Consumers Open to Marketing Messages Within Transactional and Service Messages

DoubleClick published a massive tracking study on email habits, showing that more and more people are becoming slaves to their email (33 percent versus 20 percent from the previous year). The average email user now gets 308 emails a week, up 16 percent, and about two thirds of that is spam.

DoubleClick Inc. (Nasdaq: DCLK - News), the leading provider of solutions for marketers, advertising agencies and web publishers, today announced the results of its fifth annual Consumer Email Study at the DMA Annual Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. The study reveals the continued popularity of email for consumers and an increasing acknowledgment of email as a legitimate and relied-upon marketing channel.

Spam still comprises the largest proportion of email that consumers receive, however permission-based email is increasingly being welcomed by consumers as a replacement for telemarketing, direct mail, and even bills and statements. As further indication of the perceived legitimacy of email, consumers are increasingly likely to make purchases, both online and offline, as a result of receiving a permission-based email.
Consumers Open to Marketing Messages Within Transactional and Service Messages Posted by: DTB at 3:03 PM  |  Permalink

At the recent DMA conference, an e-mail marketing executive pronounced Gmail will have about 25 million subscribers shortly after its official launch, and marketers will need to send text-only messages to Gmail subscribers. Yikes! G-exaggeration is alive and well. With this hyperbole and a recent development with the use of DomainKeys in mind, we thought we'd provide a brief Gmail update.

We estimate Gmail probably now has from 1.5 to 2 million registered "users," which could conceivably grow to 5-10 million in the next year. How does this number translate into reality for e-mail marketers? To gain perspective on the level of Gmail penetration in a typical e-mail list, we compared the composition by major ISP/e-mail provider of a few of our business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) clients.
Gmail Concerns? Don't Press the G-Panic Button Yet Posted by: DTB at 2:58 PM  |  Permalink

I was speaking with a colleague last week, someone I very much like and respect. The topic of e-mail marketing strategy came up. His immediate response: "That's all automated on our system."

Really?

I know we're getting ever more data about our e-mail initiatives. We've had open rates and click-throughs for years. Marketers worth their salt also look at conversions (to whatever action they promote) and return on investment (ROI).

The technology behind e-mail has advanced, too, making segmentation, behavioral targeting, dynamic content, and other tools easier and less expensive to implement. It allows us to better fulfill the promise of Seth Godin's "personal, relevant, and anticipated" mantra, laid out five years ago in his book, "Permission Marketing."
An Automated E-Mail Strategy? Posted by: DTB at 2:57 PM  |  Permalink

Email as a Traffic Driver

Thought Leadership in Three Easy Steps

Consumers Respond Favorably to E-Mail Marketing

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Use E-Mail to Enhance Lead Generation and Sales

Get HTML E-Mail Opened

Top 10 Trends from Internet's First 10 Years

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3 Before-and-After HTML Email Design Makeovers; Results and Samples + 10 Critical Design Tips

How to Ultra-Segment Your List to Increase Response Rates, Lifetime Value, and Offline Sales Posted by: DTB at 10:32 AM  |  Permalink

COULD SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING REALLY be going head to head with e-mail marketing? How sad it is to see two siblings cut from the same cloth fighting over scraps when there is ripe bounty awaiting both.

In Bill McCloskey's latest E-Mail Insider column ("E-Mail and the DMA," October 20, 2004), he intrigued me with his opening premise - finding out how the Direct Marketing Association currently treats e-mail. Does the DMA respect e-mail as a direct marketing medium? His conclusion: no, and certainly not enough.

What shocked me was the role that search engine marketing played in the analysis as McCloskey sought out the opinions of a number of CEOs of companies in the e-mail space. Are e-mail marketers really that concerned about search.
Search and E-Mail: Why Do We Have to Fight?
Posted by: DTB at 1:06 PM  |  Permalink

Advertisers, including Paramount Pictures, The Wall Street Journal, and the Gap, are successfully reaching niche audiences for a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising. As a result, a handful of bloggers are earning six-figure incomes from their blogs.

Why aren't more advertisers and bloggers getting together? Three reasons: fear, ignorance and the knowledge that a lot of pioneers get shot.

Blogs: A Good (If Scary) Buy for Advertisers | MarketingProfs.com Posted by: DTB at 11:27 AM  |  Permalink

While e-mail is rising in popularity among consumers, spam continues to be a persistent problem and source of complaints.

DoubleClick announced the results of its 'Fifth Annual Consumer Email Study' at the DMA Annual Conference in New Orleans last week. Summarizing its findings, the company noted that their 'study reveals the continued popularity of e-mail for consumers and an increasing acknowledgment of e-mail as a legitimate and relied-upon marketing channel.'

Demonstrating the growing marketing power of e-mail, DoubleClick finds that consumers are increasingly likely to make purchases, both online and offline, as a result of receiving a permission-based e-mail. In fact, according to the study, permission-based e-mail is increasingly welcomed by consumers as a replacement for telemarketing, direct mail and even bills and statements.

