Check out the benefits of subscribing Best Practices : Email Marketing Taking Transactional Email to Market author: Matthew Vernhout source: One Degree date : 5/21/2008 If you conduct any type of ecommerce, you likely send email to your customers to confirm purchases or account modifications that they have made. But how can you use these emails as an opportunity for promotion while remaining respectful of your customers? First – Keep in mind that there are two major types of email – commercial and transactional. Commercial email has one purpose: promoting a brand, product/service or cause. Second – Transactional-focused emails are far more complex. Most commonly, transactional emails are used to: An Unsubscribe Alternative author: MindComet source: EmailMarketingVoodoo.com date : 5/13/2008 It's pretty much a standard practice to always include an "Update Your Preferences" and "Unsubscribe" link in every single email you send out. I, like most users, usually click on unsubscribe links more often than update your preferences links... and it's usually due to one of two things: irrelevant information or my inbox is being inundated, with way too many messages being sent my way from one company. But there is an alternative to offer: an "email me less frequently" option. This will lower your overall send totals, but it will retain your house list size. J. Crew does it. They do it well, too. The page below comes up when a user... Opt-in Email Best Practices author: Morgan Stewart source: MediaPost date : 4/30/2008 The idea of sending an opt-in (or “re-opt-in”) campaign to subscribers to verify email permission is not new, but interest in these campaigns is increasing. Over time, a portion of your email list will become unengaged — which has several negative effects. Unengaged subscribers result in lower response rates and wasted marketing dollars. Re-opt-in campaigns are useful for cleaning old or unengaged subscribers off your list by confirming which subscribers want to continue receiving marketing emails. This results in a healthier list and increased return on investment. We’ve worked with email marketing companies on these types of campaigns, helping to conduct tests on different tactics to define some clear best practices. Here are the key ones we have developed for these email messages: Mobile Email Marketing Tips author: Stefan Pollard source: EmailLabs date : 3/25/2008 The future of email marketing is here, and it's in your customers' hands. Email marketing on mobile phones has been hovering like either fate or opportunity, depending on how you view it. Maybe you've embraced it already, because your customers are a mobile bunch. Or, maybe you think it's something you'll think about tomorrow, like Scarlett O'Hara. Just a few years ago, the mobile Web was something that only the folks out on the bleeding edge of technology had to deal with. The iPhone, introduced in 2007, and other breeds of smart phones, have now put the Web squarely in millions of people's hands. According to the Pew Internet Project, "58% of adult Americans have used a cell phone or personal digital assistant to do at least one of ten mobile non-voice data activities, such as texting, emailing, taking a picture, looking for maps or directions, or recording video." Mobile's biggest challenge will be... The Opportunities and Threats of Transactional Emails author: Ken Magill source: Direct Magazine date : 12/18/2007 As a growing number of marketers take advantage of the opportunities presented in transactional emails, one expert is sounding a note of caution. Yes, order confirmations, account statements, and product-and-service updates get clicked on more often than other types of email and as a result present an opportunity to do a little extra selling, said Stephanie Miller, vice president, strategic services for deliverability concern Return Path. But there are rules governing the use of sales pitches in transactional emails and marketers who over-sell in them run the risk of drawing the attention of the FTC. If an email's primary purpose is determined to be commercial, then it falls under Can Spam and requires the sender to give the receiver an opt-out mechanism. “Transactional emails present a huge opportunity. An order confirmation is... Your Unsubscribe Handling is Probably Lame author: Ken Magill source: Direct Magazine date : 12/11/2007 The vast majority of permission-based email marketers miss huge opportunities in the way they handle opt-out requests, according to a new study. While 96% of email marketers include an unsubscribe function in their promotional emails as required by federal law, almost two thirds said they use methods to discourage opt outs, such as putting unsubscribe language in tiny type or hiding it, according to a survey of more than 400 email marketers by marketing services provider Lyris. “Marketers are clearly complying with the law here,” said Stefan Pollard, director of email marketing best practices for Lyris HQ. “But they still think of unsubscribing as a negative action. ‘This person doesn’t want my email so I won’t talk to them anymore.’” However... When Good Companies Do Bad Things author: Bill McCloskey source: MediaPost date : 11/28/2007 It never ceases to amaze me what a poor job some larger companies do when it comes to their email marketing programs. I’m not talking about small companies that — perhaps — don’t have the time and resources to do it right. I’m talking really big companies that destroy their email brand equity every time they hit “send.” More Tools For Email Marketers author: Melinda Krueger source: MediaPost date : 11/27/2007 Smart people had many additional suggestions in response to my last column, about applications that make email marketers’ lives easier. The Email Diva has not included ESP and Deliverability offerings, as it would be too difficult to be both inclusive and impartial. This list includes tools to be used in addition to ESP and Delivery offerings, with priority given to the fabulous bargain. Let the helpful suggestions begin! Protecting your email image author: Mark J. Miller source: B2B Magazine date : 11/26/2007 Your email box is constantly filling up with unsolicited junk emails. At the end of October, Chris Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired magazine, decided to do something about it. He took every email address from which he had received unsolicited