Choosing a top tier email service provider (ESP) can be tough. With so many ESPs to choose from, each with their strengths, it can be challenging to make head-to-head comparisons.

That's why last year we published a seminal whitepaper on how to rate ESPs, to help email marketers make an ESP choice based on the factors most important to their own organization and their unique requirements…not on any one ESP's selling points. The whitepaper was immediately popular. Apparently marketers were hungry for that kind of objective information.

This year we updated the whitepaper and turned it into an annual guide, to stay current with the ever-changing world of email and ESPs. This new free, vendor-neutral guide to ESPs offers an unbiased yet exhaustive list of criteria complete with explanations about the significance of each factor.

It's so impartial, it doesn't even mention a single ESP by name. Rather than focus on telling you what this or that ESP can or can't do, we've focused on your needs. We have 19 different things to consider when choosing an ESP based on what you need, not on what a particular ESP offers. It's unlike any other ESP selection guide you've seen and its based on our 10 years of reselling and implementing the industry's top-tier solutions.

To revise the whitepaper and make it new and improved as an annual guide, we:

• Re-evaluated all 20 factors in light of email marketing in 2010. Based on that assessment, we significantly beefed up the integration information throughout
• Removed four factors and added three:

1. Data management tools
2. Integration with add-on services
3. Social media integration

• Reorganized the factors alphabetically for better usability and objectivity

The guide now covers 19 of the most important considerations involved with ESP selection. For each of the factors, we've included details about why it matters and what to look for. The significance of each will vary from organization to organization. That's why we've also kept the scoring sheet that was included with the original whitepaper. It will help you compare ESPs based on what's important to your organization and your goals.

Publishing an updated ESP guide annually—rather than one whitepaper once—will enable us to keep the guide up-to-date with shifting trends and technologies, so no matter the year, you'll have a vendor-neutral guide to, well, guide you.

Your ESP choice is critical to your success. Choose wisely. Choose well. And choose to start your selection process with this guide in hand.

Download the 2010 guide to choosing a top tier ESP.


- Marco Marini
CEO
ClickMail Marketing

This week Facebook will begin giving marketers the ability to collect email address from users of our Facebook applications.  This is welcome news and opens up a world of possibilities for creating integrated programs that leverage the strengths of each channel to drive business objectives and richer customer experiences.  Currently, applications communicate with users through Facebook notifications - a constrained inbox with few opportunities for meaningful direct communications and limited opportunities for monetization.  After Wednesday, marketers will have the ability to make email permission optional, or a mandatory requirement of an application, and may no longer post notifications from applications.  This development opens up an exciting new way for Facebook marketers to interact with and ultimately monetize social audiences.  

An example of the optional prompt:


 

And mandatory:


Facbook will be supporting this change by encouraging users to share their email addresses with applications, and will be posting dialog boxes like the one below on every canvas page a user visits for their first three sessions.


 

On the Developer wiki, Facebook clearly articulates the policies senders must adhere to:

Draft Policies

a. You must not give or sell users' email addresses to any third party or affiliate.
b. You must comply with the provisions of the Federal Trade Commission's CAN-SPAM Act and all other applicable spam laws (e.g., provide a visible and operable unsubscribe mechanism and honor opt-out requests within 10 days).
c. You must explain clearly to users, in a privacy policy or elsewhere in a conspicuous place, how you will use their email addresses.
d. Emails you send must clearly indicate that they are from you and must not appear to be from Facebook or anyone else. For example, you must not include Facebook logos or brand assets in your emails, and you must not mention Facebook in the subject line, "from" line, or body header.
e. All emails to users must originate from the same domain, and you must provide us with the name of that domain in the Facebook Developer application used to manage your application.

As we kick off 2010, it's hard to argue that the most exciting force in the email marketing space is the rapid adoption of social networks and the opportunities that exist for those who are able to develop truly integrated programs.  Much has been written in this blog about social media, and though virtually everyone is excited by the possibilities, most of us are still in the relatively early phases of determining the best strategies and tactics for our programs.  Few in the space can point to quantifiable success stories.  This development gives social marketers a powerful, proven tool for engaging and monetizing audiences, and I look forward to seeing how we capitalize on the opportunity.

Read more on the Facebook Developer Wiki and please comment below or reach out to me directly to continue the conversation - 2010 is going to be a big one for email [the original and largest social network].

- Nicholas Einstein
Director of Strategic & Analytic Services
Datran Media

As CEO of ClickMail Marketing, part of my job is keeping up with, and even ahead of, trends and changes in the email marketing industry. In a world like ours, technology and tastes can change in a flash, leaving the unsuspecting email marketer playing catch-up once he or she finally does catch on. Spotting email marketing trends becomes, therefore, less of a fun guessing game and more of a critical strategic process.

The common theme in 2010 as I see it is integration. To me, this indicates email's lasting power, as it becomes more and more entrenched in the marketing framework. No longer is email a standalone messaging medium or marketing tool. Now more than ever, email is becoming the backbone of marketing, enduring and evolving…and proving its worth one message at a time.

Below are the trends we at ClickMail Marketing see as the most important for this coming year. You won't find any rocket science-level complexity in this list, because by now you've at least been exposed to all of these trends even if you haven't yet acted on them. But this coming year will be the time to take the next step: start implementing now, or be left behind. Far behind. 

Integration with social networking sites and tools
Email still reigns supreme as a marketing tool, but to keep pace with the rapidly changing world of technology and cultural expectations, it must integrate with social networking tools. That's the only way you can hope to communicate with all audiences, as some stay with email for communication and others move to social media. Integration with social media extends your reach, as people share your content and therefore expand your exposure. (And sharing is what social media is all about, so make sure your content is worthy of sharing!)

Integration with add-on services like CertifiedEmail
Email is still the strongest messaging platform out there, despite cries of its demise. One characteristic that makes it so strong is the ubiquity of email. It is everywhere, truly. And as technologies are developed, it integrates more and more with add-on services, services like video in your email marketing and Goodmail's CertifiedEmail.

Integration with the new data management tools
Major ISPs are making decisions about which emails are spam based on if and how recipients interact with an email. That means their interaction is directly influencing your deliverability. You have to have the tools to manage your data to meet these new standards, tools that move you beyond open rates to data that really matters, like Pivotal Veracity's Mailbox IQ that helps you measure audience engagement. But these new tools must integrate with your existing email platform.

Speaking of trends and staying current with changes in the email marketing industry, stay tuned for our soon-to-be-released 2010 guide to choosing a top tier ESP.

Marco Marini
CEO
ClickMail Marketing

Does a personalized subject line work?

Back in my Bronto days, I blogged about personalized subject lines. I provided a generic "It depends" as my answer ... followed by a more detailed explanation. Since that post more than a year ago, I've continued to receive emails that include personalized subject lines. However, most of those emails use my first name as the "hook" to get me to open. This never works for me. Never. I know it's fake. I know it's not genuine. I know it's a "mail merge" of sorts.

Then, the other day, I received this email from Spreadshirt.

Why This Email Rocks

First off, I love Spreadshirt. I love their emails. I love their subject lines. I love their products. I love their humor. Love. Love. Love. So what makes this email rock? Check out the subject line (Durham Rocks!). At some point, I must have entered my city of residence in a preference field. I honestly can't recall doing so, but the folks at Spreadshirt somehow know (I moved from Durham 4 months ago. More on that later).

Spreadshirt accomplished objective #1. I opened the email. Why? Because - even though I don't still live there - I love Durham. It does rock.

Spreadshirt accomplished objective #2. I read the email. The entire thing. Why did I read it? First off, it was short and to the point. It had a main call to action ("Create Your Hometown Shirt") that was clear and catchy. They added a bit of spice/humor to the copy. They closed with 4 ways to follow them via various social networks.

Assuming those were really the first two objectives, they won. Now, I didn't click. I didn't create my own shirt. But...I did write this blog post. I did tell a few friends about it. I will continue to love Spreadshirt. And, equally as important, when the time is right, I will buy from Spreadshirt. They are definitely "top of mind."

Some Caveats

I'd be remiss if I didn't offer some constructive criticism for Spreashirt. I have 3 suggestions.

1. Images Off: The email is not terrible if images are not enabled, but it's not great. Here's why - the main call to action "Create Your Hometown Shirt" - is a button and therefore is not visible unless images are turned on. It should be a bulletproof button (Ask Lisa Harmon).

2. I Don't Live in Durham Anymore: This is not really Spreadshirt's fault. I mean, how would they know I moved 4 months ago? That being said, don't forget to send the occasional email that asks subscribers to update their preferences. Make sure you tell them why and what's in it for them.

3. Follow Spreadshirt On...: I love this concept. They have buttons/images and links. They describe briefly what I'll get (set expectations). They cover the main "social networks"  - Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr. However, Spreadshirt may want to consider moving these "follow" options up a bit. Mabye put them on the right or left navigation? They may get lost a little on the bottom of the email.

---------

So what do you think? Does Spreadshirt rock? For those that live or have lived in Durham, does Durham rock? (I think so).


- DJ Waldow, Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
DJ Waldow is the Director of Community at Blue Sky Factory, an ESP and an eec Silver Sponsor based in Baltimore. With over 4 years of experience in email marketing, DJ is active in the twittersphere (@djwaldow), on blogs (blog.blueskyfactory.com), and in the social media space. He's an administrator and a regular contributor to the Email Marketers Club and other email-related social networks. DJ resides in Salt Lake City, Utah where he can be found thinking, eating, and breathing email.

Man. It must be tough to be a financial institution in 2009. I'm not referring to the current financial crisis. I'm talking about trying to convince consumers that the email you are sending is legitimate (not spam, not phishing).

My wife and I recently moved into a new home in Salt Lake City. We used Bank of America for our mortgage. A few weeks after signing the paperwork, I received the following email

eec Superstar, Lisa Harmon has written about the preheader in the past. Fellow Smith-Harmon guy, Chad White also talks about it often. However, I've never seen a company use that valuable real estate to tell people an email they are about to read is NOT spam. Interesting.

Why This Technique May Work
Hey, you've gotta give credit for Bank of America for not giving up on email marketing as a engagement channel. While I may have historically marked this as spam out of habit, I didn't this time. Was it because of the timing of their email (I just secured a B of A Mortgage)? Was it because they told me the email was NOT spam? Who knows.

I wonder what their open vs. unsubscribe/spam ratios looked like for this campaign. Did they do some A|B testing on that big red box telling me "This is NOT spam"? Maybe that phrase works for some, maybe for the majority. So, Bank of America - did this work?

Why This Technique May Fail
Telling me something is NOT spam makes me think even more that it IS spam. That's what spammers and phishers do. "Please trust us. We're the good guys, the guys with the white hats." Yeah, right. I trust you. Also, if you have to tell me something is NOT something I think it may be, well...you're already starting behind. As mentioned above, that preheader / above-the-fold area is what usually is seen first. Bank of America wants me to complete the survey, but I may be caught up on the fact that this email is or is NOT spam.

A Few Other Thoughts
1. Using the data: Bank of America sent me a few of these survey emails. Notice the subject line leads with the word "Reminder." I love this. Ideally, they are using data to know I haven't completed the survey yet. They seem to be using this information to remail me (and others?). A great strategy.

2. Images on vs. off: Using a link as opposed to a button ensures that I'm more likely to see it with images off. Yes!

3. Copy (the good): I liked that they started by congratulating me. I realize this is not "personalized" per se, but it was a nice way to start. They build upon my feel-good attitude with a thank you in the first paragraph. The email continues by setting my expectations around time (10 minutes) and why they are asking me to complete ("measure and learn"). Finally, it closes with a signature from Peggy, the SVP of CEE. Good touch.

4. Copy (the bad):

• I realize mergers & acquisitions can cause marketing headaches. They are tough to communicate and can be confusing to the consumer. I applaud their effort to make me aware of the Countrywide acquisition, but I'm now a bit thrown off. I've never heard of Countrywide.
• "Please do not reply to this email" - a big pet peeve of mine. They just spent a ton of copy congratulating and thanking me, then asking me to take 10 minutes out of my life to complete their survey. Yet...now they don't want me to reply as they are "not able to respond..." Oops.
• Bank of America wants me to complete the survey. However, the link to the begin is at the bottom. Toss in the link in the preheader. Or, how about adding a link within the body copy? Don't make me work for it. Remember, I'm doing you a favor.

Dear Bank of America - If you are listening, we'd love to talk more. Are any other financial institutions attempting this approach? Do share...

- DJ Waldow, Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory

DJ Waldow is the Director of Community at Blue Sky Factory, an Email Service Provider based in Baltimore. With over 4 years of experience in email marketing, DJ is active in the twittersphere (@djwaldow), on blogs (blog.blueskyfactory.com), and in the social media space. He's an regular contributor to the Email Marketers Club and other email-related social networks. DJ resides in Salt Lake City, Utah where he can be found thinking, eating, and breathing email.

The eec Email Design Roundtable recently spent some time discussing an industry hot topic: the integration of email marketing and social networking.

Social networking generally makes its way into email in two primary ways:
(1) Through appeals in email for subscribers to join an existing social network.
and
(2) "Share with Your Network" (SWYN) invitations for subscribers to share email content with their networks. While these are each fairly simple, there are important creative and strategic considerations that contribute to email success, as well as innovative ways to bring user-generated content (UGC) into email.

Each Design Roundtable member offered fresh insights and ideas to the evolving body of best practices around social optimization in email. Below is a summary of key points from the conversation:

I've been hearing a lot of questions surrounding the best application of social media to the marketing mix, but one that has been slightly overlooked and under-discussed is who should really own it within an organization. And until you can figure that out, it is really difficult to hold any one internal resource responsible for devising a solid and actionable social plan.

To that end, StrongMail Systems recently conducted a survey to see how marketers were approaching the social space and who planned to own the channel. More than 500 marketers responded, and the results validated our suspicions. Social media is emerging as a direct marketing channel, and marketers are planning significant investment in email marketing and social media programs in the second half of 2009.

One thing the survey clearly conveyed is that ownership of social media within the various facets of marketing is still up for grabs, with 29% of respondents stating that responsibility is owned by multiple departments. But for 36% of the respondents, social is owned by the direct marketing organization, which allows for significant alignment with email marketing efforts. Social media was initially seen as a terrific vehicle for public relations, but surprisingly only 9% of respondents reported PR organizations owning the social media channel, which suggests that marketing teams value social media more for its demand generation potential than awareness building. A paltry 5% have a dedicated social media department.

Other notable facts from the survey include:

"In 2008 marketers tripped over themselves to embrace social media tactics, with varying degrees of success. In 2009, a tactic that isn't a "sure thing" drops to the bottom of the marketing to-do list. We'll see a social media shakeout, with useful social media tactics growing in popularity and offering more possibilities, and others retiring or morphing (see "Goodbye Pownce, Hello Six Apart" or "Twitter's Bad News Is a Bad Business.").

This is a natural and necessary evolution, and in due time (and better days to come) it will help creative marketers prove the value of social media to skeptical CMOs."

The item above was my few prediction about the year ahead, made in last month's Marketing Watchdog Journal. Another prediction, from Bulldog VP, Technology Chris Parisi, is worth noting because it applies to a range of technology ― marketing automation, CRM, internal project management ― you might already have in your arsenal.

Chris noted, "With budgets likely to come under much more scrutiny, sales and marketing teams will be forced to get creative with the technology they already have, whether that's marketing automation, CRM, internal wikis and communications options, or all of the above. That's actually an exciting prospect: The necessity of doing more with less can breed some pretty powerful solutions we might not have thought about in easier times."

See other predictions from other Bulldog subject matter experts here.

- Amy Bills, Bulldog Solutions

It's a much debated number, but common marketing research (read: marketing urban legend) says the average person is exposed to 3,000 ads every day. Yet, while even most marketers complain about the shear volume of ads, we continue to add to the problem. Consumers and business people, however, aren't just struggling to find time to recognize the value from the chaff. We're all trying to keep track of the new ways to communicate with each other and the brands with which we do business. Managing our inbox has become a chore.

A decade ago I didn't need email, now I can't seem to get along without email, mobile email, text messaging, social networks…and most recently, Twitter. (Actually, I can do without Twitter, but I'm trying to play along). Younger people are significantly heavier users of text messaging and social networks when communicating with friends. Yet, even for this demographic, if one solution to tie all of these messaging tools together exists, it is certainly email. It has become the one-box portal. Not only does email cover bank statements, promotions, messages from friends, order confirmations, and newsletters…increasingly it is the gateway to social networks as it updates when someone reaches out on Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn.

Our joint research with Ball State's Center for Media Design showed that teens are more responsive to promotions via email than they are via social networks. Yet, the multitude of comments we received on our research, many commented on the need for a convergence of these media. One comment to a TwistImage blog commentary on the notion that "no one uses email anymore" said:

"I'm 23 years old—I probably receive a large majority of my messages through social networks (I don't have the email addresses of a number of friends—we keep in touch via Facebook), but email remains a vital hub for managing communications. Keeping up with all of the messages on these fragmented sites would be nearly impossible if alerts weren't sent to one central inbox. If email can maintain its position as a hub, it will stay relevant."

Will email continue to be the "hub," the one inbox to rule them all? I think there are many reasons to think it will. The first is the fact that it is ubiquitous—and certainly 99% of the population can't be wrong. It is similar to me to compare how English became the international language…not because it was better, just because it was already ubiquitous.

How do you leverage this as a marketer? Continue to ask for permission and ensure you are reaching your audience at their "preferred" inbox. Over time, they all may be the same inbox anyway.

—Chip House of ExactTarget

The Truth about Email Marketing, an email marketing book by Simms Jenkins, eec member and the CEO of BrightWave Marketing, will hit book stores on Aug. 1. Ahead of the release, the eec's Chad White had the opportunity to ask Simms about the book and the truths he reveals:

Chad: What is the most surprising "truth" in your book?

Simms: This will depend on the reader but for many email newbies making the transition from direct marketing or another world, Truth 21: Length and Your Call to Action may be surprising to some. So many emails I receive these days are brutally long and bury the calls to action. I think many major retailers are guilty of taking their offline ad campaigns and forcing them into email templates. Frankly, that doesn't work, so hopefully this truth sheds some light on optimizing layouts and messaging.

I also cover what the future of email (Truth 49) and what it may look like. This may have surprising thoughts for many. Here's the complete list of truths.

What are some of the email marketing myths that you debunk?

One of the most important and obvious to you and your readers may be the notion of permission email and how that draws a line in the sand of where you stand in utilizing email marketing. It must be a part of any conversation about email marketing regardless of your knowledge and experience. I think some people forget and that is an important part in setting up this book as an end-to-end guide about what makes a successful email marketing program.

On the other end of the spectrum, I address how email marketing can exist within the current world where social media grabs much of the spotlight (Truth 48: The Impact of Social Media on Email). The truth is we always hear about how email is on its deathbed but it still acts as the communication hub for many companies and specifically, should get a major boost because of the popularity of LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

Email marketing is evolving quite quickly. To which recent change have people been the slowest to adapt?

I am still utterly shocked about how email marketers fail to change and adapt to a world where 50% of consumers block images. One would think that companies would change their messaging strategy, optimize their creative and deal with this very significant and real challenge. However, many are not.

Your recent study that cited tangible revenue that is left on the table should get people's attention, but I have my doubts. I speak quite frequently to diverse audiences and meet with some of the top corporations and many are flying blind or clueless when it comes to how their emails render in many of their subscribers inboxes. What if their TV commercials were showing up blank during prime time? Do you think they would address that?

The most shocking aspect of this issue is when I am told that the company is aware of their emails showing up as a red X with no links, branding and messaging but they have their hands tied due to political and organizational issues. That screams to me the need for more education, awareness and participation with groups like the eec.

What's your best advice for folks that are new to email marketing?

The best part of our industry is the amount of great thought-leadership and free resources. Whether it is your blog, the eec newsletter, Email Marketing Reports, EmailStatCenter.com—the list goes on and on. You can find many of the best listed on the book's companion website's resource center. The amount of places to learn and network from peers is incredible. It is pretty unique to have an industry where so many high-level executives blog frequently—and not just fluffy PR-related blog posts.

The other exciting thing about diving into our industry is because it is still relatively a young one and changes so frequently, the opportunity to have an impact on your company and the industry is a very real and attractive one. We need so many more passionate and energetic professionals, so it is a place that one can enter today and become a leader rather quickly given the right situation. That can't be said for all industries.

Email marketing's reputation as being "cheap" often leads to budgets that are undersized compared to email's ROI. Do you have any advice for helping marketers communicate the value of email to their bosses so that they can get larger budgets?

The Truth about Email Marketing has two entire sections on budgeting and ROI and organizing a proper email team so this is covered in depth and is one of the most frequent issues that I tackle on a daily basis. We in the email marketing industry are certainly a victim of our own success, at times, as the depth of measurement and efficiency of email often overshadows the potential for deeper investment and greater sophistication, all of which lead to more relevant and valuable emails for subscribers.

I am a believer in using your metrics to champion your success and your potential. Not enough email marketing pros use their email analytics outside of showing open and click-through rates. The biggest breakthroughs we see with our clients is when we can show the impact email has on broader business goals, like product awareness, loyalty and revenue. CFOs don't care about open rates but you can have their ear when you show the crossover impact and power email can have on a business.

Thanks, Simms.

My pleasure, Chad. And as a special offer to the eec community, I've arranged an exclusive deal through the publisher to make The Truth about Email Marketing available for 25% off, plus free shipping. Just purchase the book through the FT Press store and enter the discount code Emailmark01 during the checkout process.

–>For more books on email marketing by eec members, check out our listing of Books on Email Marketing.

Campaigning online has shifted the political fund-raising paradigm significantly, and forever altered the strategies candidates employ to feed their machines. When we read news stories about this phenomenon, however, we rarely learn exactly what online channel is driving the donations—search, email, social networks, etc. The headlines usually credit "the internet."

Peter Greenberger who runs the Elections & Issue Advocacy group at Google was kind enough to make some time for me recently, and indicated that each of the campaigns is dedicating over 50% of their online marketing budgets to search—with some dedicating well over 50%. What I find most interesting, however, is that the candidates are primarily leveraging paid search to build their email lists.

Barack Obama is, hands down, the most successful online fundraiser. He often raises over a million dollars a day online, and has certainly forced the other candidates to get more sophisticated about how they approach the web. His online strategies definitely seem to be working. So how exactly is he soliciting donations?

Type "obama" into Google and click on the top link, a paid search listing. Where do to you land? The link takes a clicker to a page that features a simple opt-in box asking for name, email, and address, with an adjacent video window featuring a message from the candidate. There is no "donate now" button, or form with various contribution levels, just a simple opt-in box to register to receive updates from the campaign. Mr. Obama realizes that your email address is the most valuable donation you can make, and that with it he can more effectively induce you into making larger, more frequent donations, or solicit your assistance in making phone calls and otherwise promote the campaign. Obama may be spending the majority of his money on search, but it seems from this example, that he may very well be raising most of his money through email.

—Nicholas Einstein of Datran Media

Much has been written in the blogosphere about the strange interview Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave at SXSW last week. A highly enthused audience combined with a poorly executed interview to create a fairly bizarre scene. The audience apparently took charge and relegated the interviewer, Sarah Lacy, to the role of observer. I wasn't in Austin last week, but Joshua Baer, Datran Media's general manager of emerging media, was in the audience and reported back that the interview was indeed out of control. I wish I had been there to witness.

I have been taking special interest in all things Facebook over the past several weeks, as I have been hard at work coming up with strategies for companies to employ when building social networking applications and messaging users who have installed these applications. I believe that the rapid adoption of social networking sites is creating a huge opportunity for emarketers to message some segments of their audience in new and exciting ways. Marketers who are slow to act, or are more skeptical about the power of these networks, however, may be in for a rude awakening.

It is no secret that Facebook and other social networks are changing the way some people interact on the web. For hard core social networking users, these sites have already replaced web portals as the hub of their online experience, and supplanted their email inbox as the primary vehicle for staying in touch with their friends and the world around them. This is a simple fact.

I am not saying that Facebook will replace email as the dominant social networking application for everyone—email is the original social networking application, and by far the most popular—but I am here to report that it probably already has for some segments of your list. And don't assume that it's only the underage segments. Charlene Li's January 7, 2008, Forrester Research "Youth and Social Networks" slides indicate that while the young certainly engage with these sites at a deep level (62% of those surveyed managed their online profile at least weekly), older members managed their profiles only slightly less frequently (54% managing at least weekly). Online social networking is not simply a youth phenomenon.

If you spend a few weeks immersed in a social networking site, you may understand why. Sharing photos is a pleasure, communicating with friends is easy, and marketers/groups only communicate with their users by sending useful, relevant opt-in messaging.

As email marketers we must be at the forefront of communicating with social networking audiences. These sites represent new inbox opportunities and it's our duty to determine how best to leverage them on behalf of our companies, clients and users. We are well versed in efficiently segmenting audiences and executing relevant campaigns, now we need to figure out how to extend our reach to all inboxes, or risk missing the boat.

How many of you are focused on the social networking sites? Do you have strategies in place for messaging these users? Has your company tested a Facebook strategy and gleaned interesting results? Either comment below, or email me directly at neinstein@datranmedia.com with your story, I am quite interested in learning more, and will incorporate any comments I receive in a future post on the subject.

—Nicholas Einstein of Datran Media

We asked the Voices of Email to look into their crystal balls and foretell what 2008 had in store for the email marketing industry. Here are their predictions:

Stephanie Miller of Return Path:
#1 - Email Marketers, if you want to keep your job, segment your file. I was hoping that last year would be the year that we'd see more targeted, tailored, relevant campaigns and less batch and blast. Not sure that happened, although I was half right in that we certainly saw MORE segmentation and targeting than in 2006.

Why will email marketers lose their job if they don't do it now? Because the email channel is more expensive than ever, and there are too many risks to brand and customer satisfaction and loyalty. Unhappy email subscribers—all that dead wood on your file—is not just a missed opportunity, it's a liability. Engaging with those folks is going to take more time and effort in creative and list hygiene and segmentation than ever before. To get those budgets, the email marketer has to prove the channel. To prove the channel, the email messages have to be a lot more relevant. To be relevant, they must be segmented. Thankfully, the technology and best practices are already in place and proven. We just need to set our minds to it.

#2 - The Data Capture form goes multichannel. We'll see more and more email marketers open up their data capture form to include permission to contact via SMS and mobile marketing. Building up the database with these contact touch points will be increasingly important as more marketers start to test the efficacy of those channels.

