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Having trouble viewing this email? Go here.

May 31, 2006

I am always amazed when email campiagns do not start off with some type of message like "Having trouble viewing this email? Go here." or "Can't see the images in this email? Click Here."

A quality email platform will produce an HTML page for every email you send. When I review "clicks", the majority of the time the "HTML-version" link is in the top 5-10 of overall clicks.

Something to think about....if your goal is to get them to your website, you are already half way there when they have opened up their browser.

Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 10:20 AM | Permalink

Marketers Still Struggling With Viral Strategies

May 24, 2006

Below is an email I recieved from MediaPost's Email Insider this morning and is worth a read. Everyone wants their campaign to go "viral" but it is not the easiest thing to accomplish. It is also hard to gauge the effect on ROI.

I would be interested in knowing your thoughts on what gives an email "viral-ness" (is that a word?) I think it has to be one of four things:

1.) "laugh out loud" funny
2.) have really good looking people in it
3.) an unbeatable offer or discount
4.) just plain bizarre

Marketers Still Struggling With Viral Strategies
by Erik Sass, Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Major marketers are still coming to grips with viral marketing, it became clear over the first two days of MediaPost's E-mail Insider Summit. In part that's simply because viral marketing hasn't yet produced a large enough return on investment to get execs' attention.

It's not for a lack of metrics, according to Syd Jones, senior manager of worldwide demand generation e-marketing for IBM: "One of our marketers has patented a viral marketing method that includes tracking of forwards to the second, the third, the fourth [recipient], that's actually quite powerful." Nonetheless, Jones said, "right now it's a bit of an education among our campaign owners and campaign shapers, because unfortunately it's still relatively new to them."

In the same vein, Tim Dolan, vice president of marketing for Return Path, noted: "One of the things we as an organization have struggled with is the potential of 'tell a friend,' versus its actual value." Dolan went on: "'Tell a friend' is one of those things where everyone has aspired to achieve great results, but I don't know how many people actually see that... We're still working on that."

Marketers Still Struggling With Viral Strategies (Continued)

Other speakers were even more blunt. For example, during his Monday break-out session, John Tomlinson, president of AVI Communications, confided: "We talk to people about how to do data capture to build a productive business community, and viral marketing is probably the least effective of the group that we use."

Content is still a key stumbling block, a point noted by Karen McKenna, associate marketing manager for Unilever, recalling a Unilever e-mail campaign on the racy theme "What happens in your refrigerator after the lights go out?" Recalling that the campaign fared very poorly among conservative, religious American women, McKenna concluded: "You have to be very selective when you pick your campaigns."

On that note, execs were still bullish on viral marketing overall-- as long as some basic guidelines are observed. Dolan, seconding McKenna's opinion, advised "being very strategic and selective about which e-mails have potential to become something you pass along to a friend at work." Likewise, Tomlinson also pointed to the importance of content: "We think it's going to be getting better, because the more creative the pieces that they get, the more they're going to want to send them on."

But the most innovative suggestion may have come from Andy Goldman, associate director of e-mail marketing for Ogilvy Worldwide, who pondered the possibility of recruiting enthusiasts to be viral "advocates": "I want to see if this is the kind of person who's interested in being an advocate, and maybe we can start seeing preference centers with sub-"opt-ins" to be an advocate... when they're going to put something on the table, saying 'I'm going to trust you...' that may be the time to say, 'Well we may want to trust you that much as well, and have you go out and be an advocate for our brand.'"

Email Insider for Wednesday, May 24, 2006: http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=43717

Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 8:48 AM | Permalink

eROI Releases Q1 2006 Survey

May 17, 2006

We just released our Q1'06 Email Statistics & Survey Study. During Q1'06, we saw dramatically different statistics when compared to Q4’05. For example, Q1 2006 gave us a huge uptake in weekend activity as well a massive upswing in open and click rates with increases of 40% and 60%, respectively.

It is especially interesting to see a large increase in opens and clicks during the weekend. Much of this activity can be attributed to the massive drop off in activities after the holidays, giving people more time to browse online and open and follow up on email. However, this quarter has presented us with some unexplained reactions. Normally, we see higher open and click rates on days with lower volume, such as on Sunday in the chart below, but at the same time we see the highest percentage of open rates take place on the day with the most email sent. What does this mean? Good subject lines and good creative get good results, bad creative and bad subject lines perform poorly. Don't forget to download our detailed eROI Q1'06 Email Report.

Comments (0) | Posted by Jeff at 3:58 PM | Permalink

Thank You Customers

May 7, 2006

We have looked at ways of providing value to your subscribers by giving them targeted offers and relevancy, but how do you just say thank you? You could give them a discount or admission into an event. The other option is to just give them an Old-Fashioned High Five with a new twist.

Check out sendahighfive.com

Comments (0) | Posted by Jeff at 3:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBack