Anchor Computer

In 2011, more than 70% of worldwide email traffic was spam. As spam filters become more efficient at keeping our inboxes clean, an alarming 20% of legitimate email marketing messages are being blocked in error.

Are your email marketing messages making the cut?

Incorporating the best practices below can help improve your inbox deliverability and reduce the number of emails being blocked from ever reaching your contacts.  Simply put, better inbox deliverability means improved email marketing performance.  Reach more contacts and increase your email opens, clicks and overall response.

Here are 6 best practices you can use today to prevent spam filter blocking:

1. Short, relevant and enticing perform best for subject lines.

The goal of your subject line is to entice recipients to open.   Including a specific offer in your subject line works well, however, most email programs will only display 5-8 words or 60 characters (including spaces).  Anything longer will be cut off and not viewable.   Also, it is very important to avoid spammy words or symbols. For example:  multiple exclamation marks, multiple dollar signs, Affordable, Apply Now, Dear Friend, Free, Save $ and many others.

2. Keep email creatives at a maximum of 600-650 pixels wide.

Designing emails with a width of 650 pixels or under is best practice.  Anything over 650-700 may have your recipients scrolling around to read your message. This is especially true as 52% email recipients reportedly view emails from their email program’s preview pane (ClickZ). It is recommended that you keep key content towards the top of your message, logos left aligned, and calls to action above the fold (or within the top 300 pixels).

3. Avoid using “spammy” words in body content. 

In addition to your subject lines, spam filters are also screening the content of your email.  Try to avoid using common spam triggers, like ALL CAPS, multiple exclamation points!!!, and the words “Save,” “Free,” and “$,”.  Some additional words you may not want to include are “Dear,” “Click here,” “ Affordable,” “Dear Friend,” and many others.  Avoid taking a chance and run your email through a spam-testing tool before you send it out.  You may be surprised at what may seem to be a commonly used word, is actually getting your emails marked as spam.

4. Use images in moderation.

Using one large image, in place of text, is an old trick spammers use to get spam words passed the filters. It is best to use a majority of text in your email messages and keep text/image ratios high to avoid getting your emails blocked.

5. Ask to be added to your contacts “safe-senders” list.

To ensure your email subscribers receive your email, ask them to add your email address to their safe-sender list or  “whitelist” you. There is a good chance that email subscribers never receive your emails because their spam filters blocked your message.  Asking them to add you to their “safe-senders” list may help stay you connected.

6.  Your images will most likely be blocked.

ALWAYS use alt image tags to avoid sending blank emails.  If your email subscribers receive a blank message from you or tiny red x’s, they may be alarmed and hit the spam button.  It is best to never include important information or calls to actions in images, in case they are blocked.

A recent study has shown an increase in email marketing click-thru rates by up to 20% for marketers who personalize subject lines.

Imagine the possibilities… if you were to go beyond first name personalization and engaged customers based on their interests, lifestyles and buying behaviors.

Here are 3 ways you can market to customers on a more personalized one-to-one level, and bring your ROI to new heights.

1. Data Enhancement: Send messages and offers that appeal directly to your customer’s needs….

Enhancing your file with demographic data allows you to add valuable information and segment your offers based on your customer’s interests, lifestyles and buying behaviors.  Marketing that directly addresses your customer’s wants and needs are more valued and more likely to get a response. For example, you probably wouldn’t get a great response if you sent a promotion on pet food to a household without pets.

If you are marketing to consumers, overlay information such as age, marital status, presence of children, income, homeowner, buying behaviors, and lifestyle interests.

If you are a business-to-business marketer, choose from firmographics such as number of employees, sales volume, and SIC codes.

2. Customer Profiling: Get to know your customers better!

Taking a “snap shot” of your marketing database allows you to identify the key characteristics that make up the customers on your list.  Profile customers based on key demographics, lifestyle, purchase history, and even predict who will make their next purchase.  You can also define your “best” and most profitable customers, and target new prospects just like them.  Aligning marketing efforts with customer profiles is a great way to gain insight on who your customers are, so you can communicate on a more one-to-one level and boost your marketing ROI.

