Emoji - a Japanese term for picture characters (such as emoticons) often used in electronic messages and content. Last week we saw an industry wide email rendering change within all Hotmail accounts.  Hotmail users saw that specific ASCII characters within... More

Emoji - a Japanese term for picture characters (such as emoticons) often used in electronic messages and content.

Last week we saw an industry wide email rendering change within all Hotmail accounts.  Hotmail users saw that specific ASCII characters within their emails were replaced with gif images.  The swapped out characters included "©", "®", and "™" along with the spade "♠", club "♣", heart "♥" and diamond "♦". These characters were replaced with a standard 19x19 pixel Microsoft emoji icon, which typically disrupted an email marketer's branding.

While Hotmail was rolling out new changes and improvements to their emoji system, it seems that the copyright, trademark, and registered trademark symbols have also been included in their emoji package.  Within an email's source code you would now find embedded HTML code for these emoji gifs (http://gfx2.hotmail.com/mail/w4/pr04/ltr/emoji/emoji_000A9.gif).

This change in the emoji system even caused Microsoft's own branding within their email marketing messages to be affected(unintentionally). Less

My previous interview on email deliverability with Bob Sybydlo, Yesmail's Director of Deliverability,  generated a lot of interest, so I thought I'd make it part of three-part series. Since the last post was on the general state of email deliverability... More

My previous interview on email deliverability with Bob Sybydlo, Yesmail's Director of Deliverability,  generated a lot of interest, so I thought I'd make it part of three-part series.

Since the last post was on the general state of email deliverability and how email inboxing rates are declining, I thought I would focus this post by asking Bob how email marketers can improve their email deliverability.

The importance of goals

Kam: Thanks for taking some time out again. We had a lot of interest in our last email deliverability blog post. A lot of people picked up on your comments about fundamental principles marketers can apply to their email marketing program to improve its deliverability. So, I was wondering if you could share some of those principles, perhaps the top five principles you think all email programs should follow.

Bob: The top five that every email program should follow?  Let's see. I think the first principle would be to clearly define the goal of your email marketing program--is  it a deal of the program, a weekly newsletter, a transactional program, or simply a marketing message--and then to understand just exactly how you are going to target its audience. 

Kam: So when you mean what is the goal of the program, I mean how does that relate to email deliverability.  I mean surely from a deliverability perspective, the goal is always going to be I want a 100% inboxing.

Bob:  When I say the goal, I'm referring to the purpose of your email marketing program. Because the purpose of your email program will directly affect its configuration and set-up; if the set-up is not correctly identified and implemented "100% inboxing" will likely not be possible. The most important thing to understand is your audience, specifically your email list, and how these addresses engage with your messages. If you are emailing different types of marketing messages, you want to understand how those messages should be spread out.  Should they be spread out at different times of the day, sent from different setting domains, or different mailing divisions?  So spreading out your email marketing program impacts deliverability in many ways and it's a practice that ISPs recommend. 

Kam: Can you give an example?

Bob:  When I first started working with one of our clients as part of our email deliverability assistance network (DAN) program, the first thing that I wanted to do was understand the entire program and everything it was sending out to its customers.  And what I noticed was that all of the various company divisions were piled on top of each other and sending from a single IP set. This IP set was sending for a B-to-B program, a B-to-C program, a transactional program, as well as a daily deal program simultaneously. Each program sent a different amount of email volume, generated different levels of user engagement and was collecting data in completely different ways.  So what would happen was one division would mail, so the B-to-B division would mail, in low volumes, and generate a certain amount of user engagement, and then the next day or even later that day the B-to-C program would mail to a much larger audience and begin generating very high amounts of abuse complaints, when compared to what was generated during the initial B-to-B mailing. When an ISP system looked at the wildly fluctuating volume, engagement rates, and abuse complaints, they would see low volumes offset with high amounts of complaints generated by a different campaign and program all together. The client was constantly being blocked by the ISPs or sent to their spam folders.  So the first thing we needed to do was to split the program up so that the different divisions were not polluting each other. 

Kam: I guess it means you can isolate the problem and fix it rather than having this huge smorgasboard that's sending out and not really knowing what's causing the problem. 

