eROI Days Email Agency

We want to know - how does your little brother, sister, nephew, or neice Use Email? We don’t know the answer yet, and need your help to discover how high school kids, college students, and recent college grads actually use email. That’s why we’re conducting this survey >>

All the articles we’ve read pretty much tell us that email marketing will be dead in a matter of years (because kids are only into texting and social networking communities), but we’re a little skeptical of that assessment that email is not or will not be a big part of their lives. So, we are conducting our own survey and we’re primarily using blogs, MySpace, Facebook, and a little bit of email to reach out to our .edu friends. Please help us  to fill out this awesome survey, and you might win your very own, limited-edition KillROI in the process.

We need to know what our kids (or nephews, neices, cousins, brothers, or sisters) futures will look like, so please spread the word to fill out this survey; http://eroi.onlinestudentcommunication.sgizmo.com.

Additionally, I’d love to read your thoughts on the survey in the comments below.  Thank you thank you!

Ok - so the Break Media study spins it another way, but c’mon guys, who are the 26% of you how would rather interact with a computer than your partner?  Here’s the study published by MarketingVox:

Men Prefer ‘Net to TV, but Sex Trumps Both

Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson. More than two-thirds of men age 18-34 say they cannot live without the internet vs. television, but 74% would rather have sex than surf the web, according to (pdf) a study from Break Media, conducted by Hall and Partners, MarketingCharts reports.

The study, which was designed to determine what men (age 18-34) are doing online and how they respond to internet advertising, found that this demographic - which views itself as responsible and conformist overall - spends close to 22 hours on the internet per week, goes online for entertainment, and prefers to spend time on the internet rather than TV.

To read the full MarketingVox article, click here >>

My values are still in tact, when I tell you that it’s okay to cheat this time.  We just launched our New Guide: “Pre-Launch Email Marketing Campaign Cheat Sheet”! 

As we mention in our Resources section of our site, “In today’s hectic email marketing landscape, it’s easy to overlook important aspects of your campaign. So, we are offering you this cheat sheet. Check and review each point on the sheet before your campaign is sent, and increase your campaign performance by catching something you forgot to double-check.”

If you think this is one of the cheesiest blog titles and opening two sentences, post a comment.  It’s getting late in the office, and I’m a little punchy.  But seriously, check out this Guide / Cheat Sheet - I really think you’ll find it valuable.

At eROI, we try hard to be a resource to folks in the email marketing industry, and one of the ways that we’ve done that over the past 5 years is to do a quarterly study (based on a survey or aggregate data from our email marketing platform) and present those results to everyone in the industry.  It always amazes us that there is a HUGE difference between what email marketers know to do as best practices for their campaigns versus what is actually done in the real world (where time, money, process, and other factors get in the way of best practices).

In this Q3′08 eROI study called “The Elements of Email“, there is a shocking difference of best practices vs. real world practices.  For example, only a quarter of marketers test their subject lines.  Fifty-five percent of online marketers don’t know how they authenticate emails (to ensure that more of their emails reach their email subscriber’s inbox.  Lastly, only 10 percent of us create mobile versions of our email campaigns.

People are talking about the study, so make sure you check out what they are saying.  And, if you’d like to draw your own conclusions, click here to see the full study >>

Articles on this study:
http://directmag.com/magill/0819-email-markers-slopping/ 
http://www.marketingvox.com/email-marketers-missing-opportunities-040449/
http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/email-marketers-missing-opportunities-5665/

Please comment below to let me know your take.  Also don’t forget to subscribe to this blog.  Now that I’m refreshed from vacation, I promise to post blog entries more frequently.

We have finally published the Q2 2008 The Cradle & The Grave email survey results

The full report is at this link:
http://eroi.com/online-marketing-resource-center/resource-center/?sec=3

Respondents:
· Over 500 marketers were surveyed about the subscribe/unsubscribe process. While these processes are improving, they have yet to reach what we would call exceptional.

Key observations:
· People are not matching up other marketing efforts like they should
· People are not monitoring feedback loops and complaint rates
· The thank you page, prime visitor real estate is being wasted
· Not surveying subscribers at opt out
· Not allowing frequency changes

Some Results:

I. Opt - in:
–Only 30% of the respondents say they use opt-in; still below where the industry should be

–Of those that use opt-in; only a 4% provide more than 10 ways for someone to opt-in and the majority, three-quarters, have only 1-3 ways.

–Incentives/Content for opting:
§ 88% offering newsletter subscription
§ 29% offering access to preferred content
§ 24% offering discounts/coupons
§ 22% offering some kind of contest

–One-third of marketers don’t do any segmenting at opt-in

–Landing page improvements needed

II. Opt-Out
–30% of marketers don’t pass opt-in names onto other systems

–65% won’t pass on when subscribers opt-out

–CRM Systems - lead way in third-party applications for opt-in/out

–90% of marketers don’t follow up with opt-outs - potential for reaching through other channels

–One-third of marketers don’t send a confirmation email after opt-out - which can offer the chance for the subscriber to change mind.

