No man is an iland

September 25, 2003

AOL 9.0 is bad news for emailers.
EmailSherpa.com with some insights into how the latest AOL version impacts on permission mailers, and some suggestions on how to get round the likely problems.

California spam law
You've probably read about California's new "toughest in the USA" anti-spam legislation (if not, there are a few links below).

Marketers using permission-based email marketing should welcome anything that reduces spam.

The problem with standalone legislative solutions is that they're all show (IMHO). The heavyweight spammers reponsible for most of the spam we get do not let little things like ethics and laws get in the way of their operations.

So you'll catch a few small fry, some unfortunate companies ignorant of the ways of the net, and make life more difficult for legitimate marketers.

But, as with most things in life, you need to attack the problem from several directions - legislation, technology, education etc. - to get at the core of the problem.

California spam law may face court challenge
Forbes.com: Tough Calif. anti-spam law may be hard to enforce
Brief: California bans all spam e-mail - Computerworld

Work email guidelines must be flexible
CEO John Caudwell's ban on (mainly internal) email for his 2,500 employees, is still sending waves around the tech mags. Here's one company arguing that blanket bans are too restrictive, suggesting instead different policies tailored to different recipient groups.

Aside: Whatever else the ban may have achieved, it's raked in a ton of free publicity for Caudwell's mobile phone retail chain.

Initial blog here

Background article:
BBC NEWS: Mobile boss bans e-mails

September 24, 2003

Things people do wrong
Yesterday and today gave birth to a few more email marketing worst practices. For the record, here's the first line of a story pitch I just got from a PR rep:

"Dear Error! MergeField was not found in header record of data source.,"

"When personalization goes wrong" Seems like a test might be in order.

Then yesterday I visited three of the largest golf retail sites to sign up for sales alerts for research purposes. One didn't have any kind of email subscription going on. Of the other two, neither sent me a welcome message or confirmation email after accepting my sign-up.

Lesson: Despite what you might think, you can still get ahead of the competition through email marketing. Because some of them still aren't doing any. And because some of the others still aren't doing it properly.

September 23, 2003

Media Service Refines E-Mail in Tests, Draws Subscriptions
Case study of a very successful B2B email campign, expected to generate new revenue of about 30 times what it cost. Lots of data and test results provided. But right down the bottom you'll find the note, "The list of those targeted was compiled by the company based on job function from public information on the Internet." So I wonder if they had any problem with spam complaints (the issue isn't addressed in the article).

September 19, 2003

New fact of the day
After signing up to Google email alerts for the keyword RSS, I discovered that it's also the acronym for a political/religious movement in India - Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Out of curiosity I visited their website and found this quote: "Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter." Hey, it's Friday.

September 18, 2003

EmailSherpa
looks at a report issued by Quris examining consumer email behavior.

Lots of interesting - indeed surprising - insight. If you value your bottom line, find the time to browse what they have to say about ensuring your emails get read and acted upon.

Although, of course, what people say, what they do and what makes a profit for the sender aren't always the same thing...and there's the issue with extrapolating from general survey results to your specific audience. But enough of my nit picking. Go learn.

MethodMail Strategic Email Marketing
Having finished a spring clean of this website, here's a little gem I discovered. Lots of detailed advice-type articles on email marketing written by a strategic agency in the field.

September 17, 2003

Microsoft, AOL, Others Focus on Fixing Inboxes
Report on the recent E-mail Deliverability Summit II, which brings together all sides of the deliverability debate in a search for practical solutions and meaningful progress on relevant issues.

Looks pretty positive.

September 16, 2003

Times change
Just completed a day's slog though the site, updating links and adding around a dozen new reports to the listings. Interestingly, most of the new reports cover technical issues like deliverability. Sign of the times.

Irony of the day
Just got an email from SilverPop, a well-regarded broadcast email service, and authors of the well-received report, "The Broken Link: What Do Recipients Really See?"

The links to two white papers in the HTML email they sent could not be clicked on in my Outlook preview pane...based on the source code, looks like an error in the HTML. It happens.

September 15, 2003

Wired News: Paying Spammers Not to Spam
I have no comment to make on this because if I did, I fear my head would explode.

Interview with John Caudwell
...in the UK's Daily Telegraph. He's a self-made billionaire and owner of the Phones4U mobile phone retail chain. Which has nothing to do with email marketing, except...he recently banned email from his 340+ stores, claiming "e-mails are the cancer of modern business."

September 12, 2003

First UK ruling under new email marketing regime
A long article about the so-called CAP code - a set of email marketing guidelines and rules introduced by the UK's Committee of Advertising Practice and administered by the Advertising Standards Authority. Among the many interesting highlights is the ruling that a company is held responsible by the ASA for checking that rented addresses have truly opted-in to get the kind of messages you want to send to the list.

In other words, it's not enough to get guarantees and assurances from the list owner. If recipients have a valid complaint that you're sending unsolicited email, then the ASA can penalize you, even though you acted in good faith all the way along the rental process. Of course, I daresay you'd have recourse to raise the issue with the list owner...

September 11, 2003

Email marketing fit and healthy after all
Says this field survey of over 2,300 marketers by MarketingSherpa which attributes email's continuing success as a marketing vehicle to improvements in testing and measurement practices.

September 10, 2003

TV-Like Features Boost E-Mail Response for IBM
Interesting look at how IBM actually replaced HTML with a multimedia format for one of their B2B newsletters. The result...increased CTR, view times and subscription rates. But what are the costs I wonder?

September 05, 2003

Don't forget us poor souls outside the USA
I got a newsletter today from a well-known brand and personality. In the editorial, the editor spoke about something that happened at the MTV music awards, baseball (I think) and American Idol, a US TV show (I assume). All of which was quite funny, assuming you understood the references. But the message I got was also, "this newsletter is for Americans."

In fact, I know the publication revels in speaking to a worldwide audience. But cultural references are always tricky. What might sound funny to the "domestic" audience, just raises a "huh?" (or "que?") from those elsewhere. Certainly the choice of references left me a little bemused, which I'm sure wasn't the intended effect.

September 04, 2003

Are Bounces Lying to You?
Important information if you're using broadcast email. Anne Holland relates how some ISPs and corporations are sending back "bad address" messages to email senders, even though the recipient's address is still valid. They do this when they think you're sending spam (which I'm assuming you're not, since this is a permission marketing site).

What then happens is your automated service or software unsubscribes the bounced addresses, meaning good addresses get taken off your list. And potentially lots of them, too. Check out Anne's advice for dealing with this problem.

The fun doesn't stop, does it?

September 03, 2003

Is RSS the Answer to the Spam Crisis?
Long article with good links. From comments I've seen elsewhere, it seems the clever money is going on RSS staying for geeks-only, unless the email software guys incorporate RSS capability into clients like Outlook. Can't speak for the developers at Microsoft, but I bet it's on their "to do" list.

Email and multi-channel marketing
Just talked with the Bombay Company about their online activities for an article I'm writing. They take a very holistic approach to their business, and are blurring the lines between catalogs, online and retail. They're also using email extensively. Not just for typical website promotions, but to drive traffic to online versions of their print catalogs and Sunday newspaper inserts for example.

September 02, 2003

Is The Email Open Rate A Perfect Pricing Model?
Rodney Much of Opt-in News raises the possibility of basing email list rental prices on open rates. I'm not sure that's the last word on pricing, given measurement problems and the fact that the single biggest determinant of open rate is subject line, rather than list quality.

However, it's certainly a useful contribution to the list rental scene, raising as it does some of the important issues faced by the industry.

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