Bob:  That is correct.  This way it was easier for us to troubleshoot what mailing program was actually responsible for the Deliverability issues their entire program was previously experiencing.  So now, while we troubleshot the problematic mailing program, the other three where able to continue mailing without consequence.

Update your database--out with the old; in with the new

Kam: Got it. OK, so what would be your 2^nd recommendation?

Bob: Always keep your database up to date. Just like what we were talking about last time. Keep it fresh, keep it clean--make sure you are removing complainers and account for who do not show any signs of life, get your new subscribers in there and make sure that you are always targeting appropriately.

Kam: Other than the basics, like getting rid of bad addresses, can you elaborate a bit more?

Bob: Sure. Email marketers need to understand as much as possible about the information coming into their systems.  So if you are collecting email addresses from a website, you should try to track when they came into your system, what IP address did they opt-in from, and when is the last time they showed signs of life, aka Engagement? If a subscriber entered your system years ago and has not responded to any of your messages, then it is possible they may never choose to engage in your program, and you must find an appropriate time to remove them out of the program.  Eventually these addresses may become harmful to your email reputation.  ISPs have a responsibility to make sure their users get the emails they want, and do not get the emails they don't want.  So if ISPs are seeing too many of their accounts receiving messages that their subscribers are simply not engaging in,  then they may choose to send all of your stuff to the spam folder.  So as you can imagine,  large amounts of these inactive accounts will offset your ratio of volume to engagement rates.  Again, always understanding what is in your database and cleaning up your old and inactive stuff is vital to maintaining good sender reputation.  ISPs are expecting you to constantly update your list anyway like this.

Brand Recognition--it's good to be known

Kam: What's your 3^rd tip?

Bob: I would definitely say #3 is branding and layout. For example, Make sure that your email, matches your Facebook, that in turn matches you company website. If the brand identification is established quickly with your receiving subscribers they will know who you are and are more likely to take a look at what you have to say. From an email perspective, that means your subject line, from-name, and message name, and all that kind of stuff, so that this works synergy between all these within brand. 

Kam: Ok. So the branding and creative, making sure that they all match together, is that just to make sure that people can recognize new the moment that they see your email in their inbox?

Bob: Yep. Brand recognition. Making sure that they see that logo, they know the company name, so that they can identify who has sent them this message, that they know why they received this message, and they will be much more likely to engage, click through, and end up on the web page. 

Who do you trust?

Kam: What's next?

Bob: Recommendation #4 would be trust your account management team and, of course, your Deliverability team. Share with them what you want to do and what you are going to be doing, so that they know what is going on.  Your account team can then help you with that process, so you've got to trust them.  A good account team can be a second pair of eyes and set of hands on your account, will provide independent advice and sometimes play the devil's advocate if needbe regarding a certain email campaign strategy or approach. And again, trust your deliverability guy, because the recommendations that come from them are always to make sure that the email marketing program performs optimally, doing whatever needs to be done to hit subscribers' inboxes and that you get the engagement rates that you want. 

Kam: Can you give examples of the types of things clients should discuss with their ESP?

Bob: Discuss with your deliverability guy what you are trying to do.  Achieving 100% inboxing and mailing as much data as you have are often two opposing ideas, but the deliverability team is always working to achieve the best possible results for your email program, and the road to get there can mean many different things.  During the Holidays, your mailing volume and subscriber list could change drastically and there is a right way and a wrong way to approach this.  Specific peak volume seasons such as: Christmas, Thanksgiving, Father's Day, Mother's Day, and the Back to School season, are all lucrative times of the year for email marketing, and in regards to the current email deliverability landscape, it is critical that we approach these seasons correctly.

No ID? No Service.

Kam: I noticed you didn't mention any technical elements, such as email authentication, in your four tips?

Bob: [Laughs] Email authentication is, of course, extremely important.  Sender Policy framework, domain keys, sender ID, DKIM and so on.  Yesmail provides each of these and we keep those up to date with our clients.  They're extremely important when it comes to defining your email program and then delivering your mail consistently.  Having your Authentication in check has become a bare minimum, and you need to go beyond that to achieve great deliverability.