III. Feedback Loop:
–Nearly one-quarter of email marketers don’t know what they currently do with abuse complaints, or how they are handled. Is this lack of education by the ESP or is it lack of understanding the value of feedback loops and the purpose of them?

–Only about one-half of email marketers currently monitor feedback loops.

Because this is such a SEXY presentation, I had to do it on Keynote on a sexy Mac that I have limited access to, therefore, the “Bringing Sexy Back to Email Marketing” presentation is available via a PDF on our site, but not on the extra sexy technology that my associate Dylan Boyd pointed out on the Email Wars blog, called SlideShare. Look for this blog post to be updated with that soon.

Until then, Download the Full PDF presentation of “Bringing Sexy Back to Email” here>>

It’s the second downloadable document on that page. Tell me what you think.

In today’s New York Times Business section, there was an astute article on “The Daily Struggle to Avoid Burial by E-Mail” by Randall Stross. At eROI, we have been covered in the press on multiple occasions for Email Addiction or Email Overload, but it was the combination of today’s “burial by email” article AND a recent eMarketing speech where a friend of mine talked of maintaining 40 social media site profiles, where I felt compelled to write this blog post (slightly ironic given that a blog is a basic form of social media).

Stross mentioned in the NY Times article that both Michael Arrington of TechCrunch and Mark Cuban of Mark Cuban get upwards of 2,000 emails every day and 700 messages daily in Facebook, and both of these executive process all of these emails themselves. I get about 400 emails per day and usually reply to and send 60 emails/day if I’m not booked in meetings all day.

While email is the killer app and where I spend most of my time “online,” I also occasionally blog, use LinkedIn sporadically, barely use Facebook, and Twitter when I’m distracted at a conference. Basically, this blog post is my first online admission of becoming an old man - with so many distractions, I wonder if technology company entrepreneurs and executives will evolve into communicating in truncated sentence grunts with very little deep strategic thinking, planning and writing.

I have clients asking frequently, “how will I have time to do everything I do now, AND blog AND engage in all of these conversations about my brand in every single online community?” I’ve adapted my answer to a more definitive “You can’t do it all single-handedly.” Let me get back to my 35-year old friend who has 40 profiles - LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Yahoo Answers, Lockergnome, digg, del.icio.us, and on and on and on. The new generation and grandpa-old 35 year olds playing the new generation’s world, attention deficit disorder is a requirement, not a condition.

So, what’s my advice in this cultural change in expectations of keeping up in the online marketing world? Experiment with all of the social networking sites and tools, and find 3 sites/tools that generate the most value to you individually and/or your company (as an entrepreneur, individual benefit/company benefit is often the same). Thankfully, there is a new protocal, OpenID, where one username/password will carry all your info with you for every online community you join, because in the future, we will all be participants in hundreds of these broad social communities or niche branded communities.

With the acceleration of online communication, it relieves anxiety just to admit that “yes, I too, feel completely overwhelmed and overloaded by using every social site and tool that comes along.” I’ve said it and those words shall set me free. Now, if I could just leave my Blackberry locked in my office desk on a weekend. Fat chance.

I spent the last week preparing for a speech (to 100 marketers) at Innotech on “Bringing Sexy Back to Email Marketing“, and I must admit that I got pretty philosophical about the email marketing industry and the real definition of what sexy means to me and to marketers.

Download the Full PDF presentation of “Bringing Sexy Back to Email” here>>. It’s the second downloadable document on that page. Tell me what you think.

The genesis of the idea for this speech came from attending a panel on email marketing at MediaPost’s OMMA Hollywood show last month. At that panel, the nation’s top email experts, who I have a ton of respect for, all had a similar response to the question, “what’s exciting coming up in the near future for email marketing?” After a few chuckles and shrugs that it’s the same old same old in the email world, these top email software and agency experts’ answers included “email is a workhorse” and it “is the plumbing of the internet.” To paraphrase the response, email has the highest ROI of any online marketing medium, but it’s ultimately boring in its implementation.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Where is the passion? Where is the sex appeal? Email has been around for a long time, but don’t tell me it’s boring. Email is dead sexy, but first let’s explore who is sexy to you? Before you look at the images below, think about who you find sexy and why are they sexy? Great looking. Hot body. Amazing voice. Atheletic. Bad girl or Bad boy personality. Something luring you in?

Ignore these pics below, and tell me WHO IS SEXY to you?

What does this have to do with Email?

Email is Dead Sexy and here’s why:
–Email is the Killer App - only true push medium
–More brand touchpoints than any other medium
–Highest ROI - Email Works
–Core of Building Online Community
–Successful Email Trigger Campaign - Fosters 2-way dialogue

Don’t forget to download the Full PDF presentation of “Bringing Sexy Back to Email” here>>.

Here at eROI we go to great lengths to keep you up to date on the latest trends in email marketing. Our latest survey asks for your input on the Subscribe/Unsubscribe Process.

This survey should take just a minute or two, and we will share the results with you when complete.

All survey participants will be automatically entered to win one of a handful of iPod Shuffle mp3 players!

