Those of you who know me may well consider this to be a curious choice. While 'misogynistic' might be slightly strong when it comes to describing me, I’ve certainly got a healthy streak of male chauvinism (according to my wife!), so choosing an email campaign that promotes the latest girlie lifestyle deals doesn’t exactly run true to form! However, the way that Chiconomise has run its e-marketing programme has been really impressive, and I reckon they deserve some credit for a job well done.

Interestingly, I first became aware of Chiconomise when it was given a pre-launch punt in the Prufrock section that is found on the back page of the Sunday Times Business section (October 26 2008). It was described as follows:

“Cometh the recession, cometh the email that tells us how to have fun while spending less. Michelle Dewberry of The Apprentice fame - she won in 2006 but parted ways with Sir Alan Sugar after 11 months - is planning to launch a weekly email for our times. It’s called Chiconomy. Sorry boys, but it will probably appeal only to girls. ‘It’s about living stylishly for less. It’s not about compromise,’ said Dewberry, who was nicknamed the Steel Pixie when she was on The Apprentice. ‘Before, me and my mates would have gone to Harvey Nicks for a martini after work but, at £14 a pop, we don’t want to do that anymore.’ Step forward Chiconomy.co.uk 1. The service, which will be launched in a fortnight, will list all the sales, happy hours, freebies, discounts and buy-one-get-one-free deals in shops, beauty salons, restaurants, and bars near you. Dewberry said: ‘I don’ t think you should put life on hold just because of this situation.’”

1. Now Chiconomise.com

Clearly, notwithstanding the fact that Michelle Dewberry had moved on from the employ of Sir Alan Sugar by this stage, she is obviously exceptionally well connected when it comes to calling in some favours to fuel her publicity machine.

Anyway, given that email marketing is what I do best, I thought that it might be worth my while to register with Chiconomise, in the expectation that I could identify some shortcomings in their e-marketing programme, and then use that as an opportunity to approach them as a potential business opportunity. What I didn’t anticipate was how well they were going to perform without any help whatsoever from me – and  from day one onwards!

Let’s start with the welcome email:

As you can see, the 'friendly from' tells us that the email is from Michelle herself. Irrespective of whether that is in fact the case, that’s a great driver for email recognition when your recipients are scrolling through their inboxes trying to decide what they are going to open, and what they are going to trash! It also has a cheerfully tongue-in-cheek style (“Email gone a bit Picasso? Click here to view”). Importantly, it’s mostly text based, so it’s largely unaffected by all of the problems that are associated with image rendering.

And at the business end of the email, all the best practice boxes are enthusiastically ticked :

Forward to a friend, social media integration (Twitter, Facebook), learn more about us, talk to us, update your profile, unsubscribe, privacy policy, corporate info – you name it, it’s all there! And since subscribing, I’ve continued receiving a steady stream of great offers (according to my in-house expert and controller of the domestic purse strings!) – here’s the most recent example:

When I was still entertaining ideas of introducing myself to Chiconomise as their potential e-broadcasting partner, I did think that there might be a gap on the deliverability front. However, a quick glance at their Return Path delivery metrics immediately crushed that notion as well. Their sender score currently stands at 100 (it doesn’t get much better than that!), and an accepted rate (ie delivery to the inbox) of 99%. This is reflected in their current spam risk profile, where the traffic light indicator is set to a healthy 'green'.

A while back, Stefan Pollard of Lyris penned an excellent article entitled 'Recognition is the New Email Must-Have'. In it he highlighted the three success drivers for successful email marketing – permissioning, recognition, and relevance. On the last of these points, he specifically had the following to say :

“Does your subscriber see the value in your email? Does it speak to her needs? Is it what she signed up for - content, format and frequency? 'Relevance' trumps 'permission' when it comes to your sender's reputation and delivery results, because relevant offers to interested recipients drive fewer spam complaints.”

In the context of the Chiconomise email programme he’s absolutely right – there is no substitute for sending your subscribers content that they actually see real value in receiving, in a format that is simple and readable, and within a time interval  (weekly in this case) that is often enough to be appreciated without becoming so frequent that they abuse the relationship.

Overall, it’s a great programme and I have no hesitation in putting it forward as my nomination for September’s edition of 'Campaigns we like'.

Guy Hanson
Business Development Director
Database Group Interactive