How are you ensuring your email deliverability is as close to 100% inboxing as possible? Leave a post on this blog or feel free to contact us at marketing@yesmail.com.

(Image attribution: Hand and Paw courtesy of Superfantastic) Less

Yesterday afternoon the Yesmail Creative Services team detected that a major change had just occurred within the Hotmail system.  The Windows Live Hotmail email platform had begun replacing specific ASCII symbols within the HTML and subject lines of the messages... More

Yesterday afternoon the Yesmail Creative Services team detected that a major change had just occurred within the Hotmail system.  The Windows Live Hotmail email platform had begun replacing specific ASCII symbols within the HTML and subject lines of the messages within your Hotmail email account. 

What are these ASCII characters being replaced with? Well, they are being replaced with a standard Hotmail image gif of the symbol you originally tried to type in your email creative.  The issue here is that these images display these characters in one size and one font, and this standard size and font are not set to match the size and font you used within your email.  The specific characters Hotmail is targeting and swapping out here are "©", "®", and "™" along with the spade(♠), club (♣), heart (♥) and diamond (♦).

The main issue here is the fact that these standard images stick out like sore thumbs within your Hotmail account, and they break the look of any text font or color branding a corporation uses when creating their emails.  If your email contains one of these characters within the subject line, then again these images are swapped in.

The source code of your message within the Hotmail interface will now have new HTML code embedded where your Copyright and Registered trademarks were: "http://gfx2.hotmail.com/mail/w4/pr04/ltr/emoji/emoji_000A9.gif"

The Yesmail Deliverability Team jumped in to investigate and spent several hours on the phone with the Microsoft Central Support team discussing this issue.  As it turned out, we ended up informing them that this issue was occurring within their platform.  This was especially concerning on their end as we showed them that even Microsoft's own marketing emails are showcasing this image swap, and their own branded look has been broken.  The example below is from a Microsoft XBOX marketing message:


As this problem still persists currently, we will be continuing to work with them today to understand what type of change occurred within their system, and if they will choose to roll it back, or push it forward as a new rendering standard.  For the time being, the Yesmail Creative team is replacing these symbols with either custom images that match the font face, size, color and background of your message or a simple text version within parenthesis e.g. (TM)(C)(R) etc.  This will easily help maintain the consistency and branding of your message creative until the issue is resolved. Less

Since Return Path released their Global Email Deliverabilty Benchmark report, 2H 2011, there's been a lot of concern around email deliverability and the future of email marketing. (In case you've been away, Return Path reported that email inbox rates declined... More

Since Return Path released their Global Email Deliverabilty Benchmark report, 2H 2011, there's been a lot of concern around email deliverability and the future of email marketing.

(In case you've been away, Return Path reported that email inbox rates declined to historical lows in 2H 2011, with 1 in 4 US retail emails not reaching the inbox. ISP blocking--where email services like Gmail and Hotmail filter out email they suspect as junk--increased by a massive 20% compared to the earlier half of the year)

With that in mind, I arranged a short chat with Bob Sybydlo, Director of Deliverability at Yesmail, to get his thoughts on the Return Path report and what it meant for the email industry.

What exactly does a deliverability expert do anyway?

Kam: Thanks for taking time out today to speak with me. So, can you give everyone a bit of your background to familiarize them?

Bob: Sure. I've been with Yesmail for over five years, doing email deliverability for that entire time. Before that, I worked for the Royal Canadian Golf Association and had a fairly major role in running its email program.  When I came to Yesmail, I got to experience the other side of email marketing: The deployment, the inboxing, list management-that kind of stuff.

Kam: So you have a fairly diverse view of email deliverability?

Bob: I've seen the best of both worlds. I've been able to see how marketers approach their email marketing and what they're hoping to get out of that. From the email vendor side, I get to see the pitfalls that clients can encounter, depending on what they want to do, and this has helped me see a clear-cut set of rules for maximum email deliverability. At a lot of large brands, marketers have a clear idea in mind, but they don't understand these rules or how they can change. I'm in the position of explaining those rules and expanding my knowledge.

Kam: What does that mean in terms of your day-to-day?

