How to Succeed in Promo Product Where Millions of Emails are Sent by Suppliers to Distributors

Supplier to Distributor Email Academy Presented by: IdentityEdge.NET First Summit on Email Campaigning from Suppliers to Distributors Total Cost for all Six Courses: $179 Feb 17@11:30am for one hour plus after an extended Q&A session…all welcome.

Course One of Six

How to Succeed in a Marketplace Where 48 Million Supplier Emails are Sent Weekly to 55,000 Distributors Agenda:  Welcome and Overview of this First Course of Six and What to Expect  Course Materials—Written Overviews Will be Provided at the End of Each Course  Zoom Conference—Recorded and Available for Playback Course Contact Info: IdentityEdge.NET 914-673-5115 brian@identityedge.net www.identityedge.net

Industry-wide Review of Promotional Products Email Campaigning by Suppliers, followed by a “How To” Compete Against Supplier Emails that Flood the Distributor’s In-box.

INDUSTRY REPORT--PROMOTIONAL PRODUCTS EMAILING OVERVIEW In this Course we review how Promotional Products Suppliers are sending their emails to Distributors along with their frequency, content, ad design, and detailing what your competition is doing while emailing campaigning to Distributors. No one else in our industry has reported on this with this level of detail and research.

Email Campaigning is a broad journey with many considerations as to how you-the Supplier--fine tune your email campaigning. If you hire Constant Contact and just post your email ads and check stats you are not using your email marketing tool to its fullest, yet that’s what many Suppliers do…and they are not making as much money as they should or can because of that.

Unfortunately, there are hundreds of (emailing) rules to learn…and if you do not know those rules your emails will go into spam causing you to lose sales. Believe this: Emailing campaigning has gotten so complicated (because of the AI machine algorithms servers employ) that Suppliers will need to acquire “the complete rules to email campaigning”, hire a full-time email campaigner, or face losing market share.

Let’s make this relative from an ROI point of view. Most Suppliers in the Promotional Products Industry are now generating 25%-35% of their revenue from email campaigning. Most wish they could do a lot more that way because the E:R is “gazillions” of times better when the only marketing cost is an email.

Well, many Suppliers are already focused on doing that and the competition for

this channel further narrowed because there are many fewer Distributors (post covid) to send emails to and many more Suppliers are hitting that channel. There are 100 Suppliers flooding the channel with daily emails while 900-1,200 others send at least one email a week.

We’re going to talk about a small statistic. This will convince you how important email campaigning is to you as a Promotional Products Supplier. If you are able to double your email Deliverability Rates from the same email you just sent you could get double the orders…all from the same email. Just remember, the email you send has to fit the long list of new emailing rule…and this Course will guide you there.

WHO’S SENDING WHAT? There are two main sectors of companies sending emails to Promotional Products Distributors. There are about 2,800 Promotional Products “post-covid” Suppliers sending emails to Distributors (there were 3,200 pre-Covid) and around five viable Promotional Products Email Campaigners (PPEC’s) like IndentityEdge.Net; ASI; Promocorner; Distributor Central (DC); and Promobroadcast also sending for Suppliers.

However, a trend started several years ago when Suppliers increased sending their own emails primarily through Constant Contact, Mailchimp, iContact and other companies like Hubspot and SendinBlue. That trend developed because the costs for most--but not all--of the PPEC’s per email is high with modest to good delivery rates as results…so SUPPLIERS THOUGHT THEY COULD DO A BETTER JOB FOR LESS MONEY by emailing through Constant Contact, Mailchimp etc., which is not totally true. There is a delicate balance between the PPEC’s and other email providers like Constant Contact that must be taken into consideration and we’ll elaborate on why later.

Second, the reasons Suppliers have used the PPEC’s is because they offer a larger list and another marketing channel, which is critical. You cannot--as much as you’d like--only use on email channel or email list. For example, once a Distributor opts off your email list you’ve lost that Distributor forever until the Supplier reconnects to the Distributor through another emailer provider.

