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iMedia Connection: an Interactive Marketing Email favorite

August 30, 2006

I get this email every day and love it. One of my favorite recent articles is of creative reviews of 14 awesome websites.

To see the full article, go to iMedia's "In Focus: 7 Experts Review 14 Killer Websites" >>

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 8:12 PM | Permalink

RetailEmail Benchmark Email Study

August 28, 2006

Chad White over at RetailEmail.BlogSpot.com put together a phenomenal study on the top 101 retail emailers and the entire process of subscribing to their email communications. This is worth a read for sure. Not only is this study great, but he also comments on the campaigns that come in daily and weekly from these subscriptions.

He also wraps up a his daily posts with the Subsjectivity Scanner. Which hightlight the subject lines daily.

Here is an example:
SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER:
Staples, 8/22, 4 pm — Staples Easy Mobile Tech is here to help with a $10 coupon!
Polo, 8/22, 5 pm — Introducing New Multicolor Big Pony Styles
Saks Fifth Avenue, 8/22, 1 pm — Just in: SAKS.COM FALL CATALOG + New Fashion Incubator
Bass Pro Shops, 8/22, 3 pm — RedHead Sale and Sweepstakes at Bass Pro!
Harry & David, 8/22, 4 pm — Going fast: The world's biggest, sweetest Peaches - order now!
L.L. Bean, 8/22, 4 pm — Fall Favorites under $30 + Lower Prices on Polos
Office Depot, 8/22, 12 pm — Toshiba Week Savings

Get the Study

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 9:27 AM | Permalink

Good Deed is Good Business

August 26, 2006

It must have been the euphoria of feeling the tropical sun and breezes on a family vacation (Christmas 2004) in Belize. A charismatic guide and president of TIDE Belize (an environmental conservation group), Wil Mahea steered our boat through the coastal mangroves in a remote section of Belize and talked of the progress his group was making in restoring fish, bird, Howler monkey, and even panther habitat. My 2-year old daughter (at the time) was taking in all the sites and sounds and she wanted to get closer to see the monkeys. When we did, she clung to me like white on rice and motioned to back away as the booming sounds of the Howlers scared her. By the end of the day, I was sold on Belize, on Wil Mahea, and on the good things that TIDE Belize was doing. I offered to help build them a website. I didn't think they'd take me up on it, but 3 months later, Wil gave me a call and we re-designed their non-functioning site.

A few minutes ago, I got an email from a past client and it goes to show that charitable acts are good for business and good for the soul. It also goes to show that THE WORLD IS FLAT!

Her email below:
"I have a funny small world connection for you. On our recent honeymoon to St. Lucia (Sandals Grand Resort) we struck a conversation with a fly fisherman guide from Costa Rica. We mentioned we were from Portland and he told us that EROI and Ryan Buchanan had done his website after he guided your family on a trip. He said that his website is amazing, and that his business has increased immensely because of it. Just thought I’d share the small world connection and let you know how happy he is with his site and the success that you helped to create."

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 1:18 PM | Permalink

Addiction to Internet is Real

August 25, 2006

I got an email from Media Post's Search Insider, and I could not agree more with author Gord Hotchkiss:

"Hello, my name is Gord, and I'm addicted to the Internet. I didn't realize I was addicted until I recently spent three weeks in Europe and had to go through withdrawal. But after hanging around hotel lobbies trying to get a hit from a local hot spot, I've had to face up to the fact that I can't kick the habit. I need my broadband, baby!

Fear and Loathing in l'Italia

I didn't go totally cold turkey. I had my PDA to keep up on e-mails, but it just didn't give me the rush I was looking for. Here I was, surrounded by the culmination of centuries of artistic achievement, and all I could think about was where my Google hook-up was coming from.

I speak somewhat facetiously, but there's a lot of truth here. Here's an online definition of addiction:

Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance.
The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something.
It seems to me that going online qualifies on both counts. There's no doubt that being online is habit forming. But it goes further than that. I realized in the last 20-plus days that it's hard-wired into my physiology. Not having instant access was as foreign as not having my right hand."

Read Gord's blog: http://www.outofmygord.com

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 7:03 AM | Permalink

Bose: Questionable Email Footer

August 24, 2006

While this email is beautiful and follows best practices in call to action; it definitely falls into our "Email Mistakes" category as it was moderately irrelevant to my 30 year old friend (whose 85 year-old only living grandmother could care less about electronic equipment) who received it AND the Bose email footer says:

On design and call to action, the Bose email succeeds:

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 8:01 PM | Permalink

Email Factoid for a Mental Snack

August 23, 2006

HTML dominates emails -- Research shows that more than 97% of consumers read HTML emails with only 3% receiving only text messages.

--Jupiter Research

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 5:51 PM | Permalink

Colbert Report on Oregon + Wikipedia

August 21, 2006

You know Web 2.0 is mainstream when Colbert starts doing his schtick on Wikipedia. But will our great state of Oregon ever truly be mainstream?

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 5:49 PM | Permalink

Lord's Prayer with an Email Twist

August 19, 2006

I got a clever email from an associate of mine, David Baker with Agency.com. I thought it was good enough to blog about for a quick chuckle:

I had been teaching my three-year old daughter
the Lord's Prayer for several evenings at bedtime.
She would repeat after me the lines from the prayer.
Finally, she decided to go solo.
I listened with pride as she carefully enunciated each
word, right up to the end of the prayer:

"Lead us not into temptation," she prayed,

"but deliver us from E-mail."

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 5:43 PM | Permalink

eROI Releases Q2 2006 Email Deliverability Study

August 15, 2006

Home and work users have different preferences.

For e-mail marketers looking to make the biggest impact, it makes sense to pay attention to whether users are receiving their e-mail at home or at work.

According to a Q2 2006 study of e-mail marketing preferences by eROI Inc., 79% of people who subscribe to business-to-business e-mail marketing messages receive them at a business e-mail address. Just 19% of people who receive consumer-oriented e-mail marketing messages subscribe with their business e-mail address.

Those who receive consumer-oriented messages were also much more likely to use an e-mail address created specifically for e-mail marketing: 24% did, vs. 6% of those who received B2B messages.

Read and Download the Study

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 9:01 AM | Permalink

New emailROI email marketing ESP BETA launched

August 14, 2006

After 12 months of surveying customers, rewriting millions of lines of code and testing a new user interface we are happy to announce our latest version of emailROI is going to be released to ALL emailROI customers currenlty using the email marketing platform.

The new system will was built as an upgrade to the already amazing functionality of the emailROI platform and will allow customers and agencies even greater control over the system. New XML API and CSS abilities will permit clients to create a system that is perfect for their needs.

Also introduced is a new RSS to Email system, as we had email to RSS in Dec 04. This new system allows you to set up automatic email campaigns using the RSS feeds you have produced from your site, blog or other source. It automatically wraps the RSS feed (and segments number of articles, day, time and frequency as you choose) into your brand template and sends it out through the emailROI platform. It was orginally built in mind for news and publishing clients, but has uses in consumer (think product feeds) as well as B to B product, events and news updates on a daily, weekly, monthly or date of the month based format.

The greatest of all new functions (IMHO) is the ability to completely rewrap the entire UI for agencies or companies to allow them to have a completely customized email marketing platform that allows them to level the playing feild against all other ESP and agency competion.

Learn More about eROI and emailROI

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 12:00 PM | Permalink