Bob: Day to day, I work with several deliverability analysts and our clients. I spend as much time with them as I can, seeing what's working or what's becoming an industry issue, brainstorming solutions, outlining client strategies, and sharing best practices.

I also work with ISPs and postmaster teams to sort through any issues. Working with them is one thing, but, in my experience, many things can be solved within the sender's email program itself. Postmaster teams and the major ISPs simply EXPECT senders to be doing this level of hygiene on their programs anyway. That's something we've noticed in the last two years. Postmasters should be a last line of resort.  Sometimes postmaster teams are open and willing to discuss what they are seeing on their end, but usually you can fix problems yourself.

The Return Path Study

Kam: So, getting to Return Path's study, it's sent a lot of shockwaves in the industry. What did you think?

Bob: I wasn't really surprised. A lot of our new customers have seen declines prior to coming on board with Yesmail, and we've had to work hard to get their deliverability back to a good state. Seeing Return Path's results matched what we were seeing in the industry, and provided us with more clout with our clients in regards to managing their deliverability.

Kam: What do you think caused the decline?

Bob: There are a few things that I've noticed personally in the deliverability landscape.  Firstly, email marketing, as opposed to other channels, is fairly inexpensive. You see a lot of companies just saying "let's do more email marketing".  There are a lot of factors driving that statement: "How do we make money", "how do we drive revenue", "How do we drive more traffic".

To do that--to drive more revenue or traffic--marketers revert to the age-old theory: Mailing more will make more people go to the website. Unfortunately that leads to one of the biggest issues for deliverability: Where are you going to get good data--are you going to dig up old email lists, purchase them, co-registration?  If you get bad data from unclean lists, you're going to have deliverability problems.

Also, if you do have good data, and then you just start blasting emails out, you'll suffer intermittent deliverability issues. There's a right way and wrong way to email and a short term mega-blast isn't one of the right ways.

Another reoccurring problem is that budgets are getting smaller. It's become "how can I make the most money with the least amount of investment" and the scope of how marketers run their email programs has shortened. Unfortunately that means many of deliverability recommendations--such as scrubbing data and vetting it-get neglected. However good deliverability practices lead to more revenue, as it'll ensure the long-term success of your email program. Marketers should try to look past the illusions of short-term gains, which Return Path's study points out isn't happening.

Kam:: It can't all be about money though, what else stops people?

Bob: Fear. Some best practices revolve around removing data from a program. For example, a common recommendation is to stop emailing inactive users, but marketers just don't want to remove them, hoping that that person could lead to a potential sale or could turn around.

Another example is removing bad email addresses such as spam@yahoo.com. We get questions as to whether if that is a real email address and if they're a lead or contribute to revenue. Or moving the unsubscribe link to the top of the email, which is a deliverability 101 recommendation. You're telling people if you don't want to receive this email, if you don't see any value from it, here's the unsubscribe button, but a lot of marketers are afraid to do that.

Are you working for your email program?

Kam: So how do you view email deliverability?

Bob: It's a lot like working out. If you want to work out, you have to eat right too. It's half the battle. If you're going to work your email program--target properly, send seasonal offers, get great open rates--are you eating right?  Are you taking in the right data and getting rid of the bad data--the junk food, the sweet food, and all that stuff? Are you getting rid of old addresses that aren't helpful and keeping abuse complaints down?

You want to make sure you're eating right-getting rid of the bad stuff in your data diet, taking in the good stuff, like organic data, and growing your list to support your email program and how you want to exercise that every day.

You want to focus on the long term. If you want to do things with your email program that you're not sure about, or need to make drastic changes, consult a deliverability analyst. You wouldn't try to bench-press 500lbs without first consulting a physical trainer and developing a training regime, would you? Proceeding with caution is the best way.

Kam: So, using that analogy, are there fundamental exercises everyone can do or does each client need a unique training program for their deliverability?

Bob: Every client's program is unique: the way they collect their data, mail it, what their results are and how they come back; however there are fundamentals that all businesses should be applying. I find myself making fundamental recommendations to different businesses time and again, and, regardless of how their programs work, these recommendations get results.

