Yahoo! Scorched Earth?
May 7, 2008
I am sure a number of you had read the news about Yahoo!'s scorched earth tactics to evade the Microsoft buyout from a few weeks ago. Recently Yahoo! has appeared to change their whitelist/bulk sender application. We have a client that has not gotten word back in nearly 2 weeks from Yahoo! due to "Unforeseen internal circumstances that are delaying the processing of this request."
I wonder, have any of you out there see this issue? I wonder if this is part of Yahoo!'s scorched earth tactic - stop caring about your business and customers all together. Will withdrawing the MS buyout bid devalue Yahoo! so they can buy it for even less? I hope so because Yahoo! is broken.
Posted by Jeff. | Comments (0)
A Rant: Is playing it safe, playing it dumb?
April 20, 2008
I come across a lot of email, well all of us do, but I start to get annoyed by the "play it safe mentality". Especially the blatantly safe images:
- The B2B email with the five way too happy people sitting around a conference room while trying so hard to say diversity at the same time.
- The jewelry email with the excited woman with love in her eyes and a diamond ring on her finger.
It has been a long time since I have seen a unique email come out from a major brand. Is it the direction from the client, trying to be so mass audience that they don't want to offend anyone? Or is it the agency trying to speak to everyone through one ad? It is probably a little bit of both, but either way something needs to change. Major brand emails need to stop playing it safe and start doing something edgy with their email programs. The most interesting emails I see these days are those brands trying to stand out - t-shirt sites, video games, even text emails from new Web 2.0 companies can be intriguing.
Stop showing the same recycled content over and over. You lose reader interest and soon don't stand out from the noise, but are the noise.
Brands, ask for your agency to do something more cutting edge, push the proverbial envelope. You pay them for a reason beyond being a production shop, you pay them for ideas. The agency is your partner, stand up for them internally if you like the idea or think they have a good point.
Agencies, show your best work, not always what the client wants. You will be amazed at what they like sometimes. What is the worst that could happen, they say they don't like it? Actually, no, they fire you but you get the point.
Posted by Jeff. | Comments (0)
Before the @ is important - another example
March 29, 2008
What you are seing in this image is the rollover Mail preview on the AOL homepage. Look at how much "trailblzaers" sticks out in that list. If you read this blog you know I hate webmaster@ in email marketing. This validates that point. This view is very similar to the view on a mobile device as well.
Brand before the @ in your from address and you will see improved open rates, guaranteed.
Posted by AlexWilliams. | Comments (0)
Steal this idea for your Newsletters - Mobile Friendly Version
March 27, 2008
This was the first time I have seen this at the top of an email:
"Click here for the Wireless Version: URL"
Brilliant idea by the AAAA. I personally would change it to "Mobile Friendly", wireless is kind of confusing.
Most HTML email is worthless on a Blackberry, so daily news briefs, professional newsletters, etc... would be smart to add this feature.
How you do that, either through your ESP tools, or creating that mobile browser friendly version in HTML, you can figure that out through testing.
Click on the image to enlarge
Posted by AlexWilliams. | Comments (2)
New Email Marketing Survey: The Cradle and the Grave
March 19, 2008
Here at eROI we go to great lengths to keep you up to date on the latest trends in email marketing. Our latest survey asks for your input on the Subscribe/Unsubscribe Process.
This survey should take just a minute or two, and we will share the results with you when complete.
All survey participants will be automatically entered to win one of a handful of iPod Shuffle mp3 players!
Posted by Jeff. | Comments (0)
Frequency: Caged or free range
March 17, 2008
During the EEC event in February in one of the sessions the topic was frequency of email. The panelists had discussed email frequency and how much is too much as well as capping the frequency of your email, i.e., only allow a subscriber to be emailed X times per month. I asked, "If you cap the frequency of email to a subscribe to, say only get 5 emails per month, but you send out 10 a month, how do you determine what email is most relevant to them?"
I watched the panelists skirt around a non-answer as no one could tell me how you determine which emails are most relevant to the subscriber. If the 7th email might be the one that makes me purchase, you missed the boat.
Limiting the frequency by subscriber, in my opinion, is a bad idea. I welcome the conversation about why it is good, any lift in ROI you have seen etc., but I see the practice more harmful that good.
I always found that setting subscriber expectations is much more appropriate than a predetermined number. Tell subscribers that you send your newsletter once a month, promotions weekly, and event announcement every other week. Let them determine what is too much. It would be interesting to see if anyone has seen a lift in overall subscriber activity, as well as revenue and ROI that has implemented a predetermined frequency limit.
