The Email Wars

Well after 45 days of constant coding, we are proud to announce that we have successfully launched a new social media and promo site for HBO and the Justin Timberlake concert. Using KickApps once again, we love this platform, we were able to pull together with the great team at HBO a site for the concert series that HBO is bringing back after a hiatus.

We took some extra steps to create a widget that is embeddable into blogs as well as hammered out in record time a new iGoogle Gadet to countdown to the show and some special site only pre-concert and live concert footage.

Thanks to all the team here at eROI, KickApps and HBO for bringing Sexy Back.

This one was sent into me today from a reader and it was just tooooo juicy to not post. Looks like Best Buy got a little exicited and prematurely sent out the email campaign before the Subject Line was ready for PrimeTime.

How does “Test Email from PostPublisher” strike you? I know we have all made a whoops now and then. But what do you do when you make an error like this?

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1. How large was the drop?
2. Did you get no results?
3. Was it something in the test that you weren’t ready for?
4. Did it break down some of your credibility as a brand?

These are the things you need to consider before you start the email marketing fire drill. As once it is gone… it is gone. If you can answer the above questions and see that you are okay, IMHO do nothing. If you have some possible issues, find out who it went to and act fast. Fortunately we all forget rather quickly, as I wrote this 10 more emails came into my inbox, and if it did not do anything bad, move on and learn from it. It is okay to fail and okay to mess up, just don’t make a habit of it and use it as a learning lesson as I hope Best Buy will.

How many emails a day or week can you remember that we focused on you? Say I get over 500 a day and of those 10% are marketing messages from brands I watch. Now of those, I see MAYBE 1-2 a day that are somewhat relevant and 1 that might be on target. Those that are on target are based on, what I find, two critical factors.

1. User profile information

2. Behavior: Reads, Actions

Don’t you all feel the same way? I am amazed that with all the data I KNOW email marketing professionals get from campaigns and then site stats that they can’t figure out how to make things relevant. The batch and blast mentality is still strong out there and we need to help one another to learn what to do.

Example of this in action (and why, sorry FishBowl, but does the restaurant industry think that Fishbowl is such a great solution? I am always let down with the creativity and time it must take to put these things together… just look at the “dynamic” use of inserting my name ABOVE the creative… and my kids are both under 6 years old.)

I spent some time on a call this AM with a new client helping them to understand segmentation and some simple ways to look at data. My first thing is: write 3 user stories. If you aren’t familiar with a user story well it is just this:

Identify 3 or more perceived customer types on your mailing list or who you are going after. Take a blank sheet of paper and write down what YOU think they might be wanting to get from you based on your product, services, or content. Then start testing with every campaign. I always rec spacing tests and next actions out about 10 days to see what the down wind effects of the campaign are on your site, call to action and then to have a secondary drop in place (I prefer postcard style with ONE call to action) to send to those that either did not read, did not click or did not convert. It is the shampoo method of email marketing… Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

There is not a silver bullet with email no matter what others may tell you. It is not a one shot medium, but a reactive one. I can attest that brands that mail me relevant emails get my attention and in the end my mind share or dollars. And after all, isn’t that what you want? If not, go back to postal DM and continue your slow uptick in 1% growth and take me off your list while you are at it.

Survey: Americans Love Mobile Email

Crackberry Fever
The word “crackberry” may never go out of style. A new survey reveals that Americans are checking email on their mobile devices round the clock.

AOL and Opinion Research Corporation polled 4,025 people 13 and older in 20 cities around the country, according to Brighthand. 15 percent consider themselves “addicted to email.”

The average user checks mobile email around five times a day, while 59 percent check it every time a new message arrives.

Meanwhile, 43 percent keep their mobile device nearby when they are sleeping in case important email arrives.

No place is sacred when checking email: 83 percent check email once a day while on vacation, another 53 percent in the bathroom, and 12 percent read email while in church.

Found at:
http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=13225

One of the founding beliefs at eROI is to give back to our local community. We try to do that in spades with donations of services and email marketing systems that help over 60 non profits and online resources that we are passionate about utilize our knowledge and tools.

This year one of the new groups that we have aligned with is Zenger Farms. It is a great idea. A urban farm in the core of Portland that sets aside an organic, sustainable place that over 3000 school kids can go to to learn about how to raise food in a city, what impact it has on the land and on the carbon foot print of what they eat.

I think we all learned more in one day working on the farm clearing vegetable beds and hammering stakes into the ground that any of us knew before. Just imagine what impact it can have on a child locked in the city.

It is just good for a business to be able to take time to make this happen for them with a new website and email communications to educators and supporters in the Portland Metro area.

Photos from the day.

I love it when I get an email from an ESP touting BEST Practices in email design and they don’t drink the Kool Aid. We poked some fun at this with one of our webinars some time back by making the email LOOK like the images were broken with over-sized RED “x’s”. Made the point and was one of our largest webinars to date.

But Vertical Response (sorry Janine, but I had to do this) sent out their newsletter with the subject line and main article about designing emails with the images off. Did you forget to read your own blog post?

