North American Membership Group Case Study

Customer	North American Membership Group
Industry	Publishing and Clubs
Email type:	Promotional / Marketing
Service	CertifiedEmail
Email Service Provider	Silverpop

About North American Membership Group

For more than 30 years, North American Membership Group (NAMG) has excelled in creating and growing twelve distinct lifestyle clubs that thrive on the relationship built between their members and the clubs. Each club’s magazine, e-newsletter and website are rich with articles and how-to features that inform, motivate, teach and inspire members.

 

Challenges NAMG Faced

Email is one of NAMG’s most effective marketing channels. They send informational newsletters, transactional (confirmation email and ebills) as well as promotional emails on behalf of a variety of advertisers to their club members. NAMG participated in a four week CertifiedEmail test managed by their email service provider, Silverpop, and certified 50 percent of their email newsletter campaigns for the following clubs; Handyman Club of America, Cooking Club of America, Creative Home Arts Club, North American Fishing Club and North American Hunting Club.

Example NAMG CertifiedEmail

NAMG identified the following problems requiring an easy solution:

• Deliverability into the major ISPs and email providers. Like many companies, the majority of NAMG’s email addresses come from the major ISPs -- AOL, Yahoo for example. And like many companies NAMG had challenges getting their email messages delivered to the reader’s inbox 100% of the time. This is caused by many factors including inconsistent deliverability and rigid spam filters.
• Ensuring images and links are visible and not blocked. Like most companies, NAMG needs to keep the attention of its email recipients with images and graphics. Unfortunately, the ISPs and mailbox providers block images and links by default as a measure against spam and phishing. This means the most important content isn’t seen by the recipients unless they actually choose to see the image (usually via a “show images” button).
• Standing out from the crowd in the inbox. Let’s face it; we all get a lot of email. This is especially true of the people NAMG is sending email to. NAMG needs a way to have their email messages stand out from all other messages in the mailbox.

Solution

NAMG became interested in the many unique features of CertifiedEmail as a means to improve the performance of their emails. These include flagging the message as certified in the message list and assuring delivery to Goodmail’s accepting ISP partners. NAMG uses SilverPop as their Email Service Provider. As partners, SilverPop has integrated Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail service into their mail servers, enabling fast and easy deployment of CertifiedEmail to their customers. NAMG began testing CertifiedEmail in October 2009, and has enjoyed the benefits of CertifiedEmail ever since. NAMG is currently using CertifiedEmail

Results

Immediately after testing the CertifiedEmail service, NAMG saw results:

• Messages that were previously blocked by content and spam filters are being delivered 100% of the time. Only CertifiedEmail can assure delivery to participating ISP and email providers.
• The open-rate of their messages increased over 20%. Simply by being delivered and having the CertifiedEmail Blue Trust Seal visible on a message significantly increases open rates for many CertifiedEmail customers.
• Email messages identified by the special CertifiedEmail Blue Trust Seal in the message list means a message can be trusted. The CertifiedEmail Blue Trust Seal is available only to accredited CertifiedEmail senders.
• The click-through rate increased over 10% because images and links are visible and active by default, your message has a higher chance of performing. Your customers won’t read your content or click your links if they can’t see it.

About Silverpop

Silverpop's on-demand marketing platform helps marketers succeed in turning prospects into customers-and customers into fans-through the creation, automation and delivery of relevant, multichannel digital messaging. Companies rely on the Silverpop Engage platform to create and manage sophisticated email marketing campaigns that reach millions of individuals-one at a time-engaging prospective customers and enhancing lifetime customer value and brand loyalty. Silverpop's industry-leading thought capital, strategic counsel, service and support helps B2C and B2B customers with the precise level of training and advice needed to quickly improve campaign results and ROI. With offices in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, Silverpop's marketing technologies are used by industry-leading brands around the globe. Best practices and white papers are available at www.silverpop.com .