A New Sheriff In Town: Part 3

We’ve been talking about Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), Bill C-28, and its impact on email marketing. We’ve seen that the difference between expressed and implied consent is going to be crucial for associations, and that it will take some time database management systems to catch up with the new legislation.

But while we’re looking at best practices for email marketing, here are a couple of other points to keep in mind:

·         Every bulk email you distribute should include an unsubscribe link. It should be conspicuous, in a clearly contrasting font colour, so anyone who’s looking for the link can find it right away.

·         Your unsubscribe system should get the job done in a single keystroke. You don’t have to confirm that they really, really meant to unsubscribe, and there’s probably no need to ask them why they’re leaving unless the information will support your future work. (There’s a difference here between unsubscribing from a distribution list and letting an association membership lapse.)

·         You can prevent a share of your future unsubscribes by clarifying peoples’ content preferences as soon as they join your organization or subscribe to a list. If you send each of your audiences the tailored information they need, at the frequency they prefer, and nothing more, you’ll be more likely to retain their confidence and their participation.

Consumer preference isn’t a new concept, and neither is privacy protection. Both re-emerged as business communications issues when email surged into the market. But if you want to comply with CASL and do the right thing for your members and subscribers, “do unto others…” is a surprisingly simple place to start.

Go back to earlier installments of this series: Part 1 and Part 2.

A New Sheriff In Town: Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, Part 2

When Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), Bill C-28, was implemented in December 2010, it took most associations by surprise. Now, the challenge is to make sure your database complies with the legislation.

The first post in our New Sheriff series explained the important issue of consent in email marketing, but understanding the rules is just the first step. Here are some questions to help you align your database with the new law:

·         How do you capture the information that goes into your database?

·         Does every member file distinguish between expressed and implied consent?

·         After a member consents, do you keep supporting proof on file, including the statement to which they consented?

·         Do you have a double opt-in process to make sure your members are really signing up?

If your database management system was designed before CASL was introduced, it may not be set up to easily accommodate the changes it requires. If you introduce a new management system in the near or more distant future, you’ll want to build CASL requirements into your plans. Until then, you can use user-defined fields or text boxes to keep the best records you can.

Once your records are organized, the next step is a plan for encouraging your contacts to convert from implied to expressed consent. If that sounds like a chore, we can help.

Still wondering why this is worth doing? Apart from staying within the law and preventing future complaints, a permission-based strategy really does make you a more effective marketer and deliver better results. You might start out complying with CASL because you have to. But some day, you may look back and decide the legislation was one of the best things that ever happened to your marketing strategy.

Ready to read more?  See Part 3 of this series.

A New Sheriff In Town: Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, Part 1

There’s a new sheriff in town for anyone involved in email marketing in Canada.

Its name is Bill C-28. It’s been setting up shop over the last year. Its main purpose is to enforce the email behaviour that Miss Manners would always expect of you.

Except that, since the government adopted Bill C-28, the new privacy provisions known as Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), this is one area where good behaviour is now the law of the land.

We’re not lawyers, but we’ve already begun helping our clients navigate Bill C-28. Most of them have never heard of it—when the legislation passed in December 2010, they were too busy running their associations or businesses to notice. The government and the Canadian Marketing Association are still working out details of how the bill will be implemented. But it’s time to get ready, and the difference between implied and expressed consent is a good place to start.

·         If someone has joined your organization, they’ve given you expressed consent to receive your communications. You’ll have a more satisfied member if you invite them to choose the topics, formats, and frequency of communication they want to receive from you, and periodically remind them that the choice is theirs to make. But under CASL, you’re covered.

·         If you meet a prospective member at a dinner or collect their business card at a trade show, you have implied consent to communicate with them—but only for two years. That means your booth representatives have to note the date of contact and your database has to track it.

·         Expressed consent is only valid if you clearly explain what your contact is agreeing to receive, and provide a link to your privacy policy. After they agree, you have to send them a confirmation email, and we strongly recommend using a double opt-in format to make sure they’re sure about signing up.

