PW Marketing ordered to pay $2M fine

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer claimed victory in the state's first antispam lawsuit late last week, after a court ordered PW Marketing LLC and its owners to pay a $2 million fine for violating California laws against sending unsolicited commercial e-mail.

Spam costs U.S. businesses nearly $9 billion a year in lost productivity and screening expenses, and accounts for roughly 40% of all e-mail, Lockyer said in a statement released Friday. The attorney general added that his office would continue to enforce the laws against the "high tech pollutant." Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:13 PM  |  Permalink

A recent study by Opt-in News found open rates for B to B email newsletters to be 71 percent compared to 41 percent for consumer email newsletters. Financial B to B newsletter acheived the highest open rates at 73 percent. The article goes on to detail open rates for many other categories from gaming to travel to shopping across the globe. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:11 PM  |  Permalink

In the absence of a practical set of guidelines that could staunch the flow of grassroots hatred of email marketing, a meeting of the International Association of Privacy Professionals came to consensus that email marketers need to abide by a stricter, self-enforced code of behavior. Worried that the masses will light up torches one night and come storming the email marketing castle with the help of restrictive legislation, Truste's president Fran Maier said, "We've just got to have some sort of coordinated approach. We have to be tougher." Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:10 PM  |  Permalink

This week the U.S. Senate passed the Can Spam Act (S. 877), which requires that commercial e-mailers use clear and conspicuous identification that the message is an advertisement or solicitation and that the e-mail contains an opt-out provision. Under the bill, unsolicited commercial e-mail must contain the valid physical address of the sender. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:09 PM  |  Permalink

Illegitimate email messaging over the Internet is currently greater than 90% according to Solid Oak Software, Inc. publishers of Alligate, an anti-spam email gateway product. There are numerous recent reports that have indicated that spam accounts for 50-60% of all email traffic, however these figures are misleading according to Brian Milburn, president of Solid Oak. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:08 PM  |  Permalink

A recent study authored by Quris, an email solutions agency, shows nearly half of consumers surveyed reported that they have stopped doing business with companies altogether as a result of poor email practices. Similarly the study finds that over 57% of consumers have made purchases as a result of email, based upon survey responses from 1,684 email users in the United States. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:07 PM  |  Permalink

I received numerous questions regarding the recent case study on Rollerblade's e-mail marketing campaign. As always, I invite you to discuss columns in ClickZ's Reader Feedback section. But many readers requested more details about this particular campaign, so I asked Anthony Campisi, president of ANNODYNE iNTERACTIVE, which ran the campaign, for additional details.

Christian wrote: "We're in the planning stages of our first Flash e-mail campaign. I hope you can help with an execution question. Did Rollerblade imbed this Flash in the e-mail message, or was an HTML message created that linked to the Flash piece?" Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:04 PM  |  Permalink

Friends and colleagues always ask, "How I entirely stop spam from reaching my inbox?"

Believe it or not, there's a pretty simple answer: set up a filter to send any message that's not from address book senders into another folder. As this causes many headaches when trying to find e-mail from known senders who are not in the address book, some e-mail filtering programs have adopted challenge/response systems to help manage those relationships for users. The question then becomes, how challenging is it for e-mailers to work with, or through, challenge/response programs? Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:03 PM  |  Permalink

This morning, my colleague told me about an unusual dilemma he's facing. He's a regular at a coffee shop near our offices. For some reason, the manager has begun chatting with him every time he goes in.

The fellow consults my friend on potential discount offers and suggests he bring coupons back to our offices. Yesterday, my colleague only wanted to buy a quick drink, having come in late after a breakfast meeting. But as soon as he walked in, the manager ordered the cook to re-start the grill and to make my colleague's usual breakfast. He made such a big deal out of it, my friend ended up with breakfast number two. How could he refuse? The manager has decreed he gets a 10 percent discount on his every purchase. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:02 PM  |  Permalink

Taking a new twist on an old antispam method, Microsoft plans to use white lists for its free Hotmail e-mail service.

Days after Yahoo unveiled new mechanisms for controlling spam, or unsolicited junk mail, on its free Web e-mail service, Microsoft sent Hotmail account holders an e-mail that pledged to upgrade its services with the white lists next month and offered a sneak peak of how the system will work.

A white list checks incoming mail against a list of addresses that the account holder has already approved.
Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 8:25 PM  |  Permalink

A new group will try to reconcile competing methods to thwart spam with a kind of caller ID for e-mail.

The Anti-Spam Research Group (ASRG) of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) early this month formed a subcommittee to hammer out differences between a number of competing protocols that all aim to do the same thing: verify that e-mail senders are who they say they are.

With the way things work now under the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), there is no widespread method for that kind of verification. That has led some to calls for the revision or replacement of the ubiquitous protocol. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 1:31 PM  |  Permalink

Fines as high as $3 million could be imposed for kinds of illegal spam

The U.S. Senate yesterday passed a bill regulating unsolicited commercial e-mail and allowing fines as large as $3 million for some types of illegal spam.

The Senate voted 97-0 to approve the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act yesterday after a compromise among members of the Senate's Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee allowed an amendment authorizing a federal agency to launch a national do-not-spam registry.

CAN-SPAM would require commercial e-mail to include valid opt-out mechanisms and allows fines of up to $100 per piece of spam sent with misleading header information. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:45 PM  |  Permalink

Ok, so people don't like spam. No surprise here. But this little bit caught my eye:

"The results found that insufferable spam has driven 25 percent of those polled to avoid using email. Some of the respondents are concerned that wanted email will be lost in the clutter of unwanted email. And others just don't trust their messages, fearing that a spammer may co-opt email addresses of friends and family."

A quarter are dumping email altogether because of spam? I think that is a significant finding. The full study can be found here.


Posted by: DTB at 9:44 PM  |  Permalink

Survey Confirms It: Spam Sucks

To the surprise of no one, regular avalanches of spam are driving people away from using their e-mail and making their online time less enjoyable.

A new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project documents how this persistent problem has taken its toll on the general public.

The results found that insufferable spam has driven 25 percent of those polled to avoid using e-mail. Some of the respondents are concerned that wanted e-mail will be lost in the clutter of unwanted e-mail. And others just don't trust their messages, fearing that a spammer may co-opt e-mail addresses of friends and family.

And 70 percent of e-mail users say that spam is making their online experience unpleasant.
Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:42 PM  |  Permalink

Call Your Broadcast Firm Today so You Can Avoid Blacklists

If you are sending email newsletters or campaigns to a house list via a third party broadcast firm (which most people do), you absolutely should read this article immediately because it will help you get your email past filters.

Here's the thing - you can't assume your broadcast firm is doing the best thing for you regarding IPs. Many are not. As a marketer or email publisher, you must take responsibility into your own hands to make sure your broadcast firm is OK.

This article is written in clear non-techie English. And, it includes a quiz list of questions for you to ask your broadcast firm rep when you get him or her on the phone. Highly recommended:
Read Article >>
(Open access until Nov 1) Posted by: DTB at 9:37 PM  |  Permalink

This Case Study is fun and quick. Hear the story of a company president who was bored of his marketers sending out the same-old, same-old HTML email promos every two weeks. On a whim he decided to test a text-only note asking customers to pick up the phone and call him.

The results were both funny and positive. Includes samples.
Read Article >>
(Open access ends 10/31) Posted by: DTB at 9:36 PM  |  Permalink

Do some visitors come to your sign-up form or registration page and then leave again without signing-up? It's a problem for every single Web site on the planet today - bar none.

Over the past six months, PhoneHog has tested 100 different variations of their simple registration form - including headline wording, graphics, colors, and the number of fields visitors had to fill out. The resulting data is fascinating - and useful for everyone no matter what business you're in.
Read Article >>
(Open access until 10/31) Posted by: DTB at 9:35 PM  |  Permalink

The short answer is: yes, even if you are a permission mailer.

If you are working on your budget for 2004 right now, make sure you include a significant investment in your customer and prospect database systems. New and pending US and Canadian laws on email, telemarketing, faxing, and now even direct postal mail, all point in one direction.

You have to ask for permission. And then you have to be able to quickly and efficiently prove on demand that you have it.

