The From Line

Congratulations to Ari Jacoby, my old friend, confidant and former business partner on the sale of his company VoiceStar to Marchex.  Ari is a new media guru who started his career with me when we co-founded Newsletters.com.  The ideas behind the marketing at Newsletters.com were novel for the time and Ari spearheaded most of those efforts through co-branding relationships.  His success using the co-branding model at Newsletters.com was the impetus to the partnership model Ari implemented at VoiceStar.  This model helped VoiceStar to effectively compete in the pay per call marketplace against much better funded competitors.  I'm really proud of Ari and his major accomplishments.  Not only is he a great businessman, he's truly a gentleman with a good heart who deserves the fruits of his hard labor. 

Gold Lasso recently sponsored the Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study produced by the Email Experience Council and written and edited by Chad White.  There are a lot of exciting new things that online retailers are doing with their opt-in subscription process.  Below are some interesting findings in the study:

• Only 3% of major online retailers use a double opt-in subscription process.
• Only 92% of retailers have an email sign-up form or link on their homepage.
• More than 43% of retailers allow customers to sign up for email with one click from their homepage.
• The subscriber's name (31%) and zip code (18%) were the two most often required pieces of information.

Of these stats I find the first the most interesting and kind of disturbing.  Since savvy email marketers know that double opt-in ensures the cleanest list, which leads to a quality reputation and high deliverability, why do only 3% of the largest online retailers engage in the practice?  Has there been a study that proves consumers are too ignorant for a double opt-in process?  This isn't 1999 and I'm fairly confident that consumers can handle this process.

Get a copy of the full report from the EEC
The full 37-page study presents a range of best practices and emerging best practices for your consideration, as well as a formerly popular practice that appears to be falling out of favor. It also includes numerous examples of creatives to help illustrate each point.

Visit the Whitepaper Room to download the full report, which is free for EEC platinum members, available at a discount to EEC gold and silver members, and available for $179 for non-members. Not a member? Learn more about becoming a member of the Email Experience Council.

Measuring your email marketing campaign is easier with reliable industry statistics to compare it to. How do your delivery rates compare with the industry average? What types of subject lines are most effective? A new, online resource from EEC has made it easier to find industry statistics that will help you evaluate your messages. 

Nearly 39 categories ranging from Email Usage and Branding to Response Metrics and Spam comprise the online repository available at www.emailstatcenter.com.  The Email Stat Center also allows visitors to search the site using Google Search.

Here is a sampling of statistics we found helpful and relevant: 

• More than 8 out of 10 email users have used the "report spam" button in their email clients' interfaces. - Email Sender and Provider Coalition (2007)
• The Spam epidemic is costing U.S. businesses $712 for each employee in lost worker productivity. - Nucleus Research (2007)
• 24.2% of web merchants have an email open rate greater than 25%
• 73% said they'd made an online purchase as a result of receiving an email offer. - Epsilon (2007)
• 45% of small businesses execs want to receive the (email) newsletter weekly, 34% said monthly. - Bredin Business Information (2007)
• 40.2% of marketers report deliverability rates between 90.1% to 100%
• 73% make the decision to click on the "report spam" or "junk" button using the from line. - Email Sender and Provider Coalition, 2007

Most blogs contain a ton of whiney complaints without a lot of kudos.  I always like to recognize personal achievement in the marketing industry.

Congrats to Colin Kinsella for his promotion at Ave A!

Avenue A|Razorfish is a great turnaround story from the dot bomb days and I'm sure Colin was instrumental during that process.

Congrats again!

If I got a dollar for every time I have been asked that question over the past five years my kid's 529 savings plan would be well funded for a Harvard tuition.  Finally over the past few months I haven't been as embarrassed to say I'm in the commercial email industry and I have the classic spammers to thank.  

It seems as though the average American (with the exception of the few spam vigilantes) have become so desensitized to classic spam they almost expect it.  "Sure I'll wire over $10,000 to Mr. Mobutu over in Nigeria" jokes one of my buddies at a cocktail party.  "Who falls for this stuff?" chimes in a neighbor.  Efforts of classic spammers are so off the deep end it's become laughable and makes my job easier to legitimize opt-in commercial email.  Most Americans have been on the Internet long enough to tell the difference between spam and legitimate commercial email.  So the next time someone some one asks you what you do for a living just say "email marketing."  And if they ask "Are you a spammer?" just politely reply, "If you still want to call me that."