“Name Your Images Appropriately
Make sure your images are named correctly. If you’ve got your logo, name it something like “your_company_logo.gif” and remember to give it an alt tag (e.g alt=”Your Company”) so in the event the email reader strips out the images, your recipient may still recognize your name and know it’s legit. If you’ve got product images, name them “my_product.jpg”. “

More from the blog post. In theory this is right on, but practice what you preach or you look silly.

Makes me giggle on the inside, or well since I am blogging this on the outside too.

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With the images ON so much better, but still where was that name your image thing, Try using some alt tags or displaying the image name. I tried to look at the missing image properties and no go. I tried at least to make sure that I was not crazy…

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Crowne Plaza I thought had a great tie in placement for a BE a PRO campaign where they are giving away golf experiences. Love it. But being the email and detail snob I am, I was disappointed when the click took me to another domain and the creative “felt” odd compared to the email brand experience.

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Some take aways:

Keep the domain familiar
Keep the imagery the same and I might not look at the domain
Build my trust.

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Now average web surfers most likely won’t notice this URL for the landing page above, but they are getting smarter and savvier every day. If it runs out of the domain IMHO it scares people away with the brand trust and data use.
(The Landing Page URL was http://cpproforaday2.securepromotion.com/)

Well it took some time to recover from the party in July that we hold annually for clients, friends and about anyone else that wants to get down on a hot summer night in Portland, Oregon. The annual eROI party brought over 600 people to the offices for song, and eROI Idol contest, celebrity Judges and more booze mixed with an ice luge than would seem appropriate.

We are ONLY posting those photos worthy of public consumption as if you want the behind the scenes, you are going to need to get on a plane, bus or in your car and head up next year for the fiesta. We will be in our new offices by then (Dec 1, 2007 move in date slated) and ready to christen the place eROI style.

Cheers and thanks to all of you that made it a night to remember.

Photos from the event.

Here is another article today supporting why email still plays such an important role in online marketing, community and communications. I can tell you it is very much like a drug to some folks and very Pavlovian in nature. (Ring Ring… drool). I have bee trying to wean myself a bit over the last few weeks. Not cold turkey, but simply less interaction when at home, in the car, in the Starbucks line, etc.

As I had always wished to be a Cultural Anthropologist in today’s society, not suffering from blackberry head (face down, eyes focused inside the 3×2 machine) I have enjoyed watching others with phones, blackberries, treos, etc and what I must look like from time to time. I have been amazed lately with the age range of addicts I see reading email EVERYWHERE on cells and other devices in restuarants, drive throughs, store lines, walking down the street, etc.

I can tell you that from my observations, email is a main driver of why people are online still. For the Digerati that jump from platform to platform and trend to trend, telling us X is dead or Y is dead, email is just coming into it’s prime.

Wait, got to run, just got a twitter that the sun is rising….. who would have known.

Read the article at the jump>>

(more…)

Well after a long 10 day sojourn to the Los Angeles area, I am back. Actually got back a few days ago but took some time to get my head back in the game. Funny how time away now days takes a few days to get back into the swing of things. But recharged and ready to rock.

I tried to stay offline as much as possible, but amazing that between wifi and the blackberry how connected you can stay even when “disconnected”. I found myself reading and scanning for important emails and following up when some downtime occurred with the office and client communications.

Guess we have reached a state of constant connectivity here at eROI. I was not impulse buying any cases of wine or a new back to school outfit with the marketing emails I got, but then these are the dog days of summer and we all need a little offline time now and again.

Watch for some feverish posts as I have a lot of stored up material ready to unleash.

I love when an ISP touts what do do like this. It erodes my confidence that unsubscribing is the right thing to do from the ISP. Hell report it as spam, we will help destroy the IP reputation of the sender… Guys we are all in this together trying to set up feedback loops, educating clients and marketers alike. This just smells rank to me.

My Favorite part (joking)
“Sometimes people are afraid to report a message because they aren’t sure if it is “really” spam or not. Our opinion is that if you didn’t ask for it and you don’t want it, it’s spam to you, and it should be reported. We’ll sort it out on our side. We aren’t perfect, but in general it works because you tell us when it doesn’t!”

Thanks for all the spam reports
Thursday, July 19, 2007 1:01 PM
Posted by Brad Taylor, Software Engineer

For all you Gmail users hitting those “Report Spam” and “Not Spam” buttons, thanks a ton! We hear from a lot of users that they love how well Gmail blocks spam, and the only reason it works is because you all report it to us. If you’re not in the habit of doing this, I hope I can convince you to start. Here are three reasons you should report spam:

Read it all on the Gmail Blog

So the annual pilgrimage to Laguna Beach is underway. I am going to be yanking myself offline, well as much as I can, to spend some time with the family and about 100 other family members and friends that gather each year.

So look for a few less posts, unless I can work some up before I leave to keep you busy. I know the crackberry will be near, but attempting to have a self imposed intervention before the family imposes one of their own.

Cheers and thanks for the break.