It's the latter part of this that worries me for many marketers' sakes. If your various databases are silo-ed, if you can't tell precisely where and when each name joined your house file, if you can't prove you are innocent, your carefully collected list becomes worthless -- even an Achilles heel.

Marketers in other countries have been dealing with this longer than we have - take Germany for example where data and privacy regs are very strict. I'll make sure we get some tips from them to run in future issues.

Just as marketers were climbing out of the recessionary doldrums we had to get hit with this. Well, it's to our best in the long run. Gotta eat your spinach. Invest in your database.

Thanks for your support,
Anne Holland - Publisher
MarketingSherpa Posted by: DTB at 9:34 PM  |  Permalink

Closely following the release of joint email marketing guidelines from the AAAA, ANA and the DMA, the IAB along with NAI's Email Service Provider and TRUSTe have announced their own set of email marketing guidelines:

Unsolicited Commercial Email must not be sent

Commercial email must not be sent to an individual's email address unless there is an existing business relationship between the sender and the addressee or the sender has obtained prior informed consent from the individual

Every commercial email must include an opportunity for the recipient to unsubscribe from receiving such email in the future

Commercial email must not include address fields, subject lines and message bodies that are misleading, false, or deceptive

Email addresses must not be gathered through surreptitious methods.
All this alphabet soup adds up to - despite all good intentions - is another set of rules to be laughed at and spit upon by dubious email marketers and spammers. The only real, if partial, spam solution right now is client side filtering. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:07 PM  |  Permalink

Unlike other forms of marketing, e-mail offers a unique opportunity to evaluate half a dozen metrics, all of which contribute to the success or failure of a campaign. To enhance results, creative, offer and price can be tweaked at any and all points along what I call the "e-mail continuum." Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:05 PM  |  Permalink

Yes, e-newsletters are a great way to create an ongoing, "most favored company status" position for your business, right in recipients' inboxes. They can also be a testing ground and launch pad for creating new revenue opportunities, even new businesses.

That's the experience of Sherman Ventures' AustinXL daily business news, sent to about 6,000 Central Texas subscribers. Since launching AustinXL, founder and publisher Chris Sherman has leveraged the XL brand's success and introduced two additional publications, DFWXL (serving the Dallas-Fort Worth area) and HoustonXL. The newsletter also spawned two successful conferences and an e-mail marketing service. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:05 PM  |  Permalink

As e-mail marketers prepare clients for the worst and continue self-regulation efforts, they're marshalling their forces to lobby Congress to sign one of two bills that will supersede California's tough new anti-spam law -- and leave the door open for third-party commercial e-mails.

The legislation spurring marketers to action is California's SB 186, which was signed into law at the end of September and goes into effect on January 1, 2004. The law totally bars the sending of unsolicited commercial e-mail to and from the state, and it allows individuals to sue not only someone who sends an unsolicited commercial e-mail, but also the advertiser on whose behalf it was sent. So, an over-enthusiastic or ethically-challenged affiliate marketer who harvested e-mail addresses off the Web and used them to send marketing messages touting an online retailer's specials could put that retailer in the way of a lawsuit. It defines unsolicited commercial e-mail as any commercial e-mail that a recipient hasn't given "direct consent" to receive from an advertiser. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:04 PM  |  Permalink

Telco giant AT&T on Wednesday rushed to withdraw two notices sent to business partners and customers asking for the IP addresses of all outbound SMTP servers because of a "human error" gaffe.

With a significant increase in incoming spam over the past few days, AT&T sent out the notices demanding the IP addresses, presumably to create a white list of gateways from which e-mail will be accepted. But a company spokesman now says customers should ignore the requests.

"Those e-mails went out in error. They never should have been sent. We have apologized and we're requesting that customers disregard them," AT&T spokesman Dave Johnson told internetnews.com. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:03 PM  |  Permalink

I recently returned from a trip to Europe that included a stay in the great city of Florence, a city many consider the quintessential example of Renaissance culture. As I absorbed the history and sites around me (along with a few gelati), I thought of the Renaissance and what an exciting place Florence must have been then. Europe emerged from economic stagnation, artists flourished, scientific and political thought changed direction, and communication was changed forever with the invention of the printing press.

