Return On Subscriber - Email Marketing Blog

I came across this on Boing Boing, posted July 29th, and thought of how many companies are going to have to make some major changes in how they do business.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a web “contract” — that is, the ridiculous “terms of service” that you agree to just by looking at a web-page — can’t be changed without notice, something that’s standard in most of these “agreements.”
This is a rare, overdue moment of sanity from the legal system about web agreements, which are universally abusive and one-sided.

“How hard is it to send out an e-mail letting people know about [any changes]?” she said.

According to the court documents, Douglas signed a contract for service with America Online. The business was then acquired by Talk America, which continued to provide telephone service to AOL’s former customers. However, Talk America changed the contract AOL had with its customers and posted those changes on its Web site without notifying the customers first.

Read article

The other day a client called me out of the blue and asked me for a good subject line for the email he wanted to send out in the next 15 minutes. I blanked. I froze. Nothing was coming out of my head.

I am usually pretty adept at writing subject lines. I think about 3 things - Curiosity, Creativity, and Urgency. Make them wonder what is inside, creatively get their attention, and make them feel like they can’t wait another second before opening that email.

When people use the same subject line every time, I feel like a subscriber feels they can skip an edition, or they can comeback to it. You have to shake things up.

So, back to my story, I did what I always do when I am starved for an idea. I logged into Gmail and looked at “All Mail”. I save pretty much every email ever. Why not, they give you more space than you will ever need. I started scanning subject lines from every email I have received, even from friends. While doing this, an idea hit me. I emailed the subject line to my client, and the email got a 39% read rate, a big improvement from the last email.

The lesson? There is a lot of stuff on the web. Look at what stands out to you, be it words or pictures. Try to adapt the strategy that got your attention into your own campaigns.

Taco Del Mar has a huge opportunity to grab some significant lunch business, but this email is not how you do it. Here is what I see wrong with it:

-No Friendly name, just email address (promos@)
- All of the information above the fold does not tell me what this email is about (subject tells you at least)
- All an image with no link to a web version
- I can’t click on anything except the links in the footer
- There is a coupon in the email, but it does not tell me to print it
- No ability to update my profile/preferences

Consumer-based email needs to be smarter than this.

Now this is an assumption in this instance, however, many times when you see something like this it is because a full-service agency is providing this service to their client since it only makes sense to keep it under one roof. Unless your agency really knows how to do email (ask for proof), look somewhere else. Look to an email service provider, but not one that is not a pure-play software company and offers more than “consulting” services, but an provider or agency that is rooted in email marketing.

I met with a very motivated individual today who has a pretty great idea for a political website/application. Half way through the conversation we started talking about things like Digg, de.licio.us, and Facebook. He had never heard of them.

It is very important in web/email marketing to keep up with the trends and know what is hot and gaining steam - even if you don’t use it in your own life.

For example, I have a Facebook account (Find me), which I think is a great site and I “get” it. I only have about 6 friends b/c most of my social crowd hasn’t caught up. They are still using the supermarket tabloid-esque myspace.com, which I despise just from a design perspective.

That being said, I need to know if a client has an opportunity to gain traction say through a Facebook app.

I saw Robert Scoble speak last week at the Internet Strategy Forum, as he brought up a great point about the so-called “Digital Divide”. He said that mainly what it comes down to now is people who want to be involved and keep up with the web and people who just want to tune out. There are those of us that live and breathe the web, and those who use it for work, or to look up a movie time or restaurant review and that’s it.

As an email/online marketer, you better be keeping a step ahead of your competition, or as Ray Liotta said in Goodfellas, “you’re dead”.

Alex (the guy who posts on this blog along with me) told me to check out www.areyousuperbad.com because there was some funny videos on the site. I went on the site and naturally went to the restricted area. I mean really, who does not check out the naughty section?

So after you enter it asks you for your information:

After putting in false information it tells me the information is not correct:

Only after I put in my exact information does it let me in. I have an easy name “Jeff Mills” so it was able to easily identify if I was who I said I was. We tried it with a few other people in the office and if we put in a birthday even one day off of what our real birthday is, it would call us out.

