Email: Revolting and Beautiful and Powerful if You Get it Right

David Daniels, VP and Research Director at JupiterKagan Inc. and Jeanniey Mullen, Senior Partner at OgilvyOne Worldwide. Below is coverage of their presentation today, although you won't realize that for a couple paragraphs. And you can compliment my page composition skills later. Also, I just realized that Mr. Daniels might think the headline was written to describe the photographs. That was not my intention. Please bear with me. --Tom Hagy

MIAMI -- I live in Pennsylvania, probably near a swamp. In the summer there are these pesky bugs that swirl around your head with one goal and one goal only: to fly directly into your eyes and drown in your tears. I now wear goggles during the summer months, a fashion accessory that is getting raves in the neighborhood.

These bugs are almost as annoying as the volumes of email I get. That is probably because of the volumes of email I send. But my stuff is really important. Like this blog.

Apparently I am not alone. Well, at the moment I am extremely alone, and finally figured out how to work the air conditioner here at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel. It’s now 40 degrees here in room 803, much better than the 30 degrees of the last two days. If I’d woken up this a.m. spooning with a polar bear I would not have been surprised.

Oh, right, I am not alone. We all get tons of email, and companies who send them, smart ones, are finding ways to integrate and improve email communication with customers with admirably profitable results.

Jeanniey Mullen of OgilvyOne Worldwide and David Daniels of JupiterKagan Inc. closed the SIPA marketing conference here with some useful context, techniques and best practices to use email and related devices to have a significant impact on brand advocacy, customer loyalty, e-commerce sales, viral marketing and offline sales.

Some fun factoids. According to the JupiterKagan research cited throughout the presentation, consumers get about 274 personal emails a week and another 304 at work per week. 70% percent have two accounts. 8% perform email triage via their handhelds.

Email is still the #1 online activity, but it is decreasing, according to Mr. Daniels.

“Email bankruptcy” is a movement for those of us sick of email – like Moby – and just want the world to start picking up the phone again. And some of us would prefer you leave a message under our windshield wipers.

For email subscriptions, 53% of people unsubscribe because the content is irrelevant, 40% because the sender is sending too much, too often. An unknown percentage just doesn’t like your smirk.

Bills. 25% of people are now suppressing their paper billing statements in favor of email statements. That goes up to 33% if you make over 100K, a reason to ask for a raise if I ever heard one. There is no difference according to age here. I have begun suppressing bills in all media.

Understand this: people actually opt in because they trust your brand. But before you start designing your emails, focus first on how you acquire your email addresses, how much data you want, where you will ask for the information, how you handle it. Get that right first.

Portability. Thanks to handhelds people seeking instant gratification can now get it, at least when it comes to email, information, and commerce. Earlier this year 10% of those polled made new purchases this way, a number that just jumped to 18%, according to Mr. Daniels.

Improving renewals. Ms. Mullen noted her work with one publisher revealed that their renewal rates were 97% higher among readers who opted in for email correspondence.

Text messaging. For you thumb jockeys out there, note that 27% of those polled use TXT more for personal use than email. Ms. Mullen cited as an example an airline ad that encouraged people to send a text message to the customer with their email address to get something for free. She saw this ad while waiting for her bag at an airport. Maybe next they will ask for a TXT to get the bag within 8 hours.

RSS. 7% of those polled adopted RSS, but this leans more toward guys in the 35-44 age range. A good example of this is Travelocity RSS and Blackberry RSS.

Social Sites. 18% of the online population now use these sites for networking. They also use them for fun and seeing if they are more successful than their high school friends. But enough about me. 50% of people 18-24 years old use these sites more than email for communicating; 32% of those 25-34 do so.

Note how social networking capability can facilitate discussion and how Microsoft, for example, is aggregating your conversations to understanding user behaviors. For example, the speakers noted that 80% of people start discussing their weekend on Wednesdays after 6 p.m. and then start talking about something different on Saturday at noon, about when I am getting out of bed.

18% of people will forward promotional email. When I have done it, it was usually emails like the ones that promised I could enlarge my pancreas. I don’t even want to know why. You have a lot more credibility if someone else, a friend, forwards your email to a friend. The power of viral communication is compelling.

Customer service. 90% of customers call customer service when something is wrong and 40% aren’t satisfied after that first call. Following up with email that is valuable, timely and relevant can keep the conversation going and improve customer satisfaction. The speakers noted the use of video helps tremendously in this regard. It keeps your readers’ attention. They noted how IBM sent out a video of Ned and Gil trapped in a server maze. It was funny, viewed a ton, and got customers engaged.

Good to know. Conversations happen inside and outside the inbox. People talk, text, and actually discuss you face to face. “The opt-in is worth as much as your best customers’ spending history,” Ms. Mullens said. Your reputation, actual and reliable delivery of your email, rendering of the email itself (good looking? Who cares. Can they view it?) and relevancy (will they care?) – are critical to effective email communication.

10 Points to Build Your Email Newsletter Experience

1) Put top search words in your email copy.
2) Drive opt in via all media channels.
3) Integrate email with media launches.
4) Let social networks carry your message.
5) I missed #5 because the guy next to me wanted to tell me about his high school rock band.
6) Ensure your message renders correctly on a range of devices.
7) Prepare a mobile landing page.
8) Leverage subscriber behavior.
9) Leverage partners to grow lists.
10) Test test test!!!!

Please share anything I might have missed, confused or misspelled. If you have #5, please tell him to call his wife. And by all means, PLEASE INSULT ME if that helps you make your point.