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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Hot off the press - Return Path is further consolidating the deliverability services space by announcing its intent to acquire Habeas. The acquisition should help reduce the confusion in the market surrounding the various deliverability service providers. Matt Blumberg the... More

Hot off the press - Return Path is further consolidating the deliverability services space by announcing its intent to acquire Habeas. The acquisition should help reduce the confusion in the market surrounding the various deliverability service providers.

Matt Blumberg the CEO and Chairman of Return Path published this key info in his blog today:

"For sender clients, we can now offer expanded service levels and access to a broader "footprint" of ISPs and filters who subscribe to our services. The consolidated company will be one step closer to providing a universal set of standards for measuring sender-focused email quality and reputation...The one thing we do know at this point is that we will be maintaining both Sender Score Certified and the Habeas SafeList as separate and distinct whitelist programs indefinitely."

We recently announced a partnership with Return Path offering their Sender Score Certified Program to our clients. Several clients who have been initial users of the program have seen great improvement in overall program performance including increased open and click rates.

Return Path's key competitor and the remaining force in the world of deliverability, Pivotal Veracity, remains a strong partner of ours. Several of our clients routinely take advantage of their inbox monitoring and content optimization tools.

It will be interesting to see how this acquisition drives the further development of both Return Path and Pivotal Veracity.

More to come for sure... Less