Harsh realities of email make the blood run cold

Email marketing is a complicated business. It isn’t as simple as writing some good copy and hitting send. Despite good response rates, do you know how many of your mails are getting through?

I heard another magic number to set alongside the one about business data decaying at 40% per annum the other day. In a discussion about email broadcasting, someone told me that only 15% of the emails sent every day actually get through. Obviously, this includes all the spam that gets caught by the ISP’s, so it’s mostly penis enlargement and fantastic offers to get rich quick via the son of a Nigerian diplomat, but not all of it.

The story goes that poor design, copy, subject titles and addresses fall foul of the ISP police. Small campaigns normally avoid this. If you are only sending out a few thousand, by the time the ISP has some concerns, it has slipped through. But larger campaigns can find huge numbers of their mails getting blocked. 

Then, post campaign, if even a few people per thousand hit the junk button because of your email, the next time you appear with a campaign, you could find yourself marked as a spammer, and even more of your precious campaign will never reach an inbox.

At this point, you start to get lost in maze of hard, soft and many other sorts of bounces, and all the smoke and mirrors of the various reports available. But the lesson is that if you are intending sending out campaigns in the tens of thousands, you need to proceed with great care, and take the best advice possible.

I would love to hear from BR readers with experience of this subject. I think there is a lot we can all learn here.

Easter Madness

Having had a meeting in London this morning, I arrived home, did a little light emailing and then did a few chores. The last of which was paying my car tax, online. A great service, but then they asked me for my email and mobile number.

Why? The DVLC offer an opt out, but say they would like to send me relevant information from them and other government offices.

Interesting, no? Remember, the DVLC were one of the guilty departments highlighted in the recent datagate fiaso. Why would they want to mail, text or call me? How are they keeping the data? Are they going into the list business?

The DVLC only contact you for one thing, to collect the tax, in my 30 years experience of driving. They aren't going to call me with any exciting 2 for 1 offers are they? I am rather mystified.

Maybe Big Brother is gearing up after all...

Trust really is the issue

A GB Group poll for YouGov surprises no one by confirming that data issues have scared the hell out of the consumer. Big brands and government departments have hit consumer confidence hard. Not good for anyone in DM, obviously. But as the root and branch reviews of data protection processes gathers pace throughout the board rooms of both the public and private sectors (sarcasm intended) the issue for marketers is how to get that trust back, if we ever had it in the first place.

Data and data use is at the centre of so many things. In marketing terms, the capture of data is often crucial to completing a sale, let alone in targeting the right prospects in the first place. If the consumer is afraid to enter his/her credit card details online, we are all doomed, with apologies to Private Frazer.

In an interactive world, transparent but secure identities are essential. The same report confirms that the young are more confident online. We have to protect and encourage that confidence, to make the internet really work.

Data protection and responsible use of data is at the centre of that confidence. Identity theft, fraud and scams get the red and black tops excited, and that is what damages confidence and destroys trust. 

Because the internet is exciting and still relatively new, it gets talked about more than it sometimes deserves. Take the business directory market. It is the ideal online consumer service, utilising the tool that makes the internet buzz – the search engine. And yet Yell.com turnover only £90m online in this country, compared with £700m via the good old Yellow Pages. 

I have spoken before about joining up the dots. This world is changing rapidly. You can pay for a round of drinks with a debit or credit card at the local pub. You can buy books and CD’s online, even hearing or viewing a sample before you buy. You can manage your finances online. In fact, if you want to, you can do just about anything online, as long as you put your trust in the site/service you are using. 

The truth is that the market has taken this trust for granted. This exciting new channel is packaged as a free funhouse for the consumer. Lured in by free email, then sucked further in by social networking, gaming, gambling, entertainment and funny video clips, most consumers now see going online as part of their everyday lives. 

But the sane and sensible ones still think twice about entering that credit card number, or giving out personal details. There is a risk, perceived or not. All data owners need to get their house in order, because if trust is damaged ever further, it may be another generation before we get it back.

Big Brother is going to have to ask permission to track your every move

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the world-wide-web, appeared on the Today programme the other day, calling for an opt-in for the tracking of search histories on the internet. Apparently 3 ISP’s are considering starting to track usage, whilst today BT have been accused of already selling the data after a test, and Sir Tim is rightly concerned that the information could be used against the individual.

His example was that if a health insurance company could find out that a customer had been researching a certain type of cancer, they could jump to the obvious conclusion and raise premiums.

