http://www.mediapost.com/publications/ Grow your list, get more from your budget, and absorb the sage advice of email marketing?s most respected pundits. en-us Copyright 2009 MediaPost Communications http://www.mediapost.com/rss Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:11:25 EST If you track the Twitterverse, you've probably read about Justin Halpern, who converted his father's crusty, cranky and curse-laden commentary from a hot Twitter account into book and CBS sitcom deals. His success has energized millions of basement bloggers, but marketers and other communicators can also pick up pointers about creating highly focused, in-demand content, whether they occupy cubicles or spacious corner offices. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=117692Loren McDonald <>Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:45:49 ESTIf you thought inboxes were already cluttered, just wait until this year's holiday season ramps up to full speed. Retail business are struggling to recover, while at the same time cutting ad and direct mail spending, and focusing more resources on ROI-heavy programs like email. But what if you're not in retail? What if the emails you need to send in November and December don't care that it's a holiday? You've got newsletters to distribute, conference seats to fill, annual memberships to renew, software upgrades to announce.... How can you compete with the tsunami of "Free Shipping, today only!" and "25% off through Monday" offers set to flood your subscribers' attention span? To break through inbox Q4 clutter with your holiday-agnostic emails, try these tactics http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=117646Mike May <>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:45:09 ESTHave you ever found yourself standing in front of an automatic towel dispenser, waving your hands frantically over the hands-free scanner, praying for a towel to come out? Yeah, me too. A week ago, I found myself working up a sweat in front of a towel dispenser when a waitress finally came in and said, "Oh, you have to actually touch the button." To which I said, "But the button says hands-free." Her response? "Oh, it's wrong. You actually have to touch it." Interesting. This little interaction got me thinking about the importance of directions, or as we call them in the email universe: CTAs. They are the clicking points of your emails, and you'd best be spending some time crafting them. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=117511Darrah MacLean <>Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:32:45 ESTThis is a subject we often talk about in apologetic terms when it comes to email marketing: segmentation. It's a really time- consuming commitment for an organization to do great segmentation. While traditional monetary-based segmentation (Recency Frequency Monetary-RFM) and demographic segmentation drive most programs, what is the value of behavioral segmentation -- or better yet, attitudinal segmentation? There's obviously value in all forms, yet I find the challenge is balancing the right segmentation methodology with an organization's ability to work within these guides http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=117464David Baker <>Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:44:36 ESTAs the year winds down, marketers seem to be doing two things: planning for next year's successes, or making excuses for not being able to do more with their email marketing programs. To the former group, kudos to you. To the latter group, I am calling your BS. Following are the three most common excuses I get from marketers for why their email isn't more relevant. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=117320Kara Trivunovic <>Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:15:18 ESTIn all the talk of social media and its influence on email marketing, it occurred to me that email marketers consistently commit an antisocial sin. Worse still, it is a sin often taught as a "best practice" in order to decrease the hassle of managing a large number of responses to marketing email messages. I am writing of the dreaded "no-reply@" email address. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=117261Morgan Stewart <>Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:00:40 ESTImagine you're walking through a store and see signs for a demonstration of a product you're interested in. You follow the signs to the back of the store and through a door that leads into the back alley, where you see the product demonstration going on. It's not the best brand impression, so chances are you're not going to stick around.It's the same thing when you reach a dead-end landing page without any branding, navigation or secondary content. I call this "back alley syndrome," and I've seen two glaring cases of it from major retailers in recent months. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=117101Chad White <>Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:31:00 ESTA study by Focalyst shows that seniors (62+) using the Internet today have higher purchase intents than younger segments do, in major categories such as travel, CPG, entertainment and pharmaceuticals. What's more, seniors who do use the Internet have almost double the income and are twice as likely to have gone to college and still be working and married, than those who are not connected. And there are other considerations about this huge demographic that should make them interesting to email marketers.... http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=117056Cynthia Edwards <>Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:30:23 ESTIf you're already thinking about how to take your email-marketing program to the next level in the coming year, you should start by switching out your batch-and-blast program for one that uses lifecycle marketing to send highly targeted and relevant messages. Although it might be a challenge to persuade your upper management to invest time and money to upgrade your email program, this story of a company that boosted its conversion rate 40% using segmentation and targeted messaging might help loosen up the budget. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=116896Loren McDonald <>Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:15:47 ESTI'm so bored with the "email is dead" meme that I'm not even going to reference the article recently seen in a national newspaper that trotted out this old story yet again. I think it's exciting to consider the ways in which email is still the killer app. Obviously when you work for a company that focuses on email you have a vested interest in the idea that email is not dead. But I think both research and common sense back me up. Here are four reasons to stay bullish on email. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=116771George Bilbrey <>Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:33:16 EST