The Email Wars

After 14 months (yep a long time due to all of the client work that keeps us growing), branding exercises, 6 wire frames, 9 designs, 43 team members, 2 Eye Tracking reviews and an ungodly amount of hours, (and some fun along the way) we have launched our new corporate site. You know if is always harder when the site is your own to really knock it out. We launch about 7-15 new sites and campaign sites each month for our customers, that it really puts things in perspective when you are working up your own.

It had been over 2 years since we pushed out our last site and it truly did not reflect what eROI is all about and the work we do. And since it is about the work, we wanted this new site to show and tell what we do. It is interesting when you start a business that is solely focused on email marketing, and you grow to add full interactive agency services and new products you just try to plug into a site map, how you can best communicate to people on a first impression basis. Well this new site really speaks to what we do. eROI is a full service interactive marketing and email agency. There I said it.

Some people expected us to go the way of a super flash site like other agencies, but that is not us. We took all of the lessons we impart on our clients and partners to heart in this one. We constructed it with lead capture, search engine optimization, portfolio, blog integration, tools, and most importantly a resource center that you will love.

This resource center will be the heart of our site for most of you that read this blog and are not (yet) clients or partners). We constructed it to allow people to register in a simple manner so that we are not asking all those crazy questions every time you want to get something. I mean why do so many companies road block the goods? Sure lead capture, but why not make it easier. Now after you register once, you have access every time to the data, studies, reports, and best practices guides you want. And best of all we remember for you what you downloaded prior so that you are not grabbing the same things over and over again (trust me we see this all week long) unless you really need it again.

So I invite you to check it out. Cruise through the pages, register for the Email Marketing Resources center (and it won’t just be about email as we are and INTERACTIVE and Email Marketing Agency remember), grab some guides, and learn more about what we do. Might surprise some of you the extent of the sites, custom work, campaign work and customers we work with. Surprised me once I saw it all in one place.

Then I ask you to give us your feedback as this is a “soft launch” in our minds and we will be tweaking the copy, code and pages in a living environment for your benefit.

Thank you for your time and thank you in advance for ANY feedback positive or negative as it only helps us to understand how we can be a better resource for you and your business.

From a newsletter I got today from the ERA:

Last week many of you contacted ERA asking about an FTC proposal of a so called “Do Not Track List” making it more difficult for online advertisers to monitor its users web habits. While the FTC did hold a workshop on Behavioral Marketing last week, this “Do Not Track List” was not a government proposal but rather a group of consumer advocates releasing their proposals in conjunction with the event.

The FTC’s workshop focused on what types of consumer data are collected, how such data is used, what protections are provided for that data, and the costs and benefits of behavioral advertising to consumers. Additionally, there was discussion revolving around what companies are disclosing to consumers and what consumers understand about online collection of their information for use in advertising.

While the consumer group backers for a “Do Not Track List” are attempting to take the model of the Do Not Call list, ample testimony over the two day workshop reflected the differences between how the internet operates in a dramatically different way than the telephone system. In fact, many experts indicated that a Do Not Track list would in fact actually increase the volume of online ads a consumer would receive. In a hypothetical situation where a consumer joins a proposed Do Not Track list, they would still see online ads, just not ads targeted to them whose generic nature would necessitate a web publisher showing more ads to compensate for the lost revenue of targeted advertising.

For those of you unfamiliar with behavioral advertising, it works like this. Instead of an ad being contextual to the content on a website (think Google Adsense), behavioral marketing targets consumers based on their behavior on a number of Web sites. A user visits several travel category pages on a particular site, for example. She is then served vacation ads. Three issues where highlighted at the FTC’s workshop. First, the issues surrounding behaviorally targeting children on Facebook type platforms. Second, third party behavioral targeting (a consumer visits your website and is served with ads from previous websites they have visited). Finally, the issues of what types of personal information where collected - none among good players in the industry - and how long it would be kept were topics for discussion.

Regardless, industry has taken these proposals seriously, with AOL announcing a new web site that will link consumers directly to opt-out lists run by the largest advertising networks. Google has also launched a privacy channel on its YouTube property to better educate the public with respect to their browsing options. It is a new and interesting issue that ERA will keep a close eye on moving forward.

Have not dug into this yet, but all data is worth reading…

EmailStatCenter.com Releases First Annual State of Email Metrics Survey Results

Interactive Marketers Cite Strong Importance of Proper Email Measurement & Standardization as well as Key Challenges for 2008

ATLANTA, GA (Nov. 13, 2007) - - EmailStatCenter.com released its findings from the First Annual State of Email Metrics survey. The survey measured interactive marketing professionals’ current views on the importance of email marketing metrics and the biggest challenges and focus areas for 2008. The full results can be found at http://www.emailstatcenter.com/EmailStatCenter_EmailMarketingMetrics_SurveyResults_2007.pdf

Selected highlights from the survey are as follows:

Frequent Measurement is Integral to Success
Over 95% of the individuals surveyed said that they did measure the results of their email campaigns. When asked how often they measured results, 57% of respondents indicated that they measure results 24-48 hours after deployment. However, only 18% indicated that they measured results on an annual basis.

Click Through and Deliverability Rank Tops with Professionals
Professionals ranked click through rate and deliverability as the most important metrics to track. Metrics surrounding total subscribers and forwards were among the lowest ranked metrics in terms of importance.

Metrics Not Widely Used for Budgeting
Only 50% of the email professionals surveyed reported that they use metrics for budgeting and forecasting purposes while 35% of professionals cited that they do not use metrics for budgeting. The remaining 15% were unsure.

Continue Reading at the JUMP

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Well Return Path continues to validate our choice in partners. Not only does the team rock there, but they are listening to the world of email marketing and giving us the tools, ahead of others, that will allow us to do a better job for our customers and partners.

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We all know that mobile is becoming a serious platform in the US, mobile device use is growing leaps and bounds each and every day. And in many cases the first touch you have with a B to B or B to C customer can happen on a Blackberry even before a traditional inbox. I know that I have had mobile marketing let downs in the past few years with gobblygook hitting my mobile device. Alex Williams on our Sales and Strategy team actually pointed in out in a video post on the new blackberry 8830 some time ago on our ReturnOnSubscriber.com blog.

So I want to thank Return Path for being a leaders, listening, and making our jobs easier to show the rendering issues (and now covering 90% of email clients in the US.. and even more in Asia and Europe) to our customers and partners.

Here is the release from tonight after the jump >>>

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Funny but relevant. Email is so much part of our lives in both personal and the business world that it often is the communication, the dialogue and the story. Very interesting concept from NBC in the pipes that will use the strings of emails as the way to tell this tale.

It makes me think that this is not too far fetched. Really it is right on the spot for many of our conversations from a personal and brand stand point. Think about how many conversations you have in your mind now that you read, where is years past you may have actually had a dialogue using your voice….

Will be interesting to see how this comes out.

This Is Your Brand on ‘E’
NBC, Omnicom Want to Unleash Fictional Agency on Real Marketers in Upcoming TV Series
By Brian Steinberg

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — NBC’s audience has embraced Dunder-Mifflin, the dysfunctional company from “The Office” where quirky workers flail about weekly. But is it ready for Miller Shanks?

NBC and Omnicom Group’s Full Circle Entertainment plan a comedic summer series based on “E,” the wickedly humorous Matt Beaumont novel that relies on a string of e-mail to tell the tale of a fictional London ad firm and its efforts to capture a vaunted Coca-Cola account.

Read on

That is right. I got it in “email” tonight that Jeanniey Mullen, founder of the EEC and diva of digital communication at Ogilvy has promised that if we get 500 registrants for the EEC Email Marketing event in San Diego in February, (AND Register by January 15th) she will let us drive her down the a parlor and get the EEC logo “inked” on her body. No we are not talking airbrush, temporary tattoo or even henna. We are talking INK.

Not sure where the placement will be, but I think we should leave that to all of you in the audience to vote.

So get off your keyboards and get on the plane to San Diego to join us all in THE email marketing event of the year. I am asking for the official registrant count tonight and will post it as soon as I have it. And will count it down every few days.