3. CRM Retargeting: Deliver highly personalized web ads to your offline contacts (CRM).

CRM Retargeting leverages your offline data and delivers custom online display ads to your contacts as they surf the web.  Serve custom banner ads across 98% of major websites, based on your customer’s wants and needs.  Increase your ad relevance by enhancing your contact data using the data enhancement and customer profiling services mentioned above.

Use retargeting to improve your current online display advertising performance, increase the effectiveness of your email and direct mail efforts, and keep your brand in front of customers – driving them back to your website.

Maximize campaign relevancy and personalization in your marketing today!  Anchor can help you develop and implement programs that deliver specific messages, to specific customers, at a specific point in time, then track and evaluate results.

Every email program collects a group of “unresponsive subscribers.” These are the people who have not unsubscribed from your list, but never opened your emails, clicked a link, or have not responded in a long period of time.  Identifying your “inactive subscribers” and setting a strategy in place to win back their business can improve your list performance, and your ROI.

There are many re-engagement strategies you can try. But first, you must start with identifying who your “inactive” contacts are.

To keep it simple, most can define an “unresponsive subscriber” as anyone who has not responded in six months or more.  You can also segment “never responders” from “former responders.” This will depend on your business model.  For example, how often will your customers need to purchase a television, or furniture for their home?  The real key is to find ways to define the different kinds of “unresponsive” email addresses so you can approach them with tactics and messages that will work best.

Test What Will Grab Their Attention – Win Them Back

Once you have your “unresponsive subscribers” segmented, it’s time to test. Try at least three different approaches (see below) and see what will work best to recapture their attention.

Here are some offers you can begin testing:

Spark Their Curiosity – Send A New Format
Send them a creative that is different from your typical format they may be use to seeing.  Offer a simple text format that gets right to the point or send creative with fewer images.  This may help if subscribers are viewing your emails on a mobile device, or if they are viewing your email with images blocked.

Ask them to Opt-In Again
Sometimes all it takes is to ask them if they still want to receive your emails.  You can give them a call, or a simple email with little graphics asking them to “click if they would like to continue receiving emails.”  You may want to include an incentive or a sample of the valuable information you will be sending them.

Send an Offer They Can’t Pass Up
It may be worth your while to win back a customer by sending them something free, or a really great offer.  The more overboard your offer is, the more you are likely to get them to take action.

Get Personal
Personalize your email on every level including subject lines, content and images.  If you have purchase history, or website search behavior for these contacts, it might be best to offer highly relevant offers promoting similar products or accessories that compliment past purchases.  Speaking to contacts one-on-one is a great way to re-build your relationship.

Did They Change Email Addresses?
As your contacts change their email address, do not lose the ability to communicate with them via email. ECOA (Email Change of Address) processing will check your bounced records and try to provide new deliverable email addresses for people that have moved, changed jobs, added extra email addresses or changed their Internet Service Provider.

What Do They Have In Mind
There is nothing better than getting direct feedback from your “nonresponders.”  Sending a survey is a great way to get this information.  Ask them what they like and dislike about your email communications.  Do they like the design?  Is the content relevant?  Are you sending too often?

Regardless of the percentage of “unresponsive subscribers,” putting a re-engagement strategy in place can offer you great insight for winning back business.

Spending on digital data and services has reached $840 million this year, almost doubled from 2010, according to the Winterberry Group. 

As digital spending continues to increase, email marketing remains the top channel for most marketers. Its low-cost and easy to measure performance has proven to produce the best ROI for acquiring customers and building relationships. However, finding effective ways to add new email addresses and keep data fresh is a challenge many marketers share on their to-do-lists.

Here are 10 simple and cost-effective ways to help grow your email list:

1. Offer Subscriptions to Your Blog Readers
If visitors are reading your blog, they will most likely be interested in receiving your emails. Add a sign up form for readers to opt-in to receive blog updates and email offers. You can also team up with affiliated blogs, guest write, or allow their audience to join your list – this could be beneficial for both parties.

2. Build Your List While You Build Your Social Following
Add a sign up form on your company Facebook and LinkedIn pages. You can also send a tweet to your followers with a link to join your list.

