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Tip - Don't send an Email until Wed.
August 31, 2007
One thing I have learned in email marketing over the last 5 years - Labor Day is an email wasteland.
Unless you are sending to a highly targeted segment or sending a time sensitive offer, my advice would be to hold off until late Tuesday at the earliest.
Why?
This is one of the biggest travel weekends of the year. People will be with their family and friends or on the road. If they are on the road, many of them will checking email from a smart phone - not an ideal situation yet.
Also, when they do check their email, their inbox will be jammed, and many emails will be deleted before being read. I know I have done this when I miss a few days of inbox maintenance.
So, go out, have a good time this weekend and leave your email marketing cares behind. Think about a great fall kick off campaign, and stay out of the inbox traffic jam.
Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 11:24 AM | Permalink
Is Back-to-School Finally Over?
August 29, 2007
I think I may have received the more random Back-to-School email today, which made very little sense to me.
I am guessing 2 ideas went into the strategy behind this campaign:
1. We have a lot of Playboy bags left, let's try to say they are needed on campus.
2. "What can we send that could tie into Back to School?"
Regardless, they came up with an timely offer and tied into a cultural event. I have a hard time believing this sold a lot of Playboy bags though....
Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 2:50 PM | Permalink
Link your Email PLEASE
August 27, 2007
There are a number of emails I get where people don't put a link, mainly newsletters. This email from All Surf Industry, with a 40% off Store Closing sale really frustrated me. You are closing your store, trying to get rid of your stock and you don't even link to your site or put an ALT tag in your email.
Yes they are local and have their contact info in the email, but people like to click, they may want to browse the site. Maybe there is a reason you are going out of business, your marketing doesn't work...
Comments (0) | Posted by Jeff at 8:23 AM | Permalink
Even major ESP's screw up sometimes
August 20, 2007
Email marketing is something that needs a lot of attention. It is so easy to miss a rendering issue, a spelling error, a personalization error, etc...
I wanted to post this to show you that even a major ESP like Exact Target can send out a jacked up email. You need to stay on your toes and test that one extra time, even if you think you are set. You may catch that error you missed.
This was Exact Target's monthly newsletter in my Gmail:
Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 9:28 AM | Permalink
Tell us who Won your Contest with an Email
August 13, 2007
I've always thought that people who collect emails and opt-in's for a contest entry should email out the results. I have never had a problem with someone else winning. I would also like to no if someone actually won the Harley, or the trip to the Oscars, or the iPod, or the Starbucks gift card. (I sign up for a lot of contests.)
I look at 2 benefits to sending out the winners name:
1. People will value your brand much more that you were legit and there was a winner.
2. You have an extra opportunity to entice them to more contests, products and services.
It's a no-brainer to me. I am not sure why you don't see more people do it.
I can tell you this, you will get a great open rate!
Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 9:54 PM | Permalink
Fast Company thinks I'm Slow
August 7, 2007
I signed up for the Fast Company "First Impression" newsletter. I was intrigued, especially with the title. As the saying goes, "you only get once chance to make a first impression."
I was greeted with this:
This email to me seems misguided and also lazy. You are counting on me to read this quote and click through to read the article, which is just 4 or 5 paragraphs anyway.
Why not just out the full article in the email? Why is there no article title or summary? Why just a quote?
Do I really need this mystery everyday? Do they really just want me to click through and get a pageview for their ads? There are already 2 ads in the email.
I unsubscribed. It can happen that fast....just one email. The old saying is true.
Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 9:57 AM | Permalink
Sign of Armageddon on Facebook
August 6, 2007
So, like most, I have been getting more involved with my Facebook profile and the amount of groups just baffles me. I am not sure how these will work into my life.
While searching for "Email Marketing", I came across this group:
Group Name: Spam Email Creation Type: Business - Marketing & Advertising Description: In this group, we will brainstorm ideas for spam emails to be sent around the globe. The most successful one will win BILL GATES FORTUNE!!
I guess the downside of social networking is spammers are now creating groups to share ideas and the like.
On a good note, SPAM is down at our company thanks to new measures being employed by our tech team.
The battle will never end, we must keep fighting until all the inboxes of the world are spam free!
Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 6:24 PM | Permalink
The GMail Report Spam" button: Behind the gCurtain
August 4, 2007
Us Email Marketers are always worries that our subscribers will hit the "Spam" button on their web-based email clients like Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, & Hotmail because of the close proximity to the message and laziness. Some people I know and have polled hit this instead of deleting or unsubscribing for n real reason.
The folks at Gmail blog have shed some light on their "Report Spam" button and what happens when you do this, definitely worth a read:
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:
One quote that caught my eye:
When our automated system sees a lot of people marking a particular email as spam, it starts blocking similar emails pretty quickly.
Getting a subscriber to authenticate you at the inbox level is just as important as ESP reputation.
Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 1:52 PM | Permalink
