The Email Wars

The first ever award for email marketing campaign excellence for the EEC and little old eROI wins? Wow. We are humbled. With the likes of REI, AOL, Accor, and Genetech out there we were honored to be in the finalists but now, we won?

It is like the ancient days of Rome here at eROI.

Actually not in the least. The team is excited but hard at work looking forward to the event in San Diego.

What was odd about this award, and makes all the sense in the world with what we do, is that I actually found out today in an email. But not from the DMA or EEC, but from our old friend Google Alerts. That to me was the kicker. Google told me about it before the people giving out the award told me.

Oh the power of email and the internet, it never ceases.

Cheers and hope to see you at 72 and sunny SD, CA.

Okay, if you love Ben and Jerry’s raise your virtual hand. This stuff is like crack to me. Really it is one of the best things in the freezer aisle. BUT their emails kill me. So many missed opportunities to drive people to an online or offline location. This email started out great and delivered on a real simple premise, you are a VIT or Very Important Taster, and we want you to come by one of our shops and taste a few new flavors before they hit the shelves.

Good buzz factor, good pass along factor, good execution (except almost all images). Until I noticed that there was not a place to click in the entire body of the email except in the header logo. Really? Go to your local shop? Through a hunt for which is closer? (We have a few in Portland) How hard would it have been, and how much time would they have saved people by simply adding a link to a store locator?

View Large Image

When you are driving people from an online touch point to an offline location, give them the tools to make it happen right there. The hunt takes them away from your site and to other places where you had the opportunity to capture some brand impressions at the very least.

Off to Google Maps now… oh wait there is a Baskin and Robbins 31 flavors a block closer… sorry Ken and Harry’s, someone else made it easier.

A quick summary of all the ways you can use Twitter for both your professional or personal life, from DoshDosh.com

1. Get Feedback. Need an alternative perspective on how a website looks or the right course of action to take? Blast out a message asking for advice and you’ll receive replies from other users. This collective intelligence can be used as fodder for articles or projects.

2. Hire People. Need a good logo designer, marketer or programmer? Send out a message asking for recommendations. This is a very quick and easy way to hire freelancers or even companies based on familiar recommendations.

3. Direct traffic. Twitter can be used to get traffic to your websites or the sites of friends. If you ask your friends to tweet about it, the message will spread faster and further as other active users pick it up. There is a viral nature to all types of news, even on a site like Twitter.

4. Read News. Twitter users often link to useful sites or articles and can be a source of scoops and alternative news. You can also subscribe to Twitter feeds for specific websites/conferences, which allows you to receive and view content quickly. This is very useful for active social news participants.

5. Make New Friends. Like any other social network, Twitter has a built-in function for you to befriend and track the messages of other users. This is an easy way for you connect with people outside of your usual circle. Make an effort to add active users you find interesting. A Twitter acquaintance can be developed into a long lasting friendship.

6. Network for benefits. Twitter can be used as a socializing platform for you to interact with other like-minded people, especially those in the same industry. It can be used to establish consistent and deeper relationships for future benefits such as testimonials or peer recommendations.

7. Use it as a ToDo list. Use Twitter to record down what you need to do while you are away from the computer. Mark the tweet as a favorite to file it for referencing. Another alternative is to use an Online task management service that is synced with Twitter. One example is Remember The Milk.

8. Business Management. Twitter can be used as a company intranet that connects employees to one another. Workers can liaise with each other when working on group projects. Particularly useful when certain workers go out often in the field. Updates could be set to private for security reasons.

9. Notify Your Customers. Set up a Twitter feed for the specific purpose of notifying customers when new products come in. Customers can subscribe via mobile or RSS for instant notification. Twitter can also be used to provide mini-updates for one-on-one clients.

10. Take Notes. Twitter provides you with an easy way to record important ideas or concepts you want to explore further. Include links relevant to ideas you want to explore. Note taking can also be done offline via mobile applications.

