Does your Email Service Provider is certified for Information Security of Customer's personal data?

You might have heard recently the news of data theft at Epsilon, and more than 50 million customer's personal information was stolen. You might have also heard about that sosasta’s data recently got compromised.

It is evident from both the incidents that adequate measures have not been put in place by companies to secure their customer's data, which has resulted in hacker's attacks and subsequent compromise of customer's data. Customer's personal data falling into hackers hands is a serious issue, which may result in monetary exploitation, legal suites and etc.

With the launch of Data Seal, the DMA is giving its members a roadmap for how to cope with growing consumer concerns about the security of their personal information.

Central to the standard is the goal of establishing an industry-wide approach to information security and to reflect the tight integration between clients and suppliers when managing personal information. The mechanisms and rules it outlines for protecting data are intended to protect the reputation fo the DM industry as well as offering guidance on how to deal with external complaints and queries.

In order to gain accreditation, member companies have to address a raft of issues, from hardware and software requirements to staff training and processes. The Data Seal is given to a company following an audit by BSI. An annual audit is then required to keep the seal.

So, next time when you talk to your email service provider, ask him straight questions.

1. What Information Security measures have been taken to secure your customer's personal data on their systems?

2. Are the systems and processes are audited for Information Security, by a trusted third pary?

3. What is their road-map for getting DMA Data Security Certification or similar such Certification?

I am sure you would value your customer's private data and will keep it very secure, irrespective of what service providers you use?

DMA DataSeal awarded to eCircle

eCircle leading the way for the email marketing industry by achieving the DMA DataSeal standard, which is a recognized standard for information security management systems. The qualification looks at a number of areas within data security including risk assessment, management responsibility, traceability and responsibility of data. The standard shows eCircle has in place the best possible systems to protect our client’s and their customer’s data.

http://www.ecircle.com/en/home.html

Does your Email Service Provider (ESP) provide you just the mailing platform?

Most of the Email Service Providers just provide a software platform for Marketers to blast emails? Is email marketing communications so simple? It it was so simple, then why the companies need a software platform from ESPs? They can just host an SMTP infrastructure and blast mails?

Email Software Platform just provides you the capability to blast mails in an unintelligent way. There are many intelligent analytic required in the platform, to ensure the marketers identify the non-reachable addresses, unsubscriptions, spam complaints, inactive subscribers and constantly engaging ones (not just opens, clicks, but also how many susbscribers viewed the landing page, abandon cart, and bought).

As Email Software platforms becoming sophisticated in terms of features and the ISP deliverability rules getting changed, anti-spam regulatory authorities becoming very stringent and dictating confirmed opt-in, there is increased knowledge and expertise needed for Marketers to send out intelligent and engaging email communications rather than blasting.

Hence Marketers need more than the platform. They need email strategy and consulting, a dedicated account manager and a support team that can resolve the issue quickly and efficiently. As Marketers getting busier with their business, they need an ESP who can take over their entire entire email marketing communications and manage it on their behalf!

Therefore it’s imperative that when choosing an Email Service Provider (ESP) that you select the right one who will match your needs perfectly. Read the following article on Kenscio's website.

http://www.kenscio.com/resource-center/Why_a_Fully_Managed_Email_Service_Provider.pdf

Email Marketing Data Security

Recent events that mined the data from Email Service Providers has affected the credibility of the industry and has increased the importance of email data security and protection of subscriber's personally identifiable information.

There are several ways the email data can be compromised or breached. From employees to information security of the email systems and server infrastructure to policies and permissions in the system.

How does your Email Service provider can prove you that they have taken adequate measures in assuring you the security of the data and protection against the above breaches? Are they getting audited for such measures? Do they have a history of such protection?

For more details, read our presentation at http://www.kenscio.com/resource-center/Email_Marketing_Data_security_april_2011_Kenscio_V2.pdf

Power of Email Communications

It has been a quite a while since I blogged about email marketing scenario in India. Lot has happened since then.

I was really amazed at the innovative ideas being put in place by Marketing departments at Media companies.

NDTV News http://www.ndtv.com recently launched breaking news alerts to deliver them into email inboxes of recipients as they happen instantly. I have subscribed to these alerts and found them amazing. It saved me much time in catching up with news without visiting their websites and check what is happenning! I can now visit the website to find more about it, when I am told what is happenning.

NDTV has really got into the front league compared to other news agencies in adopting technology to enable their readers to get what they need. I know most of the folks are quite addicted to news and spend lot of time visiting the news websites. The news alerts service from NDTV can deliver now the fresh news, rather stale at the website after being heard from someone.

One can subscribe to NDTV Breaking News alerts on their website http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/new/NDTVNewsAlert.aspx.

A Look at Email Marketing Business in India [Opportunities]

A Look at Email Marketing Business in India [Opportunities]

Email Marketing to Improve Customer Acquisition and Customer Loyalty

When it comes to marketing, traditional or web-based, “customer acquisition” is a key indicator when determining success and Return on Investment (ROI) from your marketing efforts. “Customer loyalty” is also very important as we know that the lifetime value of a customer is dependent on how well we communicate with and retain customers.

The following are published industry facts focused on web-based marketing and the effects on “customer acquisition” and “customer loyalty”.

Customer Acquisition Facts

Permission marketing yields 30% increase in conversion and a 10% increase in return on investment. (Permission Marketing, Seth Godin) Traditional direct marketing costs $1.50 per item, while online direct marketing averages 15-30 cents. (Andersen) Traditional direct mail averages 1-2% response rate. Permission marketing averages 10-15% response rates. (Direct Marketing Association) 80% of your visitors will never return to your website. (eMarketer) The odds of selling a product to a new customer are 15%, whereas the odds of selling a product to an existing customer are 50%. Email click-throughs measure 3-10x that of banner ads at 2-20% CTR. Internet users represent over 72% of the U.S. population and greater than 25% spend their time online using email. (UCLA Report 2001) Customer Loyalty Facts It costs 5 -10 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. (Emarketer) If you trail your competition by 20 points in customer loyalty you are out of business. Improving customer interactions is one of the single largest impact areas, across all industries. (Accenture) A 5% increase in customer retention yields an increase in profits between 25 -100%. Customer Loyalty Fact - Repeat customers spend 67% more; After 10 purchases, a customer has referred up to 7 people. (Bain & Company) Online promotions generate 2 to 5 times the customer response rates of traditional promotions. 70% of complaining customers will do business with the company again if it quickly takes care of a service snafu.

For more information on email marketing solution and services, visit http://www.sprinklr.in