No man is an iland

December 31, 2003

Slow, Steady Ad Growth Predicted For 2004
Good news for those publishing content and selling ads - the consensus appears to be that 2004 should see online ad expenditures rise.

Duff PR
Two particularly crass PR efforts crossed my path today.

1. About 2 weeks ago, a PR agency lady sent in an unsuitable story pitch. That's OK. Although 5 mins research on her part would have saved her the trouble, it's not an issue for me. I just wrote back explaining what I need from a story. The "crass" bit is the fact that she never bothered to respond to my reply (great PR!) and today I got another unsuitable story pitch from her.

2. And today I got about my Xth irrelevant story pitch from the same PR agency. I've tried several times to communicate with them on what makes a suitable story for me. Yet they ignore this and continue to bombard me with irrelevant stuff. So much so that if they ever come up with a suitable one, I'll probably delete it without checking.

How come people in PR can be so bad at PR?

December 28, 2003

Spam deluge fails to drown e-marketing
A brief review of a couple of recent surveys suggesting that email marketing is holding up rather well, particularly as a retention and integrated marketing tool, and despite all the well-documented problems.

How CAN-SPAM May Affect Permission Email Marketers & Publishers
Anne Holland with a review of the implications of the legislation for professional email marketers. Don't underestimate the impact in all the euphoria about the demise of the Californian legislation.

Do-Not-Spam Proves Popular Concept
Workable or not, it seems there'd be quite a rush to sign-up for a do-not-spam list.

December 22, 2003

Network World Spam Forum: The Future of E-mail
From this page you can listen to an audio transcript of a Dec. 17 round-table discussion among email experts (including providers and the FTC) on how email can be kept viable for individuals and businesses in the light of spam.

December 17, 2003

No updates this week...
As I'm laid up with a bad bout of flu.

December 11, 2003

Christmas Comes Early for Spammers
...and some more people who aren't very optimistic on the new Act's ability to do anything significant about the spam problem.

What Does Can Spam Really Mean?
Report on a conference call featuring various experts commenting on the legal and practical implications of the legislation...

December 09, 2003

Online marketing: integrating e-mail
Although a few months old, this is a rich article full of advice and experiences on integrating email marketing into a wider brand and marketing strategy. Part of the growing trend to take email marketing to the next level.

Financial Services Customers Warmed by E-mail
IAR reports on a survey that suggests email does indeed enhance customer loyalty (which is nice, since that's one of the prime reasons used to justify email marketing). Though the report rightly questions whether people are loyal because of email, or get email because they're already loyal.

December 08, 2003

Email Trend Report
DoubleClick's Q3 Email Trend report is out (the link takes you direct to the .pdf file). Delivery rates are up (hurrah!), open rates stayed roughly the same (huroo!) and CTR rose (hurrah again!). Don't forget the ifs and buts when interpreting statistical averages...

List Firms Welcome Pre-emption Aspect of Federal Spam Bill
One group who seem very happy with the CAN-SPAM legislation are the email list owners and managers.

December 04, 2003

Still uncharted waters for most
Always worth remembering that this In-ter-net thing is still in its infancy. An application form down at my local bank has a field for your email address. I left it blank. The lady at the counter insisted I put it in. She couldn't process the form without an email address. I said I didn't want ads as a result and there was no privacy policy indicated. She had *no* idea what the issues were with collecting email addresses...

Symantec Survey Finds Small Businesses Fed Up with Spam, Willing to Take Action
And one of those actions under consideration is to abandon email for business correspondence...

Hotmail
A new and improved version of Hotmail is out there, with more anti-spam measures built in. Always worth checking out how a Hotmail account works, especially since a major chunk of most consumer email lists are hotmail addresses.

December 03, 2003

Trust Issues Loom Over E-Commerce
Disturbing results from a survey by TRUSTe. Almost half indicated that privacy concerns would limit their online shopping this holiday season. But wait...here's the shocking news. Those people also cited "fear of getting spam" as one of the main causes of that concern.

So the spam issue isn't just a concern for legitimate email marketers, it's a concern for anyone selling online.

Australia Passes Anti-Spam Bill
DMNews reports on Australia's equivalent to the CAN-Spam bill, but which goes much further. Which begs the questions...if the Aussies can do it, why not the USA?

December 02, 2003

Email not dead, just perspiring a lot
A background article for those of you interested in why spam is relatively easy to send. As well as explaining some of the underlying problems with the email system that leads to spam abuse, the author considers some possible (and not so possible) solutions, and is optimistic that things will get better, rather than worse.

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