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November 29, 2007

eROI Moving Nov 30th

After 5 years and 4 office locations, eROI has finally made the leap and built out a new office that will handle our growth and give us a place to call home... permanently. We are down to the wire on this move and will be finalizing details (tables, etc.), but we will have internet/email access, phones and power (yeah heat and running water too). This move will not have any negative affect on any sites, products or hosting facilities.

NEW INFO:
505 NW Couch, Suite 300
Portland, OR 97209 MAP
503-221-6200

While the phone number and emails won't change, the address and the extensions will. One big improvement is direct dial numbers for everyone in the company so be prepared to reach out in email for updated contact information in our email signature files or use the dial by name directory.

Thank you all for your patience this Friday, as YOU are the ones that have helped this to happen.

We will be moving the office 8am to 8pm both Friday and Saturday so if there is a slightly slower response time we apologize in advance. We do not anticipate a delay, however moves can be unscripted. If you do have a problem and do not receive a reply in a timely manner please call your sales rep on their phone or email support AT eroi.com and it will hit our Blackberries.

The eROI Team

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 12:20 PM | Permalink

Remember the Preview Pane

Love the creative coming out of Lenovo. They have been doing a great job of branding with email campaigns. The only flaws in this email are the amount of padding at the top, which shoves the creative lower in the preview pane of any email clients, making the actions and copy sink lower; and the subject line (although pricing attractive) is really confusing. What am I really saving? Do I have a calculator handy to figure out if I should open this email? And when did Black Friday become such a HOT subject line leader?

Email is a learning and testing experience. I make comments on so many of them as we develop them each and everyday. I find flaws even in the work we do at internal reviews and try to move the bar higher on our work. You should do the same. Test it internally and show it around before you send it. Get feedback and then evaluate what is going to work best.

Who knows, maybe this was a good lift in sales? Or maybe I am sticking to an Mac....

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Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 12:00 PM | Permalink

A Reason to Go Wide Screen with Email

So in the past I have shown you a few examples of emails that scroll the opposite way. This is one below is one that would have been PERFECT to go in this direction from Dell. They are promoting Going Wide Screen, so why not have some fun with it and make the user scroll side to side. Maybe a little risky for Dell, but man this would have been a great way to make me want to get a wide screen to enjoy it.

Now I have Dell wide screen monitors, two actually, one set up the standard way and the other I have flipped to give me full views up and down in one window, newspaper style. Makes taking screen shots of these emails much easier and helps me to see the whole picture.

Knowing that Dell reads this blog weekly, I am just putting it out there to you as an idea to test. I think it would make the call for widescreen a home run. Maybe next time.

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Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 7:12 AM | Permalink

November 28, 2007

One Action... One Click... One Sale

Having long been a fan of Diesel's online marketing efforts and email campaigns I had to share this. They finally opened up an ecom store. Yeah I know must be nice being slow to move and still crush the sales numbers. Maybe respecting the channel/retailers came to an end here as they realized all the direct sales that they could generate online. Welcome to the 2000's Diesel.

But I thought it was a clever show of product with a wish list that was timed for the pre-holiday shopping season. And my favorite... drum roll.. one simple call to action. "Click here to buy stuff" in a shiny read button. Task complete. Sales made. Next.

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Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 5:18 AM | Permalink

November 27, 2007

On the Email Campaign Trail

I read this interesting article in the WaPo this past weekend. It was funny as I have opted in to all the candidates emails so that I could watch and see what they are doing. It is a machine. They are doing it differently than I expected. Some of them are actually making it really conversational. Others still go the traditional routes. I will be posting them later down the line as the heat grows.

Until then, read the article.

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 5:07 AM | Permalink

November 26, 2007

Managing Your Email Addiction

I was working on Thanksgiving, of course, and reached out to a friend with a question. I was not expecting an answer, but was dually shocked to see this auto responder. Should we all be taking less time in the inbox to focus on work.

"Greetings!

Due to a high workload, I am currently checking and responding to
e-mail twice daily at 11a Pacific, and 4p Pacific (weekdays only).

If you require urgent assistance (please ensure that it is urgent)
that cannot wait until 11a or 4p Pacific, please contact me by phone
(call or text).

Thank you for understanding this move to more efficiency and
effectiveness. It helps me accomplish more to serve you better."

Could not imagine only checking my inbox twice a day. Can you?

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 11:38 PM | Permalink

Happy 5th B-Day eROI

Hard to believe it is 5 years this month that we started this company with three of us over coffee. Two of the three are left and we have really grown (over 43 people now) I want to give some thanks to the clients, the partners and most importantly the team at eROI that works to make us better in all ways everyday.

I cannot state that it has been without challenges, but these challenges have only made us stronger as a team, a company, a partner and to the community.

Here is to exceeding expectations and producing GREAT campaigns and projects for our clients and partners in 2008 and beyond. There will not be a party this week as we do have the move next Friday the 30th on the horizon to our new building at 505 NW Couch, the newly named Technology Arts Building, so we need a few days off to prepare for that. And then there will be a party Dec 7th for the employees, spouses, significant others to celebrate the end of the year and all that we have achieved.

Happy Birthday eROI and here is to many more.

Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 6:53 AM | Permalink

November 21, 2007

Judge Rules on Legality of Certain Spam

This might be one for the books. Stupidest moves by a Judge I have seen in a long time. So IF you name yourself in a spam email (aka non opt in emails that ARE unsolicted, which under CAN SPAM would tell me are illegal).