3. Take Emails Viral – Encourage Social Sharing
Include social sharing buttons in all your email promotions and newsletters.  Keep it simple and reward subscribers to forward content to friends or “share the email” on social networks. Include a landing page to allow recipients to sign up.

4. ‘Be a Thought Leader’ on Social Networks and Forums
Regardless of what industry you are in, there are most likely discussions being had across the web that are related to the products and services your company offers.  For example, if you are a b2b company, search for related discussions on LinkedIn.  Answer questions and offer information specifically related to your products or services.  Include a link to sign up for more details.

5. Exchange Value for Value… Offer Incentives for Signups
Offering free white papers or case studies is great for lead-gen and email sign ups. When visitors click to download your offer, they will be presented with a simple form requesting the email address where they would like to receive their whitepaper.

6. Capture Web Visitor’s Attention and Email Addresses
Place your sign up form on every page of your website and keep it above the ‘fold’ line (eliminate the need to scroll down).  This will ensure, regardless of entry page on your site, that you will capture their attention of readers and drive them to sign up.

7. Save a Tree – Take Print Materials Digital
Be sure to add a web url to all printed materials. Even better, QR codes are a great way to encourage people to “Scan to Sign Up”.  They can simply scan the QR code with a smartphone on your printed material and go directly to a sign up form where they can opt-in to receive your emails.  You can also encourage direct mail recipients to receive emails and opt-out of direct mailings. Capture emails from offline touch points such as business cards, sell sheets, presentations, flyers, postcards, brochures, trade show displays and more.

8. Stop Traffic – Ask for Signups During Events and Trade Shows
Events are great ways to network and connect with targeted prospects.  Whether you are attending an industry conference or online event or webinar, take advantage of the opportunity to build your list and ask for email addresses.

Hosting a webinar is an excellent way to build highly targeted lists.  If you don’t have the resources, team up with a partner and co-host or simply ask them to promote your company’s landing page as a resource to their audience.

9. Fill-in Data Gaps – Invite Contacts on Your Database to Receive Emails
Whether you have built a database that is filled with postal addresses, missing emails or have outdated information, email appending can potentially match email addresses to those contacts and reactivate them to receive your email offers.

10. Make Email Acquisition a Team Effort
Bring your customer service department, billing and sales team to join in on the effort.  While they are speaking to contacts on the phone, have them ask for their email addresses.  Ask them to add website urls on all transactional forms.  You can also create a company-wide email signature that includes a link to your sign up form, encouraging email contacts to stay informed, receive special offers and join your list.

Adding one or all of these tips will get you on your way to implementing an effective strategy to grow a quality email list for your marketing campaigns.  Start building your list today!

Spring is here.  Whether you have email, telemarketing, or direct mail lists, having accurate, reliable information that’s updated regularly is the key to staying in touch with contacts year round.

Nearly every contact database accumulates inaccurate or out-of-date information and it is estimated about 25-30% of data goes bad each year.  People relocate, change jobs, change service providers, they even change names.  Plus, there may be duplicate contact records or data that was never good due to typos or bogus information.

Click here to save 25% off List Hygiene Services!

How does your data measure up?

• 1/3 of  emails are lost to list churn,  bounces, and SPAM complaints every year.
• 14% of all phone numbers go bad, as over 40 million people move annually.
•  8% of all Standard Mail^TM is undeliverable because of incorrect addresses.

You’re not alone!

Deliverability, and getting your messages in front of  target customers or prospects, remains a key challenge for marketers. In fact, a MarketingSherpa study found this as a very important challenge for over 55% of marketers last year.

So what can you do?

You can ensure your contact lists are current and accurate by enhancing, appending and/or verifying your database.  Here are 3 highly recommended services to get you started:

Email List Hygiene & ECOA - Verify and update email address lists – before you send your next campaign. Check and correct for typos, syntax errors, invalid domains, and other known bad email address. Plus, find an updated email address to reactivate customer relationships.

Postal SuperCleanse - Correct undeliverable addresses, remove deceased contacts, and update addresses of individuals who have moved. We are so confident this works we guarantee your savings will more than double the cost of this service.

Telephone Verify/Append – Increase your connect rates by making sure the numbers you have on file are up to date.  Plus, identify wireless, business, residential, and Do Not Call (Federal, State and DMA) phone numbers.