He has a point, of course. This is scary stuff. So his solution was to suggest that users be asked to opt-in, with clarity and perhaps even an incentive of some sort. Then everything would be transparent, and users could decide.

This is the obvious answer, as I have argued in B2B101 before. As our lives move more and more online, the attitudes of the marketer has to change, along with the attitude of the consumer. So much more information is available already. Transactional data from websites is the new gold dust, as marketers search for hot leads rather than cold prospects to improve ROI.

But do consumers realise that their actions are being tracked, recorded and sold? No, I don’t think they do. Already key facts such as the length of a contract, or a renewal date, attached to a name, address and telephone numbers, are being sold by the DM industry. Taking this further is exciting from a data point of view, but making the consumer understand what they are doing is essential to avoid accusations of Big Brother, as well as robust legislation and regulation.

I still believe that a lot of the things consumers get for free at the moment will eventually become chargeable. Not necessarily in cash terms, but by agreeing to share their personal details, receive advertising in one form or another, or opt-in to various services.

Sir Tim warned that people need to be careful about what they reveal on social networking sites as well, and I agree with him there, too. We are all visible online, whatever we do.

So start reading the small print and thinking of the consequences of what you are doing on the net, or be prepared to pay the price.

Who is going to advise the government on the future of CTPS?

Not the DMA, I hope. After all, they run it, and make money from it. Press rumours of a certain reluctance to comment on suggested reforms suggest that they are a bit embarrassed about their position. The fact is it is a mess. The rules for signing up make no sense.

Effectively, if your switchboard operator dislikes answering the telephone, he or she can sign all your numbers up to CTPS. No senior authority is needed. No one checks. Most of the companies who sign up, or rather the individuals who sign up on their employer’s behalf, will have colleagues employed elsewhere in the building making cold calls.

That, my friends, is a little bit hypocritical. Cold calling can be intrusive and irritating. But B2B communication is not invasive. Not in the same way as the call at home can be (Yes, Anglian Windows, I am talking about you, and Kitchens Direct) but whatever, it should be the business owners or the board of directors who sanctions registration with CTPS.

Not individual employee’s. 

Making registration renewable every 12 months was a start. Getting a signature from a director of the business would be a better move.

Another thing I find frustrating is that I run an opt-in database. People agree to our terms and conditions, but their registration to CTPS is taken to supersede their opt-in. It makes no sense to me. Then there is the small businesses who have signed up for TPS but not CTPS, so that to do a good job of suppression, you have to use both, and pay twice. 

If Golden wants a chat, he knows where I am.

Sir Humphrey still hasn’t got the message

Online identity firm Garlik got some admissions out of Golden Brown’s lot under the freedom of information act. It seems that some of the major government departments are still lacking when it comes to data protection policies, budgets for correcting and cleaning data, and audits for DPA compliance. It is probably all under discussion in a committee somewhere, and due to be introduced around the time of the next millennium.

The Garlik report highlights the disparities between the public and private sectors, although I am sure no one reading this is surprised that the government is behind the times.

Viewers of a certain age, and UK Gold addicts, will remember Sir Humphrey and co from ‘Yes Minister’ and ‘Yes Prime Minister’. At the time, even ministers of state recognised that the comedy set around the continual sparring of politicians and civil servants, and the general stagnation that caused, was surprisingly accurate.

We would be foolish to think that anything had really changed.

Budgets and accountability do not really apply to large swathes of the civil service. And the chaos, political inertia and ‘shenanigans’ have recently been highlighted by a mystery blogger called ‘Civil Serf’.

A career in the civil service is a railroad track towards an index linked pension and an MBE. There are sidings along the way, but it seems bloody hard to get knocked off the rails.

The same will never apply to the private sector in general, although a few fat cats I could mention have managed it, upon occasion.

There used to be campaigns to get successful business people to go into teaching. However, you don’t see many commercially minded people being taken into the civil service, do you?

If you are not in straight out of Oxbridge, you are not going to get in. And there is the problem. Government and its many departments live in a different world, with different rules to the rest of us.

The only way Sir Humphrey will do anything about data is if it means he can employ another few hundred civil servants, probably in a marginal Labour constituency in order to square off the politicians, and increase his own influence. The cost to the taxpayer and the actual efficiencies of the processes are an irrelevance.

Hands up, guilty as charged.

After one of my usual tirades about the Recycle Now logo, a few days ago, a lively debate ensued. Robert Keitch of the DMA sort of implied that I don’t care about the logo. Okay, it looks like confession time...

No, I don’t.