What they hell is she thinking?

Judge: Spam Exempt From Law When Sender Names Self (From News.com)

A Washington judge has ruled that spam is "personal e-mail" exempt from anti-spam laws if it's written in a style that suggests familiarity with the recipient. In the words of small-claims Judge Judith Eiler herself (via Slashdot):

"These are anti-spam laws, which imply that they are mail just sent out in huge bulks, which would be the antithesis of a personal e-mail. And here he puts his name, in fact this is the person that you directly sued rather than somebody that's in a corporation or a company. The court does think that there's some indication that this is a personal-type e-mail. While it may have gone out to a number of people, it doesn't have quite the earmarks."

This twit sits at the business end of the whole "legal spam" fiasco, wherein this nation "banned" unsolicited bulk email by outlining how it may legally be sent. Lawmakers are bought and paid for, but the ignorance and stupidity of judges like Eiler is far more reliable.

Following is the spam itself, addressed to "Dear Webmaster" and hocking a scammy link exchange scheme.

To: bennett@peacefire.org Subject: Reminder: Link exchange with your site http://slashdot.org X-PHP-Script: www.theeashblahblah.com/linkmachine/auto.php for 87.102.22.100 Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:34:26 -0400 From: Roderick Eash Reply-to: reash@tconl.com Message-ID: X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: PHPMailer [version 1.72] Errors-To: reash@tconl.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="b1_b43cabef83c9f9123db7a78ef9a73362" Dear Webmaster, My name is Roderick Eash, and I run the web site Work At Home Business Opportunities | Online Career Training: http://www.theeashblahblah.com/ The other day I wrote you to let you know I'm very interested in exchanging links. I'm sending this reminder in case you didn't receive my first letter. I've gone ahead and posted a link to your site, on this page: http://www.theeashblahblah.com/linkmachine/resources/resources_home_based_business_41.html As you know, reciprocal linking benefits both of us by raising our search rankings and generating more traffic to both of our sites. Please post a link to my site as follows: Title: Work At Home Business Opportunities | Online Career Training URL: http://www.theeashblahblah.com/ Description: Your Source, and Resource for starting a Home Business, or Growing the One You're In. Once you've posted the link, let me know the URL of the page that it's on, by entering it in this form: http://www.theeashblahblah.com/linkmachine/resources/link_exchange.php?ua=_ua9&site_index=MTg4MTgwMjc%3D You can also use that form to make changes to the text of the link to your site, if you'd like. Thank you very much, Roderick Eash

Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 8:25 AM | Permalink

Interesting Gmail Find - Yet I Might Live in a Cave

I am not sure if anyone else has noticed this, I did by complete accident as I trouble shooting my wife's email issues with Gmail ported to her Mac through POP3 (I know I should switch her to IMAP soon), but I cracked the email header file and saw that even her personal email has a domain keys record. I have never noticed this before. Has it always been there? Have any of you noticed it in the last few weeks or months?

What this tells me is the Google takes domain keys seriously and you should too. I took a look in the official Gmail Blog and the search did not bring back anything around this find. But there is an interesting post about how much better gmail is with spam filters than other clients.

So I dug deeper and went to Slashdot (the source for all super nerdy) and saw that they started doing it back in 2004. Where the heck have I been? And why had I not seen it before? They actually implemented it before Yahoo did in personal email.

Well chalk one up for email marketing history and make a point to get your domain keys set up as ASAP if you have not already.

Comments (2) | Posted by dylan at 5:45 AM | Permalink

November 20, 2007

Yahoo and Google to Build off Email Inbox

Very interesting read that two of the powerhouses are going to use the email inbox to stage the social media platform. So is email the key ingredient to capturing interactions and the eyeballs? It seems that with this news it validates the inbox more then anything I have seen before. Email is the glue. And with social media use, email is the factor still bringing so much of this together.

But will this reduce the inbox in anyway? How will it look? What impact will it have on email in the inbox as it might now fight for even more attention?

Who needs InBox 2.0 when you can get Life 2.0?

Yesterday Mike Arrington noted the stories that both Yahoo and Google are planning to build social networks around their email services. But so far the plans seem to lack a certain ambition. TechCrunch UK has the scoop today on a new stealth-mode app which aims to map any social network against your email, be it Facebook, OpenSocial or LinkedIn, Outlook or Gmail, thus pulling out key trends and useful data. Right now Socialistics, is a Facebook app by Techlightenment - best known for developing the witty Bob Dylan app - which was interesting enough to win them an hour's audience with Tim O'Reilly. Socialistics is now being ported to work with other apps and social networks. A recent test version on a Gmail account I have seen, brings up a slider which allows you to visually morph the themes contained in your email over time, and creates tag clouds of people and key words. Click on a word like "important" and you get a tag cloud and a graph about people most associated with that word. But Techlightenment is prepping a version which will map ALL your interactions with your network, including IM and VOIP phone conversations. In theory there will be no privacy issues as this information is meant solely for personal consumption. Not bad.

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 7:30 AM | Permalink

Social Media Surpasses Email in UK

Well at least this is not a study in the US. Could I really spend more time on LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook and still have a job? I can't fathom that I could nor would. But this does not really show me, as I am passing that 35 mark in a few months and going to be OFFICALLY off the hot target list. I mean I am lest apt to make low dollar widget purchases than I would have last year, or even want the latest band t-shirt.