#3 - Transactions will become touchpoints sometimes too hot to handle. More email marketers are going to push the envelope on turning transactional messages into marketing opportunities. The receivers and FTC will get stricter on standards, potentially causing trouble for some senders. With the need to dynamically create, message and track these messages, ESPs will aggressively go after the transactional email market to build their base and capture higher share of wallet.

Chip House of ExactTarget: Increasing focus on subscriber engagement. When emphasizing the importance of list hygiene, David Daniels of Jupiter Research often compares mailing the portion of your list that hasn't opened or clicked on your emails in several months to "flying an advertisement over a ghost town." Many marketers are realizing the benefits to their success potential via email by truly understanding which segments of their list are responding, and which aren't. The non-responsive segments drag down your deliverability and ROI, and waste your time. This is something that I like to call the "ignore rate." Marketers that ignore the needs of their subscribers, send irrelevant communications, or make other blunders leading to dissatisfied subscribers, drive a higher ignore rate.

Most sophisticated email marketers now closely track their open and click rates, and more are even tracking subscriber spam complaints by ISP. However, it is often what you don't see that can be most harmful to your deliverability and campaign ROI. More marketers are beginning to see the benefits of closely analyzing the portion of their customer base that IS NOT paying attention. By doing so they can better reactivate them, opt them in again, or discard them—all to the benefit of their response rates and ROI.

2008 is about flying hundreds of planes, towing just the right message, over hundreds of small cities.

Amy Bills of Bulldog Solutions: I think we will see some shaking out in the use of social media for lead generation. Right now, a lot of companies are really struggling to understand what works and what can be integrated into their existing strategies. Is a blog, a podcast, RSS, an online community, a presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. going to be worth the effort and resources? How can you even measure their effect on your objectives? And of course, what works for one company is not going to be the same formula for another. Some have the impulse to try everything. Others want to bury their heads in the sand and deny the landscape is changing at all. A third group is experimenting and trying to be smart about making good choices, thinking about what their prospects will respond to and how to make social media enhance what they are already doing.

After Paul Dunay joined Bulldog in November for a webinar on making sense of social media for BtoB marketing, he made a comment that really stuck with me. "[The question isn't] if social media is right for your company, but which social media is right for your company. And at this point in time and state of your company, you need to determine which social media is right for your company for next year. A year from now, the picture may look very different. And the answer to which social media is right for your company will be different for each company. My advice is look into next year with an eye toward experimenting with a few tactics to begin to get yourself and your team up to speed."

So, I predict that more marketers will ease into that third group, and start to get smarter about social media. And by "smarter" I mean more creative and experienced about how to make tactics work and measure their results, and brave enough to admit when a particular tactic might not work.

Tricia Robinson of StrongMail Systems: The email space gets larger and faster daily. With this growth comes change, and I predict we'll experience much change in 2008.

Automation Becomes The New Buzzword. We've lived through closing-the-loop, 1to1 digi-dialogues, and deliverability. Look for campaign automation to catch-on in 2008. We're seeing more clients rapidly move in this direction. Those that already have are realizing the time/cost benefits of auto-generated programs.

The Final Sunset for the Old Homegrowns. The replacement of the original homegrown system has been a trend since 2006. However, this year we'll see the last of the first homegrown systems built by Web 1.0 companies and those that thought "email is easy, we'll make our own." Some organizations will always custom-build, but most have done it on top of something more sophisticated than generic MTAs.

All Outbound Customer Email Includes Marketing. Even if it's the inclusion of a logo, all outbound customer email (transactional, customer service, promotional, etc.) will include a touch of marketing. According to MarketingSherpa in mid-2007, 90% of email marketers planned to overhaul their transactional email in the next 12 months. Not sure if they will meet their own deadline by June, but look for an improvement in the look of all outbound email. I'm not crazy enough to predict the death of the text email, but maybe next year.

Still More Acquisitions. 2004-2006 were large vendor consolidation years in our space. I argue that 2007 was the year of the IPO. Now with more cash and CNBC viewers to consider, look for Constant Contact and ExactTarget to make purchases that round out their offerings or extend their reach into new markets.

Unlike many, I like change. It's good to shake things up as long as the goal is always towards improvement. Happy New Year!

Chad White of the eec: 2008 will be the year that retailers and other B2C marketers increase the transparency of their email programs and relinquish more control to subscribers. In 2007 we saw more retailers allow potential subscribers to view a sample email before signing up. More also offered emails on different topics or allowed some level of content preference selection—which is key to elevating relevancy. Consumers are getting very used to having more control over how they're marketed to, and email will be forced to fall in line over time. On the upside, giving consumers more control over content and frequency, and being more upfront about those aspects of their email programs, should generate more lifetime value from subscribers. Although eventually we'll see this kind of control move to the front end, during 2008 we'll start to see it more and more on the tail end of the relationship when subscribers are fed up and trying to opt out. Rather than lose subscribers, more marketers will give up control over frequency and other elements to boost retention.

During 2008 we'll also see retailers pay more attention to content—product reviews, videos of product demonstrations and fashion shows, blogs, articles, podcasts, etc.—and do a better job of leveraging it in their email channels.

As email marketing continues to evolve, the way we think about email must also evolve. Email has become the way that almost every one of our consumers not only communicates, but manages their lives. This means that as marketers and advertisers we must create email communications that not only facilitate fantastic relationships, but also integrate seamlessly into the lifestyle and personal management choices our customers employ.

Email is more successful when it is not used in a vacuum. Even if the integration is as simple as acknowledgement and awareness of other media elements the consumer may interact with (social networks, blogs, search, display, print, TV), email is much more powerful when it can generate engagement with other modes of communication.

