It is well known that increasing the relevance of email promotions is a key for good results, however many overlook a great source of information for personalisation – Website analytics data. With recession looming, it will be even harder to get customers to respond to your emails, so it’s important to use all the tools at your disposal to send highly targeted messages.

With simple ‘broadcasting’, or an untargeted approach, industry email response averages are very low and 60-70% of recipients will ignore you. However, research has shown that targeted emails that leverage Website data can generate on average nine-times more revenue and as much as 32 times more in net profit! If you don’t know what happens after a customer clicks through from an email promotion, you’ll never know the true success of a campaign, nor will you capture vital information for future marketing.

By integrating Web analytics with your email campaigns, you’ll be able to glean important insights. Finding out what happens after a customer clicks on an email promotion is the ultimate indicator of customer interest. Targeting emails based on customer’s stated preferences or past purchase behaviour is a start, but addressing current interests of your customers will take you even further. Here are some statistics you can utilise:

• Website and specific page visits – reveals customer interests.
• Customer purchases made – useful for cross-sell promotions.
• Shopping cart abandonments – useful for reminding customers of items left in their cart, and offering specials or alternatives.

If you haven’t used Web analytics before, have a look at your Web host company’s services – basic Web stats is increasingly becoming a standard service. Google Analytics is a great tool you can use at www.google.com/analytics/. For more advanced stats, software can be found by doing a search for “web analytics software”‘. To analyse customer purchases or abandonments, you can use the admin facility in your e-commerce program.

Using Web analytics data, you can respond more strategically to customer needs, measure email campaign ROI, improve overall campaign relevance, and ultimately deliver superior customer experiences.

Invest more in deliverability to ensure effective campaign results

With the relatively low cost and high ROI of email marketing, it might be tempting to overlook email deliverability, however this means you’re leaving money on the table. A recent survey has shown that nearly a third of email marketers have allocated zero resources to deliverability management.

If you’re not actively monitoring your email delivery, you can run into problems with ISP blocks and other problems due to changing filtering parameters. If you don’t promptly address those issues, they can ultimately damage your email reputation.

Managing email delivery doesn’t have to be difficult or time-intensive. Mobilizemail has invested in effective email delivery technology but a lot depends on your email message content. If you find any deliverability problems appearing in your campaigns, have a look at our checklist.

According to a recent www.adotas.com article online social networking sites are good for business! The article says a British think tank’s recent survey supports the theory that staff using social networking sites benefits their employer.

Social networking sites are said to help users build relationships, and share information and this benefits rather than hinders businesses generally.

The thought to date has been quite the opposite where the argument has been that too much ‘work’ time is spent on some sites like ‘Facebook’ and ‘YouTube’ and more control of usage has been necessary to up the productivity rate. Businesses were either banning staff from accessing sites or restricted their access while in the workplace. The latest evidence suggests a complete ban is now said to be counterproductive as research has shown that participation in social network groups forges the relationships needed in difficult trading times like we are experiencing now.

Not All Social Networking Sites Are Equal

There has been a rise in ‘professional’ social networking sites where businesses encourage staff participation rather than prohibit it. Local sites like PropertyTalk.com which is a targeted discussion site for property investment provide a ‘melting pot’ for professional discussion that benefits businesses providing a product or service to this sector. On PropertyTalk.com Accountants, Lawyers, Analysts, Journalists, Property Traders, Investors are some of the users that actively participate in discussions that lead to new relationships and business opportunities.

Providing more freedom and flexibility to workers is now encouraged and benefits are realised especially in tough economic times.

Joining community based web sites that are local to your region is also a massive help in the promotion of your business. [business:Silicon Welly] is a classic example of a great local business community helping to promote local business to the world.

Well I can tell you there were no major fireworks, no front page headlines or any kind of excitement for the release of a piece of law which will affect just about every business in New Zealand.

The New Zealand Herald which is one of the major papers was more concerned with a story about what our Prime Minister received for her birthday.

I suppose I should not be so disappointed – not everyone would be interested in what Parliament does and on reflection this is the first time in my life I have monitored any government process

As the dead line to comply gets closer you will see the papers run panic stories about how businesses will be fined huge sums of money for failing to comply with the Anti-SPAM law. They will more than likely also chuck in (for extra paper sales) how many businesses will lose earnings because they cannot send out any emails.

We will be alerting our clients in the next week to the new law and what they will need look at to become compliant. Without blowing our horn all emails sent through Mobilize Mail will help towards compliance as we inject all emails with an admin section that allows a subscriber to change their mailing preferences and automatically unsubscribe. We also encourage our clients to add in full contact details to their email content.

Another News Comment:

NEW LAW WON’T STOP OVERSEAS SPAMMERS
IRN-SPAM-PACUNLIFFE
Feb 28th 2007 5:35am
 
Govt passes laws clamping down on spam, but admits it will not stop overseas spam

The Government is confident the law now has the teeth to deal with the spam afflicting New Zealand computer users, but admits it cannot stop spam originating from overseas.

Parliament passed the Unsolicited Electronic Messages, or Anti-Spam, Bill last night 118 votes to two.

Communications Minister David Cunliffe says the legislation will allow New Zealand to join the global fight against spam as international co-operation is needed to block its sources.  He says the Act bans people from using address harvesting software or a harvested address list to send unsolicited commercial electronic messages.

Critics say it will do nothing to deter overseas spammers but Communications Minister David Cunliffe says it was designed to stop New Zealand spammers and over time should reduce spam in entering inboxes by five to 10 percent.  There will be a six month transition period before the law takes effect.
Source: Newstalk ZB
Credit: Newstalk ZB

Press Release:

Minister for Information Technology

Parliament has passed a new law to fight the  avalanche of spam clogging Kiwi inboxes, says Information Technology Minister David Cunliffe.