But will this spread across the pond to the US? I am not sure. Maybe the Brits have more time to spend in social networks than we do, or maybe we just work more.... Ready for the comments guys...

This is what stood out "Younger internet users - those age 18 to 34 - tend to visit social-network sites more than they do web email sites, whereas the reverse is true for those 35+, Goad writes." So this being said, will it lead to behavior changes in consumers in 3-5 years as the demo grows up? Or will they find that making a salary to cover the rent and feed the family is more important that my Top 10 friends on MyWaste?

The thing that is funny to me about this is I think email use is increased with all of these social networking sites. I can't tell you how many "alerts" I get a day from Linked In and Facebook letting me know someone wants to join my "friends", has posted to my wall, wanted me to recommend them, introduce them, or vote or share something with them. These sites, in my opinion, are using email as the hook more than anyone else.

Here is the chart if you have yet to see it and the article can be read here.

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 6:06 AM | Permalink

November 19, 2007

The Email Haiku is Dead... to me

I am not going to state that I am bitter about this campaign, but I pitched some ideas in January 2006 and lost, but it has been going on for about 18 months and needs something new. 18 months is one of the longest email campaigns I have ever seen and maybe it is working so well they wonder WHY CHANGE IT? Well it is stagnant to me. I really don't even take the time to read the clever prose at all, just file it away in my "watch box" (folder of campaigns/brands I follow).

With so many ideas and creative minds behind hotel chains, I would love to see this one retired with the last toll of the bell in 2007 and a fresh start in 2008.

Have any of you seen a campaign run this long? And if so, do you care anymore?

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Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 5:51 AM | Permalink

November 15, 2007

My Favorite Social Media Invite Email

Let's continue how email is the driving force behind social media site growth. Not RSS, not widgets, not PR but email marketing campaigns launched by people's personal address book when they dump it into a social media site, like LinkedIn. Now Stefan, don't hold this against me for using yours, but it is honestly my favorite personal invite yet. Straight to the point and brutally honest.

And to set the record straight we did not get drunk on a plane, although I will now on the next flight I see you at. Maybe we need a linked in for frequent travelers to meet up in boarding areas, airport bars and on planes to pass the time. WAIT I think that there was an Idaho Senator not to long ago that had something like this going on... so forget that. Glad this email did not say foot tapping in a bathroom stall.

"Invitation to connect on LinkedIn
From: Stefan Tornquist
Date:November 15, 2007
To: Dylan Boyd
Status:Pending

Dylan,

Once a year I clean up Outlook whether it needs it or not, so sorry for another linkedinvite. At some point we've emailed, exchanged cards or gotten drunk on a plane, I promise.

-Stefan Tornquist"

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 8:07 PM | Permalink

It's Not Yours But Ours

Another great idea on creating an event. Now this is not an over the top idea, like the one I saw this past week for the Westin of a "BabyVersay" package (leading up to the birth of a child a trip for the expecting parents.. where were you 5 months ago?) but it is a anniversary sale that felt creative and special. It's a party in an email is all I could think of when I saw this one.

As customers we are expecting you to do the unexpected to capture our attention in the inbox AND as a brand. So mix it up and win the sale. I am watching this holiday season close as the doom and gloom crew is projecting a slower holiday retail season, so I expect some clever ideas in order to stand out of the barrage we are all about to get.

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Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 8:46 AM | Permalink

The EEC's Email Performance Award

For all of you email marketers out there, get your nomination forms in for the eec award to be presented at the event in February. I am sure that many of you have done great work and are worthy of submission. That is as long as you have not ended up on my Worst of Email list.

The Email Performance Award Recognizes Superior Results in Email Marketing

Click here for the nomination form.

The eec recently created the Email Performance Award, which recognizes an individual or company that has created a campaign that demonstrates the full power of email marketing. Chosen by the members of the eec, the winning campaign will provide further evidence of email marketing's unsurpassed return on investment and provide inspiration to others seeking to elevate the performance of their own programs. Entries will be evaluated for their marketing strategy, creative components and--most importantly--results. Campaigns from any industry vertical (B2B, B2C, nonprofit, education, etc.) are eligible, so long as results must have been achieved within the last 12 months and the campaign was entirely permission-based.

Nominations close on December 10, 2007.

The members of the eec will select the winner from among the Email Performance Award finalists, which will be determined by the eec's leadership and announced in mid January. The winner will receive free admission to the Email Evolution Conference at the Sheraton Hotel & Marina in San Diego, where the Email Performance Award will be presented on February 13, 2008 at a luncheon sponsored by Merkle.

The winner of the Email Performance Award will also be placed into the semi-finals of the Direct Marketing Association's International ECHO Awards. The Oscar of direct marketing and a much sought-after industry honor, the ECHO is the only comprehensive international direct marketing award recognizing excellence in strategy, creativity and results.

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 5:46 AM | Permalink

November 14, 2007

New eROI Site Goes Live - Tell Us What You Think

After 14 months (yep a long time due to all of the client work that keeps us growing), branding exercises, 6 wire frames, 9 designs, 43 team members, 2 Eye Tracking reviews and an ungodly amount of hours, (and some fun along the way) we have launched our new corporate site. You know if is always harder when the site is your own to really knock it out. We launch about 7-15 new sites and campaign sites each month for our customers, that it really puts things in perspective when you are working up your own.