Visiting Florence, and stepping back in time, I couldn't help but draw a connection to my own experiences over the last few decades, and most recently as CEO of a fast-growing company in an emerging medium: e-mail
Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:02 PM  |  Permalink

Yahoo on Monday launched new antispam tools for its Web-based e-mail service as part of an ongoing effort to curb the Internet's most reviled by-product.

The Web portal said that as a way to protect their personal Yahoo Mail address from spammers, subscription e-mail customers will be able to set up dummy e-mail addresses for use when entering personal information at Web sites.

For example, if a subscriber wants to register for a book club, he or she can do so using a different Yahoo e-mail address, such as user-bookclub@yahoo.com. Any message sent to the fake address is sent to the user's primary e-mail account, but if the user notices lots of spam, Web parlance for unsolicited bulk e-mail, he or she can delete the address.
Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 8:58 AM  |  Permalink

A recently released report from InsightExpress and unspam finds that the amount of spam in the personal inboxes of US Internet users has grown by 76% over the past 12 months. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 4:15 PM  |  Permalink

This President/CEO says relevance makes all the difference with direct marketing.

With client success stories ranging from the NFL to the Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, e-Dialog's “little shop on the corner” approach proves that the direct marketing industry thrives when given a personal touch.

President/CEO John Rizzi believes that the key to successful direct marketing exists in relevance. Recently, Rizzi took some time to explain to iMedia Connection how sending less email and making every piece count is essential in leading the evolution from permission to precision email marketing. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 4:13 PM  |  Permalink

DoubleClick announced the results of its fourth annual Consumer Email Study at the DMA Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida. According to DoubleClick, the study reveals an increasing sophistication in consumer usage of email and in fighting spam, and shows a continued acceptance of legitimate commercial email.

Consistent with the 2002 study, spam remained the number one concern consumers have about their inbox (89% cited spam as their number one concern). Email volume was up slightly from last year’s levels (264 emails per week versus 254 in 2002), although the ratio of spam (56%) remained constant. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 4:09 PM  |  Permalink

For a change of pace, I'm devoting today's column to issues raised in your mail. So, without further ado...

Brian from Colorado took offense at a statement regarding CTR. In discussing responses to an e-mail marketing campaign, I noted in a particular campaign, 17 percent of delivered e-mail registered a response. I further added," This figure is not to be confused with the click through rate (CTR) on opened messages. Some marketers (incorrectly, in my opinion) count CTR on opens, instead of on all messages sent, in a bid to inflate results." Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 4:08 PM  |  Permalink

E-mail marketing campaigns -- especially those directed to existing customers -- produce dramatically better return on investment (ROI) than any other direct marketing technique according to a study the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) released at its annual conference.

Using an index in which 2 represented profitability, e-mail came in at a 14.2 ROI. The next-closest direct marketing medium, direct response TV, generated ROI of just 8.4. Direct mail came in at 7.2. DMA researchers calculated ROI by looking at revenue per contact; cost per customer; and response rate on over 1,500 direct and interactive marketing campaigns conducted in the first quarter of 2003. Posted by: DTB at 4:06 PM  |  Permalink

With spam reaching an all-time high, e-marketers are having a difficult time getting their messages read. But according to an Opt-in News study of U.S. publishers of HTML e-mail, those distributing B2B (business-to-business) newsletters might have the most receptive viewing audience.

Results from the 2003 study indicate that newsletters targeting business professionals boasted a 71 percent open rate, compared to 41 percent of e-zines that are directed at consumers. The open rate for B2B increased 2 percentage points from a 2002 study, while B2C (business-to-consumer) decreased from 49 percent. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 4:04 PM  |  Permalink

Psst.... did you know e-mail and search are direct marketing media? Yes, it's true. Apparently, it's not a secret anymore.

I spent the early part of this week immersed in all things direct at the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) annual conference in Orlando, Fla. What I found took me by surprise. The interactive folks with whom I spoke were a little shocked, too. It appears interactive techniques are finally getting some respect from the direct marketing establishment. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 4:04 PM  |  Permalink

According to Doubleclick's latest annual survey of consumer attitudes about email, 65% of men are likely to think a company they've done business with is sending them unsolicited junk mail if the mail arrives "too frequently."

