There are several ways to leverage email as a marketing tool, but not quite like typical email campaigns of the past, which was a batch and blast theory where the more email you sent to a broad audience the better. The most effective campaigns have been utilized as a part of an overall integrated marketing campaign, where the email stands in support of the rich media advertising, print, direct mail, so the same messaging is seen in all aspects of consumer reach. For an online publisher, it would be the idea that the email supports the branding or messaging on the site, and whether it be from advertising or an editorial perspective, the email message is an extension of that messaging.

Rarely if ever now do you see an effective email campaign that acts as a standalone promotion. It is used as an overall messaging campaign, driving consumer, prospect, or client engagement with an overall marketing campaign. One of the most interesting concepts that is evolving, according to the Mobile Marketing Association, is utilizing email as a supplement to mobile campaigns to drive awareness and engagement from the consumer. The idea of using each medium as a support for the other rather than each channel having a specific message. The creative may not be the same, but the core messaging and the overall theme remain constant. SO if you are reading a newspaper, you can draw the correlation that you saw a Nike ad online as well.

There are several issues that a marketer must contend with when utilizing email marketing in the current marketplace. The key issues, however, really have not changed over the past 5-6 years; in fact, they are just getting more pronounced. The major issues facing marketers is deliverability, the ability to get into the end user’s inbox rather than the junk mail folder. This is a constant problem due to robust spam filtering by the ISP’s and individual email clients. A marketer has to be aware of not just the subject line and content of the message avoiding common spam phrases like Free, or Limited Time, but the From address of the message, the IP of machine sending the messages, and the manner in which the message is sent (is it a mass mailing list or is it the same message repeated mailed to individual recipients, the latter can be flagged as spam from the Senders own ISP!).

Other issues obviously are the viability and deliverability of an email address, Even if you are a bonded sender or on a “white” list from the ISP perspective, end users are becoming incredibly tech-savvy in their ability to navigate the utilization of their own filtering, something that has become more of an issue in the last 18-24 months. So even if the marketer has done everything right the end user could still be flagging them as spam because they are unaware of the fact that they have subscribed to the list, or that they are not receiving messages they should be simply due to the sheer volume of messages flowing in cyber space.

Because of this decreased deliverability, email marketing on the surface has lost its effectiveness because the consumer response has seemingly been declining. However, as you continue to look at the available data of a campaign, you will see that the response rates have really stayed the same if you get your email delivered. It is the fact that a large percentage of email is getting diverted outside of the consumer’s inbox so it appears as if your response rates are dropping. Because you do not get a hard or soft bounce (a technical message stating that the email address is invalid or that the mail has been delayed due to inbox limitations or slow response time) when your mail gets diverted to a spam folder, you have to assume that it was delivered to the desired recipient in the standard fashion and therefore your response seemingly goes down when in fact it has never been delivered. Once the email is opened it is still as effective (as long as the message has a strong compelling component) it is really your OPEN rate–the number of people who actually view the message–that has gone down.

The big challenge facing a marketer today is how to engage the consumer to actually open the message once it does get delivered. It is apparent that the marketers are becoming more aware of what the consumer wants to hear not just what the marketer has to say. The most effective marketing campaigns are the ones that have a clear purpose and are sent because they can add value to the recipient in some way, and the marketers that are only sending messages when that is the case are seeing the best responses. Community-based sites such as Gather and Spire.com have seen similar approaches increase their member engagement and the response rates of the emails they do send are in fact driving greater response.

The traditional marketing calendar of systematic touches to the consumer or mailing list are being set aside for a more relevant messaging strategy. If a marketer has been sending emails communication on a bi-weekly basis and realizes they would be sending the next message simply because it is on the calendar as needing to be sent, but there is no relevant or new information, they are better served by simply skipping that messaging cycle until they do have something of value to offer their recipient.

This strategy allows for the consumer not to feel bombarded with messaging for the sake of messaging. Also, a key component to an effective email marketing campaign now is to establish a level of trust with your membership rather than simply hawking the next best promotion or the next new thing. You establish a level of credibility by offering insight or insider access first and then in subsequent emails, you have the ability to offer services and goods in a way that seems as if you are offering advice rather than selling something.