Posted by Jeff. | Comments (0)
Why you should follow eROI on Twitter
March 16, 2008
We have set up a Twitter feed for eROI to keep you posted on news, blog posts, cool things to check out, new project launches, and resourceful tidbits you can use to become awesome.
If you are not on the Twitter bandwagon yet, now is the time to jump on. Twitter is the new micro-blogging service that a lot of us at eROI love, especially Dylan.
We don't have much up yet, but head over to our Twitter page and follow us. We'll do the same to you.
Thanks to our friend Tamara Gielen, who posted this great video description of Twitter on the blog from the folks over at Common Craft.
Posted by AlexWilliams. | Comments (0)
It's gold Jerry, gold I tell ya!
March 7, 2008
Actually, it's "Gold Consumer: Best Promotional Blast-Direct Sale or Lead Gen Offer" - Wacom & eROI's 2008 Email Marketing Award from Marketing Sherpa.
Marketing Sherpa has posted all of the winners, with creative and details. You can get a lot of great ideas from these, I know I did.
Visit the "Power of the Pens" Page
Posted by AlexWilliams. | Comments (0)
Can't Salesforce come up with a unique idea?
March 4, 2008
We have been a Salesfoce.com user for a few years now and it is a great product, but the video on their site is a complete rip off.
I swear that video looked familiar to theYouTube hit - The Machine is Us/ing Us. Now the question to you is, is this crafty marketing riding the wave of a popular video or is this just a lazy marketing manager/agency that couldn't come up with a better idea?
Posted by Jeff. | Comments (0)
Perfect Subject Lines for your Emails.
February 18, 2008
Even though I don't write much copy, I love the blog Copyblogger.com. They posted a great trick when you are stumped for a blog post headline, which I think works just as well for subject lines: The Cosmo Headline Technique
Here's their example...
Cosmo Headline, "The 22 Best Relationship Tips Ever", becomes "My 22 Best Design Tips Ever".
Get the picture?
Anyway, they just released the results of the Details Magazine Headline Remix.
A fun read and a great blog. Kudos.
Posted by AlexWilliams. | Comments (0)
This email is from the "Webmaster", really?
February 17, 2008
I think it is time to put an end to email campaigns being sent from the "webmaster@" email address. There are more reasons not to do this than I care to list here today. Same goes for info@, no-reply@, etc...
Plus, most people think a webmaster is like that SNL skit "Nick Burns, your Company's Computer Guy." This is who you want your readers thinking is running the email marketing program?
Here are 2 reasons to change this:
1. Branding
In email clients like AOL, that don't show the masked "From" name, this is the first thing a subscriber sees.
Volvo does a good job with this: volvo@volvocars._.com.
2. Calling out Content
If you have a specific segment, you can use this space to call out "specials" or "events". This can help get an open just as much as a subject line. Some I see in my inbox today are: dailydeals@, specials@, events@,
Little things like this matter.
Posted by AlexWilliams. | Comments (0)
Dedicated IP or not a dedicated IP
February 14, 2008
We have all been at the EEC conference this last week listening to some of the top minds in email. One question that has come up a number of times over the years is whether or not you should have a dedicated IP when sending email. MarketingSherpa recently released a new paper Top 12 Email Newsletter Mistakes Nearly Everyone Makes. In this report Mistake #7: Deliverability: Content, Formatting & Lack of Self-Advocacy was to insist a dedicated IP from your ESP. This sounds great in theory, but not in practice.
Deliverability relies on a number of factors and one of them is volume. Low volume and/or sporadic volume hampers your deliverability dramatically. Since many ISPs base their blocks and temporary deferrals on complaint rate, your low volume and inconsistency of sending, albeit, dedicated could be one of the worst things you could do. All of those other senders might actually help your deliverability as long as your ESP employs best practices. So before you "insist" on a dedicated IP like MarketingSherpa says, ask your ESP if it would benefit you. Our job is to provide you with the best solution to get your email to the inbox.
Posted by Jeff. | Comments (1)
Email Evolution: San Diego here we come.
February 11, 2008
We are headed to San Diego for the eec's Email Evolution Conference. The eROI crew will be there in full force, so make sure to say hello if you see us.
Also, eROI's Dylan Boyd will be sitting on a panel with fellow email marketing bloggers Tamara Gielen of BeRelevant, Chad White of The Retail Email Blog/EEC Blog and Maddy Hubbard of Blue Hornet. They'll be talking about all aspects of blogging.
For those of you who won't be there, I will be blogging about the panel session from the show. Visit www.theemailwars.com on Feb. 13 in the morning to see the play-by-play.
Posted by AlexWilliams. | Comments (0)
Wall Street Journal gets Gmail'd
February 8, 2008