Spring cleaning your lists can help maximize your marketing opportunities, keep you in touch with contacts on your list, and increase your ROI. 

Click here to request a FREE Accuracy Test on Your File.
If you find your data needs a spring cleaning, we will give you  25% off any hygiene service above!*

Businesses that work with Anchor Computer return year after year as they recognize the ROI benefits of data cleansing and appending.  Stay in touch with more customers…improve engagement and increase sales…  It’s a win-win situation!

* First time customers only.

 A recent MarketingSherpa study found 75% of social media users feel email is the best way for brands to communicate with them.

Email marketing and social media are the two top areas marketers plan to increase spending during 2012. Both channels have extremely valuable roles in marketing, and the best results can come when you effectively combine them to work together.

Social media offers a great way to build awareness and get your message out there. Its massive viral reach creates unlimited opportunities for sharing content and building new relationships. On the other hand, email’s value lies in sending personalized, targeted messages that strengthen relationships, builds loyalty and drives people towards making a purchase.

By leveraging the individual strengths of both channels combined into an integrated campaign, you can improve your marketing effectiveness, response and ROI.

Here are 7 ways to integrate  social media and email marketing effectively:

1. Expand the reach of your email message – add ‘share to social’ links. Encourage social sharing by providing valuable content in your email messages.  Content should offer information that recipients will find worthy of sharing with “like-minded” friends on their social network.  Increase your chances of going viral by providing content that makes them look like a hero.

2. Grow your email list – include newsletter signup forms on social accounts. Your Facebook and Twitter fans are most likely interested in receiving your emails. Email sign up forms can be added to Facebook’s pages, Linked in and Twitter feeds.

3. Build your social media networks – add ‘follow us on social’ links on all touch points.
Expand your customer communications and encourage customers and prospects to follow your brand on your social network.  Add links to web pages, emails, direct mail, displays, print ads, and more.

4. Locate and learn about your social customers – match social intelligence to your data. Appending social media data to your email can provide a snapshot of where your customer base is on the social web.  You can also learn what social networks they are on, learn which customers are not currently connected to you. This can help to segment your list so you can offer more socially relevant messages and offers.

5. Listen to the chatter and learn about your audience – use social media monitoring.
Your customers and prospects are talking on the social web, and a wealth of customer knowledge is at your disposal. Increase the relevancy and timeliness of marketing campaigns and content by monitoring customer complaints, product suggestions, service inquiries and more.

6. Re-use social praise and testimonials – monitoring your brand to find online comments.
Incorporate customer praise, testimonials and recommendations into your marketing website, emails, brochure, etc. An endorsement from a customer can be extremely powerful.

7. Provide followers with engaging content and exclusive offers – share your own content.
Have auto tweets and Facebook’s posts go out when you send an email marketing message.  This will extend the reach of your offer to social followers who may not be on your list and give them the ability to share with their networks.

Anchor can help bring your marketing to the next level!
Our Social Marketing Solutions allow you to easily and intelligently leverage the latest social media tools into your email marketing program. Services include social media data, social profile/data modeling, and email marketing integration.

Offset Postage Increase with Address Hygiene

It’s official – the USPS® postage increase has gone into effect on January 22, 2012. This is the second postage increase approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission in less than a year. Most direct mailers will see an average increase of about 2.1% or between $0.004 and $0.001 per mail piece.

Despite the increased cost of mailing, marketers see the value in keeping direct mail as part of their 2012 marketing program. In fact, a study performed in 2011 reported that 50% of consumers still prefer receiving direct mail to any other channel. Finding a solution to decrease mailing costs versus reallocating marketing budgets has been a challenge.

Request a FREE DATABASE EVALUATION REPORT to see how Anchor’s SuperCleansing Platinum Bundle can help offset the postage increase and SAVE YOUR DIRECT MAIL BUDGET.

Optimize the delivery of your mailing list using a combination of Anchor’s postal processing services, all bundled together into one “budget saving” solution.  

Anchor’s SuperCleansing Platinum Bundle includes:

NCOALink^® – Process your mailing lists against the 48-month NCOA^Link® dataset of approximately 160 million change-of-address records filed with the USPS^®. Update mailing lists, including individuals, families and businesses that have moved.

