I have been a Fleming’s email subscriber for some time. I diligently open each email looking for the next delicious deal. Recently I received an email from Fleming’s with the subject line “Email Communications from Fleming’s.” This immediately raised my suspicions. When I opened the email I instantly recognized it as an email append message. I was being automatically opted-in to receive emails from Fleming’s even though I was already an active subscriber. Oops…

This screen shot shows the append email, and past emails I have received. As you can see, I regularly receive their emails.

So, how did this happen?

My guess is that Flemings ran a data append and acquired my email address from some third-party database, but neglected to exclude already subscribed email addresses from their final list. They not only confused existing subscribers with an opt-in message but probably also paid someone for this service. Double ouch!

An email data append typically works like this:

• Offline customer data (name, address etc.) is compared to a database looking for an email address match.
• This list of newly appended customers should be compared against your past opt-outs and current subscribers prior to sending the email. If this precaution is not taken, the sender risks abuse complaints from customers who have already subscribed or unsubscribed in the past.
• Once an email address is matched to an offline customer, an email is sent reminding them of their past relationship with you and asking to opt-in to the email program. This newly acquired subscriber must be given the option to opt-out in the append email.

Thinking back to Flemings’ email, one positive takeaway was that the email append creative they used was really sharp. They explained why I was receiving the email, provided ample ways to opt-out, and also told me more about who they are and what they offer their customers.

7) ReMarketing (Abandoned Cart Campaigns)
One especially important and potentially lucrative triggered campaign is the abandoned cart (a.k.a. ReMarketing) campaign. This is an email sent to someone reminding them to purchase items/processes which have been abandoned — or left — in their online shopping cart. ReMarketing is a great way to nudge potential purchasers into converting.

8. Social Media Integration
Everyone seems to be tweeting, Facebooking and doing other awkward sounding social media actions. Be sure you include these important social media outlets in your emails. Allow subscribers to rave about how great you are on various social media sites or browse your corporate social media pages. Email marketing must adapt as the marketplace and subscriber preferences change.

9) Personalization and Dynamic Content
Use personalized or specialized imagery, product placement, or text when you can and when appropriate. Instead of saying “Dear Customer” in your message, it is much nicer to use your recipient’s first name — ‘Dear Balthazar” as an example. Also, utilize the data that you have on your subscribers. Some common dynamic content strategies are using different messaging based on the customer type, location, nearest store, browse or purchase behavior, recency, or email interaction.

10) Opt-down
One great way to save a potential unsubscribe is to offer an opt-down option. An-opt down is when your give your subscribers the option of receiving less email instead of them opting-out completely. This is a win-win. You keep the subscriber in your list, and the subscriber only receives the number of emails they request.

Here is an example of the opt-down from Eddie Bauer. This retailer offers one email per week and one email per month opt-down options.

11) Email Change of Address (ECOA)
ECOA is a list maintenance and hygiene process that keeps your email lists up-to-date by identifying incorrect addresses and updating them with accurate ones. Companies like Experian can take your bounced or inactive email lists, run them through their database, and return you updated email addresses for certain subscribers who match in their database. This helps identify past subscribers who have since switched email addresses but have not notified you of the change.

12)Email Append (eAppend)
Email append is a list growth and acquisition process that takes an offline customer’s contact data and appends a valid email address to them. Companies like Experian can take a list of your offline customers, run them through their database, and identify customers with known email addresses to add email to their contact information. This helps grow your email list and reach your known customers through email.

That’s all twelve of them!

What do you think is the most important must have item for email marketers today? Which is the least important?  What else is out there that should be included in this list? Share your thoughts below if you think there’s something else worth mentioning.

I agree with many of Pollard’s comments about eAppend. Inherently, eAppend carries more risk than organic email capture methods, such as at point of sale or via an email sign up form. Pollard also makes valid arguments about the deliverability risks that can occur from appending email to your customer file. In this tough economy when companies are closely evaluating their budgets, it is very important that they do not compromise quality for price when evaluating third party data providers. Regardless, eAppend can be a very effective means of growing a traditional offline customer file.

One thing that Pollard doesn’t address is the quality of the client data submitted for an eAppend match, or the frequency at which a client runs an eAppend program.

We have a few of our own best practices that are worth mentioning in addition to those mentioned in Pollard’s article.

• Clients who do not trust the source and quality of their internal data cannot expect a third party eAppend provider to perform any better. Every company looking to increase the quality of eAppend match files should look at their overall email acquisition practices first. Clients increase the potential for deliverability issues exponentially if they are not validating email address upon input, managing bounces, unsubscribes and abuse rates, and running hygiene on their entire customer file per industry best practices.
• It is just as important to track all email acquisition data sources in addition to tracking email append names. Furthermore, email has proven to drive traffic to offline sources such as store events, sales, and catalogs. Tracking of the appended records should be done across channels to ensure that the email subject line did not influence the customer behavior offline.
• Many companies run eAppend jobs infrequently, and with good reason. Email append data has a higher potential to go stale, so marketers should be more cautious and exclude customers that have not purchased in the last two years.  For those companies that have a large offline customer file and are looking to invest seriously in email acquisition, we recommend running frequent eAppend jobs on fresh data. Most eAppend providers will consider packages for monthly and quarterly commitments.
• Email append providers experience higher levels of filtering, and it is possible that not all intended recipients will receive the original permission pass. We strongly recommend that any company doing an eAppend job send a second invitation email from their permission email account. This email should clearly indicate that the company attempted to contact the customer previously, restate the value proposition of the email program, and provide an opt-out link. A banner may suffice at the top of the next email instead of a dedicated message approach.
• Lastly, I respectfully disagree with Pollard’s idea of a “sunset provision” where marketers would “discard appended addresses that show no open or click rates on the first six messages” sent. Companies send emails at different frequencies and experience seasonal behaviors with their customer file. Instead of choosing a hard number at which to discard an address, we would recommend running eAppend programs before your largest business ‘seasons’ and to build a longer term strategy. We are always hesitant to remove addresses from the file before testing varying frequencies and different messaging strategies (such as surveys) to improve inactive performance. Companies should only consider a more aggressive suppression of these names if the email addresses remain truly inactive, meaning across channels, after more than one business season.