My good friend Rick Buck of e-Dialog sent this around over the Thanksgiving holiday and I thought it would be mighty appropriate to post it for your reading pleasure. Hope everyone had a great start to their holiday's, now get to work ;)

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‘Twas the month before Christmas, when all through the land,

marketers were scheming to hit year-end plans.

Their e-mails were designed in great detail and care,

in hopes that all of their customers soon would be there.

Mail the entire list. Mail them all!

Mail away! Mail away! Mail away all!"

The executives were nestled all snug in their beds,

with visions of Q4 revenue dancing in their heads.

When back in the office arose such a clatter,

that delivery support ran to see what was the matter?

Away to their reporting tools they flew like a flash,

investigating each client’s mailing to look for the trash.

The data before them on the newly sent mail

gave all indications of why they did fail.

When what to their wondering eyes should appear,

but a slew of bounce codes that no one would endear.

Unknown User! Inactive Account! Mailbox Doesn’t Exist!

Blocks from the ISPs were hard to resist.

If only they’d listened and segmented their data.

Their mailing would have been delivered,  staying off of the ISP’s radar.

Relevance, hygiene, permission and more,

ultimately gets the campaign safely out the door.

Reach out to your clients now and give them a shout.

Make sure they understand what this is all about.

Eliminate unknown users, non-responders, and hard bounces alike, and watch delivery and response rates soar and spike.

It is important to take heed of this trustworthy advice,

because the ISPs know if you’re naughty or nice.

During this important mailing season we must get it right.

Happy Holidays to all, and to all a good-night!

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-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

The holiday season is right around the corner and it's time to prepare my bank account. So, I asked the wife about her plans for online shopping this year and here's what she had to tell me.

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Hi, honey.  Thanks for knowing that I'll be starting my holiday shopping soon.  It's good to know that you're not going to freak out when you see our checking account steadily draining over the next few months.  'Tis the season, eh?

You asked me the other day if I plan to shop online much this season, and I think that I probably will, for a variety of reasons. 

1) Sometimes online marketplaces can offer products that I can't find elsewhere.

My first choice for online marketplaces, especially during the gift giving season, would have to be Etsy.  It's like an online arts and crafts fair, and the level of creativity that can be found there is just amazing.  While it might not suit everyone, Etsy is right up my alley, and every transaction I've ever made (with a variety of different vendors) has been a breeze. They make it a piece of cake to search for things, and I'm telling you, they've got tons of unique things.  From vintage to handmade, jewelry to linens, it would be tough to walk away from a site like that without being able to cross someone's name off your gift list. (Ahem.  Hint, hint.)



I will also be shopping on sites that:

1. have a popular item in stock, 
2. give me a few price comparisons, and
3. show me some reviews of the product I'm interested in.

2) Sometimes I can find a better deal online.

I'm nothing if not a bargain shopper, and I'm always willing to look for an online deal before making an in-store purchase.  And if I can find a better deal online AND get *free shipping*, well then they've pretty much sealed the deal for me.  Why wouldn't you avoid the hassle if it can be delivered to your door free of charge? Man, that *free shipping* (plus a good deal) makes a big difference for me.  It's a powerful thing to this shopper.  (If I underline and BOLD *free shipping* every time I type it, will it tell marketers what I want from them for Christmas?)

3) Sometimes I can't shop with two eight-year-olds in tow.

Some days I have the patience, and some days I don't.  Need I say more?

4) Sometimes I need to be a little sneaky.

A long time ago I could sneak something into the cart while the boys were with me shopping at Target. Strategically place a jacket on top of the future Christmas present, whisper a word of warning to the nice cashier, and out I'd walk with two boys and said Christmas presents all in one armload.  Those were the days. Now, I can't be nearly as sneaky with them around as I used to be.  They notice everything.   And since they are still "believers," which I love, I don't want to get caught buying any Santa presents right under their noses.   It's a little easier to get a plain old box in the mail (please don't let it say Lego all over the sides!!) and just dismiss it as something for mom or dad. 

By the way, I've always had trouble sneaking things past the "big kid" in the family.  **WANTED:  Retailer who can help me purchase items without them showing up on bank statement that husband looks at inquisitively during holiday season.**

5) Sometimes it's nice to have the shipping done for you.


The lines at the post office are insane by mid-December, which unfortunately is the time I usually have things ready to go. During this time of year, it's definitely easier to have the retailer package and ship my purchases directly to the recipient. (Preferably with free gift wrap!  That personal touch goes a long way with me.)



Okay, babe.  That's all the good reasons I can think of right now. But, really, who needs a good reason to shop online?  Or to shop at all for that matter?  It's good that you love me for who I am - flaws, clearance aisles, and all. 
xoxo - wife

------

As I was talking to my wife when I asked her this question, a few thoughts popped into my head that marketers need to consider when prepping emails for the holiday push

1. Short and straight to the point in your email.
2. No need for LARGE email print that's pages of deals
3. Offer something different and special like free shipping, free gift wrapping, and no hassle returns.
4. Use social media to create buzz. My wife who does *watch* Twitter a bit missed out on a huge going out of business sell (80% off) which I'm sure she would have gladly participated in. Give short lived deals in social media avenue's, but ensure you give good discounts to those who follow. i.e. http://www.woot.com
5. Buyers are VERY weary this season with the economy. If possible, give them confidence in their purchases by handling negative issues QUICKLY and also linking to customer reviews about products your selling. Even post a good review in the email for a specific product your pushing.
6. Give price comparisons in email or note discounts with final prices. Not the click here to see our prices on the website.
7. Possibly offer another way to notify the buyer of the purchase in case the email address is shared with the person they bought the gift for? Secondary email address for receipt perhaps?
8. Send relevant and targeted email perhaps on last year's purchases or of purchased throughout the year from your site.
9. Perform some AB Testing prior to your holiday push. Know what is going to work for you before you deploy live
10. Don't go outside your comfort box when it comes to frequency. Again, I know the economy has hit us all, but this doesn't give you a free for all to *BATCH AND BLAST* your customers during the holiday.

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Part 1 - 9 basics and beliefs.

You need the basics to really ruin your email program and it just so happens that this is your lucky day. I have compiled a list of 9 essential beliefs or “the basics” to get you started. Dig in and let the downfall begin.

First and foremost, you need to understand that you are the king/queen of email marketing and your program is superior to all other email programs. Subscribers need to understand this and you need to communicate that on a regular and consistent basis.

Second, revenue is king in email.  Don't worry about what the subscriber wants..worry about what your company wants..which is revenue!! Forget about how your subscriber thinks about your company if you send them an email everyday....they are bound to buy something eventually.  Who cares if they opt out as you can just go out and find another subscriber who will LOVE to contribute to the bottom line.

Third, you need to realize that you send email blasts....not communications, not campaigns....but blasts. You tee up lists and blast the folks in hopes of them doing what you want them to do. Who cares if it sounds like you are going to engage in a world war against your subscribers, its just email right? Of course, since your program is the best you should have a near 100% conversion and anything less than that is unacceptable. Blasting people with emails is not really a bad thing to say..heck its not as if I am shooting them, blowing them up or spraying and praying on them right?

Fourth, take all of the best practices you learn about in blogs and white papers etc...print them out and use them as paper airplanes in the office or as starter logs for your fireplace. In fact..why read anything at all that could better your program. Who needs people telling you what to do all the time right? Why invest the time trying to better your program anyway?  Best practices are for losers because your program is the best.