The same distinction applies to funders, exhibitors, and all your other partners. If they sponsor an event, buy an ad, sign up for a booth, they’ve given you their expressed consent to communicate. If they haven’t signed up to a formal business relationship, the consent is implied, and the two-year clock is running.

On the surface, CASL sounds like a relief for anyone who’s been buried in a deluge of email spam. But implementation is complicated, and we’ve already begun advising our clients on the database issues that result. We’ll deal with those issues in Parts 2 and Part 3 of this blog series.

Greenfield Services to attend CSAE Tête-à-Tête

On Thursday, February 9^th, 2012 leaders of Associations, Not-For-Profits, Professional Meeting Planners as well as Government Producers will be heading to the Ottawa Convention Centre to attend 2012’s installment of CSAE’s Tête-à-Tête – and Greenfield Services Inc is thrilled to be joining them!

As a platinum sponsor of the event, Doreen Ashton Wagner (Chief Strategist & Managing Director) & Meagan Rockett (Director, Client Solutions) are looking forward to re-connecting with old friends, and establishing new relationships.

Every year Tête-à-Tête continues to grow, and 2012 is shaping up to be the best year yet!  For more information on the event, or to register, please click here.  Feel free to stop by our booth (#415), or contact us by email to pre-book an appointment.  We look forward to seeing you all at the show!

Email Marketing and Making a Good First Impression

Subject lines are key in email marketing.  They determine whether a contact reads your message or not.

In October 2011, I posted a blog about understanding Email Marketing & Designing the Right Message for your Members.  This blog post focused on understanding which browser or device (desktop computer, tablet, smart phone, etc.) the recipient uses to view your message.

Along the same lines, your subject title deserves planning.  Consider the following:

LENGTH: Some research suggests keeping subject line to no more than 50 characters for desktop users, and less than 30 characters for people using mobile devices.

Because it can be difficult to determine how your messages are read (unless you survey those receiving your content), we would recommend aiming for the middle (between 35-45 characters maximum).  Within that short space, you need to deliver a subject line with impact, so that people see potential value in the content and want to open your email to view the rest of the information/offer.

PROMINENCE:  Because your subject line could get cut off, put your most important information first.  Instead of “XYZ Association’s National Conference Registration Now Open” try “Register Now - XYZ Association National Conference”.         

PRECISION:  Vague messages are less likely to be opened than those with a specific topic (e.g. Your Information Request).   Be careful about static email subject lines, as they may get overlooked over time.  For instance, our newsletter is titled “Greenfield Insights”, and it appears on our website as such, however when sending it out via email our subject line focuses on the topic of the email first. Examples are:

• Connecting the Dots – Greenfield Insights
• Where are all the suppliers? – Greenfield Insights

BUILD TRUST: Maintaining trust with your members/subscribers will ensure that they continue to be engaged with your messages, and act on what you have to say.  One way to ensure that you build and maintain trust is to ensure that your subject line coincides with the message your email contains.

TEST-TEST-TEST:  Test your message with different subject lines to see which subject line is more effective.  Always test at least two different approaches.

• Example 1:  Subject Line A:  XYZ Tradeshow – Registration Now Open
• Example 2:  Subject Line B:  Five Reasons to Attend XYZ Tradeshow

 If you can, deploy the test first, and then use the most popular subject to deploy the rest of your messages.
Give it a try, your audience may surprise you with more engaged activity!

Event Promotion and Twitter

Twitter is rapidly growing in popularity to engage your potential delegates for your upcoming event. When it comes to event promotion, it’s a great place to:

• Connect with other marketers and influencers
• Generate general buzz about your event
• Create conversations which in turn generate interest in attending your event

Here’s how it works (and some tips to help you along the way):

Create a Twitter Account
Create one for either your organization as a whole, or specific to your event (i.e. you can have a twitter account specifically for your National Conference & Tradeshow).  Do your best to stay away from using your own personal twitter account for this purpose, as those following you on a personal level may be confused about your event posts.

Creating your Twitter account, by including design elements your target market will recognize or will easily relate to.

