Dynamic Whitelisting

A couple weeks back we announced a contest for the most Innovative Email Idea and had some interesting entries – but the stand out was from Drew at Questia.

First off, I wish I had Questia when I was in college; it’s a student’s dream offering resources to ease research. Questia’s online library has over 72K library books, 2M journal, magazine and newspaper articles and their subscription-based service allows users to read all content, create their own bookshelves, highlight or take notes on the text. They even offer an instant bibliography tool to instantly credit your referenced sources. Drew coordinates email marketing efforts for their consumer side, sending about five emails per month including newsletters and announcements on the newest additions to their shelves.

INNOVATIVE IDEA FOR OUR CONTEST
Drew’s submission was the concept of Dynamic Whitelisting; instead of asking all recipients to generically add them to their safe sender list he included the instructions and graphics to walk them through the process. Here’s some additional info:

Q: What inspired your idea of Dynamic Whitelisting?
DREW: We wanted to create a header that stood out from the standard request of please add us to your safe list. I think readers have grown tired of that message and are prone to overlook it. I’ve seen other marketers include a link to instructions for all email clients but I wanted to give a customized offer. I think this stands out and I’ve tried to make it very straight forward.

Q: What success rate have you seen since implementation?
D: We’ve seen bounce rates drop by 75% and a 43% decrease in SPAM complaints. Unfortunately there is no way to tell if someone has implemented, we can only see the improvements in these rates and as a result have continued to include in all our campaigns.

Q: What feedback have you received from recipients?
D: We haven’t received much from recipients but have gotten attention from other industry experts in the blogosphere. As marketers, we need to use all information that the customer gives us – including their domain information.

Q: Do you think the graphics have improved your success (included above?)
D: We did some A/B split tests, with/ without the dynamic header and I think the graphics helped. Recipients are seeing instructions with the exact verbiage based on their email client and I tried to use same fonts and colors specific to their client.

Q: Are you planning to create instructions for all other domains?
D: About 70% of our list is using AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail email clients, we have those in place. I hope to create instructions for our international visitors; we have quite a few recipients from other counties with other domains.

Q: How long have you been reading the Yogi Blog?
D: I’ve been reading the Yogi Blog for about three months, after finding you on Twitter.

Q: Have you been inspired to incorporate any of the Yogi’s suggestions into your program? If so which ones?
D: I really liked the article, How to Market in a Down Economy; we’re considering creating a similar message, either as its own campaign or as part of another message.

Q: Do you have any suggestions for future posts/ anything you’d like to see more of?
D: I’d like to see more on Deliverability; it’s a big challenge and always seems to be changing.

Thanks again for your submission Drew as well as the request for more Deliverability posts – we’ll start incorporating soon.

If you have a suggestion or Innovative Idea, share it… you may be our next winner.