Fifth, people WANT your email. In fact, they are sitting around just waiting to get your latest mail bomb. Who cares what you send them..I mean they signed up for your program and they should be grateful to get what they get. Send them a new email every day if you can which is easy right? Your superhuman and this email thing is easy.

Sixth, hire a loser to run your email bazooka program. A recent study just came out that said 3 monkeys in a lab were able to send out emails and run a program. All they did was put some pictures on a template, push the button, blasto it was sent and the revenue just came pouring in. Can't afford a loser or a monkey, grab Brad or Brenda from the mail room..heck they deal with mail all day long and email and mail sound the same. Don't have a mail room either....tell Suzy or John in the marketing department to handle email from now on. What is one more hat for them to wear right?

Seventh, get an ESP that can send email. Who cares if their UI or support sucks...just make sure that they can tee up your email shots for the cheapest price. Don't forget to chose those ESP's that love to put their logo's on the bottom of each email they send.....that won't bother you since your email program kicks butt and your subscribers won't find that annoying.

The eighth rule is the best. $99 is a heck of a price to pay for 4 million opt in names. Why grow your list organically when you can get 4 million people who have OPT IN to receive YOUR special offer.  Remember this, the bigger your list, the bigger the payoff!!  Revenue is the name of the game baby.  Don't forget to negotiate that free set of steak knives with your order.

Ninth and most importantly...let the CMO or President or someone above you tell you what and how to run your email program. Since monkeys can do this job, who better than someone who has never done or understand email tell you how to run this awesome program you have. Surely their expectations for success will be easily achievable and in fact you be asking them to challenge you within 3 months.

Remember, these are just the basics in how to ruin your email program. In future posts, I will be sure to go into more detail on some really great ways to totally mess it up.

For now..just sit back and relax..your email program is running just fine without you. In fact, take the rest of the day off and forget to QA your weekend email as I bet its perfect anyway.

***The How To Ruin Your Email Marketing Program series was inspired by a book I just finished reading entitled “How to ruin your life” by Ben Stein. Most inspirational books have a way of communicating the same theme with different words and for some crazy reason I was able to draw a lot out of of Ben's book. If you find this sort of post even remotely inspiring, let me know as I will be happy to continue.***

So, I need to apologize for the lateness of this post in the series, but with the kids on summer break and us taking a holiday it made it difficult to concentrate a bit it seems.

A few week ago my wife walked into my home office and said "Hook, line, and sinker" to which I responded "what?!" She again said, "they got me Hook, line, and sinker".

When asked further, she began to expound what she meant by describing a marketing email she received from Provo Craft that did not have a video within in the email, but a link to a set of video's over time, sort of a series that we had to wait for and boy did we wait for each and every one when it was released. The funny thing about this marketing campaign is that in only two (2) emails over a single month they have captured our attention without flooding us.

Of course, I asked her to write up her feelings about this one and what caused her to stay engaged for you to see.

------

Hey, hon -

I forwarded an email to you, and I'm sure you're wondering why.  It's not some sort of ploy to get you to add a little goodie to my Christmas list.  (Not yet, at least.)  I wanted to show you a marketing email that impressed me!

http://www.roguegypsies.com/

Okay, so you love to tell me that I would buy anything that is one-to-a-customer.  While I stand by the fact that that's not entirely true (I know I love a good clearance rack!), I will admit that this email pulled me in the other day.  The level of creativity and the relevance to my interests was enough to break down my "anti-marketing email" walls.  Get this - not only did I read through the email in it's entirety, but then I clicked over to their website, and then (the icing on the cake!), I WATCHED A MARKETING VIDEO.  It was a quick YouTube video, and it was witty.   They had an entire website set up to go along with this marketing idea, complete with a blog and twitter updates.  They certainly made the most of social media, while keeping it light-hearted and fun. 

An aside:  Kudos to you, Provo Craft.  It's been a long time since I've been entertained by a marketing pitch, but your "Gypsy" updates have been so catchy.  You've done exactly what I would guess you intended to do - peak my interest in a new product that has yet to be released.  I'll be anxiously awaiting the arrival of the "Gypsy" in my local scrapbook store so I can see all that it's capable of!

Sorry I got off-track, babe.  Just thought you'd like to see an email that I was impressed with, given it seems I'm usually dumping on marketing emails.  I like to give credit and praise where it's due, and in this case, from my mom-perspective, it was well-deserved.  Glad to have the opportunity...

Love you - wife

PS - An after-thought:  I like that Provo Craft made use of all of the new social medias available, but didn't overwhelm me with emails.  Thus far, over the course of a month, I've only received two emails in my inbox - one when they first got started, and one update.  A nice balance - they let me keep up-to-date with their "progress" if I chose to, but didn't decide for me that I would want to see every bit of the process.  Again, so impressed!

------

My wife was right, after she sent me this I went to review their site and was impressed that Provo Craft DID really use a great set and balance of social media avenue's to allow customers to monitor the progress of these video's and other announcements of their new product release vs. just all email, all the time.

You want a good laugh as well, check out their "Dog the Bounty Hunter" style video's at http://www.roguegypsies.com/ I'm not a scrap-booker, but they kept me engaged.

Kudo's to Provo Craft for winning over my wife and breaking my bank again ;). This is award winning marketing in my book (checkbook that is)

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

So this past week there was some internal discussion at Eloqua and on some of the industry lists asking the question, "Does having the company's brand name sending the email or the first name of recipient of the email in the subject line hurt or help opens". The discussions and "evidence" were ramped from all sides where some people showed improvement in email opens and other debated that doing such is a sign of spammers.

This of course had me wondering how the average user of email would view these ideas. So, time to ask the wife who is always right.

Here is her response (BTW, I am in the EU for a few weeks)

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I'm sensing a trend.  You travel, then I get an assignment.  (Better get me a good souvenir!) 

Here's my response to today's question:  How do you feel about personalized email?  Stick with me for a minute...

When I first meet someone, I call them ma'am or sir.  I use phrases like "excuse me," and if I can't get their attention, I might venture as far as a gentle tap on the arm.  Calling someone by their first name is something that seems inherently personal to me, and I think it should be reserved for the building of a relationship, not just a passing encounter.  For example, I don't like when I go to a restaurant with someone and they call the waiter/waitress by their first name.  They're virtually strangers to one another, and it's only the name tag that gives their first name away.  It seems assuming and insincere, if a quick interaction during lunch at Chili's can be looked at like that.  (I know, I know.  You're totally shaking your head at me right now.  You know you do that, right?)  Well, I'd say that's how I look at personalized emails.  My name was picked from a list. The sender of the email doesn't know me.  They don't know my preferences, my family, my habits.  It feels like the sender is trying to fake a personal connection with me. It's not until we've established a relationship, either as a friend or colleague or customer, that I'd actually feel genuinely comfortable with someone calling me by my first name.  Now, I'm certain that I could come up with worse offenses than this, but you gave me a specific topic.  In keeping with that, here's the short answer.  I don't care for personalized emails, but it wouldn't top my "complaints about email" list.

That's it for now.

xoxo - wife

PS - My friends and family don't ever write my name in the subject line.  Marketers know that an email that contains my own name in the subject line is a red flag (junk mail alert!) to me, right? 

