Archive for March, 2008

Before the @ is important – another example

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

aol-small.gif

What you are seing in this image is the rollover Mail preview on the AOL homepage. Look at how much “trailblzaers” sticks out in that list. If you read this blog you know I hate webmaster@ in email marketing. This validates that point. This view is very similar to the view on a mobile device as well.

Brand before the @ in your from address and you will see improved open rates, guaranteed.

Steal this idea for your Newsletters – Mobile Friendly Version

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

This was the first time I have seen this at the top of an email:

“Click here for the Wireless Version: URL

Brilliant idea by the AAAA. I personally would change it to “Mobile Friendly”, wireless is kind of confusing.

Most HTML email is worthless on a Blackberry, so daily news briefs, professional newsletters, etc… would be smart to add this feature.

How you do that, either through your ESP tools, or creating that mobile browser friendly version in HTML, you can figure that out through testing.

Click on the image to enlarge
wireless-optimized.png

New Email Marketing Survey: The Cradle and the Grave

Wednesday, March 19th, 2008

Here at eROI we go to great lengths to keep you up to date on the latest trends in email marketing. Our latest survey asks for your input on the Subscribe/Unsubscribe Process.

This survey should take just a minute or two, and we will share the results with you when complete.

All survey participants will be automatically entered to win one of a handful of iPod Shuffle mp3 players!

Take the Survey Now

Frequency: Caged or free range

Monday, March 17th, 2008

During the EEC event in February in one of the sessions the topic was frequency of email. The panelists had discussed email frequency and how much is too much as well as capping the frequency of your email, i.e., only allow a subscriber to be emailed X times per month. I asked, “If you cap the frequency of email to a subscribe to, say only get 5 emails per month, but you send out 10 a month, how do you determine what email is most relevant to them?”

I watched the panelists skirt around a non-answer as no one could tell me how you determine which emails are most relevant to the subscriber. If the 7th email might be the one that makes me purchase, you missed the boat.

Limiting the frequency by subscriber, in my opinion, is a bad idea. I welcome the conversation about why it is good, any lift in ROI you have seen etc., but I see the practice more harmful that good.

I always found that setting subscriber expectations is much more appropriate than a predetermined number. Tell subscribers that you send your newsletter once a month, promotions weekly, and event announcement every other week. Let them determine what is too much. It would be interesting to see if anyone has seen a lift in overall subscriber activity, as well as revenue and ROI that has implemented a predetermined frequency limit.

Why you should follow eROI on Twitter

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

twitter.png

We have set up a Twitter feed for eROI to keep you posted on news, blog posts, cool things to check out, new project launches, and resourceful tidbits you can use to become awesome.

If you are not on the Twitter bandwagon yet, now is the time to jump on. Twitter is the new micro-blogging service that a lot of us at eROI love, especially Dylan.

We don’t have much up yet, but head over to our Twitter page and follow us. We’ll do the same to you.

Thanks to our friend Tamara Gielen, who posted this great video description of Twitter on the blog from the folks over at Common Craft.

Twitter in Plain English

It’s gold Jerry, gold I tell ya!

Friday, March 7th, 2008

Actually, it’s “Gold Consumer: Best Promotional Blast-Direct Sale or Lead Gen Offer” – Wacom & eROI’s 2008 Email Marketing Award from Marketing Sherpa.

Marketing Sherpa has posted all of the winners, with creative and details. You can get a lot of great ideas from these, I know I did.

Visit the “Power of the Pens” Page

See all of the Awards

Can’t Salesforce come up with a unique idea?

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

We have been a Salesfoce.com user for a few years now and it is a great product, but the video on their site is a complete rip off.

SFDC.jpg
Watch the Video

I swear that video looked familiar to theYouTube hit – The Machine is Us/ing Us. Now the question to you is, is this crafty marketing riding the wave of a popular video or is this just a lazy marketing manager/agency that couldn’t come up with a better idea?

TheMachineisUs.jpg
Watch the Video