With that said, at the eec, we want to practice what we preach, and do a better job at integrating our emails with the other ways and places people interact.

Please join our founder, Jeanniey Mullen, on LinkedIn or on Facebook to engage in real time conversations about email, and help us keep our email content as relevant as possible. (Don't forget to add Ali, Chad and your other eec friends to your friend list!)

On Facebook, join the "unofficial" eec group and definitely take a second to rsvp to the first eec event (coming in February).

Enjoy!

The eec team

We are engaged in email in New Zealand, where due to relatively low internet usage, and recent law changes, list growth is quite a challenge. We do have one particular challenge which I would welcome any input on, as follows:

We publish an email newsletter for the police. They aim to reach community stakeholders, but are unwilling to allocate budget to traditional media to spread awareness and generate additional sign-ups. Their website drip feeds a certain number of new recipients —approx 1% increase per month, although half of that is eliminated by those who opt out each month —so growth is slow. They believe that using the existing list, a viral campaign can help. Does anyone have any inspirational input? —Jerry Flay, managing director of Inbox

The Voices of Email had this advice:

Stephanie Miller: Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet. It's difficult to predict what sort of viral campaign will have a meaningful impact. Without knowing anything about the program I'm hesitant to offer a specific idea, but consider a simple trivia quiz about the community like "how many miles of roads are there" and "how long does the chief of police serve in office." If the quiz is challenging but also surprising, it will get forwarded. Even without some special content, certainly test just asking every current subscriber to forward an invite to two friends. Perhaps offer some recognition in the community for doing so. But at the end of the day, the program has to be worth signing up for—if the goal is to build awareness and support, then the messages must be interesting and relevant. If they are, then subscribers will engage with them and share them.

Chad White: Sounds like you should communicate how the police and community stakeholders have been working together with great results. Some inspiring success stories may cause folks to forward the email along and spur greater involvement. So tout your greatest successes and undertakings. Also, how about providing tips and advice that would be useful to the community? Or doing a survey or fundraising activity that would leverage your email program? If you provide the right kind of information and clearly prompt your subscribers to share the information with friends, you should be able to exceed the average 1% to 2% pass-along rate.

Jeanniey Mullen: Viral marketing can be one option, but only if you have something to say that your readers will "bond" with and share with others. In other words, if you want something to be passed along, ask your current readers to help you determine the content.

Even at that though, the pass along rate will be relatively low, so you should look for ways to integrate email with, for example, a blog or social network in order to assure success.

Have some good advice that we missed? Please add a comment and take part in the conversation.

Have a question for the Voices of Email? Email Chad your question at chad@emailexperience.org and we'll REPLY TO ALL by posting the answers so everyone can benefit.

–>Read other Reply to All posts

Every time someone says they don't believe in email, an email fairy dies—and another one just bit the dust. Why? Because Susan Hallenbeck is losing faith in email to reach college students.

Recently, in a post on her blog, Refracted Higher Education, Susan bemoans that "younger GenXers and Millennials…seem to be relying more heavily on text messaging, Facebook, and other forms of social networking to communicate with one another." She links to a Pew Internet report from July that said, "Email, once the cutting edge 'killer app,' is losing its privileged place among many teens as they express preferences for instant messaging and text messaging as ways to connect with their friends."

She also links to an iMedia Connection article by Tiffany Young, who says that "While 89% of teenagers have email addresses and check their email regularly, it seems they've collectively decided 'email is for talking to old people, like parents and teachers'," quoting from the Pew Internet report as well.

Tiffany correctly says that keeping email viable among teens is all about having relevant messages. Give teens a reason to read your email and they will, and that includes tailoring content to their individual interests by allowing them to indicate their preferences.

I'd also say that you should play to email's strengthens, which are that it handles HTML so you can have rich messages and it also handles longer form messages better than IM and texting. It makes me think of EB Games' email newsletter, which I'm sure has many teen subscribers. The newsletter includes blurbs about new releases and several lists, including one about upcoming releases—all of which wouldn't render well via other communication methods.

Susan points out that teens (as well as everyone else) have multiple email accounts that they use for different purposes, and that because of that teens many not check all of their email accounts super regularly. EB Games deals with this reality by only sending two emails per week generally and not including any "today only" deals, which are so popular among retailers. Having deals that are good for the week are probably much more appropriate for teens who might be checking their email less frequently.

Of course, with the media splintering, you have to reach out to teens through new mediums by launching blogs (like Neiman Marcus just did), by setting up shop on Facebook (like AllPosters.com just did), and by tapping into YouTube (as TigerDirect just did). And, of course, email can support and be integrated with all of these other communication tools.

So don't give up on email, Susan. Email has reinvented itself several times already and is constantly morphing to fit in and maintain its standing in the web 2.0 world.

—Chad White

Our creative team here at Bulldog recently passed around this compelling post on the value of spending time considering the preview pane view of your emails. Not because they aren't already sold on making message choices that take the preview pane into account, but because there is nothing better than having reliable statistics to back up your actions. One stat cited in this post: 64% of people who are offered preview panes start using them as their default (MarketingSherpa, 2007).

The editor of our monthly newsletter, Marketing Watchdog Journal, was particularly enamored of the post (she's the one who sent it around) because it validates the time we've been spending on the preview pane view of the newsletter. For the past several months we've been playing with rich media, adding a relatively simple video component to the newsletter and watching the effect on metrics such as open rates and clickthroughs. Video is a more and more compelling part of the online marketing experience, and the technology and availability of production facilities are making it more accessible to marketers (see my earlier post on embedded video in other areas of our prospect engagements). So it's really not a question of whether we were going to add video to the newsletter, but how to go about it.