'This year's study shows how consumers have embraced e-mail as a marketing vehicle,' says Eric Kirby of DoubleClick."

E-Mail's Popularity with Consumers Grows - Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 1:34 PM  |  Permalink

I'VE SPENT THE LAST COUPLE of days wandering around the Direct Marketing Association show in New Orleans. One of the debates in the interactive world is whether the Internet is a brand-marketing channel or a direct marketing channel.

Actually the debate is better stated: we know it's a great a direct marketing channel. Is it also a great brand-marketing channel? In fact, the idea that the Web, and e-mail, in particular is an important direct marketing medium is accepted without question in the interactive marketing community.

So I was curious to see how interactive marketing was treated among the hard-core direct marketers themselves. The answer is, based on the conversations I had and the signage I saw, e-mail is still barely a blip on the consciousness of this community."

Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 1:32 PM  |  Permalink

As experts and analysts fine-tune their predictions for the upcoming online holiday season, marketers are ramping up promotional efforts to capitalize on the ever-growing number of online shoppers. By some estimates, over a third of U.S. households (nearly 37 million) will have shopped online by year's end. Merchants have cause to be optimistic. In fact, a new study from Shop.org and BizRate found 98 percent of merchants expect online sales growth this year.

As the industry celebrates its 10th anniversary, there's a sense this year is unlike any before. It is. Message bombardment, growth of and conflict between integrated marketing efforts, spam, the political and economic environment, and increased focus on return on investment (ROI) make this holiday season somewhat different. That said, I offer you some 2004 holiday observations, predictions, and recommendations. I hope they help you optimize your current and future marketing efforts in this evolving marketing place.
Read Article Posted by: DTB at 8:50 PM  |  Permalink

With the advent of blogs, e-newsletters, and Webinars, you can quickly establish a thought-leadership position in your industry. It can take only a few minutes, and it's cheap!
Read Email Marketing Article Posted by: DTB at 8:43 PM  |  Permalink

Merchants already know how much e-mail can contribute to online marketing efforts—and they’re beginning to understand that making it more personally relevant is a top method of making it more effective. Launching more targeted e-mail marketing programs was one of the most-cited ways to improve web site performance in a recent online marketing and e-mail survey conducted by Exmplar Inc. and The e-Tailing Group Inc. Mentioned by 64% of the more than 150 e-retail executives surveyed as a means of improving performance, e-mail targeting was topped only by enhancing site merchandising, cited by 80%."

To improve e-mail marketing, merchants seek to improve segmentation Posted by: DTB at 8:34 PM  |  Permalink

Maps.com abandoned its e-mail marketing campaigns three years ago, after it realized that its domain name was more than sufficient to bring in customers. Now it’s bringing e-mail back to its marketing strategy as it seeks to tell people about its expanded products and services, president John Serpa tells InternetRetailer.com.

“We ran our last e-mail campaign in 2001,” Serpa says. “We haven’t needed it and we haven’t had to spend marketing dollars banner ads. We’ve just focused on search engine optimization for natural search, but now we feel it’s time to revisit that.”"

"Maps.com returns to e-mail marketing after 3-year hiatus - Read Article Posted by: DTB at 8:23 PM  |  Permalink

DoubleClick launched a real-time email publishing system geared to send commerce-related emails triggered by customer interactions. The system can, for instance, send off emails including suggestions for related products, along with a thank you for a purchase. DoubleClick also published the results of a consumer email study that showed that nearly everyone expects a follow-up email after buying something online and that more than half of people surveyed would appreciate related offers in that email.

DoubleClick Offers Real-Time Commerce Email Publishing System Posted by: DTB at 9:51 AM  |  Permalink

A study by IPT finds that e-mail is challenging television's position as the dominant form of marketing.

Research conducted by IPT in August and September 2004 indicates that consumers are showing a more favorable opinion of e-mail marketing compared to TV advertising. When asked to pick the most effective marketing communication channel, 32% of consumers say e-mail, not far behind the 39% that choose television. With the majority of respondents choosing to receive their messages at home in the evening, the report claims, "e-mail is fast encroaching on TV's territory as the king of promotion."

Consumers Respond Favorably to E-Mail Marketing Posted by: DTB at 8:15 AM  |  Permalink

Compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act by unsolicited commercial e-mailers rose in September, according to MX Logic, but still falls within the single digits.

The CAN-SPAM Act was signed into law in 2003 and went into effect on Jan 1, 2004. It requires that unsolicited commercial e-mails include a valid postal address as well as an accurate sender address and subject line. Also, messages must give the recipient the option to opt out of future e-mails.

CAN-SPAM Compliance Higher - But Still Low Posted by: DTB at 9:49 PM  |  Permalink

If you ever had any doubts about the importance of e-mail as a traffic driver, please take a look at the following chart:


This graph shows the e-mail sends and the site traffic data for a well-known marketer in the catalog space. In this chart, the red line represents their e-mail sends over the last 30 days. As you can see they send out an e-mail once a week like clockwork. The blue line shows their site traffic in Web reach per million numbers as supplied by Alexa.