This compares to 55% of women.

If the company got permission first, but still mails too frequently, then 61% of men and 56% of women still think you're a junk mailer.

These results jibe with the data from Quris' similar study conducted this August. Consumers don't care about what you are legally entitled to send them or what permission box they ticked off a while back (and probably forgot 15 seconds later.)

They just care that there's stuff in their emailbox they don't want. And they are going to blame you for it. Men especially.

In effect, each name on your list is an unexploded bomb, ready to go off if you mail them too much, or the wrong sort of content. So, even if the law, advertising associations and vendor white papers tell you it's ok to mail something... it may not be.

Email is rewarding, exciting, and yes, increasingly dangerous. And nobody can keep you safe but yourself.
Posted by: DTB at 8:35 PM  |  Permalink

This is *not* a fluffy creativity article for design buffs. Now that AOL v9 and Outlook 2003 are blocking HTML images, everyone sending graphics in email is affected.

So, we interviewed the folks behind one of the most compellingly- designed HTML newsletters in the world (Central Market's Foodie) and found out how they get an insanely high open rate consistently.

Also includes links to useful tech articles and creative samples, Read Article >>
(Open access until 10/25) Posted by: DTB at 8:34 PM  |  Permalink

When you want to create a stronger relationship with your customers, e-newsletters are a cost-effective, timely way to build rapport, says Kathleen Goodwin, CEO of iMakeNews, a Massachusetts-based provider of e-marketing and e-newsletter solutions. The benefits are many, such as shortened sales cycles, dialogue promotion and greater customer knowledge. From years of experience, iMakeNews offers these best practices for e-newsletters. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 8:32 PM  |  Permalink

With sp**m accounting for nearly half of all emails sent this year (Gartner), companies need to analyze their email programs to make sure that their messages are being read instead of deleted. IMN, an e-marketing company, conducted a study on the nearly 109 million email newsletters it has sent for clients since 2000.

The company found that product news accounts for the highest percentage of click-throughs (29%), followed by company news (18%), industry news (14%) and tips (11%). By industry, marcom companies lead the open rate pack (63%), followed by retailers (55%), financial services (47%), manufacturing (43%), nonprofit (41%) and software development (also 41%). The overall open rate rang in at 39%. For more benchmarks and tips, check out the study. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 8:31 PM  |  Permalink

Everybody knows putting "free" in a subject line is an automatic trip to filter hell, and HTML beats text format for responses, right? Absolutely, but not necessarily, according to speakers at the DMA conference.

Michelle Feit of e-Post Direct (http://www.epostdirect.com) said a test campaign that put "free offer" in the subject line (without funky punctuation, either) did better than one whose subject line emphasized a benefit. It was a B2B campaign, which might test differently from a consumer campaign, and there were no delivery or filtering stats reported.

She also said HTML does better than text, but Jeff Moriarty, sales and marketing director for business-list firm DM2 Moriarty, said text might be poised for a comeback.

"We're seeing text coming back into play more," he said. "This is being led by the people who led us to HTML in the first place, IT people, because of the speed with which recipients can read them."

Text emails also stand out in a sea of HTML, said Moriarty, who also advocates putting a benefit in the subject line to lift open rates.

All the contradictory advice just spotlights one strategy that seems to underlie everything: Test, test and test. One size, format or subject-line style does not fit all campaigns or newsletters. Posted by: DTB at 8:46 PM  |  Permalink

It was probably a good idea for the DMA's Association for Interactive
Marketing not to define spam in the email-marketing guidelines it issued
last week. The DoubleClick results show that defining spam can be highly
personal and hard to categorize.

A nine-point list of email best practices issued this week by a troika of
ad-industry trade groups also declined to define spam.

This latest set of guidelines comes from the American Association of
Advertising Agencies, the Association for National Advertising
and the DMA. Together, the three groups represent a major chunk of U.S.
advertisers and marketers.

The list is similar to AIM's more detailed compilation of recommendations on
everything from collecting names -- it prohibits using automated methods
such as harvesting or dictionary attacks but doesn't mention using opt-in --
to managing delivery and resolving disputes with ISPs or recipients.