Our recommendation will always be using multichannel marketing and being fair that includes our competitors. And we know that the Promo Industry makes lots of business friendships…many Suppliers are totally dedicated to one industry PPEC, but a word to the wise, that business friendship really needs to take a second seat in this vicious email world we now live in. Rotating between PPEC’s and using their lists is critical.

MAJOR EMAIL CHANGES IN THE EMAILING INDUSTRY CAUSED BY SUPPLIERS Havoc, really big havoc began when Suppliers increasingly started to send their own emails through Constant Contact, Mailchimp, etc. Nearly every Supplier jumped on the emailing bandwagon because Constant Contact etc., had an attractive low price, so price ended up being the deciding factor for most Suppliers.

Almost immediately the main marketing channel in Promo Products then became email campaigns. But the result was within a year the number of emails sent made the Distributor’s In-box very crowded. Email marketing was even more reinforced when PPAI, ASI and other industry shows closed due to Covid. Plus Distributor’s tuned into this channel like they never have before without shows to tap for product ideas…so for the Supplier there is no option of “opting out” of multichannel email marketing. Distributors are spread out all over the place digitally and finding the right mix for your digital marketing is key.

Today Promotional Products Suppliers are sending 48 million a week--and that number is rising—which results in the Distributor’s email box being flooded daily.

It’s a fact the Distributor’s in-box is inundated with emails and that causes reduced open rates for all Suppliers. In addition, Distributors are also getting emails from hundreds of retailers and other non-promo sources further complicating the Promo Suppliers ability to get Deliverability.

So now the battle and trend for Suppliers is tweaking every little thing possible to make sure your emails land in the Distributor’s Email In-Box and get them read… and it’s not as easy as you’d think. And to be honest most Supplier ads we see are shoot from the hip types that are stuck in the earlier emailing days. Plus, there are so many changes happening in the emailing industry it’s hard to keep up with them and all of that greatly effects your Deliverability and sales. Let’s be clear:

Violating the unspoken rules of email campaigning drags down your Deliverability/sales. You miss out on those sales, one of your Supplier competitors will pick up on them. You need a professional to help and we hope that this Course will start to guide you through the process.

QUICK SUMMARY We estimate there are about 55,000 Distributors left in the industry as compared to December 2019 (pre Covid) when there were over 114,000 Distributors. The bottom line is: 

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There are over 48 million emails being sent by Suppliers weekly to 55,000 Distributors, about 175 per day per Distributor with a max of 20% of them getting read!

On average there are 1,200 Suppliers sending at least one email to Distributors weekly—12 million emails weekly—based on the average Supplier email list being 10,000 Distributors.)

500 Suppliers are sending 3+ emails a week, about—15 million emails weekly, again with an average list size of 10,000.

50 Suppliers are sending an email per day--about 2.5 million emails weekly, list size again around 10,000.

The average list size for the PPEC’s is 30,000 and there are five PPEC’s sending up to 25 emails a day for their Suppliers—or 18.7 million weekly.

Those numbers do not include emails from any other non-promo products emailing source which amounts to another 100+ emails daily hitting the Distributor’s email In-box. Therefore, the competition to get a Distributor to read Supplier emails is high.

Seriously, would you as a Distributor, want to open 50 emails about t-shirts blanks, silicone wrist bands, other common promo products…or just delete them? We know how to get Distributors to open most Supplier emails, even the companies that sell labeled water work with us, which is the hardest Promo Product to sell. Furthermore just because you belong to the industry as a member of ASI or PPAI or by using their emailing services does NOT insure your emails are getting read or more importantly shared with the Distributor’s End Users.

This seminar will help you define your email campaigns and better how to get your emails delivered and read.

1-EMAIL DELIVERABILITY What is the difference between Email Delivery and Deliverability?

