Good Read: Drake Morton

Nine Steps To Getting The Big Stuff Done

by Loren McDonald, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012

I urge you to think big in 2012: to identify the most critical aspect of your email program and focus on ways to improve it so that you can drive greater success and take your program to a higher level.

This, of course, raises the perennial frustration among marketers: “How can I work on this big, important project when I’m already stretched thin on the work my boss expects me to do every day?”

Below are several approaches to help you win over management, not just to get them to see things your way, but also to secure the resources you need:

1. Make the case for focusing on a major goal. You know your email program well enough to be able to identify what I call the fulcrum: the point in your email program that drives the majority of your future revenue, conversions, engagement or loyalty.
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Need to Read: Drake Morton

Attention, Not Permission, Makes Email Strategic

Communications Asset

by Mike May, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011

We refer to email as a permission-based channel, but permission is not really the objective of an email program. It’s the cost of doing business, to be sure. Before anything else, you need to have earned the right to reach out to a customer or prospect through email.
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Need to Read: Drake Morton

Your Email To-Do List For 2012

by Loren McDonald, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2011

It’s that time of year for articles predicting marketing trends for 2012. For this column, however, I’m taking a different approach and outlining several tactics that should be on your 2012 to-do list.

Some of these are tactics that will help you keep up with your competitors, while others could move you ahead of the pack. All are designed to help you deliver a more effective email program — and, ultimately, achieve your business goals.
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Good Read: Drake Morton

Video is Evolving — Don’t Get Left Behind

by Craig Wax , Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011
Consumer usage of video is increasing at an astonishing rate. Cisco has estimated that video will increase from 30% of Internet traffic in 2010 to 90% by 2013. Online retailers are already using video, and service companies, manufacturing, and many others are also hopping on board. The scope of businesses that employ video and the different uses for video are expanding.

The message is clear: Consumers expect online video as a central element of a company’s communications strategy. No matter what sector of business you are in, incorporating video is an essential step in preparing yourself for the future of marketing.

73% of online retailers use video on product pages, which means that if you’re a retailer and you don’t have video on your site, you are officially in the minority, according to eMarketer. Other sectors of business are beginning to follow suit. A recent survey by Industrial Marketing Today  found that 50% of B2B manufacturers use YouTube as a channel to connect with their customers. Even service companies such as Charles Schwab are starting  to include videos on their websites.

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Good Read: Drake Morton

How Retailers Can Curb SPAM And Increase Engagement

by Neil Capel , Monday, Nov. 14, 2011

Every time I make a purchase online, another retailer makes me sign up for their email service. Jeans on sale today at 9 a.m., free shipping for the next two weeks, tips for fall fashion, and more enter my inbox every morning. Three months later, I’ve opened zero emails from the retailer and the brand is a permanent fixture in my spam folder.

Brands tend to think about direct to consumer email in the simples of ways: the more email I send, the more money I make. The fail rate on an average email, though, is well above 20%, according to Return Path. So in reality, the more emails you send the more one-time customers you bring in the door and push right back out the door when you bombard them with email.

Here are our five tips for retailers looking to increase engagement with their users and get out of that SPAM folder. (more…)

Good Read: Drake Morton

3 Tips for Delivering the

Content Your Audience Wants

By Loren McDonald, Vice President of Industry Relations

What’s most important to your email marketing and lead-nurturing efforts? It’s probably some combination of building relationships, increasingly loyalty, moving buyers through the sales cycle and, of course, turning your messages into revenue. Delivering the right message–content that educates, engages and entices recipients to perform the action you want–is essential to all of these goals.

With carefully planned strategy and the correct tools, you can improve the likelihood of providing the content your contacts are looking for–especially if you nail the right timing for your message. Here are a few tips for building your content so you deliver messaging that resonates strongly. (more…)

Good Read: Drake Morton

Email Delivery Up, Open Down

According to the Harte-Hanks Postfuture Index 2009-2010, email open rates declined to an average of 17% last year, down from 26% in 2009. The report examined metrics for over 2.8 billion email messages sent by about 100 companies in nine vertical industries. The company says that “… changing patterns in use of text and imagery… is having an impact on open rates, without necessarily having an impact on response.”
The study indicates that:

• Delivery rates increased to 95% last year, up from 93% in 2009
• Click rates were steady at 3%
• Unsubscribe rates dropped from 0.32% to 0.19%
• Bounce rates declined from 7% to 5%
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You should know: Drake Morton

Tomorrowland: The Future Of Inbox Deliverability

At Top Webmail Providers

by George Bilbrey, Wednesday, July 6, 2011

My company recently released a new study on sender reputation and the factors that influence inbox placement rates. The report showed that complaint rate, spam trap hit rate and unknown user rate are the biggest factors in determining whether or not your emails get delivered to the inbox. It’s always great to have more validation for what we’ve been saying for years, and information like this is very powerful in helping marketers to implement best practices.

That’s the world of reputation today. What does the reputation and deliverability world look like tomorrow?  As expected, I have a few thoughts.
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Interesting Read: Drake Morton

Relevance Is Overrated

Do you care about your customers? (Question from Wisdm.Biz)

by Morgan Stewart, Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Marketers, especially email marketers, are obsessed with the topic of relevance. Of course, there are good reasons for this obsession. Messages targeted to subscribers based on their interests yield higher response rates. Too many irrelevant messages increase the likelihood people will unsubscribe from future email messages.

In recent years, I have become obsessed with the question, “What companies do customers think do the best job marketing to them?” After considering the thousands of responses received through surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews, something occurred to me: relevance is overrated.
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Good Read: Drake Morton

Email Decision-Making: Beyond Revenue or

Best Practices

by Loren McDonald, Thursday, April 21, 2011

“Where should I put the unsubscribe link?” “Should I use a prechecked box to increase opt-ins?” “Should I send email to the addresses we collected via business cards gathered at trade shows three years ago?”

Whenever someone asks questions like these about email marketing, the answer has seemingly been pretty easy: “It depends, so test it. When in doubt, follow the generally accepted best practice.”

But, like everything else in the email world, I believe the conversation has become much more complex, and the easy answer often isn’t the right one.

At one time, we might have cited the best practice as the only way to answer questions like these or to plan out an email program. That might be the right answer if you work in an optimal situation, with an understanding management, a clean list, a healthy budget and so on.
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