It had been over 2 years since we pushed out our last site and it truly did not reflect what eROI is all about and the work we do. And since it is about the work, we wanted this new site to show and tell what we do. It is interesting when you start a business that is solely focused on email marketing, and you grow to add full interactive agency services and new products you just try to plug into a site map, how you can best communicate to people on a first impression basis. Well this new site really speaks to what we do. eROI is a full service interactive marketing and email agency. There I said it.

Some people expected us to go the way of a super flash site like other agencies, but that is not us. We took all of the lessons we impart on our clients and partners to heart in this one. We constructed it with lead capture, search engine optimization, portfolio, blog integration, tools, and most importantly a resource center that you will love.

This resource center will be the heart of our site for most of you that read this blog and are not (yet) clients or partners). We constructed it to allow people to register in a simple manner so that we are not asking all those crazy questions every time you want to get something. I mean why do so many companies road block the goods? Sure lead capture, but why not make it easier. Now after you register once, you have access every time to the data, studies, reports, and best practices guides you want. And best of all we remember for you what you downloaded prior so that you are not grabbing the same things over and over again (trust me we see this all week long) unless you really need it again.

So I invite you to check it out. Cruise through the pages, register for the Email Marketing Resources center (and it won't just be about email as we are and INTERACTIVE and Email Marketing Agency remember), grab some guides, and learn more about what we do. Might surprise some of you the extent of the sites, custom work, campaign work and customers we work with. Surprised me once I saw it all in one place.

Then I ask you to give us your feedback as this is a "soft launch" in our minds and we will be tweaking the copy, code and pages in a living environment for your benefit.

Thank you for your time and thank you in advance for ANY feedback positive or negative as it only helps us to understand how we can be a better resource for you and your business.

Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 6:51 AM | Permalink

November 13, 2007

ERA: Do Not Panic Over the Do Not Track List

From a newsletter I got today from the ERA:

Last week many of you contacted ERA asking about an FTC proposal of a so called "Do Not Track List" making it more difficult for online advertisers to monitor its users web habits. While the FTC did hold a workshop on Behavioral Marketing last week, this "Do Not Track List" was not a government proposal but rather a group of consumer advocates releasing their proposals in conjunction with the event.

The FTC's workshop focused on what types of consumer data are collected, how such data is used, what protections are provided for that data, and the costs and benefits of behavioral advertising to consumers. Additionally, there was discussion revolving around what companies are disclosing to consumers and what consumers understand about online collection of their information for use in advertising.

While the consumer group backers for a "Do Not Track List" are attempting to take the model of the Do Not Call list, ample testimony over the two day workshop reflected the differences between how the internet operates in a dramatically different way than the telephone system. In fact, many experts indicated that a Do Not Track list would in fact actually increase the volume of online ads a consumer would receive. In a hypothetical situation where a consumer joins a proposed Do Not Track list, they would still see online ads, just not ads targeted to them whose generic nature would necessitate a web publisher showing more ads to compensate for the lost revenue of targeted advertising.

For those of you unfamiliar with behavioral advertising, it works like this. Instead of an ad being contextual to the content on a website (think Google Adsense), behavioral marketing targets consumers based on their behavior on a number of Web sites. A user visits several travel category pages on a particular site, for example. She is then served vacation ads. Three issues where highlighted at the FTC's workshop. First, the issues surrounding behaviorally targeting children on Facebook type platforms. Second, third party behavioral targeting (a consumer visits your website and is served with ads from previous websites they have visited). Finally, the issues of what types of personal information where collected - none among good players in the industry - and how long it would be kept were topics for discussion.

Regardless, industry has taken these proposals seriously, with AOL announcing a new web site that will link consumers directly to opt-out lists run by the largest advertising networks. Google has also launched a privacy channel on its YouTube property to better educate the public with respect to their browsing options. It is a new and interesting issue that ERA will keep a close eye on moving forward.

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 10:56 PM | Permalink

State of Email Metrics Survey Results

Have not dug into this yet, but all data is worth reading...

EmailStatCenter.com Releases First Annual State of Email Metrics Survey Results

Interactive Marketers Cite Strong Importance of Proper Email Measurement & Standardization as well as Key Challenges for 2008

ATLANTA, GA (Nov. 13, 2007) - - EmailStatCenter.com released its findings from the First Annual State of Email Metrics survey. The survey measured interactive marketing professionals' current views on the importance of email marketing metrics and the biggest challenges and focus areas for 2008. The full results can be found at http://www.emailstatcenter.com/EmailStatCenter_EmailMarketingMetrics_SurveyResults_2007.pdf

Selected highlights from the survey are as follows:

Frequent Measurement is Integral to Success
Over 95% of the individuals surveyed said that they did measure the results of their email campaigns. When asked how often they measured results, 57% of respondents indicated that they measure results 24-48 hours after deployment. However, only 18% indicated that they measured results on an annual basis.

Click Through and Deliverability Rank Tops with Professionals
Professionals ranked click through rate and deliverability as the most important metrics to track. Metrics surrounding total subscribers and forwards were among the lowest ranked metrics in terms of importance.

Metrics Not Widely Used for Budgeting
Only 50% of the email professionals surveyed reported that they use metrics for budgeting and forecasting purposes while 35% of professionals cited that they do not use metrics for budgeting. The remaining 15% were unsure.