------

Now I haven't had much time to chat with my wife this week on this subject, but what I would like to point out to her is that many email lists or companies she's deals with probably do have preferences on her. Now the question is are they using them? Probably not as well as they should be or is it possible that she doesn't fill out the entire form or preferences?

As she pointed out, I do call people by the first name in restaurants or stores, I'm guilty, but if they are wearing that name tag then obviously they want me to say hey Dave vs. sir (which I hate when kids call me that these days). I also believe this is a difference in the person's wants as well. I, as many of you know me, am by NO means shy... My wife is a little more reserved. So maybe that alone is a determiner in whether it's a good thing or not to be personal RIGHT out of the gate.

My opinion? Using personalization in the subject line when properly done can't hurt you in delivery, but if your already using the FROM with branding maybe you don't need it in the SUBJECT line if your company brand is strong and known. If your a small brand or need some strength, then try out the subject line.

You should also consider the amount of subject line real-estate you have to give to this if you want to do it and DO NOT EVER use the email address in the subject line as a personalization if your DO NOT have the recipients first name. Spammers do that...

If your looking at answer the same question, try some A-B split testing. Try some emails with personalization in the SUBJECT and some without. See where your brand and customers stand when it comes to that. Then give them what they want.

I should go through my wife's Inbox when I get home just to see how many emails contain a personalization in the subject line.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Remember the t-shirt from this blog post? Well, the fact of the matter is my wife does rock...

I've bugged her to do a blog post for me for a few months now and recently must have come across something that finally peaked her interest. While at my last conference the most popular question seemed to be about the uses of social media and video in email marketing. I decided to pose the question to the wife, stay-at-home mom extraordinaire.

Here's her email reply to me:

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So, you asked for a blog post from me, but I'm hoping you'll settle for this email, because, well, I don't have a blog.  I'm too busy reading all of them to actually keep up with one of my own.

Tonight you asked me if a marketing email that contained a video would be appealing to me.  Sorry, my forward-thinking husband, but I've got to say no.  Quite honestly, most marketing emails that I receive are deleted before I really even look through them.  I find that most of them either:

1. Are not targeting the types of things I would be interested in, or
   
2. Are slamming me with so much email it becomes bothersome.  (You know, like the neighbor kids that ring your doorbell incessantly even though you've told them time after time you're not coming out to play?  Yeah, bothersome like that.)
   

It's unfortunate for them, really, since as the mom and wife (a.k.a. buyer of the household) I've got some good spending power behind me.  Anyway, when a marketing email does manage to catch my attention (usually with a good subject line that peaks my interest), I scan it for the item I might be interested in, similar to how I'd scan a book or an article.  I'm looking for specific content, and I don't often take the time to read through the email from start to finish.  A video wouldn't allow me that option.  Since you don't know what a video will contain next, you're forced to watch it in its entirety. Either that, or you could choose not to watch it at all, and realistically, that's the route I would go.  I mean, really, who chooses to watch a commercial?  (Isn't that what a marketing video really would be? A commercial?  An infomercial at best, I suppose.)  Isn't that why they invented TiVo?  To skip over the commercials?  Marketers, in my humble opinion, would be better served by taking the time to truly listen to what their customer wants and then trying to give them a good deal on the product they're interested in.  If you can do those two things, and catch me with a good email subject line, then I'm far more likely to actually purchase the product.

*An hour later.*

Okay.  I'm back after a little more thought on the subject.  I stand by what I said earlier - chances are, I wouldn't watch a generic video sent to me in an email by, umm, let's say American Airlines.  (Only choosing them since they send me TONS of email.  Snooze. Give me some good prices, American Airlines.  Then we'll talk.)  That is, unless they specifically targeted a location that I was truly interested in traveling to in the video.  I probably wouldn't watch a video from Oh My Crafts (which, by the way, sends me INSANE amounts of email with "BIG SALES!" for just about every occasion under the sun. Hello?  Oh My Crafts?  You can't extend every sale and expect us to be pleasantly surprised.), unless it was a "how-to" video on my latest crafting project.  If a video is something that marketers are considering, from my point of view, I'd rather an email (again, with a punchy subject line) letting me know that a selection of videos are available for viewing at my leisure on their website.  Then, I could choose to watch only the videos that interest me - I wouldn't have to watch the pre-selected email video about maybe, Costa Rica, if I would indeed rather travel to Paris again.  (Hypothetically speaking, of course.)  Now, I know nothing about all of the email/website technology available, but wouldn't allowing people to click into a website garner more information for the marketers?  Is there a way for the marketers to track the video I choose to watch so that they can then market more specifically to my interests?  I don't know.  That seems to make more sense to me. But, I'm not a marketer - I'm a shopper.

*Another afterthought.*

If you were going to post a video to a website (again, if that’s as effective as I think it could be), maybe it needs to be for a limited time.  Or, at least “featured” for a limited time before it’s sent to a less accessible archive, or something of the sort.  If I knew that I only had a week or so to watch a video of interest, I’d be more likely to immediately click over to view it.  If I knew that it would be available indefinitely, I’d probably choose to procrastinate (again, hypothetically!), and then it would move to the bottom of my priority list, and then, POOF!  Somehow your catchy little video falls off my radar.

I guess what I’m saying is this:  if a marketer isn’t careful, he’s going to get an introduction to my delete key far more often than he’s going to get my attention, or in this particular case, get me to push the play button.

So, it seems that if I did have a blog of my own, I'd need to learn how to edit my asides in a more effective way than by using parentheses.  They're a little overwhelming at times.  But, now you know what I'm thinking.  Hope I gave you the information that you wanted, babe.

Love you.

xoxo - wife

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To be honest and without any direction from me, this is the sort of thinking I was expecting from an average day user/mom of email. Not to many have time in their day to watch that many video emails. We already complicate marketing emails with to much information and frequency to the point where they become useless to many like my wife.

We all know what will happen if marketers get a whiff of the potential here. A good chunk of them will try this technology and cram even more information into an already overloaded email and not take the time even understanding its impact on the user. Are we REALLY ready for video in email? Most of us haven't figured out marketing best practices on what we have already in our hands.

1. Keep your emails short and sweet. Don't make them a full page.
2. Be clear on what the email means to the reader by using clear subject and from lines 
3. Run your points clearly and in the beginning of your email.
4. Don't lead the email with a large image. They are blocked default. 
5. Send the prospect to a website for the multimedia experience and full message. Also allows for better activity tracking v.s opens and clicks off an email which as most here know is hard to measure (Digital Body Language)

What sorts of questions do you have for my wife? Post your questions in the comments or Q&A section. We will see if she's interested...

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Here we are in the worst economy of our professional lives, and yet every day in my inbox I see marketers making it too hard for subscribers to act on email messages.  If you want to keep your revenue at a lackluster level this quarter, try some of these "sales prevention" strategies – all examples taken from real live messages in our inboxes this week. 

Don’t laugh.  I mean no disrespect.  There are many reasons why marketers don’t always follow best practices. Some of them are legitimate.  However, these practices will take a toll on your sender reputation, inbox deliverability and response rates.  So if you are going to do it anyway, at least know the risks involved.

Review this list of "don'ts" and if you see yourself doing any of these, please reconsider.  Be sure you aren’t actually preventing sales from happening!

(NOTE:  These practices are not good.  They will prevent sales from happening!  Avoid them!)

1.  Put everything into an image.  That way, your subscribers can’t see anything when the email opens, or find the call to action.

2. Hide the links.  Use really soft colors or don’t call them out with highlight colors or underlines. Oh, and don’t put any links on your images, either.

3. Clutter up the template with lots of sidebar offers and secondary news.   Every touch point is an opportunity, so be sure to tell your ENTIRE story in every message.  Don’t let your subscribers focus on the main message, instead, distract them or confuse them into inaction.

4. Make the unsubscribe link in the footer impossible to find. Put it in a really small font.  Bury it in a paragraph of other type.  Call it some other thing, like “Feedback” or “Preferences.”

5. Don’t bother to sign up for ISP complaint feedback loops – easily available from most major North American ISPs.  And if you do get that data, don’t worry about actually using it to clean your file of complainers.  Consider the complainers a bunch of whiners, and don’t review the data to see if perhaps a particular source or type of customer is most likely to complain.  Keep your mailing pace and content the same, even if you realize that it may be untenable to some of your subscribers.

6. Segmentation is for expensive channels.  Even though response and revenue will increase dramatically when targeted messages are sent to key segments, it’s cheap and easy to just blast the whole file.  Take a short term view of this – we need revenue now, and who cares that in future our file will be less valuable.

7. Send a welcome message using a different brand than where the subscriber signed up (e.g.: the corporate brand), and do a lot of heavy selling in it.    Many new subscribers have little knowledge of the products or benefits, so push hard on the sales message even though they have no basis for which to evaluate.

8. Be vague about frequency and message type.  Subscribers who are in the dark about how often you send and what types of messages to expect will surely be delighted to get a bunch of mail about things they didn’t want or expect.  Although that confusion drives higher complaints for many other brands, which can depress response for all your mail, your brand is well enough known to withstand it.

9. Pull out any old file you can find – even inquiries from five years ago.  You don’t (legally - in the U.S) need permission to mail them, so blast away an introductory letter and see if you can dig up a few new leads.    A lot of these messages will bounce, many others will complain and that will have a negative impact on your ability to deliver to your main file.  Most all of them will have forgotten that they ever were interested in your company.  But hey, it’s pretty cheap to send to them, so might as well try it, even if it prevents more engaged subscribers from seeing the message because your deliverability dropped and everything went to bulk mail. 

10. In this economy, people are bargain hunting. So anything on sale – whether it’s relevant or not to the interests or past purchases of the subscriber – send to everyone on the file.  Sales are good service.

11. If you have a catalog or offline list which doesn’t  include email addresses, append email address to this file and send them a note welcoming them to the email family.    Assume that just because these customers have a relationship with you that they want to receive email promotions.  We might piss them off enough to prevent their buying from our catalogs anymore, but at least our email file will have grown.

Just typing out this list makes me blush with embarrassment and shame for our industry.  I know there is a lot of pressure to optimize short term revenue, especially in a recession.  But I do care about the email channel and our long term viability in the marketing mix.  I know you do, too.  Let's all stay focused on the goal:  great subscriber experiences that build brands, drive response and delight customers.

I saw this at Texadelphia today and had to share it with the group.

Here are the top 10 pick up lines I recently overheard at an email marketing conference:

10. Your eyes are as gorgeous as perfectly coded HTML

9. How would you like to bounceback to my room?

8.  Are you tired?  Cause you have been throttling through my mind all day!!

7. I couldn't help but notice that when our eyes met, we had a 100% click rate.

6.  I have "ESP" and it told me that we should be together tonight

5. Trust me babe....I have 100% deliverability rate and my reputation is perfect

4.  Hi there, I am into ALT TEXT, how about you?

3.  Can I opt you into my life?

2.  You wanna trigger me? What?

1. Wanna start a lifetime value together?

Please feel free to share you best email marketing pick up lines

oh I so love this post.Thanks Kara. My marketing and best practices teams are also probably tired of me harping on this exact same thing.

The Hunt
You don't have to talk to many marketers before you hear the word "blast" roll off the tongue - at which point my left eye starts to twitch, my leg starts to shake and expletives begin to fly from my mouth like a raunchy truck driver after too much coffee. Graphic? Yes. True? Pretty close. For those of you that have worked with me, clients, prospects and colleagues alike you know that it has been my personal mission to ban the word "blast" from the email industry forever (much like the hyphen in e-mail, which is gaining success as well). Call me an email snob, but if you are a legitimate marketer the word "blast" should never pass your lips unless you are using it to describe the fun networking event you attended last night. Nothing about your marketing efforts should convey that there is no forethought or planning to your marketing and "blast" does exactly that.

The Skunk
Clearly the skunk here is the awful, five-letter dirty word that has made its way in to the vocabulary of email marketers everywhere --- BLAST. A word that so inherently indicates that we are an industry that doesn't care where our messages land so long as we hit someone with an email address and at least one good eye. One colleague likened it to confetti cannons – blast the confetti cannon and you will be cleaning up the mess for months! It’s not too far from the truth really. Look at this industry, email marketers continue to exist today that believe this is the right approach. Call it what you want, "spray and pray," "batch and blast," it is the behavior that has caused so much consumer distrust in email marketing and years later, we are still cleaning up the mess. It is this same mentality that has caused your friends to call you a SPAMMER after you tell them what you do for a living.

The Resolution
Let’s keep "blast" in the past and move into a new, more intelligent era of email communication where we refer to our email communications as campaign launches or customer email distributions. As professional email marketers we are mindful about message content that contains email "dirty words or phrases" like "free" or "limited time offer." The same consideration needs to be given to how we as marketers refer to what we do on a daily basis. We need to "walk the walk" by removing the word "blast" from our daily vernacular starting now. This will also help educate those internal customers that have a stake in your email marketing as well as making it a little easier for sweet old aunt Margie to better understand what you do.

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

So I hate to re-post so much outside news today to the blog instead of running educational material for you, but this just had to be posted about (of course this should be educating you as what NOT to do in your email programs). As you know, we here have been following the the very comical, but also VERY serious issue of list rentals gone bad with this re-post of our friend Ken Magill article Ouch: A List-Purchase Nightmare. Ken posted today an interesting follow-up to a multi-month long investigation about the list "management" company EmailAppenders.

EmailAppenders Hawking Bogus List, Claims Publisher
Nov 11, 2008 3:49 PM, By Ken Magill

EmailAppenders has been marketing a file of names and addresses the list’s owner claims the e-mail list compiler can’t possibly have, this newsletter has learned.

E-mails began arriving in marketers’ inboxes last week pitching a holiday sale on Internet Retailer’s list of 2008 conference attendees, according to samples of the messages obtained by this newsletter.

One problem: Internet Retailer doesn’t sell, rent or give those names away, according to the top executive of the firm’s parent company. As a result, said Jack Love, president of Vertical Web Media, EmailAppenders can’t possibly have a legitimately obtained list of Internet Retailer’s 2008 conference attendees.

“The list being marketed is not a legitimate list of IRCE attendees. We do not sell, rent or reveal that list to anyone,” he said. “It’s our most valuable asset.”

Love said he first became aware EmailAppenders was hawking a purported list of Internet Retailer 2008 conference attendees early this summer when more than a dozen exhibitors contacted the company inquiring about the offer.

