THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12th

Europe VS. USA: Overview of the email market

The Key-note speech by David Daniels (VP and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research) was introduced by the host of the European Email Marketin Conference, Jeanniey Mullen. Both of them are co-authors of the book Email Marketing "An hour a Day". David gave an overview of the USA and European market. Which resulted in the conclusion that they are very similar.

Email is here to stay! Email is a strong digital fingerprint throughout the online landscape. Regard email as a powerful hub to all internet platforms, like websites, social communities and other online platforms.
However, there are still lessons to be learnt:

1) Understand the value of subscribers, focus on their behaviour
2) Make content easy to share, from consumer prospective
3) Really learn about social behaviour: it's not a risk but an opportunity
4) Use email as a connector between consumer touch points that you mantain
5) Test. Test. Test and embrace the notion of failure (we are not surgeons, we can make mistakes but have to learn)

Email and Retail: The intersection of mobile, social, promotional and transactional conversations
Intereactive workshop with moderator Bruce Biegel (Managing Director, Winterberry Group) and the speakerspanel: Volker Wiewer (CEO, E-circle), Tim Suther (Senior Vice President Digital Marketing Services, Acxiom), Ian Hitt (Managing Director, Epsilon International EMEA)

Discussion topics about email marketing related to retail.

Main challenges:
- Strategy concerning multi-channel approach is still a challenge within retail organisations (DM versus EM)
- Proof of power for the combination of differrent channels, for example; mobile and email
- Be aware of data hygiene, analyse the respons of active subscribers and develop different programs based on analysis
- Don't keep pushing email to people who do not respond. They did not respond and they will not convert, it is damaging the reputation of your company

Case Study: A study in multi-lingual, global approach of IHG
Presentation of Charlie Aspey (Email Marketing Manager, International Hotel Group; oa. International Hotels en Holiday Inn) and Dela Ouist (Alcheny), who are responsible for the email campaigns of the International Hotel Group). They told us that they focus on lifecycle management on the long term spread over emails instead of focussing on the perfect email, with sales as a direct result. Interesting was that Dela Quist told us that matching CRM data (hotel reservation information) with email often has to be done manually. The perfect situation where all systems consist completely filled profiles are still not (yet) integrated with each other

Selling by serving. How Icelandair uses email marketing to keep customers coming back
Presentation by Peter Mc. Cormick (Vice President, ExactTarget Global and Katrin Erna Gunnarsdottir (Projectmanager, Webmarketing & Business Development, Icelandair)
Email marketing strategy and cross channel highlights in the campaign: content integration with facebook, follow-up/thank you mail by CEO personally. Consumers are facilitated in sahring there experiences and feedback. No specific results have been shared

Compliance and reputation: Two key pillars for your company
Follows later

Case Study: Email marketing strategy based on life cycle of the customer
Follows later

How to be relevant and get your timing right
Follows later

Friday, NOVEMBER 13th

It’s you and me against the spammers
Presentation by Mark Risher (Senior Director of product management and Spam Czar”, Yahoo mail)

He told us that Yahoo blocks 1.000.000.000 mails an hour!! Therefore it is important to make sure that your mail is not qualified as spam. Yahoo blocks so many mails because they want to know how people act on mail. Most of the time when there is no action on a specific mail, Yahoo will mark it as spam . The right content and the possibility to opt out contributes to a good reputation besides the frequency of your mailings.

So, focus on good consistent and attractive content, and they will open your mail!

Digital decisions: When to use e-mail, social, mobile or online to communicate clearly
Best practices are from before 2007 and are not relevant anymore. The most important thing is:

Who do you trust?
Consumers have less trust in banks, governments or leaders of the world. The people they trust the most are family and friends. Inside information from them is the best information for action. Also multi-brand/brand owned websites are seen as trustworthy. So it’s important to integrate email with community, multi brand and brand owned websites (example: “add this” button).

The deliverables of deliverability
Katherine Pay (Managing director, Ezemail UK ltd) was the moderator during the discussion between the speakers Guy Shelton (VP Sales & Client services Europe, Return Path), Ben Isaacson (Privacy & Compliance leader, CIPP, Cheetahmail) and Skip Fidura (Digital director, dotagency)

Good opening rates but does your mail successfully end in the inbox? There are several things you must do to ensure a good deliverability. It’s impossible to mention them all of course, but:
- Make sure you connect to the available feedback loops
- Authenticate your email (DomainKeys or DKIM)
- Don’t mail the dead
- Be sure to tackle grey-listing by setting up resending your email, even after a full day
- Monitor your reputation at Senderbase or Senderscore.org
- You could join programs like Goodmail or Returnpath