It is no longer the realm of spammers, but is firmly established as the fastest direct marketing medium, successfully used for both customer acquisition and retention, and a highly accountable one. The concept of obtaining permission to send marketing messages, and of encouraging prospects and customers to provide more information about themselves is at its very foundation. It is best to ask for more information in order to target specific groups with specific messages; the reality of one-to-one marketing.

While obtaining e-mail addresses and permission to use them from current customers is common, prospecting via e-mail requires more planning and strategy. In this article, I would like to outline practical steps to successful permission e-mail marketing.

The critical steps to successful prospecting:
1. Start knowing your list: There are hundreds, if not thousands, of permission e-mail lists on the market. Permission is more critical when prospecting with e-mail marketing than when communicating with customers in this medium; an established customer may forgive an occasional unsolicited e-mail message, but a prospect will not. Not using opt-in e-mail marketing lists when prospecting not only risks damaging the brand with spam, but also kills the potential for any subsequent marketing efforts to the same audience. Ensure that your list is 100 per cent opt-in and meets permission standards (at least, voluntary sign-up to be on the list and the opportunity to unsubscribe at any time), then make sure the target audience is interested in your offer. Finally, since you will usually be using an outside (rented) list in your prospecting efforts, ask the list owner or broker some penetrating questions:

@ What is the source of the names on the list? (This may be obvious, such as a company or credit card issuer that rents its customer file, but if you do not ask, you will not have a basis for understanding if the list is 100 per cent opt-in.)
@ How often do the members on the list are mailed?
@ Have the list members indicated a preference for when and how often they would like to be contacted, and whether those preferences are honoured?
@ What percentage of the list can accept messages in HTML (vs. text)?
@ What is the average weekly (or monthly) unsubscribe rate, and what was the last time the list was mailed?
@ What is the average undeliverable rate?
@ Whether companies like yours (or similar offers) have mailed to the list before (and if so, what were the response rates and what can you expect)?
@ Whether the response metrics and history on the list are available?
The more you get to know the list owner or can be sure that your broker does, the better targeted the e-mail marketing campaign can be.

2. Custom design your offer, and your message, to an online audience: You are reaching people who have specifically stated they want to receive marketing messages online, so simply retrofitting a print piece will not cut it. Think in a whole new medium and craft your campaign accordingly. The rule of the game is customisation, since technology makes this not only possible but easy to do. When devising the offer, the more exclusive you can make it to the e-mail marketing medium, the better your response is likely to be. For example, if you have a standard offer running in print or broadcast, kick it up a notch for e-mail marketing so that a normal 25 per cent discount becomes a 30 per cent discount in the e-mail message. Or offer a free gift, or free shipping, for online orders only. Better yet, come up with a new offer that is not only relevant and exclusive, but timely because it is tied to a buying season, month, holiday or life event.

Once you, or your agency, begin writing and designing the message, remember that the average person's attention span online is drastically shorter than when looking at offline direct marketing media. And as e-mail boxes become ever-more congested, you have only seconds to make an impression and get your message opened. Mention your offer and, if you have it, a well-known brand name in the subject line to improve open rates.

Once the message is opened, you still have to keep prospects reading. Short, digestible blocks of copy and bulleted lists often work best, because most people scan their e-mail before reading it. Provide graphics (for HTML messages) or links that draw the eye toward clear calls to action to increase response. Construct the message with a focused objective and offer. (You don't have to cram multiple offers into one message, because you can always e-mail again.) Also, provide multiple links - at least one toward the top and another at the bottom of the message.

3. Test, test, and test: Permission e-mail marketing is the ideal testing medium, because there are a wide variety of elements to test. It is easy and cost-effective to create multiple audience cells and message versions, and the results are nearly instantaneous. Use your campaigns to learn exactly which combination of audience, offer and creative variables drives the best response. Testing lists and audience segments are usually the best place to start. Because there may be multiple segments or lists, each of which will yield a different response rate, it is worth it to isolate those that perform best. Meanwhile, it is certainly possible to test other variables simultaneously or subsequently. Some of those that affect response rates most are the offer (that is, Rs 500 off Vs 20 per cent off), subject line, message format (text vs. HTML or rich media), and incentives (such as bumper draw or contests).