or irrelevant email in the previous month and published it on his blog, thelongtail.com. As open rates and click-through rates decline, managing email has become more and more important for direct marketers. So one wonders how to avoid getting on such a list as Anderson's? Tools for Email Marketers author: Melinda Krueger source: MediaPost date : 11/20/2007 Last week I used SnagIt for the thousandth time and was introduced to Basecamp. It got me thinking about all the cool tools eMarketers love and love to evangelize. So, in this season of being thankful and making gift lists, I asked my colleagues to share the fabulous apps that make their lives easier. Coincidentally, most of these tools are free or low-cost. Things To Talk About In The Email Marketing Space author: David Baker source: MediaPost date : 11/19/2007 Your daily schedule probably rarely allows you to read more than a headline or two. If you are some of the lucky email marketers, you may have time to read a few newsletters, industry briefs and possibly belong to a few lists that talk about email marketing a lot and maybe attend a webinar. So, this column will focus on what everyone’s talking about — not solutions, but issues that are buzzing in the email space. Let’s start with a recount of some of the “Classic Mistakes of 2005.” After speaking at nine events this year, writing over 3,500 words for publication in 2007, another 1,000 on my blog, here are the top three topics that come to mind when I think of 2007: Value of an email address. Choosing an ESP. Tactics, tactics, tactics. The Forgotten Pages Of Email Marketing author: Chad White source: MediaPost date : 11/15/2007 Let’s have a moment of silence for the forgotten pages of email marketing, those lonely and neglected pages that haven’t been updated in two years or more or –gasp! — haven’t been altered from the default template set by the vendor. These sad pages and trigger emails include: Protecting email lists internally important author: Mark J. Miller source: B2B Magazine date : 11/8/2007 Email continues to grow rapidly as a source for retaining and gaining circulation, but there's a very big problem: email abuse. It seems every department in a publishing company has a product that it's trying to market via email; that results in a glut of emails from the same company, which eventually leads consumers to opt out. Audience marketers are trying to figure out how to avoid killing the golden goose. How can a circulator protect the company list from internal abuse? "Beg, cajole, plead, threaten, anything that works," said Deb Walsh, director of audience development at IDG's Cambridge Bio Collaborative. What works for some companies is establishing total control over emails from one source. The Achilles’ Heel Of The Email Marketing Industry author: Chad White source: MediaPost date : 11/1/2007 The DMA 07 conference last month was an eye-opener for me, with a few events coming together to convince me of something undeniable in the email marketing space. First, in the lead-up to the show, the Email Experience Council collected questions from our members and subscribers for the Wall of Questions at our booth. We posted 11 questions and rounded up more than a dozen email experts at the show to answer the questions, which we posted on the EEC blog after the conference. The questions were great, but most of them were what long-time emailers would call “basic,” with some predictably looking for that elusive silver bullet answer. Acquisition, Activation, Cultivation And Conversion author: David Baker source: MediaPost date : 10/29/2007 This is a common sales lifecycle for most marketers from a business perspective. A closer look at today's definitions of these categories shows that some have changed from past seasons. - Acquisition - Activation - Cultivation - Conversion Six Strategies to Make Your Newsletters Work Harder author: Martin Reilly and Deb Rapacz source: MarketingProfs.com date : 6/5/2007 Brands that deliver general interest newsletters filled with tips, tools, and advice—but not unique brand-differentiating content—should rethink their approach. Many brands originally expect that engaging with customers and delivering basic newsletters will create warm and fuzzy feelings that are enough to generate a positive ROI. Most are disappointed with their results. Progressive brands are making advances in their approach, tightening the focus of their relationship marketing, and now filling newsletters with more unique-to-the-brand content. Here are six forward-looking strategies to make your newsletter and other relationship-building communications work harder. 7 Steps for Improving Your Email Marketing author: Michael Fleischner source: DomainInformer date : 12/20/2006 The success of your email marketing campaign is often based on a set of complex factors. However, a number of these issues can be proactively managed to ensure an optimized response. When developing your next email campaign, consider the following guidelines. Tips For Effective Email Marketing author: Robert Burko source: The Work At Home Guide date : 12/20/2006 Over the past few years, research has continued to prove the benefits of e-mail marketing for business: low costs, high conversion rates and detailed tracking are all notable features. But e-mail marketing is becoming much more than just a tool for spammers and e-businesses. Consumers are becoming increasingly savvy on the differences between spam and permission-based emails, and more and more of them are accepting permission-based e-mail marketing as a positive replacement for direct mail. The best news is that the majority of people who receive permission-based e-mails open, on average, 78% of them. Jupiter Research reports... The 5 Cardinal Sins of Email Marketing author: Robert Burko source: Online Earnings date : 12/1/2006 One of the most frequent questions my customers ask me is "What should I do to make sure my email marketing campaign is a success?" My answer is always different, depending on the client's industry, campaign goal, and many other factors. But in today's e-marketing landscape, there are a few pointers that stand true for any client, a few things that can really make or break an email campaign. You could overlook these, and you'll still have an email campaign. But if you're stuck wondering why your email messages are yielding little to no response, you may want