DPV^® (Delivery Point Validation, confirms an address exists and is a USPS^® delivery point) – DPV^® allows you to eliminate costs by not mailing to non-existent addresses.

LACS^Link®  (Locatable Address Conversion System, 911 Address Conversion Tool) - Converts rural style addresses to city style addresses, improving deliverability.

CASS^TM (Coding Accuracy Support System) – Improves the Address Standardization, ZIP^® Correction, ZIP+4^® Appending, Carrier-Route Coding, Delivery Point Coding, Error Message Code, CASS^TM Report and NDI Report.

DSF^2®  (Identifies Deliverable Addresses and Specific Address Attributes) – Allows you to identify business versus residential delivery points, as well as, vacant and seasonal addresses.

AAE (Anchor Address Enhancements) – Improve addresses that cannot be ZIP + 4^® coded, resulting in improved deliverability. By using an individual name and special matching logic on the address to locate a similar address in large reference file databases, we can determine which address elements need to be changed to make the record ZIP+4^® codable. Verify an actual address exists down to an apartment or suite number. AAE also adds missing secondary address information.

Deceased/Prison Suppress  – Eliminate deceased individuals and individuals with prison addresses from mailings, prior to a promotion.

Merge Purge – Identify duplicate records in your database, based upon your marketing criteria.  Our program goes beyond name and address comparison and incorporates additional data matching elements for increased accuracy, across several different files. Any data in your file such as: Social Security Number, Gender or Telephone Number may be used for your duplicate identification process. Matches can be based on unique individual or household levels.

 Pricing of these products and services is neither established, controlled, nor approved by the United States Postal Service®.  The following trademarks are owned by the United States Postal Service®:  USPS, United States Postal Service, ZIP, ZIP Code, ZIP + 4, LACS^Link, NCOA^Link, DPV, DSF² and CASS.

QR (Quick Response) codes are popping up everywhere, from print advertisements, product labels, purchase receipts, and even business cards.  In fact, QR code scanning has increased by over 4500% in 2011, according to a report from Mobio Identity Systems, Inc.  The number is expected to increase as smart phone purchases rise in 2012, and more consumers are equipped to scan them and respond.

These positive numbers are encouraging for marketers who currently use QR codes in their marketing strategies, and many are planning to do so in the near future.

Linking offline touch points to various content such as hyperlinks, maps, phone numbers, email, video and social media presents unlimited opportunities for customers to interact with companies.

Here are 10 effective ways to add QR codes to your marketing…

1. Build your social media accounts. A new like or follow can create a long-term marketing opportunity. Add QR codes to on-site display locations and promotional posters.  By simply scanning, users can follow your social media account or “like” your page.   Add value for the user and entice them to take action. For example, “Like our Facebook page for latest news alerts and exclusive coupons.”

2. Encourage product purchases. Offering on-site product information can help encourage a sale by offering access to product information, reviews and comparisons, a value-added product video and even a mobile “buy now” option.

3. Increase contest, memberships and event signups. Print QR codes on promotional materials to gain additional sign-ups and make offline touch points interactive for an immediate response.  Offer users a quick and easy vehicle to scan and sign-up for contests, surveys, memberships, event registrations and more. You can also improve offline campaign tracking by using ‘tiny urls’ with your QR codes.

4. Improve direct mail response rates and tracking. Encourage recipients to take action by making your mail piece interactive. Increase direct mail response tracking. Plus, you can add a personal touch for every recipient and increase relevancy by combining purls with your QR code.

5. Capture customers who visit your store while you are closed. Most stores are not open 24/7.  Adding QR codes to your store display, linking to your website, can turn a potentially lost sale into an online customer.

6. Engage more show attendees and capture more leads at your next event. Add QR codes to your trade show displays and signage. You can allow contacts to scan your business contact details and allow them to engage with your company, capture your information and convert them online.

7. Motivate survey response. Encourage users to scan and rate their experience.  Add value and boost survey responses by offering participants a discount off their next purchase or a chance to win a prize.

8. Bring your business card to life. Use the backside of your business card and include a QR code that leads to a landing page of detail about you or your business.