First questions for the Course Attendees:  A-What’s the difference between Delivery and Deliverability?  B-What are the roles of both the sender and the recipient in the context of deliverability?  C-What are the effects of a bad sending Reputation on Deliverability?  D-What are the Best Practices for Deliverability?

A-DELIVERY Delivery occurs when a message is accepted by the receiving server (inbox provider). There are MANY in-box providers and all handle your email differently.

So a Distributor reviewing their emails in MSOutlook (an in-box provider) will be different than one looking at them in GMAIL. You should test to see how your emails look in each one of those in box providers before sending your emails which is another issue we will cover in another Course.

When we talk about delivery rate, we're talking about the percentage of emails that were actually delivered to the intended Distributor’s email server/provider. As long as a message has not bounced, it's considered delivered. But there’s much more to this. Now we will address Delivery vs.

Deliverability.

Deliverability. It's a big word with an even bigger impact. But what does it even mean? And how is it different from Delivery?

Deliverability refers to where a message lands after it's been accepted or delivered, i.e. does it get placed in the Distributor's inbox or is it dumped in spam? Our mutual goal is to get the Distributor to open the email from their in box. Its not simple.

80% of Deliverability is influenced by your reputation as a Supplier and the other 20% is the content you send. It does not matter if you are using Constant Contact, Mailchimp etc. YOU, AS A SUPPLIER DEVELOP A REPUTATION SEPARATE FROM USING THOSE SERVICES. So many Suppliers believe that if Constant Contact allows them to send an email that its reputation is good. NOT TRUE. Why that breakdown; reputation versus content?

Your reputation as a Supplier-sender is predominantly influenced by the behavior of your Distributors, while the content is analyzed by machine algorithms and many other factors when filtering incoming email (think spam filters like Malware Bytes, Norton 360, Outlook, etc).

Behavior of your Distributors is related to how many of your emails are opened by them. Content is judged by what you put in the ad…how many hyperlinks, spam words used and more. There’s even a balance of the number of pictures or images to the amount of copy in each ad that determines the machine algorithms acceptance of your ads.

Talk to us about improving Deliverability after the course, it’s a discussion that can consume a lot of time and needs to be customized to each Supplier’s needs.

Or, to put it another way: Email delivery: is when an email is successfully delivered to the receiving server.

That’s relatively easy.

Email deliverability: is when an email successfully arrives in the person's inbox.

That’s the hard part…and then you need them to open it.

(Notice we didn’t talk about open rates…we talked about Deliverability Rates.

Open rates really mean much less than Deliverability Rates.)

There are Five Key Players in How Your Emails are Delivered:

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Your ISP, or Internet Service Provider which carries and routes Supplier emails.

Your Email Service Provider (ESP) which is the system you use to send your emails. These are companies like IdentityEdge.NET; Constant Contact, etc.

The Mailbox Providers determine how your emails are treated because upwards of 70% of all emails sent are spam. These are companies like Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, AT&T, Comcast and Charter.

Your Subscribers/Distributors are who you send emails to…and how they interact with your emails ultimately signals back to the inbox providers. So its up to the Supplier to keep the correct signals going back to the Mailbox Providers.

What happens after you click send:

When an ISP receives a Supplier email it checks the ESP or IP’s domain reputation; YOUR/Supplier’s domain reputation; and how the Distributor’s opening up your emails have treated that respective Supplier’s email ads. This then builds a profile of how good the Supplier is…or how risky it is to receive your emails. Here it is again…

A good sender domain reputation profile is created by: 

Distributor engagement (a high open rate, low number of un-opened emails and few spam complaints or opt offs)

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Email content and links (remember 20% images and 80% text plus no more than five hyperlinks)

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Authentication (we always recommend setting up DKIM, SPF at a minimum) The frequency and volume of those sends relative to the engagement—too many will hurt the Supplier’s email reputation Distributor engagement with your emails—do they open and read them Using minimal images in your emails Sender authentication ESP overall reputation

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B-What are the Roles of Both the Supplier and Distributor in the Context of Deliverability?