to take a closer look and consider if you're commiting any of these 5 email marketing sins: The 5 Biggest Email Brand-Killers author: Stefan Pollard source: EmailLabs date : 9/1/2006 One of the greatest crimes you can commit with email is using it like an electronic version of your other direct-marketing media, such as catalogs, postal mailers, radio/TV, even brochures and newspaper inserts. A world-class brand-builder can morph into a sure-fire brand-killer if you mistreat it through carelessness, ignorance or laziness. This brand-killing capability is closely tied to email's unique relationship with its recipients. It's more personal, perhaps because of the more intimate relationship between the reader and his computer. This intimacy encourages positive or negative feelings generated by your email to transfer to your brand. Yes, people can complain about the junk mail they get, but they don't get as agitated about it as they do about junk email. And, the penalties are much stiffer for email. Asking the Direct Marketing Association to get taken off print mailing lists won't snowball into an entire shutdown of that marketing channel the way spam complaints can shut down your email program. You can see email's tremendous utility in building brands, from its low cost to its flexibility, a near-universal adoption and ability to create one-on-one relationships with a million buyers or more. Now it's time to look at the top five actions that turn this brand-builder into the Godzilla of all brand-killers: Emailers Call For AOL, Yahoo! to Follow Microsoft's Lead author: Ken Magill source: Direct Magazine date : 8/8/2006 Now that Microsoft has added an unsubscribe button to its email user interface, marketers are calling for other Internet service providers—especially Yahoo! and AOL— to follow suit. Microsoft last week became the first email box provider to answer email marketers’ calls to include an unsubscribe button in its interface so consumers will be less likely to mistakenly report permission-based commercial email as spam. “We hope that all ISPs follow suit and we get to a level of accountability that is consistent across the Internet,” said Ben Isaacson, privacy and compliance leader for email service provider Cheetahmail’s parent Experian. More... AOL to Customers and Mailers: And You Are? author: KEN MAGILL source: Direct Magazine date : 7/1/2006 IN THE 12 MONTHS PRECEDING April — the most recent period for which figures are available — AOL lost subscribers at a clip of 258,000 a month. That's two…hundred…fifty…eight…thousand…a…month. This company loses the equivalent of Louisville, KY every four weeks. So what does AOL do with the subs who remain? It blatantly treats them as a commodity to be exploited — which is, after all, what they are, but does AOL have to be so stupid about it? Last month, for the first time in its history, the Web portal began serving banner ads along with email to paid subscribers. These aren't just the non-intrusive ads that people are accustomed to seeing with free services, such as Google's Gmail. Oh, no. These are big, flashing banners that take up a third of what once was message space. DMers Losing Interest in AOL Addresses author: Ken Magill source: Direct Magazine date : 7/1/2006 If AOL wants legitimate marketers to avoid contacting its subscribers, the plan is starting to work. Emailers are preparing for a serious drop in performance of AOL addresses, and some have abandoned mailing to them altogether. The banner ads AOL recently began inserting at the bottom of paid subscribers' email have cut the viewing area by a third, making the addresses even less enticing to mailers than they already were. Moreover, the attention-diverting banners now compete with whatever is in the message — usually a series of broken links and graphics — because AOL 9.0 now blocks HTML. Not surprisingly, some subscribers are up in arms about this move. At the same time, some marketing consultants are counseling their clients to consider suppressing AOL addresses, which can make up 20% of a consumer file. Email Marketing Myth #4: Email Requires Innovation Independence author: Michael Della Penna source: Multichannel Merchant Magazine date : 6/30/2006 For many years email marketers were an organization's designated renegades. While corporate marketing built the brand, these small groups of interactive pioneers did their "email thing" – building innovative marketing, service, and lifecycle communications around customer needs. They were often silent about their efforts but deadly with their results, growing customer relationships and driving marketing ROI at an incredible rate. Over time word spread, and the power of email was increasingly recognized as a key component of the marketing mix. As a result, these organizations are undergoing a significant shift in how they organize, plan, and execute their marketing programs; email is no longer a silo. According to a survey by Epsilon and Gfk NOP of 175 marketers, more than 70% of marketing decision-makers and influencers indicated that the same person controls their interactive and traditional budgets. Integrated marketing is now practiced by an integrated marketing organization. (In addition more than 70% of marketers surveyed indicated that their organizations currently practice cross-channel integrated marketing.) Is Gmail Feeding Your Customers to the Competition? author: Ken Magill source: Direct Magazine date : 6/27/2006 An as-yet little-noticed aspect of Google's free email service is becoming increasingly troubling to marketers and will become more so as the service grows. The problem: Gmail serves text ads based on words in the email's content. Also, the service blocks HTML by default so graphics don’t appear in the email unless the recipient clicks a link that says "display images below" or one that says "always display images from" the sender. As a result, whenever a marketer mails an offer or even a simple newsletter to a customer who is a Gmail subscriber, unless the subscriber has specifically requested that images from that marketer be shown, the message will appear with broken graphics, and quite possibly links to offers from competitors running down the right side of the screen. Harry Rosen’s Evolving Email Strategy author: Ken Schafer source: One Degree date : 6/4/2006 As Internet marketers we live either in the now or slightly in the future (ever ask your neighbour about feeds, podcasts or YouTube?). With that in mind I thought it might be nice to look at the progress on online retailer - Harry Rosen has made in emailing their customer list. Here we see an email sent from my wonderfully named salesperson Barby Ginsberg back in September 2002: Besides being text only and using non-trackable links, the message has a lot of quirks that caused me to use it as an example of what not to do when teaching e-marketing courses. Email Pros Call For Restraint, Greater Coordination author: Erik Sass source: MediaPost date : 5/24/2006 EMAIL MARKETERS who don't want to alienate their audience must have tight control over their organizations and carefully coordinate all the different kinds of email contact they make with customers to avoid pestering or overwhelming them, according to a panel of leading execs who discussed the subject on the second day of MediaPost's "Email Insider Summit" here. Andy Goldman, associate director of email marketing for OgilvyOne Worldwide, paid particular attention to what he called the "cadence and spacing" of email communications. "One of the things we look at with all our clients is the actual email cadence across multiple campaigns so when you touch people," he said, "and the way you touch people is spaced so that those individual brand messages are given their due right to make impact." E-Mail Marketers: Customers Tell You What They Want author: Katie Cole, Ph.D. source: Chief Marketer date : 5/21/2006 What do favorable brand perceptions, trust, and relevance all have in common? They were all found to be the most effective email marketing tactics for eliciting a favorable response, according to consumer responses to our fifth annual View from the Inbox survey of 2,500 consumers. For the survey, consumers were asked to rank how likely they would be to respond to various email marketing tactics. "Response" was defined as clicking on the links within the email message to take further action, such as make a transaction, register for a Website, or access more information. We found that effective tactics in email have... Email Marketing’s Top Tactic author: Stefan Eyram source: One Degree date : 5/15/2006 One of the most common questions I get asked about email marketing is "What are the industry average open and click-through rates?" If you ask ten industry experts you are likely to get ten different answers. What's the right answer? "It depends." That's also the right answer for many other email-related questions like: -What's the best day and time to send email? -What's the best type of offer to send? -How often should I send email? The specific answers to these questions will vary depending on your industry, who your best customers are, what your marketing objectives are and many other variables. So how do you get the answers to your questions? Email Confirmations Could Be A Gold Mine author: Stefan Eyram source: One Degree date : 5/10/2006 Lately I have signed up for a few new email lists and even made some online purchases from companies I have not dealt with before. What never ceases to amaze me is how many of these companies (almost all in this case) drop the ball when it comes to their confirmation email. I am surprised at how many of these confirmation messages arrive in my inbox - some right away (great) and some many hours, or days, later (bad) - and are just form text messages that everyone else gets. Wake up marketers, you are missing the boat! There’s a potential gold mine waiting to be uncovered here. Inbox Providers Push the Email List-Hygiene Issue author: Ken Magill source: Multichannel Merchant Magazine date : 5/3/2006 Though email's low cost has led to some infamously sloppy list practices, inbox providers are increasingly taking steps that will force marketers to clean their lists or face getting their campaigns blocked. Microsoft, for example, turns abandoned Hotmail accounts into spam traps—e-mail addresses used to catch senders of unsolicited bulk e-mail in the act. Abandoned-address spam traps are a twist on the original spam trap, the honey pot, or a decoy address that has never been used by anyone, making any email that arrives in that address, by definition, spam. Marketers who mail to honey-pot addresses cannot claim they have permission from subscribers to do so. "If you hit a honey-pot address, you’re screwed," says Ben Isaacson, privacy and compliance leader for CheetahMail, an Experian company. "It means you're going to get blacklisted right away." 8 Email Marketing Tips author: Carol Ellison source: DestinationCRM date : 5/1/2006 Experts provide commonsense advice about 'one of the most powerful and yet one of the most dangerous mediums of communication.' Should You Ask People To Unsubscribe? author: Ken Schafer source: One Degree date : 4/19/2006 As part of the enhancements we've been doing to One Degree to celebrate our first anniversary we've moved to a new outbound email system. Our intention from Day One was to provide daily email alerts but we never had a nicely automated (and cost effective) way to do this. We added Feedblitz to the site a few weeks ago and the uptake and feedback from new subscribers has been great. But we still have a load of subscribers from the past year who came to expect a weekly email digest rather than an overnight push of links to all posts from the previous day. What to do, what to do. Well... Don't Tell Me There's Nothing New author: Ken Schafer source: One Degree date : 4/17/2006 Let me share a current pet peeve with you in the hopes that you can avoid doing the same to your gentle readers (and maybe we can get the Globe & Mail to fix this for me). I like getting the Daily Tech Alert e-mail update that the Globe and Mail sends out each week day. At left you see a bit of a recent issue of the newsletter. Good content. Well laid out. So what's the problem? Well, this is the April 11th edition of the daily tech alert. Why on earth are they pointing me to articles that are almost a month old? Suppression Oppression author: Tami Monahan Forman source: Return Path date : 4/17/2006 Spammers have negatively influenced email in lots of ways, with one of the most visible being the need for image suppression. There is no question that the average consumer prefers pretty, graphically-enhanced email over the boring, plain text versions. But there is also no question that the average