Brilliant Thinking

We get asked this question quite a lot because people think it’s a cheap way of running a mailing list.

The problem is that the BCC was not intended to be used in this way - it is intended to be a method of copying a small number of people (usually one or two) into a communication without the actual addressees knowing. This is useful to keep people “in the loop” on an issue so that they have the backstory when they need to get involved.

However, spammers (in particular) have abused the BCC field, and through their actions have effectively outlawed it as a method of operating a legitimate mailing list.

Here are a few reasons why it’s bad:

• The number of BCC addresses is normally limited to a small number of recipients. 50 seems to be quite common but it can be lower. Consequently, larger mailing lists need to be split into multiple messages.
• Companies operating mail servers look for patterns in mail messages to determine if they are spam or you are a spammer. So, if you do split your campaign up into multiple messages using BCC to split the list and then send these messages off through your mail account, your ISP could happily drop (delete) some or all of your outgoing messages because they look like you are spamming (it’s called acceptable use and you are in breach). In the worst case, you could have your account suspended.

If your messages do manage to get out through your ISPs mail server, they have to contend with the recipients mail servers. Here, they go through the same types of checks as your outgoing server plus a lot more. Here are some of them:

• The intended recipient is not listed in the TO field could cause your email to be treated as spam - since you used the BCC field you will always fail this test and a lot of emails disappear this way. A further check to see if the recipient (TO) is the same as the sender (FROM) adds weight to the “might be spam” check; “legitimate” senders often send a message to themselves and BCC everyone else - however, this looks like spam to the spam filters (spammers fake email addresses in the FROM and TO fields)
• If you’re using HTML emails, use high quality HTML emails. Don’t use tools which generate horrendous HTML (example: MS Word). They often leave signs behind (like empty tags, eg: <b></b>)Â which are generally found in spam. Make sure your HTML is valid (run it through a decent validator). Unbalanced tags and invalid tags will also flag an email as spam. If you use a title, make sure the title is meaningful — the default titles generated by HTML tools are often used as spamsign.
• Use email composition and mailing tools that work correctly. Well constructed emails (technically correct) can be readily identified as not-spam. Emails with missing mime sections, invalid or missing date headers, subject lines or other headers with unescaped unicode, etc., are frequently signs of spam. A mime section is a part of the email message - for example, if you use Outlook to compose an HTML (pretty) email message then there will only be an HTML mime section (the part that contains the HTML message). As a general rule, safer emails should have a plain text mime section AS WELL so that they are better welcomed by the recipient ISP’s spam filters.

There are many, many more reasons why an email could be thought of as spam, and you can read more about possible problems at this article on the SpamAssassin site (we also use SpamAssassin on our servers).

So in summary: no, it’s not OK to use BCC for a mailing list.

Here are some alternatives:

• Use systems such as Mailman (we operate this system on our servers). Cost: Nil.
• Install something like phpList. Cost: The annual cost of adding a mySQL database to your hosting plan; Maintenance charges to upgrade the system to new versions when they are released
• Use a third-party system like Campaign Monitor. Cost: USD5 + USD0.01 per recipient per mailing
• Outsource (we use both of Mailman and Campaign Monitor). Cost: Design & Consultancy, plus any distribution costs

(These costs do not include any installation or configuration tasks that may be required).

Systems like Mailman provide a “basic” system that allows you to build and run large mailing lists. Under the surface it is a sophisticated system as it manages subscriptions, unsubscribe requests, bounced emails and much, much more. Once you have set it up, is all you need to do is send your email TO the mailing list and Mailman does the rest, sending your message individually to each person on your mailing list.

Systems like Campaign Monitor give you a host of marketing tools to compliment your campaigns. As well as the standard subscription and bounce management, you can view open rates and other statistics so you can track how your messages are being viewed. The online interface for managing your list is also much more user friendly, but you get what you pay for!

Open source systems like phpList sit somewhere between the two, providing a mixture of standard and enhanced features. The risk (for hosting companies) with systems like phpList is the load they place on the server. Because they are installed on your website, they need to use PHP to generate and send the emails, so larger mailing lists (e.g. > 1750) will put a heavy load on the server; systems like Mailman operate at a different level and so don’t have this immediate performance impact.

Outsourcing is always a good option if you don’t want the hassle, or (more likely) need your emails to be on brand and consistent in appearance. Your design/marketing company will ensure that all email campaigns are produced to the same standard (so you don’t need to learn how to code them or abuse your brand guidelines) and sent using an appropriate system. Of course, outsourcing costs more because you have to pay for the service of producing the email layouts and that’s a value decision for your business.

Only if you’re prepared to play the long game.

Leads:
As a niche consultancy that specialises in high-value consultancy with a long sales cycle that requires multiple contact points with the client, the chances of pay-per-click advertising generating leads that develop into new business will be rare. Hence you will need to budget for a long period of displaying your ads before any return is likely.

