Last week I had the privilege of traveling to beautiful Captiva Island, Florida with my colleagues Jason Warnock, Jordan Mallin, and Matt Gault to represent Yesmail Interactive at the 2012 Email Insider Summit brought to us by MediaPost.  After 4... More

Last week I had the privilege of traveling to beautiful Captiva Island, Florida with my colleagues Jason Warnock, Jordan Mallin, and Matt Gault to represent Yesmail Interactive at the 2012 Email Insider Summit brought to us by MediaPost.  After 4 days of engaging content and conversation with email marketing industry professionals, I returned to Chicago enlightened, tanned, and ready to take action and begin implementing key takeaways from the event.

Day 1: The festivities kicked off with an evening cocktail party on Sunset Beach at the South Seas Island Resort, host site of the Summit.  Attendees filed in and mingled in anticipation of the next 3 days of presentations and panels.  The Yesmail team made the most of this opportunity to create buzz around Jason Warnock's Competitive Digital Intelligence presentation on the morning of Day 3 and we were excited to show off the new Yesmail Interactive rebranded logo as we exchanged business cards with email marketing professionals.

Day 2: The theme of the first full day was "The Role of Email In an Integrated Marketing Strategy." The knowledge share focused on how email marketing is essential for brands to market effectively and the internal struggles many email marketers have within organizations to convey the value email plays in an overall marketing mix.  As a part of the integrated marketing discussion, the topic of how utilizing data can power more intelligent marketing and where email data fits in the fold was debated.  The presentations and panels wrapped as everyone in the room was left chewing on all the integrated marketing tips and ideas around leveraging data to gain a competitive advantage.  After the learnings of day 2, the Yesmail team was excited and anxious for the next morning to discuss gaining a competitive advantage through competitive intelligence.

Day 3: No better way to start a day centered around "Hot Topics in Email Marketing" than with a Yesmail sponsored breakfast and Jason Warnock's Competitive Digital Intelligence presentation, but not before kudos from the moderator and a round of applause from the gallery for Yesmail's rebranding efforts.  The audience was captivated and intrigued by the data and premise of Yesmail's Market Intelligence tool, leaving no brand in attendance not wondering what their competitive set looks like in this one of kind, centralized digital marketing campaign platform.  After all the conversation on day 2 around how to power more intelligent and relevant interactions with a brand's customers, it was clear that Yesmail was truly embracing and providing a tangible path to achieve this goal for our partners.  The day continued with presentations and discussions around testing, email append theory, and ROI attribution.  Roundtables focused on a variety of topics but the buzz around the "Competitive Advantage Through Customer Insight" table centered around how Yesmail is the first ESP to embrace the significance of understanding your competition in today's flooded marketing world. 

Day 4: The final day focused on "Channel Integration."  Yesmail provided a great conversation starter with the Yesmail Market Intelligence analysis on day 3 of an example retailer competitive set's social campaigns and strategy.  As effective social integrations and theories were presented, it continued to drive home the importance of understanding and utilizing a solution like Yesmail Market Intelligence to make sure your brand isn't missing out on an opportunity to further engage your customer base.  Lastly the emerging area of mobile was introduced and debated as another area email marketers need to better understand the opportunity that exists via this communication format.

All and all, the Email Insider's Summit was an exciting event where I was able to learn a lot from other fellow email marketers nd Yesmail was able to showcase our unique approach to servicing our customers.  The rebranding efforts and development around new technologies like Market Intelligence was able to create great momentum and energy around the business.   Less

Highlights from 2012's eTail event in Palm Springs. Sound wisdom and surprising digital marketing trends provide thought-provoking material for future campaigns. More

Living in Chicago, when my boss asked me to attend eTail West 2012 in Palm Springs I jumped at the chance. Who can say "No" to a little warm weather mixed in with presentations from some of the best marketers in online retail? As an email marketer, here are a couple of things that I learned from the event:


Mobile experiences still disappoint
There's a lot of talk around the explosion in Smartphone adoption. For me, that's a given, so I was glad many of the presentations at eTail were focused on consumers' experiences and what we can do to improve them.

Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of marketers are still providing disappointing mobile marketing experiences. According to Jeff Lundson, CEO of Limelight Networks, 18% of people who use a mobile device to visit a website give up and end up going to another site. The most common mistakes seem to be load time, bad rendering and lack of product images.

