No man is an iland

October 31, 2003

Thank Santa For The Gifts Via Email
If you want to send Santa an email and get a reply, without even needing to connect to the Internet, then this is the download for you (or perhaps your kids). Now for the bad news: your email doesn't really get seen by the real Santa. And the even worse news: there is no real Santa (sorry kids).

October 30, 2003

Will California's Spam Law Kill Your Email Marketing?
Brian Klais with some thoughtful advice on how to reinforce the permission-based nature of your email marketing, and thereby protect yourself from Californian spam legislation.

IOL : Spam wars are being fought across the world
A wide-ranging article on spam from the South African perspective. An interesting issue which the US business and political community may not have properly considered is how spam may be hurting the US image abroad...

"Most of the stuff, as is clear from the contents, is from the US."

October 28, 2003

Nearly Half of Workers Without Email
Report on a study by the Radicati Group which suggests 45% of corporate workers still don't have email access at work. A reminder that there are still growth opportunities in the market.

October 22, 2003

Why Every Mass Emailer Should Get Their Own IP Address
Jill Keogh at EmailSherpa discusses the important of having your own dedicated IP address at your email broadcast service, and the possible implications if you don't.

October 21, 2003

DM News Survey: Marketers Will Shift Telemarketing Money to Mail, E-Mail
Interesting reader survey by DM News, suggesting marketing via email and direct mail will get a boost from the do-not-call list. A majority of respondents also felt that a do-not-email list is coming, too...

October 16, 2003

EmailAccount.com goes for-fee
Just an illustration of the transient nature of customer databases. Users of this free email service will lose their account if they don't upgrade by November 20th. And at a stroke, a whole bunch of addresses disappears from the Internet and from email marketers' databases. It's a largely undocumented phenomenon, but a huge issue for mailers. I wrote about it for EmailSherpa a while back.

October 14, 2003

eROI Email Marketing News
Inspired by finding that great German resource on email marketing, here's a US-oriented email marketing blog from emailROI. And a very good one, too. Not just because they recently linked to my interview with Paul Miller of Williams-Sonoma, Inc.

eMail-Marketing Blog - dedicated to permission
If you can read German, this is an excellent source of links, news and commentary. Also covers a lot of local German material and initiatives that you might otherwise miss.

(Ausgezeichnete Email Marketing Seiten von Nico Zorn. Sehr empfehlenswert, inbesonders falls Sie im deutschsprachigen Raum e-Marketing betreiben.)

October 13, 2003

Report on Consumer Email Habits
Today, DoubleClick released its annual Consumer Email Study. The link above takes you to the press release (i.e. executive summary). Interesting factoids...

- Female consumers seem to have a more favorable attitude to marketing emails than men
- the "from" line is critical in getting your message read
- email plays a key role in driving sales, but not directly from the clickthrough.

Oh yeah, and people still have an issue with spam.

October 08, 2003

Hello, My Name Is Mike... and I Send Out Email
Article at MarketingProfs.com by Michael Fischler. He argues that legitimate marketers should stop apologizing for their email marketing, and describes his approach to getting subscribers and clients through outreach emails.

He has an interesting perspective and I like his optimistic attitude. Two comments...

1. The kind of one-to-one personal email solicitations he uses to gather subscribers can only work with a specific audience in B2B markets. It also takes a fine touch and intelligence if it's not going to be considered spam.

2. Michael says, "If they don't want to receive it, they will tell me so. If they don't like what they're receiving, they'll ask me not to send it anymore." Perhaps in Michael's case. But in most cases, people never bother unsubscribing - they just use a filter, click the "block" button or delete.

October 03, 2003

Generating reader feedback
Three quick - but good - tips in an article by Michael Katz, a friend of mine who really does deserve the guru title. The level of feedback you get from readers of an e-newsletter is an important success metric. The greater the dialog, the stronger the relationship with customers and prospects. Not to mention all the incredibly valuable market research info you can get out of readers. Cheaper than focus groups...

NB: The above link takes you to the latest article at the site. To get to the reader feedback article in the future, you'll need to visit the site's archives and look for the Oct 3 2003 newsletter.

October 01, 2003

4 Steps to Make Sure Your Email Campaigns & Newsletters Aren't Filtered
Ryan Scott, Director of Email Operations for TheStreet.com offers up some organizational tips on how to avoid getting trapped in email filters.

Sign-up for the Email Marketing Reports NEWSLETTER
Twice a month, free, packed with email marketing advice and all the posts from this blog.

Email:      First Name:     
    More info and sample

 via feed | via email | LinkedIn | Facebook

The main website for everything email marketing
Email marketing search engine
Introduction and email advertising basics
Service listings and sources of statistics
Advice on email design and delivery issues

Top 21 email marketing info sources
Outlook 2007 and HTML design
Events and webinar roundup