consumer prefers that pictures with "adult" themes don’t accidentally pop up while at the office or in front of impressionable kids. The ISPs have combated this problem by suppressing graphics -- essentially treating all images as potentially problematic. (Thank you, Mr. Spam.) Despite how widespread this practice has become, few marketers really think about how image suppression affects their email program. They should. Why? Three reasons: Solicit Post-purchase Reviews author: Ken Schafer source: One Degree date : 3/30/2006 Here's a bright idea courtesy of Apple. When I recently purchased some songs via iTunes my email receipt came with a link asking me to review one of the tracks. I’m always surprised that sites (particularly commerce sites) don’t make better use of email and “thank you” pages to get customers more involved in the community aspects of their services. Sorry RSS, Email Is Here To Stay author: Jennifer Evans source: One Degree date : 3/30/2006 "Video killed the radio star..." That wasn't only the first video played on MTV, it's also wrong. It seems that throughout history whenever a new medium for communication arrives, the death knell for the previous is sounded. Movies meant the death of radio, TV meant the death of both radio and film, and the Internet meant the end of everything. Lately, the death knell has been sounding for email. Email for personal communication is unlikely to be replaced. How we read that email and on what kinds of devices: that is anyone's guess. But business email is also unlikely to be completely replaced by technologies such as RSS. Why? Read on... What are the biggest challenges facing email marketers today? author: Chip House source: Chip's Deliverability Tips date : 3/28/2006 Email deliverability is a topic that is at the top of everyone's mind. 5 years ago most people were asking me about how to best format their email, or write copy, subject lines or calls to action. Today many are just trying to make it to the inbox. The discipline is getting more complex. You now have CAN-SPAM in the USA, PIPEDA in Canada and the EU Privacy Directive to think about, and may have to take steps to make sure your program is compliant. The story is the same on the technical front... The Email Marketing Success Forecast author: Jeanniey Mullen source: Clickz date : 3/20/2006 As the end of the first quarter draws near, it's time to review your email efforts to determine if you're still on the road to success. Though sales and response rates are key indicators to how well your program is performing, there are 12 critical areas where you can rate your program's effectiveness to forecast how well you can expect the rest of the year to go. Will your email efforts succeed in 2006? Find out by answering these questions for your organization's programs, then answer them for your top two competitors. Comparing results will offer some clear direction of how the rest of 2006 should be managed. 5 Questions For Francois Lane, NewsletterArchive author: Ken Schafer source: One Degree date : 3/17/2006 Francois Lane is a Montreal-based Internet entrepreneur. Since 1996, he has spearheaded a number of projects in the French Canadian market, including an e-commerce store for computer equipment, a blog application, a networked community service, a viral contest website, and Web hosting and email marketing services. NewsletterArchive.org is Francois’s first venture to target a global audience. How to Avoid Getting Stuck in an Email Marketing Rut author: Karen J. Bannan source: B2B Magazine date : 3/16/2006 Marketers that sent out email on Fridays experienced the highest open rates, according to the 2005 Response Rate study released this week by Indianapolis-based email service provider ExactTarget. Still, Morgan Stewart, the company’s director of strategic services, warns marketers against sticking with a single day for sending out email marketing messages. “We get into ruts and get comfortable, and let our email programs be run by tactically oriented folks,” he said. “Email marketing is still a moving target, something that needs to be looked at and tested consistently.” Day and time aren’t the only things that can become stale if left alone too long. Here are some of the variables that get marketers into ruts, according to Stewart, along with advice on how you can bust out of them. This Just In - AOL In Business for Money author: Staff source: Direct Magazine date : 3/14/2006 Of all the criticisms of AOL’s implementation of Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail system, that the deal is solely aimed at making money is lamest. You mean AOL is in business for profit? Who knew? Rich Ord, CEO of online business-to-business publishing concern iEntry, apparently figured this out. He wrote recently on WebProNews: “AOL touts this new partnership as helping their members stamp out spam. Of course this is a complete and utter falsehood. The Goodmail system actually will ensure that sponsor emails hit the top of the inbox. It doesn’t mean these advertisers are spamming but who else is going to pay but advertisers and corporations. Sure, the AOL member probably opted in at some point ... but now at AOL the advertiser message is going to take priority.” 10 Quick Wins for Email Marketing author: Barry Stamos source: iMedia Connection date : 3/13/2006 Take your email marketing programs to the next level in 2006 by following this advice for added ROI. Data Held Hostage author: Al DiGuido source: Clickz date : 3/9/2006 Never before has there been a more important time for organizations of all sizes to understand the power inherent in customer databases and e-mail communications. There's renewed passion in marketing departments to better understand each customer touch point and the opportunity to capture behavioral and transactional data. Data must be used as the backbone for constructing a more contextually relevant, meaningful, and cost-efficient dialogue between marketer and customer. Access to and manipulation of this data to retain and grow existing customer relationships, attract new customers, and win back lost or inactive customers are essential to a profitable future for any company. Email Reputation: Your Online Credit Score author: George Bilbrey source: Chief Marketer date : 3/1/2006 There's so much talk out there about email reputation that it can be hard for marketers to determine how much attention