The poor state of mobile experiences was further underlined by a presentation by Robert Cells, CEO of Mybuys. According to their study, 72% of consumers expect personalized merchandise to be presented to them in web and mobile email; however only 32% of marketers delivered personalized communications.

Why we need to get our act together now
Jordan Rohan, analyst at Stilfel Nicolaus, illustrated how bad this was for marketers. His presentation showed that while mobile devices increase the frequency with which people access the internet, the total amount of time they spend online is flat or down. This had led to campaigns receiving lower clicks, fewer conversions, and smaller purchases (see below). This trend is likely to cause significant problems for marketers as more people shift to mobile internet and marketers fail to adapt.As an email marketer, this led me to a few conclusions:

1. Design is paramount. If I don't do so already, I have to ensure that I have mobile-friendly designs for email and landing pages. If my main website isn't mobile-friendly, then it's imperative to develop separate landing pages for clients who I know primarily access email through devices
2. Engagement is becoming more important than ever. In the (very) near future, more people will use mobile devices as their main media consumption device. If people click less on mobile devices, then understanding each individual's level of engagement and tailoring the campaign to match is going to be key to growing my conversion rate.
3. I need to make better use of cross-sell opportunities. If people are making smaller purchases, then, as a digital marketer, I need to increase their frequency of purchase.

It's not ALL about online
As a digital marketer, it's easy to lose contact with the offline side of the business, even though they can sometimes be the source of our greatest breakthroughs.

Steve Zapf and Kirit Sarvaiya from Guitar Center shared a great presentation on how they unleashed the creativity of their in-store sales associates to boost web traffic and sales. In order to provide clients with a more seamless experience, each store location has its own micro-site. Unlike the main website, which is product centric, each micro-site focuses on the staff, and provides them with a space to make recommendations, promote in-store events, blog about the music industry--basically to make a human connection to website visitors. Unfortunately, Guitar Center was not able to share any results because they're a private company, but they did say that this effort has substantially increased their web traffic, since they now produce fresh localized content that Google loves, and increased sales.

Next up was Brian Beitler, CMO of David's Bridal, who encouraged digital marketers to spend more of their time in-store. He shared several stories of how some of his best ideas came from spending a couple of hours each week in one of the David's Bridal stores. In fact, the idea for their very successful "Sketch your Dream Prom Dress" campaign, which helped launch their prom dress business, came when he went shopping with his own daughter for a prom dress, and she wished out loud that she could design her own!

So, those are my highlights from the 3 days I spent at eTail. Some alarming trends mixed in with sound wisdom. If you'd like to see recordings of the presentations, they can be found here. I'd love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to leave a comment.
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I had a chance to chat with Kristin Kleweno and Jason Warnock and got a sneak peek at their deck for the upcoming webinar on February 2nd, 'Digital Channel Analysis: How top retailers used email, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube during... More

I had a chance to chat with Kristin Kleweno and Jason Warnock and got a sneak peek at their deck for the upcoming webinar on February 2^nd, 'Digital Channel Analysis: How top retailers used email, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube during the 2011 Holiday Season' In this webinar, Kristin and Jason provide in-depth analysis and insights from 100 of the top 500 online retailers who were randomly selected based on the key holiday spending periods (Cyber Monday, Black Friday etc.).

When looking back, a record number of email marketing campaigns were sent out to help fuel a sales increase. They did just that, as analysts' reports showed a between 15-20% growth for Cyber Monday alone. After learning this and being a data geek, I couldn't wait for Kristin and Jason to take a deeper dive into the actual data and trends behind retailers' digital approaches this 2011 holiday season.

A few exciting trends they focused on (just a few):

1. What percentage of marketers were integrating their email strategy with social media
2. How marketers leveraged email,  Facebook, Twitter and YouTube differently throughout the key holiday spending  periods
3. Average number of emails, tweets and Facebook postings each retailer sent/posted
4. On the social side, growth of fan bases, posting and engagement activity
5. Top 5 retailers in size, growth and engagement with their social networks

Needless to say there is some exciting data and trends they plan on sharing, and while I was sworn to secrecy to not spoil all of them in this post, I am able to share a few of trends from the top 100 retail marketers.