I run an online business directory (countyweb.com & zettai.net) that creates data good enough to be searched by 750,000 unique users every month. We sell advertising to businesses that want to reach that audience, and we create data for DM and anything else we can think of. Deep down, I don’t want less paper to be used, because every time I sell an address I make money. That creates jobs, keeps the wolves from the door, pays the mortgage. Important stuff, Robert.

That does not mean I encourage waste. We encourage use of suppression, and we spend a large sum cleansing and improving our data every month. Given the chance to influence a client, I would always recommend using a logo like Recycle Now, but is it top of my agenda?

No, it’s not.

I am much more concerned with competing with rubbish data sets, sometimes ripped off from somewhere else, that are not cleansed and get sold at ridiculous prices. I am for data quality, investment in suppression and responsible use of natural resources, but I cannot get too excited in pandering to the green lobby by using a logo.

Consumers either will or won’t recycle – the logo will have bugger all effect either way. It just makes the business that uses the logo look green, even if they aren’t. 

Death by a thousand cuts

Everyone wants a slice of the cake. Everyone wants a deal. But without the Godlike ability to turn water into wine, there is only so much to go around. Prices are going down, not up, and following customer demands, data is being blended more often to try and enhance performance. Someone is going to bleed before long.

This applies to B2C just as much as B2B. And there is only one result. Poor quality. I know of one major B2B supplier that is using spider technology to verify data, and no doubt collect the odd email along the way.

And I do mean major supplier, which says a lot for the state of their data. It is quite clear that people are cutting corners on the basics to maintain margins.

With new competitors entering the market, and some who seem to have no minimum price, this is no surprise. There is little differentiation in the marketplace. There are few suppliers who can claim any true USP’s, so I expect this trend to continue. 

Until the market allows data owners to make a half decent margin, at the very least.

Nanny is working herself up into a bit of a state

Doing business in the UK is a struggle. Our so-called free market economy is beleaguered with red tape and government interference, some of it good, some of it bad and some of it downright insane. And that is without our own trade associations giving us a good kicking.

Data protection, preference services, recycling, opt-in, opt-out, shake it all about and risk a fine from the ICO, a smack from the DMA and exposure in the Daily Mail.

It is hard enough as it is running a business and making a profit, without being assaulted on all sides. Joan Ruddock, government minister for Climate Change, Biodiversity and Waste, has warned direct marketers that unless we adopt greater use of the Recycle Now logo her government will have no option but to introduce opt-in laws.

She also told us to eat our greens, drink our milk and say our prayers before we go to bed. As a result, the DMA gets all overexcited and starts shouting the odds and kicking arse.

We have all been incredibly naughty and it is highly likely that we’ll be tucked up in bed early without our usual digestive biscuit if we don’t mend our ways.

I hope you are all suitably ashamed of yourselves.

Of course we should encourage people to recycle. Of course we should use suppression files. Of course we should do everything in our power to reduce waste. But we are not the worst offenders.

Joan picks on the poor little kids at the DMA, because the older, bigger ones at Tesco told her to go boil her head. How many copies of the Labour manifesto did Joan’s lot print before the last election? Whether it had the logo on it or not, it was a total waste, since their promise to hold a referendum on the European constitution doesn’t seem to be worth the paper it was written on?

Personally, I am for opt-in, so I don’t find Nanny Joan’s disciplinary code very motivational. I do resent her insulting our intelligence. I do think she ought to get her own house in order before she starts picking on us.

I also resent getting metaphorical kicks up the arse from the DMA. The future of direct marketing has sweet Fanny Adams to do with the Recycle Now logo.

Bend over, all you naughty boys and girls!

The DMA is talking tough about the industry missing recycling targets. Apparently we all need a kick up the arse, otherwise the government might punish us by introducing something nasty like opt-in. Obviously the government punishes people severely for missing targets, because they always hit theirs, don’t they?

Name me one government target that Tony and Gordon have hit since squirming into power? No, I couldn’t either, so it is a bit rich for the DM industry to feel threatened by the prospect of missing the target of 55% recycling agreed with the comrades some years ago.

However, the DMA, and Director of Media Channel Development Robert Keitch, are talking tough. Poor old Robert is hoarse from shouting at us, he tells Precision Marketing. We aren’t using the recycling logo, and that means it goes straight to the landfill, apparently.

You are probably the same at home, if it hasn’t got the logo, sod recycling it. Me and she who must be obeyed are together on this one, no logo, we can’t be bothered.