Continue Reading at the JUMP

Simms Jenkins, Founder of EmailStatCenter.com "While click throughs and deliverability are essential metrics, it was surprising to find metrics which tie directly to financial return such as ROI, conversion and revenue lower in the rankings. Marketers are missing an opportunity to use metrics in order to gain the executive support needed to grow their programs. This speaks to the continued need for measuring the impact of email on the complete customer experience."

Luc Vezina, Vice President of Marketing & Product Management at Campaigner stated, "One thing that I find noticeable is the lack of revisiting campaigns and their metrics on a more frequent basis. In order to truly use email metrics for the betterment of your campaigns and gather key learnings from them, marketers must continually evaluate and benchmark their campaigns, in addition to looking at them immediately after the send."

Looking at the bigger picture, survey respondents cited list development and time constraints as the biggest challenges they face and email strategy and measurement as areas for near term focus. The survey also addresses the current quality of email metrics, the top sources for email metrics and the need for the standardization of metrics across the industry.

Jeanniey Mullen Founder and Executive Chairwoman of the Email Experience Council and Executive Director and Senior Partner, Global Email Marketing and Digital Dialogue Services at OgilvyOne worldwide commented, "EmailStatCenter.com findings are crucial to helping email marketers gain a better understanding of how to evaluate their own programs. This resource enables marketers to determine how to leverage metrics to justify the impact email has on their business. As an industry, we need to push for email metrics standardization and better utilization of these metrics in order to further educate and fund email program growth."

Jenkins added "EmailStatCenter.com thanks all of those who participated in this survey. It is clear from these responses that there is a strong need for metric definition and standardization across the email marketing industry and that metrics are a very valuable tool in measuring and maintaining success."

To view the surveys findings, please visit http://www.emailstatcenter.com/EmailStatCenter_EmailMarketingMetrics_SurveyResults_2007.pdf

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 9:59 AM | Permalink

Hello MOTO... Return Path Adds Mobile Rendering

Well Return Path continues to validate our choice in partners. Not only does the team rock there, but they are listening to the world of email marketing and giving us the tools, ahead of others, that will allow us to do a better job for our customers and partners.

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We all know that mobile is becoming a serious platform in the US, mobile device use is growing leaps and bounds each and every day. And in many cases the first touch you have with a B to B or B to C customer can happen on a Blackberry even before a traditional inbox. I know that I have had mobile marketing let downs in the past few years with gobblygook hitting my mobile device. Alex Williams on our Sales and Strategy team actually pointed in out in a video post on the new blackberry 8830 some time ago on our ReturnOnSubscriber.com blog.

So I want to thank Return Path for being a leaders, listening, and making our jobs easier to show the rendering issues (and now covering 90% of email clients in the US.. and even more in Asia and Europe) to our customers and partners.

Here is the release from tonight after the jump >>>

Return Path Adds Mobile and International Rendering to Campaign Preview

Staying one step ahead of competitors is essential to success in any business. Return Path wants to make it easier for you to do that so today we announced a significant expansion of our rendering capabilities and coverage to include mobile operating systems and European email readers spanning from France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Sender Score Campaign Preview now allows you to inspect campaigns across more than 50 unique views representing 90% of North American inboxes, major European email readers and leading mobile operating systems.

Of course this also means Return Path has stayed one step ahead of our competitors as Campaign Preview is the only tool on the market to offer rendering views for mobile devices.

Specifically Return Path has:
Added mobile rendering environments for Windows Mobile 5, Windows Mobile 6 and Blackberry RIM (Currently in BETA, generally available in early 2008).

Expanded European rendering coverage with new readers from Germany, France and the United Kingdom (available now).

Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 4:24 AM | Permalink

November 12, 2007

New Show Based on Email

Funny but relevant. Email is so much part of our lives in both personal and the business world that it often is the communication, the dialogue and the story. Very interesting concept from NBC in the pipes that will use the strings of emails as the way to tell this tale.

It makes me think that this is not too far fetched. Really it is right on the spot for many of our conversations from a personal and brand stand point. Think about how many conversations you have in your mind now that you read, where is years past you may have actually had a dialogue using your voice....

Will be interesting to see how this comes out.

This Is Your Brand on 'E' NBC, Omnicom Want to Unleash Fictional Agency on Real Marketers in Upcoming TV Series By Brian Steinberg

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- NBC's audience has embraced Dunder-Mifflin, the dysfunctional company from "The Office" where quirky workers flail about weekly. But is it ready for Miller Shanks?

NBC and Omnicom Group's Full Circle Entertainment plan a comedic summer series based on "E," the wickedly humorous Matt Beaumont novel that relies on a string of e-mail to tell the tale of a fictional London ad firm and its efforts to capture a vaunted Coca-Cola account.

Read on

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 5:29 AM | Permalink

November 11, 2007

Jeanniey Mullen Promises EEC Tattoo

That is right. I got it in "email" tonight that Jeanniey Mullen, founder of the EEC and diva of digital communication at Ogilvy has promised that if we get 500 registrants for the EEC Email Marketing event in San Diego in February, (AND Register by January 15th) she will let us drive her down the a parlor and get the EEC logo "inked" on her body. No we are not talking airbrush, temporary tattoo or even henna. We are talking INK.

Not sure where the placement will be, but I think we should leave that to all of you in the audience to vote.

So get off your keyboards and get on the plane to San Diego to join us all in THE email marketing event of the year. I am asking for the official registrant count tonight and will post it as soon as I have it. And will count it down every few days.