Time to make that commitment to the event, as she has made this commitment.

And did I mention that I am leading the Day 2 Keynote with a panel of email marketing bloggers from the US And EU? This will be a good event I promise.

Learn more about the event and register >>>

Sure email fosters community and drives traffic, but how can it be used to crowd source creative and content to build out your site? Even your next design, commercial or product have a chance to be grown from a single email drop. (notice I don’t use the word “blast” when I refer to email marketing, as it makes me cringe.) They also used a nice touch of an animated GIF in for the boot (you will need to see the live email and not the image below) to give this email color and life and want me to dig in and participate

We have long used email with campaigns (take a look at Kettle Foods People Choice 4 running as of last week) to drive participation and build buzz. No it is not viral marketing, but the match that can light the fire.

Doc Martens did a good job today in dropping (via one of my favorite shops Summit Projects in Hood River, Oregon) a simple email that is spot on with the See the Campaign Site campaign URL creative. The site is clear, fast, and easy to use and gives you so many options to create your shoe via web tools (and they are SEXY web tools) as well as offline Photoshop templates that you can work on and upload later. The voting engine is the part that stood out to me as we have tried many ways to make voting and rating less cumbersome and not a road block to customer campaign success. I think they nailed it. What do you think?

I am waiting to see what other touches come from this campaign or if it was just a one shot pony.

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One of our agency partners (yes we partner with a ton of agencies to provide an email platform) did a great job of using video in email. Now before you think that this video actually played in email.. wait. It did not and that is just fine by me. Video although sexy in email, does not always work no matter what company is telling you it did. BUT as a medium to use to drive the click through it is great.

The way that Citrus used the video player and play window is in my mind how to do it. Create the video to look like it is playable and drive me to click. Don’t waste my time making me install something or have it fail, just drive it to the place where it natively plays best.. the browser.

If you are using video in your campaigns and site, use it as collateral and fodder to drive the engagement in email. I think it works beautifully as we all love video and bandwidth is no longer a major concern.

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So when this whole 2008 Election thing kicked off, I went and opted in for all the major candidates email campaigns. I wanted to look at email frequency, reach, timing, tactics, and creative. So far I can tell you I have seen so many things and none of them uniform. From personal emails from multiple people on the campaign teams, many of whom I had never heard of, to this one below that looks like it was a string of emails forwarded on from people that maybe we should not have seen.

Is this good practices, transparency, or just the political engine at work? I am really not sure what is and what is not working yet, but the Obama campaign has been all over email as a marketing and fund raising engine. So hats off to them for being diligent and trying new things all the time. I am not sure that overall it really has impacted my thoughts towards any candidate, but it has made me take notice when they enter the inbox. I am thinking of later on putting them all into one study to see if I can find anything that stands out that we can all learn from.

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Ken, I stole your article, completely as only a way to give you a plug for your AWARDS you bestowed upon our industry that LOVES our awards. (Heck what industry doesn’t love a third party to validate them in some way, or just get some PR Mileage out of things like “The Most Likely to End Up a Used Car Salesman in Pontiac, Michigan”? Or “Most Likely to Marry the Homecoming Queen”? I think awards overall start at a young age and we all love them. Out here in Portland we like winning things like Most Sustainable City in the US, Fastest Growing Creative Class, Best Place to Live, and even Rainiest (this is a total lie just to keep so many people from flocking here…)

I was just utterly honored to make your list as #40. Was there an actual ranking method to this? Love the fun you poke as we all know it is good humored. As for Positive or Negative ROI, we only think positively out here at eROI.

The rest is after the jump….

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I think I have stated before that I sign up for 100s of emails… or more. It takes something special that we can all learn from or that is great to make me want to talk about it. This latest one from Jergens has a few things to talk about. The first is that the creative matches the campaign everywhere. The print, the TV, the site, spot on. I hate when I get something that is so detached form the overall campaign that I am not mentally sure how it all fits together. It is one of those second guess things people do when pieces don’t fit in an instant. But what I would have liked to see if a clear call to action and even know where to click besides the underlined links that really do not stand out on their own.