Find the full text here Posted by: DTB at 8:45 PM  |  Permalink

Spam is in the eye of the beholder, according to this 2003 study by
DoubleClick, which found almost two-thirds of consumers delete anything that
even looks like spam without reading it.

The study of 1,000 regular email users defined spam as any email that tricks
them into opening it, comes from an unknown source or has offensive content.
A majority even says spam is permission email that comes too often.

Men and women have different attitudes toward spam, too. Messages that sell
a product or service irritate men more than women, overall, but women are
more like to be offended by porn spam.

DoubleClick's Knowledge Center has the study abstract in PDF, with all the
numbers and a good executive summary. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 8:44 PM  |  Permalink

One of e-mail's benefits is its ability to target messages to sub-groups within your list. Yet going all-out on targeting and creating completely different versions of a message for each group can get expensive. Here are small, inexpensive ways to target a generic message to different groups. I've culled these examples from recent experience with my clients. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 8:35 PM  |  Permalink

Here's a tough one: You say you oppose anti-spam legislation. That you're spam "sympathizer." You're against restricting free speech. Assuming you're right, the recently passed California anti-spam legislation (CA SB 186) remains problematic for one simple reason: It won't solve the spam problem. I'm convinced there's a solution much more effective than legislation, namely secure identity e-mail. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 8:33 PM  |  Permalink

If I've learned one thing from the American patchwork of 37 state e-mail laws, it's that knowing where your customers reside is no longer a luxury, it's a necessity. So the question is: how can I unearth this information, then what can I do with it? Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 8:32 PM  |  Permalink

The Association for Interactive Marketing (AIM) Council for Responsible E-mail (CRE) today issued its "E-mail Delivery Best Practices," designed to provide marketers with practical recommendations to assist in the delivery of legitimate commercial e-mail. AIM developed the best practices in order to provide marketers with clear and conspicuous advice and recommendations on how the following topics impact the delivery of e-mail: Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 4:23 PM  |  Permalink

Bulk e-mailers are digitally signing unsolicited messages in hopes of bypassing popular filtering programs, but updated software has been modified to detect the trick, experts said this week. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 3:59 PM  |  Permalink

Missouri's attorney general filed lawsuits against two alleged junk e-mailers this week, the first cases brought under the state's new antispam law.

The lawsuits, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in St. Louis, charge Phillip Nixon of Palm Beach, Fla., and proprietors of the Web site Fundetective.com, of Boca Raton, Fla., with violating the law. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 3:23 PM  |  Permalink

[Open access until 10/11]

Readers pay to get email newsletters from TheStreet.com, so if a newsletter isn't delivered to everyone, Ryan Scott, Director of Email Operations, is in trouble.

Hear about the steps he's taking every day to keep email from being blocked by mistake:
Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 5:12 PM  |  Permalink

[Open access until 10/17]

Williams-Sonoma Inc. is seeing double digit growth in both on-line and offline sales compared to a year ago. One of the factors is the fact that they completely reorganized across all their marketing departments (including such brands as Pottery Barn) to improve campaign results. Here's how: Posted by: DTB at 5:11 PM  |  Permalink

[Open access until 10/18]

If you mail the same house list month after month, how can you keep people interested enough that they continue to open, click and buy from you?

It's a dilemma that everyone, who started emailing a house list in the past two years, is up against now.

Here's some inspiration from California wineries who are beating the problem. Also includes tips on how your email creative and frequency should differ for your various audiences (consumers, distributors, retailers, etc.) Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 5:10 PM  |  Permalink

We had the privilege last week of contributing our expertise at "The E-mail Marketing Q & A Forum" Webinar presented by NetCreations/PostMasterDirect. Hosted by President and CEO Michael Mayor, the Webinar featured e-mail experts (many of them ClickZ columnists) who answered questions sent by readers of NetCreations' e-newsletter, "The Higher Road."