Time to make that commitment to the event, as she has made this commitment.

And did I mention that I am leading the Day 2 Keynote with a panel of email marketing bloggers from the US And EU? This will be a good event I promise.

Learn more about the event and register >>>

Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 9:01 AM | Permalink

November 9, 2007

Use Email to Crowd Source

Sure email fosters community and drives traffic, but how can it be used to crowd source creative and content to build out your site? Even your next design, commercial or product have a chance to be grown from a single email drop. (notice I don't use the word "blast" when I refer to email marketing, as it makes me cringe.) They also used a nice touch of an animated GIF in for the boot (you will need to see the live email and not the image below) to give this email color and life and want me to dig in and participate

We have long used email with campaigns (take a look at Kettle Foods People Choice 4 running as of last week) to drive participation and build buzz. No it is not viral marketing, but the match that can light the fire.

Doc Martens did a good job today in dropping (via one of my favorite shops Summit Projects in Hood River, Oregon) a simple email that is spot on with the See the Campaign Site campaign URL creative. The site is clear, fast, and easy to use and gives you so many options to create your shoe via web tools (and they are SEXY web tools) as well as offline Photoshop templates that you can work on and upload later. The voting engine is the part that stood out to me as we have tried many ways to make voting and rating less cumbersome and not a road block to customer campaign success. I think they nailed it. What do you think?

I am waiting to see what other touches come from this campaign or if it was just a one shot pony.

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Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 8:55 AM | Permalink

How to "Embed" a Video in Email

One of our agency partners (yes we partner with a ton of agencies to provide an email platform) did a great job of using video in email. Now before you think that this video actually played in email.. wait. It did not and that is just fine by me. Video although sexy in email, does not always work no matter what company is telling you it did. BUT as a medium to use to drive the click through it is great.

The way that Citrus used the video player and play window is in my mind how to do it. Create the video to look like it is playable and drive me to click. Don't waste my time making me install something or have it fail, just drive it to the place where it natively plays best.. the browser.

If you are using video in your campaigns and site, use it as collateral and fodder to drive the engagement in email. I think it works beautifully as we all love video and bandwidth is no longer a major concern.

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Comments (3) | Posted by dylan at 5:21 AM | Permalink

November 8, 2007

Political Campaign Emails

So when this whole 2008 Election thing kicked off, I went and opted in for all the major candidates email campaigns. I wanted to look at email frequency, reach, timing, tactics, and creative. So far I can tell you I have seen so many things and none of them uniform. From personal emails from multiple people on the campaign teams, many of whom I had never heard of, to this one below that looks like it was a string of emails forwarded on from people that maybe we should not have seen.

Is this good practices, transparency, or just the political engine at work? I am really not sure what is and what is not working yet, but the Obama campaign has been all over email as a marketing and fund raising engine. So hats off to them for being diligent and trying new things all the time. I am not sure that overall it really has impacted my thoughts towards any candidate, but it has made me take notice when they enter the inbox. I am thinking of later on putting them all into one study to see if I can find anything that stands out that we can all learn from.

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Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 10:30 AM | Permalink

November 7, 2007

Can't Help But Love the Magilla's 2007

Ken, I stole your article, completely as only a way to give you a plug for your AWARDS you bestowed upon our industry that LOVES our awards. (Heck what industry doesn't love a third party to validate them in some way, or just get some PR Mileage out of things like "The Most Likely to End Up a Used Car Salesman in Pontiac, Michigan"? Or "Most Likely to Marry the Homecoming Queen"? I think awards overall start at a young age and we all love them. Out here in Portland we like winning things like Most Sustainable City in the US, Fastest Growing Creative Class, Best Place to Live, and even Rainiest (this is a total lie just to keep so many people from flocking here...)

I was just utterly honored to make your list as #40. Was there an actual ranking method to this? Love the fun you poke as we all know it is good humored. As for Positive or Negative ROI, we only think positively out here at eROI.

The rest is after the jump....

At Last, The Magilla Marketing List of Top Companies ... Sort Of

Am I the only one who's tired of publications creating lists of "top" or "fastest-growing" companies, which are then followed by the inevitable round of press releases from the companies on the lists?

The releases always go something like this: "For Immediate Release: Crappiest Company to Work for in the World Makes Bankruptcy Week's Top 100 list of Fastest Growing Companies in the Small Buffalo, NY Suburb of North Tonawanda."

The lists and the releases are all nothing more than cheap attempts to get publicity.
Hmmm. Come to think of it, rather than criticize, maybe it's time for this newsletter to create a list of its own.

Then maybe Magilla Marketing can get some of that cheap publicity.

Let's call the list: The Magilla Marketing List of Top 40 Fastest-Growing (and some not-so-fast-growing) E-mail Marketing Related Companies that Came to Mind Randomly while Swilling Vodka Martinis.