Unfortunately I ran out of time with Bob there, but he's agreed to share those deliverability secrets with me in follow-up meeting, so watch this space for another blog post on email deliverability. Less

I've seen a lot of verbal sparring around the pros and cons of removing inactive subscribers from an email marketing list. Most of the articles, blog posts, discussions take strong positions on the topic, so I wanted to present a... More

I've seen a lot of verbal sparring around the pros and cons of removing inactive subscribers from an email marketing list. Most of the articles, blog posts, discussions take strong positions on the topic, so I wanted to present a more balanced view.

In the red corner, the accepted wisdom, remove inactives
The conventional wisdom in favor of removing inactive subscribers focuses on three arguments: email deliverability, inbox placement, and cost.

In terms of email deliverability, sending emails to inactive subscribers can be very detrimental to your email marketing program. Nowadays ISPs, such as Hotmail, Gmail, etc., expect marketers to actively audit their mailing lists. Mailing to inactive subscribers can negatively impact your sending reputation should you unwittingly hit a spam trap or if recipients report your email as spam.

Even if you miss the email deliverability trap, sending unresponsive subscribers can negatively affect how your email is displayed within your subscribers' inboxes. Most of the major ISPs now use engagement metrics to decide whether to put your email into higher up in the inbox (e.g. Gmail) or into the recipient's junk folder (e.g. Hotmail). ISPs put this practice in place to tackle inbox clutter cased by Bacn, As such, your email may never even be seen by inactive subscribers.

This leads us to the final argument: cost. Why bother emailing inactive subscribers if they're never going to see it or respond to it? Better to remove inactive subscribers and save the money. Email may be a cost-effective channel, but it ain't free.

In the blue corner, the challenger, mail'em anyway
The case for continuing to email inactive subscribers centers on two arguments:

1.    You never know when an inactive will become a purchaser
2.    Even if the email doesn't covert, it's still a good advertising vehicle

The first argument hinges around the fact that email marketing is ridiculous cheap when compared to other marketing channels. In most cases, if you can get even a small response by continuing to mail inactive subscribers, you'll see a justifiable ROI. (This is kind of old school thinking, really).
 
The 2nd argument, which is more interesting, is that emails can act as an advertising channel, akin to TV or print advertising. This argument is backed by research by LiveIntent, which showed that people spend will spend as much time reading an email as viewing a commercial, making it a great way to promote brand recognition. Even if subscribers don't open your email, your subject line and from-name will keep your brand top of mind and perhaps the subscriber will purchase offline.Supporters of this brand also point to the fact that display CPM rates are getting closer to email CPMs. So, if you believe in this argument, you should think about email as delivering impressions, rather than just conversions.To refute the deliverability issue, the "mail'em anyway' crowd's strongest argument is that most marketers email marketing programs will vastly outperform spammers in terms of sending reputation and number of spam reports. Because of this, most ISPs will deliver emails to inactives from mainstream marketers.
Judges' scorecards
A spilt decision. There's definite risk to continuously mailing inactive subscribers without any notion to email list hygiene. At Yesmail, we generally recommend that subscribers are removed after 18 months of inactivity (defined as neither opening nor clicking on an email) as clients can really damage their sending reputation.

There's some merit to the argument revenue can be drawn from inactive subscribers; however we'd suggest that marketers develop specific ways to tackle inactive subscribers, rather than treating them the same as engaged subscribers. This is both in terms of email communication strategy, such as sending reactivation campaigns and different offers to inactives, and infrastructure set up, such as moving inactives to a different IP and Domain from the main email file. By doing this, marketers will see better results from mailing inactive subscribers, while still protecting the sender reputation of their most valued email program.

The display argument though is weak; at least when you strictly apply the definition of inactive (not opened or clicked). From-names and subject lines are powerful parts of an overall email experience; however, if a subscriber doesn't open your email, they're a poor vehicle for building brand awareness. They lack the visual impact that all effective advertising channels share. Not only that, but the mail'em anyway crowd forget ISPs are proactively using engagement metrics to clear Bacn from people's inboxes, so inactive subscribers may not even see your From-name or subject line.