11. Event Updates. Businesses can use Twitter as a means to inform event participants and latest event happenings/changes. This is a hassle-free way of disseminating information, especially when you don’t have the means to set up a direct mobile link between you and the audience

12. Find Prospects. Twitter can be used as a means to find potential customers or clients online. Do a search for keywords related to your product on Terraminds and then follow users. Tweet about topics parallel to your product and close prospects away from public channels by using direct messages or offline communications. Discretion and skill is needed in this area.

13. Provide Live coverage. Twitter’s message size limit prevents detailed coverage of events but it can allow you to provide real-time commentary which may help to spark further discussion or interest on the event as other Twitter users spread the message. Very useful for citizen journalism.

14. Time Management and Analysis. Twitter can simply be used to keep a detailed record of what you are doing every daily. This might be boring for others but this type of usage is useful when you want to analyze how you spend and manage your time.

15. Set Up Meetings. Twitter can help you organize impromptu meetups. For example, you can twitter a message while at a cafe, event or art gallery and arrange to meet fellow users at a specific spot. It’s an informal and casual way of arranging a meeting.

16. Acquire Votes. Send a link to your stories you’ve submitted in other social news sites like Digg. Sometimes your followers will vote up the stories because they agree with it. This allows you to acquire more support for your efforts on other social media websites.

Source: http://www.doshdosh.com/ways-you-can-use-twitter/

Subject: Email Performance Award Voting Ends Today - Vote Now!

Don’t forget to vote for the 2008 Email Performance Award. The polls close today at 5pm EST so cast your vote before it’s too late.

Here is the link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=TrahHVi24mD0SFs45oAqDQ_3d_3d

How Smart People are using Twitter
(Excerpt from http://www.901am.com/2007/the-top-5-ways-smart-people-use-twitter.html)

Streamlining your electronic inboxes. When you start using Twitter, you’ll probably find yourself using IM, social bookmarking, RSS readers and email less.

Aside from the public chat feature Twitter has, it also has a private direct messaging feature, so you could use that if you had a private message to send. You could also use Twitter direct messaging instead of email, which I’ve noticed some of my colleagues doing.

By using Twitter you may actually be able scale back on the influx of incoming information and electronic devices you use, which is something we can all appreciate.

As for those people who have been completely turned off to Twitter because of some of the more frivilous, immature uses of this global communication tool-I hear ya!

There’s only one way to deal with those annoying folks: Ignore them.

Instead, imitate the people who are using Twitter intelligently.

If you do, you just might find a new way of connecting with your target niche, scoop a story before your competitors, meet a future business partner, or streamline your arsenal of electronic communication tools.

If you’re still not convinced of the merits of Twitter, that’s fine.

Twitter is not for everyone, but if you’re the slightest bit intrigued as to why smart folks are singing the praises of Twitter, the only way you’ll ever satisfy your curiousity is to try it out for yourself.

Here are some Twitter Clients. My favorites are TwitterBerry (for blackberry) and Snitter (for desktop).

Just a little shout out to see if any of you are using Twitter? I have been for about 10 months and man is it addictive. I can’t tell you what it is achieving yet, but it has created some more interaction between friends, community and people that we don’t run into or talk to each day. It is like micro-blogging and at eROI has really taken off for people to share thoughts, experiences and events with one another in a new manner.

I think it is powerful. But what impact will it have on email marketing? I can tell you from a few months of research, conversations with other users in the Portland area, and testing how to feed it into other campaigns (web based and mobile based) that it is going to get BIG this year. I think in Portland, Oregon metro alone I have tracked over 90,000 people using it already. That is just one media market.

We are finding ways to feed Tweets into sites, but are looking at how to feed it into email. Does it have a place in a campaign? I can see how brands can use it, as well as news sources, mass transit and how it changes personal use of email and IM. But here is the test. We are going to wrap it into a few campaigns this quarter with some brave clients and brands. I can’t release all the details yet, but I think it will work well.

Any ideas?