And without further ado, here it is:

1. Goodmail: This firm has been under fire and in the news so often that it has helped me make more deadlines than any other company on this list.
2. Epsilon: Database-, loyalty- and e-mail-marketing services all from one company. Or is it three? Heck, I don't know. It's all Greek to me.
3. Yesmail: Hey, they deliver this newsletter.
4. Zustek: Al DiGuido's back! You know there's gonna be news coming out of that joint sooner or later.
5. Pivotal Veracity: Boy, one central truth would sure make things easier, wouldn't it? Oh, wait a minute, we fight wars over that $%#@, don't we? Never mind.
6. Innovyx: Any company that deals with ad agencies for a living deserves an award just for the sheer ability to avoid political landmines.
7. Silverpop: Why just silver? Why not Goldpop? Or Platinumpop? Ooh. Wait a minute. I've got it. Titaniumpop. Yeah? Yeah?
8. StreamSend: Gurgle, gurgle. Very peaceful.
9. Lyris: Makes you want to break out in song, no?
10. Constant Contact: This company recently had a killer initial public offering, and hasn't made any money yet. What the heck are the rest of us doing wrong?
11. SubscriberMail: They're in Chicago.
12. ExactTarget: They're in Indianapolis.
13. Responsys: A name that should never be attempted by anyone with a lisp.
14. CheetahMail: My son has two of their stuffed cheetahs. Yeah, yeah. I know. Conflict of interest. From now on, anytime anyone sees a positive reference to CheetahMail in this newsletter, they'll ask: "Is he doing this because they gave him stuffies?"
15. Datran Media: They're not as much fun ever since they stopped getting in trouble with former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
16. Acxiom Digital: Mmmm... Databases.
17. eDialog: The lower-case first letter's kind of dot-commie, and I mean that in the nicest of ways.
18: Habeas: I miss the haiku business model it launched with.
19. Strongmail: Heyyy. Have you been working out?
20: iPost: Like eDialog, this is also reminiscent of dot-com names, but only in the most positive ways, of course.
21: Vertical Response: Mmmm... San Francisco.
22. Emma Email Marketing: What's not to like about the name "Emma?" Sounds like a firm that will send your e-mail, and bake you a pie.
23. eWay Direct: Also dot-commie sounding, but again ... well, you know.
24. GOT Corporation: Does this firm's name make anyone else think of milk?
25. Harte-Hanks Postfuture: Whoa. Beyond the future. Now my head hurts.
26. Premiere Global Services: Yay, Atlanta.
27. Puresend: A little sanctimonious, don't ya think?
28. BlueHornet: Ouch. It stings.
29. Email Data Source: He sees you when you're mailing.
30. Lashback: He knows when people opt out.
31: Return Path: They know if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sakes. Ohhhhhh, you better not ... yeah, yeah. I know. Lame.
32. Ironport: Iron? Port? Would you really want a port made of iron? Oh, I get it now.
33: JangoMail: Someone likes fantasy books, Star Wars characters, or a village in Pakistan.
34. MailerMailer: Is there an echo in here?
35. Bluerockdove.com: I don't quite understand this company's name. But anyone who reads this newsletter with any regularity knows there's a lot I don't understand. They're in Canada. Brrrr.
36. Alterian: Sounds like a planet one of my son's superheroes could be from ... or a tobacco company.
37. FreshAddress: How do you tell if it's fresh? Do you squeeze it?
38. MailChimp: Oh, I get it. So easy a monkey can do it.
39. Exmplar: I'd like to buy a vowel, please.
40. eROI: Is it a positive ROI or a negative ROI? They never say.

And there you have it: The Magilla Marketing List of Top 40 Fastest-Growing (and some not-so-fast-growing) E-mail Marketing Related Companies that Came to Mind Randomly while Swilling Vodka Martinis.
OK folks: Let's get those "We-Made-the-Magilla-List" press releases cooking! They should be appearing on PR Newswire any moment. Right? Right?

Editor's note: If your company did not appear on The Magilla Marketing List of Top 40 Fastest-Growing (and some not-so-fast-growing) E-mail Marketing Related Companies that Came to Mind Randomly while Swilling Vodka Martinis list and you think it should have, e-mail us. We'll do another list. Heck, we'll do 'em all year! But you have to put out a release. Hmmm ... I smell a business model.

Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 4:54 PM | Permalink

Where Do You Click?

I think I have stated before that I sign up for 100s of emails... or more. It takes something special that we can all learn from or that is great to make me want to talk about it. This latest one from Jergens has a few things to talk about. The first is that the creative matches the campaign everywhere. The print, the TV, the site, spot on. I hate when I get something that is so detached form the overall campaign that I am not mentally sure how it all fits together. It is one of those second guess things people do when pieces don't fit in an instant. But what I would have liked to see if a clear call to action and even know where to click besides the underlined links that really do not stand out on their own.

A nice button would have made that decision for me and kept me on the track that they wanted me to follow. So much of the design is driven by copy in many cases and not by email marketing principals of best practices. Would you know where to go?

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Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 8:06 AM | Permalink

November 6, 2007

How Does this Policy Affect Email Marketing?

Now I can see how this impacts cookies and other analytics code, but how does this affect email marketing. Many of us place tracking scripts on our sites to see where people click from an email to what pages they visit in order to track conversion and how people are responding to a campaign. Many of us post this type of data warning in our privacy policies already, as I thought most of the sites do as well when it comes to cookies and tracking code. So will this impact email marketing? Are we wrong to assume that it is different?

What I really am wrestling with is the whole free web site question. I mean by this that if we are spending thousand to millions on web sites for consumers do they not think that we should be able to gather usage data on what people look at down to an individual level? By creating a place for people to shop, interact, and consume media don't we have some right to know what is and is not working? I mean how would we be able to create events and pages that are more relevant to people based on what they do? Isn't this what consumers have been screaming for... personalization and relevant information?

