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| April 11,
2002 Dear Reader, Spring is in the air here in Washington, DC and I, for one, was thrilled to hear that Campaign Finance Reform could be good for e-mail marketers (like us!). How you ask? Read on to learn more about this, as well as gain insight from a Microsoft case study and a report on combining e-mail with other marketing efforts. Table of Contents 1. How Microsoft Nurtured Sales Leads to Sell More $100,000 Software Accounts, B2BMarketingBiz 2. Campaign Reform Could Boost Email, iMarketing News 3. Seeking Profits, Internet Companies Alter Privacy Policy, The New York Times 4. Spam-I-Am: State Spam Laws Rarely Enforced, The Los Angeles Times 5. Blending Email with Direct Mail gets Higher Responses AMR says, Internet Retailer 6. Blast from the Past: Open Rates Deserve Far More Respect than they Get, iMarketing News 7. Stat Heaven: 2002 Email Marketing Study: "The Year 2001 in Review," Opt-in News Content 1. How Microsoft Nurtured Sales Leads to Sell More $100,000 Software Accounts April 3, 2002, B2BMarketingBiz, MarketingSherpa.com I realize many consider Microsoft "The Evil Empire," but this case study had some information that may help all of us with our e-mail marketing efforts. While your results may vary, they found (among other things) that putting a person's name (instead of a department name) in the 'from' line tripled their click-throughs (something I've always believed but never had data to back-up). In addition, their guidelines on writing e-mail copy are worth making your own. 2. Campaign Reform Could Boost Email April 10, 2002, iMarketing News Campaign Finance Reform good for e-mail marketers? So says this article. Interesting facts on conservative lists (2% e-mail response rates, average donations in the $30 to $40 range) and Democratic National Committee e-mail programs (A recent viral marketing campaign asked visitors to their website to provide the e-mail addresses of up to six friends). Also of interest: The DNC claims to have nearly 1 million e-mail addresses, up from just 70,000 last year. That's a pretty sweet growth rate. 3. Seeking Profits, Internet Companies Alter Privacy Policy April 11, 2002, The New York Times Can't ignore what appears to be the biggest story in two weeks about e-mail, it doesn't seem to go away. Tried to pull one of the more interesting articles for you all. The jumping off point is Yahoo's recent privacy policy change, but they also talk about a similar step taken by Excite before their downfall. Seth Godin and Truste are on different sides of the fence with regard to supporting what Yahoo did (and how they did it), can you guess who was against it? Note: you will need to register (it's free) and/or log in to read this article. 4. Spam-I-Am: State Spam Laws Rarely Enforced April 1, 2002, The Los Angeles Times An unusually good article about Spam. Do you know which state has the toughest anti-Spam law? What percentage of the e-mails coming into EarthLink addresses, in their estimate, is spam? How much does spam cost consumers, per a 2001 survey by a European agency? Read this article to find out. Information on cases brought against spammers by a private citizen and a law firm, as well as links to additional sources of information on spam laws are also included. 5. Blending Email with Direct Mail Gets Higher Response, AMR says January 23, 2002, Internet Retailer Even if you're not an Internet Retailer, you'll find this quick article valuable. Statistics on the lift that combining e-mail with other mediums returns (5-15%), along with some basics on testing and targeting. The content is from a report done by AMR Research in Boston, but this article had more valuable content than the primary source press release. 6. Blast from the Past: Open Rates Deserve Far More Respect Than They Get March 13, 2002, iMarketing News Okay, so it's less than a month old and you're probably thinking "Why is it a Blast from the Past?" Remember last issue's article on free vs. paid content? Well this article has graduated to the iMarketing archives, which means only iMarketing paying subscribers ($25 a year) can read it (sorry!). This is not a plug for them. But it's a great article, and if others out there are already subscribers, I wanted to share it. It goes into what open rates do and don't tell you. Gives a bullet list of the things that will increase or decrease your open rate. A good reference. 7. Stat Heaven: 2002 Email Marketing Study: "The Year 2001 in Review" January 1, 2002, press release; May 1, 2002, report released, Opt-in News Note: Link stopped working in mid-April and was removed. Full disclosure: I've already ordered my copy of this report. This pre-release promotion includes statistics on format (68% of e-mail marketing messages in 2001 were HTML), pricing (only 10.7% of opt-in ad networks offered cost per acquisition rates, down from 38% in 2000), and even number of hyperlinks in an e-mail (55% say two, 24% say one, 6% use three and 13% use more than three). Whether or not you decide to spring for the full report, do yourself a favor and check out the press release. Stats are always a good thing. Closing Thanks for reading! Hope you found something useful. We'll be back in your mailbox again on Thursday, April 25. Until then, enjoy the warm weather! Jeanne Email Me by Clicking Here |
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