In our June newsletter, we combined the ongoing video testing with a preview pane message that highlighted the availability of said video. A simple text message, appearing at the top of the newsletter, highlighting the availability of video: "In this issue of Marketing Watchdog Journal, you'll learn how to apply social media to BtoB marketing. View the video introduction for more!" The results: Open rates up 30%, clickthroughs almost double the previous month.

I'm not ready to isolate that preview pane message as the sole reason for the open rate jump. The topic, the subject line, the deliverability of the newsletter all play a role, and Bulldog's analytics manager would pass out if I announced I was ready to draw conclusions after a single test. But those numbers were certainly gratifying—the seeds of our own reliable stats to back up our actions.

—Amy Bills

Today's media landscape is shifting so quickly, the previous revolutionaries are becoming the old guard. Here at Bulldog, we've been in a position to observe (and take advantage of) the shifting tides, as traditional media companies come to terms with the impact of online media, and online media companies, in turn, work to define themselves in the face of blogs and social networking.

Prospects are more in control of their experience than ever. And that makes driving a specific call to action such as registering for a lead-generation webinar more and more challenging. Email is still an incredibly strong vehicle for promotion—it's my go-to for promoting Bulldog's own lead-generation webinars and that's not going to change any time soon—but the proliferation of web 2.0 functionality has really changed the mix. The equation isn't an easy one to figure out. Where does our blog fit in? What about the 7+ million blogs out there in the blogosphere? How can we use LinkedIn to drive people into our pipeline? And perhaps most important of all, How do we apply measurement and benchmarking to this evolving space?

It's not just an academic discussion. As a marketer, I'm feeling this pain every day.

One terrific benefit of being Bulldog's field marketing manager (I mean, besides the discount Costco membership) is the ability to translate my own marketing pain directly into field marketing programs that help my fellow marketers address theirs. I'm excited about two webinars in the next few weeks in which social media experts tackle the questions I mentioned above.

With our partner Social Media Today, Bulldog is sponsoring The Art and Science of Forming Successful Online Communities, a panel on building online communities and transferring some of the lessons from the consumer world to B2B marketing. And BtoB Online has a webinar this week, Beyond the Mainstream: Reaching IT Pros Through Social Media, a live presentation that will help IT marketers take advantage of the changing environment.

—Amy Bills

There are definitely some things in life and business that should not be repeat events. Things that happen once and only once due to their specific nature and what is generally, and socially, considered to be the right way to do, or not to do, things.

As I write this, a few events that should not be repeated come to mind:
• Marriage
• Tax evasion
• Getting drunk at the annual corporate Christmas party (although it is fun to watch the train wreck as long as it's someone else)
• Burning the Thanksgiving Day turkey
• Sending a true B2B offer to a general B2C audience
• Forgetting to add the opt-out link to your creative
• Email list rental

Now what really doesn't belong in this list? If anyone is thinking marriage I'll include a marriage counseling hotline number later. Seriously, as an online marketer who truly believes in the value and potential of e-marketing, why has it become so common for advertisers to look at email list rental as something they're going to try once versus a program that they will commit to and work to develop into a short- and long-term strategic component of their media marketing plans?

If you look at the online advertising industry as a whole, you see a cutting-edge marketing medium that most predict will grow at a 30% clip year after year for the foreseeable future. Seems like a great sandbox to play in. In a survey conducted by E-Marketer, 84% of the respondents said using email is their favorite online activity—so there is an audience for these advertisers to target! Email (retention and acquisition) will be one of the top two verticals that will offer advertisers the best opportunity to communicate with potential prospects and current customers.

None of that sounds bad, so what gives? Is it just a general acceptance of what is versus what should be? Is there just not enough people in the marketplace who know how to make email work, and how to make customer acquisition a recurring success story in the advertiser world? It's probably that and more because email list rental is without question an amazing marketing vehicle for branding, customer acquisition, and re-marketing to further establish a relationship with an on-the-fence prospect.

Think about the rationale of saying you're going to base the entire future of your email list rental efforts on the results you receive from a one-time singular event. Is that good business sense? If everyone gave up after the first try didn't work out we'd have never invented the wheel, never discovered fire, never been able to fly, and those things called computers would never have been built!

Committing to the process as a whole—testing subject lines, testing different creative, using dynamic targeting and personalization, transmitting your prospecting messages at different times and days—will all lead you to the end of the rainbow that exists. I have seen it happen, and have made it happen for many advertisers—large and small, big budgets and small budgets. The one thing they had in common was the determination to make it work and stick it out. They took on the attitude that this will not be a one-time event, but a multi-stage process that would ultimately take their business to a new level.

It can be quantifiably proven that the more you reach out to a prospect audience with your message, in an ethical and well thought out process, the better the results become over time. This is not a quick fix strategy—one in which you need to sell 1,000 widgets by Friday so you quickly throw together a marketing piece and blast it out to the cheapest list you can find. No, this is an opportunity to reach a prospect audience in a dynamic way, testing a variety of strategies, and capitalizing on the fact that not just the world itself, but the people of the world are all migrating to the digital environment.

So do become committed to using email list rental, and do create a long-term strategy, so you don't get left behind by all the other companies who have committed to this marketing vertical a long time ago.

Now for that marriage counseling number…

—Rob Fitzgerald