Establishing Credibility:
Your potential clients are going to be researching consultancy companies who may be able to help them with their issues and, while pay-per-click advertising guarantees to put your name in front of them, their issues are not likely to require a “quick fix” (which is what pay-per-click is most effective at delivering). Consequently, most potential clients will be looking for additional supporting information that establishes your credibility as a supplier of consultancy services. This credibility is better established through your excellent case studies as well as by publishing articles in journals and on online information websites. Always get your website mentioned in everything you publish - a credible website is essential to completing the marketing collateral for your company and establishing credibility. Your website then acts as a sales influencer either as a second-line tool after you may have had a meeting with a potential client, or as an influencer in concert with an article they have read.

Brand Awareness:
On the flip side, paying for advertising is a good way of increasing brand recognition which itself creates an indirect influence on buying habits, so a pay-per-click campaign may be good for your brand development in the long-run but I wouldn’t expect to look for direct sales as a result.

I’m not going to beat around the bush with lots of theory, background, references and all that jazz - just get straight to the point. There is a simple model which can help you plan your next pay-per-click campaign (or for that matter approach any of your online marketing campaigns) which is completely business focused.

All businesses exist for a reason, and, as time passes, become more focused on a particular niche. I say as time passes because some businesses start out generalists only to later specialise in one area based on demand. However, many successful businesses start out with a clear focus to shorten the “experimentation” time. Let’s assume you’re at the point where you know your business and can write down a few key things about it. Here’s what you need to write down (for B2B):

• Your Vertical Markets (What most of your clients do)
• You Horizontal Disciplines (How you help most of your clients)
• The Benefits you offer, or the Pains that they experience

or for B2C:

• The types of customers you want to sell to (age, incomes, etc - demographics)
• What area of their lives you can affect (health, lifestyle, affluence, etc)
• How your product or service helps them in these areas

Now, this provides us with a great cube/matrix - the verticals are on one axis, the horizontals on another, and the benefits on the third. When you join them up in 3D space, each intersection point, or cell, equates to a specific campaign you can run. You don’t have to run them all, but at least you can assess which ones you should run - you can perform keyword analysis on each cell and determine a return for that cell. Armed with this knowledge you can move forward and plan the campaigns you should run instead of a scattergun approach that many people adopt.

This might sound like Marketing 101 to some, but it helps you define your core messages that allow you to reach your ideal prospects. And then you need to stick to them religiously throughout everything you do - and that includes online marketing.

I haven’t seen such a simple model used anywhere else as this one that we use at Emissary, but I would recommend it to help in generating effective results. If you decide to adopt it, I’d also like to hear your feedback too.

Marketers from 110 organizations contributed test results and lessons-learned stories for this fourth annual Wisdom Report, including: American Red Cross, CompUSA, Cox Communications, Deloitte & Touche, Palo Alto Software, and The Motley Fool. What is covered:

• Email campaign segmentation test results
• Search marketing lessons (especially combining PPC and SEO)
• Offline advertising and marketing lessons
• Web site design and landing page lessons
• Business-to-Business marketing campaign lessons
• Office politics and job searching tips for a successful marketing career

Plus, practical tips from ad agency executives and consultants on how to run a healthier business and land new clients. Click here to get your free 2006 Wisdom PDFÂ (1.5Mb).

Marketing Sherpa quizzed 680 marketers who spend an average of 44% of their total ad and marketing budgets on the Web. The key results show that:

• More budget is spent on search than anything else (even email)
• Search spending averages 34% of online budgets
• Behavioral ads have lost some of their luster
• RSS feeds and in-house blogs are favorite ‘emerging tactics’

What works:

Until now, in-house email marketing lists have performed better than any other online tactic. However, 52% of survey respondants concur that [paid] search now outperforms in-house (i.e. your own rather than bought) email lists (47% of respondants). It is interesting to note that organic search (optimisation) comes in with 33% of respondants agreeing it is a great tactic.

What doesn’t:

Similarly, 52% of respondants agreed that bought email lists generated poorer results than other online tactics (although this is US-based, so UK figures will be different - so don’t exclude bought-in email lists just yet). Part of the reason for this is that email filtering has reduced the number of emails that get through or marked as spam. (In a separate question asking marketers what they’d invest in if they had some extra budget, email lists score well.) The next swathe of tactics getting poor results include pop-up, pop-under, banner ads, ads in newsletters, rich media ads and text link ads - basically, ads!

What to spend money on in 2006?

Just in the lead is the “website revamp and/or update” with 39%, pipping search engine marketing with 38%. Ads still feature highly, and a good few people are looking at branded desktop applications like the Google toolbar - 14%. The ‘average’ online marketing budget for 2006 sees just over a third going to search.

Of course, marketing is nothing without measurement, and over 60% of those surveyed said they would be investing in better analytics software for their sites. Google Analytics recently launched a free online version of the former Urchin software and it’s excellent. However, due to oversubscription you’ll have to join a waiting list to use the service. There are numerous other free and paid systems on the market and you should choose the one that’s right for your business.

What’s best in emerging tactics?

RSS and in-house blogs featured as the top two best emerging tactics, although some respondants thought that they might take a year or so to develop fully. Other responses included ads on other peoples blogs, as well as video and mobile. Longer term, product placement in video games (already underway) would become more prevalent.

Marketing Sherpa ad:tech survey (open access to 26th January).
ad:tech