“We had about 15 exhibitors call in,” he said.

As a result, said Love, Vertical Web Media sent a cease-and-desist letter to EmailAppenders and sent an e-mail to exhibitors warning them that the offer was not legitimate.

“We have been informed by a number of clients that a company called EmailAppenders has been offering to sell what it purports to be the Internet Retailer 2008 Conference & Exhibition (IRCE 2008) attendee list, including names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers and company names,” said the warning.

“Internet Retailer, which owns and operates IRCE 2008, has not and will not sell, rent or otherwise provide its list of IRCE attendees to anyone. We are in no way associated with EmailAppenders and did not provide it with the IRCE 2008 list that they are offering for sale. We did not authorize EmailAppenders to acquire, use and/or market for sale the IRCE attendee list, whether directly or indirectly.”

Love said he never received a response to the cease-and-desist letter, but that the unauthorized pitches seemed to stop so he let the issue drop.

However, e-mail pitches hawking a list of purported Internet Retailer 2008 conference attendees began appearing in exhibitors’ e-mail boxes again last week.

“We can very positively assist you in acquiring an Email list of IRCE 2008 attendees. We have a total of 5,000 attendees. The list would cost you $3,500. the list will be delivered within 2 days on realizing the payment,” said one of the e-mails, which was obtained by this newsletter.

“The list once purchased will be for your perpetual use. We have no restriction on the usage,” it continued.

It would be highly unusual for a tradeshow operator to sell its attendee list for perpetual use. When a marketer sells its house-file names without restrictions, it’s usually because the firm is going belly up.

Internet Retailer’s annual conference was named the fastest-growing tradeshow in the country by Tradeshow Week over the weekend.

The message pitching Internet Retailer’s names was signed by “Vanessa Anderson, marketing manager.” The footer did not include a company name.

A call to the New York City number listed in the e-mail reached a man who identified himself as Chris McAlister of EmailAppenders. When told he had been reached by trade reporter Ken Magill and that Internet Retailer was claiming his firm was marketing a list it couldn’t possibly have, the line went dead.

An immediate follow-up call reached McAlister’s voice mail.

A second follow-up call about a half hour later also went to voice mail. A message left on McAlister’s voice mail was not returned.

Meanwhile, Internet Retailer isn’t the only firm claiming EmailAppenders has misrepresented its business.

Over the summer, Bob Richards, marketing director for Javelin Marketing, said he paid more than $14,000 to EmailAppenders for a list of some 100,000 e-mail addresses.

But when Richards mailed the names 85,000 bounced, resulting in a server jam-up, he said.

When Richards demanded a refund and didn't get one, he published a press release about his experience and posted a complaint about EmailAppenders on RipOffReport.com.

In August, EmailAppenders sent a settlement offer to Richards, a copy of which he provided this newsletter. The proposal offered Richards $10,000 if he would rescind his various complaints.

He said he agreed to the settlement, but as of last week had yet to see a dime.

Anti-spam outfit Spamhaus charges that EmailAppenders is one of many names operated by Data Champions/Sloan Marketing, a spam ring in India.

Vertical Web Media’s Love said he is “looking into his legal options” against EmailAppenders.

http://directmag.com/mail/news/1111-email-appenders-bogus-list/

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver! (just not with EmailAppenders)

For those who read Seth Godin's books like "Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers" he has some interesting comparisons to make you understand what he's talking about. I was lucky enough last week at the Return Path IN conference in NY to hear a keynote titled "No Free Stamps Here!" from him. One of the funniest, but truest things I heard was this:

THE TWO WAYS TO GET MARRIED
The Interruption Marketer buys an extremely expensive
suit. New shoes. Fashionable accessories. Then,
working with the best databases and marketing
strategists, selects the demographically ideal singles bar.

Walking into the singles bar, the Interruption Marketer
marches up to the nearest person and proposes marriage.
If turned down, the Marketer repeats this process on
every person in the bar.

If the Marketer comes up empty-handed after spending
the entire evening proposing, it is obvious that the blame
should be placed on the suit and the shoes. The tailor is
fired. The strategy expert who picked the bar is fired.
And the Interruption Marketer tries again at a different
singles bar.

If this sounds familiar, it should. It's the way most large
marketers look at the world. They hire an agency. They
build fancy ads. They "research" the ideal place to run the
ads. They interrupt people and hope that one in a hundred
will go ahead and buy something. And then, when they
fail, they fire their agency!

The other way to get married is a lot more fun, a lot more
rational, and a lot more successful. It's called dating.

A Permission Marketer goes on a date. If it goes well, the
two of them go on another date. And then another. Until,
after ten or twelve dates, both sides can really
communicate with each other about their needs and
desires. After twenty dates, they meet each other's
families. And finally, after three or four months of dating,
the Permission Marketer proposes marriage.

Permission Marketing is just like dating. It turns strangers
into friends and friends into lifetime customers. Many of
the rules of dating apply, and so do many of the benefits.

THE FIVE STEPS TO DATING YOUR CUSTOMER
Every marketer must offer the prospective customer an
incentive for volunteering. In the vernacular of dating,
that means you have to offer something that makes it
interesting enough to go out on a first date. A first date,
after all, represents a big investment in time, money and
ego. So there better be reason enough to volunteer.

Without a selfish reason to continue dating, your new
potential customer (and your new potential date) will
refuse you a second chance. If you don't provide a
benefit to the consumer for paying attention, your offer
will suffer the same fate as every other ad campaign that's
vying for their attention. It will be ignored.

The incentive you offer to the customer can range from
information, to entertainment, to a sweepstakes, to
outright payment for the prospect's attention. But the
incentive must be overt, obvious and clearly delivered.

This is the most obvious difference between Permission
Marketing and Interruption Marketing. Interruption
Marketers spend all of their time interrupting strangers, in
an almost pitiful attempt to bolster popularity and capture
attention. Permission Marketers spend as little time and
money talking to strangers as they can. Instead, they
move as quickly as they can to turn strangers into
prospects who choose to "opt-in" to a series of
communications.

Second, using the attention offered by the consumer, the
marketer offers a curriculum over time, teaching the
consumer about the product or service he has to offer.
The Permission Marketer knows that the first date is an
opportunity to sell the other person on a second date.
Every step along the way has to be interesting, useful and
relevant.

Since the prospect has agreed to pay attention, it's much
easier to teach them about your product. Instead of filling
each ensuing message with entertainment designed to
attract attention, or with sizzle designed to attract the
attention of strangers, the Permission Marketer is able to
focus on product benefits -- on specific, focused ways
this product will help that prospect. Without question,
this ability to talk freely over time is the most powerful
element of this marketing approach.

The third step involves reinforcing the incentive. Over
time, any incentive wears out. Just as your date may tire
of even the finest restaurant, the prospective customer
may show fatigue with the same repeated incentive. The
Permission Marketer must work to reinforce the
incentive, to be sure that the attention continues. This is
surprisingly easy. Because this is a two-way dialogue,
not a narcissistic monologue, the marketer can adjust the
incentives being offered and fine tune them for each
prospect.

