The Email Wars

Cream? Sugar? Shaken? Stirred? Bookmarked? Email? RSS? LinkedIn? Facebook? Or just plain fat fingering your way to remember this blog each and every week. Well the choice is yours. We at eROI are open to giving people media and content not matter how they want it. We are not email only snobs but a group that lives, eats and breathes all new things digital. Do you know about or are you using ANY of these?

Are you following eROI and this blog using Twitter? You can and you should.

Personally I am on a mission to bring more people to learn and understand why Twitter and other tools are an important empowerment and reach platforms. And did you know that you can refeed your email campaigns and blog posts into Twitter? We have done it and it works great.

I don’t blog on it too much, but I do pontificate on it all day long with clients and here at the office. So allow me to pull up the Soapbox for a few moments.

I have been watching Twitter for almost 2 years. Yep since SXSW 2007. I passively started using it in July 2007. Now I state passively as there were not many people I knew using it at the time. By March of 2008 the tide turned. There were more of us on it and more conversations happening. For me that is when the tide started shifting on it.

Read the rest of this entry »

This should be a multipart post, but alas I wanted to get it all out together. Here is my take on what we need to think about in 2009.

Here is the current state of email marketing

Subscriber bases are expecting better email: Here is what this means. Your subscribers are now used to getting email from you and your brand. They are accustom to getting emails that are relevant, timely and well designed and formatted to render. SO you need to deliver that experience or lose some subscribers. Take a look at not only your campaigns from 2008 but look at your comp. Maybe it is time to refresh your email layouts and designs. 

Take some time to not only focus on the creative but look at how you are segmenting and targeting people. Stop the batch and blast (sorry to use that term) mentality that everyone gets the same sale or edition. It does not always work and you know it. If it is a time thing, start to plan out your campaigns and databases now to be ready for the new year. 

Read the rest of this entry »

How many “NEW” email clients are going to be released? And do they matter? 

We have seen so many email clients launched this past year all with features that we wish were in some of the larger ISPs and standards. But will these bells and whistles really make people switch and really make an impact on email marketing? I don’t think so. 

Although I love some of these ideas, I think that none of them will get enough groundswell or uptake to make an impact on our testing and our email marketing efforts. Now I don’t want to discount the hard work and innovation that has gone into these new apps, but in the end they are not going to make a dent in our radars. 

So take this new one with a grain of salt and chalk it up to just another one to know about, but not worry about testing. Unless Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, MSN, or Thunderbird make some massive changes, your life should go on as normal. Focus on the big picture in email clients. Use your energies to start understanding mobile clients like Blackberry, iPhone and MS Mobile. That is where your efforts in NEW clients should lie.

It is cool to see how Comcast is sharing how your email delivery works better with a higher Sender Score rating. We watch our IP Sender Scores all day long using ReturnPath and I love to see this sort of ISP transparency. I would hope that more ISPs could share how this impacts email delivery in 2009.

It just goes to prove that email reputation and best practices do make a difference.

View the info here

Yahoo!7 in Australia has launched the new Yahoo inbox as Think Outside The Inbox. It shows how easy it isto have your friends upfront and the rest - well elsewhere. As Australia is struggling with broadband this is cool to see a video ad that pushes them.

A cowboy tells you all about it in a video.

Well the holidays are almost here. Many of you have been burning the midnight oil to get your email campaigns together, tested, sent, and it might have felt like the “shampoo effect” at at time (lather, rinse, repeat) but you made it. And yes you will get a few days to hunker down and enjoy some time away from the glowing screen… OR will you. 

Many of you are just now gearing up for the rush to target the shoppers on Christmas day or the days following. So either way we wanted to give you something to enjoy. If you are not already a subscriber to our email newsletter, but a reader of this blog… here is a treat from us to enjoy at your holiday party, in the car, on your iPod or even while cranking out that next stellar, revenue generating campaign.

Read the rest of this entry »

I had to use that title for this post as I know that many of you out there are always jaded when it comes to list rental campaigns. Now I am not talking about buying lists, but partnering with other like brands or list managers that have double opt in lists where they have allowed subscribers to opt in for emails from like or relevant brands. 

Now here are 4 reasons why I dislike them (yes I changed my mind from hate).

1. They often will not perform to the expectations. Many brands expect these lists that are so well found and segmented to give them the same reach and performance from their own lists. This will not happen, ever. These are lead generation campaigns and if executed right can drive new subscribers to your lists and even sales/conversions. But don’t expect miracles. 

2. They are not from your brand. And they should not be. They should be sent from the brand that has the relationship and contain your offers. Many times they are sent from that brand and the disconnect with the user is bad for all. They can result in more list attrition from the list owner in the end if done wrong. 

Read the rest of this entry »