No man is an iland

July 29, 2005

(Surveys) Teens and Technology
In this review of teenagers and their use of communications technology, the Pew Internet and American Life Project reveals some changing attitudes to email among this demographic group.

Seems email is not their first preference when it comes to day-to-day stuff with friends, but is used for more "adult" interactions, such as talking with teachers.

I've seen this reported elsewhere as saying teenagers are "shunning" email, which is not what the report says at all. For example, email is still their most popular online activity.

(Case study) How to Collect More Email Opt-Ins From Your Ecommerce Site
A plethora of tips from EmailSherpa, who report on a successful entrepreneur (Andy Jenkins) and his various email efforts across a variety of sites.

The article includes details of his approach to email marketing, tactics used to raise sign-ups, and results and insights from tests of these tactics.

Plenty of best practices hints in there, too.

July 28, 2005

(Tactics) The Power of Personas in E-Mail
Al DiGuido is a wise fellow. In this article, he explains how developing customer and prospect personas helped web designers improve the online user experience.

He then argues that we should apply the same ideas to marketing emails, to allow email to fulfill its original promise as "an efficient extension of an organization's marketing and brand-building efforts that ultimately develops and reinforces the relationship, satisfaction, and connection with the individual customer."

(Law) Israel Fining Spammers
New anti-spam legislation in Israel goes a step further than US efforts.

First, it follows an opt-in model (rather than the opt-out approach taken by America).

Second, it makes provision for individual recipients of spam to take the spammers (or their local representatives) to court.

(Surveys) Pew Internet & American Life Project Report: Tech terms
...and just to reinforce the below post, here's a report which says most non-techies haven't a clue what all these clever words mean. RSS? Podcasting? Eh?

Interestingly, 10% of surveyed Internet users were not really sure what spam means, and 3% had never heard of the word (the last figure was highest among home business owners in Florida*).

Anyway, since you read this, you'll be fairly aware of the various words and technologies floating around the online marketing world. But it is so easy to forget that the majority of people aren't.

Which is why, for example, email sign-up pages for consumers should be careful about wording. Do people know what the difference is between an HTML and a text version?

*Yes, I made that bit up

(RSS) RSS overhyped and underused
In contrast to the below post, here's an article about a Forrester report that suggests RSS isn't ready for prime time just yet.

It will probably depend on integrating RSS into desktops and email clients. So people won't be required to "subscribe to an RSS feed" - they'll just say "yes" when invited to get updates etc. from a favorite website.

July 27, 2005

(Can-Spam) FTC Gathers Expert Opinion for CAN-SPAM Report to Congress
Rebecca Lieb reports on the various opinions and issues raised as part of the FTC's attempt to gather information on the success and future of the legislation.

(List mgmt) New email privacy seal program
TRUSTe announce a certification program for emailers. If you satisfy some best practice list management requirements, you can post a "we don't spam" seal on your email sign-up pages.

It costs money, but I'd expect a response lift if you display one. In other areas (like shopping carts) these kinds of seals can make dramatic differences. TRUSTe, for example, cite a trial producing a 7% improvement in registrations.

If I read the requirements correctly, though, a pre-checked opt-in is considered an acceptable subscription practice for adding names to house lists. Not sure that anti-spam groups will agree...

(Law) Michigan, Utah Impose Dreaded E-Mail Tax
Not a tax as such, but new laws could turn out to be the equivalent. Brian Livingstone has the details of another attempt to curb spam that seems more likely to hit legitimate email marketers most.

July 25, 2005

(State of industry) Email Q&A: Silverpop's Bill Nussey (2)
The second part of the interview cited here.

Nussey looks ahead to more integrated digital marketing and better technology supporting more advanced tactics.

He then touches on a range of topics, including Can-Spam, RSS, and metrics.

A common theme to his thoughts is the idea of integration - companies not seeing different marketing vehicles as competitive, but complementary. And the lines between these vehicles blurring anyway as technology grows and gets more complex.

(Layout) E-Mail Heatmaps: More Than a Hot Technology
Eye-tracking technology is a common way to see how people view a web page. It offers lots of insight into the position, layout, style and content of landing page copy and images, for example.

This is the first mention I've seen of a logical extension to this technology, namely applying it to emails.

Jeanniey Mullen describes the process, its benefits and reveals a few practical insights from her own use of the tool.

July 21, 2005

(List mgmt) Best practices for confirming opt-ins
Karen J. Bannan gets some tips from industry experts on what to put in your emails confirming an email sign-up.

This is one of the unmined areas of email marketing. Many companies simply forget to do anything useful in their confirmation and transactional emails, often leaving them as the anonymous template versions provided by the email delivery service they're using.

But every email is an opportunity to work on that customer / reader relationship...

July 20, 2005

(Surveys / metrics) UK Benchmarking Survey
Brief summary findings in this press release from the UK's DMA about their national benchmarking report on email marketing in the UK.

Things generally seem to be getting better, though there is still concern about deliverability and the insidious twins of spam and phishing.

July 19, 2005

(Deliverability) Eight Easy Ways to Improve Email Deliverability
Aimed at those who take care of email delivery in-house, this is a series of basic tips that highlight the issues for you to go off and explore further on your own.

In doing so, they actually reinforce the idea that unless you're a big company with a dedicated team of experts on hand, you're probably better off leaving the delivery side of things to a third-party service (which is a fair interpretation, even if the article is authored by one such service).

(Basics) Strategies for Improving Email ROI
Report on a teleseminar featuring Bill Nussey and David Hallerman, who together provide details of four basic strategies that go a long way to ensuring your email marketing efforts are on the right track.

July 18, 2005

(State of industry) Email Q&A with Silverpop's Bill Nussey
Nussey is one of the more thoughtful players in the world of email marketing. Here he offers his views on a range of topics, including the hot issues of the day and the place of email marketing in the wider company environment.

He also has words of advice for practitioners and those behind and above them in the corporate hierarchy.

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