to pay to it and what to care about. The bottom line is that every email sender, including those who do newsletters, has an email reputation–and it dictates whether messages and e-zines reach the inbox, get junked or go missing. When it comes to reputation, keep one simple rule in mind: YOU control your email reputation. Think of it as your credit score for email – your past and present behaviors factor into your credit rating, and your future behaviors can make it better or worse. The same is true with email. Bright Ideas: Online shoppers want more power to choose—the web invents new ways to serve it up author: Mary Wagner source: Internet Retailer date : 3/1/2006 Smart marketers have always known that the customer is king, but a look at what’s on the drawing board and entering the marketplace at technology developers suggests online retailers will soon have even more new ways to give shoppers royal treatment. The theme of shopper empowerment characterizes much of what’s currently on the minds and in the labs of developers and the online marketers they target. Providers are reworking technology initially deployed in other sectors or available only to site operators on the backend and rolling it out directly to the consumer web interface. They’re figuring out new ways to segment online content according to consumers’ preferences and deliver it in richer formats. It’s all geared toward an improved shopping experience—and improved sales. What to Test… and What Not to Test author: Jeanne Jennings source: Clickz date : 2/27/2006 I'm a huge fan of testing when you send e-mail. It's the best way to continually improve metrics and optimize your efforts. That said, not everything warrants an A/B split test. Here are a few scenarios I've come across with clients recently, along with my test/don't test advice. Email 101: 4 Tips for Keeping Customers author: Tricia Robinson source: iMedia Connection date : 2/27/2006 Customer satisfaction is the driving factor in your retention efforts. Since retained customers spend more money per sale, buy more frequently, refer others and cost less per sale, all evidence points towards the importance of keeping your customers happy. In a tight economy, there is constant pressure to grow and sell more. With this emphasis on increasing revenue, sometimes the fundamentals of building strong customer relationships are forgotten. Email is one of the best ways to retain customers and increase customer satisfaction because it establishes personal, useful and timely communication. Marketers are starting to realize that when used correctly, email can save you time, money and most importantly, customers. Here are some tips for getting started with your email program: Setting Objectives for Dynamic E-Mail Campaigns author: Derek Harding source: Clickz date : 2/23/2006 Once you establish that you have a platform capable of delivering a dynamic campaign, you must define your objectives. As I said in my dynamic messaging survival guide, dynamic programs require much more preparation and upfront quality control than traditional campaigns. Dynamic messaging opens up a whole new world of opportunity in which the possibilities are virtually endless. It's easy to get carried away. Yet marketing campaigns must meet and support business objectives. If they don't, they have no value. Clear objectives must be defined and kept in sight throughout the development process. They're a vital sounding board for determining what is and isn't worth implementing. They're the ultimate sanity check that keeps the project on track. My E-Newsletter Malfunction author: Karen Gedney source: Clickz date : 2/22/2006 OK, it wasn't quite as embarrassing as Janet Jackson's Super Bowl wardrobe debacle. But do I wish I'd taken a moment to think before clicking "send!" Here's what happened. As some of you know, I recently launched my own e-newsletter, and it's been a great success. I've gotten five or six big new clients as a result, and a lot of people seem to appreciate getting it. So when issue three was ready to go, I viewed it on the preview screen and it looked terrific. I briefly thought about sending a test e-mail but said to myself, "Nah, it's fine." Famous last words... Every Company Should Have a Newsletter author: G. Simms Jenkins source: iMedia Connection date : 2/21/2006 BrightWave Marketing Founder G. Simms Jenkins covers keys to creating or reviewing your email newsletters. Email newsletters generally feel like a necessary evil for most marketing teams that produce them. Yes, they generally take longer to produce, are more labor intensive and perhaps most importantly don't generate the specific ROI that more promotional emails achieve. Why should you utilize e-newsletters? Calculate The Value Of An E-mail Address author: David Baker source: MediaPost date : 2/20/2006 With the help of one of my guru analysts, I will share an elegant formula to help you establish the financial value of an e-mail subscriber over a given period. Email Marketing Is Back author: David H. Martin source: Water Tech Online date : 2/14/2006 If you thought e-mail marketing would only annoy customers who think it is “spam,” think again. The increased use and sophistication of available spam-blocking software has helped e-mail users more easily identify and accept legitimate opt-in messages than even two years ago. Notwithstanding all the negative publicity over “spamming,” people have become much more comfortable with the e-mail medium because it provides them with benefits. Marketers are using e-mail for new-product announcements, press releases, special offers, product discounts, order confirmations, newsletters and a host of other applications. Get Customers to Open Your Email author: Entrepreneur.com source: The Street.com date : 2/13/2006 Ask the majority of small-business owners, and they'll tell you the one tool they can't live without is email. In fact, with its extremely low cost of implementation and quick turnaround time on campaigns, email marketing is becoming the customer-retention tool of choice for entrepreneurs nationwide. Just as with any other new marketing tactic, email marketing may take a bit of time to master. If you've tried email and had less-than-stellar results, there are a number of important steps you can take to improve your ROI. And if you're just learning about email marketing, it's critical to understand the elements