Return On Subscriber – Email Marketing Blog

Complete our survey on “2009 Trends in Online Marketing” and enter to win a Flip UltraTM Camcorder or one of several Retail Gift Cards!

We launched a new survey today in partnership with E-Marketing and Commerce – 2009 Trends in Online Marketing. We are setting out to get some data on how online marketers used their online marketing resources (budget and time) in 2009, how they value various online mediums and what they will continue to focus on in 2010.

The results of the survey will give us valuable insight into how various Online Marketing mediums were used in 2009 and uncover what marketers can do differently (or keep doing!) in 2010. Enter your email on the final question and you will be entered to win a Flip Ultra^TM camcorder or one of several retail gift cards.

I have been a loyal Gmail user for along time. Lately though I have been frustrated with Gmail, mainly due to the images in my HTML emails not displaying correctly. Well they have announced some changes that shed some light on the image issue.

From the Gmail Blog:

Now displaying images in messages from your contacts
Monday, July 20, 2009 5:58 PM
Posted by David de Kloet, Software Engineer

When an email references external images, Gmail usually doesn’t display them automatically. Instead we show placeholders and present you with the option to “Display images below” or “Always display images from” that sender.

We do this to help protect your privacy from spammers, who can use images and links to verify that your email address is real.

But often the messages you get with images are from friends or family and there’s no reason to worry about your privacy — you just want to see the photo of your newborn niece or the invitation design they’re sending you. So, in these cases, we’ve decided to start displaying images by default. Now, whenever someone you’ve emailed at least twice sends you a message containing images, you’ll see them right away. Note that we picked this threshold of two messages to start with, but we may tweak it if it doesn’t seem right going forward. And we only display images by default for authenticated messages (using SPF or DKIM). Gmail and other big mail providers usually authenticate their mail, but other services might not, so it’s possible you’ll get an email from one of your contacts where images aren’t displayed by default.

If you prefer to go back to the way things were, you can choose not to display images from certain senders or from anyone. To disable images from an individual sender, click “Don’t display from now on” under the “Show details” link of an email from them with images. To disable images from everybody, select “Ask before displaying external content” under “External content” on the general Settings tab.

What does this mean to Email Marketers?

Gmail will display images by defualt for emails from addresses that are in that person’s Contact’ list. It will also display images if you have sent that address at least 2 emails and that the address in question is authenticating using SPF or DKIM.

What Can I Do in My Email Marketing Program?

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The Online Marketing Summit (#OMS) is a education based event focused on best practices in online marketing including Email Marketing, Integrated Marketing Strategy, Social Media, Search Engine Marketing (SEO & PPC), Web Analytics, & Usability. They have a running policy of no tradeshow booths or vendor pitches disguised as education, which gives the event a unqiue place in the marketing world.

I have had the great pleasure of speaking at this event this summer and will be giving 2 more presentations in Portland on June 29th and Seattle on July 1st. The topic I will be covering is “Designing Your Email Program From Online Outreach to the Welcome Message”, where we take a look at the entire process from opt-in to the first few emails to  a new subscriber.  I have a lot of fun with this topic and I love crowd participation.  I hope to see you there!

More info on the Online Marketing Summit >>

Ok, maybe that was a stretch, but this is a very important survey.  The future of email marketing is hanging in the balance. Ok, stretch again… but you can win cool stuff just for just a few minutes work.

The Use of Testing in Email Marketing Survey

At eROI, staying on top of the latest in email marketing is always a top priority. In this new email marketing survey we ask you about  ways in which you test your marketing emails.

To show our appreciation, all survey participants will be automatically entered to win a Flip Ultra camcorder or one of many Retail Gift Cards!

This survey should take just a couple minutes of your time, and we will share the results with you after we crunch the numbers.

Next month, I will be launching a Podcast series where we will cover both Email Marketing and Interactive topics that will focus on how to improve performance of your online programs.  I already have some great guests lined up who are prepared to go in depth on their success as well as provide tips and advice.

The series will be called “The Tip Jar with Alex Williams”.

So how do you win the Wii game?  i though you would never ask.  We will be announcing this podcast to our Email subscribers via email.  That’s where you come in.  Here’s your chance to flex your creative muscles and provide a subject line that will change peoples lives.  Three elements to get your started: Curiosity, Excitement, Actionable.

Post your idea in a comment below.  The winning idea will be used and we will post the open and click thru rates after the email launches.  You will also win the best waste of time ever – Mario Kart for the Wii.

Good Luck!

PS – You can sign up for the eROI Newsletter Here

A breakthrough for Email Marketers may have been achived today when Gmail Labs launched “YouTube previews in mail“.  Once activated in Labs, Gmail automatically detect YouTube links in emails and displays previews with the ability to view the entire video below the message. Also included in this roll-out were Picasa and Flickr links, and Yelp reviews.  I took a few screenshots of YouTube video links in personal emails to my Gmail below:

Preview

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Watch this post for live updates from Email Marketing Twitterati at the Email Evolution Conference in Scottsdale, AZ.

We just launched our newest blog today, eROINYC. Approaching the one-year anniversary of eROI in New York, we decided to launch the blog with some of the most original and unique video footage on New York life and great insight on campaigns, emails, art, and websites by our Director, Chris Masagatani. Check out The Rebirth of Slick.

ReturnonSubscriber.com has a brand spanking new design today, which we are giddy about.  Looks pretty cool, huh?

With the new look will also come a slight shift in topics. We are still going to be covering email marketing best practices and email campaigns, but we will now focus more on conversion. Specifically, converting subscribers into paying customers. This is the question I hear the most from clients, so we are going to focus on techniques and strategies to get them to click AND covert. We will do this by highlighting examples of both good and bad, outside-the-box and inside-the-box.

If you see an email, landing page, or website that is discussion worthy, please let me know with a comment and we will open it up for debate.

Stay tuned, grab an RSS feed for your feed reader, tag us, or sign up for email list, it is going to get interesting…

We are headed to San Diego for the eec’s Email Evolution Conference. The eROI crew will be there in full force, so make sure to say hello if you see us.

Also, eROI’s Dylan Boyd will be sitting on a panel with fellow email marketing bloggers Tamara Gielen of BeRelevant, Chad White of The Retail Email Blog/EEC Blog and Maddy Hubbard of Blue Hornet. They’ll be talking about all aspects of blogging.

For those of you who won’t be there, I will be blogging about the panel session from the show. Visit www.theemailwars.com on Feb. 13 in the morning to see the play-by-play.