Taking the spam out of your e-mail marketing - Guest Column - Cosmetique uses e-mail marketing to effectively gain new customers - Column

DSN Retailing Today, Nov 10, 2003 by Paul Soltoff

With commercial e-mail under the microscope over spam concerns, it may seem risky for a company that has enjoyed significant returns on traditional direct marketing programs to invest in an e-mail campaign to increase membership. But for Cosmetique, a leading national direct mail beauty club, it was risk worth taking--because they took the steps necessary to mitigate that risk.

By 2002, Cosmetique was serving more than 1 million customers and shipping more than 3 million beauty kits annually. Its marketing efforts were centered on direct response campaigns such as package inserts, direct mail and telemarketing--to the tune of more than 150 million offline solicitations a year.

"We were in a strong growth mode, and we needed to take advantage of the opportunities that growth presented by opening new distribution channels," says Anthony Abate, Cosmetique's chief marketing officer. "The Internet was an obvious choice; it would reach a new audience and do it faster and more profitably than our traditional programs. But it was critical that our good name be protected. Any hint of the "spam" label was unacceptable."

The company was right to be concerned. Even legitimate e-mail campaigns have come under fire from recipients who dispute that they "opted in" to receive information.

Much of the blame lies with how those opt-in requests are collected and with the cryptic way e-mail responses are constructed. It's not clear whom the message is from or that it's the information the recipient requested. As a result, the e-mail is deleted unopened or reported as spam.

For Cosmetique, trust and privacy were particularly critical, because not only did they want to attract new members, but they wanted those members to pay in advance. That required the establishment of immediate trust with consumers whose first contact with Cosmetique was likely the e-mail they received after checking that opt-in box.

What Cosmetique needed was a high-end co-registration program capable of collecting consumer information, then building and sending highly personalized e-mail correspondence in real-time, all while keeping information confidential.

The solution was L2C, a patent-pending system developed by SendTec Inc., that let Cosmetique get information to consumers without "punishing" them for their interest with a landslide of spam, thereby establishing an initial level of trust and protecting their reputation for quality direct-mailing practices. The system works like this:

While registering or purchasing online, a consumer is presented with a brief promotion to which they can respond by checking off a box to request additional information.

When they respond, their e-mail address is captured and sent only to the advertiser.

Immediately, a personalized e-mail clearly identifying the advertiser as the sender goes out with information pertinent to the offer.

The recipient decides if they want to click through and take advantage of the offer, or unsubscribe to prevent any future e-mails from the advertiser.

Cosmetique also took advantage of the opportunity to launch the campaign under a performance-based model, meaning the company paid only for the desired results.

And results they got. Within nine months, the campaign had netted more than 100,000 pre-paid new members to the Beauty Club. And it's still going strong.

"Launching an e-mail campaign at a time when just about any e-mail can be misconstrued as spam may have been risky," says Abate. "But the advanced technology and creative capabilities of our marketing agency have brought in incredible results--without any collateral damage to our brand."

Paul Soltoff is ceo of SendTec, Inc., (www.sendtec.com), St. Petersburg, Fla.