Along with reinforcing the incentive, the fourth step is to
increase the level of permission the marketer receives
from the potential customer. Now I won't go into detail
on what step of the dating process this corresponds to,
but in marketing terms, the goal is to motivate the
consumer to give more and more permission over time.
Permission to gather more data about the customer's
personal life, or hobbies, or interests. Permission to offer
a new category of product for the customer's
consideration. Permission to provide a product sample.
The range of permission you can obtain from a customer
is very wide, and limited only by its relevance to the
customer.

Over time, the marketer uses the permission he's obtained
to change consumer behavior, that is, get them to say, "I
do." That's how you turn permission into profits. After
permission is granted, that's how it becomes a truly
significant asset for the marketer. Now you can live
happily ever after by repeating the aforementioned
process while selling your customer more and more
products. In other words, the fifth and final step is to
leverage your permission into a profitable situation for
both of you. Remember, you have access to the most
valuable thing a customer can offer - attention.

Five Steps to Dating Your Customer

1. Offer the prospect an incentive to volunteer
2. Using the attention offered by the prospect, offer a
   curriculum over time, teaching the consumer about your
   product or service
3. Reinforce the incentive to guarantee that the prospect
   maintains the permission
4. Offer additional incentives to get even more permission
   from the consumer
5. Over time, leverage the permission to change consumer behavior towards profits

I hope you'll be intrigued enough by this sample to go ahead and buy yourself a copy of his book! You can get the book at any bookstore or you can buy it online.

To buy online, click on one of the links below:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684856360/permissionmarket

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Permission-Marketing/Seth-Godin/e/9780684856360/?itm=1

http://www.permission.com for a big chunk for free

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

I offer the link to the legal action noted above with no comment.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10074002-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

So I was at a customers site this week, Monday to be more exact, with my abuse swat team manager and during the FULL day we were drugging through the work that needed to be addressed, but at the same time we all had some sort of interest in the market down turn that day. Many of daily conversations turned at times from email best practices to market best practices including what a spamtrap is and what a complainer is from a feedback loop and how they compare to the market and banking issues at hand.

Somewhere in all this, one of the managers from the customers side, Andrew, compared or changed the names of non-clickers, spamtraps, and complainers, to TOXIC email address and when we talked about stale email lists we changed the name to SUB-PRIME lists.

Made the day more interesting for all; even for those in the room who lost a lot money that day while working through the sub-prime old email habits ;)

Thanks Gary and Andrew for the GREAT day!

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

So a few events in my life have just crossed paths for us in this house and I thought it would be an interesting comparison for me to tell you about them.

On one side, I had an abuse complaint that came in to one of the companies I work for in which an unsolicited batch of email was sent from one of my customers to a complainant. When investigated by my privacy and abuse team; and as expected; it was an unconfirmed list upload (actually 4) for the bulk email event. The contacts were from lists provided by another individual who is holding the event that was advertised in the email, but not belonging to the actual person who sent the emails nor is the owner of the lists actually part of the company that sent the email (confused?) My customer contact explained to us that she was advised that these contacts were good when she received them from the other individual however it appears she was misled by that person since we got some anger driven complaints. Probably not intentionally misled, but either way a problem exists. My customer said this is not normal practice for my them and we did warn her about doing any kind of purchased / unknown list upload in the future. It does turn out that we think she knew something was wrong with this process when she saw the complaints and since the data we wanted to get from her was deleted before we got to her on the phone. We will monitor, but I don't think this will be an issue with them in the future.

On the other side, in my house we are getting ready for Halloween and trying to decide if the twins will be Mario and Luigi since that seems to be the number one game they are playing on their Nintendo DS. In all the midst of this, my wife and I also need to be prepared for the night of fun by decorating the house and making sure we know how to search through their goodies that night so that nothing harmful enters our kids pumpkin buckets or mouths when we get home.

I found an interesting set of points from the local police department to remind adults about the possibilities of harmful things in candy.

• Carefully check all candy before allowing your child to eat it.
• Eat only those treats still in their original unopened wrappers.
• Throw away candies if wrappers are faded, have holes or tears or signs of re-wrapping.
• Throw away all unwrapped candy.
• Check fruit and homemade treats for punctures or foreign bodies that may have been injected, such as pins, metal needles or razor blades. Allow your child to eat such items only if from someone you know and trust. Most treat makers are well intentioned, but it s not worth the risk.
• WHEN IN DOUBT THROW IT OUT!!!

I love that last one, but in reading that I began to realize that in my conversations with customers who do crazy things like the above list issue... most of them realize it, but aren't acting on it to stop it from happening

I know it's a crazy comparison, but folks.... treat your email programs like you would your kids. Protect it from harmful decision or things. Do your due diligence in checking your sources or someone's thinking if it seems wrong. If something doesn't look right, then don't do it.

WHEN IN DOUBT THROW IT OUT!!!

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Neil didn't think that a license plate was enough, so he actually got an email tatoo! I give up Neil, you win. I'm not shaving an @ sign into my head.

I just ordered the license plate for my Tesla roadster set to arrive in November. TESLA and PLUGIN were taken, so I went with a different word very dear to my heart, EMAIL!

UPDATE Sept 15 2008: http://directmag.com/magill/0909-email-appenders/index1.html

anyone else read this and say DUH? how can he be surprised at the bounce rate when he bought a list? I don't like purchased list as some of you already know. Why?

1. You don't have permission
2. You don't have permission
3. You don't have permission
4. You don't know what your going to get. spamtraps, stale email addresses, un-nurtured contacts who won't remember the list services since they just gave up their email address for a free Ipod
5. I don't find that list services care or nurture their lists. They just keep adding to them and not removing from them. They tend to think Quantity over Quality.

I do however like the points Bob makes when it comes to saying list services should do a better job of maintaining their lists if they are going to be in the business or promote their business as generating good leads.

1. List services should create nurturing programs to make sure people who do give up their email addresses for sell are still interested over time
2. List services should also ask purchasers to notify them of opt-out's and complainers so they can update their master list

Folks, if you need email address... don't be like Bob...be willing to go to companies like Eloqua who can help nurture potential prospects into real leads and then customers. I don't want to turn this blog into a pitch for my company or Swiftpage, but there are companies and services out there that WILL help you create a platform for executing, automating and measuring highly effective B2B marketing programs if you just listen to them. These marketing automation companies are in the business to help generate QUALITY leads for your sales and marketing teams.

I find it odd sometimes that we are to quick to take the easy route these days by buying lists. We never take the time to listen to prospects needs, watch their digital body language when they visit our websites, and interact with them in a permission based way. Where once a shrug or a raised eyebrow gave our sales people clues to buyer intent, today’s online activities - website visits, white paper downloads, and email opens or forwards reveal a prospect’s willingness to buy and wants to interact with us.

Seriously Bob, good luck with this. I hope you have a good outcome.

http://directmag.com/magill/0805-list-purchase-nightmare/

Bob Richards claims he’s been ripped off.

He recently paid a little more than $14,000 to have New York-based EmailAppenders for a purportedly permission-based list of over 100,000 e-mail addresses.

But when he mailed the names, 85,000 bounced, resulting in a server jam-up, said Richards, the marketing director of Javelin Marketing. And his company was fired as a client by its e-mail service provider.

For its part, EmailAppenders is claiming that the file was fine and that it was probably Richards’ inexperience with large e-mail campaigns that caused the failure.

Richards wants a refund. EmailAppenders isn’t paying.