1. Overall Marketing  deployment volume was in line with consumer buying behavior
2. Retailers on average sent out 3 Facebook posts for every 1 email
3. Retailers on average sent out 6 Tweets for every 1 email
4. Facebook fan bases over Holiday period grew at an average of 6%

So as you continue to put strategies in place for 2012, there is no better period to learn executable strategies than the busiest and most exciting time of the year for digital marketers, the holiday season.

Be sure to register and join them tomorrow at 11am PT (1pm CT, 2pm ET) to learn and gain insights that will impact your digital marketing strategies for 2012 and beyond. Less

Last week we won an OMMA Award for Best Standalone Email Creative for a campaign that we designed for HP called "HP Recycles". Over the last ten years we have had a lot of fun designing amazing, award-winning creative... More

Last week we won an OMMA Award for Best Standalone Email Creative for a campaign that we designed for HP called "HP Recycles". Over the last ten years we have had a lot of fun designing amazing, award-winning creative for our clients. This is our fourth creative award in the last 12 months - something I believe no other Email Service Provider can attest to.

Check out the winner.

Email creative as a whole has certainly improved over the years; however, it is still striking how little attention some marketers pay toward it. As a marketer, your creative is ultimately your brand and how you choose to represent yourself to the world. A client like HP, Coca-Cola, or the other OMMA winners (Walt Disney, Delta, REI, Hilton Hotels, Nike, Ford, etc) has placed a value on their brand that is clearly above others.

Don't lose heart though... for those companies unable to invest in the same way as an HP or Coca-Cola, there are several simple design strategies that can be utilized to ensure you are building customer loyalty and selling your story. In fact we recently published a white paper on this topic that is very good.

Check it out. Less

Hard to pass up that headline... AOL Mail's fourth annual Email Addiction survey has some interesting results including the strange places people check email, including:• In bed in their pajamas: 67% • From the bathroom: 59% (up from 53% last... More

Hard to pass up that headline... AOL Mail's fourth annual Email Addiction survey has some interesting results including the strange places people check email, including:

• In bed in their pajamas: 67%
• From the bathroom: 59% (up from 53% last year)
• While driving: 50% (up from 37% last year)
• In a bar or club: 39%
• In a business meeting: 38%
• During happy hour: 34%
• While on a date: 25%
• From church: 15% (up from 12% last year)

Suffice it to say that we are addicted to email. As a non-recovering addict I too fall victim to these irresistible urges... all the more reason to consider email communications based on time. For example, sending users real-time and/or event based communications based on their activity and interactions with you.

Check out the full survey results.
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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

Yesterday Forrester announced their acquisition of Jupiter Research. Big news for the email marketing space!! Over the past several years both companies have become the heavyweights of 'email outside expert opinion'. A fact companies have grown to love and fear.... More

Yesterday Forrester announced their acquisition of Jupiter Research.

Big news for the email marketing space!! Over the past several years both companies have become the heavyweights of 'email outside expert opinion'. A fact companies have grown to love and fear.

In one corner, JupiterResearch offers David Daniels an 8+ year industry veteran who has analyzed the email space longer than most people knew of its existence. David has written an annual Buyers Guide on the Email Marketing channel for several years. The report is quite unique in that it has provided information on email vendors across the Enterprise, Mid-Market and Small Market channels. Yesmail has been ranked a leader by David for three consecutive years.

In the other corner, Forrester offers a lineage of great analysts covering the space. The original Forrester analyst Jim Nail provided a solid foundation of great insight and knowledge. Shar VanBoskirk picked up the reigns from Jim and created a buzz in the industry with her direct opinions and ever present appearances on the speaker tour. Following up on Shar, Forrester's newest analyst, Julie Katz has brought a grounded, highly thoughtful approach and intellect to the position. Julie's most recent Wave report listed Yesmail as a market leader - awarding us a perfect score in 15 subcategories.

Suffice it to say it will be quite interesting to see how these organizations and these analysts mesh. Will they both remain focused on email or will we lose an analyst voice? After talking with people within both organizations the word is that it is "business as usual", which I'm sure that it is... for now...

Don't be surprised to see some interesting shifts and changes in the next 30-90 days. Less