Create brand recognition by using your organization’s logo, the logo of the event, etc.  You have the ability to customize your background as well – try to keep it consistent with your other branding material, visually appealing but not “cluttered”.  Ensure that when it is found, followers recognize it for what it is.

Create a Hashtag for your event (#eventname)
What is a Hashtag and how do you create one?  Its simple.  It’s a keyword or acronym with a pound sign in front of it.  Anyone can include it in their tweets.  Twitter users can search hashtags and save their search to follow conversations and updates about the event.

When creating a hashtag for your event, keep it simple.  Make it easily identifiable for your followers and short so that tweets can have the hashtag included.

To create one that is unique to your organization, you can research existing hashtags first to ensure it is not already in use, thus, causing confusion when promoting your event.

Ensure you are advertising the event hashtag in all other areas (membership emails, print materials, signage, etc) generate more Twitter chatter.

Encourage Tweets with the use of your Event Hashtag
Using the hashtag will engage members who are attending, and those who are not able to attend your event to be kept up to date on all of the action!

• Prior to the event:  When there is an update about speakers, sessions, sponsors, etc, tweet about it through your event’s Twitter account, and use the hashtag in the message.    Promote early registration deadlines (i.e #eventname register by Jan 15 and get $200 off conference fee), celebrate goals (#eventname just hit the halfway point for registrations), promote your sponsors (Its official! @sponsorname is hosting the opening reception at #eventname).
• During the event:  Encourage your delegates to tweet about sessions, start a Q&A by tweeting questions to presenters.  Request your presenters Twitter handles and promote them in the conference materials.  Ask them to tweet about speaking at your event.  Prior to commencing the presentation, encourage speakers to promote their Twitter handle and the event’s, so that questions can be directed. 
• Have someone monitor tweets with your hashtag and respond in real time at the event.  Though some organizers find this risky, display a feed of the tweets in common areas of your conference (or, if you can, in every session) to encourage users to keep the conversation going.  Yes, some delegates may tweet negative comments or may even diss the speaker.  But this is the ultimate audience feedback system!  Answering a negative tweet will show how you care about member engagement.
• Remember that those who have not been able to attend will be watching… so give them something to talk about!  Tweet findings, “quotable quotes”, photos of the event.  Those monitoring the chatter will re-tweet, meaning that your event will get more exposure.
• After the event:  Keep the conversation going!  Ask for feedback, suggestions on future topics, locations, etc.  to be posted with the use of your hashtag.

With over 380 million users, Twitter can be a great tool to help you engage delegates, sponsors, exhibitors and members at large.

Did a Mistake Happen While B2B Marketing?

Much to my chagrin, it just happened to me.  Recently promoted, I embraced my new role and decided to start with an email marketing campaign to attendees from a conference I attended recently.  A lot of time went into preparing a series of targeted messages, stressing the value of creating a membership renewal process, member engagement and keeping your database clean.

A fellow team member researched each organization on my list, so I could select the best organizations to target from the entire list of conference attendees.  Since I had not met these people at the conference, the plan was to send introductory messages with educational resources about our company's services, with appropriate follow-up calls.

I was so excited press the “send” button (on my birthday to boot), only to find out a few hours later that data was corrupted during the list upload.  Somehow the marketing automation software used to deploy emails changed about 20% of my recipients' first names to "Sylvie".  Yes, all those important association Executive Directors, many of them men, received a "Dear Sylvie" message.  I was HUMILIATED!

Getting over the initial shock (and avoiding my first instinct to crawl under my desk and pretend this was not happening), I had a great conversation with my boss and realized that these circumstances were beyond my control.  Still, something needed to be done.

I have now come up with my apology note, that will accompany the correct message (as it was supposed to look), advising that there was a technical glitch and that while it was unfortunate, there are some great lessons to learn here.

What are the lessons? Everyone is human, things happen.  No software solution is perfect.  Even after testing, some things may go wrong.  And while the software Help Desk people heard an earful from me, they cannot 100% guarantee that it is going to work 100% of the time.  The human element is always there, and with that, come mistakes.  I hope now that I will get more respect owning up to it instead of pretending it didn't happen. Oh, and I think it’s time to start taking the day off for my birthday…