Rather than shouting and kicking its own members about recycling (everyone’s issue, not just the DM industry) the DMA should concentrate on helping Golden Brown dream up legislation that actually helps the industry. Opt-in would be quite a good thing actually. Especially if we do it right. Less cowboys, less crap data, more clarity.

The one’s most likely to get a kick up the arse are the Ostrich’s with their heads in the sand, and their tails in the air making an easy target. Being good little boys and girls, and making sure we put a recycling logo on every envelope, is not going to stop the world from changing any more than it will save the planet.

Hot leads worth their weight in gold

Every small business should have a website. No excuses. But too many of those that do just let them sit there. Picking up traffic, and getting that phone to ring, or the inbox to fill up, is not expensive. It’s not even particularly skilful. So why aren’t more people taking advantage?

Our business directories attract over 750,000 visitors a month (Countyweb.com & Zettai.net).

Not bad, but the result of considerable investment over 10 years, and the skills of some devilishly clever search engine optimisers who know how to get the best out of Google and co.

They deliver hot leads to websites, or puts the telephone number in front of potential customers when there is no link, but it does concern me that too few small businesses take advantage.

For a lot less than the price of a small latte a day, our clients can peg themselves at the top of the search tree, giving them incredible exposure. Pay per click advertising allows businesses to set their own budget, and benefit from precise targeting. But perhaps because it is all so reasonable, far too many of the businesses that would benefit most have not jumped on the bandwagon. 

Producing a website does not guarantee traffic. You need to work at it, publicise it, and make it easier for your clients to get in touch. This is not rocket science, but it seems the advert in the local paper feels more real.

Attitudes to online marketing have to change at the coal face before the benefits of online activity can blossom.

List Broking in danger of extinction?

All is not well in the list broking world, I hear. Several big names are letting staff move on to pastures new, one way or the other. What is really going on here? The model of experienced data experts adding value to client targeting and then negotiating the best possible rates is still relevant but the bigger brokers have struggled to make money out of it recently.

Broking on a large scale is quite a scary business.

Whilst average margins of around 15% are still achievable, albeit under pressure, the problems for the business owner are twofold.

Firstly, major clients are not too keen to sign contracts tying them to one broker. This means you move forwards on a campaign by campaign basis, and forecasting future revenue becomes a bit of a guessing game. With clients commonly building strong relationships with an individual broker, rather than the company, the potential for losing staff and clients is always there. This drives employment costs up at an alarming rate and that puts further pressure on profit margins at a time when competition is driving prices down. Lower prices are no good to a broker, as they commonly work on a percentage.

Secondly, large scale broking is a cash flow nightmare. The broker gets caught in the middle of cash demands for 100% of the deal, whilst only collecting a small percentage of that figure. If clients are slow paying their bills, the broker has to balance keeping their suppliers happy with their own cash position. 

Changing this scenario is not simple. Constructing contracts that move clients away from campaign by campaign arrangements is difficult, on both sides. The lack of new data on the market also makes it harder to add value.

In the B2C world the new mantra is lead generation, not cold data. The important role of the traditional list broker is therefore under severe pressure.

The Murky world of B2B email

Everyone involved should know the rules for B2C email. But B2B is an afterthought amongst all the regulations designed to protect the consumer from large tins of processed meat arriving in their inbox. We spend ages worrying about opt-in and opt-out, and shaking it all about, but the truth is we are wasting our time.

Having spent a happy hour reading the ICO guidelines again, it seems clear to me that no one really gives a damn what people do in B2B email.

Apart from the rights of an individual employee, whose name is held on a corporate database, to opt-out from receiving mail, none of the other regulations seem to apply.

In this huge grey area, the less scrupulous data suppliers can do just about as they please. Because B2B is a complicated market, with generic names mixing with individuals, much less data is available and often little data behind the email address to allow adequate targeting. In a business universe of around 2.5m businesses, employing circa 29.4m people, I would be surprised if there are more than 1.5m email addresses available to rent or buy at any one time, thus far.

So, a tiny fraction...and at least a fifth of those will be generic emails. The best B2B lists available have a robust double opt-in process, usually based around collecting the email then emailing it to confirm it is alive. Some, me included, collect the data then telephone the individual to confirm details, collecting the back data behind the address at the same time. But the numbers remain quite small. The unsubscribe rates remain high (although some of the bandits out there ignore unsubscribed) and the prices come tumbling down.

I am amongst a number of data owners trying to build a premium list, but signing up the numbers are a challenge. Therefore expect to be seeing more data collected by spiders.

Of course, there are best practise guidelines, but few people take much notice of them. It is a mess. The only answer is for clients to ask more questions and demand better data.