And if you want to see some powerful resources, here are a few?

twitterwhere
twittervision
twitthis
tweetscan
twitdir

Alex Williams noticed tonight a release from RIM that the next upgrade of the OS will offer the ability to properly display HTML emails and Rich text. Nice find Alex.

HTML and Rich Text Email Rendering - BlackBerry smartphone users will be able to view HTML and rich text email messages with original formatting preserved including font colors and styles, embedded images, hyperlinks, tables, bullets and other formatting.

Read his post.

ReturnPath, are you making me fall in love all over again with so many GREAT proactive emails? I know it is close to Valentines Day, so watch out as the love is coming back at you soon…..

Mail Policy Changes at Comcast and Updates on AOL

There are a few new developments regarding Comcast and AOL that we would like to inform you about.

COMCAST
Today Comcast announced that they’ve recently instituted a global throttling policy that rate limits inbound mail to 6 recipients per second from a single IP address, regardless of the number of domains sending from that IP.

If you suspect this is affecting you, look for a 4xx error message (temp-fail) during the SMTP transaction. If the rate-limit is impacting your ability to deliver mail, adjusting your server’s delivery settings to ensure a less than 6 recipient per second rate of delivery should resolve the issue. You can find more detailed information on Comcast’s website.

AOL UPDATES
On Tuesday, AOL announced a few changes to their authentication methods and whitelist program. (go here for the original story). However, there were a few additional notes from AOL’s presentation to the ESPC that we thought you might find interesting.

AOL is providing a tool to test DKIM implementations - We haven’t tested it out yet, but AOL indicated that they were providing a “reflector” to test DKIM implementations. Apparently, if you send a message to [anyaddress]@dkimtest.aol.com, it will generate a bounce message. The bounce message will indicate whether your implementation passed or failed.

There are no changes to the enhanced whitelist for now - As you may know, AOL operates an enhanced whitelist for IP addresses that: (1) are on their regular whitelist and (2) have really, really good reputations. The enhanced whitelist is automatically chosen from the best performing IPs in the “regular” whitelist. The benefits of being on the whitelist are that images and links work by default. AOL indicated that there were no changes.

AOL is providing DKIM results headers - AOL is providing DKIM results (i.e., did you pass?) in the headers of messages. If you are a user of Return Path’s Mailbox Monitor tool, you can view the headers by viewing the message source of messages sent to AOL seeds.

To learn more about DKIM and authentication, sign up for our Quarterly Education Series starting February 12th where you will learn about the benefits of authentication, more about DKIM and how to get started with implementation via a special email series and live webinar. Email editor@returnpath.net with “Sign Me Up” in the subject line.

Today the Email Experience Council announced the five finalists for its first annual Email Performance Award, which recognizes an organization that has created an email marketing campaign that demonstrates the full power of the channel. The winner of the Email Performance Award, which will be selected by the eec’s members, will be presented during the Email Evolution Conference, which will be held February 12-13 at the Sheraton Hotel & Marina in San Diego.

In alphabetical order, the five finalists for the Email Performance Award are: Accor, AOL, Genentech, REI and Wacom.

For more details on each of them, including copies of their nomination forms and supporting materials, visit the eec’s Email Performance Awards page. Congratulations to the finalists.

Members of the eec can vote for the winner from among the Email Performance Award finalists (see below). Just log into your eec account and follow the instructions. Voting concludes at the end of day on Monday, Jan. 28.

If you have not had a chance to check out the Oopsy Hall of Fame for 2007 from Chad White at Retail Email blog, it is worth the read.

We have all had our shares of mistakes and email campaigns that should not have gone out. We might have thought that all was well, but email marketing is not bullet proof. Servers cause issues, email clients mess things up, databases do not get segmented right, etc etc etc.

Live and learn.

Visit the 2007 Oopsy Hall of Fame

A great ReturnPath alert today. These guys are being so proactive with sharing knowledge with their partners and customers and it is really appreciated. I wanted to pass on the love and share it with you.

NEWS:
We’ve recently learned some news from AOL about changes to how they authenticate inbound mail as well as changes to their whitelist program. We’ll know more after a question and answer session with AOL this afternoon (hosted by the ESPC) but here’s what we know now.