For me, I think properly segmenting and targeting inactive subscribers is a more effective strategy than treating them as a potential advertising audience. Email as an advertising channel is a nice idea; but it's really low on the list of priorities.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this subject. Leave a post on this blog or feel free to contact me at marketing@yesmail.com

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Yesmail Market Intelligence recently conducted an IP forensic examination on a top retailer and has identified that their ESP may be using their IP addresses to improve performance of campaigns sent from other marketers. More

The lifeblood of an email program is an IP address.  It's the necessary mechanic buried deep within the email machine that makes delivery possible.  As IP technology continues its evolution and maturation, ISPs are now able to store sending reputation on IP addresses and also the Senders that are using them.  An IP address with a positive reputation is priceless, as it significantly improves an email campaign's chances of reaching the inbox.  Yesmail Market Intelligence recently conducted an IP forensic examination on a top retailer and has identified that their ESP may be using their IP addresses to improve performance of campaigns sent from other marketers.

 

We have uncovered that during the past 12 months, this retailer's email campaigns are being sent from over 19 different IP addresses (see Figure 1).  This seems highly irregular, as programs similar in size to this retailer only require 4-8 IP addresses on average.  Additionally, Yesmail Market Intelligence has detected over 25 other major companies mailing off these same IP addresses (see Figure 2) during the same time that this retailer had used, or was using them to deploy email campaigns. 

 

Retailers, like these, may have no idea their ESP is leveraging their reputable IP addresses and reputation to increase performance of less established marketers and reach recipient inboxes without having first built their own reputation.  Sharepool technology is highly frowned upon by the ISP community and leads to several other deliverability issues long-term. Marketers should always request dedicated IP addresses from their ESP, as it only takes a single marketer with a faulty campaign to cause an entire sharepool to become blocked, or worse, tarnish the reputation of the established marketers using these IPs.   

 

The million dollar question remains: Do these retailers know they are sharing IPs? 

 

Curious to learn if your IPs are being used by other marketers? Email sales@yesmail.com or contact us directly at 1-877-YESMAIL.

 

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Today Yesmail Professional Services hosted a webinar for our clients called Getting into the in-box: Deliverability in 2010. Deliverability continues to be a top concern and challenge for all email marketers, and since it is a constantly changing landscape it... More

Today Yesmail Professional Services hosted a webinar for our clients called Getting into the in-box: Deliverability in 2010. Deliverability continues to be a top concern and challenge for all email marketers, and since it is a constantly changing landscape it is important for us to take the time to update our knowledge and stay on top of emerging trends and opportunities.
 
Jason Warnock, Director of Deliverability and Bob Sybydlo, Deliverability Analyst shared some great information about the state of deliverability including compliance, legal and technical challenges all senders face.
 
They helped our clients understand how ISP actions can impact deliverability, what Yesmail does every day to help our client's get their email delivered, and what steps senders need to take to ensure their email gets into the in-box.
 
Key topics covered included:

• Email authentication
• Campaign volume monitoring
• Abuse and hard bounce metric tracking
• How to combat mail stream pollution
• Standard bulking and blocking challenges
• Creative content blocking

It was a great event. If you would like a copy of the presentation, please email me.
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Last week I participated in a webinar with HiveFire sponsored by Online Marketing Connect. Our topic for discussion: Integrated Marketing & Communication. I specifically spoke about integrating email and social marketing to deliver on your marketing goals. Thanks to everyone who joined us! More

By Julie Valenti

Last week I participated in a webinar with HiveFire sponsored by Online Marketing Connect. Our topic for discussion: Integrated Marketing & Communication. I specifically spoke about integrating email and social marketing to deliver on your marketing goals. Thanks to everyone who joined us!

We had nearly 500 registrants and when polled, most folks indicated they hadn't started integrating social into their marketing mix and/or were in the planning stages. This is not surprising. As the channel solutions are shifting and evolving quickly, we're all trying to get a handle on how to harness it's power to help achieve our marketing goals. I mentioned the recent study by ForeSee Results, in which only 25% of the top 100 online retailers have a formal Facebook presence and of those, 25% have less than 10k fans. This is despite the fact that there are 400M+ Facebook users and more than half of all online shoppers use Facebook. So, if you feel behind, don't. But that said, it's time to get going!