that can make or break your campaign. For superior results, be sure to follow these four important tips. Charge Emailers, but Keep Pipeline Open author: Rob Pegoraro source: BizReport date : 2/10/2006 Executives at telecom giants such as AT&T and Verizon Communications are talking up the idea of inviting popular Web sites and services to pay extra for better access to their lines -- and some are going further, suggesting that they would demand compensation from the likes of Google and Yahoo for all the bits they send down their lines. Yahoo and America Online, meanwhile, are rolling out plans to charge companies that send large quantities of email to their users. Those proposed tolls and fees are not the sort that consumers would pay. At first, and maybe for good, the fees would not inflate or deflate the monthly telecom bill at all. Goodmail CEO on the AOL Deal and More author: Tim Parry source: Chief Marketer date : 2/10/2006 Richard Gingras says he suddenly knows what it's like to be a politician or a celebrity. The cofounder/CEO of Goodmail Systems says he's only trying to help commercial bulk emailers attain higher open rates while allowing consumers to once again trust that the emails they receive are from the stated recipient. But after AOL announced on Jan. 30 that it had started using Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail service, Gingras says he's seen a lot of misleading information in the media. "It's kind of tough to read about yourself in a bad manner every day," Gingras says. "Somehow, no matter how we try to explain the service, the correct message does not get through." Email Executives Back AOL-Goodmail Deal author: Ken Magill source: Multichannel Merchant Magazine date : 2/8/2006 After an initial outcry over AOL’s announcement that it was implementing Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail program (“AOL-Goodmail Deal Called Money Grab”), some prominent email marketing executives have come out in favor of the deal. AOL announced on Jan. 30 that it was implementing Goodmail’s certified email service. Under the plan, AOL will charge senders a fraction of a cent per email to guarantee that their messages are delivered with graphics and links intact. AOL-Goodmail Deal Called Money Grab author: Ken Magill source: Multichannel Merchant Magazine date : 2/6/2006 AOL's announcement that it would begin implementing Goodmail's CertifiedEmail program is being denounced by at least one top industry executive as a cynical attempt to get more money out of nonspamming marketers. Currently AOL blocks graphics and links on most bulk email unless the sender is on AOL’s whitelist. Beginning this week, however, AOL said it would allow senders who have gone through an accreditation process with Goodmail to display images and hyperlinks by default for a fraction of a cent per message. AOL said it will also add a “trust” symbol that will appear in the display window so that recipients know the message has been verified as from a sender with a good reputation. Top 10 E-mail Newsletter Mistakes That (Nearly) Everyone Makes author: Anne Holland source: Chief Marketer date : 2/6/2006 Bad news: 38% of consumers surveyed last summer defined spam as "email that tries to sell me a product/service even if I know the sender." In other words, even if someone is your customer, he’s likely to consider you a spammer if you send him a sales alert or other offer pitch. But the good news is that consumers and business execs alike are signing up to receive email newsletters in thrillingly high numbers. In fact, in 2005 the average email opt-in list grew at a rate equaling 38.4% a year (yes, that's after the bad addresses and unsubscribes are taken out). You've got two action items to take away from this information: Top 10 Email Marketing Must-Dos author: Jim Herbold source: iMedia Connection date : 2/6/2006 Leveraging our experience working with hundreds of email marketers across several industries and reviewing the major email developments of 2005, EmailLabs has developed a list of the top 10 email marketing must-dos for marketers to rev up their email programs in 2006. Three Approaches to E-Mail Best Practices author: Jeanniey Mullen source: Clickz date : 2/6/2006 If you're on the service or strategy side of e-mail marketing, you most likely cringe every time a client or colleague nonchalantly asks for some standard e-mail best practices. You just don't know what she's looking for. At these times, you must take a different approach that will help flush out the real needs. Delivery Woes? Try This Five-Step Program author: Kirill Popov and Loren McDonald source: Clickz date : 2/1/2006 Even e-mailers with the best intentions get junked, blocked, or filtered on sight. How can you get out of your deliverability funk? If you want to get back on your feet and do e-mail right, follow this five-step strategy. Need for Speed: For some online retailers, ‘email customer service’ is an oxymoron author: Linda Punch source: Internet Retailer date : 2/1/2006 Terry Golesworthy recalls with dismay one online retailer’s explanation for poor email customer service: all emails were still going to a member of the web site development team—which had set up the site but wasn’t responsible for customer interaction—who was deleting them. What’s more, the retailer didn’t even know that customers’ email inquiries weren’t getting through until Golesworthy mentioned the problem in a quarterly report published by his consultancy, The Customer Respect Group. “Nobody spotted it because there was no one managing or expecting emails to come in,” he says. In another case, Golesworthy called a company which failed to respond to an email inquiry. “They said they never check email,” he says. “Well, why put it on your web site then?” How To Build An E-mail Program author: Melinda Krueger source: MediaPost date : 1/31/2006 BEGIN WITH THE END IN mind. This is always good advice, and particularly applicable when you're starting an e-mail program from scratch. What would your ideal program deliver? A growing list of opt-ins who welcome your e-mail in their in-box, recommend you to friends and come to your site to learn/browse/register/download and, ultimately, buy. I've talked to many marketers whose goal is simply to find as many names as possible and send them a marketing offer. If this is your goal, stop reading now. But if the ideal program