The Email Wars

Do any of you ever notice the massive footers that are used in some industries for emails? Now I know that heavy footers are the design rage right now, but not in emails. Often times legal departments mandate that the legal terms for financials/investing, contests and regulatory issues need to be there. But do you think that they either build trust or help the email campaigns in any way? 

When I personally see them they are a turn off. They make me lose a little bit of trust, although legal will tell you that there are there to build trust (CYA here) and make sure that no one has other expectations. But why can’t they live as as hyperlink and live on a page on the website? 

I wanted to use an example of the video game industry as eROI has done a lot of work in this space over the past years. I can tell you from the example here that they are ego plays. Everyone wants to have their brand and organization represented in the email somewhere. What value does that bring to the subscriber? None in my opinion. This footer in the video gaming industry is always the longest to approve part of email creative. Is everyone there? Do they all have enough room around them to make all the stake holders happy? These are the questions that get vetted over and over again. 

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This past two years I have been amazed at the gaul of politicians and political parties that are in essence spamming me when I have not opted in to their emails. I have also been forwarded emails like this from many of you across the nation with this same gripe.

Even though there is a loop hole in the CAN Spam law that allows politicians to send emails to people even when they do not have an opt in (this needs to change by the way) why do they assume that they should email us. I can tell you that I am not a registered democrat. Now this does not mean that I might not vote that way this time around, but when I (or you) get an unsolicited email from a candidate or a party I cannot understand why they think that this email might make me either trust them or like them more. 

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Mail Goggles. Not sure if it is a real thing or a marketing measure. Have you ever wanted to stop an email from being sent when you replied after a few cocktails? Well according to the Google Mail Blog you can now have that power. 

I can think of many email marketers that have sent a campaign ONLY to have someone moments later let them know about a typo, bad link, or expired offer. It’s like a pause button on your tivo for your email campaigns. Funny idea, but it has some real world (not the one on MTV) uses. 

We have a delayed campaign feature in emailROI that allows you to set up a campaign for later and if need be cancel it to make some changes. Not a recall function, but that would be genius.

Read the post here.

Are you ready for the holiday season? Remember when we used to think that it started in November? Well not anymore. Some brands are already talking in email about the holiday season, jumping Halloween and Thanksgiving. So what are you doing to be ready for the surge? 

Here is a study about shoppers attacking earlier.

Chad White reports : 

17% of the retailers I track have made at least one reference to the holiday season already.

Here is his chart from the last holiday season to show you how early it started last year. 

So what, in light of the market downturn and consumer spending fears, do you have planned. This is not a business as usual year in consumer sales. I am not trying to be a “sky is falling” type of person, but those brands and email marketers that do not have a plan together are in for a bad treat. 

What needs to be done? Here is my list:

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I found this article about web mail stats. Now this is a study of use and totals, but may not be reflective of your own subscriber base. So take it with a grain of salt.

Yahoo Email Dominates Web-Mail Landscape

Yahoo’s email service dominates the web-mail market with the highest number of email users, monthly minutes spent per user and times users check mail, according to data from comScore, writes MarketingCharts (via a New York Times blog post by reporter Saul Hansell).

View chart of the four major email service providers’ total unique visitors, Aug. ‘07 vs. Aug. ‘08.

AOL’s email also appears to be holding its own with its user numbers, while Gmail is increasing its number of users but lagging behind other web-mail providers in how often users check mail and how much time they spend on the site.

Here is the full article on email web client use.

At eROI we have been fortunate to work with some of the best PR firms in the nation. We have worked to help them understand not only why to use email as a Public Relations Agency outreach tool, but also taught them how to use it to get actionable steps out of it. Now I am going to share some of these ideas with you. 

1. Develop a communications channel that you own. By using an opt in email list for publications, writers, industry analysts, bloggers and others you can establish a direct channel to get your messages out infront of them when you have news to share. 

2. Design an email template that not only matches the brand, but has actionable elements that they can use. We often construct easily editable templates that not only give a good brand experience, but also have attributes that can deliver high resolution 300 dpi or higher images and other assets. 

3. Use the data in your favor. This is the most important part of the use of email marketing with PR. Now that you have delivered the assets you can tell who has read them, what they have done with them, when they downloaded the assets, who might use them, and identify those that have not taken actions so that your PR team can follow up with personal emails or yes… a phone call. 

When PR firms use email it can grow their distribution, tracking, and follow up call efforts. Which in turn creates better actionable plans to make sure that your message and programs are getting in front of those that you want to make sure are going to use them. 

Now this does not mean that the press release it dead, as we think it only ties in better with a full email marketing strategy. If you can leverage the data or read, clicks, and downloads you are closer to having and intelligent conversation with your target audience of influencers and media contacts.

Learn how eROI works with Agency partners for email marketing >>

Fear and Loathing. That is how I typically think about Vegas from years of Consumer Electronics Show trips that were way too long and seemed to start/end each morning with me in a cab with the sun coming up. Danger Will Robinson, Danger. But here we go again. I have been asked to teach 4 work shops at the DMA Annual conference October 12th to 16th and I am going to try to lay low. 

BUT if you are going to be there I would love to know about it. Maybe we could get a cocktail hour together? A ride in a gondola? Or a we could all head out of town to the weapons range and fire any gun you can imagine. (Yes I will be doing that one day that week for photos for this blog.) 

If you want to find me at DMA, best way to do so is to request to follow me on Twitter. My page is at www.twitter.com/dtboyd. Now I don’t allow everyone to follow me, AND some people might not like everything that is posted each day. (I think I have over 3200 Tweets this far) But I can promise you it will be a fun ride. 

OR you can follow eROI at www.twitter.com/eROI, might be a safer more family friendly choice. Or maybe LinkedIn is a safer vehicle for you? Either way buckle up, sit back and get ready for a good time.

Hope to see you there. If we can get a line up of some of the top email marketers with M60’s and AK-47s (Imagine Stephanie Miller and Loren McDonald holding automatic firearms… I need that photo) we will have a blast. Or at least a cocktail.