Of course, you have heard the cries from traditional direct marketers saying the art of email is dying and offline direct mail is resurging. Well, the latter is true but the former is not accurate at all. Email marketing has by no means bottomed out; it is still one of the most cost effective and immediate ways to reach your target market, and the ability to segment and analyze the data is invaluable. The key to maximizing the effectiveness comes in your firm’s ability to message appropriately for your audience and the technology between them.

Publishers, as I said are going back to direct mail, but only as a component of an integrated marketing campaign. They are using various channels, rich media, direct mail, email, key word, print, radio for a consistent overall integrated message–rather than the previous approach, which was to use a more integrated approach across standard channels while using email as a separate marketing campaign.

Email marketers, trying to conquer their own Everest in their marketing program, agonize over many elements of their campaign: the subject line, the offer, the email’s design, etc. But, according to marketing guru and author Al Reis, these are molehills compared to the “Himalaya” of marketing — the strategy behind the campaign, and the timing.

Part of timing is frequency: how often should you email your subscribers? Naturally, you want to send often enough to keep your customers engaged and to maintain revenue or other goals. But, you must take care not to strive for too much, not to go to high where you’ll asphyxiate your campaign with too many emails, annoying instead of engaging your customers who eventually opt-out, the avalanche in their inboxes too much to keep up with!

So, what is the optimal frequency?

In reality, the question that email marketers should be asking is not simply what’s the optimal frequency, but “Given the nature of my content and the level of engagement of my recipients, what is the optimal frequency of emails to my list that will achieve the highest degree of customer responsiveness and conversion?” A mouthful indeed, but the right question for the email marketer.

Because the frequency is determined by a variety of things: your content, your customers and subscribers and how engaged they are with that content, and by the expectations you set for your subscribers when they opted-in to your list.

For the email marketer, your summit bid requires that you determine if you have to fortitude to determine the answer to the frequency question, then respect the limitations you discover. Everest climbers can sometimes be gripped by “summit fever” and when this happens they compel themselves ever higher, sometimes to their detriment. An email marketer in the grips of “frequency fever” puts their whole campaign and their entire email list in jeopardy if they succumb to the temptation of emailing too often.

So, let’s discuss content. Suppose you’re an online retailer and you have a newsletter that is sent, highlighting various products, perhaps promoting a “weekly special” or other offer. Do your products change often enough — do you have enough new inventory — to justify a daily newsletter? Perhaps not. You may not even have the resources to handle the demands of a creating a brand new newsletter each and every day. But maybe your business would support a weekly newsletter or perhaps a new mailing every 4-5 days.

How can you determine the best choice: weekly or slightly more frequently? You look at how engaged your customers are with your email, as indicated by open rates and clickthrough rates.

For example, I am signed up for a newsletter from an online sporting goods store which specializes in golf equipment. They have gorgeous drivers and sublime wedges at extremely affordable prices. I love getting their newsletter because I love looking at their golf clubs, envisioning being on the links. I open probably 95% of the emails I receive from them, and they email me twice a week or so. I am a very engaged customer.

If they were emailing only once a week, but achieving high open and clickthrough rates, that should indicate to them an engaged audience who might be receptive to more frequent emails. On the other hand, if their weekly email newsletter was not performing well, sending it more often would likely not improve the responsiveness and might even cause those already not-terribly-engaged recipients to opt-out entirely.

Preview panes do indeed present a new challenge for BtoC marketers who typically were immune to their use. Generally found in the corporate inbox via Outlook or Lotus Notes, BtoB marketers have been dealing with preview pane challenges for many years, and as a result have become experts in maximizing the very real opportunity they present.

Generally, until now, consumers made decisions about which messages to open based on only two pieces of information: the “From” and the “Subject” line. Preview panes will actually allow marketers a third way to entice consumers to read their offers by automatically displaying some of the content contained in the email.

By taking a few extra hours and putting a little extra thought into the design of their emails, BtoC marketers can actually take advantage of preview panes and the “sneak peeks” they offer, just as BtoB marketers are already doing.

Getting the Message Out
So, what exactly is a preview pane? A preview pane in an email client is the much-smaller reading space—typically the 2-inch to 5-inch horizontal box located at the bottom of the screen for most users—that enables consumers to quickly scan their messages before opening them. For marketers, this means that they have to make their selling points within the first few inches of their messages.

The preview pane poses two significant rendering challenges to BtoC marketers:
1) It only shows a portion of the email.
2) In email clients that block images, it shows a blank space or a red X where the thoughtful, enticing and beautifully-designed graphics should appear.

