yet, not least the fact that 53% of marketers believe that email produces significant or some ROI, versus just 29% who say the same of social media (according to Salesforce’s 2015 State of Marketing Report). 

And when you consider the 1.4 billion and 304 million users that Facebook and Twitter count respectively will need an email address to access these networks, the incomparable scale and potential of the email landscape begins to become clear. Email remains the ‘digital glue’ that provides cohesion between all of the other major online marketing channels.

One in 15

In fact, far from blankly classifying all brand communication as spam consumers are particularly open to receiving marketing communications via email: 58% of respondents in a recent Adobe survey stated email as their preferred way to be contacted by a brand.

But this doesn’t mean that people’s inboxes can be considered an open goal: an average consumer will receive around 500 marketing messages per month but, perhaps understandably, will only open a small fraction of them (fewer than one in 15). 

In line with this, Return Path research last year uncovered a 4% drop in email deliverability compared with 2014 rates. Whilst this may simply be a result of improvements being made to the algorithms responsible for grading user email content, it should be noted that the basics of deliverability remain the same: email is an open ecosystem, and there are certain established rules to build on as you continue to develop best practices.

Knowing your sender reputation (regular checks of your Sender Score will help with keeping track of this), continuously assessing your inbox placement with regular deliverability reports, and ensuring that you’re included on certified email service provider whitelists are the basics here.

Once you’ve reached the inbox, you’re competing not just with rival brands but any senders (related or not) whose emails command greater attention. That means anything from daily newsletters, to travel companies selling cheap summer holidays, to e-commerce receipts and pen pals.

Providing value

It might seem obvious, but this competition for attention is one that’s won by providing the most useful or interesting offering. Personalising messages to their recipients and sending triggered emails are both effective approaches here (the latter particularly so – Epsilon’s Q3 Email Trends & Benchmarks report showed open rates for triggered emails at 77% higher than BAU emails click rates coming in as much as 152% higher). Techniques like this help to generate positive subscriber engagement, which mailbox providers also consider as part of their decision making process for inbox placement and positioning.

And you won’t believe what happens next when you use a clickbait-style subject line – the answer being: not much. They’re frequently among the worst performers, while subject lines offering a benefit to the reader are proven to fare better.

This sense of providing something of value should extend beyond just the subject line, though. The body copy of your email too should capitalise on that precious recipient attention and be optimised for the Action (generally to generate click-throughs) as much as the subject line is optimised for the Open. Campaign success shouldn’t be measured on open rate alone, after all.

Finally: test, test, test. The more you test and analyse your approach, the more valuable data you’ll be gathering and the clearer it’ll be when you come to gauge the relative success of each campaign. Testing will help you fine-tune all aspects of your approach, from segmenting your recipient lists to more minute details such as subject line character count. You are, after all, only as good your last campaign!

The post Back to Basics: The Key Pillars of Email Optimisation appeared first on PerformanceIN.

Email marketing is still a critical channel for today’s marketers, with close to 60% looking to invest more this year. With levels of increased investment, there is also more focus on delivering ROI from email marketing campaigns. This heightened awareness for success, means analysis and optimisation become key to picking up on elements which create the backdrop for more engagement with your emails and, therefore, making your investment work even harder.    

In addition to factors that marketers can influence directly such as offer, content and frequency, there are also numerous contextual factors that can affect the success of your email campaign – the day and time of the send, the frequency, the recipient’s device and, believe it or not, the weather.

Big brands have been capitalising on warmer weather for years. Nuanced data analysis shows clear trends that map out broader marketing precedents. Take Coca Cola, who are well known for ramping up investments in advertising spend when the weather is forecasted to be warmer. In the UK, a country renowned for its unpredictable weather, a seasonal temperature of 1°C higher or lower than average typically leads to a one per cent change in sales, according to data from US-based The Weather Channel, a subsidiary of media conglomerate The Weather Company. In the £300 billion UK retail sector, this would equate to a loss, or gain, of around £3 billion. So evidently, weather conditions along with other contextual factors can have a substantial impact on marketing campaigns and overall sales figures as a whole. 

In this article we consider how weather affects email activity for three household brands – easyJet, Marks & Spencer and McDonald’s, both in the UK and France plus what solutions can be used to elicit the best performance from email optimisation.

easyJet

Slightly counter-intuitively, warmer average temperatures are shown to increase the effectiveness of easyJet’s email promotions. The mental picture we might have of consumers shivering in the depths of winter and dreaming of summer holidays isn’t entirely correct and easyJet’s UK customers actually appear more pre-disposed to read their emails when the sun is shining.  This trend is even more clearly pronounced for easyJet’s French customers, who demonstrate a major uplift in read rates during warmer, sunnier months. 

Marks & Spencer

Marks & Spencer customers demonstrate a noticeably different set of behaviours. In the UK, there is a slight trend toward higher read rates during both wetter and drier periods. This suggests there is at least some seasonal correlation, perhaps connected with the arrival of new fashion ranges. Again, the behaviour of Marks & Spencer’s French customers is far more clearly pronounced and read rates increase noticeably as it gets wetter (note that France’s Mediterranean climate means many regions have more rain during the summer months). The constant across both regions are that spam complaints are lower when it’s raining and there is a distinct sense that any pre-disposition to respond negatively reduces when customers are stuck inside with nothing better to do!

McDonald’s

In the UK, the solar cycle means near-24-hour daylight in the middle of summer and near-permanent twilight during winter. McDonald’s customers align with this cycle, but they are most engaged during the intermediate periods. There is a real sense that when sunshine is in short supply, they are simply less inclined to leave the house, whereas long, sunny evenings inspire them to take to their gardens, parks to socialise with friends and family – not reading emails or visiting fast food chains. Once more, the behaviour of McDonald’s French customers tells another tale. While read rate variances are less clearly defined compared with the other two brands, there is still a pronounced uplift as the days lengthen, so France’s fabled café culture has clearly embraced MacDonald’s too. These trends are corroborated by the user-marked spam metrics – highest in the UK during the sunniest periods and lowest in France.

Overall, there are some interesting differences between UK and French customers. While the former demonstrate some sensitivity to changes in climate change, they are not nearly as pronounced for their French counterparts – who are far more engaged with their emails when the days are long and the mercury is rising.

From our research into how weather effects can influence email marketing, the unexpected nature of the data and differences across geographies show there is a clear benefit to monitoring specific campaign trends as a tool to inform future activity. This research and data-led approach is key to the success of any email marketing campaign. Marketers should look out for email marketing software that integrates analytics into reporting and which can allow users to view relevant analytics reporting results for individual campaigns or data sets. As marketers, you may not be able to control the weather but you can use it to your advantage when ensuring the highest ROI for your email marketing come rain or shine. 

The post Rain or Shine can Make All the Difference to your Email Campaigns appeared first on PerformanceIN.