9. Make your offline promotional material, brochures, and print ads interactive.  Leverage QR codes to boost offline promotions and conversions.  Add QR codes next to each product description, promotion or call to action. This helps to engage your reader and allows them to easily interact and respond to what they are reading about.

10. Let your presentation stand out from the crowd and leave a lasting impression. Add QR codes to the end of your presentation to sign up for more information, receive a copy of the presentation or view a list with the items mentioned.

2011 was an exciting year for marketers. Digital channels such as Social Media, SMS, Web 2.0 and 2-D barcodes have created many new opportunities for businesses and consumers to communicate and build relationships. Integrating these new mediums with more traditional channels such as email and direct mail has increased response rates and customer engagement.

As cross-channel marketing continues to evolve in 2012, consumers are receiving more marketing messages than ever before. In order to cut through the clutter, marketers need reach customers where and how they want to receive offers. Sending targeted marketing campaigns across multiple channels will ensure you are engaging customers where and how they are most likely to respond.

Anchor offers all the solutions needed to effectively reach your customers and make your cross-channel marketing a success. We can help you prepare your customer database with appended and/or verified email, phone and mailing addresses, provide you with new highly targeting prospect lists – and expand the reach of your campaign by adding social media data, SMS text messaging, 2-D barcodes and web 2.0 tools.

Jump start your marketing using these cross-channel solutions:

Request an no-obligation Marketing Report to see how you can improve your cross-channel strategy, cut costs and maximize response!

A dominating 38.5% of time spent on the mobile web is used for email activity, according to a study by The Nielsen Company. This number is expected to grow quickly throughout 2012.

With the sharp rise in people reading email on a mobile device, Forrester suggests that marketers plan on including mobile in their marketing mix and employing email marketing messages that are more mobile friendly. While is it not necessary to revamp your entire email marketing program, you will want to prepare emails with more simplicity in mind.

Here are some quick tips for designing emails that are more mobile friendly:

Keep your subject lines short and powerful
Your email subject line must grab your reader’s attention quickly and entice them to click and read your message. Best practices suggest keeping mobile email subject lines within 5 or 6 words or under 35 characters.  Anything longer may be truncated and not seen.

Use a familiar “from” line
Make sure your reader recognizes whom the message is coming from. Choose wisely, whether it’s someone’s name or a company name that will capture their attention.

Get to the point – keep content short
You will be fighting for the attention of everyone reading emails on a mobile device. Focus on one topic and one offer. Content should be easily read and simple to understand.

Design emails using a single column layout
Reformat HTML email design to a single column layout. This will make it easier for email creatives to appear correctly across desktop, webmail and mobile readers. Best practices show fewer than 40 characters per line will be the most effective.

Include call-to-actions that are easy to find and respond to
Use call to action links with larger fonts to ensure readers can easily locate them and respond when using small mobile touch screens.  If your link leads to a webpage, make sure the page is mobile friendly and forms are easy to work with.

Include a pre-header
Most mobile devices will include a preview of email text under the subject line.  Use a pre-header wisely to mention your offer or complement the subject line to get readers to open your email.

Don’t forget “click to read on mobile device” link
All mobile devices, and email viewing apps are different.  Some will render your email and display messages with no problem and others simply will not.  Add a “click to read on mobile device” link at the top of all your emails and newsletters to ensure every reader has an easy option to view your message from anywhere.

Including a plain text copy of every HTML message
Some mobile devices will only display a plain-text version of your email.  Spend the time to optimize plain text emails with mobile readers in mind to increase response.

Use the right alt tags for your images
Many mobile email devices and apps do not display HTML images. Be sure and include alt tags to describe what the images in your creative are conveying, so readers get the fully intended message.

Test, Test, Test
Take the guesswork out of mobile email marketing.  Use a mobile email simulator to see how your email will appear on various mobile devices and screen sizes.

Let Anchor help bring your email marketing to the next level! We provide Full Service Email Marketing Solutions for companies of all sizes!  Our in-house email marketing team becomes part of yours.

Get started with a FREE consultation. Choose from a variety of email campaign services including: creative services, deliverability monitoring, list management and data acquisition, target marketing and more.