4. Explore a variety of creative options and message formats: Most e-mail marketing campaigns today are done in either plain text or HTML formats, but rich media-using audio and video content or buy-within-the-e-mail-functionality is rapidly gaining popularity. Often, a rich media campaign requires no more technical capability than would be needed to receive and view an HTML message. If you have compelling audio or video content, or if your product or service is best when demonstrated, rich media e-mail is worth exploring. Make sure the company executing your campaign can deliver both text and HTML formats (almost all can) and can test, to a seed list, how your messages will come across on-screen before your campaign actually flies. Most of the time, however, you will not be able to get a 100 per cent HTML-compatible list of prospects; millions of individuals still use e-mail software that supports text-only messages, and so you will most likely need a text version of your offer that corresponds to the HTML message. Make sure you are working with a list provider that can identify which list members can accept HTML messages and which cannot.

Let me now take you through a few other critical issues which are important from any perspective; not just that of permission e-mail marketing.

Do not let your site let you down. Most e-mail advertisers drive campaign responders to a Web site via a link in the e-mail message. Unless your ultimate objective is simply to obtain site visitors, what happens when those prospects arrive on the site is the difference between a successful e-mail marketing initiative and a flop, because what happens there is customer conversion - prospects register, purchase, download or do something else that indicates interest. Your site must have a conversion process that is quick, seamless and without distraction. In order to ensure that it does, here are a couple of pointers:

@ If you don't already have a page on your site, which specifically relates to the e-mail campaign offer, develop a "landing page" to bridge the gap between the message and the site. If the e-mail marketing campaign uses HTML, ideally, the landing page will mirror the design of the message.
@ Do not send responders to your home page; they probably will not figure out the path to conversion on their own, and you will get a high abandonment rate and frustrated visitors.
@ Outline the optimal conversion path or process you would like responders to take on the site, then test it yourself. Make sure data fields and forms work, that electronic payments can be handled and that page load times are not too long; one tiny flaw in the programming on an order entry or registration process can kill conversion. The more you help the site developers understand your marketing objectives and the prospect conversion process and flow, the more harmonious your relationship will be.

Also, you need to track beyond the click-through. Response in permission e-mail marketing is a two-step process: Click-through, when a prospect literally clicks on an active link in the message and is delivered to a Web site, and conversion, which almost always takes place on the site. In the online world, it is possible to track and gauge a wider range of response behaviour than when working offline. Therefore, it is essential in e-mail marketing to track both click-through (also called response rate) and conversion in order to evaluate the performance of both the e-mail marketing message and the Web site. Since both are critical to achieving positive ROI, it is not enough to measure click-through alone. Relatively high (by offline standards) click-through rates in e-mail marketing - often upwards of 20 per cent or 30 per cent - are not unusual, but unless conversion is measured you cannot know if those clicks resulted in customers.

The beauty of any direct marketing medium lies in its accountability, and e-mail marketing is more measurable, accountable and instantaneous than almost any other direct marketing medium. Done right and with a little practice, prospecting with permission e-mail allows you to reap the benefits of direct marketing.

Finally, before closing, let me just touch upon what technology can do today: It can bring e-mails to life. Haven't you wished at least once what if you could see an e-mail sender's face to see what he's really saying? Haven't you wished you could punctuate your own messages with something more powerful than an emoticon? I hear it is starting to happen. LifeFX is using image-morphing computer technology to bring faces to life on-screen. The company's Facemail programme offers generic models who gesture and move in at least semi-realistic form as they read e-mails using voice technology from IBM.

The Facemail programme already has become a popular download and the company says it is compatible with leading e-mail programmes such as Microsoft Outlook, Hotmail and AOL. Recipients who do not have Facemail installed on their machine can either read the messages as regular text e-mail or click a link to the LifeFX site to download the programme. I am sure the day when my photo would appear and read out the mail to the recipient will be here soon.

Muhamed Muneer is the CEO and Chief Consultant at Innovative Media, a customer and knowledge management company. He writes for a number of well-known publications worldwide and has several published works to his credit.

Feedback may be mailed to him at muneer@imgyan.com