June 10, 2008

Table of Contents   

Reputation Wiki
"A good name is better than good oil," said wise man Solomon.

And one organization is applying that saying to businesses, particularly in marketing, sales and brand stewardship roles. Led by Habeas, the new website ReputationWiki.org launched in December 2007 to provide a "clearinghouse for reputation innovation and management." Check it out, register and be part of a wiki that will empower a global community. Click here to learn more.

Email Hands Down!
Email Marketing Beats the Alternatives

Eighty percent of online marketers say email is the best-performing medium, ahead of search and display, according to Datran Media's second annual survey of 2,000 online marketing professionals conducted in December 2007, reports MarketingCharts.com.


Of those surveyed, 82 percent say they plan to increase their use of email marketing in 2008, and 55 percent expect ROI (return on investment) from email to be higher than any other channel.

Click here to see this and other stories relevant to email marketing. Cooler Clients are on the right track.

Stay the course!
Improving Email Campaigns
User Experience Principles for Improving Email Campaigns.

"Nearly all direct marketing email campaigns can benefit from bringing in oft-overlooked user experience principles," says Gene Liebel, a partner and director of research and user experience at HUGE, Inc., a strategic design organization that develops commercial websites.

In an article published on ImediaConnection.com, Liebel builds a case for considering usability by design, lining out techniques and principles that can be applied to email marketing campaigns.

READ MORE


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Cooler by Design

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MarketingSherpa Special Report
MarketingSherpa Releases
Dirty Dozen Email Newsletter Mistakes

In preparation for its third annual Em@il Summit '08 in Miami Feb. 24-26, MarketingSherpa's experts published Dirty Dozen: Email Newsletter Mistakes Nearly Everyone Makes. And Christopher Knight, an email list marketing expert, author and entrepreneur, lines them out and adds his insight as published in Ezine-Tips on EmailUniverse.com.

Following are some of the top mistakes, with comments by Knight and more insight on how CoolerEmail operates to counteract these blunders.

Blatant Lack of Permission - There's one word for that: spam. And it's just plain illegal. CoolerEmail is for permission-based, opt-in email only, and we recommend always using a double-opt-in website signup form. As Knight puts it, "This is a non-negotiable thing if you want to be a whitehat marketer." If you use CoolerEmail's lead capture code within the platform, new subscribers will automatically be date, time, IP and web page stamped in their Master CRM record.

Utterly Deficient Segmentation - Even for email newsletters, it pays to segment your audience and narrow your message. Knight says, "In exchange for taking extra time to segment your email newsletter messages to different segments of your list, you'll enjoy higher open rates, greater click throughs and lower list attrition." CoolerEmail allows you to easily segment your users with its sophisticated email list management, including Dynamic Data, a rules-based mail merge function to help you tailor your newsletters to your readers.

Lame ‘Welcome' Messages - The welcome message is important and should set the tone for future communications. Look up "Recommended Opening Paragraph" in CoolerEmail's Knowledge Base for help in creating a welcome message that reminds your readers of who you are and why they subscribed. "MarketingSherpa recommended adding a coupon and other incentives in the welcome message to immediately increase member engagement. Great idea!" says Knight.

Frequency Decisions Made for the Wrong Reason - Consider your members' needs above marketing convenience. Knight suggests doubling your delivery rate and cutting your content in half to keep up momentum and stay in front of your subscribers. Publishing quarterly doesn't cut it.

Institution-to-One Messaging - Knight points out that every email communication is read by one human at a time. Craft your message as if you're talking one-on-one rather than as if they were a group. CoolerEmail makes one-on-one messaging as simple as inserting Placeholders into the text of the email.

This mail merge capability allows you to place each contact's data directly in the content of the email like this: Field where "Fieldname" is the name of a field in the Master List. Fieldname examples include "Firstname," "Lastname," "Company" and more. When you use placeholders like this, you can insert them anywhere in your email.

To learn more, search "One to One Personalization and Placeholders" in the Knowledge Base under the Help tab.

No Real Interactivity - You can judge your newsletter by two metrics, how many page views spike the day of a mailing and how many replies are received to the "from" field, according to Knight. CoolerEmail's tracking capability allows you to easily see how many click-throughs you have to web pages included in your newsletter.

Deliverability: Content, Formatting and Lack of Self-Advocacy - "This has more to do with choosing a quality ESP (email service provider) who is well regarded as a whitehat provider. Email deliverability has a lot to do with reputation of your ESP and the domains (yours) in each email," Knight says. CoolerEmail works direct with ISPs to insure deliverability, and it provides "spam trap warnings" when users view edition, alerting them to avoid content that would generate bounces.

To read the full report, go to SherpaStore.com (free download), or check out MarketingSherpa.com for more articles, blogs, interviews and case studies.

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