A nice button would have made that decision for me and kept me on the track that they wanted me to follow. So much of the design is driven by copy in many cases and not by email marketing principals of best practices. Would you know where to go?

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Now I can see how this impacts cookies and other analytics code, but how does this affect email marketing. Many of us place tracking scripts on our sites to see where people click from an email to what pages they visit in order to track conversion and how people are responding to a campaign. Many of us post this type of data warning in our privacy policies already, as I thought most of the sites do as well when it comes to cookies and tracking code. So will this impact email marketing? Are we wrong to assume that it is different?

What I really am wrestling with is the whole free web site question. I mean by this that if we are spending thousand to millions on web sites for consumers do they not think that we should be able to gather usage data on what people look at down to an individual level? By creating a place for people to shop, interact, and consume media don’t we have some right to know what is and is not working? I mean how would we be able to create events and pages that are more relevant to people based on what they do? Isn’t this what consumers have been screaming for… personalization and relevant information?

From the Article:
FTC to Web Advertisers: Police Yourselves, or We’ll Do it For You

That was the subtext of the message the Federal Trade Commission delivered to Web advertisers, in particular with relation to ads that track consumer behavior. According to Reuters:

FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz said Internet advertisers should tell consumers that information was being gathered, give them a choice to opt out, and protect any data collected.

While there is nothing particularly new about the advertising technologies the FTC is worried about, Washington seems to be just waking up to the privacy implications of how ads are served to consumers across the Web. As election year approaches, expect to hear a lot more sabre-rattling on this issue.

AOL’s announcement on Wednesday to let people opt out of having its advertising systems place cookies on their browsers was conveniently timed for the day before the hearing. Calls for an industry-wide do-not-track list are also picking up. A do-not-track list is a good idea. Not that it would ever be enforceable. But opt-out systems are preferable to someone at the FTC deciding which advertising tactics are acceptable and which ones are not. Ultimately, the market should reward the advertising platforms that produce the most relevant ads, which are good for both advertisers and consumers. And if people want to opt out of these system altogether, well that is a market signal also.

Typically I am all about the top loaded, clear call to action emails that work well in the preview pane. But sometimes I come across emails that are better long. Not that I think everyone is going to read it, but when your audience is photogs and designers, they appreciate the design, the copy and the effort of being creative. Getty Images does just this. What a clever email. Makes you want to continue reading down to find out what they are saying.

What makes good emails is not always the norm. Hard to really quantify that, but standing out in the inbox wins with me, and consumers everytime.

What are your thoughts?

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Another App from Microsoft. Do you think that all of these are out to compete with the new Google IMAP protocols? I am waiting to see how this works as I want to know if it is going to affect email rendering as the email is passed from the web client to a desktop environment. And IF you are offline will it pull down and reference the images? Or will ALL images be turned off? More complexities to deal with even when progress is made.

New beta software to access your Hotmail offline

When we launched Windows Live Hotmail earlier this month, we mentioned that there would be more ways to get your e-mail coming from Microsoft. The new beta for client-based e-mail is here! The Windows Live Hotmail team would like to invite you to try a new and exciting way of accessing your Hotmail account and any other e-mail accounts.

It’s called Windows Live Mail and it’s free software that you install on your computer.

http://mailcall.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!CC9301187A51FE33!43091.entry

So I need to install and run this. Everyone is making email something you can get in 50 different flavors all from the same source. How does this affect testing, rendering and tracking?

I installed it into Outlook 2007 on my PC and still don’t see it working right. Will keep trying. Has anyone else used it?

Access Windows Live Hotmail for free using the Outlook Connector beta
Update 2: Another how-to article here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102218231033.aspx

http://mailcall.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!CC9301187A51FE33!43212.entry

Update: New download link!

Here is the third book in the Windows Live e-mail trilogy: the new beta version of the Outlook Connector!

If you have Outlook on your computer, you can download and install the new Outlook Connector beta here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7aad7e6a-931e-438a-950c-5e9ea66322d4&displaylang=en&Hash=h6s3dqw89xeBTpexcStnoW2i81qoP%2fsPxtE2wOjLxQJBvn4S74p5AsZCAG2yP