So Richards decided to go public. He recently published a press release detailing his complaint about EmailAppenders and likening many data sellers to drug pushers.

“Drug users go to the pusher for their drug and the pushers keep the streets plentiful with drugs,” said the release. “Similarly, marketers go to list services for their drug and many of these list services sell tainted goods. And it’s these list services that fuel the spread of spam.”

He has also posted a complaint about EmailAppenders on RipOffReport.com. Richards said he has also reported EmailAppenders to the New York State Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission.

According to Richards, EmailAppenders in June delivered a list of 135,000 addresses purported to be those of financial advisors, his company’s target audience.

When he received the list, he said, it was immediately apparent that 5,000 or 6,000 records were off target, so he deleted them by hand.

Once the list was whittled down to about 118,000 addresses, “it still fell within the parameters I had set,” he said, so he paid for it and went ahead with a weekend mailing.

When Richards reported to work on Monday, he said, his e-mail box was filled with 85,000 bounces, and the company’s server was locked up.

“I had to delete my e-mail box just to free up our server,” he said.

Then, according to Richards, his e-mail service provider Swiftpage terminated Javelin Marketing’s account.

“They rightfully fired us as a client for spamming,” he said.

Dan Ogdon, marketing director for Swiftpage, confirmed the company terminated Javelin’s account for spamming.

“We do that all the time,” he said. “We’ve got a full-time staff dedicated to making sure our clients don’t spam.”

Ogdon added that Swiftpage—an e-mail marketing software-on-demand provider to small businesses—has a system in place that raises red flags whenever a mailing sent by one of its clients shows a high percentage of bounces and when a client mails to a large number of new addresses. To Swiftpage, these are signs of spamming.

Ogdon said Javelin’s campaign triggered at least the too-many-new-addresses warning on Swiftpage’s system. As a result, he said, he has no idea of the quality of the file EmailAppenders supplied to Javelin.

“Our policy is you must have explicit permission,” Ogdon said. “That’s not Can Spam, but it is our policy.”

Ian Cooper, president of new business development for EmailAppenders, said there are many possible reasons besides list quality that may have jammed up Javelin’s e-mail campaign.

“There are all kinds of factors that affect e-mail deliverability,” he said. “Having a perfect list does not ensure success.”

He added: “This is a client who does not have internal know-how on doing large campaigns and is not willing to let us do it for him.”

He also said that when his company mailed the same list, more than 78,000 messages reached their mark.

Cooper added that this was the second project EmailAppenders did for Javelin. “The first was a much smaller project of around 10,000 addresses and they were very happy with it. It went very well, so they came back,” he said.

He said he has offered to do a permission mailing to the list on Javelin’s behalf and provide a refund for all the hard bounces.

However, Cooper said, he hesitates to give Javelin a full refund because Javelin has taken possession of the list and there’s no way to undo that action.

“In the digital world, you’ve already got the goods,” he said. “It’s like someone buying an ad and then saying: ‘I didn’t get any business; I want my money back.’”

EmailAppenders claims its e-mail addresses are all permission based and verified by phone and e-mail multiple times per year.

“We want our clients to succeed,” Cooper said.

In an e-mail to Richards obtained by this newsletter, Cooper offered a $10,000 refund if Richards would rescind his complaints from the FTC and RipOffReport, among other things.

As of deadline, Richards said he would accept the offer if EmailAppenders removes all the hard and soft bounces and non-financial advisors from the list it supplied, and upon subsequently mailing it, Javelin gets a 90% or better delivery rate

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Some good friends of mine opened a discussion asking "If you were to write a haiku about the email marketing industry, what would that be?"

Here are those results posted on the Word to the Wise blog.

http://blog.wordtothewise.com/2008/08/delivery-haikus/

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Some of us remember Scott Richter's "Spam King" clothing line... here is a new line of t-shirts based on funny spam subject lines.

Hat tip: Tricia Robinson

well after hearing that email was dead for about a year, it seems that EMAIL comes out of the darkness (like in the movies) alive and ready to strike down it's "evil" brother the BLOG with a deadly blow...(man I shouldn't become a soap opera writer)

Jason Calacanis has stopped blogging and is instead using email to communicate with his followers.

I mean let's face it, email does rule in some way...

Why?

1. More one to one communication than RSS or blogging
2. Metrics to measure through out the communication

to name a few

The most common miss-conception is comparing blogs and email, with many bloggers actually touting blogs as a replacement for email. The truth is, there’s no comparison at all, just like comparing apples and
oranges.

RSS like email are content delivery channels; the tools that enable us to deliver our content to end-users, and in the case of RSS, to other websites as well which is what we are also doing here on this website.

RSS is NOT dead...

Don't worry folks, we will continue to still post here...

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver! 

I was talking to a friend yesterday and I have had this conversation a few times, in which I still end up in frustration with some executives and marketers that just don’t get it.

My friend told me about an issue in their company in which they are NOT able to get whitelisted at a major ISP because of higher than normal complaints (typical policy at many ISP’s who offer such services). A person above them (exec) said, "take the subscriber permission documentation to that ISP and insist that we have followed the rules", in other words we did it right and you can't deny us to your network services. This is where the frustration comes into play with some executives and marketers who don’t get it. Folks, this is the ISP's house, they can lock the doors to protect their own interest if they want too. You can force anyone to let you into their house just because you have PROOF your a good person without a criminal record. It’s their JOB to do what their customers request. It’s their job to uphold their policies so they bad guys can’t get in. You have to show more than just opt-in these days.

Most CEO's/marketers think it's that simple just with proof. You may at one time have had permission, but now you don't. My friend explained to that executive that even if subscribers subscribed, they still have to help their clients follow best common practices in order to keep them engaged, but when the users wants off... you HAVE TO comply with that request whether it comes from a opt-out or a feedback loop.

I was in Las Vegas last week for the Third Annual LT PACT 2008 conference and I was surprised when talking to some people that they couldn’t tell me who is actually engaged in their email’s and who isn’t. Who’s clicking through them? Who’s actually buying from them? Etc.

This is a GREAT opportunity (depending on your view) for the ESP’s to engage their clients and review all sending practice. A lot of executives on the marketing side some times believe that you have to give away mailings, production services because marketers think they held up their end of the bargain: documentation of permission! Not true.

Maybe the subject line of this post should have been "No such thing as a free lunch either folks". There is work in this and it has to be done.

Email marketing has been pushed as "simple" and “high ROI” so no one is willing to put effort into it like they would with old media. No one is going to pay $2.7MM for 30 seconds of Superbowl time without a lot of demographic research.

Email marketing doesn't require a lot just more than nothing, zip, zilch, zero, zed!

-Dennis
Eloqua

Thanks to my friend for the comments/post

No, Eloqua is not declaring bankruptcy, but I might be ;)

I've been in this line of business for around fifteen (15) years now, probably see around 800-1,000 emails a day from the many different lists, groups, personal, and business lines of which I am a part and usually have been able to keep my Inbox pretty much in order. I try at at the end of the day to keep the Inbox to no more than 30-40 emails in there (except for business travel which I tend to ignore it more).