The easiest way to overcome these hurdles is to think small. Since most email templates are design-heavy, BtoC marketers need to reevaluate what their key messages are and where they are placed in the email. Marketers need to ensure that the key details of their email render correctly so the consumer can “get the gist” of the offer from text and links without requiring images and other extraneous inclusions.

The email template should be redesigned with shrinking email real estate in mind: in addition to the preview pane and blocked images, display ads most commonly seen on the right hand side of the screen take space away from the traditional message window. If the template is redesigned correctly—and tested for these situations—a successful email campaign can still be achieved.

1. Respect your Subscriber

The most important rule there is. Disrespect your users and you’ve shot yourself in the foot right away. The whole point of your email marketing program is to get your message, whatever that may be, in front of your users in a way that resonates with them. Annoy them and you compromise that goal. Disrespect them, whether by ignoring their direct wishes or failing to listen to the underlying behavioral messages, and you jeopardize your entire program. It’s about trust and permission. Work within the boundaries you laid out at the onset of the relationship and you’ll give yourself the best chance to win. Whatever you do do not abuse that all important trust.

2. Focus on Relevance

You invest a lot of money in your ESP, right? And you spend time and money, whether in-house or with an agency, to build and produce your emails? So no matter how big or small your lists you owe it to yourself and your audience to get the most out of your ESP and to make your campaigns as effective as possible. The better and more relevant your end product, the better the experience for your subscribers, and the better for everyone involved. Are you using dynamic lists, for instance? Are you segmenting your users based on their behavior, region or preferences? Is what you’re sending relevant? Increase the relevance of your communications and your conversion and response rates will increase in parallel. This should be a no-brainer: it’s the contextual thinking that built Google.

3. It’s a chess game: Think three moves ahead

Rather than thinking of them as individual pieces, it’s better to think of each of your mailings as individual parts of the greater whole. This week’s mailing is all very well, but what are you doing next week? What about next month? How will what you’re doing today impact future efforts? Does each piece of communication exist in a vacuum, or are they part of a greater whole? Strategize, then execute. It’s all too common to be so focused on the here and now that you forget about the big picture. A useful exercise is to print out your last three months worth of emails, and tape them in chronological order on the wall. What story do they tell? Take a minute this month to think about the flow of your campaign, and whether each piece helps tie things together for your subscribers.

4. Always Solicit User Feedback

Email is one of the most direct forms of marketing there is: how often are you given a direct link to a group of people that want to hear from you? And think about taking it one step further: email can and should be a two way street. I don’t care how many people you’re sending to, you need provide an easy way for users to talk directly back to you. Your list is basically a permanent focus group, so you may as well take advantage of it. These people know your brand, they know why they signed up, know how you’ve communicated with them in the past. In many cases they’ll have had more exposure to the brand than you or members of your team have, so who could be better placed to tell you what they want from you? Take advantage of the opportunity that’s right in front of your nose: ask them what they think.

5. Analyze, Test & Analyze Again

I can’t stress this enough: analyze the numbers, the secret of your success is therein. Everything you need to know about the effectiveness of your campaigns comes down to your analytics. Are your emails generating sales? Building brand loyalty? Deploy email and web analytics successfully, and you turn that data into information. Understand your key metrics and how they relate to your business goals from the very beginning, then measure your performance against them.

Test everything you can to refine and optimize your campaigns. Send people what they want to receive, and you’ll see your conversion and response rates increase. Send them the same old generic blurb, and you’re basically leaving it to chance.

According to the Associated Press, the ads started appearing on Tuesday within accounts tied to version 9 of AOL’s software, which is available to both paid and unpaid users. Ads have long been associated with emails sent through AOL’s web-based email accounts.

Each 34-word text ad urges readers to check out other free services on the AOL website. The ads are there to remind paid AOL subscribers that many of the premium services offered by AOL are now available for free, said AOL spokesperson Anne Bentley according to the AP.

In August 2006, AOL announced that it would be moving to an ad-supported business model, replacing the subscription-based business that began when it was primarily a BBS system and dial-up ISP. AOL previously opened up a number of its services including web-based AOL email, following in the footsteps of web portals like Yahoo and Google.