The concept is simple but difficult to fully explain because there are hundreds of parts to it. Simply put, the Supplier should create and send ads that do not contain spam or have spammy attributes and have a clean email list. Then, if Distributors open them regularly the Supplier’s Deliverability Rates will go up along with their reputation. Again, this does not matter if you are using Constant Contact, Mailchimp or PPEC’s. That’s the relationship.

Keep this in mind as you read further: Great ads and a great email list.

C-What are the effects of bad sending Reputation or Deliverability?

Once you violate a coveted emailing rule and the AI machine servers record your email as “bad” it might takes weeks for you to get off their list. You particularly want to evade SpamHaus. Once you are on SpamHaus’s list it could take six months to get off it.

Here’s a relative comparison. Reputation is like your credit score. It takes a long time to build it up but a real short time to break it down. When Suppliers send any email from any source that particular Supplier has to pass a version of an email credit check BEFORE it passes through the Distributor’s In-box. If your emails end up being marked as spam your performance will immediately suffer and your domain could be blocked. YOUR SENDER REPUTATION IS NOW TIED TO

YOUR DOMAIN…SO JUST A FEW POORLY THOUGHT-OUT EMAIL CAMPAIGNS CAN DO SERIOUS DAMAGE TO YOUR DOMAIN!!!

The worst part is it takes time to repair and get business back to normal to fix your Reputation and Deliverability…usually a month to six weeks if you work at it almost every day.

How can you tell if your reputation is bad? There are many indicators. First, if you were getting 17% open rates and now you are down to 8% steadily declining open rates should shout out at you that you are on spam lists and your sending reputation is bad. How does this happen?

Mail servers notice immediately that your Distributors are not engaging your emails because you are not getting the open rate you used to…then you start to fall into having your emails being bounced. We can help you identify where to look to find out how bad the damage is and repair it. But remember this always takes time to repair once its broken.

What the servers look for are: Strong results at receiving domains, high open rates, plenty of clicks, low bounces and virtually no spam complaints. This will keep your sending reputation up and healthy. Result, your emails will go through to the In-box.

Most Suppliers we know don’t realize that decisions you make when it comes to data sources, email senders, list quality, ad content and subject lines can have serious ramifications—both positive and negative—for your email campaigns.

There’s a lot of income riding on this so best to be super careful, learn and then follow the rules.

D-Best Practices for Deliverability Here are some of the nuts and bolts for Deliverability.

Suppliers traditionally are still sending ads that look like the old-fashioned ASIstyled ads with model numbers, six columns of pricing and more. All of this causes a drop in Deliverability. But there’s more.

Suppliers are placing between 15-20 hyperlinks in their emails. For those of you that do not know what a hyperlink is, it’s a button that is programmed into your ad graphic that allows the Distributor to navigate to another spot on your website:      

“Send Safe Ad Version to End User” (this one you should ALWAYS have).

“Click Here to Download Supplier Catalog” “Click Here to View Supplier Website” “Click Here to Request a Quote” “Click Here to Contact Customer Service” AND then there are another ten hyperlinks in the body of the email ad linking the product to a page on the Supplier website, plus the ones at the end of the ad that allow the receiving Distributor to “opt out” and more.

This is a disaster for Suppliers because the AI machine algorithms acceptance of your ads drops significantly because they think there’s a possibility these links can be directed to malware/spam. Truthfully, you only need five hyperlinks and if you did the study like we have you’d find that Distributors do not ever use 15-20 links; they only use 1-2 ultimately. Suppliers put that many links in the email ad because they believe it makes for convenience, however, the truth is it hurts your reputation and causes your reputation to take a hit.