From the Article:
FTC to Web Advertisers: Police Yourselves, or We'll Do it For You

That was the subtext of the message the Federal Trade Commission delivered to Web advertisers, in particular with relation to ads that track consumer behavior. According to Reuters:

FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz said Internet advertisers should tell consumers that information was being gathered, give them a choice to opt out, and protect any data collected.

While there is nothing particularly new about the advertising technologies the FTC is worried about, Washington seems to be just waking up to the privacy implications of how ads are served to consumers across the Web. As election year approaches, expect to hear a lot more sabre-rattling on this issue.

AOL's announcement on Wednesday to let people opt out of having its advertising systems place cookies on their browsers was conveniently timed for the day before the hearing. Calls for an industry-wide do-not-track list are also picking up. A do-not-track list is a good idea. Not that it would ever be enforceable. But opt-out systems are preferable to someone at the FTC deciding which advertising tactics are acceptable and which ones are not. Ultimately, the market should reward the advertising platforms that produce the most relevant ads, which are good for both advertisers and consumers. And if people want to opt out of these system altogether, well that is a market signal also.

Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 3:45 PM | Permalink

Does Length Matter In Emails

Typically I am all about the top loaded, clear call to action emails that work well in the preview pane. But sometimes I come across emails that are better long. Not that I think everyone is going to read it, but when your audience is photogs and designers, they appreciate the design, the copy and the effort of being creative. Getty Images does just this. What a clever email. Makes you want to continue reading down to find out what they are saying.

What makes good emails is not always the norm. Hard to really quantify that, but standing out in the inbox wins with me, and consumers everytime.

What are your thoughts?

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Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 5:02 AM | Permalink

November 5, 2007

Access Your Hotmail Offline

Another App from Microsoft. Do you think that all of these are out to compete with the new Google IMAP protocols? I am waiting to see how this works as I want to know if it is going to affect email rendering as the email is passed from the web client to a desktop environment. And IF you are offline will it pull down and reference the images? Or will ALL images be turned off? More complexities to deal with even when progress is made.

New beta software to access your Hotmail offline

When we launched Windows Live Hotmail earlier this month, we mentioned that there would be more ways to get your e-mail coming from Microsoft. The new beta for client-based e-mail is here! The Windows Live Hotmail team would like to invite you to try a new and exciting way of accessing your Hotmail account and any other e-mail accounts.

It's called Windows Live Mail and it's free software that you install on your computer.

http://mailcall.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!CC9301187A51FE33!43091.entry

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 12:16 PM | Permalink

Now Hotmail to Your Desktop and Offline

So I need to install and run this. Everyone is making email something you can get in 50 different flavors all from the same source. How does this affect testing, rendering and tracking?

I installed it into Outlook 2007 on my PC and still don't see it working right. Will keep trying. Has anyone else used it?

Access Windows Live Hotmail for free using the Outlook Connector beta
Update 2: Another how-to article here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102218231033.aspx

http://mailcall.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!CC9301187A51FE33!43212.entry

Update: New download link!

Here is the third book in the Windows Live e-mail trilogy: the new beta version of the Outlook Connector!

If you have Outlook on your computer, you can download and install the new Outlook Connector beta here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7aad7e6a-931e-438a-950c-5e9ea66322d4&displaylang=en&Hash=h6s3dqw89xeBTpexcStnoW2i81qoP%2fsPxtE2wOjLxQJBvn4S74p5AsZCAG2yP

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 8:17 AM | Permalink

November 2, 2007

Selling A Brand Through Email

Kimpton is one of those boutique hotel groups that is always innovating. If you have not stayed in a Kimpton before it is one of those places that has transformed an older property, gave it a complete identity and embraced the brand to the nth degree.

What is cool in this email is that is not about the hotel at all, but about the branded merchandise you can use when you go, or you have seen in the rooms. And to take it up a notch, all the proceeds are being given away to a cause. Now they win on both sides. They have you embracing the brand outside of the hotel and they get you to give. Win win win.

It hammers home the ideas I have about not always hard selling. Don't always ask for the credit card in every email, but focus on the relationship and growing the reasons I want to be on this list. Think about being a resource and a brand that they want to associate with. Then you win on all fronts.

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Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 10:24 AM | Permalink

November 1, 2007

No I Have Not Died

Thanks to many of you that have asked if I was hit by a bus, lost in the woods, had Vinny break my fingers or even was fired. No none of the above has happened. I've just been so overly slammed with project launches, new campaigns in the hopper, strategy meetings, email audits, a new site launch in the works for eROI.com (next week) and the odd fact that the sun has been shining in Oregon (and it is now November) that I have not been able to post. All of those reasons and the fact that we migrated our blog hosting environments last week and the migration was not as smooth as we would have liked. That being said special thanks to our IT team for working hard to figure it all out and work while many of us slept to get everything rocking again.

I have about 20 posts set up, have installed a new version of Mac OS that actually spell checks as I type in Safari (ohhh technology is sexy) and am going to over deliver this month of November on email marketing creative, email audit strategies, ideas, and thoughts.

Just know I am here for you. Which brings up this idea that was floated by the EEC this past month of why are there so many email marketers blogging and why do we do it. Well that is all going to be answered by a Keynote Panel I am leading at the EEC/DMA event in February 2008 so make sure to register for this event and while you are at it, go to the EEC site and sign up to start participating.

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 8:26 PM | Permalink