What this chart illustrates is that there is a dramatic jump in traffic on the days that they send an e-mail out. And for the most part there is a noticeable trough between the days the e-mail goes out. Obviously there are other marketing efforts that this catalog company is using to drive people to their Web site, including search marketing.

But by being able to overlay the traffic numbers with the e-mail sends, it is very clear that their e-mail newsletters are the major drivers of traffic to their site. On most days the e-mail goes out, there is over a 100 percent increase in site traffic. On one day, there was over a 220 percent increase in site traffic.

MediaPost Advertising & Media Directory Posted by: DTB at 1:10 PM  |  Permalink

I've worked a lot with e-commerce sites over the years. Recently, though, I work more with sites seeking to generate leads rather than sales. As a result, I developed 10 questions to ask to see if clients use e-mail as an effective part of lead-generation and sales programs.

1. Do you use Web analytics to understand how people navigate your site?

Use E-Mail to Enhance Lead Generation and Sales Posted by: DTB at 2:04 PM  |  Permalink

A hand sheepishly raised in the back of the huge auditorium caught my eye near the end of an e-mail marketing session I led nearly two years ago. Suited with jacket and tie, he seemed almost apologetic as he phrased the question.
'Al,' he said, 'I've found this seminar very instructive and informative. You've given us all a lot to think about. My question is fairly straightforward. You keep mentioning this ROI. I'm somewhat embarrassed to ask, but what's the significance of those three letters, R-O-I?

Tracking to Stay on Track Posted by: DTB at 1:59 PM  |  Permalink

We've all purchased goods online and received e-mail confirmations, usually within minutes of placing the order. We've also received shipping notifications letting us know when a gift we ordered for someone else has been received.
This got me to thinking. Can 'informational' e-mail do double duty? Should it? In other words, can an order confirmation also contain a link to a product or promotion?

Personally, I think it's an acceptable marketing tactic, but the ultimate answer may depend on what the communication is about and the context. Truth be told, open rates of these informational e-mail messages will be much higher than pure ads, so proceed fairly.

To help, I've prepared a couple hypothetical pairings for your consideration.
Two E-Mails for the Price of One Posted by: DTB at 1:58 PM  |  Permalink

I got a lot of feedback about last week's column in which I reviewed Guy Kawasaki's new book, 'The Art of the Start.' Much of it expressed concern about Kawasaki saying he discards all HTML e-mail as spam. To be honest, I admitted I do so as well.

Some readers were not only concerned, but alarmed, asking, 'How will we send our enhanced, graphics-rich e-mail?!' Some of you asserted, 'Our customers want HTML mail; they like getting all the bells and whistles.'
Get HTML E-Mail Opened Posted by: DTB at 1:57 PM  |  Permalink

Can e-mail coupons really work?
I've asked this question before. Today, more information for you to chew on.
DiningDuck.com, from Creative Indoor Advertising, is a free service for restaurant patrons in central and northern Indiana. DiningDuck partners with local restaurants. Its members sign up to receive an e-mail newsletter featuring coupons from local restaurants.

Here's how it works: DiningDuck teams with restaurants (about 30, so far) to offer coupons through an e-mail newsletter delivered and tracked by Neighborhood Email. The company advertises the program through word of mouth and ads in restrooms (Creative Indoor Advertising's motto: 'Delivering a captive audience since 1999') in nearly 300 locations throughout Indiana. Potential subscribers visit DiningDuck's Web site and answer a few questions, including e-mail address, gender, and birth month.

Do E-Mail Coupons Really Work? Posted by: DTB at 1:56 PM  |  Permalink

If overzealous ISP and corporate spam filters don't cause enough stress for permission-based e-mail marketers, now we must deal with blocked images almost universally. In e-mail clients that block images by default, such as Outlook 2003, a recipient can read an entire column (such as this one) either in the message preview pane or when it's opened. The image-based ads and our dashing photo won't appear (nor will the message be counted as opened). For publishers, advertisers, and e-tailers, this isn't just a nuisance. It's potentially costly.

The Blocked Images Issue
An estimated 95 percent of all commercial e-mail messages are sent in HTML or in a multipart (combined HTML and text) format. Most e-mail includes at least a single external image, even if it's the open-tracking image, a clear, one-pixel GIF image used to track whether an e-mail has been opened.
Blocked E-Mail Images Article >> Posted by: DTB at 1:41 PM  |  Permalink

Let's put ourselves in the online consumer's shoes. Not a hard thing to do, really. We're all consumers. Think of all the commercial e-mail messages you received in the past week from legitimate companies to which you gave permission to send you e-mail. How many did you open? How many did you read all the way through? How many did you click on? If you're like most consumers, you read very few and clicked through on even fewer.
Being Relevant Posted by: DTB at 1:38 PM  |  Permalink