CONTENT OF YOUR EMAILS Many Suppliers have been lulled into believing that your email content does not matter; you can put anything in your ad as long as it fits within the scope of the promotional products world. WRONG! We see this every day, day-in and day-out in the ads Suppliers send that are filled with “sender reputation” issues.

Seriously, Suppliers think--in general--based on years of reviewing hundreds of thousands of Supplier ads, if the Supplier’s ad is in line with the promotional products industry and how it has been traditionally presented ad form wise, then its all good. But candidly its not. New emailing templates get Supplier ads open… not the old styled ones.

The Content of your emails is also critical. Having spammy words in the ad like “FREE!” in the body of the email/subject line or more than 400 other spam words

the AI machine algorithms have in their database is going to cause your ads to automatically go into spam folders or worse yet never make it to the in-box email provider. The servers will reject your ad before it gets close to the in-box.

I can safely state that there are Suppliers using FREE! in the Subject Line every day. They haven’t learned that FREE is just like the worst f-bomb word you can say in email Subject Lines. It’s totally deleterious because the AI machines that read your email start with the Subject line. If they don’t make it past that, your entire email can get sent to spam.

There is also a formula for the design of Supplier ads. There should be no more than 20% images and 80% copy. The question is why? The machine algorithms are able to easily read the copy but not the images. They want to know if your email is spammy or not and that factor either pushes your email into spam folders or as mentioned before, it never makes it to the in box. At another juncture we can cover this more completely…because ad design is an entirely additional course.

SUBJECT LINES This is a topic that seems so simple yet it is one that is totally abused by Suppliers.

This is a topic we will cover in another part of the Course because it’s so vast. But Subject Lines are the most important part of your emailed ad…hands down…so you must do everything correctly in order to get the maximum number of opens.

The AI machine that looks first at your Subject Line and decides to route it or drop it into a spam folder directs your SUPPLIER EMAIL LISTS—YOUR LIST MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE In general most Suppliers have Distributor email lists that are approximately 8,000 to 15,000 Distributors in size. Most of those lists are composed of emails that they have garnered from tradeshows, or their Distributor clients over time.

Therefore, most of those lists are really good. They use them pretty much exclusively to send via Constant Contact, Mailchimp, etc.

However, most Suppliers do not regularly clean their list which presents many serious problems when they send emails through Constant Contact, etc.

Suppliers falsely think that because Constant Contact deletes hard and soft bounced emails that their list is clean. NOT SO. You have to professionally clean your list, which we do for our Suppliers.

The PPEC’s Distributor email lists are larger and range in size from 28,000-36,000 and they probably do regularly clean their Distributor lists. For example, Distributor Central’s (DC) list is 28,000 while IdentityEdge.Net and ASI’s list are 36,000. That doesn’t mean that DC’s list is inferior, it probably means they’ve cleaned it very extensively which will raise their delivery rate a bit. PPEC’s reporting lists bigger than 36,000 email addresses are not reporting accurate email list size.

This concludes the first Course session of Email Academy. The next course will be given on February 22nd focusing on Email Design—Why Old School ASI-style Ad Layouts & Emailing Templates No Longer Work and what to do instead.

Thank you for joining us. We look forward to seeing you again at the next Course. You can get copies of the Courses.

Courses are being held at 11:30am EST for one hour on the following days and topics: FEB 17--How To Succeed in a Marketplace Where Millions of Emails are Sent Weekly to Distributors.

FEB 22—Email Design—Why Old School ASI-Ad Designs, Layouts and Emailing Templates No Longer Work and Can Push Your Emails into Spam.

FEB 24—Custom Emailing Templates—A Must for Supplier Emailing Success MAR 1—Critical Component—Data Management of Your Distributor Email List, How to Follow Up on Leads Generated from Emails and List Hygiene.

MAR 3—How Your Emails are Transmitted & How to Avoid Spam Traps.

MAR 8—Email Delivery Applications—Getting Your Emails into the In-Box Instead of Spam Folders.

ALL Courses have a session after the Course for Q&A.