I recently saw a clip on the news that said approximately 90% of people in the US can be identified if you know, gender, birthday, and zip code. If Sony is truly checking a massive database to validate your true identity, is that right? Is it legal? Should it be allowed? As a marketer, I want the most accurate info available, but even I feel this crosses the line. What do they do with the information now?

What do you think?

If only this worked for fake spam email offers! I did this and it all stopped one day….all of it! Do you trust me? Or is this an elaborate spoof? Who do you trust?

How to Opt Out of Credit Card Offers

Want to stop credit card offers from showing up in your mailbox? Here are two ways to stop the offers, or at least slow them down:

1. Go to OptOutPrescreen.com or call 888-5-OPT-OUT (888-567-8688). These are the credit reporting industry’s opt-in/opt-out resources, which stops the four credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, Innovis, and TransUnion) from selling your credit information to direct marketers. You can opt out for a five-year period or permanently. (You can always opt in again if you decide you’d like to get these offers in the future.)

2. Add your name to the Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) Do Not Mail file. You can access this service online by going here, or you can send a letter or postcard with your name, address and signature to Mail Preference Service, Direct Marketing Association, PO Box 643, Carmel, NY 10512. Online requests carry a $5 fee, while mail requests are only the cost of postage. The DMA’s member companies check against the Do Not Mail file to take out names of people who don’t want to receive offerings by mail. Your name stays on the list for 5 years, and you can re-register at the end of that period.

Credit card companies get consumer information from other sources in addition to those mentioned above, so, while these two methods will considerably slow down credit card offers, the offers won’t necessarily stop completely.

Here at eROI we took a look at Q1 (January - March) email statistics to identify trends and opportunities in both day of the week as well as time of the day statistics.

In prior studies we saw above average open and click rates on the weekend, however, recently weekends are not performing as they are in the past, this could be seasonal in nature as we typically see dips in performance as the weather gets nicer.

We first took a look at Time of the Day email statistics in Q2 2006 and we decided to take another look a year later. Similar to last year, we see spikes bookending the work day with a noticeable spike around lunchtime. What does this really mean? Are those numbers relevant to your business? Should I start sending outside of work hours?

We encourage you to learn more about eROI, email marketing and this study, by visiting the Time Study download page.

Sorry for the pathetic week of posts last week, I am back with a vengeance this week. Consider yourselves warned.

So I was thinking, with Google’s recent acquisitions of Feedburner and Postini, what is stopping Google from targeting an ESP next?

There has been some debate around the office as to why Google would want to enter the ESP space. I say, more ads, obviously. My only thought as to why they wouldn’t is their motto, “Don’t be evil.” What ESP hasn’t been considered evil by someone daily. We get people reporting their double opt-in message as spam for example.

I think Google has a real opportunity to go after small businesses with a basic email marketing service, which would be a great intro to their Apps, which seem to be a very high priority these days. When you look at the market share Constant Contact and Vertical Response are getting with low volume, low need clients, why wouldn’t they swoop in, like they did with Analytics?

Maybe the brains at Google can figure out how to make sure their users have a clean, 100% opted-in list, and help them get 75% read rates, 50% click rates, and deliver 99% inbox?

So, today is my birthday. The older you get, birthdays start to go from exciting days to not so exciting days (”damn I’m getting old!”).

That being said, it is still nice to get a happy birthday message - from anyone.

Aside from my friends and family, I received quite a few from brands and companies. They were all a nice touch. From coupons for a free Ice Cream cone (Coldstone Creamery) to just “Happy Birthday” (My Coke Rewards), they are a great tool for to pat your subscriber on the back and make them think you care, even if you don’t.

Most ESP’s have an automated tool to trigger birthday messages. If you can capture that birth date on Opt-in, try to send out a personalized b-day message. It is just an additional opportunity to get an email out and get people remembering what a great company you are.