I broke the discussion into three components: 1) Weaving social media tactics into your email marketing programs, 2) Feeding your email marketing programs via smart social initiatives and 3) Mapping your integrated digital communications plan. There were lots of good questions, and some we couldn't get to so I've provided some additional information here.

1. Social Media Policy - I recommended drafting a social policy so that the social media experts across your organization are on the same page and you can encourage employees to retweet and promote company happenings. Here's Coca Cola's 3-page social media policy (via viralblog). Andy Sernovitz, a personal favorite of mine, interviewed Adam Brown, head of Social Media at Coca Cola and imparts his own wisdom on SM policies.
   
   
2. Resources for Social Media - we discussed budgetary and resource restrictions when developing social strategies; most often, I'm talking with managers already responsible for email or online media, and social/mobile tactics are simply added responsibility (for now). Our research shows less than 10% of companies have dedicated staff. We see maybe 250 community managers employed today. Our strategic partner, R2i advises to be successful, you need a community manager who can handle online PR situations. Per Page Sands at R2i, "this field will remain small until there is a clear tie between community building/management and ROI." He further add that to build the business case for community, connect the role to the following:
   • Increase in Web traffic (page views, referrals, etc)
   • Reduced lead-to-conversion time
   • Increased distribution of your value prop
   • Higher quality, customer centric products, that get released faster
     
     
3. Targeting high-income, luxury via social - Jetsetter and Gilt Groupe are two examples of how luxury companies have used web, email, social and mobile to target luxury goods to the higher-income bracket. They use Facebook and mobile friendly apps/sites to target customers. Further Gilt Groupe offers a $25 credit for references and accepts members by invitation only (though anyone can obtain an invitation); they have taken the viral component to the next level, all while keeping their product line exclusive. Both heavily use email to target new deals, offering unique daily discounts on high-end goods.

NOTE: for the few of you finding proven success with your integrated digital strategies, I'd love to hear from you! The social mindset is all about sharing and I'd love to swap stories over a virtual beer.

If you'd like to learn more, contact me at interactive@yesmail.com and join the Online Marketing Summit's upcoming conference later this month.

PS - I'm working on a separate post regarding B2B companies and their approach to including social media in their digital communications. Check back soon!
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Wow! In the world of email accidents, I've certainly seen my share. That being said the one below from Expedia certainly rises to the top. Expedia sent an email to assumingly a select group of affected subscribers on Friday, February... More

Wow! In the world of email accidents, I've certainly seen my share. That being said the one below from Expedia certainly rises to the top.

Expedia sent an email to assumingly a select group of affected subscribers on Friday, February 13th letting them know that their email address had been inadvertently unsubscribed. The unsubscription happened due to a one-time "technical issue" that occurred between November 8 and December 5. Expedia has since re-subscribed those users back to a 'subscribed' state.

What is most damning though about this accident is not that it occurred (hey, mistakes happen), but that it took over two months to identify, resolve and communicate the resolution to the affected subscribers.

The issue certainly couldn't have happened at a worse time given seasonality.
Despite the issue, the email below does a good job of communicating the issue with full transparency and providing subscribers a proactive way to opt-out if that is what they so desire.


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Ken Magill from Direct posted a great summary on the "Habeas Fire Sale" today:http://directmag.com/disciplines/email/0812-habeas-fire-sale/A few snippets:"'They were bleeding money' to the tune of millions of dollars a year, said one source who asked not to be identified.""Habeas's investors also apparently... More

Ken Magill from Direct posted a great summary on the "Habeas Fire Sale" today:

http://directmag.com/disciplines/email/0812-habeas-fire-sale/

A few snippets:

"'They were bleeding money' to the tune of millions of dollars a year, said one source who asked not to be identified."

"Habeas's investors also apparently made it a little too clear they wanted out of the deliverability business."

"Those VCs [Habeas's venture capitalist investors] took a bath," said one source."

"Various sources also speculated that Return Path agreed to the deal because Habeas's pricing was so low, it was putting unreasonable downward price pressure on its competitors and the purchase simply takes Habeas out of the picture."

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Suffice it to say, Habeas was a company that was not going anywhere fast and needed an escape pod. It looks like they found one in Return Path.
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