If you didn't have a chance to tune into the Webinar itself, here are some highlights that could be especially helpful to B2B marketers who are new to the e-mail marketing space. You can request your own copy of the Webinar transcript by e-mail. (Be sure to mention that you heard about it through this column). Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 10:26 AM  |  Permalink

I found these great charts in a recent email from eMarketer.com. The full article is available for a limited time on eMarketer.com.





Posted by: DTB at 5:31 PM  |  Permalink

Quris surveyed US e-mail users in August and found that while most say they are motivated to sign up for e-mail marketing campaigns by sweepstakes or chances to win something (41%), 40% say that already being a customer of the company pushing the campaign gets them to join. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 8:57 PM  |  Permalink

Forge Marketing recently partnered with Ipsos-Reid to find out more about Canadians attitudes toward email marketing. The survey revealed that 41 per cent of Canadians have installed spam filters to help fortify them against a deluge of unsolicited email. Now spam filters are causing a ripple in the email marketing industry.

To outwit the changing tricks used by spammers, software developers are coming up with equally resourceful spam filters. If you're an email marketer or communicator wanting to know what you're up against, here are a few tips about blacklists and the latest batch of spam filters in use today. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 8:56 PM  |  Permalink

A touchy topic for today. The very people suing spammers and proposing legislation to regulate direct mail and e-mail just may be part of the problem. How 'bout them apples?

Below are two cases in point. One involves a major ISP; the other, some agencies representing the same politicians who, in front of the cameras, supported California's recent spam legislation. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 8:54 PM  |  Permalink

Do you ever wonder how much of the email you send is being filtered out before it has a chance to get an individual's in- box? The data is scary. (Yes, even if you are an ultra-careful double permission mailer.)

This excerpt from MarketingSherpa's new handbook includes useful metrics, and an 11-point list you should check to see how much danger your own mailings are in: Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 11:22 PM  |  Permalink

By all accounts, HTML email is a great thing, right? After all, there are many studies proving that HTML email generates better click-thru rates than their text-only counterparts (DoubleClick's 2002 Q2 Email Marketing Trend Report cited click-thru rates for text-only emails for certain industries at 7.1%, while HTML email click-thru rates were 10%).

While I won't dispute these findings, one still needs to be aware of problems and issues with sending HTML emails. If not done well, an HTML email campaign can actually hurt rather than help your marketing efforts. So, in the style of David Letterman, let's count backwards and list of the Top 10 Most Common Problems Encountered When Sending HTML Email: Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 11:06 PM  |  Permalink

Or could it spell the end of the business?

Unsolicited bulk mail – it's the much-hated, ever-present bane of the internet age, or so goes the theory. But according to new research it seems a surprising amount of people are coming round to the idea, with those on the receiving end saying that they're more than happy to see unrequested email dropping into their inboxes – as long as it's interesting. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 11:05 PM  |  Permalink

Email direct marketers are wringing their hands now that a new California state law seems to make it difficult or impossible to create or sell lists - at least until it gets overturned by a court. The legislation's author said, though, that hurting the permission-based list companies was not supposed to be a side-effect of the law.
Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 11:01 PM  |  Permalink

Opt-in News, the permission-based email marketing news and information portal, today announced the scheduled release of their “2003 Email Marketing Factbook”. According to Opt-in News the “2003 Email Marketing Factbook” will contain all of the email research conducted in 2003 as well as comparisons from 1999 to present. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 11:00 PM  |  Permalink

This pertains to email campaigns just as much as any other online media.

Landing page optimization is an extremely powerful practice. It should be an ongoing process. Don't just save it for the holidays, or some other highly seasonal campaign.

For retailers, the holidays present an unusual opportunity to optimize landing pages. There are changes in searcher behavior and there's potential that different messaging will resonate with holiday shoppers. An earlier column touched on landing page optimization, but the holidays provide unique opportunities to optimize based on seasonality and the holiday searcher. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 10:58 PM  |  Permalink

Viral marketing is definitely an odd marketing concept. I've heard from any number of companies who want to develop a viral strategy. Well, of course you do. How great is it to have the (seemingly) entire world tuned into your marketing? I've always felt that you can't really engineer this, but that's not quite true. There are really two good strategies that you can use that can create an environment where the viral spread of your messages can take off. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 4:49 PM  |  Permalink