Take the Survey Now »

MarketingVox wrote about Forrester Research’s new forecast of the online marketing industry. The 3 things that made an impression on me in this forecast are:

1. I’m psyched to be part of an industry that is growing 27% a year for the next 5 years to go from $18.4 billion this year to $61.3 billion in 2012. If we can’t grow our company by at least 27% per year then we’re doing something wrong.

2. Search is strong. The big winners are search media giants Google and secondarily Yahoo, MSN, and a couple others. Email is growing, but at a slower pace.

3. Interactive agencies and media are disrupters. The report forecasts, “Interactive’s share of total ad spend is forecast to increase from 8 percent in 2007 to 18 percent in 2012.” Things move so quickly in the interactive world that we need to continually educate ourselves on the next Facebook, SpotRunner, MySpace, or disruptive community site or technology that may accelerate this trend.

Tim Brown, Email Marketing Manager at Active Web Group

In the days of spam-riddled inboxes, everyone has an opinion on how to raise the average conversion, the average sale, average open rate, or the average click-thru. Years of data from some of the best, and worst, companies who specialize in online marketing have been analyzed and published to help construct “best practices” for email marketers. For that, I say “Congratulations!” You’re on course to bring email marketing, a gateway of infinite marketing possibilities and unlimited ROI potential, to an “average” level.

Email marketing is a channel, a unique marketing avenue unlike any other, for you to showcase your product or service to the world. Whether your company is B2B or B2C, it can help propel you to levels unattainable 10 years ago. But how do you get there? What do you do to get your email to stand out? What type of campaign is going to impact your customer…giving them no other choice but to click on your email and purchase your product?

The answers we’ve seen include “segment your email lists”, or “A/B test your email designs” and even “make sure your offer lies above the fold”. These are all very good answers, and key ways in helping create a successful email campaign. But something is missing. Something that will ultimately make the difference between maximizing your profit or resulting in another “average” email.

That something is creativity. It seems simple really. After all, marketing is creativity. Without creativity, we’d never know about the caveman’s struggle to adapt to human society or about a duck that can provide supplemental insurance.

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A recent study from DMA shows just how critical an element email is when it comes to successful direct marketing campaigns. While the study’s main focus is to show that the lines of direct marketing and brand marketing have blurred through multi-channel campaigns, the study’s statistics point to the predominance of email – and web in these campaigns. It is email’s ability to personalize and track and motivate with clear calls to action that makes it a key ingredient. By Integrating and coordinating across multiple channels, marketers can create cohesive brand messaging that can lead to powerful brand experiences.

How does email fit in? In a fully integrated campaign email is an element that can breathe “interactive life” into 2 dimensional print campaigns. Direct mail and print advertising should no longer be stand alone elements. Email and web can be coordinated with traditional marketing efforts to dynamically drive messaging. Even more, email opens the lines of communication with your audience allowing them to respond, participate and own your brand. This leads to a better understanding of your audience and your brand, which will improve messaging, targeting and personalization. Check out the study to see how email is influencing today’s best direct marketing tactics and principles.

In the coming wave of eROI studies to be released over the forthcoming weeks here is one we just completed hot off the presses for you.

Over the last quarter, we took a look at how marketers are designing, coding and testing email. Email deliverability and rendering has been a hot topic for a long time, but how important is it to marketers. There is a vast difference between what they say and what they do.

In addition, we took a look at open and click statistics of those that fun all their email campaigns in house vs. those that use the services of an agency. The basics: eMarketing agencies drive nearly 50% more traffic to your site and increases brand awareness. This 8-page Q2’07 email study is chock full of valuable information, graphs, statistics, and charts to inform you on how to improve your email marketing strategies, design, and coding. As a bonus, you’ll also get an additional PDF of our brand new release of the Email Design Best Practices Guide. Learn how to code for Outlook 2007 and other email environments.

We encourage you to learn more about eROI, email marketing and this study, by visiting our Free Guides download.

This morning’s feature article on iMediaConnection answers a lot of questions that the entire email marketing world has been buzzing with anticipation. Until reading this article, most of us knew that Outlook 2007 is using a new rendering engine (MS Word) instead of the much more intuitive choice of MS Internet Explorer like previous versions of Outlook. Some of my quick observations on the annoyances of Outlook 2007: Background images and colors are removed and rendering of emails using CSS and style sheets gets screwy.

But here are a few things we didn’t know as well:
1. Adoption rate of Outlook 2007 is going to be quite slow, especially among B2C users.
2. The article mentions, “Outlook changes may encourage designers to stick to simple HTML and, as a result, increase compatibility with a greater number of mail clients including those on handheld devices and cell phones.”

The Good stuff: What to do about it. Read the full blog posting and article >>

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We are always asking people what they think about certain issues facing the internet and web marketing. We started last month asking people about their email inbox preferences. Seemed that we hit a nerve as so many marketing sites and bloggers picked up on it and carried the message around the global block.

This month we are curious about another issue, time management and needs. Not from a business perspective, but from a consumer/lifestyle perspective. We are all becoming internet junkies and what impact is this having on our lives outside of work? Is there a life outside of work as there used to be?

Help us understand how the world is changing between work and life and we will post the results for you in September. Take the Email Addiction Survey and see where you stand >>