sounds good to you, here is an approach to consider... E-Newsletters and the Power of Change author: Jeanne Jennings source: Clickz date : 1/30/2006 Problem: You offer a number of free e-mail newsletters to your customers, but only a small percentage opt in to receive them. What do you do? Here are a few possible actions, along with their pros and cons, to consider. Returning Trust to Email Marketing author: Richard Gingras source: iMedia Connection date : 1/30/2006 Goodmail Systems' co-founder and CEO describes the challenges email marketers face in 2006 and presents solutions. Behind the Scenes in the Booming Email Service Provider Industry: Why Are Some Clients Complaining? author: Anne Holland source: Chief Marketer date : 1/23/2006 Business is booming for email service providers (ESPs). In fact 87% of 1,927 marketing professionals recently surveyed by my company,MarketingSherpa, said they send some or all of their email campaigns and newsletters to ESPs instead of via inhouse systems. When we asked marketers how happy they were with their current email vendors, however, the news wasn't always so fabulous. A few sample quotes: Crystal Ball Predictions for Email author: Al DiGuido source: Clickz date : 1/12/2006 2005 was a stellar year for email marketing. As the year progressed, it became clear that organizations were leveraging this channel to deliver relevant, timely messages that provided measurable value to their customers and measurable ROI (define) to themselves. Batch-and-blast is a thing of the past -- and that's where it belongs. 2005 proved to be the year email marketing became further established as a truly viable channel that must be integrated into the overall marketing mix. 2006 is poised to further this execution and raise the bar even higher. My top 10 predictions for '06... Email List Best Practices author: Helen Ching source: Digital Connexxions date : 1/12/2006 Just Getting Started with sending Email? Here are a few quick suggestions to keep you from reinventing the wheel... Resolution #2: Turbocharge Your Email Program author: Staff source: Multichannel Merchant Magazine date : 1/4/2006 We don’t need to tell you the importance of email to your marketing and sales efforts. And you’re also no doubt aware of the continuing challenges to maximizing the effectiveness of the medium. To help you get the most from your email campaigns, EmailLabs (www.emaillabs.com), a Menlo Park, CA-based technology provider, has created a list of “must-dos” for 2006: Email Predictions for 2006 author: Stefan Eyram source: One Degree date : 1/4/2006 Each December and January over the last few years clients and associate have asked me for my predictions on the email industry: Will spam kill the ‘killer app’?; Will SMS and RSS replace email?; What will happen to email marketing metrics in the next year? It’s always interesting to see what others say. I read about the top trends from others. I especially like hearing from Bill McCloskey at MediaPost and his Email Insider. He always has his annual predictions too (subscription required). These are typically very US-focused predictions, often speaking of spam in terms of the US CAN-SPAM laws and what is seen in the US. Why Your E-Zine May Be More Important Than Your Web Site author: Staff source: Chief Marketer date : 1/3/2006 Many marketers see e-mail as a means of driving traffic to their Web sites. But that’s wrong, says Maria Veloso, the author of “Web Copy that Sells” (Amacom). “Chances are, less than 1% of visitors to your site will ever buy your product or service,” Veloso writes. “Even the best marketers with the most successful Web sites seldom convert more than 5% of their Web visitors into customers when their Web site is their only marketing vehicle.” Marketing to the Global Inbox -- Part II author: Elizabeth Lloyd source: iMedia Connection date : 1/3/2006 DMO Global's CMO reviews worldwide email marketing laws. With globalization and online marketers realizing the huge potential that expanding their efforts internationally has, it is of utmost importance to realize that what constitutes email best practices in one country is different than in others. However, there is one common denominator upon reviewing email marketing laws worldwide: opt-in. The following is a synopsis on email marketing laws worldwide highlighting Korea, Malaysia, Germany, Spain. (Please note this is the second review of a three-piece segment. The first installment highlighted the United States, the UK, Australia, Canada, China and Japan.) Support Your E-Zine With Surveys author: Matt Blumberg, Tami Monahan Forman & Stephanie A. Miller source: Chief Marketer date : 1/3/2006 Here’s something that always bears repeating: Continually request feedback from your subscribers by using short, interactive surveys. This is the best way to learn whether or not your email newsletter is relevant. You’ll also determine what does and doesn’t work with your email newsletter and what changes your readers would like to see. Ask them. They’ll tell you. And they’ll be honest. Remember, those customers have requested to receive email from you, so they have a vested interest in making sure that the time they spend reading your newsletter is indeed time well spent. Cutting Through The Clutter: RSS bypasses e-mail—and may be the ultimate segmentation tool author: Mary Wagner source: Internet Retailer date : 1/1/2006 Customers registered with eBags.com got something new in the e-mail they received from the online retailer the first week in December: a link allowing them to subscribe to an RSS feed that will let them know when the daily eBags Hot Deal is posted. Clicking on that link brought up a page with the deal of the day, plus an explanation of RSS, and links to several subscription-based or downloadable readers—applications needed to view that subscribed content. Tips for Hiring Email Marketers author: Staff source: iMedia Connection date : 1/1/2006 Accucast's CEO delivers step-by-step advice for staffing up and expanding your burgeoning email marketing efforts. It was inevitable. Your quarterly enewsletter is now monthly. A lone email promotion to "test the waters" has mushroomed into a weekly event. Your opt-in list is growing by leaps and bounds. Email marketing can no longer be left to your administrative assistant or a junior advertising staffer -- it's time to dedicate resources to this burgeoning function.