Changes to AOL White List
AOL is making a few changes to their whitelist - to the point where calling it a whitelist is probably a misnomer going forward. AOL indicates that in the future, the “whitelisting” process is simply a way for a mailer to introduce themselves to AOL and let AOL know a little about what kind of mail they are sending. AOL will want to know:

Domain and IP information for each mail stream
The kind of mail that is sent for each mail stream

(more…)

This page was not sent in an email campaign, but passed on to me from a co-worker here at eROI. After watching what should be a standard ecommerce page it made me think that this is an amazing idea of how to create a landing page that drives a person through the page from top to bottom and then back.

Take a look at HEMA’s product page. You can’t order anything and it’s in Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens. It creates a connection, even when you cannot read it.

If this was a landing page experience I would wager it would not only convert, but also drive people to talk about it and share it. Completely unexpected and very powerful.

Interested in joining the eROI team? We offer a creative work environment, excellent benefits, a great location in Portland, and plenty of bottom-shelf vodka and premium red wine. We always enjoy talking to interesting people: email us your resume at the addresses below, including relevant URLs and we’ll look it over with a fine-tooth comb and contact you if there is a match.

HERE ARE SOME OF OUR CURRENT JOB OPENINGS:
Support & Training Coordinator: 1-3 years experience. If interested, please email your resume to supporthire AT eroi.com.

Marketing Coordinator: 1-3 years experience. If interested, please email your resume to marketinghire AT eroi.com.

Senior Designer: 3-5 years experience in an interactive agency environment. If interested, please email your resume to designhire AT eroi.com.

Web Application Developer: 1-3 years experience in programming using PHP, MySQL and JavaScript. If interested, please email your resume to productionhire AT eroi.com.

Account Executive: 4-5 years experience in an interactive agency environment. If interested, please email your resume to accounthire AT eroi.com.

Technical Project Manager: 3-4 years experience in an interactive agency environment. If interested, please email your resume to accounthire AT eroi.com.

Office Assistant: 1-2 years experience. If interested, please email your resume to marketinghire AT eroi.com.

Chief Financial Officer: 10-12 years experience in financial management, strategy, and accounting for software and interactive companies. If interested, please email your resume to cfohire AT eroi.com.

Funny thing is one of our team caught this yesterday and had me audit some SenderID records to make sure they did not get messed up.

From ReturnPath today.

Microsoft Phishing Filter Error

We just learned of an issue at Microsoft domains that may be affecting your inbox percentages. Starting on Monday you may have noticed some of your campaigns being routed to the junk folder with the message: this message may be a phishing scam. It is very likely this was caused by error with the Microsoft phishing filter that flagged a very common link in HTML content, specifically: http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml.

We have been in contact with the Microsoft team and they have assured us that the issue has been resolved.

You don’t need to do anything. We just wanted to let you know why some of your deliverability numbers may have been off during the last 24 hours or so.

Questions? Just pick up the phone; your Return Path account representative is ready to help.

All best,
The Sender Score Team

We released a new guide today in our Resource Center.

Customer value — revenue, loyalty, advocacy

Brands preach that they are trying to build a base of customers who will keep coming back year after year, but all of their marketing and sales strategies point to a one-time sale so they can get their short-term revenue up. so, how can you stay away from this poorly designed sales strategy? Build customer value. Value comes in multiple forms — each requiring more involvement from your customer — revenue, loyalty, and advocacy. the following is a brief description of each and some ideas for metrics you can use to measure each.

Don’t just focus on price for the one-time sale to a short-term customer, build customer value. Value comes in multiple forms — each requiring more involvement from your customer — Revenue, Loyalty, and Advocacy. Learn how to make brand advocates out of your customer base.

If you have not visited our new resource center, now is the time. The new center allows a one time registration to keep track for you of what you have and have not read allowing you to focus on growing your knowledge through our experiences.

Get the PDF today