According to Bently, AOL has received a few complaints about the ads, but intends to keep using them

I went to see a friend who worked at an interactive agency in London. He’d said that they were doing some mobile marketing themselves, and I wanted to see first-hand how it was being done. I had already set up a shop to start testing mobile in America, but I was a bit stymied by the technology end of things. I’m a marketer, not a telecommunications expert. So the first thing I wanted to know was how the guts worked. How did the messages actually get from your database out into the cellular ethersphere and into consumers’ handsets?

When I met the CEO of this agency, that was the first question I asked. He looked at me like I was an idiot. He pointed to his laptop sitting on his desk.

“I don’t understand what you’re asking,” he finally replied. “It all comes out of there.”

I begged him to elaborate. “I just plug my phone into the back of my laptop,” he explained, “and we wrote a little script that just, you know, sends them through the phone.”

To my British friend, it was the most obvious thing in the world. But to my American ears, it didn’t add up. There was no way to plug my American cellphone into a laptop. And even if I could, there’s no function to just send text messages. I knew enough about the American market to understand that there were many complications to take into account. Each American carrier (like Verizon or Sprint) had their own very particular way to send messages through their system. And even if you were technologically able to send bulk messages, you needed the carriers’ permission to do so.

I’m still no expert on the British mobile networks, and I’m not entirely sure whether what my friend was doing was kosher. But our firm has now operated scores of mobile marketing campaigns in the U.S., and there’s one thing I’m sure of: In the U.S. there simply is no “plug and play” way to operate a mobile campaign the way you’d send an email blast.

It is tempting to think of sending text messages like sending email. But there are crucial differences on both the marketing and the technological fronts that every marketer needs to think about. Here are the key differences to think if you’re someone who is familiar with email marketing, and thinking of moving into mobile marketing:

1. The Pipes are not Open: The Internet is not owned by anybody, so if you have an Internet connection then you can send email. There’s no real barrier to sending out batches of emails, notwithstanding whether they’ll make it through spam filters and to their intended recipients. This is not the case with mobile. Each mobile carrier owns its own network and has the right to control what passes through its system. Carriers typically require explicit approval of whatever you plan to send to their subscribers. Carriers have an acute interest in making sure that their hard-won paying subscribers are not bombarded by messages they do not want. So you’ll need to plan for the time and effort to get those carrier approvals before you can start sending text messages.

2. The Pipes are not Free: An email service provider may charge you to send your emails out through their system, but there’s no fundamental cost to using the Internet. Sending a text message incurs a cost that must either be paid by the sender, the consumer, or both. It’s more like postage than like email. If you’re a marketer, you probably don’t want to charge your consumers to receive your message, so you’ll wind up footing the bill. It’s only a few pennies per message, but with volume it adds up. That’s a significant constraint that you need to bear in mind and budget for.

The IDG Connect database contains more than six million prospective IT buyers who regularly consume publications like Computerworld and PC World magazines and attend conferences like Macworld and LinuxWorld.

IDG has sorted the database by IT verticals like business intelligence, security and networking. IDG has identified 60% of the people on the list as technology decision-makers, and another 25% as business executives, which the company is inviting marketers to target with email marketing campaigns.

The database has already been used to drive campaigns like HP’s Change Artists. “HP selected multiple media companies to promote the HP Change Artists campaign and attract registrants to view the online interviews,” said Matt Yorke, IDG’s VP of corporate sales in a statement. “HP wanted senior titles and IDG Connect provided more of them than any other source.”

IDG customizes the Connect program for each marketing customer and includes in-depth reporting.

The IDG publishes more than 300 magazines and 450 websites around the world and produces more than 750 technology-related events.

A really good piece of email marketing, providing me with exclusive content, reinforcing how special I am and also reminding me that 2007 season tickets were going on sale. The team might suck, but at least they’re on top of their email marketing efforts.

On the surface email marketing certainly doesn’t have the excitement or buzz of a good viral campaign. It’s not as cutting edge as mobile or as grass roots feeing as word of mouth. It’s not exactly sexy, but when done right email marketing can be exceptionally effective. Think about it: a direct connection to a group of people who have already expressed an interest in your brand or product by opting-in to receive communication from you… thinking rationally you’d be a fool to not pay them special attention. Normally you’re spending time and money trying to convert folks, not talking to folks who’ve already converted. All too often email gets relegated to the bottom of the class, when the reality is email marketing should be a top priority for almost all businesses. This is an opportunity to talk to your core audience: why be slapdash about it?