As you can tell, I am treating the word INBOX as a Noun here by capitalizing it. To us, it's now a place? A definition of a Noun that I found said, "A noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing, and abstract idea. Nouns are usually the first words which small children learn." Funny that last part?  The first words, which children might now learn, could be Inbox? Heck, my kids now when I ask them "Where's mom?" reply with "She is checking her Inbox for new email". ***SIGH***

I am finding more and more people like Fred Wilson from Union Square Venture's are starting to get overwhelmed by email and who are needing to declare email bankruptcy. Just what is email bankruptcy you ask? Well it is people just saying they are either DONE with email as it takes up too much or their time, or they cannot keep up with the steady stream of email in the Inbox in a timely manner

With ALL the WIFI methods for getting online, the number of web mail providers expanding, and the never ending free devices like Blackberry's/Treo's/SmartPhones/IPhone’s making it easier to get to our Inbox, we are sending more and more email. Email has almost because as convenient of a method to converse as IM'ing has. I even now have people sending me single line emails and even sometimes with the question in the subject line and a blank body!? <--- Which actually is convenient

Just imagine many of your subscribers with Inbox’s so out of control that they cannot read or act on the messages you send them. And in the end it will either be deleted, not read or even throw them into a state of email bankruptcy.

When people send me email and I do not have the answer or the time it stays there until I can respond in the right manner. If it delays longer than a day, I respond that I can look into it but please be patient as it might take some time. The last thing anyone wants is for you to ignore them completely.

What I am getting at here folks is that it’s all our responsibility to stop people from having to file email bankruptcy. As convenient as the information super highway is, it can also be a killer if you don't use it right like a car.

How can I help you ask?

1. First and foremost, ask yourself does this person really need to be on this email? am I sending it to someone who needs it or should know? Maybe if they should know you could send it to all that might reply all day long, but forward them a copy by itself so they don't get those replies.
2. Don't use your Inbox as a catchall folder for everything you need to work on. Read items once, and answer them immediately if necessary, delete them if possible, or move them to project-specific folders.
3. Lose multiple accounts. The Radicati Group says e-mail accounts worldwide are growing faster than e-mail users at an average annual rate of 8 percent, which means many of us have more than one e-mail account. Not just one for business and one for personal, but many people have several personal accounts, which adds to the overload. Sign off those extra accounts.
4. ABC news says to treat your Inbox as a one-stop shop. That means deal with each message once and only once by reading, responding and deleting it at the same time. This means breaking the habit of reading messages and moving on to others before acting. But once you get used to it, the practice is easy. You'll feel more efficient when you're not buried in the e-mail pileup.
5. Use filters to shuffle email that your CC'd on into another folder for reading later and those that your sent specifically in the TO: to the Inbox. Also is your MUA supports it use conversational rules to order email (threading or colour coding)
6. Set up a "Five Weeks Folder" that deletes its content automatically after five weeks. Use it as a repository for messages you're unsure about, such as that email you want to delete, but you're not sure if the guy's going to call you tomorrow and ask about it.
7. Assist colleagues' Inbox-filtering efforts by agreeing on acronyms to use in subject lines that quickly identify action items and other important messages. Sample acronyms: < AR> , Action Required; <MSR> , Monthly Status Report.
8. Send group mail only when it is useful to all recipients. Use "reply-to-all" and "CC:" buttons sparingly.
9. Ask to be removed from distribution lists that you don't need to be on.
10. If you need to be on a few distribution list, then create folders for those specific groups and use your email client filter rules to shove those distro emails to those folders for review later. You can also tell your filter that if the email was sent TO: you, but also the distro to place it instead in your Inbox or flag it with a colour or alert box.
11. To cut down on pileup, use the "out-of-office" feature of your email, in addition to your voice mail, to notify people when you are traveling and whether or not you will respond timely or they should just give up.
12. When possible, send a message that is only a subject line, so recipients don't have to open the email to read a single line. End the subject line with <EOM> , the acronym for End of Message.
13. NRN. You've mastered LOL, as in laugh out loud, so now try NRN, as in no reply needed. Use this in e-mails so recipients know they need not reply. And forget for a moment what mom taught you: Office e-mail etiquette doesn't require you to thank someone for his e-mail. If you must, just type "thank you" in the subject line so the recipient can prioritize reading and deleting the e-mail.
14. Graphics and attachments are fun, but they slow down your ability to download messages when you're on the road. Use them sparingly.
15. If you're sending an attachment larger than 5 MB to a large group of recipients, consider putting it on the company's Web site or intranet instead.
16. Be specific. If you send a 20-page attachment, tell the recipient that the important information is on pages 2 and 17 or write a synopsis at the top.
17. Pick up the phone more often. Average time to write an e-mail message is about four (4) minutes, and the average time to read a message is about half a minute. Average time to walk over or call is ten (10) seconds. Add that up and your spending an average of two-and-a-half hours a day wrangling messages. By the time you look up from your Inbox, half the day is gone. Picking up the phone or walking over to someone can lessen the need to spend time writing, reading an email, responding or waiting for a response. Plus you don't forgot you sent an email that needs response and you don't need to CC yourself when sending an email to remind yourself you did and clutter your Inbox more.
18. ABC news also says to take a time out. For most people, a timeout is more realistic than an outright ban. If doing so during the business week is out of the question because of the nature of your work, try taking a day off on a weekend from both work and personal e-mails. Maybe your time out is evening hours. Think of it as an e-mail fast. No matter when you do it, be sure to activate your "out of office" message so senders know you're not ignoring them.

If you still need to declare email bankruptcy, here is how you can deal with it:

1. Collect the email addresses of everyone you haven’t replied to. Paste them into the BCC field of a new message you’ll send to yourself.
2. Write a polite note explaining your predicament. Apologize profusely – some people have managed five mea culpas in as many paragraphs – and promise to keep up with your email in the future. Try to sound credible.
3. Ask for a resend of anything particularly pressing, and offer to give such messages special attention.

-Dennis
Eloqua

The Federal Trade Commission today announced that it investigating ReturnPath Inc.’s monopolistic tactics in trying to hire all of the deliverability industry insiders. In a 4-1 vote to open an investigation of the company, the Commission wrote in its majority statement that “It's just not fair. After learning of the recent hire of Vinay Goel, we have decided to proceed with the investigation of ReturnPath's attempt to corner the market on deliverability professionals.”

Interested parties have raised concerns about the proposed acquisition’s impact on the ability for organizations to do their own deliverability in-house. The Commissioners wrote that “the sole purpose of federal antitrust review of hiring is to identify and remedy transactions that harm competition,” the FTC lacks the legal authority to block the hiring on grounds, or require conditions to hiring, that do not relate to antitrust. Adding, however, that it takes in-house deliverability issues very seriously, the Commission cross-referenced its release of a set of proposed hiring principles that were also announced today.

The statement concluded, “The markets within the deliverability space continue to quickly evolve, and predicting their future course is not a simple task. Accounting for the dynamic nature of an industry requires solid grounding in facts and the careful application of tested antitrust analysis. Because the allegations support the theories of potential competitive harm, there is a basis on which to seek to investigate the hiring of Vinay Goel. We want to be clear that we will closely watch this market and, should ReturnPath engage in unlawful hiring or other anticompetitive conduct, the Commission intends to act quickly.”

p.s. just kidding about the FTC part... but ReturnPath really did hire Vinay!

Randall Stross gives a nice history of deliverability in his New York Times article. Apparently even Christopher Columbus had deliverability challenges!