The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 aims to prevent New Zealand becoming a haven for spammers by prohibiting unsolicited commercial electronic messages and requiring senders of commercial electronic messages to include accurate sender information and a functional unsubscribe facility.

“This legislation enables Kiwis to join the global fight against spam,” Mr Cunliffe said. “International cooperation to identify, shut down or block the sources of spam is an important part our anti-spam strategy.

“Unsolicited commercial electronic messages, commonly known as spam, are estimated to make up around 80 per cent of all email traffic worldwide. Spam clogs networks, reduces productivity and is often used for scams and malicious cyber-attacks.”

The act prohibits persons from using address-harvesting software or a harvested-address list in connection with the sending of unsolicited commercial electronic messages.

It applies to all emails, texts and instant messages that market or promote goods, services, and other schemes of a commercial or dishonest nature.

“There is a six-month transition period before the law takes effect,” said Mr Cunliffe. “This will give organisations a reasonable period of time to ensure their email practices and databases comply with the act.

“This law is another important step towards greater Internet security. It will clamp down on spam of a domestic origin and provide a platform for seeking an international agreement to fight spam world-wide.

“While the government does not pretend this new law alone will solve the spam problem, it will enable us to fight New Zealand-sourced spam and enter into international agreements concerning international enforcement of anti-spam legislation, sharing of information between national enforcement agencies, and the pursuit of cross-border complaints concerning spam.

“It is important that New Zealand is not seen as a soft touch or safe haven by spammers.”

The bill is about to go through its 3rd reading within “The House” which means Parliament. This looks like there is a very good chance the legislation will become law very soon.

Click here for some more info on the movements of the bill through Parliament.

It is not really 1 question but about 3. As the legislation draws nearer to becoming law more and more questions come to the surface. Below are questions our clients have asked us. At this stage we are researching with our law firm partners for any possible answers.

Questions:

1. If a Mobilize Mail client sends out an email on behalf of their client will they be in breach of the law if the mailing list they send to contains harvested email addresses but the Mobilize Mail client did not know before sending?
2. If a Mobilize Mail client sends out an email on behalf of their client to a mailing list they know contains harvested emails will they be in breach of the law?
3. Does a business or person who sends out emails on behalf of other businesses or individuals have a responsibility to check whether the email addresses have not been harvested or in the case of sending out a promotional message have had prior consent from the person responsible for the electronic address (or by any person who uses that address); ?

Interesting and valid questions. I will be researching with our business partner law firm and get back to you.

Well its Round 2 of the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Bill run through Parliament.

I am very happy that they have removed the “Promotional Messages” concept which seemed like an absolute nightmare in regards to business understanding what constitutes a promotional email. Plus – how on earth would a government staff member be able to decide if a message was promotional?

Another thing they wiped from the legislation after the first reading was forcing the ISP’s to process all SPAM complaints – Yeah Right! If this requirement went through to law not only would the poor ISP’s have to worry about their clogged mail servers but also spend time communicating with their customers who submitted a SPAM complaint. Can you imagine how many of those complaints are actually subscribers who forgot that they had signed up to the mailing list 3 months ago.

We are currently working with a top law firm in New Zealand who are watching the process of the legislation through Parliament and will provide us with information as it comes to hand. I will then past it onto you via this blog.

We have already a few questions come from our New Zealand based customers. I have provided some of the questions below.

1) So is there any form of electronic message in regards to “sales� content that a marketer can still send after the bill as been passed? Maybe the “promotional message� category provides this?

2) Is there any government estimate on how much it will cost a business to conform to the new legal requirements?

3) How can a subscriber report me? What is the legal process for charging me and do I get a warning for first time offence?

4) Is there a way I can contact the government officials responsible for this legislation to voice by opinion?

5) Is it correct that any email I send my “opt-out� subscribers that contains even the smallest amount of sales is a commercial message and falls within the law? What about the sales message in a confirmation email for someone who purchases a product or service? Maybe this is “inferred�

6) Do I have to keep permission details sent by my opt-out subscribers who I contacted and they gave permission for me to keep sending emails just incase the subscriber then reports me to the government? How long do I have to keep this permission detail?

7) How have other email marketers dealt with this? (a question that will arise closer to the date when the legislation becomes law)

Fighting email spam is a continuous war and New Zealand Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) are stepping up the fight with new spam-fighting systems. TelstraClear recently announced it had spent $3.5 million on spam filtering technology.
Earlier in the month (November) ihug customers were demanding to know why they were having problems with their email service. One customer reported receiving over 6000 spam emails overnight and concluded that ihug’s anti- spam filter was not working. An apparent junk mail attack was to blame for ihug’s customers experiencing intermittent service according to an article on www.nzherald.co.nz.

Today “The Dominion Postâ€� reports ‘Spam still affecting Xtra’ in an article articulating a similar problem to that experienced by ihug’s customers earlier last month. With no announcement made by Xtra, their customers were unaware that the problem may be affecting the delivery of email to their Inbox.Â
The good news is the unsolicited electronic messages bill is soon to become law in New Zealand and that should deter individuals and businesses from sending unsolicited bulk email. Australian company Clarity1 was recently fined A$5.5 million ($6.5 million) for sending millions of unsolicited emails over a two year period and this successful result is due to the introduction of the Australian anti-spam laws.

The possible impact of the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Bill on your business can be viewed in this article