One of the most important factors consumers cite in deciding whether do business online (or at all, in fact), is trust. Do they trust your brand? Do they trust your site? Essentially do they believe what you’re telling them? Simply put, email is one of the most effective ways of helping to build that all important trust. Inform your users & keep your brand at the forefront without pushing it down their throats. Provide them with useful and interesting information when you’re not trying to sell to them and you’ll have an easier time of it when you are.

Giving users who have already expressed an interest in your relevant content or information is only going to benefit you in the long run. Much more effective than simply mailing them product or special offer information, still a depressingly common approach to email marketing. Some brands continue to flog the same dead horse week after week, without pausing to consider whether they could be targeting their base in a more effective way.

Respect the user by putting yourself in their shoes for a second: provide them something they can’t get elsewhere and you give them a reason to stick around. Bombard them with messages about how there’s a $5 discount on a certain product and you risk alienation. There are exceptions to the rule of course (if you’ve segmented your users and you know for certain that a particular product applies directly to a particular segment, for instance), but it’s a good rule of thumb to follow.

One of the main reasons that people so often overlook email marketing is the sheer number of emails in their own inbox. I’ve received hundreds of mails today, they think, therefore the channel is devalued. A better way to look at that is to turn it on its head and think about the effective mails you’ve received, and how clearly they stood out from the crowd.

Most people can recall one or two really interesting pieces of communication they’ve received over the last couple of weeks: your objective should be to produce one of those interesting pieces. Put the brakes on the acquisition train for just a second, and apply a little thought to how you communicate to those you’ve already converted. Email might never be all that sexy, but done right it really can be extraordinarily successful.

MySpace alleges that Media Breakaway gained access to private MySpace user accounts through phishing schemes and then used those compromised accounts to send unsolicited marketing messages to MySpace users.

“We are very pleased that Pete Wellborn has agreed to represent Scott Richter and Media Breakaway in the lawsuit filed by MySpace,” said Steve Richter, Scott Richter’s father and General Counsel for Media Breakaway in a statement. Wellborn, a practitioner of technology law, has represented ISPs and ecommerce companies since 1996.

“At this time, the only information we have regarding this lawsuit comes from MySpace’s press release earlier this week,” added Steve Richter. “We obviously deny the allegations made in the press release”

Scott Richter was ordered to pay $7 million in 2005 after a suit brought on by Microsoft and the New York Attorney General’s Office, forcing his previous email marketing company, OptInRealBig, into bankruptcy.

While the MySpace suit is a civil one, under the CAN-SPAM act of 2003, Scott Richter and Media Breakaway could still be faced with heavy fines or jail time.

MySpace claims that Richter’s current company, Media Breakaway, was able to access MySpace user accounts through identity-stealing phishing schemes and then used those accounts to spam other MySpace users with promotional offers for everything from ringtones to Polo shirts.

The amount of damages sought by MySpace has not been disclosed. In a 2005 suit filed by Microsoft and then-New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, Richter was ordered to pay $7 million after refusing to pay a $100,000 fine.

Richter filed for bankruptcy after the 2005 ruling, and later that year, his company was removed from the Registry of Known Spam Operators run by Spamhaus, a non-profit group that tracks known spammers and spam activity.

“If it takes filing a federal suit to stop someone who violates the law and damages our members’ experience, then that’s what we’ll do,” said Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace’s chief security officer in a statement. MySpace has been under the watchful eyes lately of parenting groups who fear the online service may unwittingly be a harbor for online predators. As a result, the News Corp-owned social networking leader is now taking steps by posting Amber alerts to notify its members of missing children in their communities.

[UPDATE: In response to the MySpace lawsuit and subsequent press release, Steve Richter, General Counsel to Scott Richter and Media Breakaway, LLC sent a response denying allegations made in the MySpace press release. Steven Richter states:

"Like everyone else in the industry we are only aware of what MySpace has alleged in their press release, as we have not been served. Obviously we deny the allegations made in the press release". "Several months ago I spoke with counsel for MySpace about some complaints they received and we cooperated with them fully and were assured that if there were any outstanding issues, they would get back to us. I guess this is their way of getting back to us. He added, "I just hope that the purpose of their press release was not to distract the public and governmental attention that has been focused on MySpace recently regarding their alleged misconduct." ]